Type or Write "Coleslaw" a Few Times, and You'll Wonder If It's Even the Right Word! It is - and here's why...

Do you ever write or type a word a couple of times, and then it begins to look really strange to you? This happens to me a lot. I start to wonder if I've spelled a word correctly, or if I'm even using the right word at all. 

I had thoughts like this a few weeks ago, as I was publishing a recipe for coleslaw. COLESLAW. The more I typed the word, I wondered, "Is this really right? Am I spelling it wrong?"

Then, I got to thinking, "Why is this grated cabbage and carrot salad called 'coleslaw' anyway?" I'd never before questioned this, but it is an unusual word.

So, of course, I googled it.

According to the website, Culinary Lore, this dish, originally called Koolsla, found its way to America from Holland in the late seventeenth or early eighteeth century. Kool in Dutch means cabbage and Americans eventually changed it to cole. Sla comes from the Dutch abbreviation of the word salad. (Salad in Dutch is salade.)

Some people used to think the name was not coleslaw but "coldslaw," as it is usually served cold, however that is incorrect. In fact, as the article on Culinary Lore points out, a slaw (versus a coleslaw) is now considered to be "any type of dressed salad with shredded vegetables. Slaws may be sweet or savory, chilled or warm."

There does seem to be a discrepancy as to whether slaw must include cabbage as an ingredient. Culinary Lore says most slaws "tend to contain some type of cabbage." An article on Chowhound claims, "Slaw without the cole can feature any crunchy veggie in place of cabbage, including chopped or shredded broccoli, carrots, snow peas, jicama, and more."

I have a favorite coleslaw recipe. I'll share the recipe below, but if you want to know more about why I like it so much, you can read all about it here.

Coleslaw with Mustard and Caraway Seeds

(2 to 4 servings)

Ingredients:

For the dressing:

¼ cup Miracle Whip

¼ cup plain Greek yogurt

1 ½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon stone ground dijon mustard

½ tablespoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

¾ teaspoon granulated sugar

freshly ground salt and pepper to taste.

For slaw:

½ of a small head of cabbage (~2½ cups, shredded)

3 large carrots

Method:

1. In a small skillet (with no butter or oil), toast mustard seeds and caraway seeds for a few minutes over medium heat. Shake or stir occasionally, and remove the pan from the heat as soon as the seeds are fragrant and lightly toasted so they do not burn. Pour them into a dish to prevent them from cooking any further.
2. Peel and grate carrots and shred cabbage into a large bowl. Stir to combine.
3. Combine miracle whip, yogurt, mustard, sugar, and vinegar in a small bowl or measuring cup. Add cooled seeds, mix well, and add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add part of the prepared dressing to the ingredients in the large bowl. Stir well to incorporate the dressing completely into the slaw; keep adding more dressing until the cabbage/ carrot mixture is well coated. You will probably need all the dressing, but it is safest to add it slowly to avoid making the slaw too saucy.
5. While you could serve this coleslaw immediately, it is best refrigerated for at least 15 minutes (or even overnight) as the flavors will intensify.
6. Refrigerate leftover coleslaw (if there is any!)

Please keep social distancing, wear a mask, wash your hands, get vaccinated, and stay healthy! 😷 

This post contains affiliate links. The opinions expressed, however, are entirely my own.

Poetry Has Always Frightened Me. How About You?

Even back in elementary school, I loved to write. But not poems. Both reading and writing poetry scared me. I was afraid I wouldn't understand what the author was trying to say. The rules of writing poetry intimidated me. To be truthful, these fears followed me into adulthood and well beyond.

A page from "The Art of Writing and Speaking The English Language: How and What to Read" 

by Sherwin Cody, copyright 1905. Image by Susan Foster

Only in the last decade, I have begun to appreciate poetry. I now understand the interpretation of poems is subjective. Often, a poem is written to express a feeling even more than an actual thought. My favorite way to experience a poem is to listen to the author read it.

