One month ago, Big Brother asked me to drive our parents to a family event.  According to the map on the invitation, it should be about a 30 minutes drive. 

I love my car.  It has an automatic gear shift, a radio, air conditioning and it’s black.  Having always driven white or silver cars, I honestly never gave too much thought to the significance of the color.  This is also the first new car I bought.

While spreading a fan of shiny colors in front of me, the car salesman said: “Choose”.  

White cars are for mothers driving their kids to the dentist.  Dark blue means the car doesn’t belong to you.  Single women in their 30’s go for the reds hoping single men may glance at the car and/or the pretty woman inside – but at least they would notice the car.  I went for the black fully aware that I was entering unknown territory.

For those readers that have never driven a shiny, new black car, I can assure you of one thing.  Respect.  You get more respect driving a black car.  You definitely look smarter and thinner, I am told.  It’s true.  Clinically proven. 

And when I put on my black wraparound sunglasses, the whole highway is mine.

BB suggested that I use his big white car for the ride since it has a GPS.  OK, sure, why not.  With #4 in tow, parents in the back, we set out for a Long Island destination.  #4 plugs in the address and we’re off.  A few minutes after getting onto the highway, the lady in the GPS starts telling me what to do. 

She says: “Slight right turn”. 

I turn to #4 and ask: “What did she say?”   #4 replies:  “She said slight right turn but you missed it”.  Recalculating.

Again, “slight right turn”.  I turn my head to the right and see 3 slight right turn exits.  Which one is she talking about?  I don’t take any.  Recalculating.

I am now lost.  The lady in the GPS is still thinking.  I keep driving.  I figure at some point Long Island will end and I’ll fall into the ocean. Recalculating.

I keep driving until I reach a toll booth – an abandoned toll booth.  Then she says: “First U-turn possible”.  OK, now she admits it.  She gave me wrong directions.  I keep driving looking for the first available U-turn.  I am getting nervous and she is recalculating.

Twenty miles down the road, after crossing a few bridges and some unknown islands, I find the first place to turn around. 

In the meantime, the parents in the back are unaware that we are lost.  Mom is sitting straight up in her seat, looking out the windows and saying: “Hmm, I don’t believe I was ever here before.  Are you sure you can see the road through all that fog?”   No, I can’t see a damn thing but what the heck; the GPS lady will get us out of this pea soup.   Recalculating.

The GPS lady isn’t talking anymore.  I suppose she is now too embarrassed to say anything. Good, that’ll teach her to mind her own business. 

I get off the highway and sidle up to the first car I see.  I roll down my window and ask for directions.  Just by the look on the face of the driver, I can see that the GPS lady really screwed up.   I pray that we are in the right state.  For all I know, we may be in Quebec. I had to ask a few other motorists before someone could tell me what to do.

She said: “Drive until you see the Dunkin Donuts sign, turn right and keep driving until you reach the Mall.  At the Mall, turn left and keep going until you see a Loehmann’s.  It’ll be just down the block”.   She was right.  Bull’s eye.  Smart lady.  She was driving a black car.

Most people will get annoyed over what I’m about to say:  I don’t like sushi. I don’t like anything about sushi.  Not the sticky rice, not the raw fish, not the seaweed, not even the skinny cucumber inside.  Frankly I don’t understand the whole sushi phenomena.

I don’t really care for the people that take a little wasabi on their chopsticks and swirl it into the soy sauce.  Then they pick up a piece of sushi and dip it into the sauce.  Most often it breaks apart either entering or leaving its soy sauce bath.  The sushi eater is always shocked and says: “Wow, that never happened before.”  Yeah, right.

For the first 19 years since birth, Daughter #4 had very little variety in her diet.  Chocolate milk, chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding, just chocolate, Cheerios, potato chips and little else.  Surprisingly, at the ripe old age of 20, her teeth are still all there and no other visible damage to my child.  Turning 20 this year obviously had a major impact on her palate and she started to “taste stuff”.   Of all the stuff she tasted, sushi became her all-time favorite foodstuff.  How about that.

