The surprise birthday present

Today is my birthday! I have been having a great day. I had off from work and this morning I made great progress on the book I keep writing and writing about. It is in the home stretch but there were several things that had to be tied up and today I tied up a couple of those things.

Then I worked in the garden. Miraculously I have succeeded in weeding my garden and actually turning a corner on it. There is a story as to how I was able to do that, but that will have to wait for another day. But today my neighbor told me the garden looked great! I am so proud of myself!

My friend Lizzie treated me to a pedicure. I have never had a pedicure! That is another story for another day. I felt like such a princess, getting that pedicure!

And then my mom gave me these two Japanese teacups. These are beautiful delicate teacups and saucers from Occupied Japan.

I know, my mom passed away a couple of years ago. But that does not mean she cannot give me a birthday present!

What happened was, there was this grungy box in my garage. I found it a few days ago when I began my gardening and was looking for weed clippers.

I was not thrilled to find this box. I figured out pretty quick what it was. It was stuff from my mom's house, a box my brother George had brought over and stashed there when he thought I was not looking. Either that or probably he told me, who knows. I am the keeper of the family junk so what nobody else wanted ended up with me.

There were things in the box wrapped in newspaper from the time my mom died, which is how I was able to put two and two together. Plus, I recognized these mushroom salt and pepper shakers. There was this one garage sale where someone was selling off a Smithsonian-sized collection of salt and pepper shakers. My mom and I decided we would both select one pair. We had fun choosing. I chose these cute light bulb shaped shakers. Howard has them now downtown at Big Blue. My mom had chosen the mushrooms and now here they were, in my garage.

That kind of made me sad. So did the other stuff. There were some OK things but nothing great that I saw, and all I could think was, now I am stuck with this stuff, I an sentimental about it and so I will have to make room for it somehow.

However.

Today I felt obliged to go back to the box, clean it out. And I found a Japanese teacup. So beautiful, this delicate blue and white and gold. I washed it up and then I found a saucer that went with it.

This is pretty cool, I thought. I love Japanese things. It comes from my liking for bento boxes. Then... it was funny but something told me there was another teacup in that box. I went out and gingerly, because you had better believe this box was grungy, I began digging around.

What did I find but another teacup, in another pattern!

And, after a little more digging, a matching saucer!

I washed these treasures carefully and then started gloating over them, admiring them from one angle and then another, the way you do when you get a present you love. I thought of how I would use them, how I would show them off to my friends.

Then I remembered it was my birthday. I had found this on exactly my birthday.

I got a birthday present from my mom!

I have this tradition with myself that goes way back. I get birthday presents out of nowhere. Once I found a black dress, in my size, on the sidewalk on my birthday. I had just said I wanted a dress like that and there it was. This morning when I woke up I was wondering if I would get something out of nowhere, this being my birthday.

I did!!

The Mixmistress

I haven't written in a while but now that will change. It is fitting that I check back in today, because remember the Sunbeam Mixmaster? I got it going!

A turntable for it arrived from eBay. I spent something like $10 on it including shipping, zut alors. On the other hand, I got the mixer for nothing. On still another hand, it really works!

That bowl flies!!

I don't know what I was expecting, I guess for it to move around sedately. The slow and sedate speeds do not work on this mixer. It kicks in at setting 5, Mashed Potatoes. And it goes from there. I had it mixing cookie dough and it made quick work of the butter and sugar, I will say that. Just to see what it could do, I took it up to the higher speeds. It felt like being in a high-performance car and taking it up to 100 mph.

After I took the picture up above the mixer looked a little smudged so I polished it up. I am kind of sentimental over the $2 price sticker, is one thing. That was a nice deal. This World War II mixer that chugs along like the Memphis Belle. And it has the two bowls. That is lucky because glass bowls tend to break over the years. I will have to learn to recognize these and grab them at St. Vincent de Paul.

Anyway. Good job, mixer that dates to when Leonard Pennario was 24.

Well mixed!

Pretty in pink

Remember a few days ago when I had to approach my Zumba teacher with the nerdy request to turn the music down? And she was so nice about it?

I went to a different gym once since then and I wish I could have asked the same question.

It is strange because I have begun going to Zumba more often than I had in recent months. Last week I, um, went five times, I think. It is a good time investment, you know? I feel better. I sleep better. I can get up earlier to do Pennario work.

