KS&L 402 My Navy Cooking Disaster! Part 1 by Tina Erwin

       I cook a lot and yet I am still baffled by why so many things went wrong that night.

         I’ve been cooking since I was nine.  

         By the time I was eleven, I was able to routinely prepare an entire meal for six people night after night. So, I know what to do.

         I don’t know; there was just something about this one night that has perplexed me. Really, I know how to cook!

         It’s 1974, I know, the dark ages before cell phones, computers, iPads, laptops and YouTube. It’s so far in the distant past that it is also the time before microwaves, cable TV and Velcro. 

         Anyway, in 1974, my husband and I were both in the Navy, living in New London, Connecticut. He was a dashing Ltjg stationed aboard the USS Benjamin Franklin, SSBN 640 (Blue), as the assistant navigator. I was an Ensign attached to the Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair, Electric Boat Division (where they actually build submarines). I was the Communications officer there.

         Since my husband was on what (and still) is called a ‘two-crew’ submarine, this meant that while one crew is at sea, the other crew is at home enjoying being at home. It’s also the time when you politic, enjoy your wardroom (or the officers on board) by entertaining.

         The Navy is a very political organization. The best way to politic is to entertain and the best way to entertain is to do so over good food. Quiet, intimate dinner parties with wonderful meals and good friends make for enhanced working relationships at sea. For the wives left behind, it helped us to help each other quite a bit more when they guys were out and we also really enjoyed being with such wonderful people.

         So one very cold, wet, wintery Saturday night, I decided to invite Troy’s Executive Officer (XO), the Navigator, the Engineer and their wives over for dinner. Dinner for eight: no problem!

         My menu was ambitious but not outrageous: Clam dip with crudités and crackers, wild rice, beef stroganoff, steamed broccoli with lemon butter, fresh rolls and home made lemon merengue pie for dessert. This is a pretty basic supper: no sweat!

         When you cook, timing is everything, so I decided to make the dessert first. Lemon merengue pie is not hard, but it can be time consuming. I made the crust from scratch, tough to do because as a newly wed, I didn’t own a rolling pin, so I had to use a drinking glass to roll out the dough, but no problem, I can be inventive. Then I needed to juice the lemons but again, I realized that here was another tool I didn’t own, a juicer, but I used a fork instead to get the lemon juice out. I can be clever. I got the juice. I also didn’t own an egg separator for the egg whites, so I used the shells. That always looks so easy on cooking shows, but the jagged edge of the shells has a tendency to snag that yolk. Egg whites don’t become merengue with egg yolk in them. After about a dozen eggs, I finally had enough ‘whites’ for merengue.

         The pie came out perfectly! It smelled glorious! I was triumphant! I let it cool on the counter and then later, I put it in the fridge to chill.

         Next, I followed my recipe for the perfect clam dip – which, in the 1970’s was what you served. I put that off to chill.

         Then I moved on to the stroganoff. I followed the recipe to the letter on this, no deviations. The aroma filled our little on-base house.

         I prepared the broccoli, managed to make the lemon butter and set that aside.

         Finally just before guests were due to arrive, I started the wild rice, again, following the directions to the letter, or so I thought. . . .

         It’s 15 minutes before guests arrive. The table is set, the music is on, the food is on track and Oh My God what is that smell!

         We had two Siamese cats, Sam and Mindy. Sammy was always a bit nervous. Once he saw another cat in the window and passed out cold. Today, he can’t get to the cat box because my sweet husband forgot and closed the door to the cat box room. This made Sammy so upset that he ran around the house screaming and let me tell you Siamese can scream, trying to get us to open the door. But I was cooking. Finally, he was so upset, he had diarrhea in my avocado tree, which was right next to the dining room table. He got our attention really quickly after that.

