Power to the Mixer, Right On

Shannon Kernaghan Power-to-the-Mixer-400 Power to the Mixer, Right On Uncategorized

I’m not a flower child of the 1960s, but I’ve met enough aging free spirits to appreciate the tumultuous decade. I gaze with fondness at peace signs, despite not being old enough to wear a bra in that decade, let alone burn it.

My husband Paul equally likes all-things 1960s. When younger, he was a wild child, speeding across the country on his motorcycle, letting it all hang out while the wind tousled his mane of hair (no helmet laws yet).

Today, his wheels stay a lot closer to home.

Speaking of home, where “flower power” was once a symbol of non-violence, now my sweetheart refers to “flour power” when choosing our kitchen appliances.

“Look honey,” Paul called out from his computer search, “This standing mixer has a Flour Power rating of 14 cups. Is that far out or what?”

“Yeah, groovy, man,” I muttered under my breath. “How much is this thing going to cost just to make some pizza dough?” I no longer muttered; I yelled.

“Cost? Who cares about the bread, man? It has a 67-point planetary mixing action!”

“Greeeeaaat.” I’ve managed to make meals with a wooden spoon that wields enough power to whip everything into submission. I simply raise it at my bowls of wet and dry ingredients and they snap to attention. No flower/flour power ideology need enter my kitchen.

And there’s the hand-held mixer with three identical speeds that I was given when we married. Still beating.

Paul wants to take us from a yellowing $15 mixer to a $730 pearl metallic powerhouse. Bummer. And here I’m trying to lessen my carbs!

We enjoy celebrating special meals with a glass of wine or two. But you can’t drink and drive so that means taking a cab or Uber from the restaurant. That also means going into the cold dark night after your cozy meal.

Sometimes cabs and Ubers aren’t quickly available. Waiting 20 minutes in a restaurant doorway is a definite buzz kill . . . behold, the pleasures of home cooking.

Yet the motive for home cooking hasn’t been to save money. If anything, our grocery bills have grown savage. For instance, I ate a couple of fresh-baked cookies and discovered they called for a $5 bag of ground pecans. Didn’t taste a single nut. The recipe also included several dollars of chocolate chips and toffee. The only way I’ll reduce our grocery bills (and waistline) is to wire my mouth shut.

 How the times have changed from the 60s to today. Now when I ask, “What’s your bag?” Paul answers, “Flour, baby. Best for bread, rye and multi-grain.” His “secret stash” of baggies are filled with fennel and rosemary.

Power to the people. Make that power to my tie-dyed chef.

Audio music
False Startz
by

Blanc Vie

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Cave Comedians Rock!

Shannon Kernaghan cave-club-drawing-450 Cave Comedians Rock! Uncategorized

My husband and I watched an old episode of “Seinfeld,” one with comedy highlights from the many years the series ran.

“This is hilarious stuff. Every little bit is funny,” I said. 

“That’s because you’ve already seen the episodes and know the characters,” Paul answered. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t make sense.”

I was about to do what I usually do when challenged – argue – but he was correct. Comedy, much like calculus or Shakespeare, is difficult to understand or appreciate unless you start at the beginning. In other words, you need the Seinfeld 101 course before you can progress to your PhD in HaHa.

While our tastes change, I bet we haven’t altered much over the eons, at least in the way we enjoy laughter and entertainment. 

Stop and think about our early ancestors, those cave dwellers who lived before the invention of the wheel. What do we really know about them? We can only guess what made them laugh out loud, or hoot and holler with chimp-like shrieks. For all we know, they watched stand-up comedians like we do at Yuk Yuks today.

I’d love to be a primordial fly on the cave wall when the first act took place at a rock stage near you: “Thank you, thank you very much. So where y’all from? That crater by the lava flow? I didn’t think any vertebrates still lived there [nervous giggling, hairy foot shuffling] . . . I just flew in from the tar pits and are my knuckles ever tired!”

Now comes the sound of applause or grunts of satisfaction. Hard to tell whether the register is delight or anger, with those prominent jaws and swept-back foreheads.

From the back, a heckler growls something off-color. 

“What’s that, your knuckles don’t drag? Sheesh, there’s a Neanderthal in every cave!” More applause and some supportive rock throwing ensues.

The show ends on familiar note: “You’ve been a great crowd, thanks for coming to Kruk Kruks. Be good to your servers – no hair pulling. And look out for those sabre-tooth tigers on your way home.”

Audience members pull on their animal hides and claim their clubs at the door. The Comedy Cave quickly empties. 

Then, everyone makes a quick (tar) pit stop before queuing up for the drag-through window of the nearest Golden Arches. A Big Mammoth, pterodactyl nuggets, name your poison. Whatever gets you through the Paleolithic night.

With six million years of evolution under our gene pool belt there’s an undeniable amount of variation, but those hominid similarities do exist. We had “Seinfeld,” they had “Trog.”

I’ll never gaze into a campfire the same way again. And I’ll never take my handy canister of Wet Ones for granted, thanks to our ancestors who were there at the dawn of intelligence.

To all of you cave comedians, you rock!

Audio version song
Fancy

by
Saidbysed

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