(Don’t forget to leave a comment to enter the OPC Christmas Giveaway. Go to the Welcome Page to see the gift basket that will go to one lucky winner. OK, now read on!)
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When you find a store that has it all – charm, variety and uniqueness, with a kind and doting proprietor and assistants, you have to spread the word. Such is the case with Kaye’s Gifts at 8605 S. Western, just south of I-240 in Oklahoma City. Pam, Sharon and Joan will treat you as family and make suggestions that will get your creative juices flowing. The store is stocked full of Made-in-Oklahoma products as well as all kinds of delicious confections from all over the country. Top these off with absolutely beautiful porcelain, knick-knacks and various other collectible items and you have the makings of a gift basket deluxe. And of course, they carry the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ as the single package or in our various gift bags. Friday and Saturday was Kaye’s Gifts annual Christmas open house and anyone who attended received a lovely Christmas ornament with any purchase. I joined in with a demonstration “In My Own Little Corner on My Own Little Chair” (thanks to Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella) where I met many fun and interesting people and got to talk about my favorite subject: cooking! Since the store is packed with tasting stations throughout, for the festive weekend, I introduced my recipe for blueberry cobbler made with Shawnee Mills Blueberry Muffin mix. It was a hit. The men, especially, seemed to gravitate to the cobbler. Ladies, it really is true – “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” There are a lot of men out there who cook, I discovered, but they will head toward a home-cooked treat everytime! Thanks to everyone who stopped by, who purchased the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ and gift sets or who just took the time to chat. It was a great weekend. And “thank you” to the three lovely ladies who make Kaye’s such a special place to shop. |
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The sun shone brightly on Kaye’s Gifts at 8605 S. Western in OKC
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A nostalgic Santa Clause and inviting place to sit
 Joan mans the juice and soup tasting. |
 Sharon is the Cookie Expert. |
Pam (the owner), Joan and Sharon |
A countertop full of Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ gift sets |
It was a pretty tight squeeze, but just enough room to dish out cobbler, bread sticks and chit-chat |
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Life Can Be A Jar Of Pickled Peppers
Monday, August 17th, 2009
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I’m trying to decide which is worse – vacuuming or cleaning out the refrigerator. Today, I decided to do the latter and am pretty certain that it would qualify as worse. I know that I hate doing it. My grandmother always used to tell us grandchildren, as we helped her clean the table after dinner, that her mother told her, regarding leftovers, to “put them in the refrigerator and I’ll throw them out next week.” Right. Only my leftovers manage to stay in there for a month or two because I hate to clean the refrigerator. But I think I already said that. Somehow, whatever was leftover from Monday’s dinner a month ago, gets pushed to the back behind Sunday’s roast beef of two weeks ago, which is, of course, behind Saturday’s quiche from last weekend that I plan on freezing when I finish dividing and freezing the Papa Murphy’s pizza from yesterday – which is on top of three opened jars of apple butter. You are probably thinking, “Three opened jars of apple butter?” Well, you must realize that there is a good explanation for three opened jars of apple butter. The first jar got lost behind the mayonnaise and so my husband assumed there was no apple butter and opened a new one. Then, my son came home and found some homemade biscuits in the freezer that heated up quite nicely in the oven and he had to have apple butter to ladle over melted butter on hot biscuits! He couldn’t find apple butter jar number one or two and so he assumed there was no opened apple butter and opened a third jar. Now you might ask why he would be able to find a third jar of apple butter to open. Right? The answer is simple. Our lodi apple tree was full and so I made three cases of apple butter. It is therefore conceivable that family and friends could contribute a dozen or so more opened jars to my refrigerator shelves if they are too timid to rummage through the four opened jars of pickled peppers (call me Peter Piper), the two bags of blueberry bagels, rows of condiments and spreads and the plastic refrigerator dishes balancing on top of one another. I suspect that my penicillin mold experiment that is my last piece of flatbread and the black fungus incubator that once was corn might be a deterrent, however, one would think that moving things around with a wooden spoon to avoid contact, could reveal at least one errant jar of apple butter. Now, I really can’t explain the saran wrapped baglet of two tablespoons of leftover fried okra. I’m sure that I had plans for it, but now I forget what that was. The same goes for the one ounce bite of salmon from the other night. I’m on a diet and I’m trying to cut portions. I’m sure that I saved that for lunch one day – maybe to go with the two tablespoons of okra. The wrinkled cherries are another matter. I just forgot about them. And they were good too. Oh well. As I scrubbed away at the porcelain walls, it occurred to me that my refrigerator is a picture of life. We have all of this stuff in us that needs to be thrown out and we know it…but it is no fun and we hate dealing with it. That refrigerator dish of anger at a co-worker gets stacked on top of another full of resentment toward a family member. A baggie of materialism is shoved behind a larger box of jealousy which is beside a whole row of jars of past indiscretions. Even those little bitty saran wrapped nuggets of smugness and complaint get kept for some later use. For the past five weeks I’ve been participating in a study by Nancy Leigh Demoss called “Seeking Him” and it is slowly helping me to toss out all of the moldy leftovers in my life. I’m starting to feel pretty clean and sparkly inside and I’m not missing any of those things that I’ve been hanging onto for so long. It is amazing how cluttered we allow our lives to become. It is a good thing to take time out, on a regular basis, to assess where we are and what we need to get rid of. And it is a good thing to keep a box of baking soda – scripture – opened to keep away the odor of bad attitudes!! Yep. Cleaning refrigerators and lives is about equally appealing. However, there’s nothing like that glistening, white, neatly arranged interior of a newly disinfected frig and there’s certainly nothing like the joy of a life back on track. I hope that I have encouraged you in your life journey but I can assure you that I won’t be offering to help you with your frigidaire!   |
Treasures to Trash – er – Trashmen
Saturday, July 18th, 2009Yesterday and today, July 17th and 18th, I had the privilege of participating in the Christmas in July extravaganza at Kaye’s Gifts at 8605 S. Western in Oklahoma City. There were lots of goodies to sample! It was fun seeing lots of new faces and some familiar ones and to demonstrate what I love; the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth. I introduced the new cookbook that just arrived from the printer on Thursday (they are in!!) and our new Bride’s Gift Basket.
