Holding Steady at 18 and the Potato Salad Wars

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Mama Cormier

…. if I write about it, it usually changes the next day.

After the race yesterday my friend L thought I would drop 3 more pounds, based on the effort I put out during the run. Today my thighs were actually a little bit sore. I notice it mostly when I walk down stairs.

Unfortunately a drop in weight did not happen and certainly not 3 pounds worth. The one side effect of the race is that I am extremely tired and find myself drifting off in the middle of doing something (like checking my email and scanning things on the computer). It looks like it’s going to be another early night.

Yesterday I had a few challenges with eating because of Father’s Day. I’m happy to report that I passed on the KFC, the wine, the apple pie, the bread and the tarts. I did have a small sample of my homemade potato salad. My baby sister and I are having a bit of a disagreement as to whose potato salad is closest to our mom’s original recipe. I’m sharing my version with you.

German Potato Salad With Bacon

5 lb of new white potatoes, skins on

1/2 lb sliced and diced bacon

2 ribs of celery

small bunch of green onions

3 large radishes

3 small dill pickles

pickle juice

mayonnaise

salt and pepper

1. Boil the potatoes with the skin on. If they’re not new potatoes you may want to peel them after cooking.

2. When a knife pierces the potato easily, remove from the heat and drain. Allow to cool for a few minutes.

3. In a frying pan cook the diced bacon until the bacon is crisp. Let it drain on a paper towel. Save the fat.

4. Finely dice the celery, radishes, green onion and pickles.

5. Slice or cube the cooked potatoes and add to a large bow. Add the diced vegetables and bacon.

6. In separate small bowl mix together about 1/4 cup of pickle juice, 1/4 of bacon grease and 1/2 cup of mayonnaise. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you like your dressing tart add more pickle juice or reduce the amount of bacon grease. To be honest I never measure the ingredients for the dressing. I go by how it looks and tastes.

7. Add the dressing to the potato mixture and gently toss. Start with half the dressing and if you like it more moist add more as needed.

Best Served Warm

Serves 10 to 12 people

My version of Mom’s German Potato Salad

My Sister’s Version

Potatoes

Bacon

Mayonnaise

Pickle juice

Salt and Pepper

The steps are identical to my recipe but she omits the pickles, celery, radishes, onions and uses way less mayonnaise.

You be the judge!

P.S. This is definitely not a recipe for people trying to lose weight!

Another New Computer and Long Overdue Photos

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Mama Cormier

…. took the new one back and exchanged it for the newest version

Last night I couldn’t believe that Apple introduced a new version of the MacBook Pro, one week after buying my laptop. It was more powerful and cheaper. I checked my receipt and learned that I could return my purchase up to June 18th. I expected a fight but got quite the opposite.

Returning my purchase was painless. It couldn’t have been easier. So here I sit with a ‘newer’ laptop. K figures it will last just that much longer than the last version. My love for Apple has been renewed.

I’ve finally been able to access my photos. They include pictures of our special lunch with K after his last chemo treatment.

Me, A and J.

Hamming it up for the camera.

That’s better!

Memories of my Mother and a Cake Fit for a King

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Mama Cormier

…. Mother’s Day has never been the same for me

Mother’s Day is always a bitter sweet day for me. My husband and my children go out of their way to make the day special for me but not being able to buy a gift for my own mom or have her over for dinner leaves me feeling like something is missing in my life. The first few years after her untimely death were the hardest. I think about her every day.

To honour my mom I thought I would share some memories I have of her as I was growing up.

Mom always worked. When we were little she worked at Appleby College serving dinner to the boys. When she came home at night we would anxiously await to see what “leftovers” she’d bring to share with us. Not that Mom wasn’t a good cook, she was but she cooked ‘different’ food and what she brought home was ‘Canadian food’. Besides after working all day I’m sure she was pleased not to have to cook all the time.

Mom was definitely an entrepreneur. She worked side by side with my dad when they started their own catering business and then managed a Becker store together. After a couple of hold ups in the store my parents decided to open their own business that was less risky. What better than a fabric store. Did she know anything about running a fabric store? No, but she knew how to sew and so did all her daughters.

