Overcoming the Dog Days of Summer

Cincinnati Chili 

The dog days of summer are here and its time to cook something that provides lots of energy.   Rick and the Trio love this dish and they have recreated this tasty dinner from a recipe found on the About Foods website.  Rick's addition to the feast is a Zinfandel and cornbread with honey.  The fruitiness of the wine goes perfectly with the flavors of this spicy chili. 

6-8 Servings

Ingredients:

1 large onion, chopped
1 pound extra-lean ground beef (hamburger)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa or 1/2 ounce grated unsweetened chocolate
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 (16-ounce) package spaghetti
Toppings (see below)

Preparation:

In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, sauté onion, ground beef, garlic, and chili powder until ground beef is slightly cooked.

Add allspice, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, unsweetened cocoa or chocolate, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cider vinegar, and water. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, 1 hour 30 minutes. Remove from heat.

Cook spaghetti according to package directions.  Make some cornbread and then add honey to some butter.

Put the spaghetti, the chili, the cheese, the onions, the kidney beans and the cornbread on a counter so that the guests can help themselves.

Cincinnati chili lovers order their chili by number. Two, Three, Four, or Five Way. Let your guest create their own final product.
Two-Way Chili:   Chili served on spaghetti

Three-Way Chili:   Additionally topped with shredded Cheddar cheese

Four-Way Chili:   Additionally topped with chopped onions

Five-Way Chili:   Additionally topped with kidney beans (used canned beans)
 

Another Look at the Adoption and Foster Care Novels

 

All children deserve to be raised in loving and caring homes.  Sometimes that doesn't happen and the children are removed from their birth parents and put into foster care and in other cases, they are put up for adoption. In The Winning Certificate and Death of a Foster Child Rick Podowski and the Hefty Trio examine the issues associated with adoption and foster care.

Sylvia Medina, a student at Central High joins a teenage gang after her adopted mother's death and is trapped in a lifestyle of violence and hopelessness. Can the school's Literary Club and an image on the computer of her birth mother provide the hope necessary for Sylvia to survive?

Antonio Medina, after his wife's death from cancer, tries everything to get Sylvia back on track. However, nothing helps until Rick Podowski and Leti Rios, advisors to the high school Literary Club, get Sylvia involved. Sylvia reluctantly shares some of her poems. Then, as Sylvia becomes more committed, she begins to change and becomes in touch with her feelings.

As Sylvia develops her ties to the Literary Club, she gets more intrigued by the picture of her birth mother and tries to find her. She learns that her mother lives in New York and when members of the Literary Club go to Columbia University to attend a conference and receive an award for their magazine, Sylvia goes along. Instead of going to the conference, she visits her mother.

She finds out that her mother married a very rich man, and she has two stepsons. The stepfather is dead, and the two sons along with her lawyer are trying to obtain her farm and include it as part of a land trust being used as a means to launder money for the mob. Murder, kidnapping, money laundering, and mob activities are included in this novel.

In addition to being an amateur detective novel, The Winning Certificate is the story of how a young woman, her adopted father, and her birth mother each react to the seven core adoption issues, confronting, as they do, personal issues centered on loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, intimacy and mastery or control.

The term "winning certificate" refers to two things. Our birth certificates are the proof that we are connected to a family structure that is greater than ourselves. The main character in this story was finally able to confront the issues associated with her adoption as well as coming to grips with the people named on the original birth certificate. Students in minority schools often feel inferior because their life experiences are not valued. The Literary Society members in this novel achieved a degree of excellence in their stories and poems about their lives, which resulted in their receiving a "winning certificate" in a national competition.

The Winning Certificate, won the 2011 Global eBook award in the amateur sleuth category and is available for $2.99 at Smashwords or at Amazon.

California’s foster children attend an average of seven to nine different schools by age 18—80% are held back in school by the third grade. In an investigation by a local newspaper, they found that about one in five foster children are given psychotropic drugs. Less than half of California’s foster youth will graduate from high school and only 2% graduate from college or universities. Each year over 4,000 foster youth emancipate in California. They lack a supportive network of adults and generally have no plan for work or housing. Within the first 2 to 4 years after “aging out” of the system, 51% of these young adults are unemployed, 40% are on public assistance, 25% become homeless, and 20% will be incarcerated. This situation is similar in other states.

