All posts by Laura Grimes

Books, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

Get kids to read without really trying: 1

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By Laura Grimes

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck“Why didn’t you tell me a naked lady runs down the street with a giant snake?”

I jokingly chided Mr. Scatter that it was all his fault that I was completely unprepared to read this rip-snorting scene while on a crowded bus and that I was forced to stifle gut-busting laughter until I couldn’t breathe and had to spill out onto the sidewalk.

But before I innocently chatted up Mr. Scatter, I did two things: I made sure one Large Smelly Boy was within earshot and then the other.

“What lady? Where?”

The LSBs immediately drew closer and wanted to know details.

Continue reading Get kids to read without really trying: 1 →

General, Laura Grimes, Music

Night at the opera with Large Smelly Boy

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A night at the opera at Keller Auditorium/LaValle Linn

By Laura Grimes

“It’s three hours long!” the Small Large Smelly Boy repeated what he had overheard in a low, urgent voice.

It was minutes before curtain at Portland Opera’s Pagliacci/Carmina Burana on Thursday night. I immediately shuffled the pages in the program to confirm it. He was dead right.

This was no small matter, and I could sense the growing unease we both felt. I already knew he was calculating the clock in his head, not only fretting about a long performance where he wasn’t sure what to expect but also what time he would get to bed on a school night.

He gets sleepy mid-evening, puts himself to bed and gets up on his own bright and early in the morning. He doesn’t like after-school activities because they get in the way of his homework. He long ago gave up on me getting him to school because he knows I cut it close. Instead, he shows up 45 minutes before the tardy bell and hangs with his friends. He is never late and is always orderly.

I, on the other hand, fight sleep like a toddler, except every morning. I’m not sure how he came to be my child (and I’m sure he often wonders the same thing), but because of him I totally believe that story about the Virgin Mary.

Continue reading Night at the opera with Large Smelly Boy →

Food, General, Humor, Laura Grimes, Music

Pickles and Pagliacci: Two posts in one

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Pickles with a bite of spice -- make an offer I can't refuse!

By Laura Grimes

The pickles as social vehicle experiment is working! (Read what it’s all about here.) So far, the bartering offers include (some serious, some not so much):

  • Sauerkraut
  • Pesto plus a 2009 WillaKenzie pinot gris
  • Elk meat
  • Cream cheese braid
  • $57.32 (perhaps not so serious, but I know the intent is true, because we split one of these jars of pickles for lunch recently on a hot summer day when we had nothing else to eat and had to dig out slices with our fingers)
  • Designer labels for jars (also perhaps not so serious, but a little arm-twisting might work)
  • “Ring of Fire” peppers with an 80K hotness (I still have no idea what this is, but my guess is an extreme distance running race after eating the peppers, which still sound painful)
  • Kickass ginger molasses cookies (also sound painful, but in a good way)
  • Apple pie I
  • Apple pie II
  • Henry James novel

The pickle show hits the road next week to pick up the kickass ginger molasses cookies. It involves a coffee date.

I’m researching how to ship fragile jars with amber liquid. The hot peppers that require running a long distance are being shipped from Idaho from someone I haven’t been in touch with much for more than 30 years. In return, I need to send pickles to a place on Wild Goose Way.

Other rendezvous are in the works.

It’s not too late to make an offer. Hurry while supplies last.

And, George, I saw that! We’re going to have to slice our cucumbers differently next year and call them Bartering Chips.

*

Pagliacci/Carmina Burana continues tonight and Saturday at Portland Opera. The Small Large Smelly Boy and I will be there and we have a fun post planned. Stay tuned!

Books, Food, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

We put pickles up ourselves and now we need your help

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Our beloved offspring

By Laura Grimes

When word got around that we put pickles up again this year, the barter offers started to come in. So far, we’ve received requests for pickles in exchange for:

  • Sauerkraut
  • Pesto
  • Elk meat

This is not a bad combination. (Forget the fact that we don’t eat meat.) Now I’m thinking that if we strike enough deals we could put together an entire Thanksgiving dinner by the fourth Thursday in November. Whaddayasay? I’m hoping for pie.

Continue reading We put pickles up ourselves and now we need your help →

Food, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

The fresh ‘n’ fruity mutant edition

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Mutant Green Tomato

By Laura Grimes

Dear Mr. Scatter,

You really shouldn’t let me go shopping unsupervised. Because then I buy things like Baby Fuzzless Kiwifruit. They don’t look very exceptional. They look like hard little nuggets that should be skewered and stuck in a drink. But I don’t care about that. They’re called Baby Fuzzless Kiwifruit and that’s all that matters. The package says I bought One Half Dry Pint. All the signs in the store said Kiwifruit (oneword).

I also bought Elephant Heart Plums. I have no idea whether they’re any good. Who cares with such a cool name? I did, however, refrain from buying a long skinny eggplant that was folded like a bobby pin and a sweet potato that looked like a goose. Knowing me, you know I showed remarkable restraint in not filling the cart with a bobby pin, a goose and all their deformed friends.

