A Crockpot of Comfort

 

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." Calvin Trillin I admit it; I love cooking with leftovers. I often cook more than I need, just so I'll have leftovers to turn into something else. For instance, turkey leftovers become enchiladas, several kinds of soup, crepes, and various casseroles, all of which I love more than the original roasted turkey. I often cook two or three times as much rice as I need for a meal, just so I can have it for other recipes. All this plan ahead cooking should give me more time to write, right? I've toyed for years with the idea of coming out with a cookbook called Serial Cooking, which would be filled with recipes that piggyback off of other recipes - a series of meals much like Trillin's mother made. One of the times all that extra rice comes in handy is cold mornings, when I like to wake up and know that I've got something warm and comforting to entice me out from under the covers. One of my favorite go-to recipes for those kind of mornings is rice pudding. The Pokey Little Puppy ate rice pudding for desert, but for the Bohnhoffs, it's usually a comforting replacement for breakfast cereal. Now that it's just my husband and me at home, I make it in a little crock pot that, I suppose, was intended for queso and other warm dips. I load it up after dinner and plug it in when I go to bed. In the morning my rice pudding is cooked and ready for me to spoon into a bowl. I pour milk over it and sprinkle sugar on top, then eat it like cereal. If your family is larger, you can easily double or triple the recipe and use a standard sized crock pot. Little Crockpot Rice Pudding 1 cup cooked, leftover rice (white or brown will work!) 3/4 cup milk (I use nonfat, but you can use whole milk for a richer taste.) 1/3 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 T melted butter 1 T vanilla 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/4 cup raisins, crasins, or other small dried fruit (cherries are good!) Mix all together and pour into a lightly greased crock pot. Cover and cook on low overnight.

The Army mule in time of peace.

 

That men are ungrateful can plainly be seen In the case of that mule standing out on the green. His features are careworn, bowed down is his head, His spirit is broken: his hopes have all fled. He thinks of the time when the battle raged sore, When he mingled his bray with the cannon's loud roar; When Uncle Sam's soldiers watched for him to come, Hauling stores of provisions and powder and rum; When his coming was greeted with cheers and huzzas, And the victory turned on the side of the stars. These thoughts put new life into rickety bones- He prances just once, then falls over and groans. A vision comes over his poor mulish mind, And he sees Uncle Sam, with his agents behind, Granting pensions by thousands to all who apply, From the private so low to the officer high; To the rich and the poor, the wise man and fool, But, alas! there is none for the “poor army mule.” Taken from John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of four novels set during the American Civil War: The Bent Reed takes place at Gettysburg. Where Duty Calls, The Worst Enemy, and The Famished Country are part of Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy set in New Mexico Territory

Why thin air?

 

Why thin air?

2/20/2018

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I sell the majority of my books at craft shows. Often a shopper will stop to study the banner that hangs along the front of my table, then ask the question "Why Thin Air Books?"

Good question.





I created Thin Air Books to market my self published books after a group of other writers came to the conclusion that books sold better if they came from a publishing house. There are a number of reasons why I chose the name that I did.

When I started Thin Air Books, I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico.


While Denver is known as the Mile High City, Albuquerque is also a mile above sea level. The air up here is pretty thin. It is even thinner on the top of the Sandias, the mountains that lay just east of Albuquerque. I used a picture of the snow covered Sandias, taken from my backyard, as the backdrop for the banner on the top of my website.



Since then, I have moved into those mountains. I live at nearly 8,000 feet - in rarefied air, indeed. The air is thin and dry enough that it cools off quickly at night. A bazillion stars spangle the heavens on a clear night. From my balcony I can see the lights of Santa Fe, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains beyond.


The view from my balcony.

I do not pull my stories from thin air like a sleight-of-hand magician. The original concepts may come from my imagination, from an offhand comment in a conversation, or a single photograph, but I engage in a lot of research before my stories hit the market. For The Last Son of the Swan, for instance, I had to follow the most current research on Neanderthal development and culture. Although 
the Neanderthals have been long dead, who they were and what they were capable of is currently a topic of hot debate among scientists. The research was interesting and evolving as I wrote. I also researched Beowulf commentary, recent terrorist activity, and date rape drugs. Authors have to know a lot of strange things if they want their books to ring true.

a link in the chain

 

 

Two birthdays ago, my sister- in-law Krista gave me the bookmark that is hooked over this aluminum vase. The bookmark has a golden hook to insert into a book, and a chain of pearls and golden beads to dangle along the outside spine. The chain ends with a tiny locket shaped like a bible. It's a lovely bookmark, and I enjoy using it, but a couple of things make it even more special to me. First, my sister-in-law made this

bookmark for me. To me, handmade gifts show a measure of thoughtfulness and care that store-bought gifts often don't. I know that as she selected the components of this bookmark and put them together, she was thinking about me. Krista "customized" her gift by inserting the bookmark into a book that she had chosen for me. It happened to be The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry., I very much enjoyed reading this novel. Looking at this bookmark will always bring it to mind.

But the real reason this bookmark is so special is the components from which it was assembled. Krista's mother - my mother-in-law - had given Krista a box of trinkets and nick-knacks from her mother and mother-in-law - Krista's maternal and paternal grandmothers. Krista took apart some of those things and reassembled them into this bookmark. The tiny bible locket belonged to my husband's paternal grandmother who had passed away before I was born. The pearls used to grace the neck of my husband's maternal grandmother, whom I met when my husband and I were dating, but passed away before our marriage. I know this because Krista was kind enough to include a note explaining this to me.

This bookmark isn't just a reminder of my sister-in-law's kindness in making it for me. It is a link to women two generations back, uniting me in a chain of women that flow back through the ages, and forward through ages to come. Someday i will pass it on, either to one of my daughters-in-law or to a granddaughter.

And the chain will remain unbroken.

Bent's Fort: Important Historical Landmark

 

 

My husband and friend approach the fort.

One of the historical places of interest I visited this summer was Bent's Old Fort. Located outside of La Junta, Colorado, the fort, originally built by Bent, St. Vrain & Company in 1833, was rebuilt by the National Park Service in 1975, faithfully following sketches made by James W. Abert, an Army officer who stayed at the fort while recovering from an illness.

The fort was built just north of the Arkansas River, which at the time was the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Spain had lost control of Mexico in 1821, and Mexico had opened trade with America. 

Charles and William Bent, sons of a St. Louis judge, had come west to earn their fortunes in the fur trade. Together with Ceran St. Vrain, the son of French aristocrats who had come to America to escape the French Revolution, they formed a trading company and built the fort to be its base of operations. The fort traded for beaver pelts and buffalo hides brought in by the Indians, for hardware, glass, silver, blankets, axes, firearms, horses, and mules. The company dominated the Indian trade on the southern plains and was an important stop on the newly opened Santa Fe Trail.

A beaver hat sitting on a pile of beaver pelts.

Looking into the interior. The fort's trading post.

In 1835, the fort was the site of a peace council between the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and their old enemies, the Pawnee. The fort was also instrumental in getting much of Mexican territory into American hands. In 1848, Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny used the fort as an advance base for his invasion of New Mexico. Going to the fort now is like stepping back in time. Visitors are greeted by a guide in 19th century clothes. The smell of a cottonwood campfire decreases the heady smell that comes from the stables at the back of the fort. Blacksmiths and others go about their day to day duties. It is open year round and has special events scheduled seasonally.

Bent's Fort is a great place to experience what it was like to live on the plains in the middle 1800s.