Chapter 26 Over The Telephone

Introduction

Another day, another crisis.

 No, not for Bettina but rather the frantic Mrs. Dixon, who once again is facing a serious marital crisis.

Having broadcasted her new domestic bliss far and wide, Mrs. Dixon now faces a doubting Thomas in the form of Aunt Isabel, who has invited herself for an overnight visit “to see how things are”.

“Two company meals to get, and for a critical person like her, too,” wails Mrs. Dixon over the telephone. “What on earth shall I do?”

Need she even ask? What better solution than to call upon Bettina, who knows just what to cook, exactly how to prepare it, and has the ability leave the most belligerent and unpleasant guest contented and smiling?

Part 1

The Menu

Cold Boiled Tongue

Apple, Celery and Green Pepper Salad

Golden Bantam Corn on the Cob

Bread

Butter

Peach Butter

Iced Tea

Lemon

Sliced Watermelon

Looking at the menu one wonders if Bettina is teaching Mrs. Dixon something more than just how to cook—namely, how to channel hostility into seemingly innocuous action. Why else would she suggest boiling up a giant lolling cow tongue and slapping the platter down before someone Mrs. Dixon regards as a nemesis? A hint a passive-aggressive behavior, perhaps?

Preparing the Meal

Cold Boiled Tongue

Studying Bettina’s instructions I can see that preparing the tongue (boil, skin, slice) will be relatively simple—finding an uncooked specimen far harder. Beef tongue isn’t exactly a Safeway staple, and I don’t know of any cows in the vicinity willing to donate theirs!

Fortunately (or perhaps not so) I was able to find beef tongue at a nearby Mexican market. Seen up close and personal it looked—well, intimidating…

…and not inexpensive--$7.99 a pound!

Still, I’ve paid for the tongue and now have no choice but to go ahead and cook it. *gulp*

I actually purchased the tongue a few days ago, and some instinct made me stash it in the back of the refrigerator. Not surprisingly no one noticed it lying in its tidy plastic bag, but getting the thing cooked is going to take me to a whole new level of deception—particularly as 1) I’ll have to cook it in my huge enormous stock pot, and 2) my son was hosting a sleepover for his utterly charming but extremely inquisitive little friend.

(This whole business is taking on shades of a rather well-known TV program from the 60s)

Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it…

Maybe the tongue is programmed to self-destruct in the next five seconds?<grin>

After some thought I decided my best bet was to get the tongue boiling as early in the day as possible—by seven-thirty, if possible. Everyone (Son’s Friend included) tends to sleep late, and so if I start in the morning there’s a good chance no one will spot the thing lurking in the pot.

Scrubbed clean and primed for cooking

Do you think anyone will notice?

9:30 AM—The gang is up and clamoring for breakfast *groan*

10:00—My luck seems to be holding. Everyone is so preoccupied with the pancakes and bacon that the sizable pot now at the back of the stove has escaped notice.

10:45—Breakfast is over, the tongue is finished, and everyone’s in the next room glued to the TV. Time for some slicing and dicing!

This sure looks like…(no, never mind)

Channeling the spirit of Lorena Bobbitt?

It’s surprisingly easy to remove the skin, and thank goodness no one’s wandered in to see what I’m doing!

I cut this meat from the base of the tongue…it should be ideal for a stew

Beef tongue rendered incognito—that is, sliced beyond recognition and arranged oh-so-innocently on a platter.

Unfortunately this is to be served cold—otherwise I’d hide it under a layer of gravy.

Perhaps Bettina’s parley garnish will serve as camouflage…

Odds and ends for our cat

And fodder for the freezer, at least until I can get that stew made

Apple, Celery and Green Pepper Salad

This is something like a Waldorf salad—minus the raisins, of course

Celery and apples. I chose Granny Smiths as they’re tart and won’t discolor quite so quickly

Green pepper—unfortunately these strips protruded from the mixture like jackstraws and so I had to cut them in half

Salad dressing—a simple boiled oil type

Lemon juice—produced, for once, from lemons from our backyard tree

Golden Bantam Corn On The Cob

Alas corn is now out of season and this was all I could find

The Giant is obviously letting the crops go—sad!

Well, at least the corn cobs have already been (partially) shucked and cleaned. After finishing the job the only thing left to do is dump it in a pot of boiling water.

Bread and Butter

Not a gourmet loaf, but decent enough—or would be if the stuff wasn’t a few days old. I certainly hope no one notices...

Peach Butter

Mrs. Dixon was luckier than she knew. Rather than make this stuff herself she had Bettina’s stockpile at her disposal (“I want to send you some peach butter that I made the other day; that will go beautifully with your dinner.”)

