America's Number 1 MILF

Little Sarah wearing her first pair of Clark Kent glasses

In high school, our Sarah blossomed. She was a point guard for the Wasilla High School basketball team that won the 1982 Alaska State Championship, all the while “heading” up the Fellowship for Christian Athletes. She was affectionately known as “Sarah Barracuda.” No shit, check it out. If I’m lying, I’m dying.

The Barracuda goes in for the kill

After high school, Sarah decided against Harvard and MIT, matriculating instead at the University of Hawaii at Hilo only to transfer to Hawaii Pacific University after a couple of weeks citing better surfing and a more advantageous male/female student ratio in summer school. Former classmates remember her for her “itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini” and as a serious party girl who not only inhaled, she “drank the damn bong water.”

Gimme a hit and I'll show yah my tits

By spring of ’83, according to Wikipedia, she was attending the North Idaho Community College, then on to the University of Idaho Moscow followed by the Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska, then back to the U of IM where she finally graduated with a degree in journalism. Her rumored application, and subsequent denial for a research position with NASA, could not be confirmed, though it is my understanding she passed the oral exam with flying colors.

I forgot to mention that in 1984, she placed third in the Miss Alaska contest, playing a series of “flute” solos for her talent competition. She was chosen Miss Congeniality by the other contestants, also receiving some serious high fives and one down low from the judges who awarded her the Dirty Sanchez Lifetime Achievement Award.

Luscious Lips Heath, Miss Congeniality 1984

Currently, Sarah and her daughter, pretty Piper Palin (say that 10 times real fast,) are on vacation. With her band of tea bagging Merry Pranksters, mysteriously touring the country in a magical bus, she is going from state to state, raining on her fellow Republican presidential candidates’ announcement parades. Gosh, our little Sarah is such a rogue.

Stacked and packed. Is that a doobie the dude behind her is holding?

Folks, you can deny science all you want, but you can’t rewrite history. If it’s in Wikipedia, you can take it to the bank. You betcha.

Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…..

When I first moved to Wythe County, I was determined to become studiously ignorant. My friend Liza Fields says it’s the only way to avoid pain. Living in the Metro DC area, regardless of what you do, will eventually turn you into an information junkie. After all, DC is the political center of the universe, and information is political heroin. You just gotta have it; first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Withdrawal is painful. Losing access to the Washington Post is like losing a member of your family. Not having 24 hour nonstop news radio? Fuggedaboutit.

When I started coming down here seven years ago to work on Our Humble Little Cottage, I went cold turkey. I had no television or internet. Because of the relationship of Cottage to mountains, we still don’t have decent radio reception. It was just me, the Cottage, and my CD collection. Life was good. Then I started chipping. I figured what the hell; buying a little TV to watch DVDs on wouldn’t hurt. Then, like most addicts, I had a relapse. I was heavily invested in the stock market at the time and really needed my info. Enter Direct TV, followed closely by satellite internet and the monkey was back. CNN and CNBC became my drugs of choice.

The thing about the news is that it’s mostly depressing. The who, what, where, when, why, and how will make you nuts. Particularly since it’s mostly about the who and the why. The steady assault of personality-driven news and comment has led this country down the slippery slope. We’ve lost all civility and become a nation of me firsters because the constant demand for content rewards assholes. Everybody and his fuckin’ brother are demanding their fifteen minutes of fame, and I’m sick of it.

Not only that, I’m tired of being judged. Some time when I wasn’t paying attention, the source of your news became an issue. Apparently, watching CNN instead of Fox News makes me an anti-Christian communist. What’s that all about?

I’m tired of starting my day depressed. Despite the fact that I’ll miss Robin’s legs and Bonnie’s hooters, I’m going with YouTube. I guaran-damn-tee that watching a fifteen minute excerpt of Ron White’s You Can’t Fix Stupid will put you in a much better frame of mind than a report on Sarah Palin’s magical mystery tour.

All I have to do to figure out what’s going on in the world is watch the gas prices at the Flying J. If prices are up, the news is bad. If they’re down, things aren’t necessarily good, but they aren’t disastrous. So until Sarah’s sex tape hits the internet, I don’t want to hear about it. When it does, call me.

P.S. Would someone please make a comment so the rest of the world won’t think I’m Linda Myers’ bitch?

The origins of the dish are a bit murky, but most food historians agree that the first recipe for a pudding featuring bananas was printed in Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book (1902) by Sarah Tyson Rorer, considered America’s first dietitian and founder of the Philadelphia Cooking School, in a section she called “Hawaiian Recipes.”

