Here is Exactly How it Is…That “Student Getting Into Your Heart” Thing

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Somewhere over the Arkansas-Louisiana border at 40,000 feet I was startled out of my daydreaming state by an announcement coming over the cabin microphone: “Kelly from Edmond? Would you please turn on your call light?”

“Cripes,” I thought to myself.  Then I said it aloud. “Cripes!  I probably dropped my wallet or something.”  I was talking half to myself and half to an OSU student I had met who had lots of questions about flying.  She was sitting across the aisle from me grinning.  “Um…” I started.  Then I made eye contact with the flight attendant who was standing in the first class section and waved weakly.  “Here I am…”  My voice trailed off.  I felt like a child.

The flight attendant saw me, smiled way bigger than should have fit a wallet-losing scenario, and began making her way down the aisle.  When she reached me, she held out her hand and offered me a piece of paper that looked like airline-logo-stuff.  “Here you go,” she said.  “The people in seats one and two sent these to you as their compliments.”

I turned the paper over.  Printed on the back were two coupons, good for a snack or a drink.  I glanced up at her, “Um. Well, thanks!  Can I buy a ‘hug coupon’ from you and send it their way??”  She smiled and returned to the front.

The gift was from the parents of a former drama student of mine I taught approximately 18 years ago.  However, he wasn’t just any student.  This was one of those students who wrestled his way into my heart no matter how hard I tried to keep the door shut. He was brilliant, mischievous (okay, he was a real brat), in trouble constantly, and to this day I still hear from him about once a year. As I fidgeted with the coupons, my thoughts drifted backward…

I allowed him to borrow my car once because his was blocked in and I needed someone to pick up pizza for our set construction day.  He did.  He wanted to do something nice for me.  So, he drove my car five miles further than I expected, filled up my gas tank with his father’s credit card, then drove away with the gas line and pump still attached to my car.  This was before they had “break-away” hoses, so he pulled the entire pump over, and my insurance paid out a $6800 settlement six months later.  A week after that, the gas station closed it’s doors.  Go figure.

This same kid attended at least three of my children’s birthday parties, made a brief showing at my daughter’s wedding, came by for my younger daughter’s high school graduation party, and dressed up as a gumball machine for one particular party when they were younger.  He tied a 55 gallon translucent garbage bag around his knees, filled it with all colors of inflated balloons, then taped the top around his neck. Oh, and two days after my hysterectomy I was lying on my couch at home recovering when he and his new bride stopped their “get away limo,” ran into my house, and gave me a hug in their wedding clothes before leaving for their honeymoon.

This is the same kid that stole the 6-foot blue hippo from a car wash on Broadway in Edmond, Continue reading Here is Exactly How it Is…That “Student Getting Into Your Heart” Thing

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On the Horizon: Lower Taxes – At What Cost?

Politics have always interested me. Whenever a major piece of legislation is on the books, I try to stay involved and apprised of the situation. This year, a bill is heading to the people about Ad Valorem Tax. It will have differing affects on education and agriculture. I have been involved in agriculture my whole life. With my wife studying to be a teacher, I’m torn about what to think.

In this week’s video blog, we take a look at the different impacts this piece of legislation could have on the two industries and speak with two people who both advocate for rural Oklahoma, but have differing views of this bill.
Andy Barth

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Simple Ideas: Apple Cider with a Breath of Rosemary

A serene view helps the cider be that much better.

This morning’s walk to the Intellegentsia coffee house was interrupted by the Chicago marathon.  Everywhere we tried to walk, our path was blocked with thousands of runners being cheered on my a supportive crowd, offering an endless supply of water cups.  Dance music filled the air to add another layer of, “You can DO it!” attitude to the environment.

So we made a contingency plan, and I’m so glad we did.  Our detour led us to one of the first locations my children had tried during our vacation:  GrahamWich, a Graham Elliot restaurant that offered a light breakfast menu and was right around the corner.  The quiche with Swiss cheese was delightful, and the crust especially flaky and tender.

But the apple cider was amazing.  I took a second sip.  Again, the tangy freshness sat with my taste buds but I couldn’t really distinguish any special notes. “Must be the apples,” I thought.  No, the third sip revealed the secret.  On the back of my palate, right before I was tempted with another bit of quiche I found it: rosemary.  Notes of rosemary danced across my tongue, and I smiled. Continue reading Simple Ideas: Apple Cider with a Breath of Rosemary

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My Little Victory Garden: Rustic Baked Hen Legs with White Toscana Poached Pears

Sometimes I think I should change the title of “My Little Victory Garden” posts to “Scrappy Cooking.”  Indeed, the theme is most often: do what you can with what you have.

So this week I once again looked in my freezer for forgotten protein and found…a bulk pack of 14 chicken legs I had purchased on sale for $5.00.  “Okay,” I thought.  “There’s my main dish.  Next, check the garden.”  I couldn’t find my rosemary.  My little plant is only 6″ tall and has been completely swallowed up by my massive pumpkin plant.

Therefore, I used my neighbor’s rosemary.  She had borrowed an egg earlier that day.  I have dibs on her tomatillos she was growing with the seeds I had given her (I pulled my plant up because I thought it was a weed!).  And she’s used my Anaheim and jalapeno peppers no less than six times this summer…okay, you get the drift.  We’re ingredient swappers.  I’ll cherish her forever.

After walking into the house I noticed fruit flies had already started swarming around the lovely D’Anjou pears my parents brought me from Tuttle so I quickly settled on a complementary dish of poached pears and…there! In the back of my refrigerator was a crisp, medium dry bottle of white Toscana (Italian wine from the Tuscany area) taking up space.  I think it has been in there for at least six weeks.  And…that was all I needed to finish my entrée.

