St. Paul's Shrine

I finally accomplished something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. I attended Sunday mass at St. Paul’s Shrine, located on Euclid and East 40th Street in Cleveland, Ohio.

A few years ago, I read a book about St. Paul’s Shrine called, Stalking the Divine by Kristin Ohlson. This is a treasure of a book that I have read a number of times. I have given this book as gifts to a few of my friends, and even blogged about St.Paul’s, last year. Now, I finally participated at mass. Before I went inside the church for a visit, I stood on the steps of the church, soaking in the perfect day. The sun was out, the sky was a beautiful blue and the temperature was just right. On their way inside the church, four people greeted me, adding to my already positive attitude.

The church itself is beautiful. It is a fine example of Victorian English country gothic architecture. From the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, the church was situated in the midst of Millionaires Row, with the likes of John D. Rockefeller, Jeptha Wade, benefactor and founder of Western Union Telegraph Company, Alfred Atmore Pope, iron industrialist and art collector, as well as many others.

The interior of the church is just as spectacular. The church is wide and not quite so long, giving the congregation the feeling of being close to the altar. There are a series of columns and gothic arches with gold leaf throughout and period colors on the walls and ceilings. The ceiling has beautiful carved beans, which drew my eyes upward. The stained glass windows are exquisite. The focal point of the altar is the Holy Eucharist, which is exposed in the monstrance (a vessel), beneath a gold canopy.

To the right of the altar, is a walnut carved screened area with full figures of wooden angels standing guard along the top. Inside were the Cloistered Poor Clares. Their voices carried throughout the church, like invisible angels singing in a surround sound.

I felt at ease and totally happy in my surroundings. I was at home in this simply gorgeous but peaceful church. Father Andrew, a Franciscan Capuchin Priest, said a wonderful mass. His homily was poignant and the comfortable way he talked to us, made me feel as if I was not a visitor but an old member of the congregation.

This was one Sunday mass where I experienced a close intimacy with God. It was one of the special days, where all my senses seemed to be fully alive. I felt like I spent my time in a very holy place.

If you live in Cleveland, it is worth a trip to historic St. Paul’s Shrine located at 4120 Euclid Avenue.

Homecoming Milestone

My oldest granddaughter, Hannah, just attended her junior high homecoming dance. So, I decided that I wanted to go to her house and watch the preparations for this milestone moment. A milestone moment for a grandmother who can’t believe that my granddaughter is old enough to be in junior high school, and even old enough to go to her fist homecoming dance. Maybe being a grandmother, I have learned to make time to enjoy the present and to treasure the moments.

When I walked into my granddaughter’s bedroom, the room was packed with other people, and I made my way to an empty space on her bed. Two of my daughters were there, along with Hannah’s younger sister and her mother, and a few of Hannah’s friends. With all those women in the room, it was like being in a college dorm room. There were a lot of women talking and offering advice and admiring my youngest daughter’s handiwork, as she worked on Hannah’s hair. As time went on, people would come and new people would show up.

My daughter curled and fixed Hannah’s hair and then they went into the bathroom to apply her make up. When they were finished and Hannah had her dress and shoes on…she looked amazing. The dress she wore was a short satin purple one with an oversized jeweled pin on the waist. Hannah is a tall girl, but with her heels on, she towered over everyone and she looked breathtakingly beautiful.

All I could think of was…when did my oldest granddaughter grow up? Where did the 15 years go? I remember the night she was born, when we went to the hospital and saw her and now…she is on her way to homecoming.

Time goes on. It never stops or slows down. I have a ton of memories of Hannah…Hannah the little blond haired, blue eyed baby sitting in a baby seat, playing games with her on the family room rug as a child, the granddaughter that I babysat for the past 13 years. When she was little we watched the Lion King over and over and over, along with every other Disney movie that she loved. One of her first stuffed animals that I bought her was the lion, Nala, from the Lion King. Hannah is now in junior high, and continues drawing, and is an artist and a darn good one, a gregarious person with tons of friend, a smart student, a basketball player and the nicest, most considerate kid that I ever have had the pleasure to know. She now babysits, and works as a dishwasher for my one daughter’s catering business and also works at a pizza shop.

Before I know it, she will be finished with high school, and off to college and then who knows, maybe get married and have babies, hopefully, not for a very long time.

Still, we can talk to one another. Hannah loves coming over to my house and eating my food. She still hugs and kisses me and makes me feel like the best grandmother in the world. I hope that this will last forever. Hannah was the first grandchild and for five years the only one. But my bond with Hannah has been a long special one and it always will be.

