Author Archives: themidlifesecondwife

The One-Year Blogiversary of The Midlife Second Wife

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Special Events, What's the Buzz?

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Happy anniversary, TMSW! Read through this post for important news about a giveaway to celebrate our first year together!

The month of August is an important one for me as far as anniversaries go. For starters (and most importantly), John and I got married on August 14, 2010. Then, one year and ten days later, I began publishing The Midlife Second Wife. If you’re counting along with me, that means today, August 24, 2012, is the blog’s first anniversary, or “blogiversary,” to employ a technical term. (I’ve learned a lot of blogging jargon since embarking on this social media journey, and yet have miles to go before I sleep.) This past year has been a fascinating time—filled with wonder, exploration, discoveries, and new friends. Please join me as I look back at a year in the life of a blog.

Readership
It’s all well and good to talk about marketing, SEOs, awards, and metrics, but there’s no doubt in my mind what brings the greatest value to the Midlife Second Wife the blog, and holds the most meaning to the Midlife Second Wife the blogger (that would be me). In a word: readers. Or in another word, you. Every time you hit “like” on a post, or comment, or share a blog link on Facebook or Twitter; every time you bring a new reader into the fold; every time you even click open that new post waiting hopefully in your inbox, it’s kind of like the bell ringing in that great Frank Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life—an angel blogger gets her wings. This blog would have precious little meaning if it weren’t for you, gentle reader. Thank you for your support and continued interest.

MorgueFile image
This angel blogger just earned her wings

You might like to know that as of today, there are 555 of you who subscribe to the blog—either through email or on Twitter. Put another way, that’s as though more than one-and-a-half new readers signed on each day last year. Wow. Just wow. And while we’re on the subject of readers, as of today the blog welcomed a grand total of 24,308 visitors to its portal (An ephemeral number that has changed already because you are reading this now. But at 24,308, that is  1,706 more than the entire population of Avon Lake, Ohio, as of July 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)

And where have you all been coming from? Well, most of you live in areas throughout the United States and Canada, as you might expect. But you also hail from the United Kingdom, India, Australia, The Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Uruguay, Brazil, France, the Russian Federation, Montenegro, Sudan, Israel, and Denmark.

While we’re on the subject of numbers, I should also add (the pun is intentional) that 66 people “like” TMSW on Facebook. Would you like to help push that number up to 100? Please encourage your friends and family to like the blog on Facebook. I’m giving away a prize to the 100th liker. That’s pronounced LIKE-er, not liquor. And no, the prize isn’t a bottle of vodka. It has more permanence than that!

I should also say a word about The Midlife Second Wives’ Club. As previously announced, the first 110 subscribers to the blog automatically became charter members of this newly-minted association. About half of them have already received something in the mail from me, and I hope to get the rest of the mailings out before the end of the year. Although I don’t have a designated page for the club on the blog just yet, I do hope to get to that in the coming months. In the meantime, I invite you to think of names for other membership levels. There will be more on all of this in a future post.

Writing
I mentioned metrics earlier, and would like to digress a moment to pass along an observation. As many of you know, I began my writing life as a poet. Back in the day, metrics meant the scansion of my poetic line. Now, in the Age of Social Media, it has taken on a whole new flavor. A blogger’s success is measured not by the stressed and unstressed syllables in her sentences, but by the number of unique visitors to her site, whether they click through on ads and what-not, and, well, you get the picture. This is what measures a blogger’s worth, at least in ROI (Return on Investment) terms. But in ROW terms—Return on Writing, I proclaim my metrics stratospheric. Advertisers, do you care? Readers, I think you do and so I will explain.

This blog has allowed me to do something I’ve not really had the chance to do before: set aside time to write. Before, when I worked full-time, I wrote all day long, but for my employer, not for myself. And if any of you write for someone else for a living, you know that you’re often left too drained to create work of your own. But when you blog, you blog for yourself (and your readers). Speaking only for myself as a writer, I find there is nothing richer or more satisfying than knowing I have an opportunity to clarify my own thoughts, using words and tones and rhythms of my choosing. And, of course, there’s the immediacy and intimacy of the inbox—knowing that what I’ve written has resounded with someone else. In fact, the very first daily writing challenge that I did, sponsored by BlogHer, resulted in an essay about writing that the publishing network syndicated. And paid me for. When I checked a moment ago, that one post was read 5,636 times. This is quite astonishing to me, because I’m still adjusting to having so many readers. To quote Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “I am amazed and know not what to say.”

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing....

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. From William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing this blog has also resulted in at least one book-length manuscript-in-progress. I attribute this to the BlogHer writing challenge (also known as NaBloPoMo) I just mentioned.

