Our cooking today is so much different from days gone by. When my granddaughter was three, she stood in front on my oven door where a whole chicken baked in a glass pan. With wide eyes she said, "Is that a chicken?" You see, her mother only bought chicken parts. She'd never seen a whole chicken. How different from when I was a child. Below is a recollection when I visited Grandma at about age five. I've included it in my cookbook Family Favorites from the Heartland. Fried Chicken-Grandma’s Style During the late 40s and e ...continued...

In amongst my ‘heaven-like’ existence, there was aching pain and anger and turmoil that was outside of my bubble, not even two steps away from me. To this day I cannot describe exactly what went on around me because I was too young to understand the reasons or the details. All I knew was that we had our patriarch and our entire household revolved around what he wanted and how he wanted it. I could not comprehend it because to me he was loving and yielding and I would never have been able to match the two personalities into one soul. But there were endl ...continued...

When he was in his early eighties, my father taught me about the possible depths of his love. I knew my parents had a fine relationship but I never realized how much my father adored my mother. There was little hint of his admiration and passion in their visible every day relationship. Only after my mother sank into Alzheimer’s did my grief-worn father reveal his immeasurable love. Oh he didn’t talk about his feelings: he was, after all, a WWII veteran and a man raised to stoically endure for the sake of his family. But he showed me his devotion every day. Lesson I: “Is ...continued...

Primary Care for Underserved Populations: Navigating Policy to Incorporate Occupational Therapy Into Federally Qualified Health Centers. Murphy, A. et al. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, Vol. 71, Jan 2017. http://ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=2599871 This article provided information about how people belonging to underserved populations, including minority groups and low-income people, have limited access to much needed occupational therapy services. Using a case example of a federally qualified health center serving American Indian/Alaska Native popul ...continued...

Chicken or Dare I have a history with chickens. Not a good history either. As a matter of fact, the appearance of a leg of chicken on my plate brings me flashbacks of a long ago visit to my great grandmother’s farm during one of our frequent trips to Smithville to visit. We called our great grandmother Ganny. Her real name was Zelma Lizzie Christine Franz Kunkel. My older cousin inspired the name Ganny since he was the oldest of our generation. There wasn’t anything magical abo ...continued...

I was born in London in 1952 to Irish born parents. They both came from Monkstown, a pretty village on Cork harbour about eight miles from Cork city. It was here that I spent my first twenty summers. This wonderful experience caused me to view Ireland through rose-tinted glasses for ever more. Before the opening of Cork airport, in 1961, our annual pilgrimage started on a train from Paddington Station, in London. It took us to Fishguard, a port on the Welsh coast. Then we boarded the Innisfallen ferry, which passed Monkstown on its way up the river Lee to the docks in Cork city. The first p ...continued...

Ariana felt the warm sand sliding between her toes, heard the distant crash of the water smashing on promontory rocks. Not for her the water's edge. The vastness of the ocean was a strange and fearful thing, and creatures lurked beneath it; she'd heard the sailors' tales when she worked the tavern houses and inns, and did not wish to find herself bewitched beneath the waves. And yet, her eyes kept straying there. So beautiful and savage was the sea. Swirling and surging now with a contained rage, blue and green and gray by turns, and powerful, flecked with the gold of a high mor ...continued...

Introduction I set about to clean out Mother’s house. In the spare bedroom, I opened the antique cabinet and drew out a stack of memorabilia. Halfway down the pile of old newspapers, I discovered a speckled brown ledger book with ragged edges. It crackled as I opened the yellowed pages. Each line contained a date and a comment on life in the 1880's. It was my great-grandfather Sanford’s diary. The more I read, the more I wanted to share Sanford’s story, rather than bury it in some safe place for another 119 years. The basic story line is true and the hi ...continued...

Every single day we have to setup our camp and get the dogs settled. Every day we look forward to sitting in our cold tent for some degree of warmth and relative relaxation warming water for drinking and mixing with our dehydrated meals. We realize it is still below zero in our tent (our water will freeze overnight if left in something uninsulated), but warmth at this point is relative, funny how that works. To create our little slice of the tropics here we of course need a tent, and to set our tents up, we have to use an evil little device called an ice screw. See, we cannot use ...continued...

Kansas 1886 Jason Cahill sat in front of his stone fireplace on a bitter cold January night, a medical book in his hands. But every few minutes he would glance up at the clock on the mantel. A minute later he looked sideways at the front door. “What is taking so long?” he murmured. At almost the same time he had spoken these words, there was a loud rap on the door. Jason stood up quickly and unlocked it. Outside, a full moon at their backs, two tall men in ankle-length coats and Stetsons waited. Between them they carried something long and heavy, concealed in a canvas bag. ...continued...

The Haunting of Leigh Maxwell By Esther Luttrell ONE The wind was starting to kick up, he noticed. Even though the old car provided a cocoon, protecting him from the elements, he was aware of the dip in temperature. It was colder than usual for so early in October. Trees surrounding the big plant where he worked were bending in the breeze, disappearing from sight when shreds of fog shifted across the woods. He hunched down further in the seat, pulling his wool jacket tighter around him. “She’s going to be late,” he said aloud to ...continued...

As a part of a division 1 college cross country team, I am true thankful for the opportunity that others could only wish for... Unfortunately, theres always a dark side to everything that happens in my life. As a freshman, I ran terribly. I was nervous, scared, and always depressed. I was varsity but with terrible times. I grew and matured as most college kids do and by my sophomore year I was leading the team. I consistently ran in the low 19s and led the team with an iron will to win. The down side is that my coach despises me because I am not the type of athlete who sucks up or lays at some ...continued...

Last night after we made the blog post we had CP and Maher to our tent for some freeze dried dinner. It is quiet here at night when the dogs are sleeping. Suddenly we hear a massive noise. It sounded to me like a building being demolished. Mark says with an alarmed voice that he thinks he hears water rushing. We agree. The guides move fast and head outside the tent. Mark and I sit awaiting news. We suspect at the time that a massive lead opened up. The guides returned to report that they could not see anything but it was definitely the ice moving. We finish dinner and go to bed. We woke ...continued...

I regard the Hi-B bar to be a family gem. It must be treasured, jealously guarded and passed down the generations. Established in 1923 and originally named The Hibernian, my father must have been a patron of this establishment since its first beginnings. He was born in 1897 and spoke fondly of his time spent here, sometimes before and after a visit to Cork opera house. In the 1930’s he moved to England with the Ford motor company but a visit to the Hi-B was a mandatory part of our annual summer pilgrimage back to Cork. The Hi-B is situated on the first floor of the junction of Oliver ...continued...

Out-back in the Wallangie Bush by Pamela Boles Eglinski The sign read CLOSE THE GATE BEHIND YOU. I heard the telltale click and knew I’d entered another world – the Australian bush country. A small caravan of off-road four-wheel drives labored over parallel ruts in the red earth. “Easy to get lost if you fall behind,” Charlie said, pulling hard on the wheel, trying to skirt a jagged mound of rock. From the back seat, I sucked in air and held tight to the handgr ...continued...