slow cooking without the cooker

My Nanny (my mom's mother) used to call hot summer days "a cooker." I can still hear her Long Island accent saying, "it's a cook-uh." It reminds me of days taking the ten minute drive from her brown-shingled house on Wildflower Lane to Jones Beach, where we would toss old bread to the sea gulls, hurry over the hot sand, and play in the surf.

Anyway, it's the sort of day in which one does NOT want to use the oven, even with the luxury of central air. I'm also having a sort of "day off" from housework, as I'm dealing with mastitis, yet again. It seems I'm more prone to that when I'm stressed and busy, which I was this weekend.

All that to say, I'm officially Not Allowed to do housework and I simply must rest every time the baby does. I think blogging probably falls under the resting category, yes?

Tonight's menu is slow-cooked, pulled BBQ chicken...without getting the whole big slow cooker dirty. (Besides, it's in the attic, and I'm not going up there. Not in the heat.)

Be amazed.

I took out one chicken breast for the hubby and myself, and I sliced it into rounds about a half inch thick. I then heated about 2T canola oil in a skillet, and added the chicken. I cooked it until it was no longer pink, and then squirted my favorite barbecue sauce on top of each round. I added a bit of water, turned the heat to low, covered the skillet, and left it.

Three hours later, the chicken is sooo tender, deliciously seasoned, and ready for dinner! Hooray!

remembering

Today I'm remembering my Nanny, my mom's mother. Whenever we would visit in Long Island, we would arrive sometime in the late evening. It was a seven hour drive, and sometimes longer, in our conversion van that held mommy, daddy and my three siblings (and my sister's stuffed animals). My brother and I could rarely sleep, so we watched VHS tapes (had to be a musical, because Dad was listening) or played the alphabet game or counted colors of cars. We loved when we were finally getting close to the big city, with lights strung across bridges and oncoming headlights making strings of pearls. We would sing a silly song from our Sesame Street cassette tape - "George Washington Bridge" when we crossed that bridge. The Throg's neck bridge was always heard by us as "Frog's Neck" - sounded silly to us, but meant that we were almost at Nanny and Grandpa Ace's house!

When we pulled into the "W section" of their suburb, passed 7 Eleven and drove onto their street (which was named after flowers), you could almost smell the salty ocean air. We would climb out of the van, walking past the scent of juniper bushes and red geraniums, and through the narrow hallway into the kitchen. The kitchen had a bay window with cafe style curtains covering the lower half, and a valance on top. Nanny's collection of African violets lined the window sill, and the kitchen table was cozied up close. The kitchen chairs were great - on rollers and spinny - a kid's fascination! We would fight over which color of plastic cup we would get - I wanted blue or pink.

And then, Nanny would pull out this cake. Nanny, white hair in curlers and wearing her cotton nightgown and bathrobe, would cut us thick slices of yellow bundt cake with flecks of chocolate and chocolate chips, dusted with powdered sugar, and insist that we eat before we fell asleep.

Because my mom is mourning the loss of another woman in her life today, I made the cake. And I'm going to find a red geranium.

childhood memories

vanilla cupcakes
birthday parties
jump ropes
freeze tag
balloons
dirt under my fingernails
holding baby dolls
Christmas morning
feeling fuzzy wool carpet between my toes
shuffling along said carpet to shock my siblings
red Kool-Aid, and the one time Mom accidentally used salt
my yellow floral wallpaper
Crayons
writing silly poems
swinging on the swings Dad put in the basement
daydreaming
playing house
carrying my yellow duckie-shaped purse to Sunday School
singing in children's choir
writing on yellow paper with blue dotted lines
my purple zip-up fleece jacket
bright pink scrunchies
jumping in the leaves
Sesame Street
running and somersaulting onto the living room couch
dancing to "The Nutcracker" - in the living room
my pink doll beds that Daddy made
making cakes with Mommy
singing hymns at night before bed
all four of us kids brushing our teeth at the same time
footed pajamas - yellow, with Winnie the Pooh on the front
Saturday morning Bugs Bunny
archery with Dad
piano lessons
shopping with Mom
my grandparents
old church ladies
squeaky patent leather Mary Janes
an old toy organ
chalkboard drawings
climbing trees
trying to save little birds' eggs
kittens
sibling rivalry
snow play
long car trips
Disney World
"special sauce" - A1 and ketchup, mixed together
campfires and camping out
forget-me-nots
brown spots on my hands from picking dandelions
braiding my friends' hair
school ice cream socials
walking to elementary school
riding the bus - cold pleather seats and freezing windows
spelling bees
reports and projects
music class...

now that i'm off to grad school, it's pleasant to look back on what i was, where i've been, and what i've become because of it all.