Accolades
The manuscript that is emerging from BlogHer’s daily writing challenge is for a book about my mother, and BlogHer honored the post that started it all earlier this month with a Voice of the Year award at their national convention in New York City. As noted in an earlier post, the essay, “Have You Met My Daughter?,” will appear in an electronic anthology featuring other VOTY winners. BlogHer and Open Road Integrated Media are jointly publishing the e-book.

Last November, WordPress, my blogging platform, featured TMSW on its “Freshly Pressed” site, an event that brought more than 5,000 visitors to the blog in less than two days. Also that month, a funny thing happened that I also attribute to blogging, although indirectly. I submitted a humorous essay to a contest sponsored by Marlo Thomas on her Facebook page, and was one of five winners chosen. The prize? Two tickets to see “That Girl” in the play Relatively Speaking on Broadway. Of course the essay, and the enjoyable experiences that ensued, ended up on the blog.

Photo credit: Marlo Thomas’ Facebook Page

TMSW has also won a few awards from other bloggers: the Liebster, the Versatile Blogger Award, and one I haven’t even had time to properly showcase yet—the Illuminating Blogger Award. To the kind food blogger who bestowed that upon me, I promise to give it its due soon. I’ve just been a little busy.

And I’m pretty proud of this one, especially given my love of coffee. Zabar‘s featured me on their blog. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did not receive either a lifetime supply of coffee or rugelach. Darn it.)

Opportunities
Earlier this month, I attended the aforementioned (and phenomenal) BlogHer Conference in New York, where I learned enough about social media to know that I still have tons to learn. I also met many incredible, bright, talented, and fun women, and joined up with some of them on a Facebook page for Bloggers Over 45. (Hi everyone!)

There’s also something else—something REALLY AWESOME AND AMAZING—that I just can’t tell you about yet. But when I am in a position to do so, you’ll read about it here.

Looking Ahead
I want to continue bringing you the best writing that I can, and the most interesting posts and articles. I hope to beef up the different sections of the blog, and I really long to enhance the look of it. I want to shelve all my books in the “Open Book” library, and experiment with new recipes for you to try. If you have a story idea, please let me know about it. There’s a contact link at the top of the page, or you can leave a comment at the end of this post. Either way, please stay in touch!

Thank you for indulging me in these few moments of revery. It’s a satisfying exercise to look back and take stock. I hope this first year of The Midlife Second Wife has been as enjoyable for you to read as it has been for me to write. Thanks again for being here.

And don’t forget! The 100th person to “like” The Midlife Second Wife on Facebook will receive a prize. If you know someone who should be reading this blog, who will love this blog, or who needs this blog, let them know and encourage them to like it on Facebook. And if you haven’t done so already, please take a moment and do it yourself, right now. It only takes a click, and you might be the 100th clicker. (If bells and whistles begin to blow, please let me know. I’ll try to find out how the Internet does that.)

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Cheers, dear friends!

We Felt the Earth Move …

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in House and Garden

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Not exactly what you want to wake up to at 4 in the morning…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay was revised February 1, 2014, to include an after-photo of the living room, showcasing the great work of N. Chasen and Son. (Scroll to the end of the post to see the photo.) As regular readers of the blog know, John and I subsequently sold our beautiful townhouse in Richmond and moved back to Ohio. Look for future posts in the blog’s House and Garden section showing renovations to our new home in Northeast Ohio.

The picture pretty much tells the story, doesn’t it? But let’s get your questions out of the way first. Yes, our bedroom is directly above the living room. No, that’s not why our ceiling collapsed. (Wink wink, nudge nudge.) No, we weren’t in the room when it happened. Yes, the pets and we were safely asleep upstairs. No animals or humans were injured as a result of this catastrophe. Yes, it’s a real mess, isn’t it?

So what happened? Wish we knew. All we can do is surmise and engage in conjecture.

Several days before the collapse we noticed that a crack in our plaster ceiling had taken on an ominous appearance; it looked as though the ceiling could fall at any time. We arranged for a contractor to come out and evaluate the situation, and the following week (the day before his crew was scheduled to begin work) we prepared the area by removing all of our breakables and as much furniture as we could. Something told us to protect the remaining furniture, just in case. I’ve always been an “ounce of prevention” kinda gal, and those instincts didn’t fail us.

At 4:15 a.m., the next morning, we were awakened by what I thought was thunder. Imagine the loudest clap of thunder you’ve ever heard, intensify it ten-fold, and insert yourself smack in the middle of the din. We never expected our ceiling to give way, but we’re awfully grateful for the timing of our precautions.

And while we’re on the subject of timing, I should say a word or two about age.

