The rope wasn't much and she didn't know if it was strong enough, but it was the only thing she could find.
Her
feet were covered in mud from the river bank and her shoes slipped each
time she pulled back to tighten her grasp, but she kept hold, gripping
the nylon cord until she couldn't feel her fingers, to keep the baby's
face from being submerged.
This is the image she had in her head when she noticed
that the screaming had stopped and that it had been coming from her own
mouth the entire time.
She wasn't sure how long the
policeman had been standing there asking questions, or when the doctor,
who was now pulling an amber-colored liquid into a long syringe, had
arrived. She hadn't called him, had she? She didn't remember being
inside the house at all.
It was so loud.
Unbearable.
All the time.
You
could never have told her that one child could make so much noise or mess. He spent most
of the morning at preschool and the afternoon at her mother's until
she picked him up on her way home from work, but the amount of suffering
he put her ears through in the few hours a day she spent with him was
like the torture she'd seen on TV when they did the thing where the
prisoner is blasted by awful music every few minutes. The relentless
jarring of the nerves is worse than the water-boarding, some have said
and she could believe it.
Thursday.
Just a Thursday.
Change the diaper, make the breakfast, do the dishes, pick up the blocks, vacuum the living room, fold the laundry.
There was no explanation. She knew if she thought about it, she wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it, and there was no more not doing it, so she simply tucked the last sock into it's mate and walked over to where the baby was playing. She picked him up and carried him into the bathroom where the tub had been filling with warm water.
She told the investigator this fact, the warming of the bath, so that he would know she cared, that it mattered to her that the water was womb-like.
She held her son then, held his head, stroked his hair, felt the fat, padded bottoms of his feet on her thigh, and told him how much she loved him. She kissed this into both his eyelids and tickled it into his nose with hers and then she stood up, turned, and plunged him headfirst into the water.
Later she would tell the doctor that she couldn't remember what happened next, but that was not the truth. What happened was the thing that would eat her heart out of her insides if the court did not decide to kill her, this remembering, of the tiny body thrashing as she pushed down.
He had fought hard, that boy of hers, kicking until his lungs filled, and when he became limp in her arms, she let go and started screaming.
That's the thing they don't tell you about the voice in your head shrieking SILENCE, about this word called mother.
There is no relief, not a moment of peace in the quarter of a bloody hole that wrenched out your borne.
She knew this when she turned on the faucet.
She knew it when the stretcher wheeled out a small black bag and loaded it into the white van.
She especially knew it when the walls of the white room started howling each night that
there is never, ever silence because that sound you can't get rid of is your blood still living and it won't ever be quiet until you are the one who is drowned.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Django. Unchained.
A tiny town about 75 miles west of the farm where my great-great grandpa had workers who were not slaves because it wasn't allowed anymore even though they lived on the property, did the dirtiest of work, were paid with food scraps and an outhouse, and were called Negroes instead of men when written about as if they were a different species, altogether.
Eric Bishop was an exceptionally talented football player, student, and classical pianist. He would perform at the holiday parties of the elite in the area. How brightly-lit the houses, so gleaming the cars in the circular driveways.
It was at one of these colonial palaces that he had a life-changing moment when he knocked on the door and was greeted by what may or may not have been a perfectly pleasant man in all other ways. The story gets twisted. It's hard to be objective when you have human feelings and teams to pick. We get not being evolved confused with being an evil person.
The gentleman who answered the door gave Mr. Bishop a perfunctory greeting, and then followed with "your friend has to wait outside. I can't have two niggers in my house at one time'.*
And I thought being called fat was bad.
I am not going to put asterisks in the word like you all do. If I said it, I want you to roll the ugliness of it around on your tongue. We can't get rid of the ugliness until we really taste it. What do asterisks taste like? When we spit it into the napkin and tell the hostess it was tasty it doesn't help her be a better cook. I digress.
I know this because it was told to me by Mr. Bishop, now Mr. Foxx, at the Standard Hotel on a golden April day ten years ago. He related it to me as context after telling me that 'TC' (Tom Cruise) was the only 'white dude allowed in his house'. He must have realized what an odd thing to say it was so he gave me the details. You guys know I can't pass up a good story.
So I asked him how it made him feel. That's all. Floodgate opened. Holy fuck. Imagine that. A white girl asks a total stranger, a movie star, even, how he felt getting called a nigger. Wait. Is an honest conversation about race relations in America about to happen? Holy fucking crap. No way. YES WAY.
YES WAY YES WAY YES WAY.
You guys give the words so much power that you are all scared of them. They are words. They have no actual power. Asteroids and hurricanes have actual power.
Maybe you have to be on that side of it to feel safe talking about it. Maybe when you get called fat or fag or nigger a few times you are less invested in societal pleasantries than straight white liberal arts graduates who lived with their parents until after college and have never been truly fucked with in any substantial way but now rule the airwaves discussing bloody, gutty, true real tragedy in one breath and organic turkey in the next.
I don't know.
I spent all night talking to him about it. He even took a shower while I climbed around on that foot. Not putting out with anything but my brain. So fresh and so clean. He answered and asked and it was like every episode of all the Tavis Smiley/Rachel Maddow shows should be because Mr. Foxx is a warrior. A Gladiator, if you will and love Olivia Pope like I do.
Gladiators fight the lions while the Romans watch and comment. Gladiators kill the monsters you're sure live under your bed. Gladiators are not shocked and indignant when someone's throat is ripped out of their neck. Gladiators pick up that guy's shield and keep going.
Don't be scared to ask and say and do. Don't keep the truth hidden in your drawers. Get in the ring and swing your sword a few times. Gladiate.
*edited to reflect actual verbage. When Django came out a few years later, this was the story Mr. Foxx toldand though I'd already heard it, I may have gotten the words mixed up 5 margaritas deep. Sue me.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Slumped
She put her heart in a box every Tuesday and took it to the market.
It was a small box, because it was a small heart.
It sat on a bookcase in the corner of her living room for many years, and by the time it began it's weekly trip outside, it was not much larger than a tangerine.
She had tried keeping it in the freezer because she had read this would keep the heart fresh and when she was ready to use it, it would be good as new, but the heart got a bad case of freezer-burn. She had to cut away a great deal of it and afterward, she decided that she should be careful with the piece she had left.
The heart now lived in the closet under a pile of band t-shirts that belonged to people who had borrowed it to write songs about. These people would always forget to return it and she would have to retrieve it from tables covered with dirty ashtrays or the bunks of tour buses where it was tossed back and forth, like a football, between shows.
Her doctor had suggested bringing her heart out every week, as an exercise, and though this made her very nervous, she agreed to try. This doctor was very expensive and required the taking of three buses to get to his office, so she did not want to have made such effort for nothing. She chose Tuesdays and said she would let him know if she needed another appointment.
That was when she got the box.
It was a wooden rectangle, lined with turquoise silk. She liked how pretty the red looked against the bright blue cloth.
The first time she took it to the market she did not know where to put it. Other people had fancy tables to display their hearts, but she had only brought her backpack. She set the box on a patch of ground that looked mostly clean, leaned against the railing of the staircase that led down to Steiner's Seafood Grotto, and waited.