My education did not require me to write a lot of poetry. For this, I used to consider myself lucky, but now I am regretful. I do remember having to write a poem for a homework assignment (using the style of one of the poetry types we had been taught) when I was nine or ten years old. We were expected to read our work to the class the next day. I was terrified. 

I decided to write a limerick, probably because it was the style of poetry with rules I thought I was least likely to break. I don't think I realized back then that limericks are quite often funny and sometimes leud. Mine was neither! 

A limerick is "a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines should only have five to seven syllables; they too must rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm."

"I can count syllables and come up with words that rhyme. Maybe I can do this assignment, after all," I thought.

I remember sitting a long time in our family room just twirling my pencil through my fingers, overcome by writer's block. I knew I needed to write just five lines with a set number of syllables. But, what to write about? My eyes roved around the room and finally focused on a figurine my parents had bought in Mexico, while on their honeymoon. An old man with a skeleton-thin horse. I vaguely remembered my parents telling me the story of why they bought it. Something about the old cowboy being named Tex and his horse was called Paint. 

Strangely, I still recall the lines I wrote and memorized to recite to my class the next day. I'm pretty sure I took the figurine with me to school to show my class, hoping it would bolster my performance. 

Here's the poem: 

There was an old man named Tex

He had an old dog named Rex

He had a horse named Paint

Who sadly once did faint

Because on him was placed a hex.

I was well-acquainted with Edward Lear's rhyme, "There Was an Old Man With a Beard." I know this because I remember studying the accompanying illustration in our copy of The Book of Nonsense when I was small. I suspect his first line may have laid the groundwork for mine.

  🤣 🤣 🤣 Well, I don't need to point out that my poetry was not award-worthy. That is one of the very few poems I've ever written. Lately, however, I've been thinking I should take another stab at poetry. Maybe I'll work on conquering the technique of the haiku.

A traditional Japanese haiku, according to this definition from poets.org is "a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression."

Living in Montana, I certainly have plenty of images from nature to spark my creativity. 

This photo was taken from the car while leaving Big Sky Resort, Montana. Image by Susan Foster.

Some rules of poetry have relaxed a lot and new formats have emerged since I was in elementary school. These new forms are probably just as challenging to write, but somehow seem less intimidating. I was recently introduced to one of these new types of poetry by a review written by Adeola Sheehy-Adekale, about The She Book by Tanya Markul. The emotions this poetry evokes are almost visceral.

Sheehy-Adekale explains the recent style of poetry Markul uses is, "a form of writing which focuses on the affect it has, the shared experience which the reader can identify with, rather than rhyming couplets or any other poetry convention." 

What caused me to start thinking about poetry was a photo of a "tear-and-take" haiku poster tacked to a public message board. What a lovely gift a poem can be.

 Who knows, maybe one day I'll finally tackle my fear and try to write some poetry. But not today.

If you feel inspired to write a haiku about the mountain scene in the photograph above, feel free to share it in the comments below.

Happy May Day! Did You Say Rabbit, Rabbit?

It's May 1st!

Did you remember to say Rabbit, Rabbit before you got out of bed? A friend of mine told me about this superstition back when we were in high school. Supposedly, if you say rabbit before you get out of bed on the first day of any month, you will have good luck for the next 30 days. Saying it twice makes the luck really stick.

Don't worry if you didn't say rabbit, rabbit this morning though, this NPR article offers some alternative suggestions for a lucky month.

May Day or May 1st is sometimes celebrated with May Pole dances and flower baskets left on neighbor's doorknobs. Ancient pagans considered it "the day halfway between spring and summer." Ha ha, they certainly didn't live in Montana!