We live in an English Tudor Revival townhouse that was built in 1927. It’s filled with the sort of charm you’d expect from the era, and as an added bonus, it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. But it’s 85 years-old. Stuff is going to happen.

According to documents filed with the National Registry, our enclave, known as English Village, was constructed as a multifamily planned community in what was once a tree-lined “streetcar suburb.” The trees still line our avenue, but the streetcars are long gone.

Designed by Richmond architect Bascom Rowlett, each of the 17 attached two-and-a-half story townhomes are formed in the shape of a U around a central courtyard. At the time, Rowlett’s plan was quite innovative for Richmond, indeed, for the entire country. English Village was designed as a cooperative planned community—one of the earliest such ventures in the United States, which is why it qualified for architecturally significant status. It is, in fact, considered a precursor of today’s condominiums, and  the concept was quite radical. (Most cooperative housing in America was built for the working class, with collective ownership of the property. English Village differed markedly in that it was built for the upper middle class, with each owner holding a clear title to his own property.)

I wish I had access to the actual sales prospectus. The document on file with the National Registry provides only this delicious snippet:

[Enjoy] the new lifestyle … While enjoying all the amenities, including [the] privacy of single house living with an atmosphere of social respectability.

An atmosphere of social respectability. A statement to do Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess proud, what? Yes. Jolly good.

All of this history is interesting, but it doesn’t help much when you’re standing in the middle of your living room with what once was your ceiling clumped in dusty piles around your feet.

Luckily, we have an ace team on the job—Richmond’s own N. Chasen and Son. Here’s a picture of their head carpenter assessing the damage.

As I write this, we are into Day Seven of the calamity. Drywall has been installed and taped, and mud applied. Here’s how the ceiling looks right now:

The project should be completed in a few more days. And by the look of things, this new ceiling should last at least 85 years. We won’t be around to appreciate its longevity, but if anyone living in our English Village abode is reading this post in 2097, please do me a favor and post a comment. A picture would be nice, too!

Here’s the finished look of our living room, showing the beautiful work done by N. Chasen and Son. You’d never know the ceiling was once on the floor! They did a great job painting the room, too. We used Benjamin Moore’s “Ice Mist” on the walls—a lovely white with just a kiss of blue in the undertones. This color will be my default for future rooms that beg to be white.

LR_finished_POVentryIMG_1609

A note to the reader: No compensation or obligation by N. Chasen and Son was expected, and none has been extended, in conjunction with this blog post. I’m just a satisfied customer and glad to give them a shout-out.

The Light Shines On: Our Second Wedding Anniversary

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Second Weddings, Special Events

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"The Midlife Second Wife" "weddings" "relationships" "ceremonies"

Marci, aka The Midlife Second Wife, with John on their wedding day. Photo credit: Roger Mastroianni

Where does the time go? It seems only yesterday when I received an “interest” notification via Match.com from “arts&sportslvr,” and here we are, about to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. (Those keeping careful notes will want to know, for the record, that our nuptials took place on August 14, 2010.)

So much has happened in two short, swift years. We moved to another part of the country and set down roots by buying a home. (I also started this blog, which celebrates its first anniversary later this month.) We continue to grow together and learn together and hold each other close when buffeted by life’s vicissitudes. We embrace one another’s neuroses. (Thank you, Wendy Swallow.) We celebrate every triumph, no matter how small. We listen to each other. We support one another. We are a duo, a couple, a unit, a team. We are each other’s best friend.

Do you see the flames in the separate candles we are holding? We are about to create one unified, eternal flame. It still burns strong and bright, despite a few clouds, despite some wind and rain. When we decided to get married, we knew there would be challenges to face—how could there not be? We were each of us starting over, from scratch, midway through our lives. The light at the end of the tunnel seemed so dim, so seemingly light-years away, that we simply had to trust that it was there. It is there. It flickers, sometimes brightly, sometimes with just a pale fire. It is, in the words of our wedding poem (Wendell Berry’s “The Country of Marriage”):

a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

We are nothing if not brave. What else can we be? We are human and we live in this world and we have faith. And we are together, thank God.

On what will be our second wedding anniversary—and on every day of our lives together—I say to “arts&sportslvr:” Thank you for joining your candle to mine, and mine to yours.

I love you.

