Ripe Olive Spread + Lou Ann's Pickled Shrimp
Summer pic of Mom and Dad. Everyone is so tan! This is from a Reed family reunion in Vermont, probably early 1980s. (I am literally having a conversation with Mom in my head as I type this, debating which specific year.)
Me in New England in college visiting the grave of my 8th great grandmother, Elizabeth Peabody, daughter of John & Priscilla Alden from the Mayflower. I promised my Grandma Reed that I would tend the grave while I was in school. (Exactly what every college kid wants to do!)
I’m back in the Motherland …. RISD Alumni just ran this image of me & Mom from my graduation in 1994. (It’s tradition to decorate your cap, mine was kind of Carmen Miranda meets Medusa with fake fruit and snakes.)
Super 70s feral children in a super 70s wood paneled/shag carpet beach house with an adorable, gorgeous Mom in a cool shirt.
Mom with baby Elisabeth and our cat, Shiner, in NC / Mom with baby Luca at our ranch in Wimberley, TX
I so love the top photo of Mom and Luca. Luca’s body language of leaning in perfectly illustrates how close they were. Bottom pic is is them with the same photo when Mom was dying in NC.
Me and Chris with Mom at our wedding in Houston, TX. 2000
Life goes on. Me and Elisabeth in front of our house in Buckinghamshire, England in the 70s. Our kids there decades later.
Mom was my #1 fan and cheerleader. I don’t find this all that spectacular but I’m glad she appreciated it. ha ha
Me holding vigil for Mom, waiting for her to die. Chapel Hill, NC. October, 2018.
The infamous AA hotdog. (Story below.). Yes, I realize that was an abrupt transition. That’s how we Reeds roll…..
Night Song
And when she
woke suddenly
in the empty room
crying mother, mother,
the moon, watching
at a distance, rose
over her bed
and stayed there
until she was
asleep.
- Laura Gilpin
Hello world! It’s been 8 months since my last post. I still lived in Texas when I wrote about Lace-edged Batty Cakes. Guess where I am now? Well, right at this moment I am nestled next to a window at Kripalu in the Berkshires watching the rain fall. I’ll give you the abbreviated version of my year. In late October I accepted a job at the Rhode Island School of Design, my alma mater, working in the Alumni Relations Department coordinating the school’s reunions. With Luca off to college I started thinking about my next chapter and, frankly, needed a job, and this one just kind of presented itself. I worked for RISD admissions all throughout my time as an undergrad. I was a tour guide, hiking people up and down the hill on campus, convincing them it was a great place for their kids, and, on one tour, picking up a boyfriend. (That probably wouldn’t fly these days.) I continued to work for RISD after I left, doing portfolio reviews here and there, being a rep for the Austin Alumni group, and organizing my class’s 20th and 25th reunions. I guess I was always pretty “Rah-Rah! RISD!” despite having a mixed experience there myself. (I mean, does anyone have a totally GOOD experience in college?)
Once I moved back East this fall and we got some perspective, Chris and I very amicably decided to get divorced. The best response I’ve gotten to this news was, “Congratulations on you and Chris evolving!”. I think that should be everyone’s response to hearing about someone’s marriage ending. Evolution is exactly what is happening in my family, we no longer fit the shapes we were in so we changed them. Everyone is happier.
I moved to Providence at the start of winter. It was dark and cold and I occasionally wondered what the hell I was doing. But, I did have a feeling of returning to the Motherland, to some extent. I drive by my junior year apartment every day. Providence is great! It’s a totally manageable-sized city with an amazing proximity to the coast, Boston, NYC, and greater New England. The food scene has vastly improved since my time in the 90s but the town still has some good funk. I’m getting to wear tights and cardigans again! And, I’m happy to report that I made it through to the other side. Spring has sprung, Chris and I sold our houses in Austin and Marfa (Maine closes in a few weeks), and I hosted one helluva RISD reunion last week. We celebrated 14 different classes plus any other alums who showed up. It was gratifying. It was exhausting. Hence, Kripalu now. (It’s a retreat center with drop in yoga, ayurvedic food, and a lot of earnest people. I’m kind of hiding in my room at the moment.)
