November 2014 – Plain and Fancy

Signs and Wonders: Manheim and Elizabethtown, PA Style

November 29, 2014November 29, 2014 marianbeaman45 Comments

The Brick House Cafe along Main Street in Manheim, Pennsylvania, is getting free advertising from me today.

In a sister city named for its counterpart in Mannheim, Germany, The Brick House serves freshly prepared soups, salads, and sandwiches. It also serves up another “S” – Signs from the 1950s. Take a look!

And finally, this:

All posted on the back of the Ladies’ Restroom door! Now I have to wonder what was posted in the Men’s Restroom. . . .

Country Meadows restaurant, nestled in a grassy knoll northwest of Elizabethtown, boasts a menu of stick-to-your-ribs PA Dutch food along with some high-calorie choices.

Signs are few here, but there is lots of neon in the decor . . .

. . . and advertising their specials:

If you are waiting for a table, you can see all the specials in every rainbow hue.

John Lanchester, a confessed foodie, talks about our eating habits in the November 3, 2014 issue of The New Yorker. In an essay entitled “Shut Up and Eat” Lanchester explains that

Once upon a time, food was about where you came from. Now, for many of us, it is about where we want to go–about who we want to be, how we choose to live. Food has always been expressive of identity, but today those identities are more flexible and fluid: they change over time, and respond to different pressures.

Then he elaborates on the craze of pickles, kale, and his mother’s favorite dish, spag- bol, a British recipe “that blends a meat ragù of a northern-Italian type with the dry pasta beloved in the south. . . .”

* * *

Signs and Wonders has been a theme in several previous blog posts: once in Monterey, CA, Jacksonville, FL and earlier in Elizabethtown, PA. Check them out if you missed them.

Today’s post is a hodge-podge: Restaurants in Lancaster County and their menus, goofy signs in restrooms, and a New Yorker article on how we identify with food.

Care to comment? Any or all of the above topics are fair game. You may even add a strange sign you’ve seen!

7 Things I’m Thankful For

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 marianbeaman55 Comments

My secret joys (and struggles) show up in my gratitude books. You can see some of them here. But my list this week has sprung from my 9-day trip to Pennsylvania to visit family and take care of Mother’s house in mid-November 2014.

In her devotional book One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp begins with a chapter entitled Surprising Grace in which she discusses how she and her Farmer Husband “give thanks even when things look like a failure.” Or when one experiences loss.

This year Mother died, we’ve had to sell her beloved house and its contents, I’ve struggled with a motley crew of personal challenges, and still I give thanks:

Health – I have an odd muscular neck pain (yes, pain in my neck!) yet I went up and down 3 flights of stairs from attic to cellar dozens of times, no problem.
My sisters and brother – We sorted, boxed, laughed, cried, disagreed, but ultimately met the challenge on time.
My Aunt Cecilia – She’ll be 100 years old in March, still going strong. We found Aunt Ceci cheerfully playing the Tumbling Blocks game on the computer beside her. “It keeps my mind sharp!” she laughs. A Mennonite preacher’s wife, Aunt Cecilia Metzler raised a family of five children on a Lancaster County farm.

My Aunt Ruthie – The photo is fuzzy here, just like her memory. But after she viewed some of the movies she filmed in her 20s and 30s that appear on other blog posts (here and here) she smiles, “ These pictures really make my mind come alive.”

An heritage with spiritual depth – When my ancestors arrived in The New World, they brought with them the Holy Scriptures. This one, the Nuremberg Bible, is dated 1765.

The memory of my Mother – When Mother died, she still had a current driver’s license, paid all of her bills by check, and kept appointments on her calendar. She sent birthday cards to all her children, grand-children, and great grand-children, represented by names penned into the blocks. She died on the 28th of July, a date we marked with a red asterisk.

My family – This photo is six years old, taken when baby Ian no longer needed a breathing apparatus. Just so you know: our daughter Crista is blonde, Joel, dark-haired. With the older boys now 11 years old, we are due for an update!

Ann Voskamp continues by quoting the first reference in Scripture containing the word thanksgiving, mingling peace and gratitude:

And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the LORD. If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with loaves of leavened bread.

Leviticus 7:11 – 13 ESV

My conclusion: Gratitude brings peace and ultimately joy.