Winning ‘Voices of the Year’ Post to be Published

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, The Healthy Life, The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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Mother with Alzheimer's

My mother, Angela Alyce Monia Abookire

Early readers of The Midlife Second Wife will remember this post about my mother, but since writing it last November, a few things have happened in its brief existence that justify a return engagement. The post, originally titled “A Tale of Two Deaths: Losing my Mother to Alzheimer’s,” received a “Voice of the Year” award at BlogHer’s recent conference in New York City. Out of some 1,700 entries, BlogHer selected only 110. This is quite an honor for me and I’m humbled by the recognition, since there’s such a huge talent stream flowing through BlogHer’s Women’s Publishing Network. I’m also proud to announce that the post will appear in an e-book anthology being published by BlogHer and Open Road Integrated Media. You might be familiar with Eileen Goudge’s novel The Replacement Wife. Open Road is her publisher. I’d say we VOTY winners are in extremely good company.

BlogHer Voice of the Year AwardI don’t believe that a publication date for the e-book has been decided yet, but as soon as the publishers make that determination I’ll announce the news here and let you know how you can purchase a copy.

Now that my mother’s story is going to have a life beyond the blog, I’ve retitled it. I am also preparing myself mentally and physically for the daunting task of completing her story—possibly for a future book. This post was originally intended to be the first installment in a series—and you’ll be able to read future installments just as soon as I can get them written—but now I’m rethinking the whole writing project. It’s quite possible I’ll end up with a book. We’ll see.

Here then, is my proposed first chapter of Have You Met My Daughter? My Mother, Her Alzheimer’s, and Me.

Have You Met My Daughter? My Mother’ Her Alzheimer’s, and Me

A person with dementia (or Alzheimer’s Disease) suffers two deaths.  The first death occurs when you discover the illness taking hold, erasing the vivacious mind and the vital spirit of the person you once knew. The second death is when the physical body expires. For these reasons, a bereaved person who loses a loved one—first to dementia, later to death—grieves twice. And although much has been written about mid-lifer’s—the so-called “Sandwich generation”—caught between caring for ill or elderly parents while still raising children, perhaps there is room in the literature for one more account. In November 2011, to mark National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month and National Family Caregivers’ Month—and in honor of my mother, whose name was Angela—I began to write a series of essays about how I loved her and how I lost her. Not once, but twice.

“Have you met my daughter?”

This was the question my Mom, who had impeccable manners, regularly posed to co-workers or acquaintances when introducing me to them for the first time.

“Have you met my daughter?”

This was the question my Mom regularly posed to the women seated withher at a table in the secured-wing of the assisted-living facility where I regularly visited her. Without fail, each time I entered the room, she would ask these same women:

“Have you met my daughter?”

There was, of course, tremendous solace in the fact that despite her illness, Mom did recognize me as her daughter. Nevertheless, it was heartbreaking to see how her memory, her very sense of self, had deteriorated. The signs had been there for a while; it just took time for me to connect the dots.

Mom had always been what used to be called “high-strung.” She suffered from panic attacks, and was fearful of many things, including learning how to drive after my father died.

She had also always been something of a pack rat. Today there is a name for this: compulsive hoarding. But at the time when I was grappling with this issue in terms of my own mother, I did not know it was an illness for which there might be a treatment; I simply put it down to another of her eccentricities. I would clear out as much of the clutter as she would permit (there remained piles that I was forbidden to touch), and a week or so later, my efforts were obliterated. It was not at all unlike Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the mountain.

After several years of this, the hoarding had gotten so out of control that I began to fear for her safety. I was finally able to convince her that she needed help, and she allowed me to hire a cleaning woman to do her laundry, dust, vacuum the floor, and keep the bathroom and kitchen clean.

It was ultimately the cleaning woman—or, more to the point, the existence of the cleaning woman—which brought home to me the awful realization that something was far more seriously wrong with Mom than eccentric hoarding.

She and the cleaning woman didn’t hit it off, largely because Mom did not like anyone else touching her things. The woman, goodhearted and a good worker, called me to complain about what she could see was a losing battle. I was struggling over how to handle the situation when it resolved itself. Mom called me late one night in a real panic; I needed to come over at once. There was a terrible problem.

When I arrived, she pointed to a hole in the dining-room window screen—no larger than two inches in diameter.

“That woman you hired is stealing from me,” Mom said in a tremulous voice tinged with outrage. “Do you see that? That’s how she’s getting in. She’s sneaking in, crawling in through that hole.”

To be continued …

NOTE: The Alzheimer’s Association is not responsible for information or advice provided by others, including information on websites that link to Association sites and on third-party sites to which the Association links. Please direct any questions to weblink@alz.org.

BlogHer ’12: What I Saw at the Revolution

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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The BlogHer logo on the floor of the Hilton in New York City, site of the BlogHer conference.

—UPDATED Aug. 15, 2012 to include links to video coverage of President Obama’s address and interviews with Martha Stewart and Katie Couric.