Chef

I never met Bourdain or Emeril
or Mario or Ramsay or White.
I have worked with a Chef
and she is like those chefs with
qualities of fouled temperament,
bullying, maniacal tactics. A
chef knows what they want.
Their kitchen is their realm, their
domain. They own it. To be
in a kitchen with a chef is to
serve them. Do your work quickly,
quietly, precisely and correctly.
Stay out of their way, do your job
right the first time. For God
sake’s – keep your apron clean!

It Gets Hot in the Kitchen

Every time I take off over more then one or two days and return to work with my daughter in her catering kitchen, my cooking brain cells seems to have forgotten to accompany me. I guess they are still in their days off mode. When I go into the kitchen and seem to forget everything. The first job for today is to cut up 20 pounds of potatoes and put them in two buckets of water.

My next job is to make the broccoli cheddar salad. I pull out the broccoli and onions from the Walk- In Refrigerator. I walk over to the prep table and start to ask my daughter, “Do you want me to mix all or the broccoli and onions for the salad?”

The Chef says, “Don’t ask me. You know how to do it. Just do it”

I smart from the reply and decide to use it all, and cut up one more purple onion, add crumbled bacon, shredded cheddar cheese and the salad dressing. Sample it to make sure that it tastes good.

I help to prep other dishes, like make fresh pasta, cool it down and cut up yellow squash, green zucchini, add pepper jack cheese and salami, along with black olives. Then I add the balsamic dressing and mix this up, cover it with plastic wrap and label it, and put it on a shelf in the Walk In.

Pull out the Romaine lettuce and cut it up, all 24 heads, soak it in a big plastic container. After I will drain it, cover it and put that into the Walk In.

My other jobs are to cut up three red peppers, three green peppers, and two white onions and sauté these. They too will cool down and be placed in a small hotel pan and put into the refrigerator. In between I rinse and wash whatever is waiting to go through the dishwasher and put those things away when they dry. I finish with putting cheese puff pastries on sheet trays, cover, label, and put those in the Walk In. I do the same thing with the fried chicken. Finding places in the refrigerator is tricky; some will be staked on shelves, carefully on top of one another.

Ever so often my daughter snaps at me about something I did or didn’t do. I try not to react or talk back. Later, I walk by and watch her working at the deep fryer. I tap her lightly on her shoulder and say, “Good job. Good job.”

She looks at me and says, “You are a pain today.”

But at least she is smiling. Hey…everyone needs that tap on their shoulder, reinforcing that they do a good job.

Defending the Caveman

Recently I attended a one man comic play, Defending the Caveman at the Cabaret. To say the least, it was very funny. I along with a friend, and the audience of men and women, laughed myself silly during the whole play.

I have to admit that the play was like reading the book; Men are from Mars, Women from Venus by John Gary. And yes, for anyone who hasn’t realized it yet – men and women are definitely different. I don’t mean just physically different. Men and women live in their own worlds and by their own lingo and word meanings.

Vince Valentine who played the title role was hilarious. The perfect way that he delivered his lines, was what made him so funny.. He fit the type, Caveman in a modern, bearish kind of way. Even though you might disagree with him, you still would want to be around him, to see if you could rehabilitate him. Don’t bother. Besides that he was funny, he handed out quite a few gems of the differences between the sexes: men are hunters and can only focus on one thing at a time like watching television, eating, and drinking beer, sitting with his buddies and not saying a word. (I have grouped these activities together because it makes a lot of sense to me.) Men are really good at tuning women out. So true, but then women are great at tuning out kids. Women are gatherers, who pull in bits of information from all their encounters and they definitely are multi taskers and bond easily with other women. Women love shopping, men do not. Men love to control the remote control and they do it well, standing in front of the screen. Women would rather talk.

But from living with men…like an ex and my six sons, I know what it’s like to cook a meal and eat alone or in silence. I know sometimes after cooking a meal, that person comes home and isn’t hungry. From a close friend, I know when her husband came home from the office, he went off to his Man Cave, and ate dinner alone, in front of the television without saying a word. I definitely preferred the Man Cave in the play form for the 1-1/2 hours with appetizers, a drink and an intermission, along with laughter and tears sliding down my cheeks.

Yes, men and women are different and that is one of the simple facts of life and both sexes need to accept this and don’t even bother trying to change it or figure it out.

I do have one question…if a Man Cave, why not a Woman Cave? Let’s just leave it at that!

Nothing is Easy

Every time I am asked to babysit, I usually say yes. But there are times when I have other plans and I say no. The other day my one son asked me if I would pick his son up from football practice. Since I had nothing planned, and knew exactly where the field was, I said, “Yes.”