         Troy and I sprung into action. We then realized that the cat box room was closed off. Once we opened that door for Sammy, he stopped screaming. Then we rushed the plant outside. Once we were back inside we tried to do something to get rid of that staggeringly horrible smell. We opened windows, tried air freshener, opened doors – and it’s winter outside and the house is getting colder and colder and the smell is only mildly dissipating. Finally we found some air freshener and masked that smell. I think the little tree was toast.

         I rushed back into the kitchen and quickly put out the clam dip, crudités, crackers and napkins. Then the doorbell rings!

         See Part 2 next week. . . and yes, there really is going to be a point to this story.

      

      

KS&L 401 That Haunting Fear of Water by Tina Erwin

       

 Some people just love the water. They swim all the time, greatly enjoy every opportunity to go to the beach, use a swimming pool and find happiness in all that splashing all and everyone around them!

         Then there are other people who can pretty much just take it or leave it. Swim, don’t swim, not a big deal to them.

         However, there are those people who just don’t like the water. They learn how to swim grudgingly and you find that they are swept with anxiety when you ask them to directly put their face in the water.

         This fear of the water is so tremendous that some people who know they have to learn to swim, only use the side stroke or back stroke to swim so that they don’t have to get their face wet doing the Australian Crawl stroke.

         What is it about putting their face in the water that leaves them with such overwhelming fear? What is that like? If you are the person who swims like a fish, you’re thinking, what’s the big deal? But if you’re the person who will do almost anything not to get your face wet, then you know what we mean here.

         Consider the Navy Officer Candidate who could not get out of Officer Candidate School until she could demonstrate that she could swim. She really hated swimming; despised getting her face wet. In one incredibly memorable day, the school told 90 women that they had to jump off of a diving board 15’ above the edge of the pool, into the white-bottomed pool below. This was great sport for some of the women but for those who were not only terrified of water but heights as well, it looked like they were all jumping to their own watery graves. In another torturous day, all these women were told to pretend that they were leaping off a carrier deck into burning water and were then being pursued by sharks. Our intrepid officer candidate, terrified of heights (obviously another past life issue) and water in the first place just figured if the fall alone didn’t kill her, she’d be burned to a crisp in the water and eaten alive by the sharks. Not a happy prospect: really not her best day.

         Shudder. . .

         Think about it. There are those people who despise cruises, do not want to get their faces wet in a swimming pool or lake, shower instead of use bath tubs and who find excuses to get out of water sports, and would never dream of going near a pool or swimming alone.

         Whoa! There’s a pattern here!

         Maybe the issue is historical.
         Maybe the person drowned in a past life.

         If you had a past life where you were on a ship that sank, drowned as a child in a swimming pool, were drowned as a witch (a favorite method of death in New England in the 1600s) or even drowned in a bathtub or flood, that memory is now part of your very being.

         There are those people who remember drowning in some past life. If the past life was recent, say the life just before this one that fear is going to be exceptionally raw, and viciously intense. This would explain why some children are fearful of swimming or even bath time as babies. That memory lives within them. This fear is so prevalent, that you cannot just ‘get over it’ or simply erase it from your subconscious memory. It literally, functions as a type of ‘sub-routine’, operating in the background of your day-to-day life. It’s there. You feel it. It’s real for you. But the subroutine only becomes operative when the ‘water in your face’ button is emotionally pushed.

         But there’s more to it than that. When a person drowns, the last organs in the body to give up, ironically, are the kidneys. Not sure why, but this is the case. So, a person who drowned in one life may find that unless he or she is very mindful, there might be problems with their kidneys in the current life. If you don’t believe in past lives then you will never make any of these connections. But if you can bring yourself to be open to this concept, then you can begin to put all kinds of puzzle pieces together to greatly facilitate understanding yourself and/or someone close to you. You can also be perhaps a bit more mindful of how to take good care of your body.