After six hours spent rumbling along the Amtrak rails and three days of total, intense, and heightened immersion in all things related to blogging and social media (Emphasis on social. Emphasis on media.), I’m back home in Richmond, Virginia. I’ve just attended my first BlogHer conference, and I’d like to share with you glimpses from what can only be called a revolution.

Since this was my first conference, I have no precedents with which to compare. But an informal poll, taken over brunch with a fellow blogger and friend (Hi Nancy at Dating Dementia!) suggests that this conference in New York City, held August 2-4, 2012, was unlike any of its antecedents.

Using their credit cards, three journalists and media experts—Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, and Jory Des Jardins—launched BlogHer in 2005. These women—bright, motivated, and prescient—were early adopters of social media. They recognized that blogging was not a momentary dot-com fad, but something profound and paradigm-changing. And they wondered where all the women bloggers were.

Boy, did they find them. (And a few men, too. BlogHer is nothing if not inclusive.) More than 5,000 bloggers attended BlogHer ’12.

At the closing keynote address of this eighth and most successful conference, Stone and Camahort Page reported that over the last three years, BlogHer paid out $17 million to writers. This is just one benchmark achievement—there are others—indicating that BlogHer is fulfilling its mission: to create opportunities for women in social media to pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.

A wonderful essay by Darryle Pollack in the Huffington Post explains how BlogHer got to be such a player. Here’s one of her insights:

In a world where the Kardashians are the gold standard of success, for me, BlogHer represents a kernel of reality, a source of inspiration and an island of sanity where people are appreciated not for what they look like or what they have, but for who they are. Sometimes that feels like a rare thing.

As Darryle notes in her essay, Martha Stewart and Katie Couric understand this, too. Both media icons attended our conference, engaging in lively and informative keynote conversations; Camahort Page interviewed Martha Stewart, and Stone spoke with Katie Couric.

You can experience some of the revolution yourself by visiting BlogHer’s Virtual Conference site. Here’s a glimpse from my perspective:

  • A live video address by President Barack Obama, acknowledging the importance of all women in our society. (BlogHer extended an invitation to Governor Mitt Romney, but he declined, although a member of his campaign staff participated in one of the sessions, as did an Obama staffer.)
  • The aforementioned keynote conversations featuring Martha Stewart and Katie Couric.(If you click on their names you’ll see videos of their interviews.)
  • An extraordinary display of talent as 15 bloggers read their winning posts at the Voice of the Year Keynote awards. There was hilarity from the humor category, heartbreak from the heart category, and keen insights from the op-ed, parenting, and identity categories. (Full disclosure: BlogHer honored 110 bloggers as winners of the VOTY awards. I’m proud to be one of them.)
  • Women from across the globe, making their voices heard in their own countries, were drawn to attend BlogHer. I met Ludmilla Rossi of Brazil, creative director of MKT Virtual Interactive Marketing. She came to discover ideas and find ways to encourage and inspire older women from her country, underrepresented in the blogging community, to share their voices.
  • Information. Information. Information.
  • New skills and tools.
  • New friends and contacts.
  • The BlogHer hashtag, #blogher12, trending on Twitter.

  • And finally, most importantly, inspiration and a tremendous sense of pride. It’s an honor to be associated with such a dynamic, influential, and game-changing organization.

To everyone who worked so tirelessly to make this conference happen—and to Lisa, Elisa, and Jory—thank you for the revolution.

Blossom’s Cleveland Orchestra Pasta Salad

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Food for Thought

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From the name I’ve given this recipe, you’d expect to see edible flowers or musical notes dotted throughout the bowl, wouldn’t you? Actually, the name comes from the recipe’s original source—the Blossom Seasons Cookbook. The spiral-bound book’s title, in turn, comes from the summer home of the glorious Cleveland Orchestra. Ranked among the top ten orchestras in the world—a fact to which I can attest, having heard the orchestra many times not only at the Blossom Festival, but also at its exquisite main venue, Severance Hall, the Cleveland is a must for lovers of classical music. If you can’t get to northeast Ohio to experience their incomparable sound live (or to Miami, where, like so many snowbirds, they winter in residency), by all means get your hands on one of their many recordings. Or listen on the web via WCLV, Cleveland’s classical FM station. The beauty of listening at home is that you can crank up the sound while you prepare this delicious pasta salad.

I’ve owned this little book for what seems like forever—sticklers for the truth will want to know that “forever” in my chronology harks to the early 1980s. The actual title of the recipe, found on page 32, is “Judy and Ann’s Antipasto Salad.” But since I don’t know who Judy and Ann are, and the world has heard of the Cleveland Orchestra, I’ve taken the liberty of retitling it. The person who contributed this particular recipe to the book appears to be one Marilyn Heinl of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, the one-time assistant treasurer of the Blossom Women’s Committee. Ms. Heinl, wherever you are, thank you for sharing this delicious salad. It’s one of my favorite summertime recipes. I should point out that although the original recipe calls for 3 or more tomatoes, I omit them in my version. (You don’t mind, do you Ms. Heinl?)

