Mr. Lesley Cooks

Service Dogs

A wonderful thing happened to me last weekend while I was down on the floor checking out the bottom shelf of a display at A. C. Moore for an art lamp that Lesley needed. Two ladies came down the aisle accompanied by a very large (are there any other kind?) Great Dane. The doggie came over and licked my face as I was struggling to my feet. Indicating her dog, one of the ladies told me that, “She can help you get up.”

And I’ll be damned if this wasn’t the biggest, friendliest service dog I have ever seen. And she had an official Service Dog badge on to prove it. A big badge. To match the rest of her.

When you are very young or at the other end of the life spectrum you find that arms are better at pulling than legs are at pushing when you find yourself on the floor, so I just grabbed onto that wonderful animal and pulled myself up. I tried to tell the three females how much I appreciated the help, but one of the ladies said that her dog was just doing her job.

I was behind them in the checkout line and we were all telling the cashier, a teenager, that the service dog had helped me get up. The young girl thought for a minute and said, “How? She doesn’t have any thumbs.”

You just can’t make these stories up. They have to be true.

I checked out service dogs on the internet and according to what I found, it looks like all you have to do is get a doctor to say that you meet some ADA disability standard or other, grab yourself a nice dog and “train” him, and you have a companion who can go everywhere with you. You know there are even psychiatric service dogs for folks who have trouble coping with people and are OK with dogs. This certainly makes sense to me.

Lesley says I can’t use Clancy because he is shy and too old. Lucy won’t hold me and there is no point in considering little Bennie. But I am filing this info away and making plans for the future when I have even more trouble getting back up off the floor.

It just seems a lot better to whistle for a dog than to whine about how I have fallen and can’t get up.

And speaking of chicken….

 

 

Jalapeno Roasted Chicken

Jalapeno paste:

1/2 cup packed fresh oregano leaves or 1/3 cup dried oregano

1 shallot, peeled and roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 jalapenos, stemmed and seeded

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Chicken:

1(5 1/2-pound) roasting chicken

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 shallots, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 cups chicken broth, plus more if needed

3/4 cup dry white wine or 1/3 cup white wine vinegar

Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Special equipment: 1 roasting pan with rack.

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the oregano, shallot, garlic, butter, 2 tablespoons olive oil, the jalapeno, salt and pepper and process to form a coarse paste.

Pat the chicken dry and then put it, breast side up, on a rack in a large roasting pan. Using your fingers, loosen the skin from the chicken breast, legs, and thighs without detaching it. Spread half of the jalapeno paste under the skin. Put the rosemary and the shallots in the cavity of the chicken. Tie the chicken legs together with kitchen twine. Spread the remaining jalapeno paste all over the exterior of the chicken.

Pour the chicken broth and wine or wine vinegar into the roasting pan. Tent the chicken in foil and roast it for 1-1/2 hours, basting with the pan juices every 20 minutes, adding more broth to the pan if it begins to dry out. Remove foil and continue roasting and basting until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the innermost part of the chicken thigh, without touching the bone, registers 180 degrees F, about another hour. Remove the roast chicken from the oven, tent it in foil and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Arrange the chicken on a platter and serve.

 

Tom

Beans or Bust

On our way back from Art and Soul in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, we stopped for the night in a small town in northwestern Arizona.  I’m sure it had a name, but it was pretty late and I don’t remember.

The innkeeper, a somewhat humorless lady, wanted to make sure that we were good enough to stay in her motel and asked, “How many of you are there?  Do you have any pets?”  Then I found out that there was a $110 “fine” that had to be paid in the event of pets.  I never heard of a motel that charged fines before.  She also mentioned that the only other car parked in the lot was also from Virginia, but “he is headed the other way.”  I guess it’s OK to have two parties from the same out of state staying there if they are going in opposite directions.

While I somehow passed an exam that seemed tougher than some airports I’ve been in, Lesley and Adele had waited anxiously in the car for snoring time to begin.

We finally got to our room to discover, posted on the door, the names of famous or maybe semi-famous people who had slept there.  I didn’t recognize anyone on our door, but I did notice that the actor who had played Timmy on the “Lassie” TV show in the 50s had slept in the room next to us.

As Lesley propped a chair against the door (It seemed kind of flimsy to her), I read the sign on the inside of the door that told of a checkout time of exactly 11AM and anyone who left later than that would be charged for an extra day.  Right above that was another notice that the management checked the room both before and after any lodgers stayed there and that they would not only find out if anything was missing, but, since they had both your driver’s license number and the license number of your vehicle, they would make sure the authorities knew if you were guilty.

It’s been several weeks since we left and the lack of a police knock on our door must be evidence that if we took anything we were not supposed to that we didn’t get caught.  I hope that either Timmy not was arrested or that Lassie bailed him out with some dog biscuits.

Lesley was particularly fond of the cologne a former occupant must have used to saturate the bed spread.  I could have left a really great fragrance myself if I had eaten the beans I made the other night.  They were the best refried beans I ever made and maybe the best I ever et, as my grandma used to say.

 

 Another Refried Bean Recipe

 

2 lb dried pinto beans

1 lb smoked ham hock

1/2 lb salt pork

4 large onions, chopped

6 stalks celery, chopped

6 carrots, chopped

4 bay leaves

1 teaspoon or more hot pepper flakes

1 tablespoon or more granulated garlic

 

Soak pintos overnight in enough water to cover them by 3 inches.

Drain pintos and put in a 6-8 quart pot.  Cover with 1 inch of water.  If you don’t like a lot of salt, rinse the salt pork.  Add ham hock and salt pork, celery, carrots, bay leaves, and onions and red pepper.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 6-8 hours, until beans are falling apart.  Drain and set aside, saving the cooking liquid in another container.  Remove the bay leaves and ham hock, but leave the salt pork.

Return the beans, along with the remains of the other ingredients, into the pot.  Add 1-2 tablespoons of granulated garlic.  Add half a cup or cooking liquid.  Turn to medium heat and use a stick blender to puree the mixture.  Add more liquid if you need it or continue cooking if you have too much liquid. Correct seasonings.  Don’t use Beano or you will spoil the side effects!

Tom