The following year, 1903, Mary Harris Frazier published The Kentucky Receipt Book, which contained the following recipe:

Banana Pudding

Take a half dozen bananas, peel and cut in pieces an inch thick, put in baking dish and pour over custard made in the following manner:                   Custard-one pint of milk, 3 eggs, beat the yolks light, add milk, also two tablespoons of granulated sugar. Have the milk boiling, add the eggs and let it cook until it thickens; when cool pour over the bananas. Make a meringue with the whites and granulated sugar, put on top of custard, set in oven a few minutes to brown.                                                                                                                      Serve at once.

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, (edited by Mrs. Hattie A. Burr, c. 1886) contained the following recipe by a Mrs. B. M. Frazier for vanilla wafers:

Ingredients

1 cup (200 g) sugar

2/3 cup (170 g) butter

4 tbsp (60 ml) milk

1 egg

1 tsp (3 g) cream of tartar

1/2 tsp (2.3 g) baking soda

1 pinch salt

1 tbsp (15 ml) pure vanilla extract (or better, vanilla paste)

5 cups (600 g) flour (or as needed)

The original instructions do not specify the exact amount of flour, they just say to add enough flour to roll the dough very thin. Begin by adding 4 cups (454 g) of flour and then add as much as needed to make a supple dough that is easy to roll. Adding too little flour will make the dough too soft and sticky, adding too much will make it dry and brittle–in both cases it will be very difficult to roll. If you realize you added too much flour, add some more milk (1 tbsp at a time), until the dough is again supple and easy to handle.

Preheat the oven at 350°F (180°C).

Cream the butter, then add the sugar and mix well. Add the egg and beat until well incorporated, then add the milk and vanilla and mix well. Sift 4 cups of flour with the

salt, the cream of tartar and the baking soda, and add these to the butter mixture. Mix well and then add enough extra flour until the dough holds together and is firm and supple, easy to roll.

On a very lightly floured surface roll the dough very thin (1/8 inch–3 mm), and cut with a cookie cutter. Using a thin metal spatula transfer the cookies to a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and bake for about 10-12 minutes, until lightly golden. Transfer the cookies on a rack to cool–they will be soft just out of the oven but will become crisp as they cool. Keep in an airtight container.

No one knows for sure who the first culinary genius was to marry banana pudding with vanilla wafers, but by 1901, the National Biscuit Company was marketing their brand of the tasty little cookie, and soon thereafter put a recipe on the side of their box of Vanilla Wafers (changed to their trademarked Nabisco Nilla Wafers in 1968) that has become the standard for banana pudding by which all others are judged.

Original Nilla Banana Pudding

Ready in: 60 mins.

Layers of Nilla wafers, creamy pudding and fresh banana slices
are the stars of this American classic.

3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
Dash salt
3 eggs, separated
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
45 NILLA Wafers, divided
5 ripe bananas, sliced (about 3 1/2 cups), divided
Additional NILLA Wafers and banana slices, for garnish

1. Mix 1/2 cup sugar, flour and salt in top of double boiler.
Blend in 3 egg yolks and milk. Cook, uncovered, over boiling water,
stirring constantly for 10 to 12 minutes or until thickened. Remove
from heat; stir in vanilla.

2. Reserve 10 wafers for garnish. Spread small amount of custard
on bottom of 1 1/2-quart casserole; cover with a layer of wafers
and a layer of sliced bananas. Pour about 1/3 of custard over
bananas. Continue to layer wafers, bananas and custard to make
a total of 3 layers of each, ending with custard.

3. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form; gradually add remaining
1/4 cup sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. Spoon on top of
pudding, spreading evenly to cover entire surface and sealing well to edges.

4. Bake at 350°F in top half of oven for 15 to 20 minutes or
until browned. Cool slightly or refrigerate. Garnish with
additional wafers and banana slices just before serving.

Makes 8 servings

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION per serving
287 calories, 6 g protein, 50 g carbohydrate, 7 g total fat,
2 g saturated fat, 117 mg cholesterol, 134 mg sodium,
1 g dietary fiber.

Preparation Time: 30 mins.
Cook Time: 15 mins.
Cooling Time: 15 mins.
Total Time: 60 mins.

So what could make this classic of the South even better than it already is?

Peanut Butter.

Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches have been a childhood staple since who knows when. We know for sure that Gladys Presley used to make them for her baby boy, Elvis. As an adult, the King was known to eat forty at a time, fried in butter with the crusts removed. They could be one of the reasons his colon was the size of Sara Palin’s  ego when he expired, sitting on a toilet, straining for a movement.

A couple of weeks ago, I was fooling around in the kitchen and decided to make a banana pudding following the classic recipe, but making the first layer of wafers out of peanut butter and vanilla wafer sandwiches. Folks, I’m here to tell you, when I took that first bite, I could hear Elvis say, “Mama, why didn’t you think of this?”