Blossom’s Cleveland Orchestra Pasta Salad
—Serves 6 to 8

1 pound small macaroni shells (I use fusilli pasta)
1/2 pound provolone cheese
1/4 pound hard salami
1/2 pound pepperoni
1 onion
1 green pepper
3 stalks celery
1 small can pitted black olives
1 small jar pimento-stuffed green olives
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon crushed basil
1 teaspoon pepper

Cook and drain pasta. Cut cheese, salami, pepperoni, and vegetables into small pieces. Place all ingredients (except tomatoes, if you are using them) in a large bowl. Combine oil, vinegar, and seasonings. Pour over salad and toss. Chill for 24 hours and add tomatoes (if you are using them) just before serving.

Linguine Alla Pastora: A Scissor-Worthy Recipe

13 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Food for Thought

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Here’s an oldie but oh-so goodie—so much so that the card upon which I glued the clipping, stained to near illegibility, is dog-eared from close to 30 years of handling. If memory serves, this recipe, which I’ve adapted over time, originated in the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, and was part of an article featuring different ways to prepare a variety of pastas. As so often happens when I discover a new recipe, I become so enamored of it that the thought of leaving it—even for a momentary dalliance with a thematic variation—never enters my mind. That’s the case with linguine alla pastora. I’m sure I’m missing out on the chance to enhance my repertoire, and I tell myself I’ll retire this from my rotation when I grow bored with it, but that hasn’t happened yet. Probably never will.

What makes this recipe so attractive to me? Well, it’s a great summertime pasta dish, when farmers’ markets are brimming with the fresh vegetables it requires. Also, it’s  quite easy and enjoyable to make. I love the aromas that fill the kitchen when I saute the ingredients for this meal. And, truth be told, I’m a sucker for compliments. This comes as a shock, I know. But seriously, every time I’ve served this dish, whether for family or friends, it gets raves. Positive reinforcement is a powerful thing.

The only step in this recipe that might give you pause is the call for roasted red peppers. Oh sure, you can buy them in a jar at your local specialty market, but why would you when they’re so easy to prepare? I’ll explain how to roast red peppers at the end of this post. For now, join me as I walk you through one of my favorite pasta dishes, the rustic Linguine alla Pastora, or, if you will, the Shepherdess’ Linguine.

Linguine alla Pastora
—4 to 6 servings

1 pound imported linguine pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion, sliced in small arcs
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 zucchini, sliced
1/4 pound pancetta (Italian bacon), cut into lardons*
1/2 cup dry white wine
1-3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 red peppers, roasted and sliced**
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 (at least) cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

You would do well to roast the red peppers first so they have a chance to cool while you’re preparing the rest of the ingredients. Instructions can be found at the end of this post.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

While the water is coming to the boil. heat olive oil in a 12-inch saute-pan. Add onion, garlic, zucchini, and pancetta, and cook at medium heat for five minutes, or until onion is transparent.

Add pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente.While the pasta is cooking, add wine to the sauteed vegetables and reduce at high heat for five minutes. Lower heat to medium, and add parsley and red pepper slices. Season with peppers and cook five minutes longer.

When the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain and reserve.

When the saute is ready, place about half of the cooked pasta in a large serving bowl and toss with about half of the saute. Add the remainder of the pasta and saute and toss well. Top with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (I believe there’s no such thing as too much Parmigiano-Reggiano) and serve.

*If you cannot find pancetta, you may substitute prosciutto. I’ve also made this with fresh sauteed sea scallops, omitting the Italian meat entirely.

**How to Roast Red Peppers

After washing the peppers, dry them and place them on a rack under the broiler element of your oven. (Don’t place them directly on the removable rack that comes with your oven; use something similar to what is shown in the photograph and place that on the removable rack. Also, I place the oven rack fairly close to the heating element.) What follows is very important and can’t be over-emphasized: keep an eye on the peppers while you are roasting them. Don’t leave the kitchen to tend to something else. You want to be nearby to (carefully) turn them with tongs as they begin to char so they are nicely roasted on all sides. The entire procedure should not take more than ten minutes, depending upon the size of the peppers and how close to the heat you’ve placed them.

After removing the roasted peppers from the oven, very carefully wrap each one in a paper towel. They will be hot to handle, so you might want to wait a moment or two until you can comfortably perform this step.

