My Little Victory Garden: Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Three days ago I carefully chose 1.5 pounds of beautiful ground sirloin from the meat market. I had big plans for that meat. And by “big” I mean burgers. But when I returned home I discovered only a mere five or six ounces of charcoal left in the bottom of the bag on our patio.

“No problem,” Mick said. “I’ll pick up a bag when I get groceries on Sunday afternoon and we’ll have them for dinner.”

Three days in the refrigerator is about as long as I want to go with freshly ground meat, so I agreed. Flash forward three days. Mick returned with all the groceries except one thing: charcoal.

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll just turn that meat into really good taco meat and we’ll have it for wraps and taco salad over the next few days. The garden lettuce is ready to eat and the grape tomatoes are prolific. That will be fine.”

Five minutes later I had exhausted the search in my pantry for the two packets of taco seasoning I was sure I had recently seen.  Mick and I retraced our steps and realized those suckers go fast when you’re using them on pulled pork for lots of people and you really only had one instead of two.

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll just make chili.”

By now you can probably get a sense of our preferential hierarchy for fast hamburger meals: grilled hamburgers win, with tacos coming in an easy second, and only because it was pretty hot outside chili was pulling up the rear position.

So I browned the hamburger meat while I chopped the last of my garlic and some of my beautiful onions I harvested earlier this year. I like to pretend I’m the only woman in 1947s going to the Cordon Bleu Culinary School in France just like Julia Child, and I chop my onions like I’m competing with the entire line of disapproving male students. When my knife is sharpened to it’s finest edge, I can SPANK those onions!

I drained the beef, blotted any remnants of grease, returned it to the pan, tossed in the garlic, the onions, the cumin, the salt, the paprika and…wait. Where was the chili powder?  I searched more and more frantically until I finally breathed a sigh of relief.  “THERE you are,” I said to the jar of chili powder…that had about 1.5 tablespoons in it! “Crud,” I thought to myself.  “Am I going to have to turn this into stew?”

It’s like me to occasionally run out of taco seasoning packets.  But it’s really not like me to run out of chili powder.  I cook a great deal of chili and am constantly scoping out the “Clearance Spice Bins” at any store I visit.  My two mainstays are Italian Seasoning and Chili Powder.  I had to have more.  So, I searched again.  And finally, behind the salt, silver decorative pearls, the bulk garlic powder and my precious Muscavado Sugar was a jumbo sized chili powder container.

Yes!

I secretly saluted all the time I had spent digging through the spice bins, finished my chili and ate dinner.

For dessert, I had a slice of cake that included ingredients I had cleaned out of no less than four little plastic bags in my freezer.  And for tomorrow?  I think we’re combining at least five or six packages of leftovers for a “clean out the fridge before Mick leaves town” meal.

“Necessity” is indeed a beautiful thing that fosters the highest caliber “Invention” in our kitchen every week of every year.  And boy, is she a great teacher, or what?

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101 Uses for a Delta Airlines Barf Bag: #93

Ten years ago, I used to get a little freaked out about airplane flights.  Perhaps because my children were younger and my mothering instinct was hyperactively feeding me thoughts prior to take off.  The sequence would go something like this: “I’m sure this plane is safe.  What if it’s not? They don’t even have those little kiosks for plane crash insurance in the airport like they used to…if they did, I would have gotten some.  If the plane starts going down, will I have enough time to write Mick instructions about all the kids’ activities at school and special circumstances regarding our mommy car pool? Why am I thinking this – of COURSE the plane is safe!…But what if it’s not?”

I also used to politely look at the flight attendant providing instructions for a “water landing” when they were giving their schpiel prior to take off.  I used to purchase airport food more often because I didn’t think about eating before I went in or about packing snacks in my purse.  I used to over pack.  I used to check my ticket fifty times each flight and think about what the next step might be when we landed, such as finding the baggage claim area or the bathrooms.

I used to do a lot of things that drained most of my mental energies and kept me from enjoying my trips when I flew somewhere for business.  Not any more.  A combination of grown children, flying three or four places per year over the past decade, and becoming familiar with most of the major U.S. airports has done wonders for my psychological state during business trips.

Yesterday I flew to Atlanta.  I normally allow myself one luxury item per trip and that usually takes the form of some fiction paperback I can finish on the first day.  I had already purchased my copy of John Grisham’s “Ford County Stories” for the flight (you know, Grisham – because I was headed to the South?) and was walking toward the Delta gate when I spied a small Sonic in the fast-food conglomerate past the bookstore.  “Sweet tea.  All I need to top off this delightful reading experience on my way to Atlanta is a Route 44 iced tea from Sonic,” I thought.  I careened left, changing lanes across the packed aisles of walking traffic in the airport and slid into the fast food line safely.

