In Memoriam: Peg Bracken

I'm a self-proclaimed NPR Junkie. So those of you who get tired of me always saying "I heard on NPR . . ." Sorry, it's not going to end soon. But today I heard the sad news of the passing of Peg Bracken.
I consider myself a fairly good cook. I enjoy it and like to experiment . . . to a point. I am also a lazy cook. I look over a recipe and will discredit it immediately if it has too much preparation (i.e. chopping, ugh) or specialty ingredients that I would only use for that recipe. I do have a few recipes for special occasions or that are really good that break those rules but in general I am a functional cook. I cook to eat. What does this have to do with Peg Bracken you ask? She wrote the "I Hate to Cook Book".
The following is quoted from the la times, click here for the whole article:
Bracken sold more than 3 million copies of "The I Hate to Cook Book," which helped busy women save time in the kitchen by cutting steps and shamelessly relying on convenience foods such as dry onion soup mix as key ingredients. She wrote for reluctant cooks like herself, who knew that some activities -- particularly childbearing, paying taxes and cooking -- "become no less painful through repetition." Her book, she wrote, was "for those of us who want to fold our big dishwater hands around a dry martini instead of a wet flounder." That sentiment struck a chord with an as-yet-unidentified mass of women emerging from the Eisenhower 1950s who did not regard slaving over a hot stove a feminine virtue. Although Bracken disdained complex recipes or menus featuring more than three courses, she included some sophisticated touches. The advertising pro in her advised women to portray their cooking in savvy ways, eschewing easy phrases such as "top with bacon" in favor of the more evocative "garnish with crispy bacon curls." She called such efforts "Good Cooksmanship" and said it enabled women to give the impression that they cared about cooking more than they really did. Bracken sometimes saw cooking as therapy. The prime example was her recipe for "Aggression Cookies," an oatmeal concoction credited to a mental health center in Lansing, Mich.

Her cookbook was hilarious and real.
You'll be missed Peg, but your legacy lives on.

Pachelbel Rant

OK, so, no offense to those of you who love Pachelbel's canon but I despise it. It bugs me. In short, it is the "easy listening" of classical music. I won't go off on it too much because, again, I don't want to offend those of you who love it. Jason showed this video to me and I LOVED it. It is hilarious, so check it out. I would rate this video PG13 because it has a few swear words. Be forewarned. Dang funny!

A conversation with Peggy

Peggy: How much is the weight?

Jason: Oh, I'm at about 176 these days.

Peggy: 260??!!


Note: Peggy is Jason's mother. She is the sweetest woman but she had a stroke 6 years ago so her communication skills are lacking. It provides for lots of entertainment and fun anecdotes.