Classic Westerns

I'm reading The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour, who was born in North Dakota and lived there as a young man - much during the same time as my mother-in-law. It turns out that L'Amour's real name was LaMoure. From what I know of pioneer North Dakotans, it surprises me that he would change his name to such a Frenchified version. Did a publisher or editor talk him into it? Doubtless it has lent him a certain cachet, but still...

It's kind of fun to read a classic Western where the men are strong, good and evil are in black and white, and it's all fairly predictable. I feel transported back to being 11 years old and finding my aunts' stash of girls books from the 20s and 30s. There's nothing like discovering Nancy Drew as a kid and whiling away whole summer days with her.



Another one of my favorites from those books was Nell Grayson's Ranching Days by May Hollis Barton, who was one of many pseudonyms for Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Harriet wrote many Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins books, and more! (Must look into this.) Nell is down in my basement bookshelf growing moldly along with the others, but I can't bear to part with her yet. Nell was a city girl from the East (dudette) who met her match in a strong young cowboy who took a liking to her. Nell had adventures with rattlesnakes, storms and "bad guys," but always was a match for them. Lovely simpler times.

Scary Book Yields a Promising Cleaning Tip

The first chapter of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning (see side bar) is not for the squeamish. The exhaustive and exhausting list of toxic chemicals in our cosmetics, cleaning products, carpets, furniture, paints, etc. is truly frightening. Nevertheless, I came across a very simple, but possibly valuable tip for cleaning oven spills - like when you thought you could get away with filling a casserole dish up to the top, or not putting anything under a loaded fruit pie. The secret is to pour a lot of salt - yeah, salt - on the spill when it is still hot. You are supposed to be able to just wipe the spill away later when the oven cools with no problem. I'm now awaiting an opportunity to try this out, but have had no energy to cook anything recently that needs more than a stovetop or microwave. Tune in later.....

The Saints

Speaking of theater, one of the top items on my someday to-do list is to join the Saints. I was reminded of them when I noticed that the two ushers at the play mentioned in my last post were wearing Saints name badges.

This is just such an excellent idea - my hat is off to the person that made it happen! For fifty bucks a year, you can sign up and get a training session to become a volunteer at performing arts events around Chicago. You look online to see what events, dates, and locations suit you, then sign up to do whatever they need - mainly ushering. Then you take a seat and enjoy the play, circus, concert, ballet, etc. you get back many times the amount you invested in your year's worth of volunteering!

The Saints say they may be the "first and only" organization serving the performing arts in a major city. Is this true? Hard to believe that no other city has any people wanting to find an easy way to enjoy the arts without having to pay much for it. Living in Chicago, one of the great theater cities of the world, means I have to take advantage of it!

Living Green

Last weekend, a group of us from around the city who have been meeting and talking about race relations went to see the last (and sold out) performance of "Living Green" by Gloria Bond Clunie.

The play was at the refurbished Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue, now the home of the Victory Gardens Theater. The Biograph is known to everyone in my family as the place where John Dillinger was killed in a police shootout in the alley. Over the years, my husband saw many movies there as it was a neighborhood theater. By the time I came along, it was reduced to sticky floors and regular midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, it's really beautiful and a great venue for plays. Good seats everywhere!

I've read and seen many versions of the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, so seeing the "sequel" was really interesting. Our house is in a very safe neighborhood, but I've often wondered if I was doing the right thing by choosing to live there. This play asks the question: where should you live to do the most good for yourself and everyone else? No easy answers.

Using Blueberries from 1993

Last week we had major snow melting and rain. This means the cracks in our basement foundation reveal themselves. A particularly big one was discovered in the closet under the stairs where my aged mother-in-law and I have stored canning equipment for years. As we cleared out the jars and shelves, we found an undated jar of carrots and a jar of blueberries from 1993! The carrots were dumped, but we decided to see what we could do with the blueberries. The picture shows the resulting Blueberry Upsidedown Cake.

I wouldn't say it was terrifically good, but it was certainly edible - especially with the last of the Tom & Jerry's on it. The fruit filling was not very thick, so I decided not to turn it upside down, but it worked like a cobbler just as well.

Tomorrow, we will take some to my mother-in-law to give her a taste of berries she canned 16 years ago - amazing!