My ½ and ½ tea (I can’t drink straight sweet tea, I ask them to mix it with half unsweetened) was good for having been purchased at a place sporting 90% fried stuff on the menu.  I boarded the plane and began my book.  I don’t remember the flight starting.  I hadn’t really paid attention to the person who was sitting beside me.  I think at one point my right and her left elbows were jockeying for position on the arm rest.  And I was not cognizant of how long the flight would take or even that we had taken off.  I was already deeply entrenched in “Chapter One: Blood Drive;” I was being transported to a scene in a small town where three young men took a detour on their way to give blood for a local friend who had been injured.  I was in fiction heaven.

I was in the middle of “Chapter Three: Fish Files,” page 110 when the plane landed.  I reluctantly closed my book and said hello to the person sitting at my side.  She was from Norman, OK and was headed to Amsterdam to see her son.  I noticed she had a designer bag, perfect make-up and probably dyed her hair based upon the age of her face.  She looked cool and started a conversation with me; she talked cool too.  We chatted for a minute and I reached down to grab my tea.

Having rested in the magazine holder for the entire flight, a film of condensation had begun covering the outside of my Route 44 Sonic Cup and no sooner had I picked it up then it slipped from my fingers and fell to floor of the plane.  I sighed with relief as it landed because the cup remained in an upright position.  “Lucky break of the day,” I thought.  That thought had come too quickly, however, because when I picked the cup up an erratic stream of ½ and ½ tea began to leak out in two different directions.  Huh?  I looked at the bottom of the cup to see my extra long straw had somehow been harpooned right through the bottom of the cup upon impact.  I quickly thought about shoving it into my purse…no! I looked around and decided to put it back on the floor to utilize the pressure of the carpet, somewhat like you would when applying a tourniquet to a bleeding wound.  I turned around to look for any leftover cup the flight attendant missed and was met with a barf bag hovering right in front of my face.

“Barf bag!” my cool seat mate exclaimed, “Try this!”  Perfect.  I slipped the plastic coated bag underneath my Sonic cup and the situation was immediately contained.  I glanced back at my cool seat mate to thank her.  She winked knowingly.  “Those things are really handy,” she said, “For lots of reasons.”

I agreed and made a note to myself to Remember The Barf Bags.  As we headed down the plane aisle I glanced back at my seatmate.  She was reading as she walked in line out the door.

“She must have been flying for TWENTY years,” I thought with admiration.  I saluted her in my head while gripping my barf bag and headed into the airport.

~~

Editor’s Update: 12/7/2010 – make sure and check out our Barf Bag “Throwdown” follow up post written later this fall.

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On The Horizon: Sweet Melody

On the Horizon: Sweet Melody
I have always been a music enthusiast. Whether I was participating in band or a musical, melodies and harmonies have always been a part of my life. I think the main reason why is because music has the power to impact someone’s life. And in the case of a musician in Enid, Okla., the power of music helped shape his life.

In today’s video blog we take a look at a fully educated musician who realized that music would not make him a living. However with the help of CareerTech training and a full time job, he’s still living his musical dreams.
Andy Barth

& nbsp;

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On the Horizon: High Tech High School

I remember high school to be all about chalk boards, books, paper, and pencils…number 2 to be exact. But nowadays, high schools are looking a little bit different. Now when you walk in you might see monitors on the walls advertising for the upcoming pep rally before the Friday night game or what’s new in the cafeteria. Or walk into the library and its more computer lab than books. Changes that have all been made thanks, in great part, to modern technology.

With the invention of smart phones (which are just miniature computers), finding information is quick and easy. Teachers are beginning to value the technology students bring to school with them every day. Instead of getting out the big, heavy reference books, the teachers will just say, “take out your smart phone and look up ???” And the students love it.

In this week’s vlog, we step into Durant High School and see how technology is taking over as a valuable resource.
Alisa Hines

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On the Horizon: Shipping Out

Whether it is in a barge floating the Mississippi to the Gulf, or on a railcar tracking its way across the lower 48, the United States sends goods nationwide. But what happens to those goods once they hit our borders?

The United States has a solid reputation for producing high quality products. While our nation utilizes many of the things produced here, the vast majority of what we manufacture and grow is utilized by millions around the globe.

Oklahoma may have been one of the last territories to become a state, but it ranks high on the list of export markets. In today’s video blog, we take a look at the diverse export market that keeps Oklahoma ahead of the curve and in high demand worldwide.
Andy Barth

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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.