Floured Hands

Thanksgiving recipes and Moore County memories

By Jan Leitschuh

Holiday and family memories are so often shaped by food. 

The smells of baking pies, ham, turkey and all the sides, a whiff of browning biscuits or cornbread, the sight of the sideboard stuffed with good things to eat — these things can whisk us right back to an earlier time, to loved ones no longer with us, to new bonds with those with whom we now celebrate.

One of my Southern husband’s earliest memories is seeing his Grandma Miller cut out biscuits on the floured surface of an old oak table. She used an old orange juice can to get the perfect cut. He now owns that old oak table. The memories are his connection to an earlier generation. But Grandma Miller’s favorite biscuit recipe is gone.

A new cookbook preserves the memories of Moore County meals past. Gathered from the clean-out of a 200-year-old home, added to by Sandhills women with recipe collections dating back 70 years, the new cookbook brings together older family recipes from the women of our community.

“We had Christmas lunch at one grandmother’s, and Christmas dinner at another, with two or three cakes on the sideboard, pies, cookies and the meats . . . turkey and Scottish lamb,” recalls Patti Burke of Carthage. “That picture you see when you walked into your grandmother’s, where the desserts were alluring, and you wanted to eat those first.”

The community cookbook, Generations of Floured Hands, recalls a slower-paced time, one with women in the kitchen, men on the land, food made from scratch with simple ingredients. It recalls family gatherings on Sunday, after church, or the kind of meals we generally make today only for the holidays or special family occasions. 

Food ties memories and generations together. “That’s when you talk,” says Burke.

Sisters Burke and Mary Ruth Whitaker started cleaning out the old Blue house five years ago, when their mother died. “The family has been in the house for 200 years,” said Burke. “And they kept everything. Everything!”

The sisters are the sixth generation to grow up on this land. “This land” is the very pretty Highlanders Farm off Highway 22, near Carthage. Their ancestor, River Daniel Blue, voyaged from Scotland in 1800. He and his brothers boarded ships in the Old World to start anew, only to be separated when a storm blew his brothers off course to New York. There, they settled. Only River Daniel landed in North Carolina, to travel up the Cape Fear and into the Sandhills.  

In 1804, River Daniel settled in what is now the Blue family house, which still displays a framed land grant from the king. All River Daniel brought with him was a Scottish pot (now one of only two in the world), a Gaelic Bible and a trunk. “Generations lived in that house,” said Burke, caretaking the family history. “There’s even a teapot there from General Patton.”

In cleaning, Burke and her sister came upon a treasure trove of old family recipes. “My Grandmother Blue loved to cook; she lived on the farm, right behind us. At noon, she would watch this Lady Cook show and be writing these recipes down as they scrolled by.” The sisters enjoyed reading the scripts of meals past, in their mother’s and grandmother’s writing. And they found even older recipes, carefully saved. The recipes were much used, well-loved, often spotted with grease from buttery fingers. There were instructions on how to make “snuff,” and salt-rising bread.

The sisters took their finds to their local Extension Community Association (ECA) Club. ECA, formerly the old Home Demonstration Club, began in the late 1920s. Sponsored by the government’s Extension Services, the clubs quickly spread across the U.S. and were designed to assist women in “making” a home. 

“ECA was very popular once,” said Burke. “There were 66 clubs in Moore County at one time. The women didn’t work outside the home, and this was their social life, a chance to gather with other women. The purpose was to learn home skills, how to make mattresses, curtains, things to build a more quality life.”

Besides homemaking, the clubs worked up a head of steam for needed community projects. “They worked for healthy children, vaccinations; they wanted to improve family life,” said Burke. “And I think they wanted a purpose; they wanted to have a voice. This way they joined together and were stronger than being at home alone. And they were instrumental in a lot of things in Moore County. They were responsible for the first lunches in school — they brought in home-canned tomatoes at the start. They were instrumental in getting the first libraries.” 

ECA Clubs declined as women began to go off to work. “And there are lots of service-type clubs now, where before there weren’t,” said Burke. “So I think it splintered.”

ECA still survives locally, in a smaller fashion. Patti Burke keeps going because of her mother, and also “because it brings together different, interesting people you might not otherwise meet.”  PS

Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

Goody Pouch

Invite a marsupial to Thanksgiving

By Ray Linville

Four years ago on an obviously very undemanding day, the N.C. state legislature decided that we needed an official marsupial. In case you don’t remember middle school science class, a marsupial is a mammal whose babies are born incompletely developed.