I wanted to get to the field early and then it started to pour. I figured they would still have football practice, so I left but had to stop for gas, because my tank was running on fumes. Then it really started to pour and I heard the sounds of thunder rumbling above. I stepped on the gas and drove toward the field and made the detour. It was now getting dark and like older people, I hate driving in the dark because it is hard to see. I followed the detour sign but when I got to my last turn…I made a left and found myself going the wrong way. I realized…I blew it. I had to follow through on the wrong route, until I could safety turn around.

After I turned around…I saw lightning and stepped on the gas because I was afraid that I wouldn’t make it to the field on time. The scenic detour didn’t help matters and my blood pressure was rising.

I found all my landmarks, the field and I saw the football team huddled under cover, sitting on the picnic table. I stood in the now light drizzle, so that my grandson would know that I was here.I listened to the coaches; all eight of them give their pep talks. The first mentioned the importance of playing and beating their opponents, who would not roll over and play dead. He also invoked Madison Square Garden and alluded to Ali and Fraser. I am thinking…what the h#**? You are talking to 10 and 11 year old kids, who are wiping the snot off their nose and looking around, and don’t even understand what you are saying. Each coach said hia piece, and then the head coach yammered some more. One would have thought they were preparing the Steelers for their Super Bowl game.

Afterwards, my grandson received the star stickers to put on his helmet, we started to drive home, when my grandson said, “I am hungry."

I suggested, “McDonald’s?”

“No, that makes me puke."

I said, "That would make me puke. So, I gather Wendy’s is off the menu, too?”

“Yes,” he said. “How about Arby’s?”

“Well that is across six lanes of traffic, in the opposite direction. I will have to turn around."

“Would Taco Bell be easier?” he suggested.

"Sure would since it is up ahead on the right."

He wanted six tacos…which one gets for two dollars. His order was six tacos with only cheese, and this from a kid who barely eats. And he ate at least two on the drive home. When we got to his house, no one was there. So, we sat in my car, in the rain while he ate and we talked.

After 30 minutes my daughter in law drove up and apologized for being late. “Hey no problem…it gave me some one-on-one time with my grandson.”

Anyway, the nest time I am asked to pick up my grandson, I need to get more information like maybe the time, who will be home and can you leave a key?

Electronics and Me

Let’s face it; I’m a child of the 60s. I love music, flowers and love. I grew up with a radio, record player (later hi fi stereo), a black and white television with the official rabbit ears. Rabbit ears that operated so much better with aluminum foil wrapped around each tip.

While my kids were growing up, they moved from a black and white television set (because we were the honest-to-God last people on the face of the earth to have one), to a colored television, to boom boxes, Walkmans (and I totally coveted these yellow radios, because they made me feel like an athlete), tapes, CDs, computers, computer games and Television games.

We had an Atari game and they could figure out the system and the games. I could actually play Pong but that was it. I sucked at Donkey Kong and everything else that is remotely related to electronic games. Although I can play the Angry Bird game on my daughter’s iPad…which I am going to buy someday for myself.

My kids were naturals with their eye and hand coordination. They were already on their way to conquering the electronic highway of knowledge while I fumbled away with how to make my floppy disk ready to use. After I wrote down all those steps of how to prepare and save my floppy disk - technology inside the computer changed and made everything easier. Thank you little genie inside my computer…you have your work cut out for you!

Forget that I couldn’t figure out how to tape a Television program in the old days. I had plenty of kids to do that. Now, television has high definition and a controller that has a DVR on it. Whatever! As for televisions, they now come with their own controllers, and then there is the DVD controller. Don’t forget the universal remote control, which can be used for the TV and DVD player. In my bedroom, my one controller turns on my TV but the other controller operates the volume. I have four controllers, the third one controls the DVD and I have no idea what the fourth controller does other then takes up space and dust. But thank heavens that I now have “air in a can,” and a dust cloth to remedy all of that.

At least my son, who lived here with me for the past few years, was able to help me figure out how to go from watching TV to watching a video. After some incompetency on my part and frustration on his, he actually wrote each step down on a yellow Post It note and put it on the door of my TV stand. Now I can figure it out myself. Thank God for Post Its.

Cell Phones - a Necessary Evil

I really do know how important cell phones are, even if I don’t use mine. I have one and half of the time I leave it at home. Usually I use it for when I am driving out of state…other than that, I can live without it. But cell phones seem to be every where. I actually think there is an epidemic where the phone seems to have grown out of most people ears. That is my explanation. Cell phones are important in an emergency. But the cell phones seem more important to a number of people who need to own a cell phone and talk on it – 24/7.

I am tired of driving on the roads and seeing people on their cell phones, going slow or cutting off other drivers because they are not aware of what is going on around them, except for what is being said on their phones. They are the people who drive in a car and have to talk on the phone. Paying attention to driving is no longer important. Or they are the ones that I have stood behind in the grocery check out line where they cannot even be bothered to acknowledge the clerk. Or the ones that I have stood behind in Starbucks, who order their drinks in between the words of their sentences. Oh my…how hard would it be to say, “Hello,” ‘Please,” or “Thank you??” Pretty hard, I guess.

