A FROG n A COW n A LOBSTER ALL CAME TO DINNER

Sometimes I Armchair Travel back into the 'Ports of the Past' via a Diary Ticket!  I stop off at all Ports of Call that mention Food!  These Ports that I revisited today offered Ancestral Food History, as well as a peek at Future History...how could I resist!
                 Home Port of St.Louis  and Vacation Port of Boston.   

MORNING MUSINGS   2 DECEMBER 2012 

REVISITED 5 MAY 2017

I am running behind so much this morning that the afternoon is moving into my morning musing time zone!

The following three morning musings seem to occur often enough that I think there must be a hidden message in them.  Of course all three involve a parental family history tale. 

My mother is the only person in my family who liked frog legs.

The only one!  I believe she had access to these when she worked for Harvey Restaurant Chain in downtown St. Louis.  Along with the frog legs, this seems to be the place my mom served political persons.  According to my grandmother, she was liked by everyone.  Years later, she received  Employee of the Year when she worked as a cashier at Arlans, now history itself.  It was similar to Walmart.  She received a certificate and a television.  Being so popular with the customers, alas, also meant that they came to her long checkout line to enjoy her love of people of all ages.

My father is the Man behind my first biological-anatomy-scientific weekly observation carried on in the kitchen sink of my small childhood home. There, on Friday eves, in a dented aluminum pan, were brains soaking in city water.  I didn’t know ‘whose’ brains.  At the time, having limited cuisine knowledge to draw on, I only was aware of cows as a possible source for what I was looking at.  In time, my mother, thank god, would take this strange looking glob to the stove and fry them in the skillet.  Believe the fat to fry these came from bacon, hence, the pig family.

It was only two days ago while conversing with a grocery store food demonstrator who was passing out samples of
pork tamales, easily accessible on street corners here in south tejas, that I realized my dad was also the Only one in my entire family that ate tamales, in St. Louis!

These were not cooked on the stove in the kitchen like the brains, but were sold my a vendor pushing a cart down our dark street around 9:30pm on Saturday nights.  We knew he was in the neighborhood by his cry of ‘TAMALES  TAMALES’.  I do not recall going outside with my father to get these; actually my mother probably did the buying.  What I do recall is standing looking outside into the dark being barely able to see the cart.  I certainly never saw the vendor.  Tamales!  Where did that come from?  My dad was Irish and grew up in south saint louis.  Restaurants there had Italian and German food.  Mexico was still not a household word as it is now. The next morning, Sundays, a young man came down the street using what looked like the same cart on wheels selling the Post Dispatch Newspaper.   I wonder. 

Family History Update. A few genes have carried forward. I had 'a' frog leg caught and cooked by my husband’s brother while visiting his family in Ohio, near Defiance. Naturally.

I have never had, nor will ever have, brains of any sort of any animal cooked in any way.

It seems tamales are as difficult to figure out how to eat as are lobsters!  What a surprise to learn that, unlike the burrito tortilla wrap, you are not suppose to eat the corn husk wrap that the tamale is cooked in!  It should be as avoided as the green stuff in lobsters. I Have eaten lobster but only under the expert supervision of an east coast native. 

As the Afternoon looms into my Morning Musing, I shall end with this.

I never had rice until I lived in the Philippines; never had spaghetti until I lived in Italy; never had lamb until I lived in Turkey.  I am beginning to think unraveling my family history of eating may be as complicated, but much more fun, than unraveling the DaVinciCode!  

Looking for Homes in Jane Austen's Lake District

 I just satisfied my Sunday Morning UK Fix by watching 'Escape to the Country.'  It shows real people searching for real homes in the English Countryside.  These homes often have 'history' that comes along with them for no extra cost.  Sheep on Hillsides offer free Art Gallery scenes right out the kitchen windows.

Today, I saw a couple searching for a home in the Lake District.  (Where have I heard of that area before?  Oh!  Elizabeth Bennett visited there with her Aunt and Uncle while traveling through the pages of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice!)

Unlike the days of Jane Austen, I can watch a vast number of episodes from 17 Seasons on my iPad, iPhone, or even large tv monitor with my apple tv tiny attachment to it..flat 3x3 in.

If you have the time, like seeing the grass roots to a country in addition to its tourist sites, like our own country's House Hunter tv shows in cities or on beaches you have never been able to visit but would like to know about, I think you might like "Escape to the Country."  youtube.


Escape to the Country UK Lake District      https://youtu.be/PptTxaJG0T0

Following a Railroad Nomad: The Idea is Born.

Before the Train In Europe, The Ferry to a Car Free Portugal Island!

This will be a Post that follows a book I am reading by Karen McCann.  It is partially called, "Adventures of a Railway Nomad."

I love train rides and rail tales, but this one immediately surprised me with the interesting fact that the idea for this new train adventure that would take place in various European countries like Germany and Croatia had originated while on a ferry heading to the 'no cars allowed' Island of Culatra located just off Portugal's southern shore. 

Karen and her husband, Rich, had moved to Seville from California 10 years earlier.  This particular day, they had left Spain behind and were on the ferry heading for a visit with a beachcomber friend who lived on Ilha da Culatra. 

As you might guess, my first OffShore Armchair Travel today has been to Culatra. 

