Recipe for Good Luck in the Time of Covid

Oh, to be thankful for a bit of good luck lately. But is it luck that Covid-19 will see many of us in the history books of the future. And if we outlive this virus, we are like the souls who survived the Great Plagues of earlier times.

Old Wives’ tales abounded then as now and regional customs took over with their guarantees of good luck. Wearing a necklace of garlic to ward off evil vapors is one I read about years ago. I haven’t tried that yet.

But dining on Pork on New Year’s Day was a tradition in Bill’s childhood (leftover from Plague times?) and a pork roast on New Year’s Day became a yearly family ritual in our home.

Most years I baked a traditional pork roast drenched in sauerkraut to bring us good luck, and though the luck did seem to follow us from year to year, the big roast got heavier and heavier, especially after all the sweets and goodies that collected over the Christmas holidays.

Eventually we decided to try simpler fare, and so arrived DOR’S APPLE PORKCHOP RECIPE (Good for good luck on New Year’s Day and beyond):

The question is: Will one pork chop bring as much good luck per person as a big roast?

Quality versus Quantity Equals Pork in the Time of Covid

DOR’S APPLE PORK CHOPS

Ingredients:

• 3-6 fairly thick Pork Chops (I use only two – one for Bill and one for me)

• 4-5 apples peeled and sliced to lay on top of the chops (like a blanket)
• 1/2 Cup Brown sugar, more or less

• 2 Tbs Sage

• 1 thinly sliced whole Onion

• 1 Carrot cut into little tiny bits (mostly for color and a hint of health)

Rub a roasting pan (small one for only 2 chops) with the raw chops (to grease it a bit)

Put chops in one layer in the baking dish or pan

Cover chops with sliced apples

Sprinkle all over with brown sugar.

Sprinkle sage on top.

Spread onion slices on top.

Sprinkle the little bits of carrots on top too – for color.

Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 1/2 hours.

This is really delicious served with Baked Beans and a nice green salad!

Happy New Year to my friends here and there in the Blog-Us-Fear.

And Good Luck!

Photo by Any Lane on Pexels.com

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Occasional Thoughts

Water World

I just started an aquasize class offered by our local YMCA!  The other aging ladies in the group call it “water aerobics.”  This may be wishful thinking but we do jumping jacks midstream in the pool and even cross country skiing (or at least we make motions to that effect).

Sometimes I feel like I am Esther Williams though.  You may not remember her – a film star who was once the center of synchronized swimming.  If I squint a little, I think of my current “aerobics” group as my mininons and I am Esther in all her glory.  Imagination is a wonderful thing.

Social Media for the AgedAging

A charming and dedicated fellow high school graduate from my early days (those days celebrated in history books now) has initiated a new FaceBook page by-invitation-only,  a private group just for us graduates of our particular year.  I was so excited about participating that I immediately heaped a boatload of photos and stories onto the page.  It dawns on me now there are only 21 of us participating.  I think there were 600 in our class.

Rain, Floods, and Vitamin D

It keeps on raining around here in rural Virginia.  Sometimes it even floods and our local Alert System is always warning that soccer team and other sports events have been cancelled.  Bill and I are “hill toppers” so we are not too worried about being flooded.

I do get concerned about a Vitamin D deficiency!  They say, “Twenty minutes of natural sunlight on two thirds of your unprotected body parts is all you need to self-generate enough Vitamin D for good health.”  So in those brief periods of sunshine we now enjoy, I head for the deck with bare legs and arms, and with no SPF protection.

Down with a Cold or is it The Plague?

All that sunbathing didn’t help after all.  I developed a nasty cold the day after water aerobics!  Tylenol worked for a low grade fever, but I am left with a deep gutteral cough, light headedness, and the occcasional sweats.

I have however, found the ultimate cure-all, feel-better-right-away solution.   I am reading “Year of Wonders” – a story about the Plague!

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The Tawdry Tale of a Doomsday Reader

We conducted an informal  poll at my local book club – The Blue Ridge Readers.  We have been reading and discussing books for over ten years now and lately asked the question:

 What is your favorite kind of book?

There were the Historical Novel lovers,

the Romance Seekers (aren’t we all?),

Avid Gourmet Foodies,

the Humorists,

Non-fiction Devotees,

and

Dor the Doomsdayer.

When I somehow stammered out the ugly truth, that I love doomsday books, there was a shocked moment of silence and twitters of nervous laughter in our normally all-accepting, socially correct gathering of serious readers.

And someone finally said, “You are the last person I would think would like that kind of reading.”

“Well, it is my contention,” I replied, “that one should not only enjoy reading, but one should try to acquire wisdom and learn something useful in the process.”  

The above haughty approach is what I meant to say but what I really said was,

“You know, I like survival stories. 

and by way of further explanation,

 “I LOVE reading about the Plague and am now engrossed in The Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks, where a small English village is left nearly empty of people and the roads are overgrowing with grass for lack of use (since everybody dies of course).”

This explanation did not help much to explain the pleasures of doomsday reading to my book group.  I went on,

“I really enjoyed reading The Great Influenza.  Now that’s a winner and it’s all true stuff.”

“And I loved Isaac’s Storm about the devastating 1900 hurricane in Galveston, Texas and the arrogance of man against nature. Did you know that most of Galveston is only ten feet above sea level? “

Silence.

But then there was a hint of a giggle from the back and that ended up in all-group laughter.  And they weren’t laughing at me (at least I don’t think so).  They were laughing with me for a preoccupation with surviving encroaching tragedy.

I am also preoccupied with stocking up for a potential pandemic but there was another post about that.  Did you know they have found edible honey in Egyptian tombs?

But, finally to prove my point to my Blue Ridge Reader friends, the last book we discussed at meeting, (which everybody seemed to love)  was The Widow’s War, by Sally Gunning, a novel about a brave woman struggling to keep her home and stay afloat after her husband drowned at sea.  Her “widow’s war” was a fight for her rights to an independent life and to own property in Massachusetts in 1761.

The Widow’s War is a perfect survival story.

The poor widow had to make her own cheese you know.  Could I do that?  I need to find a book on how to make cheese.

And she made her own candles too.  That was fascinating even though she practically burned her house down in the process.

But you get the idea right?

There is something to be said for doomsday reading.

Or are you laughing with me like the rest of my book club?

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