The box was very quickly picked up by a boy with curly brown hair who liked the shape of it. He took it home and tried to play video games with the heart and get it to make snacks for him but that is not what hearts are for.
When it couldn't do what he wanted he threw it against the wall and shouted "this heart is stupid. I hate it!" He crammed it into a plastic grocery bag and brought it back to her. She took it to her room and put it back in the closet until the bruises had healed. A few months later she decided it was ready to be taken out again.
The next time at the market, she made potential owners fill out a questionnaire. Which television shows they watched. The kind of charcuterie they got at the little deli around the corner. One man had very good answers, ones that made her laugh, so she agreed to let him take the box back over the bridge to the big city he lived in. He really liked the heart but he had only wanted one to look at every few days and perhaps remember what it was like to have one in the house. The heart got lonely and decided it would rather sit under a pile of shirts that were worn-in and comfortable than be pulled out and polished until it just started to sparkle, and then be shoved right back into a cabinet for another week.
She had just about given up on her doctor's advice when she heard about a man who had a shop in the basement of the market. For a small price he would cast her heart in glass so it would stay the same forever. No more ache or pain. Always red, young and beautifully detached.
She took the box and her Virgin de Guadalupe piggy bank to the shop and asked the lady outside smoking a cigar if she was in the right place.
"Have it belong just to you, right? No one messing with it anymore? Sure, Sugar" the woman said, "We get gals like you in here ALL the time. Usually they're a bunch fatter or have a mess of tattoos or Botox by now. Congratulations. Sixty-five dollars. Cash or Discover card."
She felt like this was a very good price to make sure her heart was fossilized and no further harm could come to it so she handed the lady three twenty-dollar bills and one five and opened the tinted glass door.
She was surprised to find herself in a room with a large square furnace burning in the center of it. She had thought it would be like dropping off something to get framed or gift-wrapped and she wasn't sure what to expect.
There was a large man with a beard and Mickey Mouse ears standing at the door of the fire. He looked like a bear dressed like a clown dressed like Santa and she liked him immediately.
"Hey, Ladybug" he growled at her, but in a nice way. "You lost? You don't look like you have a problem with your parts"
She didn't know how to answer. He was right. There were no problems with her parts. She just wanted to protect them.
She held out the box and said 'I wanted my heart to grow, but it didn't, so now I want you to save the part that is left'.
He took it from her and looked inside.
"That is a very nicely formed heart" he said to her. "Even the part that is missing is well-healed and seems to be working just fine"
"But every time I give it to someone they hurt it and it makes me sad. I just want you to put it in a glass and it won't feel that way anymore"
The man had seen girls like this before. And it made him glad that he had chosen a profession that really, truly helped people.
"Leave it with me, Kitten. It should be ready by 5"
She handed him the box and went to eat pizza and look in the windows of the antique stores that lined the bottom floor of the market.
A few hours later she had had three slices of sausage and mushroom, a piece of rum cake, a root beer, and purchased a brass bottle opener shaped like a monkey. She returned to the shop and knocked, since the shades were now pulled over the windows and the woman with the cigar was gone.
After several attempts, she started to worry that maybe leaving her heart in the basement with a strange bearded man was a bad idea when the door flew open and Mickey-Santa yanked her inside.
"Wait until you see it, " he howled with glee, "I've never done anything like this one!!!"
And he hadn't.
When a heart is immersed in molten silica, it incinerates. Most of his previous clients had been fine with having their organs resembling mesquite coals as long as it meant that they were never subjected to the pain that comes with having a fleshy, beating heart exposed to the world for it to kick until bloody.
This heart was different. When cast, it exploded into a crimson rainbow. The muddy brown of decay and the Crayola red of birth and intention, and it swirled into purple and blue and then red again.
It almost made him sad to give it back to her, but when he saw her face light up, he knew that he had achieved what all artists hope for, and that is pure emotion.
She was very pleased with her new heart.
It was heavy and a thousand times more fragile than it had been before and yet seemed so impenetrable and she knew she had made the right choice.
When she got home she almost put it back on the shelf in the closet but decide to put it on the windowsill instead.
Now that it couldn't be hurt anymore, it was time to let in the light.
It was a small box, because it was a small heart.
It sat on a bookcase in the corner of her living room for many years, and by the time it began it's weekly trip outside, it was not much larger than a tangerine.
She had tried keeping it in the freezer because she had read this would keep the heart fresh and when she was ready to use it, it would be good as new, but the heart got a bad case of freezer-burn. She had to cut away a great deal of it and afterward, she decided that she should be careful with the piece she had left.
The heart now lived in the closet under a pile of band t-shirts that belonged to people who had borrowed it to write songs about. These people would always forget to return it and she would have to retrieve it from tables covered with dirty ashtrays or the bunks of tour buses where it was tossed back and forth, like a football, between shows.
Her doctor had suggested bringing her heart out every week, as an exercise, and though this made her very nervous, she agreed to try. This doctor was very expensive and required the taking of three buses to get to his office, so she did not want to have made such effort for nothing. She chose Tuesdays and said she would let him know if she needed another appointment.
That was when she got the box.
It was a wooden rectangle, lined with turquoise silk. She liked how pretty the red looked against the bright blue cloth.
The first time she took it to the market she did not know where to put it. Other people had fancy tables to display their hearts, but she had only brought her backpack. She set the box on a patch of ground that looked mostly clean, leaned against the railing of the staircase that led down to Steiner's Seafood Grotto, and waited.
The box was very quickly picked up by a boy with curly brown hair who liked the shape of it. He took it home and tried to play video games with the heart and get it to make snacks for him but that is not what hearts are for.
When it couldn't do what he wanted he threw it against the wall and shouted "this heart is stupid. I hate it!" He crammed it into a plastic grocery bag and brought it back to her. She took it to her room and put it back in the closet until the bruises had healed. A few months later she decided it was ready to be taken out again.
The next time at the market, she made potential owners fill out a questionnaire. Which television shows they watched. The kind of charcuterie they got at the little deli around the corner. One man had very good answers, ones that made her laugh, so she agreed to let him take the box back over the bridge to the big city he lived in. He really liked the heart but he had only wanted one to look at every few days and perhaps remember what it was like to have one in the house. The heart got lonely and decided it would rather sit under a pile of shirts that were worn-in and comfortable than be pulled out and polished until it just started to sparkle, and then be shoved right back into a cabinet for another week.
She had just about given up on her doctor's advice when she heard about a man who had a shop in the basement of the market. For a small price he would cast her heart in glass so it would stay the same forever. No more ache or pain. Always red, young and beautifully detached.
She took the box and her Virgin de Guadalupe piggy bank to the shop and asked the lady outside smoking a cigar if she was in the right place.
"Have it belong just to you, right? No one messing with it anymore? Sure, Sugar" the woman said, "We get gals like you in here ALL the time. Usually they're a bunch fatter or have a mess of tattoos or Botox by now. Congratulations. Sixty-five dollars. Cash or Discover card."
She felt like this was a very good price to make sure her heart was fossilized and no further harm could come to it so she handed the lady three twenty-dollar bills and one five and opened the tinted glass door.