Continue reading The fresh ‘n’ fruity mutant edition →

General, Humor, Laura Grimes

The Oscar goes to Large Smelly Boy!

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Briefly, the stories I could tell .../Wikimedia Commons

By Laura Grimes

Dear Mr. Scatter,

Thank you for cleaning the little black skillet before bailing again. It is duly noted that you mentioned it before you left and again on the phone. Please note that I have performed my wifely duty by appreciating it out loud. Now if you could just solve the little matter of getting the man-children to stop eating and requiring fried eggs, we could keep the little black skillet clean and our marriage contract would not be necessary.

No. Wait. That’s not what I meant.

*

The jig is up with the Large Large Smelly Boy. We’ve been found out. Even though he hasn’t deigned to read the blog for months or have any technological connection with me besides texting when he needs a ride, he was looking at my computer screen while I was logged on to the blog, and he wanted to know about a recent comment in a post. I think his question went something like, “What was that about Nancy Farmer? Deliciously disturbed? Leather lampshades? What’s that all about?”

I said, “It’s in a blog entry. You can read it. Here.” And I clicked. Then I turned away and started to leave. I paused. “Sorry I’m sending you to Greenland.”

Continue reading The Oscar goes to Large Smelly Boy! →

Books, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

Potions, passions and a poetic pot-boiler

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Mad science at work/Wikimedia Commons

By Laura Grimes

Dear Mr. Scatter,

We have one zany concoction brewing here.

I noticed you waxed on about prunes and mustard recently. So I’ll wax some more about prunes (figuratively) and mustard (literally). The Large Smelly Boys helped throw a few more beastly things into the pot.

First the prunes. The feral teen was less feral today. I think the large dose of sleep helped. His body clock and all his inner-workings have been out of whack since school started. We finally went over his …

CHEMISTRY SAFETY AGREEMENT

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy FarmerFelix/Martha and I have been studying up on all the books that are going to be used in his division this year for the Oregon Battle of the Books. (Last year’s competition was an unbelievable nail-biter, and I’m not just saying.) We’re excited about several titles, but especially The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer. Once we started reading her astonishing bio on her website we just couldn’t stop.

So, we have prunes, mustard, Nancy Farmer, those drat safety agreements, and a few more surprises swirling together. I hardly know where one ends and another begins.

Continue reading Potions, passions and a poetic pot-boiler →

Food, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

Saints preserve us: The steamy details

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Pick a little, pack a little

By Laura Grimes

(Editor’s note: Sorry, you seem to be stuck with me. Mr. Scatter appears to be AWOL. Well, not AWOL. More like … A. He’s been traveling. B. He’s been canning. C. He’s been busy. … Hope you don’t mind.)

Perfecting the art of preserving requires more than an oversized canner and a jug of formaldehyde. It requires knowing all the naughty little secrets. Let me save you the trouble of trial and error and spill all the valuable lessons I’ve brought to a boil over the years:

Continue reading Saints preserve us: The steamy details →

Food, General, Laura Grimes

Chutney: Apple that comes with a bite

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Washed and ready

By Laura Grimes

We stumbled upon chutney lust quite by accident. One summer we had a gangly vine in the backyard that produced nothing but tiny green tomatoes. Lots of them.

So I checked into what I could do with them and picked a recipe as much for its liberal use of a certain bracing spice as for its green tomatoes. I had a largish stash of crystallized ginger in the cupboard that I needed to use up.

The chutney flavor was an irresistible blend of sweet and tangy with just a little pow of hot. We were hooked. And when a neighbor handed me a grocery bag full of apples from his trees, I was ready to experiment some more.

I found another recipe, cooked up all the apples in a blink and still had ingredients. Somewhat sheepishly I took the empty grocery bag back next door and said, “Please, sir, may I have another?” I thought I could rummage around on the neighbor’s lawn for fallen apples and reach some low-hanging branches, but the guilt really set in when he immediately fetched a tall ladder and climbed way up into a tree to pick some more. I had to foist a lot of jars of chutney on him to make up for it.

Continue reading Chutney: Apple that comes with a bite →

Food, General, Laura Grimes

Avert your gaze, we’re kinda busy

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Spicy dills!

By Laura Grimes

Sorry we’ve been neglecting the blog. Mr. Scatter is finally home and we’re in the throes of passion.

We’re making pickles. (What were YOU thinking?)

As you’ll recall, we’re The Condiment Family. In fact, we even have our own motto:

Practice safe snacking. Always use a condiment.

Read last year’s pickle post here. It’s about love, death and those crunchy little cucumbers — sometimes sweet and sometimes sour.

Making pickles is a many-day endeavor that begins easily enough with a many-store shopping trip.

Continue reading Avert your gaze, we’re kinda busy →