If you’d like to cook with me, I’ll share the simple recipe I concocted.  Here we go:

First, mix 1/2 c. olive oil and 1/3 c. balsamic vinegar with 1/2 T. sea salt, 3-4 thinly sliced cloves of garlic, ground pepper to cover the top of the liquid, and one 5″ twig of rosemary.  Strip the rosemary from the twig and mince most of it, careful not to include the tough portions that attached to the twig.  I put in about 25% of my rosemary whole for a pretty look on the baked poultry.

Whisk the marinade together, then put the 7 hen legs plus the marinade in a gallon bag.  Shake, and leave overnight…or AT LEAST for 1.5 hours.

When you’re ready to bake the chicken, arrange in a pan and pour remaining marinade over the meat.  Bake at 375 for 1:15 or 400 for 1 hour.  The skin should be pulling away and darker brown when the meat is done.

While the chicken is roasting it will then be time to poach your pears.  I used all the pears that were ripe and tender, meaning: six.  Therefore, you could probably use about one pear for every two or three chicken legs.

I hardly ever peel my fruit (apologies to all the purists) because I just like to eat pears and apples with the peelings ON…it makes me think I’ve not sacrificed all the vitamins to the compost gods.  So, I destemmed and deseeded my pears then sliced them thinly and as evenly as possible.  It’s important that you try to match the size and density of your slices as closely as possible so they will finish at the same time.

Once the pears were prepped, I skinned and diced one large shallot.  I then sautéed the shallot in about 2.5-3 Tablespoons of butter, until the edges were just turning brown and it had softened nicely.

Next I added the pears and tossed them with the leftover butter, then added about 2/3rd’s bottle of white, med-dry wine to the pan and raised the temperature until the mixture began to simmer.  I added two sprigs of rosemary to the mixture, 1/3 c. sugar, and two slices of lemon and let the mixture cook the pears for about 30 minutes, until the fruit was nicely tender.  I then scooped out all the fruit (as well as the rosemary sprigs) into a bowl and reduced the liquid until a just slightly-thick sauce appeared.

When your chicken is about five minutes from being done, gently place the pears back into the reduction and warm up the mixture.  After you’ve pulled the chicken from the oven, arrange nicely on a platter and dish the poached pears across the top of your meat.

I would suggest serving with some good bread, a mixture of crisp greens and perhaps a side of purple roasted potatoes or a squash medley as your side.  Therefore, your starch, hot, cold, crisp, sweet and savory are all balanced.  Have some chilled Toscana left?  Then you know EXACTLY what to serve with the meal!

One note – the savory/sweet pears are not all that good cold (the shallot & rosemary flavor is a strange combination right out of the refrigerator), so if you’re going to have leftovers, make sure and warm the pears.

I’m glad I had a few moments this evening to share my recipe with you.  How about you?  Have you picked any pears?  Any if so, how have you prepared them?

Take care…Kelly

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Your Personal DNA Mask: Are You Ready for the Big Reveal?

The level of “masking” in the information age is multi-dimensional. 

While personal banking was historically done in person, masks of account numbers and usernames have replaced much of the monetary transactional processes. 

Redditors are known for vehemently guarding the masks behind which their users are cloaked while simultaneously defending the right of free speech. They agree to trust the process of letting their members work out moral and ethical questions as well as decide what is truly funny or agree when an egregious wrong needs to be corrected.

Surveys are now done through links and promises of confidentiality rather than delivered to mailboxes with requests to use return envelopes. News reporting has now (mostly) perfected the computer voice change software so that interviews done with shadow profiles and deep voices lend a mask to what otherwise the interviewee just couldn’t bear to reveal.

And now?  In what seems like the blink of an eye, scientists at the Human Genome Project have gone from embarking upon their massive task to completing the identification of approximately 30K genes and potentially “3 billion chemical base pairs” that make up human DNA.

This process has raised a plethora of new “mask-type” questions: How do we approach fairness in the use of information? What are the psychological and/or stigmatizations of any gene-based revelations? What about laws, patents, commerce, reproductive rights, validity, reliability, mistakes?…The list of questions is seemingly as long as the double helix models embedded in every science classroom across the country.

But what are the answers?  And, what is the answer for YOU?

In just a short period of time, you’ve now been given the opportunity to find out just where the propensity of your historical and/ancestral DNA was derived.  In other words, you can now find out from where you’ve come.  By lifting this mask, thousands of people have now revealed the answers to some of their deepest questions…only to find more.  Or, to find out answers that others wish had remained hidden.

But soon, the “thousand dollar personalized DNA testing” package may become another reality for you. You may now be able to find out where you are going.

Do you want to know what traits you carry and how your genetic makeup is either vulnerable to various diseases or reveals strengths of which you had not have been aware?  Do you want to see your information on an app where you can search through result after result and look up corresponding information? 

Do you want one of your most personalized masks to be removed?  Are you willing to fork over one thousand dollars to pull it off?  What if it were free?  What if it were collected and stored into a national database?  What if you find out something you would really rather never, ever know?

I would imagine that when humans remove a mask…any mask…that decision is preceeded with some degree of anxiety.  Even if that anxiety is only based in thoughts such as, “I wonder if my hair is now messed up or my mascara smeared?” But there is a national, perhaps even world-wide, anxiety about what the removal of our personal DNA mask means.  And it may be time for you to think your opinions through…before someone removes that mask without your permission.

So, are you prepared for the “big reveal?”

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Photo used by permission from ChaTo’s Flickr Account

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