         So back to our plucky officer candidate: why in the world would someone terrified of water, join the Navy? Really, what was she thinking? Probably she joined so that she could be around water enough to overcome that fear. (Of course, she could’ve just joined to find a cool husband, have an adventure, or see the world.) Did she ever overcome her fear of water? Yes, actually, she can now put her face in the water and she owns a swimming pool!

Did she have kidney problems? She did have two extremely serious threats to her kidneys, which she was successful in overcoming. Perhaps as she consciously healed her fear of water, faced it, (because the Navy makes you face all kinds of things about yourself), other elements of her life also healed.

         Do you have to be aware of a past life issue to heal it? No, not really, but it helps. What’s interesting is to look at your current issues and maybe you can get a hint into the past.

         Mortal life is a schoolhouse of learning about yourself and sometimes, you have to read the history books in your own life classroom!

Do Dogs Go to Heaven? by Tina Erwin

                         Zanjeer The Golden Labrador 
              Who Saved Thousands Of Lives

In March 1993, a series of 12 bombs went off across Mumbai, India. The serial blasts left 257 dead and 713 injured. But in the aftermath, an unlikely hero emerged. According to Reuters, a golden Labrador named Zanjeer worked with the bomb squad and saved thousands of lives by detecting "more than 3,329 kgs [7,323.8 pounds] of the explosive RDX, 600 detonators, 249 hand grenades and 6406 rounds of live ammunition." He helped avert three more bombs in the days following the blasts.

The dog died of bone cancer in 2000. He was eight years old.

In the photo, a senior police officer lays a wreath of flowers on Zanjeer as he was buried with full police honors at a widely-attended ceremony.

         Please don't tell me that there is not an entire Divine Reception Committee waiting for this dog, this angel in an animal body, in heaven! There is. This dog had the heart and soul of a lion, the relentless dedication of a thousand soldiers, and the intelligence to know that he had a job to do. And Zanjeer did not stop doing his job until it was completely done. I cannot help but wonder if his bone cancer was not due in part to sniffing so many toxic chemicals over all of those years.
         Think of the animals who have loyally stood by their owners/handlers in a thousand situations. Think of the dogs who stalwartly served in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan helping to identify bombs, warn against deadly situations and taking the same dangerous risks as their human handlers. Think of all of the dogs who sniff out drugs on all of our borders, who comb the desert for drug traffickers.
         Give thanks to all of those tireless service dogs who searched for bodies in the rubble of 9/11.
         In each of these situations above, the dogs suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder right alongside of their owners. Some of them received treatment, many were simply put to sleep, their service to humanity complete. The irony is that new dogs are currently being trained to assist returning US soldiers with PTSD.
         Now ponder all of the service dogs who patiently assist their owners with the most challenging of those difficult days of just living moment to moment. These dogs lead the blind, guide epileptic children to safety before a seizure and assist other disabled souls to enjoy life.
         Any of these canine owners will fiercely argue that their dogs have a tremendous amount of ‘heart’ and the ‘soul’ of a mortal person. The very thought that their beloved companions would not accompany them or meet them in the Heaven World is inconceivable. Transition into the Light is not reserved for mere mortals alone.
         All life forms are evolving. Everything in the Universe is evolving. Part of evolution is performing greater and more significant levels of service. All animals evolve to higher and higher and more intelligent levels of life. Creatures move from a fish school, herd, hive or flock mentality to being able to be part of ‘families’ where they may operate independently, but at the same time remain part of a group. This is different from a hive mentality because individuals in the ‘family’ have the ability to think for themselves although they may each acquiesce to the good of the many. Some animals have the ability to analyze a situation, a trait that is usually reserved for intelligent humans. 
         This is also true for all warm-blooded animals. We are still learning about the intellectual level of marine mammals, and marvel at the memory, intelligence and family values of elephants, monkeys and apes. Horses have a tremendous memory and the endearing stories of horses are known throughout history. The mother instinct of protection that we assume is strongest in human moms is also fierce in all other species.
Having had the privilege of assisting many a soul to that crossover point, I was greatly heartened to see their beloved pet come bounding to meet them. We only know of our treasured pets in their last moments of life when they were emaciated with old age, or gravely injured. Once in the Heaven World, they are restored.
         However, this also begs the question, do all animals cross over? We know that not all humans cross over, but what about animals? I was once asked to clear 10,000 acres of property somewhere outside of Las Vegas. It took me 10 days to do it there was so much there. I expected to see the wagon train casualties of the road west, the deaths by disease, dehydration, snake bit, but I was surprised by the sheer number of horses, mules, oxen, dogs and many wild creatures. Most of what I saw were domesticated animals. Many died so suddenly, they were simply not aware that they had died. Assisting them was especially important.
         Be sure to watch this great video on this subject:
                             Video: Do Dogs Go to Heaven?
        Animals do go to heaven. If you have the ability to assist any dying animal with prayers, with your love, never hesitate to do so. Always ask that Angels of Transition take your precious creature to the Heaven World.  You can also say the following prayer to assist this process:

