Memphis Tiger Fans Are a Little Blue Today

These images are hyperlinked from the University of Memphis Athletic site, who owns full copyright of the logo, artwork, and photo. I do not claim any ownership, and did not save the images to my own computer. You can visit that site by clicking on the images.

For local readers, you already KNOW this, but for those of you outside the Greater Memphis Area, Memphis is Tiger Town. As in basketball. As in men's. As in college. Yes, we have the Grizzlies NBA team, but most of us are fair-weather fans. Here, we are Tiger Basketball Fans.

I reckon it's the same in other cities and towns, but in Memphis we are passionate about our Tigers. Little old ladies become screaming maniacs with blue and silver tinsel wigs (over their blue and silver real hair), tiger paw tattoos on their cheeks, and their cute blue and gray windsuits--that often match their husbands' cute blue and gray windsuits. During basketball season (and often off-season) most business meeting are prefaced with Tiger Talk before we get to the business at hand. We talk about Coach Calipari and the team members like we know them personally. In a town that is often racially divided, the Memphis Tigers bond us. Saying "Go Tigers" will melt an icy stare into a grin of mutual agreement. Tiger talk gives us common ground to start conversations with strangers. "How 'bout those Tigers" = "Me friend. Me come in peace."

After making it to the NCAA National Championship Final game last year, then losing to Kansas in overtime, there was no talk of "we'll get'em next year," because we lost a big and important chunk of our team. We thought this would be a rebuilding year, maybe couple of years, before we would see the finals again. We kept our spirits high and our expectations low. But Coach Cal assembled Memphis a new power team that went further than we might have expected (at least originally), but not further than we had hoped. They played beautifully together, and made the opponent teams look clumsy and oafish in the process.

Last night we played Missouri, aka, Mizzou--also Tigers. They outplayed us, and we didn't win for the first time in 28 games. (L-word too hard to type.) We got a big taste of our own medicine and it was a hard pill to swallow. We are still choking on it this morning. Personally, seeing them actually lose a game was tougher than the thought that we wern't going any further in the finals. They didn't really look like themselves until the last 13 or so minutes of the game, when they starting playing better than Mizzou (at least that's the way I saw it). But, alas, it was too late. When Shawn Taggert fouled out and sprung tears, I did too.

This year, though, we can say, "We'll get 'em next year!"


Thanks, Coach Cal! I loved your passion last night, including the technicals that passion earned you. Some of those ref calls were BS, and worse were the lack of calls against Mizzou.

Thanks, Tyreke Evans (we know how to say your name, even if the commentators don't). Won't you stay another year before going pro? How are you going to manage all that money if you can't do math? Think about it...Thanks, Shawn Taggert, and Happy Birthday! Thanks, Robert Dozier! We are going to miss you! Congratulations to you, Antonio Anderson, and Chance McGrady for most wins in any senior class in NCAA history! Roburt Sallie, we are glad you are here! Thanks, Doneal Mack, Willie Kemp, and Wesley Witherspoon. Stay real, study hard the rest of the semester, and we will see you next year!

Love,
Cristie

San Giuseppe Day

Over a Tuscan Stove is one of the blogs I follow and link to from my own. The blog is written by Judy Witts, the self-proclaimed "DIVA" of Divina Cucina. On Wednesday she gave us a heads up that the following day, March 19, is the celebration of San Guiseppe, or Joseph, Earthly father of Christ.


In celebration of the day, Diva Judy featured Frittelle di Riso, or fried sweet rice fritters (recipe). They looked delicious-what's not to love about fried bread coated in sugar?


The Frettelle were quite good. They weren't overly sweet like a donut. The light sugar, lemon rind, and splash of liqueur gave the rice a nice flavor. Actually, I used liquor, not liqueur. Somewhere along the line we were given what I presume to be a very nice bottle of 12-year-old Scotch. No one here drinks Scotch, so I keep dipping into it for recipes. I'm sure a Scotch-lover would be horrified, but it does make nice marinades.


The picture above shows my fritelle, and the one below shows Diva Judy's, linked from her site. Her's look like beignets, and mine look like hash browns. And THAT, Signore e Signori, is why she is the Diva, and I am...well, my family loved them, so don't tell them about hers.


