anniversary

Blogging and Chocolate Cake

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

I have been blogging for two years now. Seems like just yesterday. I started my blog to promote my book, Expat Alien. I didn’t know what I was doing or if anybody would even read it. What I found was a whole new world. There are millions of bloggers out there. I had no idea. People blog about everything. Some blog a lot, some not so much.

To mark the occasion I though I might find one of Julia Child’s cake recipes. It seemed appropriate since she was an expat. However her recipes tend to be three and four pages long and that is a lot of work. So here is my favorite chocolate cake recipe that I have made a million times. It comes from the Joy of Cooking 1975 edition.

And keep on blogging!

Cocoa Devil’s Food Cake

Two 9-inch round pans

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees F

Combine, beat until well blended, and set aside:

1 cup sugar

½ cup cocoa

½ cup buttermilk or yogurt

Beat until soft

½ cup butter

Add gradually and cream until light:

1 cup sifted sugar

Beat in, one at a time:

2 eggs

Beat in cocoa mixture.

Sift before measuring:

2 cups cake flour

Resift with:

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Add the flour in 3 parts to the butter mixture, alternately with:

½ cup buttermilk or yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

Beat batter after each addition just until smooth.

Grease the pans and cook for 35 minutes in a 375 degree F oven.

When cooled, spread the cake with your favorite icing.

70 years together

I am re-posting this from my other blog – Eclectic Global Nomad.

My parents were married at 2:00 in the afternoon. My father was on medical leave from the US Navy after having his appendix out. The year was 1943.

My mother remembers driving with her father to the church. They lived in a small town in Iowa. As they drove through downtown my mother noticed the bank clock said 1:55. When she and her new husband drove back the same route to her house for a small reception, she again noticed the clock. It now said 2:15. The minister had married them under the wrong name. Nobody mentioned it.

My father’s father ran the family farm so he had petrol coupons. He filled the car with gas and gave them coupons so they could go to Kansas City for a two day honeymoon before my father returned to his post at Lakehurst, New Jersey. He was training to fly blimps. My mother was teaching school and had to finish out the year before joining him.

They were separated again when my father went to fly blimps off the coast of Brazil searching for German submarines. He remembers Christmas Day, 1944. He and his buddies drove through the Brazilian countryside on their way to find a beach to play volleyball. It was the first time he had ever seen that kind of poverty. He noticed the crops in the fields and decided that very day he could help people by teaching agriculture.

He had planned to be a vocational agriculture instructor when he returned to civilian life but this gave it a whole new dimension. He wanted to work overseas. His mother had always told him he could do what ever he wanted if he set his mind to it.

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Food Friday: Oven Swiss Steak

According to Wikipedia:

Swiss steak is a method of preparing meat, usually beef, by means of rolling or pounding, and then braising in a cooking pot of stewed tomatoes, either on a stove (cooker) or in an oven.

No wonder there are hundreds of recipes for Swiss Steak. This recipe comes from my Mother and I have enjoyed it for many years.

Oven Swiss Steak

2 lbs round steak, in serving pieces

1 large onion, sliced

Brown steak dredged in flour in hot fat with onions, salt and pepper.

Mix:

1 pt tinned tomatoes (1 15.5 oz can)

1 cup water

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp dry mustard

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp lemon juice

dash pepper and paprika

Pour over meat in a skillet (covered)

Bake in 350 degrees F oven for 2 hours (or more)

On another note… It is my blog’s one year anniversary!! Yay!!

Anniversary

Last week was my parents’ 69^th wedding anniversary. My brother was there to help them celebrate and my sister in law suggested we start planning for the 70^th. I suggested a round the world trip. Both my parents are 92. My father tells me that he had been to 90 countries by the time he was 90 and still has a few on his list. I know the wine country in South Africa is one place he wants to go. That would be fun!

My parents met when they shared a ride back to college after Christmas break. My mother was not feeling well and my father thought she was probably hung over. If you knew my mother you would understand how absurd that sounds. He soon learned this was not the case. My mother didn’t drink. My father was dating a woman named Lois at the time and my mother knew it. She was not so very impressed with him.

However, my father pursued her and they became friends and enjoyed spending time together and did spend time together. After he joined the Navy and saw his friends start to get married, he thought it might be a good idea to marry. In 1943 he got appendicitis and had a few days of R&R. For some reason he thought that would be a good time to ask Virginia to marry him. He sent her a telegram asking her how quickly she could get a syphilis test. In those days you had to have one in order to get married. Luckily he followed up with a phone call and said he thought it might be a good idea if they got married. Amazingly she agreed. What a wacky woman! She had no idea what was in store for her.

Nine years later my father went to work for the US Technical Cooperation Agency and he was assigned to the Burmese State Teacher Training College where he worked with students in agriculture. My parents and my two brothers who were 4 and 6 years old started their great expat adventure in 1952. Their friends and relatives thought they had lost their minds. This was before jet airplanes, email or polio vaccines. From Burma they went to Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria, and the Netherlands. They did not repatriate until 1985.

Sixty nine years later they are still speaking to each other. And all due to a ride they hitched back to school.