But Zumba changed a little in the months when I was not going as often. The clothes are more aggressive, more street-like, and the tunes are louder. This gal at the Sheridan Drive L.A. Fitness was blasting this stuff. I mean, it hurt!

There was not much point in taking the matter up with her. I do not go to that gym much and I ended up leaving before the final stretching, that was how deafening it was. Meanwhile this is embarrassing but I had to Zumba way in the back where all kinds of people in the gym could see me. Ha, ha! In my retro, un-hip, hot pink, un-threatening, un-street-wise Zumba pants. See that picture up above? That is not me but that was my exact outfit. It looked exactly as dopey on me the way as it looks on her. With everyone else in the class trying to dress like, I don't know, the Goodyear Boys. Ha, ha!

Speaking of which, not to change the subject, but that reminds me...

Isn't it about time Zumba clothes began showing up at garage sales?

This fad has been around for a while now.

This summer, I will be on the alert for used Zumba clothes.

It has to happen!

Take this SUV and stuff it

Today's top score, pictured at left, is worth celebrating.

It is "Pennario Plays Chopin For Young Lovers." A classic 1970s reissue!

My friend Lizzie went with me making the rounds of garage sales and one estate sale which is where this record was purchased. It is funny because while the estate sale lady was filling out the sales slip, Lizzie tried telling her that I was writing a book about Leonard Pennario, that he was my friend.

And the woman, who had been gabbing and gabbing with us, all of a sudden just shut up and frowned down at the sales slip! She seemed not to hear a word Lizzie was saying. She never acknowledged hearing us saying anything about Leonard Pennario.

Hahahaa! That is so typical. That always happens to me.

Once when I had a Mass said for Pennario there was a glitch and his name did not get announced. All the other times, you hear who the Mass is for. This time, no.

I am kneeling there in my pew breathing, "Say his name. Say his name!!" Because this was a big deal for me. But no.

Oh well.

In time this unacceptable state of affairs will improve.

Meanwhile that record album was in good company today. I got a lot of quality items including two custom designed hippie hula hoops, visible in the picture above. Someone had designed them by hand and they were priced $5 but me, I bargained like a Moroccan in the square and got them for $1 each.

Pennario would have hated that the hippie hula hoops with their peace signs and rainbow colors were there with his album. But it could not be helped. We had bought so much stuff that there was no more room even in the back of spacious Lizzie-mobile, which is a huge SUV. When Lizzie and I garage sale we can be stopped only when buying anything further becomes, for some reason, impossible. Once we garage-saled literally down to our last dime. Another time we ran out of time. Today, the problem was, every square inch of the car was filled up.

I also got a dress and an antique lamp and three cookbooks and two dresses and two chairs which, I have every hope they will prove as lucky as the last chair. I also got a whole bunch of linens some of which I will have to display on this Web log.

A fine couple of hours of shopping!

The Comfy Chair

Remember Monty Python and "The Comfy Chair"?

I asked that of Pennario once and he was not amused. Pennario did not care for Monty Python. But I remember the Comfy Chair very fondly. My dad and I used to laugh about it.

Anyway, I purchased a comfy chair at a garage sale a week ago. Never use the word "bought" when you can use the word "purchased," you know? I, ahem, purchased this chair with the help of my friend Lizzie. She spotted it and then she talked it down from $70 to $25 and then she schlepped it to my house in her gigantic SUV and then she helped me move it in. Everyone should have a friend like Lizzie but alas few people do. She can solve every problem you have in life.

But let me get to the point.

My new chair became the focus of a story by my colleague Susan Martin in Sunday's Buffalo News!

I am nameless in the story but the picture of the chair ran big and now that it has been published I do not think anyone would mind if I bragged on my Web log that it is my chair.

Everything that is in the story was true. I could not move the chair into the chaotic sun room and so I cleaned the chaotic sun room. I weeded out the record collection which was multiplying like the bishop's weed. There is a pile of really nice records earmarked now for my brother George. And there is a box devoted just to Leonard Pennario records I have purchased on eBay and wherever. And there is a box of junk records headed to Goodwill. I did all this in addition to getting in four hours a day on the book project.

Now you can move and breathe now in the sun room. You can open windows. You can sit in the comfy chair! Here is the chair that touched off this revolution.

And here is the restroom, I mean the rest of the room.

