Greasy Donut Recall

Posted on 13/02/2011 by Grumpa Joe
Selfridges has a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop wh...

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This morning the devil made me eat a greasy Krispy Creme donut. I savored it with great enthusiasm. I know it is bad for me, but how long can one live anyway? Grandma Peggy read the advertising on the box and was surprised to learn that the company has been making donuts since 1937. That means Krispy Creme has been selling heart plugging fat loaded tasty sugary treats one year longer than I have been on this planet.

When Krispy Creme became a rage back in the ninety’s I followed the crowds to a local store to learn what it was all about. I also wanted to buy a dozen of the freshly made donuts. My friends were explaining the automated machine they used to make the donuts right in the store. It is a tradition at the office to bring donuts on your birthday.  I especially loved birthdays when we celebrated with Krispy Cremes. When I bit into my very first one, my brains cells awakened from deep within. The taste brought back childhood memories.

On the day I first walked into the Krispy Creme store in Oak Forest, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, right in the center of the store, was an automated donut making machine.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the process. Wait a minute, my brain told me. You’ve seen this machine before.

When I was seven years old, my mom went shopping on 63rd and Halstead. There was a cluster of large stores there, Sears, Wieboldt’s, Goldblatt’s. It was the shopping center of its time. To get there we took the streetcar. Two transfers, and an hour got us to the commercial center of the south-side.  She loved to window shop and never bought anything she didn’t absolutely need. One of her favorite stores was Hillman’s. A large grocery store on the lower level of another large store. Hillman’s was unique, because she got foods there that were not available in our community of Burnside. It was in that store, that I saw my first Krispy Creme donut machine. I was fascinated by the thing. I could spend hours watching the thing spit out raw donut dough and turn the glob into a glazed donut. Mom saw this quickly, and realized that she could shop while I watched the donuts.  The donut machine became my baby sitter.  Every once in a while, Mom bought some donuts to treat us for being good.

The whole memory came alive this morning when I bit into that sumptuous sweet glazed donut.

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CITY FARM

Posted on 20/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe

My family lived on South Avalon Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. They call the neighborhood Burnside.  Mom and Dad raised us in a small house, with a porch across the front. The property was small, only twenty-five feet wide, and one-hundred twenty feet long. It was a typical city lot. Our house was a small, wood framed, two-story with seven steps that led from the porch to the city sidewalk.  Between the porch and the sidewalk, was a narrow bed of flowers, and a patch of grass.  The parkway between the sidewalk and the street had grass. Sometimes there was a tree there too.

All of the houses were very close to each other. The narrow space between houses called a gang-way was only wide enough for one person to walk through.  On the end of the gangway, at the back of the house, Dad installed a gate to close off the back yard.  At the back of the house we had another porch which Dad walled in to make a three-season room.  Behind the house, was Mom’s farm. It extended between a very small lawn surrounded by flower beds, and vegetables that extended to the garage and chicken coop.

At the end of the lot stood Dad’s one car garage. He built it directly on the ground without a foundation. It had a dirt floor.  Ma’s chicken coop hung off one side. Together the garage and the coop stretched across the lot.  The chickens roamed in a small space in front of the coop.

In this precious plot of ground, Mom and Dad squeezed a front lawn with a flower bed, a three-bedroom house, a back lawn and flower bed, a good-sized vegetable garden, a chicken ranch, and a garage.

Mom grew most of what she needed to feed the family right in her backyard.   The garden produced tomatoes, onions, kohlrabi, cabbage, corn, beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers and more.  What we couldn’t eat immediately, she preserved, by canning.  The chickens provided fresh eggs, and meat for Sunday dinners.

Mom grew flowers from seed she got from friends or by taking cuttings. In Spring she had tulips, and by Fall the same bed was a sea of chrysanthemums.  Mom had roses, snap dragons, petunias, dahlias, bleeding hearts, marigolds, zinnias, carnations, and pansies to add a mix of color.  She planted any flower that she could get, and propagated them to keep it going.