She was surprised to find herself in a room with a large square furnace burning in the center of it. She had thought it would be like dropping off something to get framed or gift-wrapped and she wasn't sure what to expect.
There was a large man with a beard and Mickey Mouse ears standing at the door of the fire. He looked like a bear dressed like a clown dressed like Santa and she liked him immediately.
"Hey, Ladybug" he growled at her, but in a nice way. "You lost? You don't look like you have a problem with your parts"
She didn't know how to answer. He was right. There were no problems with her parts. She just wanted to protect them.
She held out the box and said 'I wanted my heart to grow, but it didn't, so now I want you to save the part that is left'.
He took it from her and looked inside.
"That is a very nicely formed heart" he said to her. "Even the part that is missing is well-healed and seems to be working just fine"
"But every time I give it to someone they hurt it and it makes me sad. I just want you to put it in a glass and it won't feel that way anymore"
The man had seen girls like this before. And it made him glad that he had chosen a profession that really, truly helped people.
"Leave it with me, Kitten. It should be ready by 5"
She handed him the box and went to eat pizza and look in the windows of the antique stores that lined the bottom floor of the market.
A few hours later she had had three slices of sausage and mushroom, a piece of rum cake, a root beer, and purchased a brass bottle opener shaped like a monkey. She returned to the shop and knocked, since the shades were now pulled over the windows and the woman with the cigar was gone.
After several attempts, she started to worry that maybe leaving her heart in the basement with a strange bearded man was a bad idea when the door flew open and Mickey-Santa yanked her inside.
"Wait until you see it, " he howled with glee, "I've never done anything like this one!!!"
And he hadn't.
When a heart is immersed in molten silica, it incinerates. Most of his previous clients had been fine with having their organs resembling mesquite coals as long as it meant that they were never subjected to the pain that comes with having a fleshy, beating heart exposed to the world for it to kick until bloody.
This heart was different. When cast, it exploded into a crimson rainbow. The muddy brown of decay and the Crayola red of birth and intention, and it swirled into purple and blue and then red again.
It almost made him sad to give it back to her, but when he saw her face light up, he knew that he had achieved what all artists hope for, and that is pure emotion.
She was very pleased with her new heart.
It was heavy and a thousand times more fragile than it had been before and yet seemed so impenetrable and she knew she had made the right choice.
When she got home she almost put it back on the shelf in the closet but decide to put it on the windowsill instead.
Now that it couldn't be hurt anymore, it was time to let in the light.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Meadowbrook
When the nurses in the delivery ward of a hospital receive word that a
patient is incoming with a stillborn, an entirely different set of
procedures are put in place. The first thing you notice, if you've been
previously admitted for a regular birth, is the lack of urgency. AT ALL.
There are no monitors, no one scurries in to make you comfortable or
begins an endless series of tests. There is simply silence. The door
opens periodically. A nurse who just began her shift who hasn't been
told, or a chaplain who offers solace and Last Rites for the child who
never had any to begin with.
When you ask the doctor about the C-section that must be forthcoming (because who would expect a woman to deliver a dead baby, surely you must just cut it out and end the nightmare quickly) you are informed that that is a very dangerous thing to do and the best way is to just let the fetus expel itself. "Let the fetus expel itself" is not mentioned in the baby books or at BabiesRUs when you are shopping for onesies.
So you get a shot of pitocin and wait alone until the cramps come. Cramps so wrenching, you may as well be having the baby. Or dying. A gunshot doesn't feel worse than this pain.You get the shot and endure. Endure is a good word for this. Flip through the channels waiting for your husband to come back after he drops the three year-old off at Nana's. The three year-old is excited to have a baby brother or sister. You aren't sure which. You'd asked to not be told so everyone could be surprised. Life has so few real surprises anymore, you had thought. What an idiot.
He arrives right when the insides of your body have begun churning and clenching. The doctor comes in and asks if you want the epidural. Can it be administered to my heart and brain? No? Fine. Get it over with. Just get it all over with.
Instead of the birth certificate people showing up, the people from the funeral home come and volunteer to inter your child however you would like. For free, even, as long as you select the basic design, just like a checking account. You are not a plain with address-type so you pick one that looks like a beautiful Indian hand-grenade. A cremated baby takes very little space and you don't live near a family cemetery. It seems appropriate.
When it is time and the contractions aren't stopping, the doctor and nurse come in with a tray and a pink bucket. The kind they might toss a tumor into during surgery. Your baby. The one you carried and talked to and loved and had hopes and dreams for is going in a pink plastic tub like it is a piece of useless trash.
That is when you want to die and you close your eyes and talk to your 3 year-old in your brain and tell him Mommy is going to be home really soon and you're sorry he's not a big brother and you talk to God and tell him he's a fucking asshole and you hate him forever because of this and when the baby finally comes you can't even look, let alone hold it.
If either of those things happen, you will go a kind of crazy that there is no coming back from.
They take your girl away. Yes. It was a daughter. Your husband, for all his faults and inadequacies, had the balls to see her and kiss her and be with her and you don't. You failed. YOU FAILED.
You will not be able to look at or touch a baby for the next four years without having to excuse yourself to go shriek silently in an alone place or hyperventilate.
You know that there are women walking around everywhere who this has happened to and no one ever talks about it. You are not one of those women.
------------------------------
The phone rang at 4:45 am, jerking the sheriff out of his dream and into the tiny den off of the kitchen that he'd been sleeping in ever since Pam died. He couldn't bring himself to sell the house. It was full of the memories of everything good that had happened in the last 20 years. He also couldn't stand the idea of laying in the bed they had shared,or getting rid of it, so every night he climbed into the tiny twin that he had bought for the nurses and home workers, and twisted the ring on his left hand around and around until he fell asleep.
His first thought at the sound of the ring was to let it go. If it was an emergency, Dwayne or Myrna would start calling on the radio and if it was anyone else, well, it was his day off.
RRRRINGG
Whoever it was had better be bleeding.
-------------------------------------
Meadowbrook was a bit of a misnomer.
There was no meadow to speak of, just a few chicken and dairy farms covering about two square miles in the corner of Hopkins County. As far as anyone could remember, there had never been anything so much as resembling a brook, although Glover Rayburn swore there was a trout pond there once that got hit by lightening in '66. "Biggest fish-fry you ever set your eyes on", he'd tell anyone who asked.
The police department had two employees, including the sheriff. The dispatcher was the deputy's wife who came in at night to bring him dinner and keep him company while they watched Golden Girls reruns on TV Land. During the day, the calls were routed through Wood County since they usually had a grand total of four cars driving around at any given time.
When Wichita Foster opened the manila folder Garland had left on his desk and took a look at the girl they had brought in the night before, he was surprised to see a pair of clear blue eyes and the pretty face of a girl who looked to be the same age as his daughter.
The surprise wasn't that she was attractive. It was her expression. There was not a hint of sadness in her face. Not a mean pull at the corners of her mouth, no squint or glare. None of the usual hardness or anger he was used to finding on the faces of these young women who turn so violent.