Ha, ha! With anyone else that would be this huge mess, with the cardboard boxes and everything. And on the couch is a pile of plastic record sleeves I meant to throw out. But anyway, for me this is serious progress.

Howard admired the chair because who could not.

It is as most excellent chair for when you want to put your feet up and listen to a Leonard Pennario record or to someone playing the upright piano, or when you want to read a magazine or say a rosary or have a glass of wine or pray to one or another of an array of nearby saints....

... or simply think about life.

I am laughing looking at The News' Web site. In the paper the picture is in black and white and it is cropped. But in the online edition it is in color and you can see the Infant of Prague as well as a little more of my religious paraphernalia. That is too funny. There are no secrets here in Buffalo!

Anyway. Cheers to my chair.

It was a wonderful and productive purchase!

Green Day

This weekend, going garage sale-ing, I garage saled down to my very last dime! It was literally true. By the end of the day I was borrowing from my friend Lizzie.

Lizzie and I are a garage-sale team and every week one of us goes broke and ends up borrowing from the other. Last time she borrowed from me and this weekend I borrowed from her.

One prize purchase was a set of 1970s curtains which I talked down from $3 to $1. I drive a hard bargain! I haggle like a Moroccan in the square. They are, or were, bathroom curtains. We know that because they came with a shower curtain in the same pattern, green and yellow and white.

But now they are office curtains! There they are up above, in their glory, next to the Leonard Pennario desk.

They will stop prying eyes from intruding on my work!

I like hanging curtains like that, one panel a window, bohemian style. And the curtains feel like summer. They are very clean and they smell good and waft around in the breeze.

I think I will use the shower curtain as a tablecloth.

We also went to a Plant Sale and the proprietor took us into his backyard to show us his koi pond.

It is amazing, this koi pond in this little Kenmore back yard! Here is a closeup.

Such a wonderful day of going through people's stuff and admiring things and just going where the day leads you. All these shades of green and yellow.

And the blossoms were out.

Here are my saints in the morning sunlight.

It is spring at last!

Martha Stewart Omnimaniac

Today on the way back from Zumba I stopped at Dash Market on Colvin. Hardly had I pulled into the back parking lot when such a sight met my eyes.

There was a street sale on that street!

I left my car at Dash's and set out on foot down the street. Dash's would not mind. I was going to shop there anyway, when I got back.

Among things I bought were 17 back issues of Martha Stewart Living.

My friend Melinda would reproach me. "It's all clutter," Melinda says about things like this. And indeed it is. But then Martha Stewart gives you instructions on how to deal with the clutter. Look at the recent September issue. It is: "61 Ways to Organize Your Home and Simplify Your Life." Yeah right, as Leonard used to say.

One back issue I got was October 1999. These were the glory days of Martha Stewart Living, when the magazine was fat and brimming with ads for Ralph Lauren and recipes from Mrs. Kostyra and all kinds of yummy and interesting stuff. The current October issue, October 2013, is 187 pages. This old one, October 1999, is 300 pages long!

It is leisurely as new issues are not. They devote an entire page, p. 197, to a white background and a photo of what looks like a Vermont country road. Unhurried prose. "What a great sense of accomplishment is contained within a brimming bucket of Halloween candy, collected one precious piece at a time while marching steadfastly door to door ...."

But anyway.

There is this recipe I want to try. It is in the back of the December 1994 issue.

It is for Brown Bread.

You mix 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (I like that part), 2 teaspoons salt.

Then in a small bowl you mix, 1 tablespoon yeast, 2 tablespoons molasses and 2 cups lukewarm water.

You mix the wet with the dry until it forms a sticky dough. Form it into a ball, place on a baking sheet, cover lightly with a clean towel (no, a dirty one, you know?) and let it rise for 20-30 minutes until doubled in size.

It doubles in size that fast?? I bet mine would not. But let's continue.

You then heat the oven to 450 degrees. Bake in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 425 and bake 40 minutes more, or until done.

Does that sound too good to be true or what? It must be tried.

Brave words from me considering I have not yet even opened my Slimcado.

I still have not worked up the nerve!

Sweet deal

My mom and I hit a few garage sales and here is the purchase that takes the cake (or will, one of these days):

An aluminum cake carrier!