In her 30s Mom learned how to be a dental technician, in her 40s and 50s she learned how to operate knitting machines and other specialty sewing machines and she took courses to become a night school teacher. The money she earned from teaching was always put aside for a yearly vacation. Mom and Dad travelled every year. Trips included Germany, Mexico, Florida and numerous islands in the Caribbean.

My mom liked to experiment with cooking and we had a neighbour who shared many of her recipes with her. Some of our more Canadian meals resulted from this sharing of recipes. She learned to make a great spaghetti sauce and delicious cabbage rolls. She aimed to please her family, especially her husband but if you ever crossed my mother she had a bit of a stubborn streak. I remember one day when Mom served us cabbage rolls (this is after cooking them for years) my father announced that she didn’t have to make them again because he didn’t really like them. My mother was furious. If you’ve ever made cabbage rolls from scratch you know how labour intensive they are. She never made them again, despite the fact that the rest of us liked them.

My parents had to scrimp and save all their lives. My parents finally owned their own home long after I was married and my sisters were in their 20s. One of my favourite stories happened when I no longer lived at home so I heard it from my middle sister. Mom really wanted new dishes and my father kept saying ‘no’ and that there was nothing wrong with the old ones. One day she pointed out how badly the dishes were chipped. My father insisted they were fine and when they broke he would buy her a new set. So my mother promptly broke all the dishes and she finally got her new ones.

I was shocked when I heard this story because in all the years I lived at home I never heard my parents argue. My mom was truly loyal to my dad but she always ‘quietly’ got her point across and I know she defended our decision to go to university. If it were up to our dad he would have had us all working in an office as secretaries. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just not what we wanted to do.

When mom baked she frequently made a cake called Koenigskuchen which literally means King’s Cake. It wasn’t my favourite unless she iced it with chocolate. As I got older I became very fond of it and recently I’ve been really missing it. Maybe it’s because I’m trying not to eat sweets at the moment and I have this urge to bake all of a sudden. I found several recipes on line and played with the those that most closely resembled the one my mother made.

Koenigskuchen or Cake Fit for a King

1 tbsp. butter
1/2 – 3/4 cup of seedless raisins
1/2 -3/4 cup of dried cranberries (some recipes call for dried currants or double the amount of raisins)
1/4 cup rum or other spirit or hot water
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
7 egg yolks
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cups blanched almonds, ground
grated lemon rind from one lemon
7 egg whites

Grease the bottom and sides of a large loaf pan. Dust with flour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the dried fruit with the alcohol or hot water and set aside to soak.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy.

4. Beat in the egg yolks and continue beating until batter turns a light yellow colour.

5. Combine the flour and baking powder and beat them into the sugar the sugar and egg

mixture, 1/2 cup at a time.

Blanching and Grinding the Almonds

I remember having to blanch almonds when Mom baked and since the almonds I had on hand were not blanched I’m adding instructions on how to do that.
First boil a small amount of water in a pot and add the almonds for about 20 seconds. When you spoon them out of the water you will notice that the skins are wrinkled.
Place the almonds on a paper towel and then slip the skins from the almond with your fingers. Be careful, they’re slippery.
To grind the almonds you could use a food processor but I found a food grinder or grater very similar to what we used when I was young.

6. Stir in the dried fruit with the liquid and the grated almonds and the grated lemon rind.

7. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites with a whisk or electric mixer until stiff peaks

form. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 1/2

hours or until the cake tester comes out clean from the centre of the cake.

9. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, loosen the edges with a knife and turn out onto a

cooling rack.

10. Prepare the chocolate glaze (my favourite part).

Chocolate Glaze

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

2 tbsp. butter

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

2 tbsp. boiling water

Over boiling water or in a double boiler, melt the butter and the chocolate.
Add the sifted icing sugar and blend thoroughly.
Add the boiling water to thin the glaze to a pouring consistency.
Pour and spread immediately over the cake.

Food and Me – Discovering Yogurt and Diet Pop

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Mama Cormier

At the age of 14 my parents owned a Becker’s Milk store. I’m pretty sure it was then that my mom introduced me to yogurt. Blueberry yogurt!!! It didn’t come fat free or artificially sweetened back then. I remember it was delicious and because it was healthy it became my diet food of choice. I remember eating nothing but yogurt for lunch in high school. Well I’m sure I ate other things but yogurt was a staple for many years.