I used to work at a greenhouse, where women would come in, ask a question, and then continue to talk on their cell phones. They expect to be waited on, and have your full attention, as they talk away on their phone. I even go through this with my daughters, who talk on their phones while I am sitting next to them. Maybe the next time, I should just bring along my cell phone and call them up and we can talk that way…next to one another on our cells.

Recently I went out to dinner with a friend to a really nice restaurant in the North Hills area. A couple sat down next to us and before I knew it, the woman’s cell phone rang. Of course the ringer was on the highest volume possible. After she had her conversation, she hung up and started to text away. She and her spouse said about four sentences to one another and then that was it. What kind of people sit at a table at a restaurant and don’t talk to each other…you got it, married people.

So, why am I cranky…because people do not seem to have any knowledge of etiquette. People use their cell phones everywhere and never seem to stop talking. Everyone has to have a cell phone and that includes little kids as well. No wonder our kids have no idea how to carry a conversation, face to face, without the aid of a hand held device, called the cell phone. What if all our cell phones lost power? It would be a pretty quiet world.

The other day I had my oil changed at the Valvoline Oil Exchange…my eye fell on a sign that said, “If you are on your cell phone, we will wait on the next person in line, so that you can finish your conversation.”The sign made me smile and shake my head in agreement, as I put a nice green tip in the tip jar.

Farmers Market at Shaker Square

I love going to the outdoor Farmer’s Market at Shaker Square, in Cleveland, Ohio, regardless of the time of the year. There is nothing better then walking around outdoors and viewing the fresh, fruits and vegetables. I wasn’t disappointed seeing the brightly green colored zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, peppers, onions, edamame, different types and varieties of tomatoes and mushrooms. Since this is apple season, I was able to choose from a few different types of apples: McIntosh, Honey Crisp, Cortland or Jonagold.

This is the 17th year that the Farmers Market has been at Shaker Square. I love going any time that I am visiting my friend in Cleveland. There are always different types of flowers for the different seasons. I especially loved the late spring flowers. One in particular that caught my eye was the deep red cockscomb flower. I passed that up and bought a tiny baby tear plant in a terra cotta pot. As usually, there are lots of vendors at the farmers market selling donuts, kettle corn, and bundles of brightly colored flowers, and potted plants. There were also different types of cheeses, artisan bread, fresh poultry, hand made jewelry, and pottery items.

Stopping by the Amish stalls one could buy their homemade jellies and pies. One other table even had a man who sharpened knives. I wish that I had realized that because I would have brought some of my cooking knives from home.

The one table where miniature desserts were displayed on small antique plates, especially caught my eye. I had to buy two of those delicious homemade desserts. One was a miniature pear tart and the other was a miniature lemon tart. I ate half of each dessert later in the evening and was not disappointed. The pear tart had a wine flavor and the lemon tart was delectably tangy. They were both delicious.

All in all, walking around the farmer’s market, sampling and buying whatever caught my fancy, was a delightful way to spend a few pleasant hours on a beautiful Saturday morning.

Oh My Aching Thumb!

While working at my daughter’s catering kitchen, I have always admired the professional way she handles a knife and chops and slices meats, fruits, and vegetables. She makes it look so easy. Of course I can slice and chop. Not as fast though. I would love to chop away quickly but I’m always afraid that I am going to look down and see one of my fingers lying in a pool of blood along with whatever I am working on. I prefer to see my fruits, vegetables and cheeses on the cutting board and not one of my fingers. I want those in tact, still attached to my hand, so I cut the foods that I am working on slowly.

But lately my chopping is starting to look like I am a professional. I love it when my knife is sharp and slices cleanly through the foods that I am working on. I actually have gotten quicker with my cuts and slices.

Today, I worked my way through an entire box of cucumbers. I had to thinly slice a few for a vegetable tray to be used at the Saturday’s wedding. Then I moved on to a few more cucumbers where I had to peel them, cut them lengthwise and remove the seeds. I chopped them, finely, and added sour cream and salt and pepper for Tzatziki sauce.

My final job was to slice the rest of the cucumbers for a huge wedding salad for the Sunday wedding. To be frank – I’m not that crazy about cucumbers. I must have cut up well over 25 of them. Besides, losing my appetite, I now hate cucumbers. My thumb on my right slicing hand is in actual pain, and so is my wrist. I guess that’s not so bad because it actually took my mind off my aching toes, feet, ankles and legs.

Being a chef or caterer is tough work. Ask me – I’m the chef’s helper…even if it is only for a few hours.