I recently took a road trip with #4 through the New England states. Our lunches and dinners were usually in Japanese restaurants. #4 was unwavering in her desire to eat sushi twice a day.  She would order the sushi and I had salmon teriyaki.  I had salmon teriyaki everyday, day after day…after day.  There is nothing else that I liked on the menus. I’m not so sure that I even like salmon teriyaki.

Every so often #4 would politely ask me if I prefer something else to eat, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment and yell: “I want a corned beef sandwich and don’t forget the mustard”.  #4 would give me a cynical smile and say: “And where are we going to find a delicatessen in Maine?”  

There are plenty of Japanese restaurants all over Maine but no delicatessen?  Don’t Japanese ever get a craving for a kosher pickle?

I personally have nothing against the Japanese and I’m sure that there must be a perfectly good reason to want your sushi inside out.  I, however, prefer salami.

People have different reasons for writing blogs. 

Some think that they have something really important to say and that other people would be grateful to read about it.  Others think that they do something relatively well and other people would be grateful if the blogger would teach them how to do it.  I suppose there is also a third group of writers who just have an urge to put things down on paper and whether or not anyone would actually read it is irrelevant.

I don’t fit into any of the above mentioned categories.

I write because people say I am funny. I am told that I write well and some people told me that they would like me to start my own blog.

When you are told that you’re funny, it could be interpreted several ways.  Do I look funny?  If I forget for a moment my large nose and a few other character defining aberrations, I suppose I’m just downright ugly but that’s not funny.  Then again, I have my good days too.  Do I act funny?  I guess so especially if I have a mosquito bite in the middle of my back.  Do I tell jokes?  Not intentionally but I notice that people do laugh at what I have to say. 

Daughter #1 tells me to start writing today.

Daughter #2 tells me to leave her out of this.

Daughter #3 tells me that she can help me but not until her exams are over.

Daughter #4 tells me that I should be re-writing her resume instead of a stupid blog.

I believe this is the exact point that my official blog begins – 4 Ladles and a Leech.  Four women (me and the precious daughters #1, #2, #3, #4).  We figure that it will take the husband at least another 5 years to figure out what the internet is and what it does so no need to get him involved until 2012.

One thing for sure, husband is going to hate it.

Vegetarian  Stuffed Peppers (or pretty fancy stuffed peppers for the novice cook)

You’ll need:

12 smallish thin skinned peppers – any color.  Cut the tops off and take out the seeds.  Rinse under cold water.  Save a few tops (not the stem, just the flesh) and chop in small pieces.

1 cup rice

1 onion, chopped

1 ripe tomato or a few cherry tomatoes, chopped

4 tablespoons tomato puree

Parsley, chopped – about ½ cup

Oil for sauting

Salt, black pepper, sweet paprika, sugar

Start:

Sauté 1 chopped onion in 3 tablespoons oil. Medium flame.  When lightly browned, remove ½ of the onion to use later.

(Use a big skillet and there will be very little clean- up).

Next add the chopped pepper pieces (tops) to the skillet.  Heat on, keep stirring.

Add the cup of rice. 

Add the chopped tomatoes.

Keep sautéing until mixed well.

Add 2 tablespoons of tomato puree.  Keep stirring.

Add 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon sugar.  Keep mixing.

Add 2 cups of boiling water.  Stir well.  Lower flame and cover for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, remove from heat and let sit covered for 10 minutes.

In a deep casserole dish, put the ½ sautéed onion on the bottom of the dish.  Arrange the 12 clean peppers on top of the onion. Open end up.

Spoon the rice mixture into the peppers evenly with the entire amount of the rice mixture.  They should be about ½ filled.

In the same skillet, add 2 cups of boiling water, 2 tablespoons tomato pure, salt, pepper, paprika, 1 teaspoon sugar and parsley, mix until the tomato puree is dissolved and pour over peppers in the casserole.

Cover the casserole tightly with aluminum foil and bake in medium oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, close heat but keep the peppers in the oven for another ½ hour for best flavor.  Even better the next day.

Variations:

Add ½ cup chopped meat to the rice mixture

Or

Add more chopped vegetable to the rice mixture – I suggest shredded carrot or zucchini.