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Aunt Ada's Sour Cream Cookies

My sister's friends in North Carolina wanted this recipe as well. John's Aunt Ada handed down this marvelous recipe. Shortly after I moved to Iowa John walked into my office with two of these cookies still warm on a napkin. He left the room without saying anything. I shouted out that these were the best cookies I'd ever tasted. Years later he FedEx'ed a shipment of these for two of my old lady friends in California. They were ecstatic, too.

Boston Corn Cake

While in North Carolina several of my sister's friends and family wanted this recipe. This is John's mother's scratch recipe for cornbread. It yields a sweet, crisp bread when baked in a cast iron pan - by far my favorite cornbread.

Evangelism along the side of the road

John and I were bemused watching billboard and Burma-Shave-style signs along the road on our trip to North Carolina and back. Here are a couple:

On a jet black billboard:

One nation under me.
(signed) God

Another jet black billboard:

I know...everything.
(signed) God

On a different note:

CRIMINALS MENACING?
A LADY ALONE?
DETERRENCE REQUIRES
MORE THAN A PHONE
GunsSaveLife.com

Hanging out with Dad

John and I have been hanging out with my father for the last two days. Here he is at his granddaughter Emma's birthday party yesterday. He's eighty-six now - still living on his own and getting around pretty well indeed.

I don't know half the family stories that I should. Each time I come down Dad starts telling more tales about his boyhood experiences in Central Illinois in the 1920's and 1930's. He pulled out some genealogy charts showing how some of our ancestors were part of Daniel Boone's party into Kentucky in the early 1800's.

Since he retired from his professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1982 (my alma mater), he's completely pulled back from any engineering work. At first he took care of my maternal grandmother and later cared for Mom until she passed in 2001. So it's surprising to me when he starts talking about engineering problems he tackled years before - the designs of exams and how he could manipulate the exam results simply by changing the order of questions. I saw him as a fearsome, precise thinker when I was a child - and he's still sharp at eighty-six.

John and I will take off tomorrow mid-day to return home. It's just a trifle bittersweet to leave.

Emma's Eleven

My niece Emma turned eleven today. In her words - Happy Birthday to Me! She's singing along with her father Carl (behind her in this picture) and all the rest of us on the deck outside her house. It was hotter than Hades and humid enough to feel like a hot towel wrapped around me - but we had a very good time indeed.

My sister Jill and brother-in-law Carl live on a thirty acre parcel in the North Carolina mountains. They have six horses, tons of dogs and cats - and lots of open space.

We made it to London (Kentucky...)

John and I are watching a TV preacher sitting in our room in London, KY. We headed out this morning and had a marvelous time on the road. I grabbed several podcasts - mostly NPR's Science Friday shows - and we listened and discussed the shows. One of them - a mini-debate between a nuclear industry advocate and an anti-nuke environmentalist - degenerated into repeating their respective political positions. Can anyone talk about energy policy without lapsing into dogma? We finally gave up around nine tonight when we rolled into the Holiday Inn here in London.

There's nothing like watching the evangelists heal folks on-camera. It's wall-to-wall preaching on the TV here. John wonders if there are classes that these snake oil salesmen take to tell them how to behave on-screen...

John's at the Eclectic Eye Gallery

We were in Davenport, Iowa last night for the opening of the Eclectic Eye Gallery. John met the gallery's owner, Paul Algueseva III, who was a fellow sculptor at the Iowa Sculpture Fair in Newton, Iowa last May. Paul does fabulous bronzes; John was so taken he bought one of Paul's pieces.

Paul invited John to show his work at his new gallery. The Eclectic Eye is part of Davenport's new Bucktown Center for the Arts. Sponsored by the local arts council the building is a set of apartment galleries. Artists rent space in the gallery and can show their wares in a controlled space without needing to set up a completely independent gallery. Paul's space showed his drawings and pastels, his wife's photography, and his marvelous bronzes.

Back from the west and heading out again

I was traveling out west last week on business. Just back on Wednesday afternoon John and I are heading out tomorrow morning for rural North Carolina. My father and sister's family live in the mountains of western North Carolina, just about forty miles east of Asheville. I packed my iPod with tunes and podcasts and we've loaded up on stuff to nibble along the miles. We take it easy: we'll probably make it past Lexington, Kentucky tomorrow night and head in on Monday morning.

I'd planned to take this trip in late May but work intervened. Along the way John's been very busy with commission work. He delivered one piece last Thursday and another set this morning, so he's caught up (almost!) for the first time in months. I'm not quite so caught up, but I'm very happy to head out anyway.

My niece Emma's birthday (eleventh? I think... I'm a horrible uncle...) is Monday. We'll be there for an evening barbecue with Emma's friends. Maybe I can cajole Dad to come with us; he's often in his hermitage about a third of a mile away and doesn't want to come out. But John and I may offer some additional encouragement.

John's baking Dad his favorite pie: rhubarb custard pie. Before Momma died in 2001 John and she went through old family recipes. John took back with him a recipe for this pie - my father's absolute favorite. When we went down the spring after Momma passed John brought along this pie. I thought Dad would dance a little jig when he saw it. Ever after John's always brought it.

The Garden: A New Photo Gallery

I just created a new photo gallery of the new garden that John created and that we've both been working in. This year he decided he wanted to clean up the side yard. We've been wanting to eliminate our lawn and to develop more specialized raised beds.

John ordered tons of Iowa limestone from the same quarry that supplied the contractors for the new Disney performing arts center in Los Angeles. Their stone is incredibly beautiful. He and I mapped out what we wanted, and he built the raised beds from the limestone. I helped out filling up beds with soil and doing some planting.

I'm adding to this gallery as the season develops and I'll post additional links to new images as we go. I'll also pass along some of my herb lore - one of my chief interests in gardening is in herbs, both culinary and medicinal.

Thanks, iRobot!

My well-used Roomba needed help. After going through iRobot's thorough troubleshooting guides on the web, I broke down and called tech support. I was amazed. On the first ring a helpful, energetic support person answered. I described the problem, outlined what I'd tried to fix the problem, and asked what to do next. She told me to remove a brush guard from the Roomba, put it in an envelope, and ship it back to them. They'd send me a new Roomba, no questions asked. She closed our conversation by asking me if there was anything she could do to help me further. I said I was completely satisfied, and waited for the new robot.

It arrived exactly on schedule and performs beautifully. If you're in the market for a robotic floor sweep, do check them out. iRobot makes a great product and they stand behind their work.