Author Archives: mohawkvalleygirl

Cheesy Christmas

Posted on January 1, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I wrote in a post earlier this month how I like to write about cheesy movies and was afraid people would hate on me if I wrote that way about Christmas movies. I tried to solve the problem with a cheesy Christmas movie: Mystery Science Theatre 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

I first heard of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians many long years ago in high school. I was writing a piece for Speech Club making fun of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” (I hated that poem), and my speech coach suggested I have one character ask another who claimed to be a great Actor (pronounced Ac-tore) if he wasn’t in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

In answer to the question I feel sure at least one of you just asked, yes, in fact, I could have been more of a geek. If I had studied more I would have been a great deal more geeky. I will, however, admit to a certain misfit quality, that I retain to this day.

But I digress.

I finally got to watch the silly movie when TCM showed it in, I believe, 2001. We videotaped it on our VCR, just to put it in historical context. We were charmed.

Is it cheesy, you ask. It’s like a Velveeta factory exploded onscreen! The martians’ make-up is in unevenly applied. Their killer robot looks like a homemade Halloween costume. The North Pole looks like a set from Lost In Space. When a polar bear chases the two earthling kids, you can see where the head piece is separate from the rest of the guy’s costume!

In short, this movie was begging for the robot head treatment.

It was actually just a few years ago that Steven discovered the MST3K version of the flick. We used to watch MST3K every Saturday on the SciFi Channel. However, these were in the later seasons, when Mike Nelson had replaced Joel on the space ship. They never showed the Santa Claus movie, and Steven always lamented that there was no Christmas episode of MST3K.

Imagine our delight to discover that there was so a Christmas episode and it featured a movie we already loved.

Well, now I’m getting all mushy and misty-eyed, thinking of my beloved MST3K, a truly delightful cheesy movie and, of course, Christmas. I warned you this might happen. Perhaps I should return to my DVR, where I have a fairly rancid movie involving Bela Lugosi and a baboon. I assure you, if I write about that one, no mush or mist will be involved. I hope you are all enjoying the latter part of your Christmas holidays.

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Don’t It Make My Chicken Bleu

Posted on December 31, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I thought I’d change up Wrist to Forehead Sunday with a cooking post. Saturday I figured out how to make Chicken Cordon Bleu.

The only recipe I had was the memory of a co-worker telling me how she made it in the late ’80s. That is, she told me in the ’80s. When I reminisce about the ’80s with my friends, we don’t usually share chicken recipes. But I digress.

I started out by pouring myself a glass of wine, because I like to cook with wine (sometimes I put it in the food) (I read that on a refrigerator magnet or a t-shirt sometime). I set the oven on 350 degrees to preheat and grated some mozzarella cheese.

So right away I differed from my friend’s recipe. She used slices of cheese and ham which she cut into strips and rolled up together. I had nice chunks of leftover Christmas ham my sister had given me and a brick of mozzarella I had purchased that morning.

I differed from every Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe I’d ever heard of by using boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of breasts. I have better luck with thighs not drying out on me. Plus, I like dark meat. I think you’re supposed to pound the chicken with a hammer to flatten it out, but this is something else I’ve never had much luck with. I sliced it in half through the thickest part and spread it open.

I put the grated mozzarella on, then the ham, folded it back together and rolled it in Italian Style Breadcrumbs. My mother always uses Italian Style for all her breadcrumb needs.

I put the chickens in the pan (on which I had previously sprayed no-stick cooking spray) and stuck a couple of toothpicks in them to keep them from opening back up. I’m not sure if the toothpicks were really necessary. I ended up taking them out after 30 minutes anyways, when I flipped the chickens with the help of barbecue tongs.

The chickens ended up cooking about 50 minutes total. Thirty, then flip, then check after 10, then after 10 more. While they cooked I made a cheese sauce with the extra mozzarella I had grated (I never guess the right amount).

And here’s where all you cooking purists will shake an admonitory finger at me. Also nutrition purists. I used a can of cream of mushroom soup to which I added the cheese and some spices. Well, you purists can shake your fingers or your heads or your groove things for all I care. My mother had suggested the cream of mushroom soup when I told her my dinner plans earlier. Everybody agrees that my mother is a marvelous cook. So there.

The Chicken Cordon Bleu turned out very tasty, even, dare I say, yummy. We had it with a macaroni salad I made using some leftover ziti (waste not, want not). And I am especially pleased that it enabled me to keep my wrist from my forehead on a Sunday.

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A Walk in the Dark

Posted on December 29, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

My plan for today is to get my blog post out of the way early, then spend the rest of the day having Mohawk Valley adventures or watching cheesy horror movies so that I can write more scintillating blog posts (I like to pronounce it “skintillating’). To that end, I took my dog Tabby for a walk this morning.