The mother carries them initially in a pouch on her belly where they suckle. If asked for an example of a marsupial, you’d probably identify the kangaroo. But kangaroos live in Australia, not here. Isn’t there a better marsupial that relates to our area?

Do you remember the old Pogo comic strip drawn by Walt Kelly? Although it was discontinued years ago, it still resonates in our regional culture. Kelly was a master of social and political satire, and he crafted Pogo to express acerbic ideas and dispense uncommon wisdom such as, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Occasionally you can still find Pogo artifacts and mementos in antique shops and novelty stores. Then you remember that Pogo is not your typical mammal. He’s an opossum, or as most locals say — possum — the only marsupial in our area, actually in all of North America.

Because a possum has 50 teeth, “grinning like a possum” has been a term used for generations. “Playing possum,” another regional expression, refers to how the animal faces danger by pretending to be asleep, sometimes for up to four hours.

When Europeans and Africans arrived on our shores five centuries ago, they considered the possum such a strange creature. Captain John Smith was typical in his bewilderment. A year after being in Jamestown, he described the possum as having a head like a swine, a tail like a rat, and the “bigness” of a cat.

Because possums are nocturnal, you probably haven’t seen one recently (except for Pogo replicas). However, when you’re working in your garden or walking through the woods, you can appreciate their diligence: a single possum can eat 4,000 ticks a week. Think about that when Lyme disease is discussed in the news.

If you have seen a possum recently, it was probably on the side of a highway, what we call roadkill. In fact, isn’t that the usual image of a possum? Roadkill?

But earlier generations wouldn’t have confused the tasty possum for roadkill. In fact, Grandma probably had a recipe for “Sweet Taters and Possum Meat.” When the Rhythm Rockers recorded a song with that title, maybe they were thinking about their favorite Thanksgiving meal by their grandmothers.

Although your family may not have served possum this fall (at least not yet), let your imagination run wild and think about previous generations. What do you think was put in a pot as game meat and flavored stews? If rabbit and squirrel were added to Brunswick stew, why not possum?

Fortunately today the federal government dictates what must be in Brunswick stew — at least two meats and one has to be poultry. Of course, nothing specifies what to include as the second meat (or exclude). Maybe next time, you should ask.

Even the White House has served possum. No joke. You have to go back more than 100 years to find the president who was the biggest fan of possum meat: the 27th, William Howard Taft.

Taft was treated to a banquet with 100 fat possums (served with sweet potatoes, naturally) before his inauguration. At his first White House Thanksgiving, he served a 26-pound possum. Perhaps that explains why he was a one-term president.

Do you want to serve a novel dish to your family or guests? Perhaps the N.C. General Assembly is right — we not only need an official state marsupial, it needs to be on our table this Thanksgiving.  PS

Ray Linville writes about Southern food, history and culture.

The Neighbor’s Pears

The last of the pears dot the neighbor’s

yard, their taut green skins giving way

to brownish pulp. Yellow leaves flung

from wind-tossed branches scud across

our lawns like golden clouds — the sun’s

slim rays a decoration, a bit of gilding

with no real warmth. It seems the time

has come when all of life seeks its place

before the soil hardens beneath a skein

of frost and pale blue skies turn gray.

Even pear trees go dormant, dreaming

of budburst and blossoms — little green

bells swinging again, from every limb.

— Terri Kirby Erickson

Be Thankful

It only takes a moment

By Karen Frye

Every day, take time to be grateful for the good things in your life as if this is a prescription for your well-being. Make it a daily routine — before you get out of bed each morning is a good time to start. Or sit outside for a few minutes and go over the things in your life that you appreciate. If I don’t have the time before I leave in the morning, I’ll practice while driving to work. Find what works best for you, and make it a daily event.

Be grateful for what you have — family, friends, pets, good health, a beautiful day, the flowers in the spring, the opportunities awaiting us each day, all the little things that we often don’t think much about.

It does not matter how much strife you have in your life. The stress, the challenges that may seem unbearable are all the more reason to adopt this daily practice. After a few weeks, it’ll be like brushing your teeth: You don’t even think about it, you just do it. You will need to be patient in the process, but when the outcome appears you will be pleased.