Place each wrapped pepper in a small plastic bag and set aside while you tend to other aspects of your recipe. So cossetted, they will steam nicely, making it much easier for you to remove their skins.

After about 15 minutes or so, rouse the peppers from their little sleeping bags. I run them under cold water to a) make them easier to handle, since they’re still quite warm, and b) begin rubbing and pulling at the charred skin to peel it off. Using your fingers, pull the skin away from the peppers, then remove the stem and seeds. (A vegetable peeler won’t work.) After the peppers are limp, empty shells of what they used to be, slice them into strips. That’s it. You’re done!

Turning Another Page: Introducing “An Open Book — TMSW’s Library”

09 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in The Reading Life

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One of the first posts that I ever wrote as The Midlife Second Wife, nearly one year ago, included reference to a book. So profoundly have books influenced my life that it doesn’t seem enough to fill our home with them, bring volumes back from the library, or download tomes to my Kindle. No, I need a place on the blog—a library, if you will—where the books that have been important enough to me to mention in my posts can be found readily by my own readers.

Today I bring you An Open Book: The Midlife Second Wife’s Library. I do not bring it to you complete, because it will take some time for me to stack the shelves, so to speak. And it will be an evolving project, with new titles added all the time. So I ask your patience while I get this new project underway.

The title for the blog’s newest page comes from a favorite book of mine, Michael Dirda‘s An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland. I’ve recommended this book to so many people that not only have I lost count, it seems I should share in the royalties. The book is, quite simply, wonderful. It’s the lively story of a young boy coming of age in Lorain, Ohio (my late mother’s hometown, by the way), who discovers the joy of reading, and how that passion changes his life. Born into a world where the majority of its inhabitants work either at the steel plant (as Dirda did for a time) or the shipyards, Dirda breaks free from that blue-collar cycle and enters Oberlin College. (I’m also an Oberlin graduate, although I attended some years after Dirda.)

The young reader continues his studies, going on to earn a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University, and parlays his passion for the written word into a career reviewing books, ultimately becoming a senior editor at The Washington Post, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Rich with anecdotes, Dirda’s book happily romps through some of the titles that he has savored, and ends by sending the reader off not with just any reading list, but with his own, sagely compiled when he was 16-years-old.

Admittedly, this book is an exercise in nostalgia for me; I remember many of the places that Dirda recalls. And while our youthful taste in titles might have differed, I am in complete accord with Dirda’s thesis: that reading is the key to becoming the person you are meant to become.

The open book depicted in the photo illustrating this post (and the new blog page) is, appropriately, Dirda’s An Open Book. If you’re casting about for something good to read this summer, I highly recommend it. There, I’ve done it again.

Enjoy!

Black-Bottom Cupcakes: A Scissor-Worthy Recipe

05 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Food for Thought

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I actually remember the first time I ever made these cupcakes. It was the summer of 1976, and I was a lithe young thing who never gave a second thought to such concepts as carbohydrates, fat grams, or weight gain. Ah, the ignorance of youth!

I’m guessing at the recipe’s provenance, but it could have been clipped from the (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer. A recipe prowler even at such a tender age, I was organized enough to type my finds on 5×7 index cards, but not so organized as to include their origins for future attribution. My coinage of the term “scissor-worthy” was decades away. And, since the Internet as we know it was not yet conceived, it would have come as a surprise to me that someday I would be able to share this recipe’s glories with untold readers on something called a blog. Ah, the joys of food-time travel!

For some inexplicable reason, I craved these cupcakes yesterday, and so they became part of our 4th of July menu, which was shared at the home of friends. But you don’t need a national holiday to enjoy their deep, dark, chocolate-y goodness, or the richness of their moist texture. Check your pantry to make sure you have these ingredients on hand, because I promise you: you want to make these. And soon. Enjoy!

Black-Bottom Cupcakes

1 8-ounce package of cream cheese, softened
2 and 1/3 cups sugar, divided
1 and 1/8 teaspoons salt, divided
1 6-ounce package of semisweet chocolate pieces (I prefer Ghirardelli’s)
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa (I used Penzey’s Dutch-processed cocoa)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups water
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, egg, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a small mixing bowl. Beat well. Add chocolate pieces and set aside.

Combine flour, cocoa, 2 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and soda. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. (Batter will be very thin.)

Place muffin liners in muffin pan. Fill each 2/3 full of batter, then drop a teaspoon of cream cheese mixture in the center. Bake at 350-degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool on rack. Yields two to two and one-half dozen small cupcakes or one dozen large cupcakes. The recipe says that these freeze well when wrapped in aluminum foil, but for some reason, I’ve never had the chance to freeze them. I wonder why?