However, I think spring weather maybe has finally arrived here. We did some hiking with our dog on Sunday. It was a different trail than the one I wrote about last week, when we had to turn back because of snow and ice. On this route, we didn't run into any snow. Instead, our descent was made in

2016. It changed the world -- and even this blog.

As the year 2016 played out, posts from this blog became intermittent and then just dwindled away. I began spending less and less time on social media and even reading other blogs I have always enjoyed. I can place the blame on a number of things. Some have resolved and some are ongoing. I am not sure yet of the future of this blog, but I cannot let the new year begin without a farewell post to 2016.

2016 ... What a year.  

There were so many moments of 2016 (personally, nationally and internationally) that filled my heart with pride, with fear, with sadness, and ultimately, with hope. It seems as though our world has rotated a bit on her axis, and feels different than it ever has. As we settle into 2017, I am hopeful we can find ways to heal. Our earth needs it, our country needs it; the whole world needs to heal. 

Even the health of my family had a rough year.  I've employed more of my nursing skills in the past six months than I have for a long time. I'm grateful now that my human family members are on the mend, that our dog is walking on all four legs again, and that I have only one week's worth of antibiotics left to shoot down our cat's throat!

Blogging is different than any other kind of writing.

One thing I've learned over the nearly three-year life of this blog, is that blogging is a very personal thing. Successful bloggers share a lot about themselves, their families, and their friends online. I have always been a little guarded in this; as a nurse I am trained to highly value confidentiality and after all, I did spend years warning my children against the dangers of the Internet! 

The wonderful connections I have forged with faithful readers and my special blogging friendships have gradually led me to become more comfortable sharing my own stories. I always, however, have felt it important to receive permission before posting anecdotes or photos of other people.

Something in my attitude changed again over the course of 2016.  

My hesitancy to include anything in my blog about other people's health led me to question what actually is appropriate to publish. The nastiness of this American election year has me a little repulsed by social media, especially as many posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram seem to have become more egotistical and narcissistic.  (You know the ones I mean!) Perhaps the overwhelming, constant onslaught of information that invades my inbox and social media accounts has simply made me weary.  In any event, I began to question the value of the words and photos that I publish.  All this (as well as various demands on my time) were contributing factors, but my diminished posts in recent months were mostly a result of a muse that disappeared. My writing and creative spark just evaporated for a while.

Lately though, I have been missing this blog.  I suspect I will return to it in some fashion in 2017. My hope is that I can find a way to fill each post with valuable information, in a warm format that reaches out to readers yet maintains firm boundaries between real and Internet life. 

Even after writing this, I am hesitant to hit publish. What value does this post really hold? I feel it needed to be written, though - as an explanation and an apology to my long-time readers for my abrupt and unexplained absence. Publishing this today seems necessary to add closure to the past year of sporadic blogging  - and to pave the way for future posts.

We all have work to do in 2017.

I've rarely touched on politics here, but our upcoming American Presidential Inauguration is on practically everyone's mind. I hope we will all resolve to make the world a better, kinder, more tolerant and healthier environment.  Our work is cut out for us - but I believe in the human spirit. We can learn from mistakes made throughout history and we can stand up against what is wrong, and we can find ways to educate and guide leaders to the right decisions. Every voice and every positive action counts.  Protecting our environment, standing up against intolerance and injustice, and spreading kindness and truth is something we should all strive to do, all of the time.  Those repeated actions may be the best way we can all "make the most - - of every moment" of 2017. 

Happy New Year.  Let's make it a good one.

Saturday Suggestion: Be Present.

Many of us keep our phones and cameras at the ready all through the day. When I saw the cute Santa hats on the geese in the Bozeman airport last night, of course, I took a photo.

My daughter was supposed to arrive at the Helena airport last night at midnight on a connecting flight out of Seattle. She had already spent several hours at the airport when she found out her flight to Montana was

The Challenges of Blogging

I am often asked how long it takes me to write a blog post. For me, this is the often the easiest part of blogging. Today I'm offering a glimpse of some other ways large chunks of time can be spent blogging.