Focusing our thoughts on gratitude daily, and giving thanks for what’s happening in our lives can bring personal growth that can transform times of worry and strife to experiences that bring happiness and love. Gratitude can boost mental and physical health, improve sleep, and create a better sense of well-being. Staying positive even improves heart health and immune function.

When you focus on what’s good in your life, rather than dwelling on everything that is not, you become more open to receive greater goodness in the future. A good idea is to start a gratitude journal. Each day write 10 things that you are grateful for in that moment. This will help you stay aware of the blessings in your life, and more good will come to you.

Open your heart to love daily, even when life challenges you. Whatever the situation, find something to appreciate about the experience. Practicing thoughts of gratitude can shift the outcome of your day and ultimately your life.

Don’t wait until Thanksgiving to begin being thankful. It takes only a few minutes a day. Start right now, and in a few weeks you will begin to realize how wonderful your life is.  PS

Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

New Drinking Toys

Before the holiday rush, treat yourself to a spirited gift or two

By Tony Cross

It’s official: Black Friday approaches. Everything on the airwaves and Interweb will be screaming Christmas, and your pockets will bleed out all of your money for your family and loved ones. Even though the commercials start earlier each year, Black Friday truly marks the first day of the month for insanity. Recently, I’ve acquired some new spirits, mixers and toys; I’d like to share some of them with you. Buy these for yourselves before you run out of money spending it on others.

Wintersmiths Ice Chest

When I first got into cocktailing, I read a lot. I mean, a lot. I had no other bartenders to guide me through the basics, so the internet, GQ articles from David Wondrich, and a book from the head barmen at Employee’s Only in New York City were my mentors. In the latter, one of the first topics in the Speakeasy book was devoted to ice. On first read, I thought, “This is a bunch of pretentious garbage.” The authors described how important ice is . . . as in it’s the most important ingredient in your cocktail. After rolling my eyes, I finished the chapter, and decided that I wouldn’t knock it until I tried it.

Of course, they were right. Having terrible ice will make a great cocktail just OK, or not good at all. Case in point: I have a friend who lived in a home in Whispering Pines. It was a lovely house, but every time I’d come over and bring my goody bag to make drinks, I’d always bring my own ice. The water in her house reeked of sulfur. I felt terrible for her dogs’ drinking water; it was that bad. If I used the ice from her fridge, for even a simple Moscow Mule, the water would dilute into the Mule mix, and it would make me spit out my drink. Guaranteed.

Other (big) reasons ice is important is shape and size. Crushed ice is ideal for juleps and tiki-style drinks, but you wouldn’t want it in your whiskey on the rocks. By now, I’m sure most of you have seen spherical ice served in rocks glasses for cocktails and whiskey. I’ve got the molds to make them; they’re pretty much everywhere (sometimes Southern Whey has them), and you can definitely grab some online. I’ve made them plenty, but more important, I’ve tried to make them come out crystal clear. Why? When they’re cloudy, it’s because gas is trapped inside the ice. That causes your ice to melt faster, and gives it a higher chance of breaking inside your glass. I’ve tried different methods of achieving clear ice. I’ve boiled water to freeze, double-boiled water to freeze, used high-quality water, and stacked my molds covering up the soon-to-be cubes but I never perfected one single see-through piece of ice, cubed or sphere. Until now. Thanks to Instagram, I saw a comment from a lady who makes fantastic cocktails (and has gorgeous pictures of them to boot). She was marveling about her spherical icemaker. Wintersmiths Ice Chest is a total do-it-yourself ice maker that gives your cocktails the elegance you’d otherwise get from a craft cocktail lounge. Just fill up the container with water (distilled preferably, but not necessarily), put in the top piece, and put it in your freezer. Twenty-four hours later, you’ll have crystal clear spheres.

B.G. Reynolds Passion Fruit Tropical Syrup

I am a big fan of making everything from scratch when it comes to syrups for drinks. Making these by hand usually means it will taste better. Grenadine, orgeat, tonic — these are a few of the many that I’d rather make myself than spend at the store or online. Once you’ve figured out a good recipe, it’s hard to find a bottle of syrup on the shelf that can top your own. There are some exceptions, and this is one of them. I was recently asked to create a Hurricane cocktail to carbonate and put on draft for the new Longleaf Country Club. I was excited to add my own grenadine to the mix with a blend of rums (including Fair Game Beverage Co.’s Amber Rum). I wasn’t, however, too stoked on doing passion fruit syrup. Time was of the essence, and I knew that I might not have enough time to perfect a syrup that I’ve never tinkered with. Luckily for me, I remembered seeing a Hurricane recipe from NOLA bartender Chris Hannah. In it, he uses someone else’s passion fruit syrup. I ordered it immediately to give it a try, and was happy when it arrived in the mail. I hope you’ll be as pleased as we are. At home, you can use this sweet and tangy syrup for bartender Jim Meehan’s Mezcal Mule recipe:
3 cucumber slices