Alas this girl has no friendly neighbors with overflowing preserves closets—no choice but to do the job myself (quite a sacrifice as I’ve made once before and thought it too sweet).

Late August really isn’t the best of times for peaches—the only ones available look pretty pitiful

The routine hot water bath to help get the skins off

Even sixty seconds in boiling water couldn’t persuade these peaches to shed their skins…in the end I took a vegetable peeler on them

“sliced very fine” (well, sort of)

These peaches are refusing to soften—no surprise as they were decidedly under ripe

Better…

…but not for long. Perhaps protesting the rough treatment the peaches turned dark—really fast! (another example of passive aggressive behavior?)

Hmm…I wonder what would Mrs. Dixon’s Aunt Isabel make of this?

Iced Tea

Well, for once I’m going to serve this staple drink in my glass pitcher. I like it very much but don’t use it often.

Can you guess why?

The bubbles set in the glass look like soap film from a distance…

...and even close up!

Sliced Watermelon

I very much approve of Bettina’s—er, Mrs. Dixon’s—choice of dessert. We already have a quarter of a melon in the refrigerator!

How It Looked

The Percolator Part 2

                  ‘Woman’s work is never done,’ someone said, but I think it’s woman’s

own fault if it’s true.—Bettina

Right on, Bettina! Why should women toil in the kitchen for hours when any number of labor-saving devices exist—and husbands who can be trained to run them?

Christmas in August—my percolator has arrived! (Of course I did fork over extra dollars for two-day delivery—this woman is determined to save herself unnecessary work. Surely Bettina would approve!)

Can’t wait to give this baby a test run

Coffee a la Bob

Step 1. Fill with water

Step 2. Spoon coffee into basket

Step 3. Put lid on basket, place assembly in pot, and snap on lid

Step 4. Warm pot on medium-high heat until coffee begins to perk

Step 5. Lower heat and let coffee perk for five to seven minutes

This coffee that I’ve been making in the percolator is all ready, Bettina!—Bob

The Percolator Part 1

Bob loves to make coffee in the electric percolator!—Bettina

If marriage is a blessing then kitchen gadgets serve as a sort of ongoing benediction--designed not only to lighten the housewife’s burden but to make routine household chores more appealing to recalcitrant husbands.

According to Wikipedia’s succinct definition

            A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually

            cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds using gravity

            until the required strength is reaches.

In short what goes up must come down…add some coarsely ground beans to the equation and any coffee hound is in business.

But simple as its basic design is, the percolator has a complicated and controversial history—namely, over which inventor deserves most credit.

It’s generally accepted that the concept of a percolator was conceived between 1810 and 1814 by one Sir Benjamin Thompson. But a number of eager innovators followed—Joseph Henry Marie Laurens, James Nason, Hanson Goodrich—and each made notable improvements in Thompson’s initial model.

The electric percolator came into existence at the turn of the 20^th century—a tribute perhaps to the importance people placed in a decently brewed cup of coffee.

This technological innovation—a simple heating coil placed in the base of the pot and a cord to be plugged into a light socket—came about after wiring houses for electricity became routine and reliable fuses and heating elements were in common use.

But whether electric or range-top, for many the percolator is a blessing. In A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband, Bettina’s step-by-step instruction on how to brew coffee sans percolator shows just how onerous the process can be:

1.    Step 1.  Boil 2¼ cups water plus enough to scald out coffee pot

 Step 2.  Scald out pot

 Step 3.  Separate 1 egg; reserve ¼ tablespoon egg white

 Step 4.  Place 3½ tablespoons coffee, egg white, and 1½ tablespoons in coffee pot; mix

Step 5. Add 2¼ cups boiling water

Step 6.  Place pot on stove and heat; boil for two minutes

Step 7.  Allow to stand one minute

Step 8.  [This doesn’t figure into Bettina's instructions, but I always strain the coffee before serving]

Step 9.  Drink—then return to the kitchen to wash the two water pans, the coffee pot, the egg separator, the bowl or cup that held the egg white, the measuring spoon, the strainer, and the two or three teaspoons necessary for the operation

Argh!

I'd have to say that Bettina's choice to use a percolator was a masterstroke. Forcing Bob to go through the above coffee-making ritual more than once would doubtless be enough to drive him out of the house and to the nearest speakeasy in search of liquid refreshment.

As for me, after weeks of separating eggs, washing piles of utensils, and mopping up after countless boil-overs it was relief in my heart that I finally ordered a range-top percolator from Amazon.

The only question now is how quickly delivery will come--can we make do with Sanka until the blessed percolator arrives?