Cathy Burnham Martin's Blog, page 18

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.”

— George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)
Irish playwright & critic

This is National Pizza Day, so have one delivered, go to your favorite pizzeria, or whip one up at home.

Pizza on the Grill
What? No pizza stone? No problem… you CAN make great pizza directly on the rack of your barbeque grill. This recipe is a Super Simple way to make pizza dockside or in the backyard.
8 oz refrigerated pizza dough
2 T cornmeal
Toppings, such as crumbled sausage, pepperoni, bacon, sliced mushrooms, sliced sweet onions, etc.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to a 12” oval. Spritz 1 side with cooking oil and place oil side-down on grill preheated on high. Grill 2-3 minutes. Spritz the top of the dough with oil, then sprinkle with cornmeal. Turn dough over.

Add sauce, cheese & toppings, keeping a ½” border on edges. (This should take about 2 min.) Close the cover & shut the heat off directly under the pizza or turn it to low, leaving it on high on the burners that are not under the pizza.) Grill another 3-6 minutes (if kept burners on low) or 5-8 minutes (if shut burners off) till cheese is melted. Cut into slices and serve with grated Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper, and garlic powder for guests to add, as desired.

Joining the nation in 1846, the 29th state is also known as the Hawkeye State.

With corn fields and farming often getting top billing, Iowa has much more to offer.

Its oldest city is Dubuque, founded in 1788 as one of the first settlements in the entire Midwest. Dubuque is also home to Iowa’s oldest standing church… the St. Mary’s Catholic Church, built in 1833.

With the wild rose as its state flower and the eastern goldfinch as its state bird, Iowa’s motto is “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

With its population of 3.2 million people, Iowa has 400 bowling alleys, giving it the highest number per capita in the US, along with more golf courses per capita than any other state.

The National Hobo Convention is held annually in the town of Britt, complete with a hobo parade, hobo queen coronation, and a hobo museum.

The Iowa 80 Truckstop is the world’s largest and hosts the Trucking Museum in Walcott, dedicated to the history of trucking and vintage trucks.

Iowa also claims the 3rd highest motorcycle ownership in the nation.

Museums don’t stop there. Indianola is home to the National Balloon Museum, which offers hot-air balloon rides.

Noted as the safest state in the US, Iowa also leads the US in wind energy, producing the highest percentage of electricity powered by wind, at over 57% of its electrical power. Iowa also has the highest literacy rate in the US, setting a nationwide literacy and academic excellence standard.

In 1869, Arabella Mansfield (1846-1911) became the first female lawyer in the United States.

Known for friendly communities and farmers’ markets, Iowa holds the first Caucus in every Presidential primary election.

Iowa has also produced nearly 20 Olympic athletes in multiple disciplines. In swimming, the butterfly stroke was invented by David Armbruster, head coach of the University of Iowa Swimming in 1935.

Also developed here in Davenport was the first single-loaf bread-slicing machine in 1912.

The Red Delicious Apple variety originated here in the 1870s as a chance seedling growing on Jessee Hiatt’s farm in Peru, Iowa. Thinking of it as a nuisance, he tried to chop the tree down several times, but it repeatedly grew back.

Iowa is also the only state bordered by two navigable rivers… the Missouri and the Mississippi.

In the Native American tongue, “Iowa” means beautiful.

Maquoketa Caves State Park welcomes visitors to tour one of the highest concentrations of Iowa’s hundreds of prehistoric underground caverns.

Another attraction is the Effigy Mounds National Monument, home to ancient Native American earthworks in the shapes of animals, including bears, birds, and deer.

As the nation’s largest producer of corn, eggs, and pork, it’s little surprise to note that hogs outnumber people 7 to 1.

On the yummy side, Le Mars, Iowa was officially designated as “The Ice Cream Capital of the World” in 1994 by the makers of Blue Bunny® brand ice cream.

Little-known facts include that Snake Alley, between Washington Street and Columbia Street in Burlington, Iowa was named the Crookedest Street in the World by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Iowa is also home to the world’s largest Strawberry Shortcake. Created in 2009 as part of the annual Strawberry Fest in Strawberry Point, the cake measured more than 10 feet in diameter and featured more than 5,000 servings of berries, cake, and cream.