My love for flowers, came from watching Mom’s delight at seeing things grow. She loved bright colorful flowers, and grew as many as she could. Mom kept a garden on her father’s the farm too, but there it was mostly vegetables, fruit, and berries, as opposed to flowers.

Her knowledge of plants came from watching other gardeners, and by experimenting  with seeds. She never turned down an offer of new seeds or cuttings from friends. Her trial and error approach, taught her the best methods.

Mother kept her gardens going until she was into her eighties. When her heart began to slow, so did she. She began to lose her sight, and memory. Her gardens became smaller and smaller. The loss of energy killed her desire for the garden, and the city farm was no more.

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Brighten Your Day With a Bloom

Posted on 08/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe

The indoor garden occasionally brings me great joy. Today, I was graced with two new blossoms. One, is an Amaryllis, and the other is my old friend the orchid. Both flowers have stories behind them.

The Amaryllis: Grandma Peggy and I received this plant in a Christmas gift exchange. We brought it home and forgot about it. It was late January or early February when I found it and decided it was time to open the box.  I knew the box contained a bulb in some organic floss. Surprise, When I opened the box the bulb had a three-inch long very pale green  sprout sticking out of it. I planted the bulb into the pot that came with it, and watered it. Within six weeks we had a beautiful flower. At the end of winter, I planted the bulb in the garden. Every year for three years, I dug the bulb out, potted it,  and brought it in. This year, for some odd reason, it decided to flower.

The orchid: My deceased wife Barb received the orchid as a gift when she came home from her open heart surgery in 2000. It was in full bloom when I brought it home with her. The orchid blooms for six months, then, takes a nap and re-blooms. This year, it is doing the same thing. This plant has been faithful to me for ten years. When I think about it, she has blossomed continuously for five of those ten years.

Right now, the plant has only opened one blossom. In a week or two it will have a double spike  with as many as twenty flowers on it. I’ll show it again when it goes into full bloom. The poor thing needs to be repotted, but while I was thinking about it, she decided to go into labor and bloom. I can’t touch it now until the last bloom falls off sometime in June.

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Autumn Stroll

Posted on 16/10/2010 by Grumpa Joe

This past week, I couldn’t take it anymore. My PC crashed again for the sixth time in as many weeks. I had to get away from the machinery and the search for a fix. My new computer was still en route and I continued to nurse the old guy along hoping it would find new life. Microsoft was working against me. Every time the machine allowed an upload of new security software, it affected the functionality of the keyboard.

The afternoon was warm, and sunny, so I left the house with my camera and took a stroll around my town.

I love Frankfort. It is growing up but still has a small town feel to it. We are close enough to Chicago to make a trip downtown relatively easy. In fact, on Wednesday afternoon, Peggy and I drove to Steppenwolf and made it in fifty minutes. The ride home was faster. There are times, however when that same trip takes a full ninety minutes each way.

The air was still this afternoon, and eerily quiet. Normally, I can hear the traffic on route thirty or forty-five. Today, all I heard was silence.

The sun was still high, but because of its position the shadows were long. This made for some great photos. There is color all around. All one has to do is to look and be aware. The trees that are still leaved are brilliant green, yellow, gold, red, and orange. Those trees that are bare have a blanket of crinkly dry leaves scattered about lush green lawns.

All about town, people decorated for Halloween. Front lawns and porches sport bright orange pumpkins with scary ghosts and skeletal witches. A few have graveyards on the lawn with silly grave stones.

Downtown Frankfort was empty. it was a ghost town. There were very few cars and even fewer people in town.

Along the trail in Prairie Park a great bloom of wild asters is showing off its lavender color. The pond is void of ducks and geese. Where the heck is everybody? I didn’t really care, I just enjoyed it all.

The best and most colorful part of the stroll was my back yard. The fall flowers are in full bloom and their colors are brilliant. How lucky I am to see this everyday. The tomatoes and cucumbers are still putting out, and giving me some fresh salad makings.

Yes God, you have blessed me. Maybe the crash was Your way of telling me to take a walk and suck in the sights, sounds, and scents of your wonderous natural world.

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