Focused at Fifty

Mom's Chicken Soup (Marc-style) On cold winter days, Mom used to make Tabatchnick's brand vegetable soup. It was a family favorite. I remember smelling it while is simmer on the stove as I sat in the breakfast room doing my homework. She served it with a crusty French loaf.  Other than that, I don't remember her making her own soup except for matzoh ball soup during the Jewish holidays. One day going through Mom's recipes, I was excited to come across a recipe for chicken soup that I did not know she had.  I had found my next recipe. This is a great basic chicken soup recipe which you can definitely change up or add to OR just make it 'as is' for some good Jewish penicillin! I had planned to make it for John and I on a recent Saturday afternoon. After getting all of my ingredients out (except the chicken of course), I laid down on the couch to watch an afternoon movie for about 30 minutes. I couldn't even tell you wh...

Dad, Mom, Adam, & Sheryl @ Kit Carson home in Taos, NM Summer 1981 I recently entered a writing contest and was asked to relate "travel" and my writing to the contest. It brought back memories of traveling with my family in the early '80s when we took several month long vacations across America each summer. My father was an art professor at a local college and he would have off from June till September.This left 3 months to do my mother's "honey do list", gardening, or planning our annual summer road trip. We would head west through Pennsylvania with our first stop being somewhere right across the border in Ohio. It never felt like we were on vacation until we traveled through the 300 plus miles of "Pennsee."    From there, we would continue either towards my grandparents' home in Pueblo, Colorado or our cousins' cattle ranch in South Dakota. Driving through miles and miles of the Midwest, I would rest my head on the car door ju...

Thank G-d I had John's Mom's stoneware bundt cake pan! We often associate a particular meal with a certain family member or friend. My friend sister Sheryl makes an awesome chicken and tzimmes dish. Tzimmes is a traditional Russian Jewish dish of sweet stewed vegetables including prunes, raisins, carrots and potatoes. She first made it several years ago for Passover dinner and it quickly became a family favorite. (Mental note made to make sure that recipe gets up on my blog as well sometime!) I associate my Great Aunt Emmy with her angel food cake recipe. She would make it each time my family visited her and Great Uncle Chic at their home in the Millburn, New Jersey. Uncle Chic's first name was Henry but his nickname was always Chic. I never knew why and thought it perfectly normal to call him that. When visiting them, the family would always congregate into Aunt Emmy's small but inviting kitchen. Their home was a formal yet warm one with a deep backyard that Adam...

There is the old adage that if you find a great mechanic, keep 'em for life. I think that can apply for doctors as well. After all, each one provides a specific important service, necessary for work and life. Why not frequent the best that there is!  You wouldn't go to a crappy with cold hands and attitude? You also wouldn't go to a bad or untrustworthy mechanic, would you? There once was a time when I thought changing your oil was just pullin' up the dipstick and then toppin' it off with any old oil:  5W-30, 10W-30, olive oil, vegetable, etc.  Luckily, I started getting schooled by horrified friends and family members about properly taking care of my car.  One of the best pieces of advice I learned was to shop around for a good mechanic. Rely on the recommendation of friends on who is trustworthy, friendly, and helpful. Ask them questions and if they take the time to go over everything with you (a couple times because you have no clue initial...

Ingredients used. Brisket. The very word brings up memories of a tender beef roast, rich with gravy, surrounded by potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and smothered in onions. I remember it being associated with special holidays:  Rosh Hoshanah, Passover, Hanukkah, or birthdays. If our family was having a meal like London broil or brisket, it had to be a special occasion. But that was fine, it made us savor the meal that much more. I can still remember the smell just wafting through the house. The brisket of beef is also popular with Texans who love to barbecue and grill it. We Jews love our brisket braised like a pot roast. I also found out the hard way from some lovely (ahem) elderly Pennsylvania Dutch women that brisket is not sirloin, brisket is not pot roast, and brisket is not flank. It is it's own cut of beef from the lower chest of the steer. Hmm, who knew?  Apparently not this Jewish 40 something year old guy! In preparation for this, John and I went to Dietrich's ...

Twenty five years ago this week, the Internet was born. It is so amazing how our lives have changed due to its influence. No more encyclopedia sets. Snail mail is dying a slow death. You can listen to the radio anywhere you take your smart phone. It is just mind-blowing. I wanted to recount an anecdote about my first experience receiving an email over the Internet. Way back in Fall of 1989, I was a returning sophomore at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ and was living with my roommate Dan in the Tinsley Dormitory on the College Avenue campus.  Upon arrival for the new semester, we received a packet of information regarding school services, as we did every semester. In this packet was a sheet on our new email service which could connect us with classmates, teachers, as well as beyond that, other institutions. "Email? What the heck is that?" It directed us to a hangar type building (now Financial Aid) right next to Brower Commons, the dining hall. Within...

http://cutestfood.com/3917/humble-pie/ I always love hearing when people read my blog. It gives me satisfaction knowing that readers find what I write somewhat interesting. I really appreciate that. As I approach the 4th anniversary of writing this little blog, my dreams include maybe one day getting it picked up by a large news website. I know chances of that happening are very slim in this huge behemoth of the Internet; I am honest with myself. But for now, I remain content to write something each week and post it for my friends and family to read. The one month which I posted anything which garnered major attention was of course the AOL video and link to the blog post on my horrible little Old City apartment the Mole Hole .  The huge bump in the readership level was really nice but of course fleeting. I didn't think it would last so I am happy to keep slowly growing the blog at a steady pace. I have a bad habit of Googling myself to see where my blog shows up. It moves ...