He wasn't sure where he stood on genetics vs. environment but he was sure this girl had come from a good
family.
He'd have been half right. Esper Parker was a drunk, but he was a friendly one who worked hard to feed those kids and keep a roof over their heads after their daddy drowned.
When you ask the doctor about the C-section that must be forthcoming (because who would expect a woman to deliver a dead baby, surely you must just cut it out and end the nightmare quickly) you are informed that that is a very dangerous thing to do and the best way is to just let the fetus expel itself. "Let the fetus expel itself" is not mentioned in the baby books or at BabiesRUs when you are shopping for onesies.
So you get a shot of pitocin and wait alone until the cramps come. Cramps so wrenching, you may as well be having the baby. Or dying. A gunshot doesn't feel worse than this pain.You get the shot and endure. Endure is a good word for this. Flip through the channels waiting for your husband to come back after he drops the three year-old off at Nana's. The three year-old is excited to have a baby brother or sister. You aren't sure which. You'd asked to not be told so everyone could be surprised. Life has so few real surprises anymore, you had thought. What an idiot.
He arrives right when the insides of your body have begun churning and clenching. The doctor comes in and asks if you want the epidural. Can it be administered to my heart and brain? No? Fine. Get it over with. Just get it all over with.
Instead of the birth certificate people showing up, the people from the funeral home come and volunteer to inter your child however you would like. For free, even, as long as you select the basic design, just like a checking account. You are not a plain with address-type so you pick one that looks like a beautiful Indian hand-grenade. A cremated baby takes very little space and you don't live near a family cemetery. It seems appropriate.
When it is time and the contractions aren't stopping, the doctor and nurse come in with a tray and a pink bucket. The kind they might toss a tumor into during surgery. Your baby. The one you carried and talked to and loved and had hopes and dreams for is going in a pink plastic tub like it is a piece of useless trash.
That is when you want to die and you close your eyes and talk to your 3 year-old in your brain and tell him Mommy is going to be home really soon and you're sorry he's not a big brother and you talk to God and tell him he's a fucking asshole and you hate him forever because of this and when the baby finally comes you can't even look, let alone hold it.
If either of those things happen, you will go a kind of crazy that there is no coming back from.
They take your girl away. Yes. It was a daughter. Your husband, for all his faults and inadequacies, had the balls to see her and kiss her and be with her and you don't. You failed. YOU FAILED.
You will not be able to look at or touch a baby for the next four years without having to excuse yourself to go shriek silently in an alone place or hyperventilate.
You know that there are women walking around everywhere who this has happened to and no one ever talks about it. You are not one of those women.
------------------------------
The phone rang at 4:45 am, jerking the sheriff out of his dream and into the tiny den off of the kitchen that he'd been sleeping in ever since Pam died. He couldn't bring himself to sell the house. It was full of the memories of everything good that had happened in the last 20 years. He also couldn't stand the idea of laying in the bed they had shared,or getting rid of it, so every night he climbed into the tiny twin that he had bought for the nurses and home workers, and twisted the ring on his left hand around and around until he fell asleep.
His first thought at the sound of the ring was to let it go. If it was an emergency, Dwayne or Myrna would start calling on the radio and if it was anyone else, well, it was his day off.
RRRRINGG
Whoever it was had better be bleeding.
-------------------------------------
Meadowbrook was a bit of a misnomer.
There was no meadow to speak of, just a few chicken and dairy farms covering about two square miles in the corner of Hopkins County. As far as anyone could remember, there had never been anything so much as resembling a brook, although Glover Rayburn swore there was a trout pond there once that got hit by lightening in '66. "Biggest fish-fry you ever set your eyes on", he'd tell anyone who asked.
The police department had two employees, including the sheriff. The dispatcher was the deputy's wife who came in at night to bring him dinner and keep him company while they watched Golden Girls reruns on TV Land. During the day, the calls were routed through Wood County since they usually had a grand total of four cars driving around at any given time.
When Wichita Foster opened the manila folder Garland had left on his desk and took a look at the girl they had brought in the night before, he was surprised to see a pair of clear blue eyes and the pretty face of a girl who looked to be the same age as his daughter.
The surprise wasn't that she was attractive. It was her expression. There was not a hint of sadness in her face. Not a mean pull at the corners of her mouth, no squint or glare. None of the usual hardness or anger he was used to finding on the faces of these young women who turn so violent.
He wasn't sure where he stood on genetics vs. environment but he was sure this girl had come from a good
family.
He'd have been half right. Esper Parker was a drunk, but he was a friendly one who worked hard to feed those kids and keep a roof over their heads after their daddy drowned.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Mt. Pleasant
When a rat-fucking son-of-a-bitch like Ed Horne turns up dead there's two things for certain.
Ain't nobody going to be real surprised.
Ain't nobody gonna be real sorry, neither.
-------------------
From the Sulpher Springs Telegraph Sunday July 20, 1924:
MAN DROWNS AS WIFE LOOKS ON UNABLE TO HELP
James E. Horne, city employee, latest drowning victim.
Stepping from shallow, into water ten feet deep as he seined for minnows in the levee "bar pits"along the Trinity River a mile and a half past Grauwyler Bridge, James Edward Horne, aged 38, a foreman in the city street and bridge department, drowned late Saturday as his wife and daughter looked on, helpless to aid. John Price, negro and city employee, who lives on the Horne place, tried unavailingly to save the drowning man's life.
Horne is the eleventh person to drown in this county this year. Price asserted that Mr. Horne was able to only swim a few strokes and that his heavy shoes and clothes hampered him in his effort to regain the shore and dragged him down to his death.
"We had been in the pit just a few moments, using the little seine when Mr. Ed went under all of a sudden, " Price declared. "He came up twice and got hold of the seine, crying for me to help him. I tried to pull him in, but his hands slipped off, he went under, and I couldn't find him anymore"
Couldn't Locate Him
The negro and Waylan Macon, 5317 Ash Lane, who was attracted to the scene by Mrs. Horne's frantic screams for help, dived for close to an hour in an effort to bring him to the surface. "I saw him near the top once, but he sank from sight when I went in after him and I couldn't find him again" Macon said, " I'm pretty sure he was already dead."
Horne and his wife and their little daughter Doris had gone to the bridge on a fishing trip Saturday afternoon. After reaching the bridge, he decided to seine for minnows before beginning to fish.
Saw Him Lose Grasp
Mrs. Horne, who stood screaming on the bank, waited until she saw her husband go under a second time before running for help. She raced through more than a mile of dense underbrush before reaching Old Maple Road where she was able to use the telephone of W.W. Stor to call for help.
Deputy sheriffs found her in the pits just a hundred yards of where her husband's body was finally located, crying broken-heartedly. She drove her automobile back to their home where she fainted and was put under the care of physicians.
Both the emergency ambulance and automobiles from the sheriffs office carrying Deputy Sheriffs Bob Jones, Earl Sypert and John Heffington answered the call. The use of grappling hooks by members of the sheriffs office failed to locate the dead man, and diving was resorted to. "I found him face down in about nine feet of water," Adolphus Lee Whatley said. "He, apparently, had been dead about an hour." After the body was taken from the water it was placed in the emergency ambulance. Later on it was transferred to the ambulance of the Smith Undertaking company, which also had responded to the call. Mr. Horne is survived by his wife and two daughters, Nettie Lou, 14 years old and Doris Lee, 12 years old.