In order to have a foster child in the home, the interested couples must complete an extensive complicated process, which many find to be extremely humiliating. Although there have been attempts in recent years to make the rules less oppressive, the California Community Licensing agency (CCL), has made complying with the rules more important than the welfare of the child. Rules like keeping the detergent for the washing machine under lock and key are common even if your foster child is a teenager. It's even worse if you obtain your foster child from a private agency rather (FFA) than the county. Instead of a cooperative effort between CCL and the Foster Family Agency, there seems to be one of "obey the rules or else" which creates stress for all involved and works to the detriment of the children.


Fear is the overriding factor as social workers and agencies go overboard to keep from losing their licenses or being fined. CCL acts like a fiefdom where inspectors intimidate both foster parents and the adoption/foster care agencies. Child Protective Services (CPS) becomes the enforcer for this system and in many cases, unproven allegations can become the basis for removing a child. The rigidity of the system creates the situation where there aren't enough foster parents.

Death of a Foster Child explores the guilt felt when the foster placement of a teenage girl in the home of Rick Podowski and his wife failed. To complicate matters, the foster child was brutally murdered and the authorities believe she was selling drugs on the school campus and by implication asserted that the foster parents allowed this behavior. Rick Podowski with the help of Leti Ramos, Erin McGinty, and Teresa Spinelli, also know as The Hefty Trio investigate to learn the truth.

In the process of investigating, they discover the world of drug sales on the high school campus, the underlying challenges facing students in a gang-infested school, as well as the difficulties faced by special education students. The reader will experience the frustrations of foster parents when faced with a system that is designed to keep the children dependent. Suggestions to improve foster care and move the children towards independence are provided at the end of the book.

Even though both books address difficult topics, the stories are uplifting. As an added bonus, Rick and The Hefty Trio love to eat and the books contain ethnic recipes with pairings of boutique wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.

Death of a Foster Child is available for $2.99 at Smashwords or at Amazon.

Save Some Money

    

Baked Apple Pancake

     

Last Sunday many of you spent a fortune on a Mother's Day brunch.  Now it's time to be frugal and have a delicious brunch at home.  The baked apple pancake was first mentioned in Murder Before The Bell when Rick tried to woo his new girlfriend. When it comes from the oven it is absolutely beautiful.

Batter

4 large eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Fruit

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 large tart apple (no need to peel)

Blend eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in food processor.  With the machine running add vanilla, butter, and nutmeg.  Let it stand for thirty minutes.

Slice the apple.

In a 10 inch ovenproof skillet melt the butter and coat the sides of the pan.  Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar cinnamon and nutmeg over the butter.  Cover with apple slices and the other 1/4 cup of sugar.  Use medium-high heat until the mixture bubbles.

Pour the batter over the apples and place in a pre-heated 425 degree oven for fifteen minutes.  Reduce the heat to 375 and bake for ten minutes more.  Serve immediately

Makes 3-4 servings.

This recipe adapted from Machine Cuisine Cooking Classes

The Mexico Irish Connection

In the Rick Podowski and The Hefty Trio series, Erin has Irish roots and Leti has Mexican roots.  

What is the connection between Mexico and Ireland?

In 1846, thousands of immigrants, mostly Irish, joined the US army and were sent with Gen. Zachary Taylor's army to invade Mexico in what some historians have called a war of Manifest Destiny.

Dubious about why they were fighting a Catholic country, and fed up with mistreatment from their Anglo-Protestant officers, hundreds of Irish and other immigrants deserted Taylor's army and joined forces with Mexico. Led by Captain John Riley of County Galway, they called themselves the St. Patrick's Battalion---in Spanish, the San Patricios.

They fought bravely in most of the campaigns of the two-year conflict, but their efforts failed to stem the Yankee onslaught. Soon the US Army occupied the halls of Montezuma, and Mexico eventually surrendered, ceding nearly half its territory to the United States.

Toward the end of the conflict, at the Battle of Churubsco, 83 San Patricios were captured, and 72 were court-martialed. Of this number, 50 were sentenced to be hanged and 16 were flogged and branded on their cheeks with the letter "D" for deserter.

Mexicans see them as heroes, honoring them every Sept. 12 with a special commemoration. In 1993, the Irish began their own ceremony to honor them in Clifden, Galway, Riley's hometown.

From The San Patricios: Mexico's Fighting Irish by Mark R. Day

In honor of this special day, we present a Mexican and an Irish dish for Cinco de Mayo.

Ceviche and Roasted Asparagus and Red Onion Quesadillas

Irish Smoked Salmon Sandwiches

Taxes and Hated Paperwork

In two days tax returns are due and I'm sure that many people spent the weekend slaving over the numbers.  We did our taxes early but we got a new rescue cat this weekend and if you read below, you will see that the hated paperwork is on a par with doing the taxes. 

