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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Too Many Cooks

Cabbage rolls, “botulism stew” and Grandma’s garlic goof

Grandma’s garlic goof

Grandpa was a big, tall Irishman with a hearty appetite and booming voice. Shortly after they married, Grandma found a cookbook recipe for meatloaf that called for three cloves of garlic. Being from Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes with three officially approved spices (ketchup, salt and pepper), she didn’t know garlic from ganache.  

She combined all of the ingredients and baked the meatloaf just like the recipe said. When she and Grandpa sat down for dinner, he took one big hungry bite and bellowed, “Good God, Marie! What has you done?”

The moral of the story is you have to know the difference between a garlic bulb and a garlic clove. I think about this whenever I see a bin of garlic at the store because Grandma had used three entire bulbs of garlic in the meatloaf.

Liz Cox of Veradale

 

Botulism stew

After hours of peeling, slicing and dicing, I had finally finished my first attempt at what was to be canned stew.

But two weeks after gently placing each quart jar in the storage room, something was amiss. Lids were popping off, and a putrid odor was emanating from the jars.

Grabbing a couple of them, I marched up to my husband, who was perched in a horizontal position on the couch, watching “Star Trek.”

“There’s something wrong with this stew,” I told him. “I think it might have botulism. What should I do with it?”

Without hesitation or taking his eyes off the TV, he said, “Feed it to the dog.”

 I knew he didn’t like our dog, Pepper, but not to that drastic extent. I had heard boiling would kill botulism and figured a microwave would be sufficient to do the job. So I stuffed the jars in and turned it on.

 After the first minute of cooking the fumes were so ghastly they were burning my lungs and causing tears to roll down my face. I made a hasty exit.

Two minutes later, my husband burst out the door, choking and sputtering.  “What are you cooking?  It smells like someone died!”

 “Well, you said to feed it to the dog. I was just trying to kill the botulism!”

We quietly sat outside in the dark for 45 minutes, looking at the stars, waiting for our home to become habitable again.

I threw the jars away. After that, for as long as we lived in the house, we didn’t have to fumigate for bugs.

Jeanie Hyer of Nine Mile Falls

 

Cabbage rolls to dye for

When I was first married, I tried to make my mother’s Hungarian Cabbage Rolls. I was having a terrible time rolling them into neat little packages, so I called my mother in frustration and she assured me it would be easier as time went on. Meantime, she suggested using toothpicks to hold the rolls together. No problem – we had the pretty party variety.

The dye ran off the toothpicks, and we ended up with a very colorful dinner. We had red rolls, yellow rolls, green rolls. I think the blue were the least attractive.

Carol Gollin of Hope, Idaho

 

Under pressure

I was having a special birthday party for my husband and had planned to make his favorite dish: stuffed cabbages – just the way his mother made them.

I parboiled the cabbage. When tender, I cut out the cores, then mixed together the ground beef and pork, rice and other ingredients. Laying the cabbage leaves on the table, I began to fill and roll them. It smelled good in the kitchen already.

I brought in our very large pressure cooker and filled it two-thirds to the top with medium-size cabbage rolls. I added V-8 juice, cut tomatoes, flour and butter, and some seasonings on top. Sealing the lid nice and tight, I smiled in pure satisfaction, a job well done.

Mashed potatoes and a family favorite, chocolate pudding cake, would complete the meal. I placed the pressure cooker on medium heat and continued getting ready for the party.

After awhile, our oldest son joined me in the kitchen and began unloading the dishwasher next to the stove. I went over to check the pressure cooker and noticed a strange silence when there should have been a hissing sound. I backed away thinking about it, and – at that very moment – the pressure cooker exploded.

The top went through the overhead cabinets and the ceiling and ended in the attic. The bottom crushed the cabinets beneath. Hot cabbage covered the entire kitchen, my son and me.

My mother was outside, and I could hear her calling over and over, "Where is my daughter?" My husband rushed in, grabbed us and placed us in the shower to run cold water over our burns. Our neighbor, a Vietnam veteran, ran into the house to help.

Later, he said it sounded like a bomb exploding.

An ambulance took us to the hospital to be treated for burns, shock and damaged ear drums.

The damage to the house was quite extensive. The walls in three rooms had buckled and cracked. Pipes had been disconnected. The ceiling in three rooms had been lifted off the foundation. Steel window frames were bent outward from the pressure. Many other items were broken and damaged. At the time, the total repair cost nearly$20,000.

It was a long time before I made this special dish again. I used a regular pot, but make them again, I did. My mother-in-law would have been proud.

We have never forgotten this birthday, and the story has been passed down to the grandchildren.

And, guess what? My husband received an electric pressure cooker from our son and his wife for Christmas.

It's supposed to make wonderful stuffed cabbages.

Kathleen Pauley of Spokane Valley



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