3/4 ounce lime juice

1 1/2 ounces Vida Mezcal

1/2 ounce agave syrup

3/4 ounce passion fruit syrup

3 ounces ginger beer (I’ve heard you can pick up a growler of homemade ginger beer over at Nature’s Own)

Muddle cucumber slices and lime juice in a copper mug or rocks glass. Add mezcal and syrups. Add ice, and top with ginger beer.

Pikesville Straight Rye Whiskey

I picked up this big boy from the ABC store in Chapel Hill (the one formerly in front of Whole Foods, but now located around the corner at the Food Lion plaza). One of the gentlemen who works there recommended this whiskey out of the two that I picked up (clearly unfamiliar with both). He told me it was phenomenal, and he was right. This is almost the way mezcal is the older brother to tequila. It has a ton of wood and spice. If you’re new to rye whiskey, I’d suggest starting with either Old Overholt (very soft, and smooth for a rye), or Rittenhouse (a great bang for your buck rye, with an appropriate amount of spice). Try the Pikesville Rye in this 1890s’ version of a Manhattan. I’ll be pouring these at this year’s Sandhills Community College Culinary Fundraiser.

Manhattan

(credit to The Only William’s 1892 book, cited by David Wondrich in 2007)

2 ounces Pikesville Straight Rye Whiskey

1 ounce Carpano Antica

1 barspoon Luxardo Maraschino liqueur

1 barspoon absinthe

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Combine all ingredients in a chilled mixing vessel. Stir for 50 revolutions (or at least, I do), and then strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. You can garnish with real Luxardo cherries, but I prefer a swath of a lemon peel. Santé! PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

Remembering Sgt. Frye

A young man gone too soon

By Bill Fields

Even without the stories in the morning paper and the footage on the evening news, if you lived on the east side of town during the late 1960s, it wasn’t hard to figure out that America was at war.

Periodically our house rattled, and not from one of my father’s major league sneezes. It was artillery practice at nearby Fort Bragg, lots of it, particularly after a good rain. The shelling happened so often it almost ceased to startle, but the vibrations left cracked plaster on our ceilings and walls.

If only the real scars of the Vietnam War could be handled with a fresh coat of paint.

That point was driven home in September as I watched The Vietnam War, the 10-part documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on PBS. I was mad and sad well before the end of those powerful 18 hours of television. And I wished, more than anything, that Gary Nelson Frye could have watched too.

Born as World War II was ending, Frye also grew up in a house on the east side of town. He was a neighbor, a teenager when I was born. His mother, Mary O’Callaghan, was a family friend who for years sent me a birthday card and a couple of dollars. Gary went to East Southern Pines High School with my sisters. He was in the Class of 1964. For a time after graduating, he worked at the Proctor-Silex plant, where my father also had a job.

A little more than a year after he got his high school diploma, Frye enlisted in the Army on his 20th birthday. A year after that, as he turned 21 on August. 20, 1966, he was sent to Vietnam.

Frye hadn’t been there three months when he showed what kind of soldier — what kind of man — he was. On a search and destroy mission near Bong Son on Oct. 28, 1966, his unit was attacked. A radio-telephone operator with an artillery party, Frye called in accurate supressive fire.

According to his Silver Star citation, this is what happened next.

“… with complete disregard for his own safety, [Frye] raced forward under intense enemy fire to aid a wounded comrade. Finding the man mortally wounded, Private First Class Frye moved under fire to another casualty, carried the soldier to a covered position, then helped the company Aidman administer first aid …”

He earned another Silver Star for bravery, this time for running through enemy fire to direct supporting artillery and helping defend his platoon when it was trapped for nearly a full day.

Frye volunteered to extend his time serving in Vietnam after a year. In May 1968, he had been in Southeast Asia 20 months and was due to come home to Southern Pines in a month. On May 19, in the A Shau Valley — scene of some of the worst fighting  during the conflict and described in Part 6 of the Burns-Novick documentary — Frye was killed in action by an explosion.

