ESCAPE FROM DEATH

 

This morning Marge and I decided to forego our self-imposed isolation and take a shot at a restaurant breakfast.  We decided to go into New Britain and give Brian’s Fare on West Main Street a visit.  Heading on Wooster Street toward West Main we crossed over the railroad tracks just before the intersection.  As we crossed the tracks I turned my head to the left and looked down the tracks.  Why did I say out of habit? 

Because sixty nine years ago I traveled this same route in my dad’s Chrysler with a car load of friends heading to our Monday evening church CYO meeting.  The music on the radio and the conversations were both load enough to be called “distracted driving” in today’s terms. The route was the same as todays, but the train heading from Plainville in my direction was not.  Although this was a scary surprise at the time there was still ample time to get across.  When we came to West Main I turned the corner and continued heading to our Holy Cross Church destination.

Sad to say we didn’t get there on time.  As I turned the corner the Police flashing lights put a stop to my progress. I’m not quite sure what the charges were, but after his bawling me out and lectures I was ticketed and scheduled for a court appearance.  That was bad enough, but the next day was even worst.  One of the articles in the local New Britain Herald had some nice large headlines, “Youth Escapes Death”.  I guess the police officer was more descriptive that I was in this Blog.  He might have embellished a little, maybe?

Good old Dad had some connections in those days and made the whole this go away.  The case and court records of the escaping teenager were cleared.

Todays’ Blog Recipe:

Baked Tilapia

 

2 tablespoons butter

20 Ritz or Townhouse crackers, crushed fine

4 (1-3/4 to 2 pounds) Tilapia Fillets

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 or 2 (to taste) garlic cloves, minced

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 green or red bell pepper, diced

1 can diced or crushed tomatoes

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon parsley

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

White wine (optional)

 

Melt butter in Microwave, brush on bottom of casserole dish.  Season fillets with salt and pepper.  Mix crushed crackers with remaining butter to moisten, add parmesan cheese and parsley. Mix to incorporate.

 

In a heated fry pan sauté onions, peppers and garlic until soft.  Add tomatoes, oregano and basil.  Salt and pepper to taste and add a little white wine if desired.  Simmer a few minutes to incorporate the flavors.  Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

 

Pour over the Tilapia and coat evenly with the bread crumb mixture. 

 

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven till nice and bubbly and bread crumbs begin to brown, about 20 minutes.        Serves 4

A DIFFERENT 9/11

 

On, September 11, 1954 Edna headed into New Britain.  Who was this Edna woman you ask?  Edna was a charming little hurricane on the way to disrupt our lives as best she could.  Fortunately she was not one of those real scary monsters, but was still strong enough to be cause for concern. Who’s concerned? All those poor folks who were invited to a Saturday wedding.   Especially this particular wedding where over 500 received invitations to attend the wedding of yours truly and Marge. 

Five hundred? Did they even have 500 friends?  No, but their fathers did.  Both mine and Marge’s fathers owned bars and you don’t dare leave out and disappoint customers. The strange fact is the wedding was supposed to be on 9/4.  When we announced our intentions and that date we were quickly shot down.  We were told that the 9/4 was not acceptable because of concerns that it would conflict with people’s Labor Day activity plans. Marge and I didn’t wish to start things off with a conflict so agreed to the date change.

 Being only 19 years old and even though I was soon to be married man I treated the 9/11 morning like so many other Saturdays, laying on the couch watching cartoons waiting till the last minute to get dressed for the event.. Point is I should have been panicking thinking about how can the day possibly go right with all those people invited and a hurricane brewing outside. What the hell do you do with all that food, booze, and beer?  I don’t remember even giving it a thought, but as I write this I can only imagine what Marge must have been going thru.  Besides all the months of planning and preparations for a big church entrance my soon to be bride had to enter the church wearing an “Old lady Babushka” and hiding under an umbrella trying to avoid the rain.

As it turned out 330 crazy people turned out in a hurricane and were served the usual (in those days) Turkey dinner.  The bottle of booze on every table must have helped take the edge off.  In the late afternoon the storm was over and the rest of the invitees showed up to enjoy a buffet.  So many of the 500 hundred so crowded the buffet that Marge and I never even had a chance to see it.  I guess hurricanes have a way of developing appetites.

Marge and I then packed up the 1947 Chrysler Windsor and began our honeymoon by following the remnants of the storm up thru Mass, Vermont and into Canada

Recipe time: I know the better part of the summer and hot dog season is over, but it seems that when it comes to hot dogs the conversation always seems to include something about Capitol Lunch.  I’m not a big fan of their sauce, but it seems that nearly everyone is. New Britain had several restaurants besides Capitol lunch that made a very similar sauce.  Here’s a version called Metropole Hot Dog Sauce that is about as close as it gets.  Please note that tomatoes are not in this recipe.

Metropole Hot Dog Sauce

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon oil

1 pound hamburger

2 cups water

3 teaspoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon celery salt, Salt and pepper to taste

Brown onion and garlic in oil.  Add meat and brown slightly.  Add water and stir to break up meat as fine as possible.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer until mixture thickens.

Still Trying

 

I wrote the following couple of paragraphs a few days ago and I’ve been staring at them for quite some time trying to decide if I should send this to the Blog site.  As I stared at my creation I came to the realization that I might be coming to the end of my writing career.  These past seven months of diminished “out of the house exposure” must be destroying my brain cells. I can’t seem to settle on a subject to maintain your interest in reading this stuff.  Every time I put my hands on the keyboard my brain slides into Cov-19 mode and how it has changed our lives.  I don’t continue because we’ve all been inundated 24/7 will nothing but and as important as it is I’m pretty tired of it.

We all need some to escape from this crazy world we are now living in. Watching television is not providing any decent escapes.  Riots, politics, TV reruns (even reruns are being rerun), television is so bad my only escape has been cooking and travel shows. I’ve even been watching the televised daily Mass.  Here’s hoping a prayer or two might help to turn things around.  Just to let you know though, I’m not giving up.  I’m sure I’ll eventually come up with something decent. Thank heavens some of you are at least enjoying the recipes I’ve been sending.

Here’s what I hesitated sending.

Last week I decided to do a freezer inventory, the upstairs fridge and our spare fridge in the cellar. My investigation upstairs disclosed a couple of small bags of what I assume, were leftovers from past purchases which were too large for some planned recipe.  One bag contained 9 fair sized shrimp and the other bag 6.75 ounces of ground beef. The quantities were just about the right size for a Marge and Bill dinner, but the daily question again reared its ugly head…..what should we have for dinner?

 

This time, I surprisingly I had an answer. By coupling the ground beef with some fresh garden tomatoes given to me by my very kind neighbor I had my answer….a nice fresh Bolognese sauce that I would serve with Angel Hair pasta.  Extra virgin olive oil, onions, garlic, ground beef, chopped fresh tomatoes, Oregano, Basil, Parsley, a little tomato paste, red wine, salt, pepper, a little sugar to sweeten and a few pats of butter to finalize, cooked pasta and small bag number one situation was solved.

 

Day two left me with the need to use up the nine shrimp bag. I still had some fresh tomatoes left so I decided to saute onions with garlic and add the rest of the tomatoes along with an additional 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes. Simmered them with the juice for 5 or so minutes to thicken a bit. Then I stirred in some parsley, dill, salt and pepper, the nine peeled shrimp, a goodly amount of crumbled Feta cheese, and baked it in a 425 oven for about 12 minutes.  I served it over some cooked rice, but pasta would have also served well.  My small leftover bag number two was now gone.  Freezer inventory was all straightened out.