It was also around this time that I started drinking diet pop. I thought it was the best invention ever. I don’t think I’ve ever had regular pop since, except maybe ginger ale or tonic water. I didn’t care about the health warnings about artificial sweeteners. If they helped me loose weight that was more important. Today I avoid them as much as I can.

The third food I discovered and used frequently when I dieted as a teenager was Swedish rye crisp crackers. It didn’t always occur to me that putting butter on them defeated the purpose.

I didn’t really lose weight during high school but I pretty much stayed at the same weight for about 5 years. Dinners and snacking in the evenings have always been my downfall. I think I’ve mentioned before that my parents were pretty good cooks and supper was always my favourite meal even when I or my sisters were responsible for cooking it.

I also had a friend whose mom made the best after school snacks. I loved going to her place on the way home from school and having a Nanaimo bar or two. It’s funny the things one remembers.

So food was my best friend and my enemy. I ate because I loved the taste of food and I felt loved and accepted by my Dad who loved to feed us. It was only when my Mom suggested that I needed to lose some weight that food became my enemy. It was like going through a revolving door. It never led anywhere and yet I continued to go around in circles.

The only times I was able to escape from this revolving cycle happened whenever I fell in love……to be continued.

Feeling a Little Melancholy

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Mama Cormier

April 18th! This would have been Mom’s 81st birthday. Hard to believe that she’s been gone for 19 years. She taught me everything; how to cook, knit, sew, clean a house (how I hated that) but more importantly how to love and be patient with the ones you love. We had our differences over the years. The teen years were particularly hard but as a young woman and wife (pretty much happened at the same time) we became closer.

I remember in the awkward preteen years she always told me I was beautiful and I always responded by saying “you’re my mom, you have to say that!” She encouraged me when I tried to lose weight but she didn’t realize that it was never going to happen until I was ready to do so and that it had to be my idea. I know she only wanted the best for me. She herself struggled a little bit with weight, especially as she got older.

After the birth of our first daughter, I did lose a lot of weight and got down to 132 pounds. An all time low for me. Many of my family friends thought I was too thin but in hind sight I think it was a good thing because soon after I became pregnant with twins. That’s a story for another time.

Thanks Mom. I miss you. I know you’re watching over me.

In the 60’s with Mom and my sisters.

My sisters, me and our Mom.

When Food Became my Enemy

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Mama Cormier

How dramatic! I’ve always loved food. Both my parents were great cooks. I remember when they started a catering business from our kitchen. It was the first time I had shrimp. I was hooked. I loved watching them prepare food for the fancy parties they catered and of course I was allowed to sample. Yum! Good thing I was a pretty active little girl. I always played outside, walked to school and rode my bike around the neighbourhood. I was a little on the pudgy side but not what I would consider fat.

When I was nine I contracted hepatitis A and was bed ridden for months. I missed a lot of school and couldn’t play with my friends but the worst part was the fat reduced diet I was put on. That was shear hell for someone who loved whipped cream, ice cream, cake and the crispy skin from the chicken. For some reason the chicken skin really stood out for me. I don’t know how much weight I lost but from photos I could see a noticeable change.

That was the beginning of my yo-yo dieting life. It didn’t help that my mother was made to feel guilty and responsible for my weight status by our family doctor. At the age of 11 when I weighed 120 pounds I remember how our female doctor reamed me out and tried to shame me into losing weight. At the time I was close to 5 feet tall and still growing. I did lose 10 pounds but I couldn’t maintain it. The fact that I grew 5 more inches and entered puberty might have had something to do with it.

To be continued………..

One of my favourite meals, even today. Chicken with a little bit of

crispy skin and lots of vegetables. Hmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

Food and Me – Part 2

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Mama Cormier

In my family food was very important. My dad always said that all one ever needed in life to be happy was “family and good food”. For me food symbolized Love. You ate all your food because it was prepared with love and to not eat it was wasteful and hurtful.