I’m sure some long time readers (if any) miss my Saturday Running Commentary, and I mean to get back into running. Eventually. Today I enjoyed my walk.

We left shortly after Steven left for work, which was before 6:30. All I could think of was, “It was quarter past dawn, all the Whos still abed…” But I could not think of a good way to transplant that poem to Herkimer. I did write a take-off on The Grinch once, by the way. It was “How the Lynch Stole Christmas,” written for a Sergeant Lynch I used to work with (he’s a Sergeant First Class now, I think). But I digress (wait a minute: Stream of Consciousness Saturday? Something to think about).

It was still dark, but I think the sun was up somewhere, somewhat. Too cloudy to tell. Too bad; I had hoped to catch last night’s full moon. The sidewalks were semi plowed. That is, they had been plowed and were navigable, but still had stuff on them to contend with.

I love walking in the winter. Years ago, when I was young and carless (yes, carless not careless, although I was that, too), I used to hate walking in the winter. At that time I was walking to get somewhere and that slight delay when your foot slides back a little in the snow used to weigh on me disproportionately. Now I walk for health and entertainment, and the extra effort needed clearly burns more calories.

So on we walked, enjoying the cold, fresh air and the feeling of not being on any kind of a time schedule. Lots of houses had their Christmas lights on. I like to see that. I even saw a couple of blow up displays, although some were not at full inflation. Santa was leaning out of the outhouse as if he had been partying a little too heartily. Oh well, his job is over for the year. He’s allowed.

One house with lots of decorations was not lit. I admired the hard plastic Santa and snowman they had. They looked old. I purchased my plastic Santa because he looked old-fashioned, but you can somehow tell he was purchased in recent years. This one looked as if he had been in the family for a while.

Tabby wanted to stop and sniff even more often than usual. I suppose it must be more difficult to pick up an odor in the snow (I always scoop up a little snow when I pick up her poops, another reason to love walking in the winter). I tried to keep a look out for poops left behind by other dogs. I don’t need her sticking her nose into poo.

When walking in the dark, I like to see houses with lights on inside. In the morning I like to think of people having coffee and getting ready for the day, you know, in a contented sort of way, not in an “oh crap I have to go to work” sort of way. I was feeling pretty contented myself, and my legs felt as if they had done some work. We’ll see how they feel once I start running again. Stay tuned!

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I Plan to Be Spontaneous

Posted on December 29, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

After yesterday’s silly post, I feel a little sheepish having Lame Post Friday. However, since I got nuthin’ else, I’ll see what I can come up with.

I did have one thought about my Friday Lame Post. As I prepared to drive to work early this morning, I wondered what I might find to write about during the course of the day, since I arose this morning with nothing. Then I remembered a comment on another Friday Lame Post, advising me that one could not be random on a schedule. I had to acknowledge the truth of that statement, then the little devil on my shoulder said, “Today I planned to be spontaneous.”

Well, that is just the kind of oxymoron I enjoy (being all different kinds of moron myself). I’m only sorry I can’t come up with more of them for this post. However, let’s get on with my planned spontaneity at least.

Have you ever noticed, when somebody says, “I hate to rain on your parade,” it is almost always a lie. They LOVE to rain on your parade! They think it’s great that they know something that you don’t and it will ruin whatever you were planning/hoping/thinking. And, you know what, it’s usually not even a parade anyways. It is often something very mundane and by calling it your parade they have disparaged you twice. Or am I being too sensitive?

I just remembered that I had been going to philosophize half-bakedly on why I wanted to repeat myself in yesterday’s post. I sure do hate to rain on anybody’s parade who was waiting for that. Just kidding! I actually felt very mean for putting that, but I kind of also felt like I had to (come to think of it, that might be something else to philosophize about, half-bakedly, of course).

To set the record straight, I was going to repeat myself yesterday because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Hmmm… not very philosophical, was it? Perhaps Pouring My Art Out was right and one can’t philosophize on cue.

By the way, that was who commented, pouringmyartout.wordpress.com. I really don’t spend enough time reading other blogs, because, you know, some of them are really cool.

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This Post Does Not Bear Repeating

Posted on December 28, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

It’s one of my favorite quotes. You say it in a real airhead voice, as if you think you’re saying something profound when really if you had a thought in your head it would not be crowded.

I’ve written about this before. I don’t want to repeat myself, BUT…

Oh, there’s a good topic for Non Sequitur Thursday. Most of us repeat ourselves. They say some things bear repeating (that’s not one of them), but mostly people repeat things because they felt clever for having said them in the first place, or whatever it is still bothers them, or they can’t think of anything else to say.

Wow, I guess there’s a lot of reasons to repeat oneself. Try this: the next time you want to repeat yourself, instead say WHY you were about to repeat yourself. Then see if you repeat that.