It is Vogue Quality Aluminum Regal Ware, Inc. That is what it says on the bottom. I like to bake cakes for people. I made a spice birthday cake a few weeks ago for my brother Tony and the other day I made a chocolate marshmallow cake for Howard's birthday. I also once soared like an eagle and baked a red velvet cake for my friend Michelle. Here I am presenting it to her...

That was last October. Time sure moves fast. And now, so will my cakes!

I expected my mother to object to the purchase just because the thing is so massive. But she did not! She says it is useful when you have to take a cake somewhere. And she admired the handle which has holes in it for your fingers, like a bowling ball. And the three cool locks that keep the cover in place.

My newly acquired cake tote looks like this one on eBay.

Hmmm, that auction is starting at only $6.99. I paid $5 so it is not as if I got that sweet a deal. But I do not buy things to resell them. I buy them to use them.

This Regal Ware company seems to be famous for cake carriers. There is a whole range of them on eBay with prices from that $6.99 all the way up to $50 or so.

Here is a fascinating history of the Regal Company. It is in Wisconsin and goes back about 100 years.

I love how that history is written. They have a timeline! I have a timeline for my Leonard Pennario project and they have a Regal Ware timeline, starting in 1911. Regal is older than Pennario.

In 1976, for instance, Regal produced 5 million canteens for the Boy Scouts of America. That was one of their earliest items, Boy Scout canteens. It is also interesting that no bigger company appears to have bought Regal. It is a privately owned company. Regal has snapped up several other companies along the way.

The family that owns Regal is named Reigle. Cute! There is a great quote from founder James O. Reigle:

"Remember, the past is only a stepping stone into the glorious future."

I will carry my cake with pride!

Linens 'n things

When I did my rundown yesterday of my exciting weekend, I forgot the garage sale I went to.

How could I forget that?

I remembered it when my friend Marta asked me  if I had gone to garage sales and the answer is, yes, I did!

I went with my mother to this garage sale in Snyder. My mom and I are always the stragglers. We do not come in until the afternoon, sometimes while the sellers are taking the sales down. It is just the way it works out. My mom likes to have lunch first and I like to go to my killer Pilates class downtown.

We walk up this woman's driveway and there is this huge table of linens. I began picking them up and looking at them. Napkins, tablecloths, runners, everything piled high, for a dollar a napkin on up.

"Oh, Mom," I called over. "Look at these beautiful napkins and tablecloths!"

I was trying to figure out what to get. There was too big a choice. I was picking things up and admiring them. They were beautiful, the kind of old lace and embroidery you do not see anymore, and the loveliest fabrics.

Suddenly the woman holding the sale walked up to me.

"I'll give you all of it for $25," she said.

I thought at first she was not serious, or that I had misunderstood. But no!

"All right," I said.

It was kind of overwhelming!

The woman scooped up all the linens into the red tablecloth they were sitting on and then placed it all in a white laundry basket. That is how much there is of these linens!

Then she told me that the linens had belonged to her husband's mother.

She said, "I didn't want to sell them to just anyone. I wanted them to go to someone who appreciated them." Her husband's mother, she told me, was a live-in housekeeper at a mansion on Linwood Avenue. I thought she said it was the Rich family, of Rich Products fame. But now I am thinking perhaps I misunderstood and she just said "rich family."

Hahaha! At Park School there is the Rich Family Activity Center. I love that name! You think of rich families engaging in activities there.

But back to my linens. They are piled here now and they feel like a hope chest or something. My dowry! All these beautiful antique napkins and tablecloths and damask this and that. I keep looking at them. I am so grateful to this woman for selling them to me. Oh, another thing, she told me the number on Linwood but as I am unable to memorize anything that does not relate to Leonard Pennario, it went in one ear and out the other. It was a low number, 204, something like that.

Perhaps it is the house pictured above! That is 440 Linwood.

I do not think the number is that high up. Mayhap it was this one.

Or this one? It was once used as a tuberculosis treatment center. That is what my friend Becky writes on her Web log.

Zut alors, I will be up all night looking at pictures of grand houses on Linwood!

There is only one way to figure this out. I will have to drive down a few blocks and see if I get a feeling.

Meanwhile I love coming into possession of things this beautiful.

They have a way of finding me!

Shop till you drop

The garage sale season has officially begun because my mom and I have gone to our first one for the year! Well, she has been to sales with my sisters already. But this was the first one with me.