Have you ever gotten confident with a skill, only to be immediately humbled by it?

This weekend I was playing around again with the design of my blog. I added a new title heading to the search bar to make it easier to spot, and I updated my Recipe and Fiction indexes. Things were going well, but just when I was starting to feel confident in my blog designing skills I made a huge mistake. I wasn’t

A Reminder That "You're Enough"

Summer is “bathing suit season,” and many women (myself included) become extra-critical of themselves in the mirror. 

Exactly one year ago on August 5th, I published an article about self-esteem and women's inner voices of self-doubt. I feel strongly enough about this topic that I am providing the link to that post again today.

Just click here to read it:

Mirror, mirror on the Wall: Tell Every Woman She IS Enough!

I hope you will read - or reread - my article, and then share its message with someone else.

Be sure to watch this video, either here or in my original article. You may want to have a tissue handy!



My inner voices of self-doubt still need some squelching, but I am recommitted to working on that. I hope that by publishing this I have also reminded you to believe that you are enough!

Watching this video every August 5th might be a good idea.  Just like scheduling a pap smear and a mammogram, perhaps we should also have an annual checkup about our self esteem!

Make sure your inner voice is saying #I'mEnough !

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Just a reminder: 

If you are interested in participating in the weekly Words for Wednesday Challenge that I sometimes use to write a piece of fiction, remember that this month the words are being published by Jacqueline, on her blog Randomosity.

This post may be linked to one of the great link-up parties I follow and list on my blog. Check them out!

Neither of Us Was a Catfish!

Meeting in person with someone you only know through the internet can be risky.

I invited someone I only knew from the internet to meet me for lunch. Members of both of our families voiced concerns about us being "catfished."  It was a term I was unfamiliar with - but not its meaning.

For years, I have preached to my children the dangers associated with the Internet. I have told them time and time again that all is not always as it seems on Facebook. I have taught them not to divulge personal information and to trust no one. Apparently, some of this sunk in, and the sanity and safety of my plan was being questioned. The person I was planning to meet was getting similar warnings from her family, based on the guidance she had always provided as well.  We had never met, other than through the Internet and a few texts - yet neither one of us was worried about our plan.

• According to the Urban Dictionary, a "catfish" is "someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances." 

So why then, had this person and I exchanged cell numbers and made plans to meet for lunch, while I was in Washington this past weekend?  How did we know it was safe? 

The person who had agreed to meet me was a blogger.  We started our blogs about the same time, and began reading each other's blogs almost immediately.  Our online friendship grew out of common interests and supportive comments.  In the past few weeks I have learned that these types of friendships are not uncommon.  The blogging community is generally a friendly and supportive place.  Bloggers learn a lot about each other through their blogs. It is a community where successes are celebrated and tragedies are sincerely grieved. Tips for making a blog better are freely shared.  Before long, the bloggers you frequently interact with do become on-line friends.  Of course, there is always the risk that in-person they may not be how they seem. What a disappointment that would be.

Having seen multiple photos of the person I was going to meet (posted on her blog) offered a level of security. So did meeting in a public place.  Should she have looked different than her pictures, I would have just walked away.  But she was exactly as expected.  I even recognized her family, who were with her when we met ... just making sure I was really who I had said I was!  These cautions were all wise. There have been too many situations where these types of meetings have ended badly.

I can tell you now that Lana, from "Two Teens and Their Mama" writes in the same voice that she speaks.  She does have a wonderful sense of humor and lots of good stories to tell.  She is exactly as she appears on her blog. And just as nice. More seasoned bloggers would probably have remembered to take a photo together, but we were much too busy talking.  Next time!

Despite this positive experience, I still think one can never be too cautious about on-line relationships.  

And I don't take back any of the warnings I have ever given to my kids!

You can read what Lana wrote this in her post: Hands, and Meeting a Blogging Friend.

What are your thoughts and experiences about meeting someone you only know through the Internet?