Musical pairing – Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones

You may have heard that there is a Big Game happening in our neck of the woods this coming weekend and this fine city has decked herself out in her very best Sunday clothes. The Professor and I have yet to make the journey downtown to experience this fineness but plans have been made to do just that this week . . . along with a bazillion other folks . . .

You might think that a game of football means lots of noise, jumping up and down in the living room, rewinding the cable box to watch a replay, etc., etc., . . . and you’d be right . . . but it’s moi who gets quite animated during a game. Once things start to heat up (read ‘someone scores a TD’) the cats scatter to the basement and don’t show their fluffy tails again until the game is over . . . weenies . . .

The last time these two teams met in the Super Bowl, I spent most of the evening not only glued to the TV, but also sending text messages back and forth to my son who lives on the East Coast and of course is a Patriot Fan; they hadn’t lost a single game the entire season. Of course, we Smith Bites were rooting for Eli and his underdog team; they came into the Super Bowl having won their last six straight games. Needless-to-say, there was lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ that night . . .

And we all remember how that game turned out . . .

Just sayin’ . . .

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© 2012, Debra. All rights reserved.

Musical pairing – Down on the Corner by Credence Clearwater Revival

I have decided that I am a chip and dip girl . . . don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a great cookie or a killer piece of chocolate but if those were on the table with potato chips and dip? I’m all about the dip, baby!

At some point it dawned on me that while I can certainly make onion dip whenever I feel like it, I don’t; for whatever reason, I usually don’t think about chips and dip until we’re heading into the holiday season . . . then suddenly the craving hits and I’m rooting around in my pantry, checking for onions, sour cream and mayo . . .

I broke with tradition this year and made a batch of onion dip for our pre-Thanksgiving gathering primarily because I love it and because The Professor said that onion dip was a huge favorite of his dad’s . . . in fact, The Professor recalls many a time when ‘Big D’ had a tub of ready-made Onion dip and chips stocked and ready for whenever the mood hit him . . . which was often. I decided to make my ‘from scratch’ dip and see if it would pass the muster . . . Big D can be a tough crowd when it comes to this kind of thing; he’s a man of routine and doesn’t like to mess with what already works.

My chip of choice is one with ridges or a sturdier kettle chip; I think thin, non-ridged chips break too easily leaving a piece of chip buried in the dip – at which point you either try to fish it out with another chip or look for some sort of utensil to scoop it out . . . raise your hand if you’ve ‘been there, done that.’ I also find non-ridged chips too flimsy to scoop up a respectable amount of dip and have it end up in your mouth rather than wearing it as part of your ensemble . . . not that it’s happened to me . . . I’m just making an educated guess . . .

So how did I fair with the homemade Onion dip and chips with ridges? One bite and Big D said, ‘Now that’s good!’ And he didn’t move from the chips and dip until it was time for dinner . . .

A small success but I’ll take it . . .

Needless-to-say, I’ll be making this again for the Big Game . . .

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© 2012, Debra. All rights reserved.

Musical pairing – Clementine by Billy Preston

Just the name of this Dutch Baby takes me back . . . it takes me back to the little house on Ankeny Street . . . and for some reason memories of my Grandma and Grandpa on my dad’s side come flooding back. Grandpa used to sing to me when I was a child. . . we would sit in his big, off-white leather recliner and he would sing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ to me . . . he had a familiar smirk like that of my father . . . and he smoked a pipe with cherry tobacco . . . to this day, my nose gets a whiff of cherry tobacco and I am instantly transported back to Walla Walla, my grandparents’ home and that big leather chair . . .

Grandpa had other songs he’d sing as well . . . pretty sure those were made up because there was one song he’d start to sing about a horse . . . he’d always get to a certain spot when suddenly . . . Grandma would say, ‘GRANDPA!!’ . . . he’d get that twinkle in his eye and say, ‘What? . . .’ and would move on to another song. I didn’t learn until years later that Grandpa was actually singing songs that contained the word ‘fart’ or they might have been about some ‘lady of the evening’ . . . Grandma felt they were inappropriate for us kids to hear . . . kids are like parrots, yes?

‘Oh My Darling Clementine’ was another song from my childhood that takes me back to the little house on Ankeny Street and Saturday morning cartoons . . . Back in the day, Quick Draw McGraw and Huckleberry Hound were rarely missed on Saturday mornings; I think these were two of my favorites because they both had Southern accents which, for some reason, intrigued me or it could have been because both were animals, one a horse, the other a hound dog. One of Huck’s trademarks was his off-key singing of ‘Oh My Darlin’ Clementine’ . . . off-key because, according to Wikipedia, he was tone deaf . . . I can still hear him . . .

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
Thou art lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

In doing a little research it’s unclear as to whether the song is about a bereaved lover singing about his darling, the daughter of a miner lost in a drowning accident during the 1849 California Gold rush; he consoles himself towards the end of the song with Clementine’s “little sister”. The verse about the little sister was usually left out of books intended for children, presumably because it seemed a bit scandalous . . . other theories say the song was written from the view of Clementine’s father, and not a lover . . .

I’m kinda partial to the scandalous version myself . . .

Regardless of which version of the story you care to believe, I encourage you to give this Dutch Baby a try; citrus is in season at the moment, making this a perfect recipe to try on a gray and gloomy winter day. I’ve started with this recipe, added an oh-so-decadent sauce based on this recipe but have upped the ante with the addition of orange bitters giving the clementine flavor a little ‘sumpthin’-sumpthin’ . . . perfect for a leisurely weekend breakfast or brunch, the dish comes together in less that 30 minutes from start to finish . . . I think it makes terrific dessert as well . . .

And you really must sing the song while eating . . . at the very least, hum . . . it adds to the experience . . .

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© 2012, Debra. All rights reserved.