I was about to tell a story about a friend repeating herself and me repeating myself in reply to her, and her calling me on repeating myself but not noticing her repeating herself. I’ve told that story roughly 5,687,211 times (I was going to say a bazillion but thought I’d change things up with an actual number).

I guess this is more stream of consciousness than non sequitur (that remark may be a repeat from last Thursday). Let’s let this train of thought jump the tracks (which were crossing the stream; I’m not mixing metaphors) and give a shout out to Ilion Little Theatre’s December production.

Rented Christmas opened last weekend and continues this weekend. It is a family musical about a guy who, you know, rents a Christmas. If you like cute kids with nice voices singing Christmas carols, this is a good show for you. It plays Friday and Saturday, December 28 and 29 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday December 30 at 2 p.m. For more information, visit their website, http://www.ilionlittletheatre.org/ or their Facebook page.

Final Note: On reading this over before publishing, I realize I did not follow my own instructions and say WHY I was going to repeat myself. I’ll save it for the half-baked philosophy component on Lame Post Friday.

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Have Yourself a Merry Post-Christmas Let Down

Posted on December 27, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Look, bloggers get post-Christmas let downs, too. Today I can only offer a little more Christmas Carol commentary. I hope you find it amusing.

Regarding “Do You Hear What I Hear?”: If I would have been the little lamb, the second verse would have gone, “Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy, ‘Hey, the wind is talking to me.'” Then the third verse could have gone, “Said the shepherd boy to the Hollywood agent, ‘I have a talking sheep.'”

I realize neither of those lines is in the rhythm of the original tune, but you know how singers interpret things (I actually hate it when they do that, but hell, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em).

One other thing: What if I don’t WANT to have myself a Merry Little Christmas? What if I want to have myself a Merry Big Fat Christmas? What are you going to sing to me then?

I have no other silly observations to make, so I will finish by sharing a Christmas Carol memory.

One Christmas many years ago, my husband Steve and I as well as my sister Diane and her husband, Chris, were staying at my parents’ house. To complete the picture, I’ll just mention that at this point my parents’ house only boasted one bathroom.

Christmas morning I was up before anybody else and got into the shower. I thought since everybody was still asleep, I could get away with taking a long shower. I sang Christmas carols in the shower. In retrospect, I don’t know how I thought anybody could sleep through that, but I do love to sing Christmas carols. Indeed, other people were up when I emerged from the shower squeaky clean.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “If I had known you were awake, I would have taken a shorter shower.”

My sister Diane retorted, “You would have taken a shorter shower if you didn’t have to sing every verse!”

It’s still five days away, but my New Year’s Resolution is to have more Mohawk Valley adventures, so I don’t have to make such silly blog posts all the time. Hope your own post-Christmas let down is mild.

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More Carol Commentary

Posted on December 26, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Merry Christmas to all. I mean to make this a fast post so I can get back to my own celebrations. Anyways, who reads blogs on Christmas? I hope somebody.

I thought I would share a few more of my thoughts on Christmas carols.

“You better watch out/ You better not cry.” This always struck me as unreasonable. What if I was really sad? What if I hurt myself, you know, not from being bad?

Later in the same song: “He knows when you’re awake.” Leaving aside the stalker implications, why is insomnia considered misbehaving? Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had the problem of waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. This, also, was not the result of misbehavior such as, for example, stealing my mother’s International Coffee (she freely shared it with me in later years).

I’m just saying (I love that expression).

A comment was made on my previous post on Carols: moviewriternyu brought up “Frosty the Snowman.” He wondered why this dying man only wanted to run and play with the kids and nobody called 911. I had never thought of that, but wished I had. What struck me, after reading his comment, was why was Frosty hanging out with all these kids with no other adults present? This, however, seemed rather unsavory, so I did not continue that line of thought.

One last thought: why do we all dream of a white Christmas when I have never ever in my life met anybody who liked to shovel snow? Oh, I know, snomobiles, skiing, etc. In fact, this morning when we were shoveling my parents’ driveway, a neighbor remarked that it was good exercise. So I guess that makes my last thought kind of lame. Too early in the week for that!

I guess the reason I brought up “White Christmas” is I wanted three carols mentioned. Three is kind of an important number in many contexts. That is some half-baked philosophy that I will pursue at another time. In the meantime, although it’s been said many times, many ways (most recently at the top of this post), Merry Christmas to you.

NOTE: Go to http://moviewriternyu.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/the-bloody-cool-carolers-vampires-snowmen-bring-christmas-joy-to-maine-homes/ for another post on Christmas Carols.

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Christmas Ciabatta and Croissants

Posted on December 25, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

As has become usual, my contribution to the family Christmas dinner is Heidelberg Bread. Accordingly, I made my way to the Heidelberg Bakery, 3056 State Rt. 28, Herkimer, NY, this morning.