Sgt. Frye was 22. I was a week from turning 9, and I went with Mom and Dad to see his mother after his death. She had moved out of the neighborhood and was living in an apartment downtown above Pope’s. It was a small place, full of folks paying their respects. Some of the male callers, like my dad, were veterans of a war that had a clearer purpose.

I wasn’t old enough to understand it all, but that space overflowed with grief exacerbated by the fact Gary was so close to returning to the U.S. when he was killed. I was old enough to understand some heroes don’t get the gift of years. Until my father became terminally ill a decade later, it was the most sobering event in my life.

As I grew up and began to read books on Vietnam — works by Graham Greene, Michael Herr, David Halberstam, Tim O’Brien, Neil Sheehan and others — Frye was in my mind, long after some of his fellow soldiers knocked on his mother’s door with the worst news, long after the rumblings of the war that claimed him stopped reverberating in the neighborhood. 

Sgt. Gary Frye is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, and his name is one of nearly 60,000 American names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Thirty years ago or so on a visit to Washington, I located him on that wall. I stood there for a good long while, crying in the fresh air the way people were crying in that stuffy apartment two decades before, tears that did not come with answers.   PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

Words to Ponder

David McCullough’s speeches deliver gentle sermons on the American character

By Stephen E. Smith

“If we are beset by problems,” David McCullough wrote in a 1994 commencement address, “we have always been beset by problems. There never was a golden time past of smooth sailing only.”

McCullough’s The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For has arrived in bookstores at an opportune moment. Whatever your political persuasion, there’s little doubt that we’re in need of inspiring words that suggest where we go from here — and David McCullough is superbly qualified to point us in the right direction. He’s the recipient of Pulitzer Prizes for Truman and John Adams, National Book Awards for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback, and he’s the author of 12 bestselling popular histories. Moreover, McCullough doesn’t shrink from his responsibility as a forward-looking historian, reminding us in his introduction that we live in a time of uncertainty and contention and that we need to recall who we are and what we stand for and “. . .the importance of history as an aid to navigation in such troubled, uncertain times.”

To that end, The American Spirit is a collection of 15 chronologically arranged speeches delivered by McCullough over a 25-year period, most of them college commencement addresses or remarks offered at the anniversaries and the rededications of monuments and historic structures such as the White House, the Capitol, and Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia. Using these ceremonies as a platform, McCullough focuses on the contributions of the famous and near famous — John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, Simon Willard, James Sumner, John Quincy Adams, Margaret Chase Smith and JFK — whose spirit and commitment to the nation helped shape our moral core.

McCullough is a believer in the Great Man theory, a biographical approach to history that offers access to a wealth of the inspiring words spoken by the founding fathers and their intellectual descendants. Quotes, memorable and repeatable as they are, are the stuff of thought-provoking commencement speeches — Stephen Hopkins, who suffered from palsy, scrawled his signature to the Declaration, saying, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not”; Margaret Chase Smith stood up to Joseph McCarthy by announcing that she didn’t want to see the Republican Party achieve political victory through “fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear”; physician and patriot Benjamin Rush reminded his fellow citizens that they were in need of “candor, gentleness, and a disposition to speak with civility and to listen with attention to everybody”; and John Adams offered a simple, timely truth: “. . . facts are stubborn things.”

Predictable themes emerge from the collection — the importance of education, the significance of history, the impact of language, and the value of selective reading — and McCullough brings up the oft repeated assertion that we’re raising a generation of ill-informed Americans who are historically illiterate and that it’s imperative that we redouble our efforts to teach our citizens to value their forebears.

But the strength of these essays is also their weakness. Commencement addresses and most dedication speeches are essentially mildly annoying sermons, timely reminders of the better citizens we ought to be. Americans, unfortunately, have a long tradition of ignoring good advice (jurist Clarence Darrow claimed that no American is absolutely sure he’s correct unless the vast majority is against him). On the other hand, McCullough’s faithful readers will find reinforcement and encouragement in his lofty words. He’s most persuasive, and insofar as preaching to the choir is productive, these speeches succeed admirably.