------------------------------------------------------
After Ed's funeral, there were a few callers to the farm, offering to turn the field and cut and cord the wood for winter. Alta was amused. She appreciated the extra sets of hands but she had no interest in the rest of their parts.
It had taken her 16 years to be rid of that man and his mess and she had no intention of being subject to someone's ill temper or dirty coveralls again. Still, Esper kept coming around.
His wife Millie had gotten sick just before Christmas and was dead from lung cancer by Easter. When he came to see if he could change the chain on the plough, she had felt sorry for him and invited him in for coffee and some biscuits.
Five years of baked good and home repairs later, they admitted that there was more than just neighborly reciprocation happening and he asked her to marry him one Sunday morning after church. Ed hadn't even asked. Just took her down to the courthouse, put the paper in front of her and told her he'd buy her a used Ford and a new washer if she'd sign it.
When she thought back to that day, she realized she should have flipped the two. She'd have had an excuse to not do the laundry and a car that could have driven her as far away from that damned farmhouse as she could go.
Maybe to California to see Marie, who was writing home to tell about the high life she was living with that mobster she kept calling a businessman.Why would a grown man with a perfectly good name like Benjamin want to be called Bugsy?
---------------------------
They keep telling me they're going to find out how I did it.
"You left something, somewhere.It's just a matter of time" Sheriff Foster said when he unlocked the holding cell and let me leave with AJ
I don't think I meant to kill him but maybe I did
Maybe I was tired of being called a dumb cunt every time I forgot something at the grocery or didn't finish folding the laundry.
I hated cleaning up after him.
The way he left his clothes right next to the hamper.
The toenails I found flung all over the house.
He told me once that I should take pride in getting the skidmarks off his Fruit of the Loom's because 'That's what a good wife does, Marsh'.
I guess I'm not that good.
-----------------------------
"The RV is a success, Myrna, because it allows women to pee every 20 minutes without ever having to find a rest stop"
Dwayne and Myrna were having Cokes and talking about whether to sink their retirement into a time share down in Port Aransas where Dwayne could net shrimp while Myrna learned to watercolor sea fowl. And they could take nice long walks on the beach and grill the delicious shrimp that Dwayne had caught just hours earlier.
This was what Myrna's picture of happily ever after looked like. The other 50 weeks of the year could be spent visiting her sister over in Tyler and growing those roses that Dwayne swore were costing him at least half the retirement they were discussing.
Dwayne had a different movie playing in his theater. One that had quite a bit of golf in places that ended in 'a' and catching fish in rivers that didn't have rattlesnakes swimming in them. He had just pulled up a picture of the new Coachmen Concord and was about to start showing her the kitchen and bathroom features as methods of persuasion when there was a buzzing at the intercom.
It was early. Too early, even for Jimmy Foster, who sometimes dropped off the paper and came inside for a few minutes to hear who was breaking the law and how in Hopkins County.
There was no one there when he opened the back door, but an envelope fell and he bent down to pick it up.
It wasn't sealed or addressed. He pulled out contents and when he unfolded the note inside there was a picture of a farmhouse. The back of the picture was marked 'Winnsboro' and on the paper were just two words
'Horne Witches'.
Dwayne and Myrna were having Cokes and talking about whether to sink their retirement into a time share down in Port Aransas where Dwayne could net shrimp while Myrna learned to watercolor sea fowl. And they could take nice long walks on the beach and grill the delicious shrimp that Dwayne had caught just hours earlier.
This was what Myrna's picture of happily ever after looked like. The other 50 weeks of the year could be spent visiting her sister over in Tyler and growing those roses that Dwayne swore were costing him at least half the retirement they were discussing.
Dwayne had a different movie playing in his theater. One that had quite a bit of golf in places that ended in 'a' and catching fish in rivers that didn't have rattlesnakes swimming in them. He had just pulled up a picture of the new Coachmen Concord and was about to start showing her the kitchen and bathroom features as methods of persuasion when there was a buzzing at the intercom.
It was early. Too early, even for Jimmy Foster, who sometimes dropped off the paper and came inside for a few minutes to hear who was breaking the law and how in Hopkins County.
There was no one there when he opened the back door, but an envelope fell and he bent down to pick it up.
It wasn't sealed or addressed. He pulled out contents and when he unfolded the note inside there was a picture of a farmhouse. The back of the picture was marked 'Winnsboro' and on the paper were just two words
'Horne Witches'.
Witches
Well, now.
That could mean a couple things.
Could be someone was a bit too Christian to use the B-word. Could mean they were hag-like in temperament and stature.
Or
It could mean "one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially: a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar"*
Dwayne was familiar with the first two kinds seeing as Myrna's mother was a pageant winner in both, but the third? That was crap. No such thing. There were some people in town who claimed that the woods out at the edge of the county were spooked and that there were meetings out there where people wore hoods and robes that weren't white like normal, but black and red. Meetings that were more like rituals. Sacrifices, baby goats, baby pigs, baby babies, who knew what.
The people who spread these stories tended to be folk like the Twisselmans and George Rose's jar of nuts. Crazy meth-heads who lived out past Horseshoe Road, in trailers with 10 cars in the front on blocks and lawn mower parts everywhere.
If they said there were babies being killed out in the woods it was probably because they were getting mixed up with one of those awful movies Myrna liked to watch on Netflix. He couldn't stand them, all those bright red and pink bits of fake flesh and intestine smashed all over the screen while girls ran around in panties acting surprised.
All them people watched that kind of filth. Every time he had to answer a call out there one of them would have a TV on with something godawful on the screen, or they'd have a bunch of posters haphazardly taped up. Naked women with chainsaws coming out of their lady parts, or clowns, razor-teeth bared, blood smeared all over their grinning, demonic faces. Dwayne couldn't imagine what kind of dreams the kids who lived in these houses must have.
That's who believed in witches, He thought. Looney-tunes on drugs. Not regular people and certainly not the deputy sheriff of the Meadowood Police Department..
*thank you Webster's online
-----------------------------------
Well, now.
That could mean a couple things.
Could be someone was a bit too Christian to use the B-word. Could mean they were hag-like in temperament and stature.
Or
It could mean "one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially: a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar"*
Dwayne was familiar with the first two kinds seeing as Myrna's mother was a pageant winner in both, but the third? That was crap. No such thing. There were some people in town who claimed that the woods out at the edge of the county were spooked and that there were meetings out there where people wore hoods and robes that weren't white like normal, but black and red. Meetings that were more like rituals. Sacrifices, baby goats, baby pigs, baby babies, who knew what.
The people who spread these stories tended to be folk like the Twisselmans and George Rose's jar of nuts. Crazy meth-heads who lived out past Horseshoe Road, in trailers with 10 cars in the front on blocks and lawn mower parts everywhere.