From Mellow Out--Lessons Learned From Household Cats:  


-->

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

Wernher von Braun

Chapter 1

Paperwork Is Evil

This book is about the influence that my cats have had on me. So, in terms of full disclosure, my cats did not teach me to despise paperwork. I learned about the evils of paperwork when I entered the Air Force at seventeen years old. But that wasn’t the last time I faced unnecessary paper pushing.

Practically all of my adult life I have been a classroom teacher specializing in reading, English, and ESL. People around me ranted and raved about policy changes and paperwork, but I closed my classroom door and did my own thing. When I got surveys and junk like that in the mail, I would just ignore them. I would even laugh when the new dentist required me to fill out the medical form. He wanted to know, among other things, if I was mentally ill and in counseling. Was he afraid that I would attack him? Another dentist’s form asked if I had taken Viagra twenty-four hours before the initial appointment.

Most of the time, I fill out the forms with all their ridiculous items to benefit someone else. I filled out the house loan form because my wife wanted a house. My kids wanted to play sports so I filled out the form. Do understand that I hate doing this.

My attitude changed to one of grudging acceptance on a cold Saturday morning, December 27, 2008. We were thinking about getting another cat to keep our current one company. My wife and I walked into one of the big box pet stores. Signs directed the customer to the rabbit, dog, reptile and cat sections. It’s hard to believe that there can be so many kinds of dog and cat foods. At the front of the store were ten open cages and a large sign announcing the 13th Street Cat Rescue Adoption Fair.

Two women were standing around, and one looked very official. So, I walked up to her and made it perfectly clear that we were only looking. Her long, slender face and posture conveyed that “we shall see” look. There was no way that this woman would get the best of me. I planned to go home empty-handed, period.

My wife made the foolish mistake of sitting on the floor in front of the cages while the woman enthusiastically explained about the different cats. As she was talking about the first cat, out came a brown and white tabby with a clipped ear, a wimpy tail and an absolutely beautiful face. She jumped into my wife’s lap and then all of a sudden we heard this loud purr. That was it. I knew that my macho behavior would be no match for the purring occurring in my wife’s lap.

After a few minutes, the woman returned with a with a big smile on her face and a clipboard. The cat adoption application form was attached. With the cat firmly in her lap, my wife and I proceeded to fill out the form. There was a bevy of information, including employer, owner or renter of your home, the name of a veterinarian to serve as a reference and then the heavy questions. My wife read these questions aloud. “What would you do in case of a divorce?”

“How could we get a divorce?” I replied. “The cat would then be homeless, and we couldn’t allow that.”

“I’ll write that we have friends who will take care of the cat,” my wife responded. “The second question is easy because it’s about surrendering a cat to an animal shelter and we’ve never done that.”

“I’d castrate myself before I would allow my cat to be taken to an animal shelter,” I said it loud enough that the volunteer could hear me. She smiled.

“Finally,” my wife said, “we have to certify that all of the information on the form is true and correct or the adoption will not be approved.”

“What?” I said trying to look as incredulous as possible. “Me, lie on a form provided by a cat rescue organization? I’d rather go to prison first.”

The woman put the cat back in the cage, took a refundable deposit for $125.00 and said that she would call us. I guess they had to do a background check. Surprisingly, they did not ask for our fingerprints.

At five o’clock, the woman called to tell us that we had been approved and that she was bringing the cat over to our house. She arrived thirty minutes later, and we rushed the cat into our spare bedroom so that the cats wouldn’t meet too soon. Now it was time for more paperwork. We had to sign a contract. There were ten clauses in the contract and several of them were a tad bit ridiculous. One said that we agreed not to declaw the cat. OK, that one was fair.

Another said that we were making this commitment for the rest of the cat’s life and that we understood it could be twenty years or more. This doesn’t make any sense! You can throw your kids out after eighteen years, but you have to keep the cat for over twenty.

If you have an indoor/outdoor cat, which we do, we had to keep the cat inside for a month and then supervise to be sure that the cat is inside at night. What would happen if the cat stayed out all night? Would I have to restrict her to the bedroom? Maybe I should take her phone away? The next article stated that the 13th Street people could come into my home for the next twenty years to check on the cat. Finally, if we failed to follow all of these rules, they had the right to reclaim the cat.

The woman left, and I sat there reflecting on the ridiculous paperwork. In the end I came to realize that if something is important, you just have to suck it up and do it. However, I still don’t feel less angry, and it didn’t help that I needed to do the paperwork before I could learn the lessons of life from observing the cats.

