Let's start with the 1976 Holidays before we talk about that meatloaf. In researching the previous post, I noticed that my mom's 1976 Dailyaide Diary (The Silent Secretary©) thoughtfully lists the upcoming holidays at the beginning of each month, so that diarists are never caught unawares. Here's a list of each month's notable holidays. Some are familiar, and some, well, aren't.January
Thursday, Jan. 1 - New Year's Day (so far, so good)
Tuesday, Jan. 6 - Epiphany
Thursday, Jan. 15 - Martin Luther King's birthday
Saturday, Jan. 17 - Benjamin Franklin's birthday
Monday, Jan. 19 - Robert E. Lee's birthday
February
Monday, Feb. 2 - Groundhog Day
Thursday, Feb. 12 - Lincoln's birthday
Saturday, Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day
Monday, Feb 16. - Washington's birthday
March
Tuesday, Mar. 2 - Mardi Gras
Wednesday, Mar. 3 - Lent begins
Wednesday, Mar. 17 - St. Patrick's Day
Saturday, Mar. 20 - Spring begins
Friday, Mar. 26 - Kuhio Day, Hawaii
Tuesday, Mar. 30 - Seward Day, Alaska
April
Sunday, Apr. 11 - Palm Sunday
Thursday, Apr. 15 - Passover begins
Friday, Apr. 16 - Good Friday
Sunday, Apr. 18 - Easter
Thursday, Apr. 22 - Arbor Day
May
Saturday, May 1 - May Day
Sunday, May 9 - Mother's Day
Monday, May 10 - Confederate Memorial Day
Saturday, May 15 - Armed Forces day
Monday, May 31 - Memorial Day
June
Thursday, June 3 - Jefferson Davis' birthday
Friday, June 11 - Kamehameha Day, Hawaii
Monday, June 14 - Flag Day (I might as well leave mine up)
Sunday, June 20 - Father's day
Sunday, June 20 - West Virginia Day
Monday, June 21 - Summer begins
July
Thursday, July 1 - Dominion Day, Canada
Sunday, July 4 - Independence Day
Tuesday, July 13 - Nathan B. Forrest's birthday (Holy Crap! White sheet & hood, anyone?)
Saturday, July 24 - Pioneer Day, Utah
August
Wednesday, Aug. 4 - Colorado Day
Saturday, Aug. 14 - V-J Anniversary
Sunday, Aug. 15 - Admission Day, Hawaii (does this state seem to be hogging the holidays?)
Monday, Aug. 16 - Bennington Battle Day
September
Monday, Sept. 6 - Labor Day
Friday, Sept. 17 - Citizenship Day
Wednesday, Sept. 22 - Autumn begins
Saturday, Sept. 25 - Rosh Hashanah
Monday, Sept. 26 - American Indian Day (no longer popular, I guess)
October
Monday, Oct. 4 - Yom Kippur
Monday, Oct. 11 - Columbus day
Wednesday, Oct. 20 - Alaska Day
Monday, Oct. 25 - Veteran's Day
Sunday, Oct. 31 - Halloween
November
Monday, Nov. 1 - All Saints Day
Tuesday, Nov. 2 - Election Day
Friday, Nov. 12 - Elizabeth Cody Stanton's birthday
Thursday, Nov. 25 - Thanksgiving
Sunday, Nov. 28 - First Sunday of Advent
December
Wednesday, Dec. 15 - Bill of Rights Day
Friday, Dec. 17 - Wright Brothers Day
Tuesday, Dec. 21 - Winter begins
Saturday, Dec. 25 - Christmas
Now you can plan accordingly, at least for the remainder of the year. I think it is interesting that a few of these holidays have dropped off the calendar. I also found it astounding that a holiday was still noted in 1976 for the founder of the Ku Klux Klan - or ever, for that matter.
Thursday, on my way home from my dawn meeting, I talked with my buddy, Sheldon. He had just returned home from a walk, and was excited about finding a mulberry tree growing wild. I swung by his place, and we picked mulberries, which I had never eaten before. You should always pick mulberries in the nude, or in dark clothing. The stain factor of mulberries is off the charts. They would cause Lady Macbeth great unhappiness.
We picked quite a few of them, and I brought them home. They look a lot like blackberries in size and color, but are more elongated than round (sort of like miniature grape clusters). They have a sweet flavor, and when you pick them the stem comes off the tree along with the berry. This morning I made Mulberry Muffins. I made up the recipe, but they turned out pretty well.
Mulberry Muffins
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup wheat bran
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup mulberries
Combine white flour, whole wheat flour, wheat bran, flax seed, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a large mixing bowl. I always sift the flours, spices, and salt through a plain old screen-style strainer. I have a handled sifter, but it's too aggravating and hard to clean. My point is, you can probably make do with whatever you have when it comes to cooking. Feel free to improvise. Your grandmother didn't sit around waiting for the food processor to be invented.In a smaller bowl, beat the egg slightly. Add the molasses, vanilla, and buttermilk. Stir thoroughly to combine.
I didn't find many mulberry recipes on the Internet, but I did read that you can just leave the stems on the mulberries when you bake with them. If you want to do that, it's fine. OCD-Bill could not do this. I had just bought a new pair of nail clippers earlier this week as a spare pair (coincidence? probably not!), so I washed and used them since I hadn't used them on my grubby ol' fingernails. Now I have a new kitchen tool, but I still need a spare pair for my nails. The clippers worked great for snipping the stems off the mulberries.