A Prayer for My Beloved Animal©

By Tina Erwin

Heavenly Father,

I most humbly ask that you

guide my sweet [name of animal] to the

Heaven World

right now.

I ask, Father, that you provide love and healing

to my loyal companion,

my most beloved creature,

my precious [animal’s name].

I ask, Father, that this valiant animal be

embraced with the healing

Light of Divine Love

I send gratitude to you, Father,

for the time I had with this

wonderful gift you sent me, this sweet

and loyal creature.

I pray that my beloved animal

will know how much I love her*

now and forever.

I miss my friend, Father.

Please help me to heal my own aching heart.

Thank you, Father.

Amen

  

*Please change the gender as necessary.

Hunting the Bounty of Turkish Markets

      A very precious friend and his lovely wife live in Turkey, shared this article with me with their own comments at the end.
      As I read this I realized just how little variety we have in our diets, it's all the same, non-vine ripened, tasteless, cardboard food with little to zero vitamins and minerals left. Is it a wonder that this country is now 60% morbidly obese and 50% of this country has some type of cancer?

[This article is from: Hunting the Bounty of Turkish Markets - NYTimes.com 5/29/13 13:54 http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/travel/hunting-the-bounty-of…markets.html?nl=travel&emc=edit_tl_20130525&_r=0&pagewanted=print  May 24, 2013]

Hunting the Bounty of Turkish Markets

By ROBYN ECKHARDT

     On a fine April morning I drove slowly in Marmaris, trailing a woman pulling a wheeled trolley. It was Thursday and I hoped her destination was the weekly market that had drawn me to this tidy resort city on the southwestern coast of Turkey. Soon enough she merged into a stream of pedestrians flowing toward a concrete structure covering an entire city block. At 10:30 a.m. the Marmaris Thursday market was in full swing, arcades packed with shoppers perusing tables heaped with produce, cheeses under glass and seafood glinting in the sunlight.

        I was traveling the region having been inspired by a cookbook, “Aegean Flavours,” written by Didem Senol, a New York-trained Turkish chef whose penchant for cooking in season is on display at her Istanbul restaurant, Lokanta Maya, and her tiny cafe there, Gram. Many of the book’s recipes are  informed by the time Ms. Senol spent heading the kitchen at her father’s

hotel, the Dionysos, on the Bozburun peninsula near Marmaris, where she shopped the city’s market and others in the region.

     “I learned that when a vendor knows you she’ll pull something special — a jam, a cheese — from beneath her stall,” she told me last winter in Istanbul. And so we planned a spring trip centered on those markets, which are especially abundant with foraged leafy vegetables this time of year,

and the restaurants that best make use of them. But just 10 days before our trip Ms. Senol, seven months pregnant, e-mailed that her doctor had

nixed travel. She urged me to go anyway, guided by introductions and a list of her favorite spots.