While I was having a fit over this stupidity, the cat was purring. Maybe I should have learned that positive lesson from the cat: no matter how much you hate the paperwork, be calm and just purr.

All joking aside, the volunteers at the 13th Street Cat rescue do a wonderful job.

http://www.13thstcats.org/

Rescue Stats 2017
291 cats spayed/neutered
+ 125 cats via our trap loan program
392 cats adopted

Rescue Stats 2016
260 cats spayed/neutered
+ 130 cats via our trap loan program
341 cats adopted

Are You Sick Of The Tweets?

It's spring, the weather is warming and the flowers are starting to bloom.  Christians are celebrating Easter and people of the Jewish faith are celebrating Passover.  It's a time when families are getting together and the debate is heating up as to whether you can wear white before Memorial Day. The only sad part of the season comes from White House tweets where we are exposed to vicious personal attacks on a daily basis. My advice is to enjoy the weather, enjoy your family, and ignore the tweets. Also, read about how to mellow out.

Mellow Out--Lessons Learned From Household Cats earned a gold Global Ebook medal in 2017 and is only $1.99 for the ebook and $4.99 for the paperback.  Click here to order

Mellow Out--Lessons Learned From Household Cats is a fun read that explores the influence cats have on our lives. The book delves into twenty areas where their behavior provides a calming effect.

The four co-authors of the book are shown below.

Chubby Wubby

The Mitzer

Willie

Samantha

When Irish Pies Are Smiling

It's almost St Patrick's Day.  In honor of this celebration, we are presenting two Irish pies. Bake the pies in advance and serve them with some wine and a green salad and you will have the perfect supper.

The pies are like quiche, the difference being that if you drink enough wine, you might be able to hear the Leprechauns talking about their pots of gold.


Click on the headings to be redirected to the recipes.

Erin's Irish Leek and Swiss Pie 

This recipe was featured in Murder Before The Bell. The unique part of this dish is the taste of the creamy leek and cheese custard. At the bottom of the pie is the salty deviled ham. The flavors in the pie blend and are accented by a  Rhone Blend. 

Erin’s Egg, Bacon, and Leek Pie 

This recipe was featured in Death In The Science Classroom. The saltiness of the bacon contrasts with the mellow flavors of the eggs and the leeks. Pairing with the pie is a Syrah that has meaty, bacon, and leather aromas. it's a wonderful combination.

Clos LaChance Wines Pair Well With Both Pies

Clos LaChance Winery takes its name from the small fenced-in area encompassing a vineyard (Clos) and from the maiden name of the co-owner Brenda Murphy. The Murphy's chose the hummingbird as the winery's symbol not only because of the bird's aesthetic beauty but also because of its ability to keep other birds away from the grapes.


In 1987, co-owners Bill and Brenda Murphy decided to plant a few rows of Chardonnay in their Saratoga backyard, not only for landscaping purposes but to realize their dreams of being vintners. A few years later, the wines produced from this small backyard vineyard were good enough to sell to the public, at which point Clos LaChance was formed into a full-fledged winery. The first commercially released wines were from the 1992 vintage.

In January 2009 Clos LaChance Winery was named a Certified California Sustainable Winegrower. All water used to process wines at Clos LaChance's production facilities is recycled to several on-site reclamation ponds. The vineyard team uses weather stations and soil analyzers in the estate vineyard that monitor the soils at any given time. Also, the winery uses a variety of cover crops, including legumes, barley, and clover to protect and enhance the productivity of the soil and to keep the vines healthy.

Clos LaChance Winery produces affordable wines from 150 acres of Estate Vineyards. They specialize in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Semillon, Syrah, Zinfandel, Merlot Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Meritage, and several Rhone style blends.

St Patrick's Day

There is no better way to celebrate St Patrick's Day than with a traditional  Irish Lamb Stew and some wine.  Consider a Merlot or a Meritage for this dish. The recipe is from Death In The Science Classroom.

Serves 6

5 pounds lamb shoulder chops

20 baby red-skinned potatoes

6 large carrots, peeled, quartered

3 medium onions, quartered

2 medium leeks (white and pale greens parts only), split lengthwise, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

2 cups water

Trim the fat from lamb and cut the meat into 1 1/2-inch pieces. 

Place fat in heavy large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook fat until 3 tablespoons drippings are rendered, about 5 minutes. Using large spoon, remove any solid fat from pot; discard. Sprinkle lamb with salt and pepper. Add lamb to pot; sauté until brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer lamb to plate. 