No Pennario records at this sale, alas. But I got orange napkins for the table and also Pier I place mats. The tags were still on the place mats. That is always funny, when someone buys something and never uses it. I have been there!

The napkins and place mats go well with my current, ahem, theme for the dining room, which is orange. That theme was born from necessity a few weeks ago when I had to have a few people over including the boss. I had no flowers or anything but I had a ton of oranges from Albrecht Discount. I put the oranges in a big bowl and put them on the table. Then I had a bottle of Wild Pig wine, which has an orange label ...

... and a few Candle-Lite candles that were orange and yellow or close enough ...

... and there I was. Set! By the way that is a wonderful name for a wine, Wild Pig. Looking around for a picture I found the photo of an actual wild pig which is what is at the top of the post. I thought it would grab people's attention!

Besides that garage sale and another garage sale, where I bought other things magnificent and sundry, my mom and I also hit the rummage sale at Park School. We found out about it only at the last minute but it was worth it! We did not know about it until we saw the sign at the corner of Main and Harlem.

"Look, Mom, a rummage sale at Park," I said. "We only have 20 minutes till it closes. Should we go?"

My mom said sure! So we went. It was the end of the bag sale so we shared a bag. We stuffed the bag with so many things that I had to go get it reinforced. Hahahaha! Greed is good!

Speaking of which next year we will not make the mistake of not getting to the Park School sale until the last minute.

"Next year we have to make sure to get here earlier," my mom said.

But better late than never! Altogether a good day of shopping.

We are back in the saddle!

Smile!

Today I am back in the land of the living. I finally think I kicked this cold. Looking back I thought I had kicked it on Sunday. Ha, ha! Good one, Mary!

Yesterday the cold and I celebrated our one-week anniversary!

But today I finally felt better and went back to Zumba class.

I got the idea to go to Zumba only in the late afternoon. I did not think I would be up to it because I was still sleeping with Nyquil. But, all of a sudden, I was! It was a magic moment. I realized I was feeling better!

Going to Zumba was a surprise thought, a secret thought, like all of a sudden in the middle of a work day in the summer you might think: when I get off work, I am going to go to the beach. I got all excited. And after work, sure enough, there I am, parking in the parking garage, walking to the gym. I love going to the gym. It makes me feel alive.

All week I had been out of it and going nowhere so I felt like a tourist in my own hometown. I wondered about Occupy Buffalo. That is this protest going on supposedly in Niagara Square. Will I hear the drums? I wondered. I had heard they were beating drums.

But walking to the gym which is right next to Niagara Square, I heard no drums. I saw no evidence of anyone.

The only thing I saw was, this one lost-looking hairy hippie showed up with this camera. He was looking around and seemed to be heading over to Niagara Square. I assumed he was looking for Occupy Buffalo. I kind of nodded to him and continued on with my gym bag to the gym.

I walked up the marble steps of the gym -- this is the, ahem, Buffalo Athletic Club, where Leonard Pennario used to go, may I add -- and for some reason as I opened the door, I turned around.

And the hairy hippie was taking a picture of me walking into the gym!

Hahahahhaaa! I am afraid I kind of turned away instinctively, but that was just out of astonishment. I did not exactly mind having my picture taken. Heck, snap away. I always the advice Howard Stern gave to Princess Diana, based on his own experience, on how to deal with the paparazzi: "Stand there until they get sick of taking your picture."

But I had to wonder why this guy was taking my picture.

All I can think is, well, the Buffalo Athletic Club has a very stentorian entrance. It is in a beautiful dignified old brick building downtown ...

... that also houses other offices. You walk up the marble steps and there are beautiful old lanterns on either side of the door.

And there I was, standing on these marble steps between these lanterns, and I had on this beautiful herringbone skirt from West Germany that, I got it at a garage sale, but this hippie would never guess. I love how the label specifies that, West Germany. I was carrying a green jet bag with my Zumba clothes and I had on my nice black heels.

Hahahahaa! That Occupy Buffalo person probably looked at me and saw the enemy!

He was probably from out of town and saw me going into this dignified building and thought: Look, there is a bourgeois banker woman walking into this bank building carrying a green bag full of money. I am going to take her picture before I go on to Occupy Buffalo. And we can put the picture up and use it as target practice.

Either that or, he recognized me as the authorized biographer of Leonard Pennario. Which, then I could understand him taking my picture.