I just love Oklahoma. The people are so friendly and so eager to share their own joy. I heard plenty of funny stories and experiences and I am hoping that people will email me their favorite funny cooking experiences or decorating adventures to share with all of you. If you have one that you would like to share, please submit it on the email page. Make us laugh!!
In the meantime, I just have to share one idea that was related to me by a lovely visitor to my booth. She is an avid baker and she described her love for making cookies. We both commiserated over the fact that it is hard to bake cookies when there are just two or one of you in the household – it just isn’t the greatest thing for the waistline! – so she explained to me what she has done to solve that problem.
Every week she bakes a full recipe of whatever cookie is her choice for the week, specifically on trash day. Then, she makes up a disposable plate of cookies, wraps them and when she hears the trash truck, she hurries out to meet her trashman as he picks up her refuse. She also gives cookies to her postman, but she makes an extra special effort to catch her trashman. She laughed that a few weeks ago she almost missed him and sprinted out to catch the truck. As she handed the trashman his plate of goodies, he grinned and said something to the effect of, “Thank goodness! I dreamed about these cookies last night! ”
This kind woman told me that people recognize our policemen and our firemen and many times, our postmen, but she said that those who pick up our trash are often forgotten and overlooked. How true! And yet, they perform a most basic and critical service. So this coming Tuesday, I will be baking cookies and heading for the road and I can’t wait to see the look of surprise on our trashman’s face when I hand him a plateful. Thanks to this woman for such a generous idea.
May Is For Mothers – and Children and Dads and Grandparents and…
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
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She looked accusingly at me with those big, brown, second-grade eyes. I knew what she was thinking. My daughter thought I was totally wasting her time trying to explain why subtraction was a necessity of life. She got addition. She had that down pat but in her young mind, if you knew how to add things, why in the world would you want to take them away?
Slices of apple were strewn on the table; browning remnants of my explanation of “whole” and “part”. She was obviously bored. “Cooking!” I thought. My daughter loved to help me cook. I got out the chocolate chips and measured out one cup.
“OK. I’m going to make some cookies. My recipe calls for two cups of chocolate chips but I only have one cup. How many more cups of chocolate chips do I need to buy at the store?”
She perked up with a know-it-all look and matter-of-factly explained, “Enough to make the cookies!”
This month we honor a job that outshines most others – Motherhood. Proverbs 31 tells us about the wife and mother of noble character and that her children and her husband call her blessed. She is no small, wilting flower either. She sews and spins, cooks, buys real estate, runs a business, cares for the poor and needy, provides clothing and warmth for her household, tends to the affairs of her family, is never idle and is always faithful. Whew!! I know I do all of those things! (right) Don’t you? Ok, well actually, the joke in my home has always been that if the smoke alarm goes off, dinner is ready. In my defense, our smoke alarm is very sensitive!
I am an “empty-nester”, between teenagers and grandchildren. I have such wonderful memories of our children growing up and I hope they do too. I want to encourage you, this month and in this time of economic downturn, to slow down the pace of your life to make some memories. Moms – and Dads too – let your children see you cooking for them, encouraging them to help you read recipes, chop veggies, stir broths and knead doughs. Give them the chance to say to each other, “Do you remember walking into the house after school and it smelled like hot, chocolate chip cookies or freshly baked bread? Remember how Mom would let us have the end off of the hot bread all slathered with real butter? Yum.”
If you haven’t done much cooking, make the effort to try at least one new recipe a week and practice the art. Artists know that artwork is 1% talent and 99% knowledge and hard work. The same goes for cooking. Practice makes perfect and even then there are flubs! Look at your table as a big canvas and then paint it with all of the colors that are your dinnerware and your culinary creations! Sit around the table and laugh – and remember that time does fly when you are having fun. Happy Mother’s Day!
Peach tree in bloom
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