Fifteen Shades of Gray

29 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in The Beautiful Life, Transitions

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“I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair—it just won’t behave…”

Thus begins the notorious novel Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James. (If in fact that is her real name.) The central premise of this publishing phenomenon is not, as the opening sentence would suggest, the unruly state of the protagonist’s locks. And if you aren’t familiar with the book’s premise then tell me: “What’s it really like on Mars?”

No, the state of one’s hair is my concern—as chronicled in an earlier post and as I’m about to address here. My natural color is a deep, chestnut-brown, and it began betraying me, to the rhythm of what Margaret Atwood has called “the slow drip-drip of time,” in my early thirties. That’s when I boarded the dye train, with a ticket in hand that required a renewal every six weeks. Finally, after more than two decades of this relentless, expensive ride, I’d had enough. This year I’m embracing the gray.

Frustration at paying outrageous sums to a stylist, even one I liked enormously, served as my motivator. Little did I know that I was part of a trend, and that some women are actually paying good money to put in what I’ve been paying good money to take out.

I first noticed something was up years ago, when a stunning model with long, silver hair began showing up in my J. Jill catalog. “What’s this about?” I wondered. And then the epiphany struck: “Advertisers are finally paying attention to women of a certain age! That’s good!”

I’m not sure if Cindy Joseph gets the credit for starting the trend, but a trend it is, and christened as such by the New York Times, Huff/Post 50, MSNBC, and assorted beauty bloggers. I’m even seeing evidence in real life that the tide of dye has turned. I recently saw a lovely woman working at a home decor shop in Alexandria, Virginia, sporting a stylishly cut cap of silver hair.

Photo Courtesy of Jean L.

Jean L. graciously allowed me to interview her by email. The color you see in her photo is, she says, all natural. She is, she writes, “slightly older than what is considered a baby boomer.” She says she stopped dyeing her naturally dark-brown-with-auburn-highlights hair about 20 years ago. Here’s her story:

“I dyed my hair red for a number of years but the color would not stay. When I went to Aruba for ten days, the sun started bleaching out the color. Each day it got lighter; it was almost blonde when I flew home. I didn’t have time to color it and the next day everyone said they liked it blonde. I just stopped coloring it and it was white; I never had roots grow out.…I think the timing to let it go silver was the appropriate time for me.”

Jean’s photo belies the need for this question, but speaking for my own concerns, I had to ask her if she thinks her silver hair makes her look or feel older.

“I love my hair color. It actually gives me more confidence than when it was darker. I’m not afraid of it aging me as it actually looks better on me than my other, natural color. I think it is very stylish. A good cut and style helps.”

And the financial benefits to abandoning color?

“It’s absolutely been a savings. A cut and style is expensive enough.”

‘Nuff said. I’m already dreaming about what I’ll do with my new-found savings.

I did think I might be able to get away with keeping my hair long throughout this transition, but I was wrong. In the early weeks, it looked, well, charming—the way those little wisps of silver peeked out from my hairline. But as time went on, the little wisps disappeared and in their place was an odd sort of two-tone look, streaked with gray, that resembled the coiffure version of spectator pumps. I actually had three colors going: the new gray peeking through the real color of my hair, and, about a third of the way down, the dyed brown. It was not a good look for me. No, the best course of action was no doubt a short haircut. And the time was right, since summer can get brutally hot in Virginia.

As luck would have it, I had just read Style Weekly’s issue featuring the best of all things Richmond, which included their readers’ top pick in the hair-styling category: Imago, and the salon’s owner, curly hair expert Mary Jo Myers-Battiston. Not only did Imago receive Style Weekly’s blessing, Elle Magazine had named it one of the top 100 salons in the U.S. A place that specializes in curly hair? Ringing endorsements? This sounds like the place for me!

Renée, the receptionist, takes a picture of me mid-cut. Notice the 15 shades of gray (and brown).

I’ll write a future post about Imago—and the hope that its method gives to members of the curly-haired tribe—because I’m completely impressed. But for now, here’s the finished look, snapped before I left the salon:

The emphasis here is on the curl—and the fact that the gray no longer looks so out-of-place.

I can also smooth out the look with my flat iron. But regardless of how I style it, I’m cooler, the gray is blending in nicely with the rest of my hair, and I now have tons of extra time (and eventually money). The time I formerly spent styling my below-shoulder-length hair—I can use to finish Fifty Shades of Gray and a few other, slightly less sensational books. The money? If my financial planner has anything to say about it, I’ll save it.

Related Articles:

“Young Trendsetters Streak Their Hair with Gray”

“Gray Hair on Women Hits the Workplace”

“Granny Chic? Going Gray is a Hot New Hair Trend”