Well, whatever. Either way, I am glad to be back in the land of the living.

It feels great to be feeling better!

A missal epistle

News, there is news about the mystery missal!

My friend Jerry left a comment. "I know the owner," he wrote.

Privately he wrote to me a note saying that I had bought the missal most likely from his garage sale a couple of months ago. Ha, ha! I remember that garage sale. Jerry is great. As my mom and I were approaching his driveway he came running out yelling, "No more Leonard Pennario stuff! We sold it all!"

Jerry also has this unusual talent. He can do the best imitations of the guys who used to be in the underwear ads for Kleinhans, the old Buffalo men's clothes store. His wife made him do his imitation for me. It is classic! Jerry points out that the models were always pointing at something. He was there in his garage striking these poses and we were all cracking up. Hahahaa!

But back to this missal.

Jerry wrote to me that it had belonged to his uncle and he had not looked at it closely enough when he sold it to me. He said it would be useful for family genealogy. It sounded as if he regretted having sold it.

I started feeling all guilty for having snapped this thing up. Maybe I should give it back to him, I said to Howard. At least maybe I could give him some of the holy cards.

"No!" Howard said. "I'll tell you what you should do!"

Howard said I should tell Jerry, "I want to see you at Latin Mass, at St. Anthony's, every week, for two years!" Actually he said four years. I am giving Jerry a break here.

I wish I could remember the rest of Howard's speech. It went on and on. I was laughing too hard to retain it. But the reasoning is, only after attending Mass in the Extraordinary Form, to use its proper title, and by protracted exploration of this intricate and confounding and true and beautiful faith would Jerry begin to realize the worth of this missal which, as we have discovered, goes far beyond family history. As the poet Goethe wrote:

That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee
Earn it anew, if thou wouldst possess it.

I got that quote from "The Joy of Cooking." It is the opening quote!

Anyway as Howard said, and he is right, that would be the way for Jerry to honor his uncle. My guess is that the uncle wants him to do this. Jerry says his uncle was always praying for everyone in the family.

So anyway, Jerry, out there in Blog-O-Land, I am at St. Anthony's every Sunday at 9 a.m., usually on the right near the front.

I'll see you there!

Pepper rally

Today I went to Corpus Christi to judge pierogi. One thing I learned is that it is one pierog, two pierogi. From now on I will say that correctly!

People were filling me on on that situation with the priest that I wrote about yesterday. It appears that there was, ahem, a lot I did not know, let me just say that. My heart goes out to the good people of Corpus Christi. My prayers go out to priests. And so on to other important matters.

Such as the peck of peppers that I picked, zut alors.

Besides judging pierogi I went to the Clinton-Bailey Market and there was this truckload, honest, of peppers I could not resist. For $4. I bought them. And that farmer I bought them from, he had this funny look on his face. You know how in "Deliverance," there is that brief interlude of levity when the one guy plays the banjo duet with the guy on the porch? This farmer had the weird inscrutable look that the guy on the porch has at the end of the banjo duet.

When I got home I realized why. There were about a thousand peppers in this box!

That is a picture I took of them up above.

Here is what I have done so far. I made a kind of dip you make by roasting eggplant and peppers in the oven -- that used up an eggplant too. Then I made peperonata. That is peppers fried up with onions and tomatoes. It is great on pizza or pasta, Howard and I just ate it South Beach style with chicken off the grill. Yum!

See those three green peppers in the picture? I gave them to my mother. She likes the green peppers.

So I got off to a good start. I am maybe a third of the way through these peppers? Like I need a project like this, you know? My Pennario project is not keeping me busy enough.

Oh, that reminds me. My mom and I went to one (1) garage sale. We were limited to one because also my mother had to go to Walgreen's. That is a tale in itself.

But this garage sale, it was my Facebook friend Jerry and his wife, Michelle.

When we walked up the driveway Jerry came out and said: "You know what, I had two rare Leonard Pennario records but we sold them!"

Ha, ha!!

Jerry will have his little joke!

Also I love how I have half the people in Buffalo not only knowing Pennario's name, but pronouncing it right.

It encourages me as I go forward!

Fireside chat

Garage sale find o'the day: "The Fireside Cook Book," by James A. Beard.

It is not James Beard. It is James A. Beard!

Perhaps this was his first cookbook. It dates from 1949.

