Cuttin' the mustard

I like to slather a lot of mustard on my hot dogs and other sandwiches; no matter the type, yellow, spiced, or horseradish.

I remember when David, my nephew, was a young boy he would make mustard sandwiches when he came home from school and eat them outside while he played. At the time, I thought it a bit weird since he didn't bother to put anything else in the sandwich, but since then, I've come to appreciate the flavor of mustard.

On occasion when my son phones to tell me he is going to the grocery store and asks if there is anything he can get for me, I tell him I'm out of mustard and need some. He always asks what happened to the mustard he got for me a few days ago. I have to remind him that his few days ago was actually some weeks or even a month ago. He teases me about my appetite for mustard, and I have to reply that I can't let anything stand between me and my mustard.

I have no idea how mustard came into existence. Maybe cave men got tired of seasoning meat with wild onions and wild garlic and wanted something with piquant taste and started chewing combinations of wild grasses and seeds. However it happened, I use it to enhance other foods besides sandwiches. I use it in recipes for baked beans, mixed with mayo in potato salads and in various sauce recipes. In fact there are hundreds of recipes using mustard on the internet.

Incidentally, the idiom, 'cuts the mustard' refers to high standard and excellence. If someone says 'can't cut the mustard', it means failing in excellence.



Mustard Flower

Theater: San Jose Jazz Summer Festival by Richard

The San Jose Jazz Summer Festival was a great outing for Frances and me. This is our second year  attending this wonderful jazz festival! With great excitement we prepared as if we were going on a big trip.

Starting on Saturday, we began our preparations. I purchased French baguettes, to make a few ham and cheese and some chicken sandwiches, along with bottled water, soft drinks and grapes. The next day, we loaded the car, got out the suntan lotion and hats, and drove off to the Festival.

Upon arriving in San Jose, I parked the car and we headed straight for the main stage located in the Plaza de César Chávez. We found a shady spot under a large oak tree, the ideal location, to watch the entertainment. By noon the entire area had several thousand spectators.

The entertainers crafted their skills to perfection. When the musicians were playing, it was wonderful to watch and listen. The people were swinging and swaying to the music, and many were dancing. During all this, Frances and I ate our lunch and enjoyed the many venues while holding hands, just enjoying the moment. I mostly enjoyed the saxophone music.

We were lucky, the summer weather was great, in the 80's. We had a wonderful time but after seven hours, we had to leave to feed our dogs. We stopped by the In and Out Burger on the way home to have bite to eat because we didn't want to cook dinner.

Needless to say, it was a long and enjoyable day but we are already looking forward to next year's San Jose Jazz Summer Festival.

[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]




San Jose Jazz Summer Festival 2012

Baby Blankets

Without plan, only happenstance, I find myself knitting baby blankets as fast as I can knit and purl the stitches.

When a young acquaintance and his wife announced they would soon be the parents of their first baby, a boy, I decided to knit a baby blanket for them. I had never knitted a baby blanket in all my years of knitting, but I took on the project with an attitude that such a small item would be ezpz and proceeded to knit a blue baby blanket.

Soon after finishing the blue blanket, my sister told me, one of her granddaughters was expecting a second child and I volunteered to knit one for her. Without knowing the baby's gender, I chose the color yellow, but before it was finished, I learned the baby would be a girl. I embellished it with bands of pink flowers and had it ready for the baby's arrival.

Just as I finished knitting that blanket, my son's stepson and his wife announced that their third child was on its way. Having completed two blankets without much difficulty I was game for another and told them I'd knit one for them. Again, without knowing the gender, I finished a yellow blanket using a reversible pattern.

I was as surprised as the parents when they discovered they were going to have twins, a girl and a boy. They did not know I had already knitted a blanket and it was assumed I would make them in shades of pink and blue to match room decorations.

What to do, Percy? What to do?

I haven't chosen the patterns yet, but diamonds are a girl's best friend and there are lots of patterns using diamonds to choose from so there are two more blankets in my future.




Colored Yarn

My Time in the Army Part 2 by Richard

I met the company commander and was given a choice to work in the office or outside, but I asked to work out side, which I enjoyed. I made friends with several men as we worked helping the Air Force with their communication needs.

My company unit was known as “special personal attached to the US Air Force”. We worked on several Air Bases in Germany and France. The food in the US Air Force was much better. For breakfast one could order eggs any way they wished and the lunch and dinner meals were also good. On Sunday, for lunch and dinner, we had to make do with cold cuts.

One cold winter night, I had guard duty starting at 10 PM protecting the ammunitions, but due to an alert, I wasn't relived at 8 AM the next day. When I got back to our building, I was cold, hungry, tired and sleepy, I ate and had a long rest.

There are many other things I could talk about but one of the most noticeable was all the damage to all the cities and small towns caused by the war¹. The large cities received the most damage; there were blocks upon blocks that were totally destroyed and the most of the small towns were also damaged. I hope we all learn from this, so we will never again, have a world war.

We all had to learn how to count and to exchange our money into German Marks and to speak some German. Our dollar was worth 4 Marks and twenty cents.

I was able to do some traveling and to see several cities, which included the following: Paris, Amsterdam, Luxembourg and many cities in Germany. One of the German cities I enjoyed was Wiesbaden, which is favorite German vacation place.

My 18 months in Germany went by so fast and it was time for me to go home to the USA. I took the same trip home from Germany, first to Camp Kilmer, next by train and ship to New Jersey. Then on to San Francisco by TWA air lines and on to Fort Ord.

I was discharged on November 19,1954 and left the Army with $300.00.

I enjoyed my time in the service, which allowed me to see things one just read about. It also help me to appreciate many things: mostly life.


1. Strategic bombing during WW2 Describes the purpose and results of Strategic Bombing during WWII. A list of bombed cities in Germany can be found on the right side of the page: RAF Estimates of Destruction

[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard and is Part 2 of 2]




USS General H. W. Butner (AP-113)

So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

Kim

Years ago there was a commercial for some special cookies. The husband brought home many lovely presents for his wife but she always answered, “What no cookies?”

I had the same problem with cucumbers. I got lots of other really nice vegetables but no cukes. I got lots of tomatoes, potatoes and beans but no cukes.

Every visit to the garden I would see these long cucumber vines meandering all over. My watermelon didn't meander at all and I keep thinking: Did I plant them in the wrong pots? No. But week after week went by and still no cukes.

As it was getting to the end of the season, I decided to pull up these “very unsatisfactory” cucumbers and headed out to do battle with the vines which were everywhere. I picked up the first one and it was rather heavy. Too heavy for a vine and I thought it was wrapped around one of my water lines. So I reached around the pot to untangle it and and discovered the weight wasn't a tangled water line, it was a CUCUMBER! A BIG CUCUMBER!

I was a bit stunned to see it but then I realized that the cucumbers where heavy and were hanging down from the vines and were hidden behind the pots and under other foliage. So I pulled and tugged on every vine and if it was heavy, there was a cucumber on the vine, all hanging down like big green icicles.

So, the cukes are in the bag now and have been a lovely addition to salads and gazpacho for our very hot summers.



The Elusive Cucumbers
and Other Garden Goodies