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When I got back from Europe, one of the first things I did was go down and see our horses, breathe in their scent, along with the smell of sunshine on straw, and all the aromas of the out of doors carried on a gentle breeze. I've lived a lot of places in my life but this has become the only one I truly feel is home.
The first meal I made for el jefe when he came home was good old-fashion cheese runzas, at his request. I hadn't made any in a long time, but they were a big hit with everybody. I made two dozen, figuring that I would freeze most of them, but they all got gobbled down in double time, with requests I make more. Well, maybe next week. I served them with homemade French fries and a French bistro salad. Dessert was nutmeg apple pie with vanilla ice cream, both homemade, of course, the ice cream made with cream from our own cows. All the greens as well as the potatoes, cabbage and apples came from our own garden, garden greenhouse and root cellar, the cheese from a nearby cheese factory that is supplied by a local creamery.
The two most requested desserts I make are applesauce cake and banana bread. My mother and I, with my mini-me helping, make lots of applesauce from our apple trees, preserving it in mason jars, but the bananas come from the grocery store. They make the best banana bread when the skins are turning black. The next in popularity are pies of all varieties, then donuts. Donuts take a lot of work and are hard to fry just right. Cookies are only popular, it seems, around Christmastime. I don't know why. But in that season I also make plum pudding and my own fruitcake, which actually tastes good, as well as fudge. People seem to prefer peanut butter fudge to chocolate fudge. Throughout the year, I always make sure to have some variety of cake available, usually carrot or spice cake. When the spirit moves me, I make angel food cake or Japanese castella sponge cake. Chocolate cake seems just for birthdays, one of my boys likes it with chocolate icing decorated with walnuts and the other likes it with gooey coconut icing decorated with maraschino cherries. My mini-me likes it with butterscotch icing decorated with pecans. Last year she said she wanted an oatmeal cake. I think it's because oatmeal is her favorite breakfast. I didn't know how to make that but found a recipe in my grandmother's 1942 cookbook for such a cake with coconut-almond frosting. It was really good.
I'm always baking bread and rolls. That's something we never buy. I make all varieties, from good old standard white bread to whole wheat, sourdough, English muffins, potato bread, baguettes, Italian, French and rye, to pumpernickel. Hot rolls and assorted muffins, as well.
A typical hearty dinner I serve is a garden salad, soup -- something like French onion -- roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed peas and corn topped with butter or green beans mixed with bits of fried bacon, steamed carrots and broccoli topped with mayonnaise, or maybe honey-baked carrots, yellow squash fried crispy in butter, and plenty of fresh-baked hot rolls. If the spirit moves me, I may make Yorkshire pudding, too. Dessert could be anything from flan to pecan pie. The drink during the meal is usually lemon water. Nobody really cares for wine and those who like beer don't enjoy it as a dinner drink. But if a guest wanted wine, for this meal I think I'd serve a syrah; if he preferred applejack, I'd serve him that. After dinner is coffee. I've saved a chair for you, come sit down and dig in -- and you'll enjoy the conversation as much as the meal!
One of the things I've done since leaving the Navy is let my hair grow. I intend to just let it grow and grow. Before I joined up I had long hair. I was very proud of it and it pained me to have it cut. Now, with pregnancy, my hair is thick and shiny and seems to grow longer by the hour. My mother brushes it for me, one-hundred strokes every day. Looking at me, she says my face is more relaxed than it has been in a long time. She noticed me becoming less rigid in bearing and less emotionally self-contained in the days after I left the Navy and came to live on the ranch. Now she says I am getting back to the way I used to be, a girly-girl. I hope so. I always thought I was a girly-girl, but I guess to others I was not. El Jefe said much the same thing when we got together last summer. He noticed a distinctly more feminine me than I was before and he very much approved. He called me his golden-haired beauty. That was sweet of him. I hope I can always be that for him.
I lost my high school sweetheart, as I've written, and I don't think I could take losing my husband. I want to grow old with him just as my parents have grown old together and my grandparents did. Should I lose him, I would never re-marry or enter into any kind of relationship with a new man. I like to banter, flirt with and tease guys, but that's as far as it goes. I don't even do that as much as I used to. It seems kind of silly at this point in my life, especially since it furthers nothing I want to happen.
When I say to friends that I would never remarry, one thing they often ask is what about my boys, don't they need a male role model and don't you need help raising them? Well, there is that. I don't know. But the thought of turning my face to the man in my bed and it's not el jefe but some stranger I cannot countenance. I have and always will have only one husband. I used to think that my father could be a role model for and an aid in raising my boys should something happen to el jefe, but now I realize that he won't always be with us, and the same is true of my uncles. My brothers are not available, both far away except for occasional visits, one being a career naval officer and the other a forest ranger. Besides, they have their own families. So there would be no men to help me raise my boys. I guess I would have to rely on God for help. Is that a vain hope?
Now I've gone and depressed myself. Why do I think these thoughts? I usually break out of my gloomy moods by dancing. My brain shuts down then and I'm just an animal living in the moment. But now I don't dare do that. Maybe I could shuffle a few steps, but that's about it. So I will just think back in my mind's eye to when I could and did dance.
And this sweet old love song (from 1873) is how I wish that my days and my husband's play out:
Darling, I am growing old,
Silver threads among the gold
Shine upon my brow today;
Life is fading fast away.
But, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me.
When your hair is silver white
And your cheeks no longer bright
With the roses of the May,
I will kiss your lips and say,
Oh! My darling, mine alone,
You have never older grown!
Love can never more grow old,
Locks may lose their brown and gold;
Cheeks may fade and hollow grow,
But the hearts that love will know
Never, never winter’s frost and chill;
Summer warmth is in them still.
Do you think there is a disconnect between the two videos? Perhaps, but each is part of life and the stages we travel through it to the inevitable end.
