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Posts tagged ‘Two Chums’

Feb 17

30 Comments

A Story of Meatloaf and Butterscotch Pudding

“What do meatloaf and butterscotch pudding have to do with each other?” you may well be asking yourself.  Unless you are me, the answer is most likely, “Nothing.”

The year was 1977 and I was married less than a year, pregnant, and horribly sick.  I did not have morning sickness that lasted the usual first 3 months when one is expecting.  I had all day and all night, constant, unrelenting nausea and vomiting, which I have since learned was due to something with a weird name that basically means I was highly allergic to being pregnant.  Not to my precious daughter, Sara, but to whatever hormones my body was making to keep the pregnancy going.  I was a mess.

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Feb 16

14 Comments

A Note From Lady Churchill

Because my darling father was an international banker, I had the absolute pleasure of travelling the world and living in many different countries.  We lived in Trinidad and Hong Kong, New York and London, and finally, Nassau, Bahamas.  I would take on accents by osmosis.  Being Canadian, we would return to Canada in the summertime and our relatives would always know where we were living by the way I was talking.   It offered me an amazing education.  I met so many interesting people and what it taught me was that we are all the same, the world over, having the basic need of being able to love and being loved.

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Feb 15

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And the Oscar goes to…


Over the years, some very well known and glamorous people have leapt to their feet and taken the stage when hearing this familiar phrase.  Though most of us will never be in their situation, we can all identify with the excitement of being acknowledged for a job well done.  In the film industry, Oscar is the icon synonymous with excellence.

There are many stories floating around as to how Oscar got his name but one legend has it that Eleanor Lilleberg, a Norwegian-American, who was the Executive Secretary to Louis B. Mayer exclaimed when viewing the statuette, “It looks like King Oscar II!”  Before leaving for the day, she asked, “What should we do with Oscar?  Put him in the vault?” and the name stuck.

Oscar, today, is made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base.  During World War II, with a desire to support the War effort, the statuettes were made of plaster, and later, traded in for gold ones when the War ended.  Oscar is 13½ inches tall and weighs 8½ pounds.  He is actually a knight designed in the art deco style, holding a crusader’s sword, while standing on a reel of film with five spokes.  Each of these spokes represents a branch of the Academy:  Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.

America is in love with this, her favorite award show.  We love to see the clothes, we love to hear the interviews, and we love to speculate on who the winners will be, most certainly, “Best Actress”, “Best Actor” and “Best Picture”.

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Feb 14

12 Comments

But the greatest of these is Love.

The two people pictured here don’t represent, for most of us, the classic picture of love and romance.  They aren’t the “beautiful people” we have come to associate with tabloid and magazine covers depicting the latest celebrity romance or breakup.  They are two ordinary people who taught me an extraordinary lesson about real love.  They are my maternal grandparents, John and Willie Ridgway, or Papaw and Nanner to me.

Their 66 year marriage was not what I would call an epic romance.  It was a great love story.  In their 66 years together they weathered the Great Depression, the tragic and sudden death of a 20 year old daughter leaving behind a 4 month old daughter of her own for them to help raise, a cross country relocation, multiple muggings after moving to California, and the other sundry challenges and hardships you might imagine that any two people who lived together for 66 years would have to encounter. Read more

Feb 13

22 Comments

Love is in the Air

Love is the air or, at least the SMELL of love is in the air!

Nothing smells more like love and comfort than the aroma of fresh bread and we have a wonderful, easy, foolproof recipe for French bread.  If you have not had a love affair with yeast, but, in fact, have had what a psychologist would call “an avoidance issue”, now is your chance for some therapeutic intervention.  This recipe has all the makings of a great love story:  it’s warm, inviting, and oh so steamy!  Whether you are cooking tomorrow or not, try this bread.  You will LOVE it and will be loved every time you make it.  We guarantee it.

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Feb 10

60 Comments

The Perfect Chocolate Cake

This is the story of how I came to have a recipe for  THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE.

I am blessed with a husband who is extremely easy to please, at least as far as food is concerned.  We will have been married 36 years on the 28th of this month, and in all that time he has never complained or had a negative comment about anything I have made for him.  Anything, that is, except chocolate cake.

I love to bake (probably because I love to eat, but that’s another story) and I learned early on in our relationship that chocolate cake is Randy’s favorite.  So, since I love to bake and I love Randy, I wanted to make him the best chocolate cake he had ever eaten on the first Valentine’s Day after we were married.  I used a delicious sounding Bon Appetit recipe I had been saving and was thrilled at how it turned out.  But to my dismay, when I served him my masterpiece, he was underwhelmed to say the least.  I was sooooo disappointed because I wanted  badly to make him happy and knowing that he was so easy to please about everything else, I was perplexed as to why he wasn’t delighted with the cake I had made especially for him.

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Feb 9

10 Comments

Love Letters

My dear chum,

“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.”
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Printed cards that one buys certainly have their place, and sometimes say exactly what you are feeling, but hand written notes from the heart are probably the most cherished gifts one could receive.  There is no better way to tell someone how you feel about them – start writing and just let it flow.  It will be felt, deep into the soul of the receiver. Read more

Feb 8

1 Comment

Roses Are Red

{Photos by Two Chums)

Why red roses for love?  As the story has it, the red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and, since then, the red rose has been associated with lovers.  The tradition lives on.  From timeless pieces of art and classical poetry to modern day music and media, red roses are seen depicting the message of love.

For most people, red roses simply mean “I love you” and that is why, in the United States, one hundred and ten million roses, the majority being red, will be sold and delivered within the three-day time period around Valentine’s Day.  Amazing!

Robin and I do most of our flower shopping at the Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown Los Angeles. Read more

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