If they said there were babies being killed out in the woods it was probably because they were getting mixed up with one of those awful movies Myrna liked to watch on Netflix. He couldn't stand them, all those bright red and pink bits of fake flesh and intestine smashed all over the screen while girls ran around in panties acting surprised.
All them people watched that kind of filth. Every time he had to answer a call out there one of them would have a TV on with something godawful on the screen, or they'd have a bunch of posters haphazardly taped up. Naked women with chainsaws coming out of their lady parts, or clowns, razor-teeth bared, blood smeared all over their grinning, demonic faces. Dwayne couldn't imagine what kind of dreams the kids who lived in these houses must have.
That's who believed in witches, He thought. Looney-tunes on drugs. Not regular people and certainly not the deputy sheriff of the Meadowood Police Department..
*thank you Webster's online
-----------------------------------
Sunday, January 12, 2014
National Lampoon's Culinary Vacation
Dear Clark,
Come on, now.
This is getting a little bit embarrassing, if you don't mind my sayin' so.
It's FOOD.
You're having so many of them Marie Antoinette moments lately, I feel like I need to step up and piss in your farmed and forked and fucked Cheerios and say something respectfully and with great love and encouragement and affection.
WHAT IN THE JESUS IS WRONG WITH YOU?????
Seriously, Clark. Only an idiot would pay $1000 for something that is going to come out of their ass a few hours later and then have any kind of comment about hunger in America. Ever. EVER, EVER. If you would like to demonstrate your superiority to me, it would be more intelligent to not purchase tiny amounts of dead, cut-up animals and bits of lettuce that grew in the ground for free. This makes you a SUCKER. I'm a chef and I am telling you that. You are a chump.
What kind of person can, in good conscience, keep most of the money they make feeding said asshats, instead of giving most of it back to the other people who are food insecure according to every news source in the country and that includes a lot more than I get with my cable converter? Even at a 50% food cost, you're still making a fortune off of tricking people into thinking it's worth that much for future feces. Nice work, Willy Wonka.
Do you have any idea how silly it is for you to be so "involved" in food when your involvement doesn't include making sure as many other people are fed as possible, instead of a few app designers who wouldn't know what they were eating were it not for the other rich assholes before them posting thousands of Instagrams? I know you like a tack-o, Clark, but the rise of street food as haute cuisine, meriting full tasting menus comprised of offal, is, well, awful. It's The Emperor's Clothes at it's most entertaining.
I once worked for the catering company that does Paul Allen's Christmas party. I spent a FREEZING December afternoon in 1998, grilling what ended up being four rolling racks full of whole salmon filets on a dock. Earmuff hats are very handy for blue collar folk who have to work outside in the snow. Long johns too. You call them Silkies, I think. Cooking is FUN, btw.
We cured olives and preserved lemons months ahead of time. Made pounds of mozzarella, smoked oysters, made biryani in rented tagines, dipped fruits in Callebaut. We cut a walk-in full of Port Salut and Humboldt Fog into wedges and spread pounds of Salumi's soppressata onto huge wooden cutting boards purchased just for the occasion The excess was as bonkers as you.
When you are a lowly cook processing all this food, things that run through your head while you hack apart chickens include the society broads who will never eat more than four bites of any of this dee-licious spread that you are going to the trouble to prepare. You also consider, in a nice way, the catering salesperson who made $5k in commission for selling all this.
Mr. Allen's hangar at Boeing Field was turned into a Moroccan tent with jeweled pillows and belly dancers. The halftime show was the man himself trying to force everyone to watch him play guitar. Good lord.
Know what has stuck with me 15 years later? The two racks full of untouched salmon. Left AFTER the to-go containers were stuffed and servers were begged to take as much as they wanted.
The St. Rose of Lima shelter was near my apartment and I could take them a carload at a time. I'd pull up to the backdoor in a dark alley in Belltown and hand over bus tubs of salmon thrown together with the other stuff. A far cry from the display a few hours earlier. Dumpsters-full of expensive cheese and wine and steak and oysters and chocolate and things that we talk about as yum to the motherfucking yum yum yum get tossed hundreds of times every single day by people who then go on to make sad, pinchy faces about the hungry black childrens they are forced to look at sometimes in the NYT. Or speak about SNAP benefits as if they have any idea. I don't care if your mom used food stamps to raise you. You have a bunch of restaurants and a TV show now so shut it the hell down, Baldy. For reals.
Humans are complex. I get it. Sometimes you can want to eat truffles and then go to the ghetto and teach a child what a carrot is. That is funny as fuck. Why not bring THEM to the fancy dinner that they will never, ever forget? Why not expose them to something as magical as a truffle when their mom is just going to feed them bologna later. Why exclude anyone?
It's food. No one is curing pediatric brain cancer or rescuing flood victims. You are eating things that mostly are on this planet because the planet decided this, and not because Anthony Bourdain invented olives. Capice?
There is alchemy in cooking. Duh. We are literal magicians making something out of nothing and that is something to feel pretty great about. We all fall for pictures of tattoos of eggplants, posts of perfect figs and cheese on a black granite slab. We love reading stories of how hard that farmer had to work to get those silly goats to behave, but still.
It's food. To feed people with so they don't die from starving. Not so they don't die from sadness that some poor person brought a baby to a restaurant. To forget that is to forget the joy of pulling a carrot out of the ground or to cook a chicken until it turns to jelly that makes the gravy, gravy. To act like you are a special, special twinkie instead of an alien sharing some molecules with some other aliens means that you need a lesson in humanity that will not be printed on the bottom of your triple Caramel Flan nonfat (retard) latte or while your are funding your friend's kombucha kickstarter.
I don't know what we can do when we are a culture of people who wish they had more money worshipping a farmer who likely has nothing. Pig shit smells like pig shit. Not like miso-cured pork belly.
How can we say we want to feed people when most of the shows on the food channels have to do with excess, not inequality? How can social media be so much more concerned with the correct filter for composites of dots of food that no one can smell or taste? How much longer do I have to see people promoting cookbooks instead of volunteering somewhere and writing about those experiences which seems more useful than a few more recipes for a watermelon soup that no one likes or wants to eat?
I don't expect any BlogHerFood "how I saved some people with salad" contests anytime soon, but maybe you could demand more keynote addresses for this sort of thing in between all the schmoozing and duck fat at your conferences and picnics and ski fests? Maybe I could see a post or two about the kitchen you helped build on that trip to wherever you ate those fish tacos right on the boat that I had to look at 75 photos of?
I helped pick a few thousand pounds of citrus this weekend for a group that does this. These are the stories that I want to hear about.
I know you think we're cut from different cloth, you and I, but listen here
You're a lot closer to emptying septic hoses with me than you think. Shitter's full, Clark. Let's get to cleaning.
Love,
Eddie.
Come on, now.
This is getting a little bit embarrassing, if you don't mind my sayin' so.
It's FOOD.
You're having so many of them Marie Antoinette moments lately, I feel like I need to step up and piss in your farmed and forked and fucked Cheerios and say something respectfully and with great love and encouragement and affection.
WHAT IN THE JESUS IS WRONG WITH YOU?????