I realize this is a blog about my Mom and she hasn’t come up yet. I figured I needed to get any regular readers up to speed on my situation. I will say that several times during this process I wished that Mom was still with me. As I mentioned in my post about dropping Luca off for college, Mom used to help me move and always made my bed in every new place. I can’t help but think that Mom would have at least metaphorically “made my bed” in Providence. Despite me being middle aged and a mother myself, Mom would have been involved in my transition, checking in on me, sending me things, getting me settled, even if from afar. She was fiercely protective of “her girls” and if I allowed her in, I would most likely not have undergone this process as alone as I did. Instead, I loaded up my MINI with garbage bags of clothes, drove 3 days by myself, camped out in an AirBnB until my apartment was ready, and then moved in with only a mattress. (Remind me that I’m actually middled aged and have been a professional and raised a family? I felt like I was 19 again, driving back to college, but with bad knees!) I miss having Mom track me. My sister, Elisabeth, makes an effort to stay involved but she’s got a family of her own and is in a different time zone. There really is no substitute for the watchful eye of your mother.
Speaking of, I haven’t been able to be a watchful mother to my own daughter because she is totally off the grid in Montana for the summer. Luca got a job working for the Montana Conservation Corps camping and clearing trails. I’m such an indoor cat that this notion is insane to me, but I’m glad that kiddo is living her best life. It feels weird to be on this side of the parenting equation, to be unable to help your child (whether they want it or not). There is no motherly bed making with Montana. There are, in fact, no beds.
A few weeks ago I had plans with a friend on a Saturday night and they got sick and canceled, leaving me unexpectedly free. I was feeling kind of off, so I had the idea to go to an AA meeting to pick up my 2nd year chip. (I’m not really an AA girl, but I am a Leo and I like to celebrate my accomplishments! AA helped me in the beginning of my sobriety, so I always appreciate that it is there.) A quick google found a meeting near me in the basement of a church, of course. I was running a little late and clomped into the room in my cowboy boots mid-meeting. I sat down, looked around, and thought “what have I gotten myself into”? An AA Meeting on Saturday night in East Providence presented me with the oddest assortment of people. I had tons of judgment. Well, you know what? I’ll be damned if I didn’t get something out of hearing those people’s stories: one man had no arms and was the happiest person I’ve seen in ages, another had to bail his 65 year old mom out of jail for drugs that week, and one guy had attempted suicide recently by hooking up a generator to his car with him inside but the “Goddamn hippie eco-switch kept shutting it off!!!”. We all chuckled. Gallows humor. Humanity.
Midway through the meeting I heard some clanging around in the kitchen and then a few minutes later saw something unsettling in my periphery. What the hell??? A hotdog was being shoved in my face. I looked up and an odd man who resembled Lurch from the Addams Family was standing there very proudly giving me a hotdog in a bun with tons of mustard on it. I took it, of course. And then I just sat there with it. There was no way I was eating a random basement hotdog from some dude. I looked around and no one else had hotdogs?! LOL. Plus, I’ve been mainly vegetarian for decades and hotdogs are next level disgusting in terms of quality of meat. However, I was faced with a dilemma: I was grossed out, but I was also Southern. I didn’t want to hurt this man’s feelings. I wrestled with the math and came up with a solution, I would take one bite. I could stomach that and then my social obligations would be satisfied. So, I did. And you know what? It was freaking delicious. Who knew that I needed a Saturday night AA hotdog? Well, that guy did. I ate the whole damn thing. At the end of the meeting I went over to him and thanked him for the hotdog. He said, “we have hotdogs, coffee, and … are you married?”. I told him I was not. He finished, “we have hotdogs, coffee, and HUSBANDS!” I responded, “duly noted”.
“Hotdogs, Coffee, and Husbands” is the name of my memoir if I ever get around to writing one. Which brings me full circle back to one of my favorite stories about Mom who once viciously cut her hand and then calmly announced to the doctor in the emergency room that she sliced it “wrestling a recalcitrant salami”. What a woman! I looked at Mom’s recipe files and there are very few options in the wiener department (no surprise). So, I’m picking two summer-y things to share since I’m actually ENJOYING summer for the first time in decades! I remember the pickled shrimp were often a feature at cocktail parties (served with toothpicks) and the olive spread just sounds yummy.
It’s good to be back both in New England and on this blog.
LOU ANN’S PICKLED SHRIMP
(who is Lou Ann?)
2 ½ lbs fresh cooked shrimp –makes about 1 quart peeled and cleaned
1 cup olive oil
½ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup tarragon vinegar
2 cups thinly sliced onions
¼ cup mixed pickling spices
8 bay leaves
salt –generous dash
sugar – sprinkle
Tabasco sauce –a little dash
Mix. Marinate at least a day.
RIPE OLIVE SPREAD
1 cup black olives
1 big garlic clove
1 ½ Tbsp capers
½ tsp basil [4 big leaves]
¼ tsp thyme
2 Tbsp olive oil
Mix.
Mom doesn’t say how to serve this but I’m guessing on crackers or bread. (I just discovered that my Whole Foods makes a Forbidden Rice Batard that is delicious!)
AS USUAL, KEEP ME POSTED!
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