We lost a dear friend to cancer, last Saturday morning. Vince fought the good fight and he really thought he had it whipped, even when it spread from prostate to liver. I felt that his declaration of having whipped it was to keep my husband from worrying and me from crying. The last time we talked on the phone, he could tell by the breaks in my voice that I knew better.And I somehow knew that we would never see him again. The memorial potluck is tomorrow and I expect that alot of people will be there. He owned a business, Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, and many of the locals, including us, were grateful to have his services. If a skunk somehow got beneath your house, his guys would trap and remove it. If you got snowed in, he would plow the path of your driveway so that you could get out and in again. His crew would do the hard work that nobody else could or would do.
Vince was also a songwriter. He was gifted that way. His grandfather was the celebrated writer,
Irving Stone, who wrote the book Lust For Life, which happened to be about my third cousin, who was Vincent Van Gogh. Vince and my husband recorded some of Vince's songs together, as Mr. P is an awesome lead guitarist who just seemed to know what Vince wanted for his songs. We, too, have a home recording studio. And Vince gave Mr. P permission to use any of the songs he wished to use. And as for Vince as a person? He was a mench.
The word 'casserole' comes to mind. My world has been saddened and changed by death many times in the last three years, and not once did anyone ever bring me a casserole. You know, the one that friends bring to the bereaved on family TV movies. But, yes, it dawns on me that casseroles are for the memorial after the funeral, where many people attend, as like tomorrow afternoon.
Some come to mourn, some come to tell stories of the deceased, and a couple will come just to make certain that the old bastard is really dead, along with the secrets taken to the grave. Morbid curiosity was never lost on me. But I never saw fit to keep a casket open for all to see while they stand in line to pass by and view The Dead One while the cameras come out and take pictures, with flash, of...The Dead One. I look upon this practice as despicable....
Music to drink Tomato Schnapps by,...a little old woman wearing sensible shoes pays hymnal organ because that's all she knows how to play. No boogie woogie or rock n' roll. No blues. No jazz or gypsy funk for Granny Grunt. Never mind what the deceased would have wished for.
You think that you really know someone, like your grandma, only to innocently discover she's got a tattoo on her knee when you sit together on the porch steps for a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade. Aw, it was nothing, really. Just her initials. Grandpa did it to prove to her that he wasn't causing their show rabbits any pain when he tattooed I.D. numbers inside of their ears. So, see? No pondering needed there. But, boy, was it weirdly funny when the mortician put rouge and lipstick and eyeshadow on her face. Grandma NEVER wore makeup. This artistic rendering of 'pretty' upon my grandmother's corpse made her look like a clown, and my mother was horrified.She made them wash ot off RIGHT NOW. I had to stifle giggles and snarks while this drama ensued. Because it had nothing to do with a mistake. Uh uh. This upset was about making a pious old woman look like the whore of Babylon. Did you know that there are colleges for corpse cosmetology? I once considered doing that for a living.
Okay. So you can pick your jaw up off the floor, now. I'm over it.
Yet again, the basics of this recipe came from my grandmother Jeanette. I was living with her for a few months and I was a vegetarian, at that time. No meat, no fowl or fish, but I did drink milk and eat cheeses and butter. Basically, I wouldn't eat anything with eyes. Just about every evening when I'd get home from work, I would fry up some zucchini and onions, and put thin slices of cheddar on buttered toast. Grandma couldn't stand this ritual any longer, so she got in there and added egg to it and fried it up so that I'd be sure to get some protein in my diet.She didn't like this vegetarian business one bit. I even used the Bible as reference to that, God forbade us from eating cloven-hoofed animals and shellfish. Therefore, if any meat is unclean then ALL meat was unclean. And if it's unclean to eat shellfish, what makes the other fish so special that we are allowed to eat it? Her explanation of seasonal poison in shellfish was sound, but then, why would God forbid us to eat certain animals and then turn around and say that we could? Truthfully, my diet had nothing to do with adhering to scriptures, but if I wanted to keep Grandma engaged in conversation with me, it had to center around The Lord.