Not all the essays are straightforwardly instructive. In a 2007 address at Lafayette College, McCullough emphasizes the bonds that have long existed between Americans and the French, connections that are often overlooked in a world where the French chart an impartial course. (We may have changed “French fries” to “freedom fries” when the French claimed Iraq had no WMDs, but events proved them correct.) He reminds readers that the Marquis de Lafayette and the French military were instrumental in winning our struggle for independence and that 80,000 Americans died in France during World War I and 57,000 during World War II. “Time and again,” McCullough writes, “Paris changed their [young Americans’] lives and thus hugely influenced American art, American literature, music, dance, and yes, American science, technology and medicine.”

In a 1994 commencement address at the University of Pittsburgh, McCullough proposed that the university take responsibility for rehabilitating the inner-city, working to eliminate drug addiction, violent crime, racial tensions, illiteracy, homelessness, and the cycle of poverty — the selfsame problems that trouble the country still. “And why not let it begin here in Pittsburgh,” McCullough said, “this city of firsts, with the University of Pittsburgh leading the way?”

Taking a purely cynical view, it will no doubt occur to readers that The American Spirit will make a thoughtful birthday, holiday or graduation gift, and that McCullough and/or the publisher are in it for the money. After all, the book’s contents were written long before we found ourselves in our present dilemma. But it’s more likely that readers who carefully consider McCullough’s words will take the book in the generous spirit in which it’s offered. As McCullough writes: “Yes, we have much to be seriously concerned about, much that needs to be corrected, improved, or dispensed with. But the vitality and creative energy, the fundamental decency, the tolerance and insistence on truth, and the good-heartedness of the American people are there still plainly.”  PS

Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press awards.

Oh My, Kevin

Just, and unjust, desserts

By Renee Phile

Kevin, my younger son, turns 9 this month, and to be honest, when I think of the first moments following his birth, the image that I most vividly recall was his wide, and I mean wide, open mouth and his head twisting from side to side. He was looking for food, that hefty 9-pound 4-ounce boy was, and he hasn’t stopped since.

Fast-forward a few years to when he was around 3 years old and going to a day care. It was Thanksgiving time, so the teachers threw the kids a party. Each child was given a cupcake slathered in brown icing with little eyes, a beak, and candy corn acting as turkey feathers. When I picked up Kevin that day, his teacher said she needed to have a word with me, that something needed to be discussed, that there was an issue. Oh no . . . I thought. What could he have done?

“Mrs. Phile,” she said, studying me above her glasses. “Kevin went into the bathroom quite suddenly and locked the door and was in there a long time. I was worried and waited a while, but then wanted to make sure he was OK. When I got him to open the door, I saw he had been eating two of the other children’s cupcakes, along with his own. His cheeks were full, and I could smell it on his breath.”

Oh my. Images of the cupcake-less children flashed through my mind as I offered a measly apology. “I am so sorry. We will deal with this,” I assured her.

On the way home I tried to get an explanation from him. “Why would you eat the other kids’ cupcakes, Kevin?”

“Kevin ate Jazmine and Miguel’s cupcakes in da bafrroom,” he proclaimed.

“Yes, but why would you do that?”

“Kevin was hungwy.”

Oh my. I didn’t know what was more troubling, that he pilfered cupcakes or referred to himself in the third person.

A few months later I woke up one morning and stumbled out to the kitchen to make coffee and noticed, sitting on the counter, the previous night’s brownies, no longer covered with the plastic wrap. At closer glance, I saw what looked like the markings of a wild animal pawing through them. Only mounds of brownie and scattered crumbs remained.

I saw brownie crumbs dotting the counter and trailing from the kitchen floor into the living room. I followed them . . . to the couch where I found a mound of something alive moving around under a blanket. I yanked the blanket to reveal the culprit. Kevin, cheeks full of brownie, eyes wide. Oh my.

Over the years the most common questions out of Kevin’s mouth are, “Can I have dessert? When is dessert time? Can I have two desserts?” This kid thinks he needs dessert after every meal, even breakfast, even if breakfast is chocolate chip pancakes. One evening I suggested the sweet potato counted as dessert. No deal.

The other day my friend Alison took Kevin out to Dairy Queen for a tasty treat. He ordered a mini funnel cake with a side of vanilla ice cream, topped with caramel, hot fudge and whipped cream. The young man taking the order looked a little confused. This particular item wasn’t even listed on the menu, but after a short conversation with another employee, the two decided that this magic could happen.

“Is this what you wanted, buddy?” the young man asked as he placed the treat in front of Kevin.

“Yes!” Kevin’s brown eyes danced.

