Thursday Thirteen #418

 

But I don't cook! I was having a tough time thinking of an idea for this week's TT when voila! The Old Farmer's Almanac Readers' Best Recipes came in the mail.* Problem solved. I don't cook and normally I'd just put this booklet downstairs in our shared laundry room for someone who might want it – and that's where it will still end up – but it does give me fodder for a post.

Each of these recipes was submitted to the Old Farmer's Almanac by a reader and then taste tested by their kitchen team. If one of them looks tempting to you, you can find the full recipe and a photo at Almanac.com. 

1. Stuffed French Toast. It's baked in the oven instead of fried on the stove top, so you use less butter and clean up is easier.

2. Florentine Spinach Dip. This recipe has a lot of cheese in it, which sounds good to me. The Almanac taste testers agree. One even asked to lick the casserole bowl. 

3. Apple Slaw with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette. A light side dish. "The sweetness of the apple and honey complements the green onions, mustard and vinegar."

4. Slow Cooker French Onion Soup. I see there's Parmesan in the recipe, which I'm sure enhances it. The Almanac team reports that it's "very good and very easy to make."

5. Blue Cheese Brussels Sprouts. OK, this one doesn't appeal to me at all. It's a baked dish, which I suppose is a good way to prepare Brussels sprouts – if you like that sort of thing.

6. Not-Too-Spicy Veggie and Lentil Chili. It's a one-pot recipe that can be prepared on a slow cooker (which I'd expect) or on a stove top. 

7. Traditional Potato Salad. I smiled when I saw this recipe because it includes both Miracle Whip and mayonnaise. Maybe potato salad could have resolved the long-running, good-natured argument between my mom (Team Miracle Whip) and my niece (Mayo Forever!).

8. Celebration Meatballs. Do you like your meatballs spicy or mild? This recipe gives you ideas for how to dial up, or down, the spice in the sauce.

9. Oatmeal Berry Bars. I like this one because like #8, we're given an easy way to adapt this one. If you prefer your bars extra chewy, substitute almond meal for half the flour. 

10. Hawaiian Shrimp Tacos. Shrimp, with pineapple salsa and wasabi dressing. While the tacos are definitely neat looking, this one looks like a lot of work. The pineapple salsa also works well on salmon.

11. Kat's Tortellini Salad. Now this one, on the other hand, looks pretty easy. Except for the sliced, marinated artichoke hearts. I wouldn't do that myself, I'd use the store bought ones. But that's me. In culinary terms, I'm just one notch above a savage.

12. Nana's Apple Pecan Cake. Here's something I never notice or consider: When slicing cake, do frosting or crumbs stick on the knife? Apparently this is a big deal to people who take this baking thing seriously. So here's a pecan cake that's easy to slice into "clean" slices.

13. Fresh Mexican Salsa. This recipe was developed by an American living in Tokyo. She missed Mexican food and experimented with ingredients available to her over there. When she landed on this recipe, she not only used it for chips and dips, she spooned it onto scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Let me know if any of these appeal to you. Remember, you can find the full recipes  at Almanac.com. 

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

 

*It was included in a fundraising appeal for Boys Town.

WWW.WEDNESDAY

 

 

 

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime by Casey Sherman. A glamorous actress – a household name – is involved with the murder of a mobster. In her bedroom. By her teenage daughter. It's impossible to overestimate what a big news story this was in 1958. 

 

The Lana Turner scandal gets an in depth treatment here. Casey Sherman works hard to put the sordid incident in context. He not only tells us Lana's story, but also that of Mickey Cohen, the mob kingpin who employed the thug on the bedroom rug. So far, the writing is really clunky, though. 

 

PS Lana Turner starred in the movie version of Peyton Place, the book Cher is reading in the tub. 

 

2. What did you recently finish reading? PT-109: An American Epic of War, Survival and the Destiny of John F. Kennedy by William Doyle.  A Japanese destroyer collided with a PT boat in August 1943. The US Navy made no attempt at rescue, assuming that all 13 men aboard were lost. The US Navy was wrong, and in 18 years, one of those 13 would be the Commander in Chief. On the face of it, that's a great wartime saga. The reality doesn't disappoint.

Doyle takes us through Kennedy's naval career and then into politics. But he always frames JFK's life through a PT-109 lens, and it's effective. The context taught me a lot about post war Japan-US relations, and how meaningful it was to the Japanese that the President was in cordial contact with the commander of the Amagiri, the man who nearly missed killing him during wartime.*

I admit I am not that interested in battles on air, sea or land, so the passages about what went on aboard PT-109 that fateful night didn't really mean that much to me. What about the radio? What about the radar? Don't care. What I did find gripping – and, frankly, left me in awe – was Kennedy's 8-day battle to keep his men alive and get them to safety after they washed up on a small island. No fresh water. No food. Since many of the men had removed their pants and lost their shoes as they swam miles from their wreckage to shore, the sharp coral and hot sand were perilous. Two of the men sustained bad burns, so infection was another enemy. Oh yeah, and there was the tropical bugs and unrelenting sun. Morale could have sunk like their ship. After all, it didn't take the men long to realize the Navy was not looking for them. I might have given up. OK, I'm sure I would have given up. But JFK would not let them give up.

I don't have to tell you that Kennedy survived the ordeal and became a decorated war hero. What I didn't know before this book was that in November, Kennedy took command of a second PT boat, and then rescued more than 30 marines whose ship had been damaged and was sinking.

August to November: That's a shit-ton of heroism in barely 90 days.

I know our current President would be dismissive. To paraphrase what he said on camera about John McCain, Donald Trumps likes sailors whose ships aren't destroyed. I disagree. 

*A Japanese sailor who had been aboard the Amagiri that night made a comment that stayed with me: "He avoided death in war but was murdered in a parade." That's as profound a reflection on the vagaries of life as I've ever heard. 

3. What will you read next? I don't know.