Writer Voskamp concludes: ” . . . standing straight into wind is how to fly on His wings of grace.”

Finally, a song I remember from childhood from that seems appropriate for the season:

What are you grateful for? Join me in naming your blessings.

What Color Makes You Sing?

November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 marianbeaman32 Comments

In praise of color!

God did not create the world in black and white. Our world vibrates with vivid color from the cerulean blue sky above to fluorescent coral reefs sea deep.

Generally, colors are hues we see, but Neil Harbisson hears color. Now, you ask, what is it like to hear color?

Born completely color-blind, Neil once lived in a monochromatic world. Fortunately, colors have sound frequencies that can be transmitted through bone conduction. Thus, Neil now “sees” color via a device attached to his head that allows him to perceive color in this unique way.

Recently on NPR’s TED talks, Neil was showcased in a broadcast headlined as “Wearable Sensor Turns Color-Blind Man into “Cyborg” [electronic man]. Here’s more:

Neil Harbisson is an artist, cyborgist and colorologist. His unique experience of color informs his artwork, which before his device the “eyeborg” was strictly black and white. By working with cyberneticist Adam Montandon, Harbisson helped design a lightweight eyepiece that he wears on his forehead that transposes the light frequencies of color hues into sound frequencies.

Harbisson’s artwork blurs the boundaries between sight and sound. In his sound portraits series, he listens to the colors of faces to create a microtonal chord. “When I see someone, I hear their face,” he exclaims.

As an artist, Neil paints sounds, transposing music to color. In the City Colours project, he expresses the capital cities of Europe in two colors.

This system works in reverse too. When Neil hears Mozart, who composes with many G notes, he sees lots of yellow. Justin Bieber, on the other hand, shows up as pink because of his many E notes.

Neil’s dressing is influenced by sound and key signatures as well. He admits, “I dress so it sounds good.” On the day of the interview, Neil admitted to being attired in C-sharp major. I have no idea what color this would be though he did say his favorite color is the invisible infrared, which emits a very low, soothing sound.

Neil suffers from or is blessed with (depending on how you look at it) the phenomenon of synesthesia which Dictionary.com defines as “a sensation experienced in a part of the body other than the part stimulated. For example, a sound may evoke sensations of colour.”

Most of us are not color-blind like Neil nor do we experience color as a shape or sound. Yet like him we value a colorful life.

Your turn: What color makes you sing? How does color affect you?

Postscript

Today marks the 51st anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On that day, the world stopped. We as a nation were mute with sorrow and, accordingly, many wore sombre clothing as a token of respect. None can forget the valiant Jackie Kennedy veiled in black and by her side, John-John and Caroline, both in light blue suggesting hope for the future.

Moments of Discovery # 3: Two Butter Stories and an Autograph Book

November 19, 2014November 18, 2014 marianbeaman46 Comments

In June Mother Longenecker and her daughters Marian and Janice created butter-shaking memories in a two-quart jar, making butter using three easy steps:

Pour cream into 2-quart jar.
Shake until you rattle and roll.
Remove the congealed mass from the jar. Add a pinch of salt.

In July, my Southern friend Carolyn honored my birthday in a “Shake-Rattle-and-Roll Butter-Shake” party. Today you can open up an old-time textbook with me and behold first-graders learning about butter making in a reader published by Lyons and Carnahan with the copyright dates spanning the years 1927-1936.

Interestingly, the Child’s Story Reader also lists three simple steps for butter making expressed in first-grader language:

We got the cream from a cow.

We put the cream in a jar.

We shook the jar.

Jack and Jane even added a pinch of salt to the mixture, and afterwards they had a party of butter on bread!

Another page shows a recipe for butter milk made with a churn with Aunt Ellen assisting.

More Moments of Discovery

Henry and Fannie Longenecker, Grandparents — Henry and Fannie Longenecker, Mennonite Grandparents

Henry Risser Longenecker, referred to by friends and family as H. R. or “Hen,” was my grandfather on Dad’s side of the family. He died when I was five, but I have a distinct memory of him killing a snake in the grass with a long stick. Like my father, he was a doctor of motors interested in steam engines, Model A Fords, and farm equipment. Until I unearthed his autograph book, I had no idea he had artistic leanings as revealed in his autograph book. Autograph books, common in classrooms in the 1800s, contained signatures, artwork, and bits of poetry. According to Folklore: An Encylopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. 1 (edited by Thomas A. Green) autograph books, existed as early as the fifteenth century and were seen as “a mark of gentility until the beginning of the twentieth century.”