Now, I’ve done a Google search, and can find no recipe that matches the one I came up with. There are those that combine peanut butter and bananas in various pudding recipes, but none that do it totally my way. So I guess this gives me naming rights. What with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, and more importantly, January 8th, Elvis’ Birthday, I dub this creation the Presley Puddin’ (TM). The Queen of Southern Puddings is now fit for its King.

Bon Appetit!

]]> http://www.wythenotes.com/wp/2010/11/19/a-puddin-fit-for-a-king/feed/ 3 http://www.wythenotes.com/wp/2010/10/15/a-few-choice-words/ http://www.wythenotes.com/wp/2010/10/15/a-few-choice-words/#comments Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:33:33 +0000 Ron Dees http://www.wythenotes.com/wp/?p=2831 I’ve had a few negative comments from friends and family about my use of profanity in the recent rant directed at VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Anne, who is a professional editor, said that people are less likely to listen to what I say if that is the way I’m going to say it. She’s right, I know, but that guy just makes me so mad I tend to lose my ability to reason.

Sometimes though, profanity is the only way to get a point across. Calling someone a mentally dull child of an unmarried couple carries a lot less punch than simply saying he’s a stupid bastard. Nevertheless, I resolve to be a little more creative in my choice of words. After all, someone once said that profanity is the attempt of a lazy and feeble mind to express itself forcefully, and I don’t think I’m feeble minded yet.

I grew up in a neighborhood with eleven or twelve boys my age. We did what all little boys did. We held spitting contests, played baseball, had BB gun fights, tried to catch a glimpse of Jerry Byrd’s teenage sister as she stepped out of the shower, and taught each other to cuss. Starting with your basic hell and damn, our salty vocabularies grew exponentially. We liked to call each other nasty names. I remember penis head was real big one summer.

We also learned that profanity brought attention from our parents and other adults. I’ll never forget the time we were all sitting at the dinner table, and my little sister Debi asked for more peas. Now Debi is the youngest of four siblings and the only girl. She was four or five at the time and usually had a hard time making herself heard. After politely asking several times for someone to please pass the peas and being repeatedly ignored, she said as loud as her little voice would allow, “Would you please pass me the goddam peas!” The next day, my parents had a long talk with our snuff-dipping housekeeper, Granny Williams, the widow of a sailor and the source of a lot of our vocabulary words.

After three years in Army, swearing became second nature to me. It’s one of those character weaknesses that I deplore about myself. But since the Little Prince and Heir Apparent has become more cognizant, I try to be a little more careful about it. No one likes to be chastised by a 7 year old.

So to all my concerned friends and family, I heard you. Is this better?

uneducated, right-wing, gay-bashing southern view of a north bound equine

mentally challenged vagina

On the plus side, the wild flowers are starting to bloom and the creek banks are fragrant with mint. Also, we’re still finding new patches of wild asparagus.

ox-eye daisy

For the last two years, I’ve been moving the asparagus from the tangled slope to a more manageable bed next to the house. However, once that is done, it will take three years before the transplants will again produce those fat tasty stalks. This year, I’m leaving the wild stuff where it’s growing and just cultivating around it. I guess the big story flower-wise are the iris. We’ve got them coming up all over the place…wild, cultivated and a lot that are somewhere in between. The familiar wild yellow irises are dotting Galena Creek from its headwaters to the New River. The previous owner planted iris bulbs all over the hillsides in hopes that they would grow as densely as the day lilies do, choking out weeds and preventing soil erosion. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case. As a result, we’re constantly digging and transplanting the delicate-looking flowers into areas that are more hospitable.

We’re almost through planting the vegetable garden, and I’m headed out later today to purchase some apple trees. Last night, we had an arugula salad from the garden and fresh strawberries. If you haven’t planted arugula before, I highly recommend it. It has nutty flavor with a slight peppery aftertaste. I tossed it with my own Caesar dressing, some homemade garlic croutons, freshly ground black pepper, and shaved, imported parmesan-reggiano cheese.

Iris Photographs

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Palin Watch

America’s leading retard is at it again. Sarah Palin declared yesterday, “It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now!”  She’s thrown her support behind Arizona’s appalling immigration law that is so flawed that even the Arizona Association of Police Chiefs doesn’t support it.  Palin seems determined to become the Al Sharpton of the Nut Case Right.  My 2012 Republican dream ticket would be Palin and Virginia Attorney General Ken “The Coochie” Cuccinelli. That would gives us voters the opportunity to tell both of them, “Shut up and go away!“

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