Add vegetables, parsley, and thyme to pot; stir to coat with drippings. Return meat. Add 2 cups water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover pot tightly; simmer until lamb is tender and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.

Place 1 cup vegetables in processor; puree. Add to stew. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill. Simmer before serving.)

A Rekindled Love

Since February is the month for love (and groundhogs), I am not going to publish a recipe and wine pairing, but rather I want to focus on a rekindled love when an adopted teenager finds her birth mother. This excerpt is from The Winning Certificate and it appeared in the literary magazine at Sylvia's old high school.

Reunited

By Sylvia Medina and Jenny Leyton

I'm the luckiest person in the whole world because, at age seventeen, I met my birth mother. Just days after I was born, two very loving people adopted me, and I grew up knowing them as my parents. When I was fourteen, my adopted mother died and through a series of events at age seventeen, I was able to meet my birth mother. We are going to share our feelings with you in the following stories. 

 Sylvia speaks

What's it like to be adopted? I'll tell you. It's about feeling empty. I can remember reading lots of children's books about one species of animal raising another species and then asking my parent's lots of questions. Finally, when I was ready, they told me that I was adopted. I had lots of questions about my birth parents, but it didn't become a major issue until my adopted mother died of cancer. Her death triggered everything. It happened right before I entered Central High School, and throughout the summer, my depression morphed into anger. Why had my birth mother abandoned me? Why hadn't she loved me enough to keep me?

When I entered Central High School, I had a huge chip on my shoulder. Since I wanted to feel important, I joined a crew and changed my physical look. I wore dark clothes, had a ring in my eyebrow and I streaked my hair. When I was with my crew members, I felt empowered and when someone dissed us, we would beat that person up. It's hard to believe that I took any part in that now, but I guess we felt that was the only way we could get some respect. But we never really felt as though we belonged. It was a badge of honor to fail all of our classes, and we just laughed whenever we were suspended. We always sat in the last row of the classroom pretending to be asleep. No teacher was going to tell us what to do.

Although I didn't want to hurt my father, I knew that my behavior caused him so much pain. I tried to change, but this huge hole in my heart remained unfilled. When other kids talked about their families, I felt ashamed because we really weren't a family and it was my fault.

My relationship with my friend, Rosita, helped me to come to grips with my pain, and being on the staff of the literary magazine helped me to understand that I had something to contribute to society. When students discussed my poems, I felt the loneliness subside. My grades improved and I no longer needed the crutch that the crew provided. Little by little, I was able to reach out to others. I stopped streaking my hair, took out the eyebrow ring, and started to wear colorful clothes. This was my rebirth. Rosita encouraged me every step of the way.

Then, as I said, I was able to find my birth mother, and last summer we moved to Purchase, New York to live on her farm. Everything was perfect for the first month because she let me do anything I wanted. After that, she became like my adopted parents. Clean your room. Take out the garbage. I had chores to do, and I was punished for misbehaving. I miss everyone at Central and it's been very hard getting used to the weather here in New York. I'm happy to be with my birth mother, but life is not perfect. Yet, I would not give up this life for anything in the world.

Jenny speaks

I was a very young college student at Stanford and I had no way to support my daughter so I had to give her up for adoption. But I thought about her every day of my life and I can't describe how painful it was not to know whether she was safe and well. I kept asking myself what I had done. What was she doing? Where was she living? Was she happy? I wanted to know, yet, I was afraid to find out. And there was another possibility. What if, once having found her, I discovered that she hated me for having let her go?

I married an older man, and we never had children of our own. I did take care of his sons from a previous marriage, and I didn't do a very good job. They were always in trouble with the school authorities or with the law. Even though I was a software engineer when I met my husband, I never had the confidence to go back to work.

It was a miracle that Sylvia's father and I happened to begin to correspond. As a result of that Sylvia came to visit and suddenly I had my daughter back. I remember that day so vividly. This beautiful girl arrived at my farm and told me that she was the daughter of the man I was corresponding with and as we talked, I realized that she was born on the same day as my daughter and that she was born in California. After hearing a bit more of her early history, I came to the realization that Sylvia was my daughter. All the fears that I had imagined concerning finding my daughter disappeared immediately. It was a great discovery to learn that we share so many interests and she makes me very happy. She's been here for several months and she doesn't even mind my being strict.

I've had a huge hole in my heart for such a long time. Now it's filled and I'm so happy that Sylvia and her father are living with me. Every day I give thanks because my daughter is here.

Will our relationship have a storybook ending? Probably not. My daughter and I love each other, and we will work every day to make our relationship meaningful. We don't want to lose each other again.