Seriously, Clark. Only an idiot would pay $1000 for something that is going to come out of their ass a few hours later and then have any kind of comment about hunger in America. Ever. EVER, EVER. If you would like to demonstrate your superiority to me, it would be more intelligent to not purchase tiny amounts of dead, cut-up animals and bits of lettuce that grew in the ground for free. This makes you a SUCKER. I'm a chef and I am telling you that. You are a chump.
What kind of person can, in good conscience, keep most of the money they make feeding said asshats, instead of giving most of it back to the other people who are food insecure according to every news source in the country and that includes a lot more than I get with my cable converter? Even at a 50% food cost, you're still making a fortune off of tricking people into thinking it's worth that much for future feces. Nice work, Willy Wonka.
Do you have any idea how silly it is for you to be so "involved" in food when your involvement doesn't include making sure as many other people are fed as possible, instead of a few app designers who wouldn't know what they were eating were it not for the other rich assholes before them posting thousands of Instagrams? I know you like a tack-o, Clark, but the rise of street food as haute cuisine, meriting full tasting menus comprised of offal, is, well, awful. It's The Emperor's Clothes at it's most entertaining.
I once worked for the catering company that does Paul Allen's Christmas party. I spent a FREEZING December afternoon in 1998, grilling what ended up being four rolling racks full of whole salmon filets on a dock. Earmuff hats are very handy for blue collar folk who have to work outside in the snow. Long johns too. You call them Silkies, I think. Cooking is FUN, btw.
We cured olives and preserved lemons months ahead of time. Made pounds of mozzarella, smoked oysters, made biryani in rented tagines, dipped fruits in Callebaut. We cut a walk-in full of Port Salut and Humboldt Fog into wedges and spread pounds of Salumi's soppressata onto huge wooden cutting boards purchased just for the occasion The excess was as bonkers as you.
When you are a lowly cook processing all this food, things that run through your head while you hack apart chickens include the society broads who will never eat more than four bites of any of this dee-licious spread that you are going to the trouble to prepare. You also consider, in a nice way, the catering salesperson who made $5k in commission for selling all this.
Mr. Allen's hangar at Boeing Field was turned into a Moroccan tent with jeweled pillows and belly dancers. The halftime show was the man himself trying to force everyone to watch him play guitar. Good lord.
Know what has stuck with me 15 years later? The two racks full of untouched salmon. Left AFTER the to-go containers were stuffed and servers were begged to take as much as they wanted.
The St. Rose of Lima shelter was near my apartment and I could take them a carload at a time. I'd pull up to the backdoor in a dark alley in Belltown and hand over bus tubs of salmon thrown together with the other stuff. A far cry from the display a few hours earlier. Dumpsters-full of expensive cheese and wine and steak and oysters and chocolate and things that we talk about as yum to the motherfucking yum yum yum get tossed hundreds of times every single day by people who then go on to make sad, pinchy faces about the hungry black childrens they are forced to look at sometimes in the NYT. Or speak about SNAP benefits as if they have any idea. I don't care if your mom used food stamps to raise you. You have a bunch of restaurants and a TV show now so shut it the hell down, Baldy. For reals.
Humans are complex. I get it. Sometimes you can want to eat truffles and then go to the ghetto and teach a child what a carrot is. That is funny as fuck. Why not bring THEM to the fancy dinner that they will never, ever forget? Why not expose them to something as magical as a truffle when their mom is just going to feed them bologna later. Why exclude anyone?
It's food. No one is curing pediatric brain cancer or rescuing flood victims. You are eating things that mostly are on this planet because the planet decided this, and not because Anthony Bourdain invented olives. Capice?
There is alchemy in cooking. Duh. We are literal magicians making something out of nothing and that is something to feel pretty great about. We all fall for pictures of tattoos of eggplants, posts of perfect figs and cheese on a black granite slab. We love reading stories of how hard that farmer had to work to get those silly goats to behave, but still.
It's food. To feed people with so they don't die from starving. Not so they don't die from sadness that some poor person brought a baby to a restaurant. To forget that is to forget the joy of pulling a carrot out of the ground or to cook a chicken until it turns to jelly that makes the gravy, gravy. To act like you are a special, special twinkie instead of an alien sharing some molecules with some other aliens means that you need a lesson in humanity that will not be printed on the bottom of your triple Caramel Flan nonfat (retard) latte or while your are funding your friend's kombucha kickstarter.
I don't know what we can do when we are a culture of people who wish they had more money worshipping a farmer who likely has nothing. Pig shit smells like pig shit. Not like miso-cured pork belly.
How can we say we want to feed people when most of the shows on the food channels have to do with excess, not inequality? How can social media be so much more concerned with the correct filter for composites of dots of food that no one can smell or taste? How much longer do I have to see people promoting cookbooks instead of volunteering somewhere and writing about those experiences which seems more useful than a few more recipes for a watermelon soup that no one likes or wants to eat?
I don't expect any BlogHerFood "how I saved some people with salad" contests anytime soon, but maybe you could demand more keynote addresses for this sort of thing in between all the schmoozing and duck fat at your conferences and picnics and ski fests? Maybe I could see a post or two about the kitchen you helped build on that trip to wherever you ate those fish tacos right on the boat that I had to look at 75 photos of?
I helped pick a few thousand pounds of citrus this weekend for a group that does this. These are the stories that I want to hear about.
I know you think we're cut from different cloth, you and I, but listen here
You're a lot closer to emptying septic hoses with me than you think. Shitter's full, Clark. Let's get to cleaning.
Love,
Eddie.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Grandma See. Baller.
One of the worst things about the holiday season is the invitations. It's nice to be asked somewhere to be reminded that you are not alone in this overwhelming life and that people love you and care about you. Also, sometimes your boss has a party and there is free booze. BUT. Being down to your last penny and not being able to bring a hostess gift is an awful feeling. NO, it is not required, most of your friends will tell you and NO, please, don't go to any trouble. You know how it feels when everyone is lining up bottles of Hennesey and amaryllis on the sideboard and you're all Hey! Off-brand vinho verde from Grocery Outlet! Everyone will know and a wilting violet from the dollar store is thoughtful but very Lena Dunham wrapped in green cellophane.
Know what else costs about $2? $3 if you buy a little box and ribbon?
I trust this man. He had a contest where I won a bunch of fancy chocolate and he knows a lot about Little House on the Prairie. He seems like a very sensible person who wouldn't act like something unattainable was just a snap, so I thought "Why not?" Except for the 100 plus degree temperature which is terrible for candy-making and explains pralines. I tried it, caring less about the fastidiousness of a thermometer and just watched and applied the tiny bit of food science I know about sugar. IT WORKED.
Know what else costs about $2? $3 if you buy a little box and ribbon?
TOFFEE
Who ISN'T a Goddamned caramel junkie? If you saw the inside of my mouth you'd think I'd done a bit of meth at some point but I can tell you that the addiction was Heath bars and Sugar Babies.
Who ISN'T a Goddamned caramel junkie? If you saw the inside of my mouth you'd think I'd done a bit of meth at some point but I can tell you that the addiction was Heath bars and Sugar Babies.