So, it’s Kevin’s ninth birthday this month, and he has had his cake picked out since, well, February. He wants a vanilla and strawberry Minecraft cake with extra blue and green icing.

Any type icing is fine, Mom, I just need extra icing, that’s all.  PS

Renee Phile loves being a mom, even if it doesn’t show at certain moments.

Farewell to the Yankees

A Southerner loses that lovin’ feelin’

By Susan S. Kelly

A love affair of 55 years is coming to an end. All the symptoms are there: the nitpicking, the tetchiness, the gradual disaffection, even annoyance. Plus the self-searching question — Is it really worth it? — and the go-to from Ann Landers: Am I better off with or without him?

The romance began when I was around 7, and discovered among the Lifes and Times a magazine with a colorful cover drawn or painted — not photographed — with pictures I understood: beach scenes, city scenes, seasonal scenes. Scenes with dogs or kites or sailboats. Most surprisingly of all, there were cartoons inside. Cartoons in an adult magazine?

I was raised on the cartoons, on hardback collections of Peter Arno and Charles Addams and George Booth cartoons. When my parents had parties, I was allowed to eat Spaghettios in the kitchen and pored over those collections so long that I memorized them, and automatically use the punch lines in situations — Put us in the rear, we’re bound to make a scene, and Boo, you pretty creature! — and no one has the slightest idea where the non sequitur came from. When my sisters and I divided items before our family home was sold, the flatware sat there unnoticed while we eyed each other over who would choose the cartoon our father had framed and hung in our swimming pool dressing room: Do you realize there are hundreds of little girls who’d be happy to have a pool they had to clean?

I’m speaking, of course, of The New Yorker.

I have read The New Yorker, or at least parts of it, since I was old enough to read. As with any long-term relationship, we “went on a break,” in today’s parlance, during the partying years of college. But Nancy Bryan Faircloth of Greensboro’s own Bryan family, who saw a future writer in me, gave me a subscription at 20, which continued until her death, by which time I had been mainlining the mag so long that I re-upped and upped and upped. I’ve read The New Yorker on the treadmill and road trips and vacations and by the fire and by the club pool when my children were swimming and friends thought I was deeply weird.

I wallpapered my first apartment bathroom in its covers, as one does when in love. I framed the covers and hung them, checkerboard-like, over the sofa. I have poster-sized prints of a pair of covers (William Steig, illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth), beautifully framed and hanging in my daughter’s bedroom.

I have gone to hear speakers based on their articles and stories in The New Yorker, including Calvin Trillin at UNCG. I’ve searched the internet for photographs of its writers (especially the cartoonists). I’ve sat in an otherwise depressing Algonquin Hotel lobby to see if the scalawag wits of the Round Table would speak to me. I’ve written an outraged letter to the editor — How dare you overlook a typo in a John Updike story? I’ve turned down hundreds of pages to look up vocabulary words, scissored sections for my To Keep Forever file, sought out books by and biographies about its writers, from E. B. White to J.D. Salinger and even the editor who decided where the commas belonged. Based on its reviews, I’ve gone to see movies that make me even weirder in the eyes of my friends, and endured my husband’s thinly veiled scorn for the magazine’s self-superiority. I’ve submitted stories — a truly laughable exercise in futility for a publication that receives some 300 submissions a day — perhaps just to get the rejection slip to tack on my bulletin board beside another cartoon; this one of a fellow speaking into a phone: “How about never? Is never good for you?”

And I’ve learned so much. About Shakespeare and sand. About Spanx and Zappos. About Stephen Sondheim and Willa Cather and chefs and foragers and long-distance swimmers and celebrities and scientists and what happens to unsold books. Personal histories about summer camp or losing a child or aging or writing, the tragic childhoods of aristocrats — wide-ranging and informative with a dose of human interest. Topics that appeal to the essentially voyeuristic personality of a writer, or someone who’s pretty good at Jeopardy!

And therein lie the reasons for the thinning of devotion, the dissolution of loyalty, the slow, painful, deliberate bust-up with the mother lode of linguistic perfection. More and more, the beloved covers have morphed to political caricatures and cartoons rather than sprightly, witty, whimsical art. Inside are articles about child soldiers and genocides and uprisings and corrupt leaders and terrorist strategy and the judicial system and failing — well, everything. So that, like texts that go unanswered in contemporary romances, two and three unread issues pile up, where they once were eagerly devoured. Glad anticipation has been replaced with relief, when an issue arrives with zero articles I want to read.