I remember a time when my middle sister did not want to eat her cheese sandwich. My parents were always worried about her weight and not because she was too heavy. Quite the opposite. They always thought she was too thin. They tried all kinds of approaches to get her to eat more. I vividly remember one evening when she wasn’t allowed to leave the dinner table until the sandwich was consumed. I’m not sure why I sat with her but I do remember trying to coax her to eat that sandwich. She absolutely refused. In the end I think she won out but the battle was far from over. My parents were so desperate that they sent her away to a farm for a week to fatten her up ( on the advice of our family doctor ). Nothing seemed to help. I think this constant battle convinced me that I needed to eat anything put in front of me in order to be the “good daughter”.

Don’t get me wrong, my middle sister was dearly loved by my parents and at times I was jealous of the constant attention they gave her. She was always the “cute one and the needy one”. I found other ways to get attention. Early on I was given lots of responsibility; one of the downsides of being the oldest child. I learned to cook when I was 8 years old and fondly remember my very first cookbook. It was the Carnation Milk Cookbook for Kids. I’m not sure if that was the exact title but I think I made every recipe in that book. It was my go to book. Years later my sister and I figured out that she was probably lactose intolerant and that’s why she wouldn’t eat that cheese sandwich. Nobody knew about those things back then. My poor sister had to suffer through all my milk laden recipes. Years later when my sister hit her teens she seemed to overcome her intolerance for milk products and started to enjoy cheeses and whipped cream. She however remained the “skinny sister” and even today my younger sister and I call her the “skinny one”.

I can’t believe I found a picture of my favourite cookbook as a child. I did get the title wrong, as you can see. WOW!

Courtesy of: http://www.vintagecookbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/kcb18x.jpg

Food and Me – Part 1

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Mama Cormier

Waste Not Want Not

As long as I can remember, food has played an important part of my life. My parents grew up during WWII when food was scarce and to waste food was unthinkable. Apparently at the age of one my mother was told that I was too thin. A plump baby was the sign of prosperity and good health. We were always expected to eat everything on our plates. Not wanting to disappoint my mom and dad I always cleaned my plate.

Only twice in my life can I remember not eating what was put in front of me. We owned a reference book on mushrooms and of course most of them were considered poisonous and inedible. The message from the book that stood out for me, even at the young age of 8, was that unless you were an expert on mushrooms you should NEVER pick wild mushrooms for consumption. Our house backed onto a huge abandoned field and one day my mother went back there and picked mushrooms and made a huge pot of mushroom soup. Normally I loved mushroom soup but I refused to eat it, convinced that it would be the death of me. Needless to say, it didn’t kill anybody but I wasn’t going to take that chance.

The second time I refused it eat a meal happened on our first visit back to Germany. My sisters and I (ages 11,9 and 5) stayed with our maternal grandmother while our parents spent a few days with my father’s brother and sister. Oma thought she would surprise us with a meal that my mother used to LOVE as a child. We were grossed out when she put bowls of hot sweet milk with elbow macaroni in front of us. None of us could eat it. Later that day the drained and slightly sweet macaroni appeared at dinner with a ground beef sauce. My grandmother wasted nothing. I’m sure she used the milk in something we ate while we were there. I remember how sad my Oma was when we wouldn’t eat her “special treat”. Talk about feeling QUILTY!!!!

Welcome to Carol’s World

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Mama Cormier

I’m about to enter a new phase in my life and I need to figure out which direction I want to go. The problem is I want to do it all. I’m a mother, wife, teacher, coach, artist, and librarian. I love teaching, crafting, reading, gardening, walking the dog, baking and painting. I want to travel more and explore the world with my husband. I also want to stay healthy and I’m trying to move more and eat better.

I hope to divide this blog into categories that address my interests and my journey into retirement. I’m still teaching and coaching and would also like to include some of the upcoming highlights of my experiences in education. This week, for example, I’m about to embark on a new program at school called Girls on the Run. I’m one of 4 coaches and we will be working with 32 girls, ages 8 to 11. At the end of 10 weeks of training, all of us will be walking/running a 5 km race. I know I can walk that far so my personal goal is to try and run for at least half of it. I’ve added a link for Girls on the Run if you want to know more about this organization.

Girls on the Run in the GTA

I know that this blog will evolve and change over the next few months and years as my journey into retirement evolves. I look forward to sharing my experiences and maybe even hearing from some of my fellow bloggers.