Judy, I swear I followed your recipe exactly, except that I halved it. I have learned that when trying something new, dont make too big a mistake. [See Potato Candy Experiment for a good example of that lesson.]

Thanks for the culture lessons, Diva Judy, and for the recipe, which I might work on and refine, or maybe I will just try another one from your site.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish--No, Really I am Irish!

Yep, true confession time. My affinity for all things Italian is purely environmental, not genetic. I'm channeling Italian ancestors via my Italian sweetie and his dear family.

My own ancestry on boths sides is largely Irish: the Scroggins, the Barretts, the Jacksons, the McMahans, the Shelbys, and so on. The blood is thinned slightly by the English (British) and a line of German, but mostly we have the red hair, the temper and the alcoholism gene of the Irish. Don't make me mad.

That said, I was raised as main-stream American as any kid could be. No one in my family spoke a "mother tongue." No one had an accent of any kind, unless "Country" counts, and when you are in the country, "Country" isn't an accent. We have no "old country" traditions, customs, recipes, or heirlooms. Our traditions are based on making something out of nothing and being self-sustaining--farming, raising cattle, gardening, canning, sewing.

My heritage is mostly of large Protestant Irish families working and living off the land, not in a romantic, Gone With the Wind way, or even a Little House on the Prairie way, but in a poor, hungry way. Think J.R. Cash's family at the beginning of Walk the Line or Loretta Webb's family at the beginning of Coal Miner's Daughter. That's not just Hollywood, folks.

I had the terriffic fortune (Luck of the Irish) to be born to a generation of parents who decided enough was enough, and education was the ticket out. My mom managed to get a college education, have me, and start a career in the up-and-coming Information Age as a data processor. She did it at a time when being a working mother was wildly unpopular. She did it at a time when women's pantsuits were forbidden in the workplace, so guess what? She wore one! At a time when women mostly had "jobs" (which they quit to get married or have a baby) Mom carved out a career. Thanks, Mom!

So today I'm going to be Irish --Sláinte!--and hopefully one day soon I'll get to go to Ireland, and maybe one day I'll start channeling the Irish of my own ancestors. But tomorrow I'm going back to being Italian.

Lent - 40+ Days Without Coffee

This was the last cup of coffe I have had since Fat Tuesday. On the one hand, it was a delicious cafe-au-lait from Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans avec beignets et beaucoup de sucre. On the other hand IT WAS THE LAST CUP OF COFFEE I'VE HAD SINCE FAT TUESDAY!

It was a toss-up for me: coffee or wine. I went with coffee, thinking that would be the easier pleasure to do without. H was certain coffee was the greater sacrifice. Maybe next year I will go without wine for purposes of comparison.

This is the first time I have ever made a Lenten sacrifice. It was not really part of my Protestant upbringing, although increasing numbers of Protestants are dabbling in the Lenten Season (I got ashes as a Methodist). The first time I had ever heard of Lent or met a real live Catholic was when I was nine, and my family moved to New Orleans (Kenner to be more specific).

Until tonight, when I was checking the calendar to see how many more days to go, I was under the misbelief that Lent was 40 days. I was confused and slightly horrifed to count 45 days. After a little Google search, I learn that the 40 days don't include Sundays! Oy! Sundays, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, are little "mini-Easters," which explains why the hard-core Catholics (who go without meat all week) allow themselves to eat meat on Sundays. I figure though, if we are going to do this, we are going to do it right, so I'm going the distance, so no coffee, even on Sundays. Not even de-caf.

H has foregone sweets, which has been as difficult for two reasons: narrowing down what constitutes a "sweet," and doing without them. He has been fairly liberal in the "sweets" definition: candy, desserts of any kind, hot chocolate are all on the list; we agree that fruit and fruit-sweetened foods (like popsicles) are allowed.

We are also observing "no meat" on Fridays. The hardest part of this isn't not eating meat; it's remembering not to eat meat on Fridays. I was really embarrassed that I sent the girls to Catholic school the first Friday of Lent with chicken nuggets in their lunch boxes.