Scrambled eggs and onions and zucchini are wonderful rolled up in a soft flour tortilla stuffed with lots of grated Jack cheese and homemade salsa. It would be ten more years before I would entertain this mixture as a burrito and using salsa with it.
So far, Mr. P is the only one I know who doesn't like it. It seems that, lately, just about everything I want to bake or cook gets a sneer of disapproveal and a firm,"I don't like that and you can't make me eat it. I told you I don't like it, but you go and make it anyway". But you see, I'm a seasoned veteran of care-and-feeding psychology, and you would be surprised by what can be achieved when you answer sweetly, "But, who said it's for you?"
SCRAMBLED EGG AND ZUCCHINI BURRITOS with Linda's salsa
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe
First, make your salsa, or mine:
1 14.5-oz. can petite diced tomatoes (do not use fresh tomatoes) and the juices
4 to 5 Tbsp. vegetable oil
splash of sesame oil (optional)
1/3 cup water
1 large clove elephant garlic, minced
5 green onions, sliced thin (use only if eating all the salsa in three days)
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
1 leek, thinly sliced (soak first, to get sand out)
5 serrano chilies, thinly sliced
3 yellow wax chilies, thinly sliced (ripe peppers will be dark yellow, or turning orange)
1/2 to 1 tsp. garlic salt, to taste
8 shakes of black pepper
1 tsp. regular chili powder
1. Put all chilies in a collander, rinse well and let drain.
2. Empty canned tomatoes into large bowl, including juices. Add water, vegetable oil, and a shake or two of sesame oil and stir to combine.
3. Add minced garlic clove (you can quickly fry it in oil to toast, if you like). If using, add thinly sliced green onions, and finely chopped yellow onions, and the thin slices of the leek. Stir it up to combine.
4. Slice all the chilies quite thin. Discard the seeds, but it is desirable to have a small amount. They make the salsa hot, but the serranos are very hot as is. The full heat won't be evident until the next day, when all of the flavors have married well. However, this salsa is tasty enough to use the same day it's made.
5. Add chilies to bowl mixture and stir it all up to distribute them well.
6. Add garlic salt, garlic powder, salt, pepper and chili powder. Stir it all up and taste to see if you need to add anything to taste. You shouldn't, but it's okay if you want to.
Keep in refrigerator in a big glass jar with an airtight lid. If you use green onions, it should be eaten in three days. If not, it should keep well in fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Note: I don't use fresh tomatoes because they go bad and mushy, and they don't flavor well.
For the burrito mix:
3 medium sized zucchinis, chopped into 1/2" cubes (skin on)
1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped roughly in 1/4" pieces
4 eggs, beaten with a fork until all yellow
1/2 to 3/4 cup salsa, as you like
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil for frying
To add in burrito:
1 cup Jack cheese, grated
1/4 cup salsa
Large flour tortilla (I use Canteca burrito-sized)
1. Clean zucchini. Leaving skin on, cut into 1/2" pieces or cubes.
2. Put into saucepan filled two thirds with boiling water and boil for 5 min..
3. Meanwhile, put chopped onions into large frying pan with the 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil. Fry just until clear. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Drain zucchini, making sure most of the watery juices drain out. Then pat with paper towels until dry.
5. Turn on heat under fry pan and add the zucchini to the onions. Stir until hot on low heat and then add the hand-beaten eggs, stirring it up to coat all of the egg/zucchini mixture. Add the 1/2 to 3/4 cup salsa and stir it up. Remove from heat when the egg is cooked through.
6. Grate the Jack cheese into small bowl, 1/3 to 1/2 cup, as you like.
7. Heat both sides of a flour tortilla over the stove burner (gas is best, but electric will do on low). Place on plate, heap on the grated cheese, then the mixture, then the salsa with as little juice as possible. Roll it up (as seen in pictures below). Enjoy with sprinkles of salt, a bite at a time, if you like.
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