The cover of Henry Longenecker’s autograph book reveals artistic flair with a faint inscription of a great virtue taught to every school child, the word Truth visible if you squint carefully at five faint letters appearing close to the embossed yellow flower.

The dedication appears in flowing cursive penmanship with a dove’s beak clasping Cupid’s arrows

Painted artwork, still-brilliant, graced most pages like this one, complete with signature and date.

Signature: Joseph T. Garber Complete date: February 3,1885

Autograph books tell us several things about students in the late 1800s:

1. Penmanship was taught and valued as an artistic skill.

2. Friendship and learning were intertwined. Both were expressed as an art form.

3. Students took great pride in their work.

* * *

What else can these books teach us?

Coming next: What color makes you sing?

At Home with Grandkids: Fun Stuff to Do

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014 marianbeaman34 Comments

BAKE

It’s cold outside, maybe even Polar-vortex cold, and Saturdays with Grandma or Aunt or Mom will be spent indoors. One cold day three of our grandkids warmed up the house, at least the kitchen, with cupcake baking.

Yes, it’s fun to help mix up the batter and lick the beaters, but the grandest thing is putting the plastic Gerbera daisy in the flower pot or scooping up the “chocolate” dirt. It’s okay that we get frosting all over our arms and face – Grandma doesn’t care, now does she?

TINKER and LINK

Downstairs the grand-kids find the ottoman/toy chest with classics like Lincoln Logs, just like sets from the 1960s but with added plastic gadgets. Tinkertoys – there is just no way to improve on Tinkertoys!

STACK

Do you have a deck of jumbo cards? If so, you are in business. Patrick and Curtis both learned the meaning of the expression “house of cards” as they tried to stack playing cards on a shaky foundation. Incredibly they persisted even after a collapse or two. Bryan Berg, who holds the world record for a 75-story card tower, can rest easy. Still, both boys couldn’t enjoy the challenge more, as Patrick illustrates:

FLICK

Their dad Cliff retooled this marble flick board from an old oaken desk in 1978 when Crista was 9 and Joel, 7. They both competed in “Flick the Marble,” trying to earn the higher number of points, best out of three! All four grandkids have since enjoyed the board. Even grand-nephew Noah and grand-niece Emily give it a whirl here.

WRITE with GRATITUDE

Back in February 2013, when “plain and fancy” launched, the theme of Grah-ti-Tood, announced my first blog post. The grandkids’ gratitude books were featured along with pictures Curtis and Ian had drawn. They are a year older now, and their thanksgiving continues. Sometimes reluctantly. But this time spontaneously, as conversation around the breakfast table last month moved around to things to be thankful for.

On October 25, 2014, Curtis is grateful for friends and thankful that the wars are not hurting me badly (Oh, my)! Ian says, “I am thankful that blueberry pancakes are the best!” Curtis’ illustrations are cartoon-like. Ian’s pancake is realistic with shading.

Each unique.

I am sure you thought of a game or activity to add to the assortment here. Suggestions, comments – it’s your turn!

Coming next: Moments of Discovery # 3: Two Butter Stories and an Autograph Book

Purple Passages and Fine China

November 12, 2014November 9, 2014 marianbeaman34 Comments

READING

La Lectura es el viaje de los que no pueden tomar el tren. – F. Croisset

(Reading is the journey of those who cannot take the train.)

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested . . . . – Sir Francis Bacon “Of Studies”

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. – Groucho Marx

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it. – Oscar Wilde

LAUGHTER

When we laugh, a sort of temporary anesthesia is released within us that blocks the pain as our attention is diverted. – Chuck Swindoll in Five Meaningful Minutes a Day

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person. – Audrey Hepburn

CHINA

Friendship is delicate as [china], once broken it can be fixed but there will always be cracks. – Waqar Ahmed

It’s a wise husband who will buy his wife such fine china that she won’t trust him to wash the dishes. – Honoré de Balzac

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and salmon sing in the street. – W. H. Auden

We have a week and a half left of work and we are like delicate china speeding toward a brick wall. Sounds fun, huh? – Jennifer Anniston

Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.