After years of failing miserably and buying varying grades of candy thermometer, I had honestly resigned myself to feeling bad every year for paying for something that I KNEW cost nothing to make. It's like sourdough bread. $4 for a really good loaf of a quarter's worth of flour and salt. That See's Candy can charge $20 per pound is crazytalk and those thugs in their little pressed pinafores should be ashamed that a Scotchmallow costs $1.75.
This summer one of my favorite people on Twitter, thepeche , went to one of those little wing-dings that some of you go to and he started talking about this magic toffee that another very nice lady makes.
I trust this man. He had a contest where I won a bunch of fancy chocolate and he knows a lot about Little House on the Prairie. He seems like a very sensible person who wouldn't act like something unattainable was just a snap, so I thought "Why not?" Except for the 100 plus degree temperature which is terrible for candy-making and explains pralines. I tried it, caring less about the fastidiousness of a thermometer and just watched and applied the tiny bit of food science I know about sugar. IT WORKED.
This will make a lovely hostess gift. No one will know you are broke. They will only think you are cool as hell for being able to make this little bit of magic yourself.
Recipe adapted with swears and less finesse from Rachel at LaFujiMama .
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips. Your choice of color. I mix milk and dark and I buy them in bulk so I only have to spend about 75 cents at a time.
Whatever sort of nut remnants from other baking or dried fruits or coconut or pumpkin seeds or whatever. No more than 1/4 cup. This is optional.
1 2-quart stainless saucepan , the heavier the bottom, the better. DO NOT USE NON-STICK
1 slotted stirring spoon, preferably a nice, cheap wooden one that the sugar will come off of, easier, later.
parchment paper or aluminum foil that has been lightly greased. A silicone baking sheet is the best. They even have them at most grocery stores now and they aren't more than a few dollars.
I have the crappiest electric stove ever. It never goes above 3. You do you.
Line a sheet pan (cookie sheet) with whatever above material you have. If it's not a silicone mat it needs to be greased or sprayed. LIGHTLY. Dollar store has cans of all the delicious flavors. Usually PAM. Don't spend $5 on this stuff at a real grocery. It's all terrible, but very cheap and effective and you don't use it all the time so don't get too creeped out. Nothing "organic" that they turn into aerosol is that great for you, either, so forget those. Sprinkle the little scraps of whatever has been hiding in the corner of the drawer on the sheet and spread them into a square-ish shape.
On low heat, melt the sugar, butter and vanilla together. Stir every minute and a half (approx. the time it takes you to click over to Twitter, read a few, answer one, and click back) for about 20 seconds each time. When it separates, ignore it. it will be fine. When it looks like weird, lumpy paste, do not give up hope. Right here is where those thermometer bastards make their money and you don't need them. Sugar is dependable. If you heat it, it will melt and if you heat it too fast it will burn. So slowly keep heating and stirring and you will be right as a motherfucker when this little program is over. When it starts to brown on the sides, make sure to watch it very carefully. When it really starts to darken, stir, stir, stir and when it's the color of Shemar Moore, turn it off. Do not be distracted by thoughts of Shemar Moore. I have now made this difficult. Leave it there while the burner cools, stir the holy Jesus out of it to smooth it completely and pour it over the nut scraps. Make a "N" motion back and forth and try to fill in all the spaces. When it has cooled for a few seconds, tilt the pan like that board game with the ball you try to keep out of the hole until it's filled.
When it has cooled for one more minute, spread the chocolate chips over the top. Wait for them to melt from the heat and spread the chocolate evenly over the top of the toffee. You can add more nuts now or crushed things like fruits or salts or peppermint. I like more coconut so it becomes a food group.
Let it cool completely and gently turn over the sheet it's on, holding it with one hand to keep it from falling off. Do this over another sheetpan or sheet of paper or foil to catch the nuts. Gently crack the back so that it breaks into pieces, turn these back over, again, GENTLY, and either place them in a nicely lined tin or box or into a large plastic IKEA container that you can hide from your husband.
*If you are new to my blog, I don't take pictures of food because there is a picture of every single food ever made in the history of the world on Google by people who are qualified to do this. I am merely qualified to teach you how to cook.
Recipe adapted with swears and less finesse from Rachel at LaFujiMama .
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips. Your choice of color. I mix milk and dark and I buy them in bulk so I only have to spend about 75 cents at a time.
Whatever sort of nut remnants from other baking or dried fruits or coconut or pumpkin seeds or whatever. No more than 1/4 cup. This is optional.
1 2-quart stainless saucepan , the heavier the bottom, the better. DO NOT USE NON-STICK
1 slotted stirring spoon, preferably a nice, cheap wooden one that the sugar will come off of, easier, later.
parchment paper or aluminum foil that has been lightly greased. A silicone baking sheet is the best. They even have them at most grocery stores now and they aren't more than a few dollars.
I have the crappiest electric stove ever. It never goes above 3. You do you.
Line a sheet pan (cookie sheet) with whatever above material you have. If it's not a silicone mat it needs to be greased or sprayed. LIGHTLY. Dollar store has cans of all the delicious flavors. Usually PAM. Don't spend $5 on this stuff at a real grocery. It's all terrible, but very cheap and effective and you don't use it all the time so don't get too creeped out. Nothing "organic" that they turn into aerosol is that great for you, either, so forget those. Sprinkle the little scraps of whatever has been hiding in the corner of the drawer on the sheet and spread them into a square-ish shape.
On low heat, melt the sugar, butter and vanilla together. Stir every minute and a half (approx. the time it takes you to click over to Twitter, read a few, answer one, and click back) for about 20 seconds each time. When it separates, ignore it. it will be fine. When it looks like weird, lumpy paste, do not give up hope. Right here is where those thermometer bastards make their money and you don't need them. Sugar is dependable. If you heat it, it will melt and if you heat it too fast it will burn. So slowly keep heating and stirring and you will be right as a motherfucker when this little program is over. When it starts to brown on the sides, make sure to watch it very carefully. When it really starts to darken, stir, stir, stir and when it's the color of Shemar Moore, turn it off. Do not be distracted by thoughts of Shemar Moore. I have now made this difficult. Leave it there while the burner cools, stir the holy Jesus out of it to smooth it completely and pour it over the nut scraps. Make a "N" motion back and forth and try to fill in all the spaces. When it has cooled for a few seconds, tilt the pan like that board game with the ball you try to keep out of the hole until it's filled.
When it has cooled for one more minute, spread the chocolate chips over the top. Wait for them to melt from the heat and spread the chocolate evenly over the top of the toffee. You can add more nuts now or crushed things like fruits or salts or peppermint. I like more coconut so it becomes a food group.
Let it cool completely and gently turn over the sheet it's on, holding it with one hand to keep it from falling off. Do this over another sheetpan or sheet of paper or foil to catch the nuts. Gently crack the back so that it breaks into pieces, turn these back over, again, GENTLY, and either place them in a nicely lined tin or box or into a large plastic IKEA container that you can hide from your husband.
*If you are new to my blog, I don't take pictures of food because there is a picture of every single food ever made in the history of the world on Google by people who are qualified to do this. I am merely qualified to teach you how to cook.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)