I got an early start, because I know they open at seven and I wanted to beat the crowds. I didn’t bother calling to see if they had special hours for Christmas Eve. I figured if they weren’t open, I could swing down Rt. 28 to Hannaford, who also sells Heidelberg bread. I was in luck, however; the open sign was lit.

One other early bird customer was leaving, so I had the undivided attention of the clerk.

“I wanted to get here early and beat the crowd,” I announced. “Do you have rolls?” I was so early, they didn’t even have everything out yet.

“What kind?”

“Something suitable for sausage and peppers.” Which, by the way, I have been craving ever since I heard they were to be served in addition to ham at Christmas dinner.

She suggested French baguette or Ciabatta rolls. I went for the Ciabatta. While she got them I found a loaf of sourdough bread for toast for Christmas morning.

“Did you want any pastries as well?” Did I!

I got two chocolate croissants, for Steven and me for today. Sorry to any family members who might happen to be reading this: I did not get any sweets for Christmas breakfast or dinner. I had my doubts of anything I might get lasting that long. It took great effort of Christmas goodwill and will power not to open the sourdough as soon as I got home.

I love Heidelberg bread, and I love going right to the source to get some. For more information, visit their website: http://www.heidelbergbakingco.com/ or you can “Like” them on Facebook.

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Here We Go Again

Posted on December 24, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I guess you could say it’s Wrist to Forehead Sunday, but my wrist is not literally on my forehead (I hate typing one-handed anyways). I just don’t want to lift my arm that high.

My sinuses have been bad lately, but I have been muddling through. This morning I woke up with dreadful nausea and I knew what to blame. Seriously, I had not done one thing to deserve being sick. No rich food, no booze, only the usual amount of stress. I decided to break down and go get some serious decongestant and live with the consequences.

And now you, gentle reader, must live with the consequences too. I am too lightheaded to write a decent post (I know, what’s my excuse the rest of the time? Well, I can only do my best). Luckily most of the Christmas presents are wrapped (I could have done a whole post on those trials and tribulations, but some of the recipients may read this blog). And I still have tomorrow.

For today, I’m afraid it’s television, crochet and posting complaints on Facebook. I did call my Mom and tell her I was sick. I know other people who do that: however old we get, when we don’t feel good we call Mom for some sympathy. She said maybe I’m coming down with something, it’s going around.

I looked back on a couple of posts I remember doing when I was under the weather. One of them went on for quite some time chronicling my illness. I will spare you such a thing today (I guess you can always spare yourself such a thing by just stopping reading, that’s what I do). I hope you’re all enjoying Christmas Eve Eve, and I hope to post less lamely tomorrow.

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Practically Health Food

Posted on December 23, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

This will be a cooking post. I had wanted some Running Commentary, or even a Pedestrian Post, but the weather is working against me. In desperation, I made some Chocolate Bark, just so I would have something to write about.

I got out my fancy double boiler (you know, frying pan of water with a pot in it), and set some dark chocolate chips to melt, adding a tablespoon of olive oil. The recipe also calls for some extract, almond or peppermint or something, but I didn’t have any so left it out and hoped for the best.

While it heated, I pulled out a baking dish and lined it with tin foil, which I sprayed with cooking spray. The recipe said “greased tin foil.” What I did was good enough, right?

Then I commenced to breaking up the candy canes. I forgot what a pain in the butt it is getting the plastic shrink wrap off those things! It comes off in pieces then the pieces stick to your hand when you try to throw them out. Grr! And I had not realized we were out of large plastic bags so pulled out a sandwich bag and looked for my metal meat pounder. Of course I could not find it (regular readers are not surprised either). I used the handle of my pizza cutter. Soon I had a baggy of large pieces of candy cane and candy cane powder. It would have to do.

By now the water was boiling and the chocolate was melting. I stirred it till the lumps were gone and poured it into the baking dish. That sure didn’t make much! Damn! I threw in some of the peppermint, almonds and raisins. Then I put the (fancy) double boiler back on and found my other bag of dark chocolate chips (I try to keep a spare of such things on hand in case of just such an emergency).

Two bags worth of chocolate looked good. I put in the rest of the candy cane remains, added more almonds and raisins and stirred. Spread it out as evenly as I could — no egregiously deep spots, no tinfoil showing through. After I had scraped the pot and cleaned up a little, I covered the baking dish and cleared a space for it in the refrigerator.

Tomorrow or much later tonight (Steven and I have a play to go to — preview of coming attractions), we will break or cut up the bark and taste test it. Whatever is left after taste testing I plan to take to my parents’ house for Christmas Eve, but I make no promises. For heavens’ sake: dark chocolate, almonds, raisins — I’m sure there’s even health benefits from candy canes, because, you know, peppermint tea — it’s practically health food!

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