– Mary Manin Morrissey

A comment? Another quotation? Both are welcome here!

How to Tell Your Children What’s What

November 8, 2014November 8, 2014 marianbeaman36 Comments

Unlike Hansel and Gretel, whose mother tried to starve them and then lock them out of the house, Mother Longenecker provided well for her children and left behind, not white pebbles or bread crumbs, but hand-written notes tucked away to tag her heirlooms. Each note provides a designated recipient sometimes with a bit of family history.

1. Floral Serving Dish

Dish given to my mother from her parents, Abram and Sadie Metzler on her wedding day

One of Mother’s grand-daughters will get this dish no doubt and will know its provenance, which would probably be lost forever, without the note .

2. Keepsake from Mother’s Sunday School teacher at Erb Mennonite Church with teacher Mrs. Kathryn Bomberger. The note emphasizes the biblical account of creation found in the book of Genesis and on the reverse side a quick guide to prayers, parables, and verses commemorating sacred events. You can find more of the history of the Erb Mennonite Church here, including its roots in the Swiss-German Anabaptist culture.

Mother's Sunday School Class at Erb's Mennonite Church Kathryn Bomberger, teacher — Mother’s Sunday School Class at Erb’s Mennonite Church Mrs. Kathryn Bomberger, teacher

For many months now, this photograph has served as the banner on my Facebook page. When I posted it, I was totally unaware of Mother’s imminent death. Now I am loath to replace it with a different photo. All the ladies are plain here, except the smiling woman seated on my mother’s left. I imagine this shot was taken after Sunday dinner at the home of the teacher.

3. Japanese Cup & Saucer

According to my notation in red in 1991, Annie Metzler gave this set to my mother, who notes in her own hand-writing that she was Mom’s step-mother. This vintage piece is hand-stamped Made in Japan, possibly created during the Golden Age of Japan’s trade with the United States in the 1921-1941 era.

Mother had “secret smarts” that we became more aware of recently, revealing her keen interest in the continuity of memory as she passes both artifacts and notes on to the next generation.

Do you have any family notes like these? Do you tag things you want to pass on? Here’s where to share your wise observations . . .

Playing Tag, The 2014 WIP Tour: Who’s Next?

November 5, 2014November 5, 2014 marianbeaman20 Comments

On the playground of Rheems Elementary School, Red Rover, Hide and Seek and Tag were standard fare. I wrote about fun at recess in a blog post last September entitled Games We Played.

In the blog world, I have been tagged in the 2014 Work in Progress (WIP) Blog Tour, offering authors the chance to share snippets of their Works in Progress. When Janet Givens tagged me, my first reaction was this: “I’m so busy in my personal life and my writing life, I don’t know how I could possibly squeeze in another thing!” At the time, she did not remind me that she herself was busy promoting her just-published memoir of her years in the Peace Corps At Home on the Kazakh Steppe while keeping current on her blog.

Before I said, “Okay, I’ll do it!” she explained, “It’s really simple. There are just three rules.”

1. Link back to the post of the person who nominated you. (See above.)

2. Write a blurb about and give the first sentences of your next three blog posts (or book chapters)

3. Nominate four other writers to do the same.

While thoughts of my memoir are incubating, I have spent time here on my blog mining material that may be woven into my book some day. Here, in chronological order, are the opening lines of my next two blog posts and a blurb from the preface to my work-in-progress memoir. That makes three!

November 8: “How to Tell Your Children What’s What”

Unlike Hansel and Gretel whose mother tried to starve them and then lock them out of the house, Mother Longenecker provided well for her children and left behind, not white pebbles or bread crumbs, but hand-written notes tucked away to tag her heirlooms.

November 12: “Purple Passages and Fine China”

La Lectura es el viaje de los que no pueden tomar el tren. – F. Croisset

(Reading is the journey of those who cannot take the train.)

Excerpt from preface of my untitled memoir, WIP:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;

He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

The Longenecker family doesn’t have a cat in residence but we all live together in a little crooked house. Crooked as in lintels above the bedroom doors that slope crazily so much so that they can never be closed tight. Crooked as in floors that sag slightly so that water flows oddly when I’m on my hands and knees washing up the kitchen linoleum. Sagging steps from the 1903 part of the house leading down to the cellar. Every night I sleep downhill on my hard feather pillow.

