"Sing to me, oh Muse..."

It isn't that I haven't been writing, it's just that I've been writing crap. At best I've usually only posted about one in three or four of the items I write. So, if you roll your eyes at what's posted, just think of the suffering I've saved you!

I've developed an appreciation of people who crank out something on a regular basis; be it a daily column, once or twice a week or even monthly. I'm sure having your paycheck based on your output is a great motivator. I write mostly as an outlet. I have no aspirations of writing the "Great American" novel. I'm not sure I have anything that profound to say.

One of good and bad things about the blog format is that it's totally free form. Some of the stream of consciousness posts out there are a little "too out there" to suit me, but essentially a blog is for the person writing it. If it make the writer happy that's a wonderful thing. If it makes other people happy that's even better and a blog that generates income might be a real bonus. But I digress.

I started out today to write a Father's Day Post. I've been thinking a lot about my Father lately. Actually I've been thing about both my parents lately because their age is showing.

I call my parents frequently. My dad loves to have a little chat; only rarely does it go longer than ten or fifteen minutes. My mother on the other hand is not one given to talking on the phone, at least not to me.

My call to my mother on Mother's Day went something like this.

Me: Hello mom, Happy Mother's Day!

Mom: Oh hi, thanks for the call, would you like to talk to your dad?

I guess she had other fish to fry.

My upbringing was pretty Ozzy and Harriet. My father worked outside the home and my mother was a housewife. In my childhood hometown in the late fifties and through the sixties this was the norm. I only knew a couple of kids my age, that had mothers that worked outside the home.

One of the things we did a lot of was camping. We had an old tent trailer that we drug around behind various vehicles. Later we had an Aloha Trailer and then we went upscale with an aluminum skinned Avion.

We put a lot of miles on those trailers. On weekends often went out just for a night or two at a nearby state park or just someplace off in the woods in the nearby Wallowa Whitman National Forest. In the summer we always took a couple of weeks for a family vacation. We'd alternate years; one year traveling to someplace out of state and the next year heading for the coast.

Dad was a Boy Scout and therefore so was I. He was involved in Scouting in one way or another for nearly seventy years. We spent a lot of good times together on Scouting activities and though I didn't appreciate in as much then as I do now he kept me on track and I got my Eagle Award.

My father was also involved in the community. He served on the vestry at church and was always hauling me over to the church to make a repair of a faucet washer or some other little item. Perhaps the most thrilling thing I remember about church chores was him taking a pellet gun into the basement of the church and shooting a rat.

He also had a four year long stint in politics as a City Commissioner. I think we were all glad that he did it and were even happier when he was done.

My mother was and inveterate planner and our itinerary was well laid out. We'd have reservations in campgrounds with power, water and sewer connections, so we never really had to rough it too much.

My mother always sewed a lot and still does. She used to make clothes for the whole family, but the prized products were quilts. Originally, they were frugally made of scraps from the clothing. Later on she started buying fabric specifically for quilts and makes them in patterns she sees in the quilting books.

The other thing my mother did was cook. We always had home cooked meals. Going out for dinner was a rare treat. Much of what we ate was supplemented with home canned pickles and fruits. We didn't live high on the hog, but we never lacked for the essentials.

Another memory from my childhood is perhaps a different awareness of the seasons. We would plan a trip to the coast for clam tides - my father was a very efficient stalker of razor clams. At work he'd schedule projects around the seasons too. He always seemed to be in Walla Walla when the farmers were bringing in the sweet onions. Magically he'd be in the Blue Mountains when the mushrooms were out. He wasn't a big game hunter or a fisherman, but we did go after pheasant, chukars and the occassional quail. I remember that he and the other guys on his survey crew always seemed to have they're shotguns in the truck when they were going to be over around Pendleton in the fall.

Summer was canning time. Cherries from orchards near Cove. Peaches, pears, plums and apricots too, although I don't remember where they came from. Hard to keep a house cool when you've got a canner and pans full of syrup boiling on the stove.

I have a much greater appreciation for the home processed and wild harvest goods as an adult, than I ever did as a child. We were part of the slow food, locavore movement when it was life, not a lifestyle.

Here's a cocktail that I make that makes use of a couple of my homemade ingredients

Mystic Wood - from Mix Magazine - From Reach for the rye, by Liz Colie Gadberry, Jan/Feb 09

This is the original recipe

2 ounces rye whiskey (Sazerac 6-year-old)

½ ounce cherry liqueur (Heering)

½ ounce apricot brandy (Rothman & Winter)

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients over ice and strain into a small chilled cocktail glass or champagne coupe.

- From Kelley Swenson, bar manager at Ten-01

The first few times I made this cocktail I made it with some homemade apricot liqueur (recipe later in this post) and Cherry Heering and it was pretty dang good. I was having a hankering for it the other day and I ran out to Pearl Specialty and bought a $25 bottle of the highly touted Rothman & Winter apricot brandy that the recipe calls for, frankly I thing the homemade version is as good and with a few tweaks might be better.

The Home version

Mythic Wood

2 ounces rye whiskey (Wild Turkey 101 of course)

½ ounce cherry liqueur (liquid from homemade Maraschino Cherries - any version)

½ ounce apricot brandy (Housemade - Recipe Below)

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients over ice and strain into a small chilled cocktail glass or champagne coupe.

Housemade Apricot Brandy

1/2 pound of dried apricots
1 cup of boiling water
2-3 cups of brandy or vodka
1 cup of simple syrup - two parts sugar to one part water
5 apricot kernels (the seed inside the pit) or five raw almonds or a couple of drops of almond extract.

Pour the boiling water over the apricots to plump them.

After 10 or 15 minutes drain off the excess water into a measuring cup and add liquor to bring the total to 3 cups.

Put the apricots, liquor/water mix and the kernels or extract in a jar and let it set in a cool dark place for a minimum of two weeks.

Strain the liquid from the apricots and add the simple syrup.

Bonus Factoid: Apricots are related to Almonds. Apricot pits have trace amounts of cyanogenic glycosides which release cyanide when digested - now, before you think I'm trying to kill you or myself, it should be noted that bitter almonds contain a much higher amount of this compound and the lethal dose of them is considered to be in the neighborhood of 50 to 70 kernels