This past Friday (the 13th), after our basketball game, S really wanted to go to Huey's, a landmark Memphis hamburger restaurant. We went, and he got his World Famous Huey Burger, and the Catholic and Catholics-in-training had spinach dip, catfish baskets, cheese sticks, and French fries.

27 more days and counting! Just curious...what did y'all give up for Lent, and how's it going?

Friday the 13th...Was Perfect!

Today was the last day of Spring Break and my week-long vacation at home with the kids. It has gone by way too fast! H took the day off to spend with us, and we had the most fabulous day:

After staying up way too late the night before, I slept like a rock until 10:22 am! When I finally did wake up, I was nicely well-rested, not groggy and disoriented from too much sleep. H had gotten up much earlier to join a conference call (his only work for the day), and Chr got up at some point before me, but I had to wake up the other night owls after I got up.

S has had a sushi jones going for a while. It's hard to communicate to a 14-year-old boy with a bottomless pit and a fondness for raw tuna just how expensive a sushi dinner is for a family of five, so I compromised. I told him we would take him to our lunch sushi place. The lunch specials are a lot less expensive. Since we pretty much slept through breakfast, we got dressed and headed to lunch at our favorite sushi place...Sekisui in Horn Lake, Mississippi. Yes, I used "sushi" and "Mississippi" in the same sentence.

I have had sushi in many restaurants in So Cal, Maui, Cabo, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities that you would expect to find good sushi, and the sushi is as well-prepared and fresh as you will find anywhere. Thank you, Fred Smith and FedEx. So we drove from the FC, past at least five other Sekisui locations, to Horn Lake, Mississippi.

Yes, S has the voracious appetite of a growing man-child, but L, my 8-year-old little girl has a hollow leg. Seriously, I don't know where she puts it all. She is solid, but not at all fat, and she doesn't eat much junk food ('cause I don't let her), so I generally let her eat as much healthy stuff as she wants. Eat, she did. After the rest of us were stuffed to the gils (pun intended), L was still packing in the remaining rice and octopus.

Our next stop...FedEx Forum to watch the Memphis Tigers play basketball in the Conference USA Tournament. Memphis is a basketball town. We have the Grizzlies, sure, but Memphians are passionate about Tiger Basketball. I don't claim to know, well, anything about basketball. I spent most of my life steering clear of basketball and pretty much any other organized sport for that matter, both as a player and a spectator. Let's just say I could never get close to a basketball without getting smashed in the nose by it. But when H came into my life, it became clear that to love the man meant to love Tiger Basketball (and Notre Dame Football). It is as easy it love Tiger Basketball as it is to love H.

Amazingly, Chr and L were completely into the game. I figured they would be begging to leave 30 minutes in. Chr even called a few fouls before the referee. Go figure. I can never spot most fouls--even the really obvious ones, and even when I watch the slo-mo replay.

Needless to say, the Tigers won. Of course they won!

La Vita Squisita! Progress in Booth 36

This week the kids were on Spring Break, so I took (most of) the week off to spend time with them. During our time off, the girls and I went on thrifting/buying trips and worked on our inventory to clean, refurb, price, and get it into our booth. I bought two bakers racks from Craigslist to display the pottery and kitchen items.



I have a fabulous collection of items in the booth from Italy. I made little tags that are Italian flags with Fatto in Italia on them. I am trying to stick closely to the Italian motif, but I also allow in pieces of acceptable quality that fit in with my Italian motif, or that go with the themes I am building on, or that are simply too wonderful not to include.

14 Years Ago Today

Fourteen years ago today this little man came into my life. What a beautiful boy on the outside and beautiful person on the inside. (Yeah, I know, not that cute in this picture, but after a harrowing journey into fresh air they put those eyedrops in his eyes. He barely opened them again for another three days.)

If I had been the one picking, I confess, I would not have chosen a boy. I already had a girl--the hand-me-downs were queued up, and I knew (at least I thought) what to do with a girl. And have you seen the boys' toy aisle in any store? Yikes! And the boys' clothing section? It's a fraction of what is offered for girls. But God gave me a boy, proving that He knows best, and I discovered how much fun boys are, including their toys.

Happy Birthday, Son!

What do they have on their web site?

I took this pic through the car window in the rain. I was so amused by their domain name and the proud display of it.