But there is nothing crooked or saggy about my upbringing . . . .

Now it’s my turn to tag 4 writers for the 2014 WIP Tour:

1. Laurie Buchanan, holistic health practitioner and life coach with inspirational posts weekly on Tuesdays with Laurie. They are short, sweet, and wise.

2. Marie Keates, blogger tells true stories with a British accent. When her fat-girl-slim-blog was hacked (decimated) recently, like a Phoenix she rose from the ashes and now posts at I Walk Alone .

3. Melodie Miller-Davis, author with over a dozen books/cookbooks to her credit, most from Herald Press, she writes weekly on her blog, Finding Harmony.

4. Marylin Warner, writing coach, short story and memoir author, writes of the remarkable connection to her literary mother suffering from Alzheimer’s in her blog Things I Want to Tell My Mother.

I hope you’ll click on the links and visit their sites often.

None of the four are under any obligation to play tag. But I hope they do. I’m looking forward to reading bits about their Works in Progress. So, Laurie, Marie, Melodie, and Marylin. You’re it!

* * *

Coming next: How to Tell Your Children What’s What

What’s for Dinner? Dried Beef Gravy and . . .

November 1, 2014November 1, 2014 marianbeaman50 Comments

“Just two generations ago, preparing meals was as much a part of life as eating,” so says Mark Bittman in an article entitled How to Eat Now published in the October 20, 2014 issue of TIME magazine. Although a recent Harris poll reveals that 79% of Americans say they enjoy cooking, probably most get at least a third of their daily calories outside the home. Bittman goes on to show how easy it is to get a nutritious home-cooked meal on the table and includes 3 simple recipes: Vegetable soup which borrows from the freezer aisle, a whole roast chicken with garlic and lemons, and skillet pear crisp recipe which makes for easy cleanup.

Mother of course cooked two main meals every day. I could count on the fingers of one hand the times we ate in a restaurant. Her recipes were hearty, reflective of the PA Dutch cooking she grew up with, never skimping on the butter.

When I came back from Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, I brought on the plane frozen ham loaf and chipped beef. After the ham loaf is thawed, it’s a cinch to pop it into the oven and serve in a few hours with virtually no prep time.

Preparing chipped beef gravy though, while not enormously time consuming, does require assembling ingredients: dried/chipped beef, butter, flour, milk or cream, and a touch of pepper and then stirring in a skillet on the stove.

Last Wednesday, I pulled out my trusty Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter, a book of 1100 favorite recipes gleaned from Mennonite families all over the United States and Canada. Usually, I use Mother’s recipe in my head and knowing the ingredients to what she called dried beef gravy I add a hunk of this and two cups of that, “just what you think” as she used to say. This time though I will follow the cookbook’s recipe for creamed dried beef, which I see browns the beef with the butter.

Next I assemble all of the ingredients and fire up the stove, beginning with melting butter in a hot skillet.

Adding the dried beef to the melted butter sends a hearty aroma throughout the kitchen. Then, sprinkling flour over the butter and beef, I create a roux to which I slowly add milk. Depending on your sensitivity to calories, you could use water, milk, or cream. I always use milk. Keep on stirring until the mixture becomes smooth and thick.

Finally, your creamed dried beef, which Mother always referred to as dried beef gravy, is ready to serve over toast, over mashed potatoes, as you wish.

Typical Menu

Dried Beef Gravy over Mashed Potatoes

Garden peas

Applesauce

Mark Bittman would probably raise his eyebrows over the amount of butter and flour in the creamed dried beef recipe. And of course this menu is heartier than his lower calorie menu of vegetable soup, roast chicken with pear crisp but, oh, is it delicious!

* * *

For years I thought of creamed dried beef as a Pennsylvania Dutch dish. After all, it appeared on page 58 of the Mennonite Cookbook, 1972 edition. Recently, my sister-in-law Terry told me her mother made the same recipe when she was growing up in California.

How about you? Did you enjoy creamed dried beef (or a variation) growing up? Is this recipe part of your cooking repertoire now?

Inquiring cooks want to know. . .

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