      I flew from Istanbul to Izmir and drove the easy 154 miles south to Marmaris, where I met Ms. Senol’s father, Ahmet, and his wife, Rim, at the market.

      “What you see here you won’t find in a supermarket,” he said as we drank tea steps from a tub of kirmizi karades, small coral-pink shrimp in season only until June. While Ahmet bought seafood for lunch, Rim and I shopped. Spring was in full bloom: thumbsize morels and globe artichokes hung by their stems over mounds of young favas and peas. There were bunches of mallow, cress, purslane, dandelion, nettles and chicory, and bundles of pencil-thin wild asparagus. A heady perfume hung over a row of wooden bins filled with strawberries. We tasted pine and flower honeys, and I bought half a dozen Marmaris pogaca, flaky rectangles filled with mild fresh cheese. It was an auspicious beginning to my quest.

      After a 45-minute drive along a corkscrew road, I arrived at Dionysos, where Ahmet and his staff were readying lunch, a test run for the season’s start in three weeks. At a table set outside the kitchen we ate smoked mackerel pâté and early pink tomatoes dressed with purple basil and

Dionysos’ own cold-pressed olive oil; kirmizi karades (the shrimp I’d spied at the market) in a light, bright tomato sauce; and sole fillets, rolled and skewered with bay leaves and lemon and grilled over wood. Almonds, another Aegean crop, flavored ice cream served with strawberries. “Not quite there yet,” Rim said of the strawberries, pushing her plate aside, though I finished mine.

     The next day I backtracked toward Marmaris and turned south for Selimiye, a fishing hamlet curled around a glassy bay. After several passes I found Sardunya, a low-key restaurant (there is no signage) right on the water, with comfortable rooms set around a fruit tree-shaded garden behind. When I asked the owner, Muhammet Ozdenir, to whom I should credit the food, he replied, “I have friends in the kitchen; we all cook.”

     At sunset I sat by the water and sampled a dozen meze. The most memorable featured vegetables I’d coveted in Marmaris: turp otu (wild radish leaves) blanched with vinegar; earthy chard; samphire cooked to retain its bite and dressed with lemon, crushed garlic and Mr. Ozdenir’s own olive oil; and sari kiz otu, a bitter green tamed by sweet caramelized onions.

Grilled octopus straight off a neighbor’s boat, served simply in a pool of olive oil and dusted with dried thyme, was as yielding as butter.

Saturday brought the longest leg of my trip, but first I detoured to Datca, on an arid peninsula just north of Bozburun. After passing acres of almond groves, I found the Saturday market, where cagla, the tart, crispy green almonds that enjoy a sliver of a season, were sold next to bags

of mature nuts and almond-stuffed oven-dried figs. I cobbled together a picnic — Bergama cheese, dense village bread, tomatoes and unsalted black olives — and hit the road for Urla, a one-street town with a cozy harbor on the Cesme peninsula, some 230 miles north.

     In the morning I met Ahmet’s school friend Hasan Yamanlar for Urla’s fish auction, which happens every morning (weather permitting) beneath an octagonal canopy steps from the boats. Then I walked five minutes to what Ms. Senol had described as “one of the most inspiring markets” she’d ever seen. With only 30 or so stalls it nonetheless held surprises at every turn:

green figs for marmalade, four varieties each of thyme and sea grass, young leaves of melengec (a tree in the pistachio family) and tangles of mixed wild leaves, shoots and herbs labeled “kavurmalik” (for sautéing) or “boreklik” (for borek, phyllo pastries). At the rear of the market a woman griddled gozleme, paper-thin flatbread filled with whey cheese and wispy wild fennel

fronds.