Ever heard this one? “You’re just not fun anymore.”

And so, goodbye luminous literary stars. Goodbye cartoons. Goodbye big words. Instead of a bang or a whimper, there’s just this variation on a Dear John: Dear The New Yorker, No need to renew my subscription. But I’ll never forget you.  PS

Susan Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and proud new grandmother.

Mystery Men and Women

Sexy and secretive Scorpio vamps it up in November

By Astrid Stellanova

Sugar, here’s wishing all your champagne and caviar birthday wishes will come true. For starters, Dynasty is returning to the airways, checking at least one box for you. Scorpio is all about mystery, vamping and tramping. Everybody wants to date or be a sexy Scorpio at some point. And yet, think about how much we really know about even very public Scorpios . . . Julia Roberts, Katy Perry, Matthew McConaughey, Kathy Griffin, Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton are Scorpios. — Ad Astra, Astrid

Scorpio (October 23–Novetmber 21)

You haven’t wasted time this year; but you can’t get it back either. So don’t bother wishing you were younger, better looking, or had the body of an Olympic skater. Like Grandpa said, don’t we all wish we could be like a load of laundry and spin in the dryer to get rid of our wrinkles and shrink a few sizes? But you can realize you are one of the lucky ones, possessing your own teeth, both kidneys, and more class and sass than ought to be allowed. Mystery is not your whole history, Sweet Thing.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

Are you kidding me right now? Don’t question yourself. Colonel Sanders had his finger-lickin’ chicken, but you have your own secret recipe. Yours is a finely tuned sense of intuition, and it is right on the money. Change your passwords, hide your money and don’t trust the very person you know you shouldn’t trust with your deep dark secrets.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

You get your revenge. And Honey, it feels so good, like sitting in a tub of Cool Whip after a bad sunburn. But you will have to move on with your fine life and let it go. That double crosser won’t double-cross you again, but ask yourself if you wouldn’t be better off high-tailing it on out, and getting yourself into a new circle of trust.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

You had a breakthrough and took a stand that needed taking, Sugar. But Lordy, Nancy Grace, just reel that self-righteous anger back in a little. By this time you are reading this, everybody that mistook your good nature for being a fool has figured out only the first part is true.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

Yes, you won it hard and square, Sweetheart. But your windfall of cold hard cash had the effect of making your heart harden up faster than a pan of hot lard. It is possible to be frugal and also to help those who need it. Compromise a little and you will be rich in ways that matter.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

A straightjacket is not your best fashion statement. You’ve always had a knack for spotting trends, being the first and making others follow. But look behind you, Darling. Nobody’s there. It doesn’t matter so much how you look as how fulfilled you are, and right now you know you’re a quart low on fulfillment.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

Jack Daniel’s said you could dance, just like it said you could do a lot of things. At least the glass was half full, Honey. When the line dancing ended, everybody had to agree you outdid yourself. Sometimes you just have to fly your freak flag and howl at the moon. No real harm done, Sugar.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

Scary to take a long, hard look at yourself, right? Sometimes it’s like visualizing your skinny cousin Oscar wearing a hot dog bun. But being truthful and vulnerable is a good thing, and you are right to ask yourself if you are being true to yourself in your current situation. Don’t let yourself settle for a scenario that doesn’t honor your true self.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

Mr. Sun and Mrs. Moon might have been your parents. Now, you are having an eclipse of your own. You helped someone and they somehow managed to cut in line in front of you. You are going to learn from this, recover, and they will make amends. Honestly. You’ll be basking in the sunlight and the moonlight.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Attitude? Honey, you might want to chill. Lately, you make Leona Helmsley look like a GoFundMe charity organizer. Something got into you and all the state and half of Georgia knows it, too. You have bigger things to attend to, and after an attitude adjustment you’ll be sitting in the butter — and not alone.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

Cool your heels, Darling, and let time wound all heels. Seriously, karma is reckoning with someone who took credit for your work. Whistle while you work and never let ’em see you sweat. Because very, very soon, they will. In the meantime, an escape from your worries is needed. Don’t ignore your health.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

You don’t need a whip. But a carrot would help your motivation, Honey Bun. Everybody thinks you are self-sufficient but you are like the rest of us — a kind word helps you feel your life is on track. Trouble is, the person you want approval from is not catching your drift. Hang on, hang in and don’t sweat it.  PS

For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.