*Living in South Texas, my first thought was to check out the spelling and verify the island was not called the Isle of Cilantro! It was not.

Southern Portugal

Ilha da Culatra Beach 

Sardines  Local Fresh

Can Only Be Reached By Ferry

Animals On The Path from Dry Desert in the South to Wet Land's End in the North

*Travel Alert!  Pack Accordingly!   Following Cats, Horses, and a Dog, we will begin in the South Texas Hill Country and end after making a stop in Michigan before traveling to Land's End and Lake Superior.

                                     

Today, I began Armchair Traveling by pulling out a map and planning my route. This  usually is not necessary!  Today, however, I had thought to begin earlier in one place, found myself moving to another, then went 'off the road' for awhile before swinging back onto pavement...uhhh, I mean the Armchair Cushion!

I went from 'watching'     Letters From Mom Cat to her Kitten 

                  Mother Cat Letter to Kitten Regarding Football Sunday
   
to thinking of those Budweiser Clydesdale commercials.  

This led me back to my childhood in St. Louis, Mo, where my grandparents lived across the street from the Anheuser-Busch's in-town stable where I got to a 'visiting' Clydesdale for the first, and only, time in my long life!  Either he was very tall, or I was very short due to being only 3 yrs old..or both of these things are true!

Hence, I began traveling today before I knew my route!  Seems I have gone from Cats to Horses.

Onward,  I traveled down an Old Path to SanAntonioTx where both 'Blueberry the Cat' and 'Buttercup the Dog' entered 'My Life's Story.'  

Following are a couple 'Lessons Learned' as they say these days.  I wish they would have been saying 'Lessons Learned' when I was 25yrs old!!

Cat Lesson Learned  101                    Master Teacher:  Professor Blueberry  Fe.line

Do not invite a cat that has been born in the desert lands to become a member of your family if you have never had a cat before you are 25 years old.  Blueberry and WILDCAT became interchangeable words of the English language to me.  Maybe this was due to local chilies peppers he had eaten during his early days before Mother's Letters to Kittens were common and he joined our family.

Dog Lesson Learned  104                    Master Teacher: Professor Buttercup  Ca.nine

No matter how much you 'protect' them from those who are not the same gender,  'surprises' happen.  One morning, after my sons left for school and my husband for work, I, a newcomer to this four-legged 'birthing' experience, watched as Buttercup, my innocent pup, gave birth to 1,2,3,4,5....8,9,10 puppies!!  It was a new experience for her, too!!   I sat on the floor with her, and she came to lay beside me during each birth!  She silently, and in God's Language (dog talk), said, "What in the heck is going on??!!"  And I looked back at Her and said, "Beats me!!"

 Thank God a friend who had 3 beagles came by later to explain the legendary tale of the 'Two-Footed' Birds and 'FlappingWing' Bees to us.                       
 Buttercup looked at me; I looked at her; together we looked at 10 little things.  As far as we could tell, no birds or bees had anything to do with what we saw before our eyes!  (And would have been a surprise to the birds and bees!) 

To this day, I think these Lessons had something to do with a Change in their Environment.  Blueberry had moved from Outside and a free Environment to Inside and a controlled Environment,
Buttercup had moved with us from Dry South Texas to Selfridge, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, located on the shores of Wet Lake Huron, which was so wet you could swim south to Lake Erie OR north to Lake Superior! 

The Mother of All, of course, is Mother Nature.  She is often a HardTaskMaster!  As young Blueberry experienced Outside to Inside, and Buttercup experienced Dry Soil to Wet Soil under her feet, Mother Nature is giving me a new awareness of a Normal temperature soaring to Hot and then dropping to Cold. Hummm. Not sure this has anything to do with the Environment. Think it is the result of ... let's just say, not being 25 years old any longer. 

                                                                                        

Sotheby Summer Study Sessions

Sotheby's is offering Four Week Summer Study Sessions in London, New York, and Los Angeles. 

London study offers Art, Photography, Michelangelo to Matisse.

New York's Summer Study has such offerings as Intro to Curating and Understanding the Luxury Market.

In LA, Sotheby's partners with Claremont Graduation University and offers courses in
General Art Business and Contemporary and East Asian Art and their Markets.

Plus, Tsinghua University partners with Sotheby's in China to teach Executive Management.

And, as my mode of transportation is Armchair Travel, I believe I will also check out Sotheby's Online learning.

What Sotheby's Summer Sessions would you like to attend?

http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/Programmes/PLondon/PLSummerStudy.aspx


I have decided!
Going Once, Going Twice,  SOLD !
I am preparing to Armchair Travel to .... Sotheby's London!  Cheers!

Venice of the Orient

 

 

 

Pease Join me and Share a Cup of Tea as we Travel via Armchair to the Venice of the Orient.  

 

Today's Destination is the Chinese City of Suzhoe which is 50 miles west of Shanghai.

 

 



  

 

 

 

 

https://btay200.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/canal-town/

 

 

 

 

The Chinese Venice of Suzhoe reminds me of The Texas Venice of San Antonio. 

 

Perhaps we will have a Burrito with our Tea.

 



ARRIVEDERCI!

Borough Market in London - What You Should Eat

 

Today I am visiting the London Borough Market.  And I am hungry!

Sit back, Grab a napkin, and Join me!