I started looking through it because it looked charming and I was struck by how useful the recipes seemed, and how simple and doable. Next I was struck by the old clippings from the bygone Courier-Express that someone had carefully tucked inside.

One was a column by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. The headline read, "Man Finds Strength In Weakness."

Then there is another clipping headlined: "Drug Abuse Called Escapism by Rabbi." It is an interview with Rabbi Samuel I. Porrath, of Temple Beth Israel in Niagara Falls. There is a photo of the good rabbi shaking hands with Governor Rockefeller.

I am going to keep these clippings neatly tucked inside "The Fireside Cook Book." Years from now my heirs will puzzle over them.

Was she a drug addict, they will wonder.

Did she know Rabbi Samuel I. Porrath?

Continuing to page through this treasure, I was struck also by the retro drawings in the book. That is one pictured above! It begins the "Vegetables" chapter. Charmed, I flipped to the front.

That was when I noticed it was by James Beard. Ahem, James A. Beard.

No wonder the recipes are so good! I have other books by The Author, many of which were garage sale finds. One I found recently was "Beard on Bread." A great title! Before that I had, already, "Beard on Pasta." These are books I use over and over.

My mother gave me "James Beard Entertains" and I have memorized whole paragraphs from it the way I have memorized Pennario's performances.

Above is the illustration that begins the "Vegetables" chapter. The script reads, "When beans are in flower/The fools are in power." That is the truth! Well, the fools are always in power.

Here is a typical page from "The Fireside Cook Book."

Isn't that illustration a hoot? Click on the page and you may read it and cook from it.

I have an, ahem, first edition but that is not saying much. The James Beard cookbook is a classic but from looking around the Internet I see that like the great Leonard Pennario vinyl records, it can be had for not much money. The best things are life might not be free but they sure tend to be inexpensive!

I paid $1.50. On Amazon you can find "The Fireside Cook Book" for 30 cents used, plus shipping which will run you another $5 or something.

Mighty good eating for the pennies it costs!

For the man who has everything

Wow, my weekend was packed! My weekend was a lot of work. I am glad it is the week!

I greet Monday morning with a smile and a song!

Just yesterday, I was running absolutely all day. What happened to Sunday being the day of rest, you know? 

The good news was, on Saturday morning I stole a few hours for the book and three chapters I had been struggling with fell into place, boom boom boom. It is amazing what two hours can do if you can scrounge them. On Saturday I even skipped Zumba. Well, I am not sure there was Zumba to skip. All our instructors went to a convention this weekend and so the classes have gone to hell. Friday my class was canceled without notice. Well, without notice to me, anyway. Fie on Zumba, fie!

But back to my Saturday. Saturday afternoon when I took my mom around to garage sales I nailed two treasures for Howard.

One was Bowling Alley Paste. I paid I think 50 cents for this can and I think two thirds of the stuff was still there. Howard had it open and was feeling it and smelling it. He had me do the same. it smelled strong and old. You can use this stuff on any kind of wooden surfaces. 

I knew I could find a picture of this stuff and sure enough.

The other treasure I found was Simonize car wax, pictured above. It was so old that the address on the can was listed as Chicago 16. Probably it dates from the glory years of the 1950s. When Pennario was recording for Capitol.

Howard knew about the car wax. He was excited about it. He said he was going to go Simonize one of his old cars.

I am lucky I have a husband who is so easy to buy for!

Haunted by a hippo

A steamy, sultry day! And Pennario's birthday on top of that.

I worked on the book all morning and it went swimmingly, to use a summer adjective I love. It is coming into shape! I will keep you posted. After that I ran to Tops for my mom. It was like being a kid when I always had to run to Tops for my mom. Then we hit a few garage sales.

My mom had to restrain me from buying this flashlight I loved. It was a plastic hippopotamus and when you pressed on a lever, the hippo made a comic groaning sound,  and then its mouth opened and the flashlight was inside.

That is it up above! I actually found a picture of it.

But zut alors, my mom worried, rightfully I guess, about how many batteries it took.

And I desisted.

Now I regret it!

I bought other treasures including a variety of pie plates and a pastry blender and a beautiful chafing dish. A copper chafing dish, for ... you would not believe this ... 50 cents. Ha, ha! No bargaining there. I will pay that price!

But the hippo haunts me. Never not buy something you like, is the moral of this story.

You will regret it!