      More surprises awaited that night at Yengec restaurant on Urla’s harbor, popular for its tremendous meze selection. Trying all 102 was out of the question, so I picked a few: nettles “cooked” in isot pepper, wild fennel simply dressed with lemon, and kaya korugu, a succulent known in English as rock samphire, brined in verjus. In ancient Tire, an inland town some 25 miles from Ephesus, my guides at the Tuesday market, said to be Turkey’s largest, were the Cakirs — father Lutfi and son Serkan — of Kaplan Dag Restoran. Twenty years ago Lutfi, an accomplished baker of breads and pastries, opened the restaurant on a hill above town and began serving local cuisine, which bears influences from Crete. As I followed him through the upper narrow lanes along which the market spread, vendors with 50-pound sacks of wild greens beckoned. After purchasing yogurt, cheese and square loaves of chickpea-yeasted bread, we stopped at the Cakirs’ butcher, who broke down

two 25-pound lambs.

     At Kaplan Dag I helped prep the sevketi bostan, a spiny thistle I’d become somewhat obsessed with after sightings at every market on my itinerary; it would be boiled, mixed with lamb and enriched with avgolemono, a broth of egg and lemon. At lunch the dish, which highlights the unique flavor of the thistle — it fell somewhere between artichoke and asparagus — complemented cold meze: rice-stuffed squash blossoms; a surprising salad of uncooked nettles mixed with chiles, tomato, whey cheese and dried mint; roasted small onions dressed with olive oil and sprinkled with dried thyme and piney melengec leaves. Tire kofte — minced beef molded to a skewer, grilled and then sautéed with tomatoes, crushed red pepper and plenty of butter —

followed.

     Dessert was milky fresh ricotta-like lor topped with sweet mulberry preserves. If I returned in the summer, Serkan said, I’d find a vendor at the Tuesday market selling cups of snow — supposedly collected from the top of a nearby mountain — drizzled with syrup made from the same fruit. I was already plotting my return.

     IF YOU GO

     Reservations are recommended on weekends and during the high season (May to October).

Dionysos Hotel (Kumlubuk; 90-252-476-7959; dionysoshotel.net). Restaurant reservations required. Daily prix fixe about 90 Turkish lira a person, $49 at 1.80 lira to the dollar, including wine.

Sardunya (Selimiye; 90-252-446-4003). Meal for two, without drinks, about 90 lira.

Yengec (Urla Iskele, Izmir; 90-232-752-1152; yengec-restaurant.com). Meal for two, without drinks, about 95 lira.

Kaplan Dag Restoran (Kaplan Village, Tire; 90-232-512-6652; kaplandag.com). Meal for two, without drinks, about 65 lira.

MORE IN TRAVEL (7 OF 26 ARTICLES)

My friend added some additional clarification:

Tina,  I think that the 3x weekly "farmer's market" here in Marmaris is one of the better features of living here.  The prices are in some cases, so reasonable one wonders how the items even get to the market as the cost of fuel is thru the roof.  There is one market here that on Sundays, is predominately manned by the local farmers that grow their own stuff, tomatoes, cucumbers, et al.  So, the stuff was in the ground just a day or two ago.  My wife just returned from visiting family in Tekirova, Kemer, near to Antalya. The lemons she brought back from the local trees are the size of softballs. There are so many there that many are not picked and just fall to ground.  Meat (Lamb and Cow) is expensive. Ground beef, 20% fat is about $6.50 a pound. Filet Mignon is about twice that. Dry aged Beef ribs are about $15/pound.  Lamb is usually more expensive that beef.  Chicken is reasonable. A whole chicken runs about $1.60/pound from the local stores.  Fish: locally caught fish, maybe 12 inches long, like a white fish, not too oily, runs about 3.70 per pound. Sardines usually cost just under $2 per pound. Large fish, like shark, swordfish, tuna, groupers and the like tend to run about $13 pound. Good size shrimp and calamari is about the same.  Bread: Fresh baked 3-4 times a day. The government subsidized white bread costs about 69¢ per pound. All other varieties, rye, wheat, russian, etc about twice that and are baked usually mid-morning to id afternoon.  Hope this adds some clarity to the article. Lee