Toss the mulberries in the flour mixture in the large bowl. Dump the buttermilk mixture in all at once, and stir just until moistened. The more you mix, the tougher your muffins will turn out. It's a gluten thing.
I use paper cupcake liners, but if you don't, be sure you grease the muffin tin cups. Fill each cup about ¾ full. Bake at 375º for 17-20 minutes, or until the muffins test done.
Some of you are still wondering where the meatloaf comes in. Those of you who know me well are familiar with my love of spicy-hot food. The other day I made a meatloaf that pleased me greatly, but most of you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Yes, it is very hot. Another exclusive Planet Bll recipe that I will include below just for fun.
Afterburner Meatloaf
1-½ lbs. ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
½ stack saltine crackers, crushed
1 egg, beaten
1 can Ro-tel Hot tomatoes with green chiles
2 fresh Habanero peppers, seeds & membrane removed, finely chopped
¼ to ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
A few shakes of garlic powder
1 or 2 dashes of cinnamon
Get out a large mixing bowl, and get your ingredients prepared. Wash your hands thoroughly! Now it's time to have fun. Toss everything in the bowl. Mix & squish it all together by hand. I use one hand for mixing, and keep the other one clean and free for grabbing stuff. When you've mixed it all thoroughly, form it into a cohesive ball. You can either place it on an edged pizza pan or a baking pan in a rounded mound like a rustic loaf of bread, or you can place it in a loaf pan. Bake at 350º for one hour or until done.Of course, the (sensibly) faint-hearted can adapt this recipe for sensitive palates, but the basic assembly is the same. You can throw a meatloaf together in two shakes of a lamb's tail, and scoff at the "comfort food" restaurants that currently charge a hat & an ass for food like Grandma cooked. The leftovers make fabulous sammiches.
I did have a bad experience once with a stuffed deep-fried jalapeno appetizer. Jalapenos are not usually very hot at all. The restaurant didn't remove the seeds from the pepper. I think the peppers were grown in chicken manure, too, which I've heard raises the Scoville units. I thought my mouth was on fire, but it was nothing compared to my trip to the bathroom at 3 a.m. I truly had tears running from my eyes as I sat on the throne, rocking back & forth, clutching my stomach, and drumming my heels on the floor. It felt like a pixie in the porcelain bowl was holding a lit match to my bottom.
But I still love that hot, spicy food. And, yes, I did fall on my head when I was a baby.
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9 comments:
I will certainly need to mark 13 July on the calendar - not. Goodness!
We've got a mulberry tree in our new backyard (not yet in full fruit). I may have to try your muffins.
I think that there are mulberries in England - which we mistook for blackberries or black raspberries, which they clearly were not (in retrospect). They are really good, but you're right - serious staining power there.
Those obsolete holidays are all over the map, so to speak - where was that diary published? I don't remember celebrating Kamehameha Day or Nathan Forrest's b-day up in NYC, in 1976! I do like Elizabeth Cady Stanton's b-day there.
Don't think she and Nathan would get along though.
Like Lidian, I wondered whether the diaries were printed with regional editions, but then thought not since it included Colorado Day and Utah Day. Dailyaide diaries were offered by Woolworth's, and my mother preferred these diaries, but had to settle for others from time to time.
Here's what the first page offers:
Acknowledgements: Information Please Almanac for items of useful information. H.L. Mencken's A New Dictionary of Quotations (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.) for various quotations. Astronomical Phenomena, issued by the Nautical Almanac Office, prepared by the United States Naval Observatory, for moon phases and data on seasons and eclipses.
Copyright 1975, F. W. Woolworth Co., New York City, made in U.S.A.
A couple of pages in (before the diarist is allowed to write) there is a guide to the diary. It advises that ...primary consideration has been to provide adequate memo space and to note the legal holidays as they occur.
The daily quotation for May 31 is Nobody calls himself a rogue. Amen.
We made mulberry tarts today, but they don't sound as good as what you made. I'm going to have to buy some cloves tomorrow and use up the rest of my berries.
Well, I figured you were tetched in the head, and you have just confirmed that fact.
Did you know that those berries, along with black, and rasp, are actually clumps of tiny little individual fruits? And they have tiny little seeds. So that means they are out of my diet. Drat!
This is a most unusual post I must say.
hmm cant'say I've ever seen or tasted Mulberries - are they like any other sort of berry? And that meatloaf sounds like it'd fry the insides of my stomach with the chillies but tasty nonetheless :-)
Some previous owner of our home planted a lot of fruit trees on the property. We still have four apple trees and several mulberry trees, including a white mulberry tree. Not so much stain factor there.
Mulberries taste something like a blackberry, but not as tart. In fact, they're sweet, but kind of bland.
Now Bill, that is the longest story I ever read for someone telling the world that their Butt is hot.
Now that meatloaf sound wonderful. I love jalepenos.
We had a mulberry tree when I was a kid. Loved em.
Enjoyed this post as usual.
Great idea on the mulberries! Thanks! There are a whole bunch growing in the park near my house, I just didn't know what they were. I'm heading down there tomorrow to harvest a bundle! I'll let you know what I decide to whip up with them. Now where are my nail clippers...hmmm..
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