Wearing red on Fridays can signify various things, including paying tribute to all military veterans. However, the first Friday of February is also National Wear Red Day for a very different reason. This date signifies the annual campaign to raise awareness about heart disease in women. Even one century ago, little was known about heart disease and even less about how it affected women. Considered a man’s disease, even the American Heart Association hosted a conference in the 1960s theme, “How Can I Help My Husband Cope with Heart Disease?” Women were mistakenly believed to have some natural protection from heart disease until their hormone levels dropped during menopause.

In the mid-1980s, studies found that the oversight was due to women being overlooked in studies, which focused primarily on middle-aged men. Further studies found signs of heart attack issues and stroke symptoms did not match the earlier assumptions of what constituted cardiovascular risk. By the turn of the century, researchers realized that while women tended to develop heart disease about 10 years later than men, more women were dying form it. And women under age 65 were twice as likely to die from a heart attack as their male peers.

In 2004, the Heart Truth campaign launched, unveiling the red dress as the national symbol for women and heart disease. The message? Breast cancer is not women’s biggest health worry because one out of 3 women will die of heart disease. Significant recent research also links menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats with an increased risk for high blood pressure, a major risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Women are increasingly encouraged to get involved in their own good health through regular physical activity and healthier eating habits much earlier in life. Good advice for all of us, I believe. An easy reminder is to wear red for awareness.

“Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

— H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
American journalist & essayist

“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.”

— Mark Twain (1835-1910)
19th Century American author and humorist
(pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

Celebrate National Homemade Soup Day with a bountiful bowl of soup that soothes your very soul. For my hubby, Sir Ronald, something thick and beefy fills the bill. No need to open a canned soup when scrumptious is this easy to make on your own stove.
 

Souper Simple Beef Stew
6 T butter, divided
3 lbs diced and/or strips of steak
2 large, sweet onions, coarsely chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
14-oz frozen pearl onions, thawed
1 env dried onion soup mix
2 (6-8 oz each) pkgs sliced mushrooms (shiitake & baby bella)
1 tsp Mrs. Dash (or other) garlic & herb blend
1 tsp thyme
Salt & pepper, to suit your taste
32 oz beef bone broth
2 c hot water whisked with 2 tsp Better Than Bouillon beef
½ c red wine
1 or 2 (14½ oz cans) petite diced tomatoes & juices
2 c raw baby carrots

Melt 2 T butter in large skillet over med high heat. Quickly brown beef, stirring; transfer with slotted spoon into a slow cooker on high heat. Add 2 T butter to the skillet and the chopped onions and celery. Let cook 5 minutes, stirring a couple of times; transfer to the slow cooker. Add remaining butter to the skillet along with the mushrooms. Let cook 5-6 min, stirring once or twice. Meanwhile, stir the pearl onions and onion soup mix into the slow cooker mixture, along with the seasonings. Gradually whisk 1 c bone broth into the cornstarch or flour till smooth. Then stir into the mushrooms in the skillet. Pour in remaining bone broth and the bouillon mixture. Let cook till bubbly and thickened. Transfer to the slow cooker. Stir the wine into the skillet to deglaze the pan, releasing any cooked on particles. Transfer to the slow cooker, along with the tomatoes and baby carrots. Cover the slow cooker and let cook 45 minutes.

KISS Tip: This is great served with some crusty, cheesy garlic bread.

The Winter Dance Party Tour scheduled 24 concerts in 24 days visiting 24 mid-western cities. Though it started on January 23rd, it ended abruptly on February 3, 1959, when wintery weather caused a plane to crash shortly after take-off into a cornfield outside Clear Lake, Iowa.

Along with pilot Roger Peterson, everyone else on board died in that crash, including rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson.

Don McLean named the day in the lyrics to his 1971 song “American Pie.” Not originally scheduled to be on the flight, the 28-year-old Big Bopper, who was suffering from a cold, hoped to skip the long cold bus ride to their next stop in Minnesota and traded places with Buddy Holly’s bass player, Waylon Jennings.

And Ritchie Valens, considered a pioneer in Chicano Rock, was just 17 when he snagged his seat on the plane with Buddy Holly by winning a coin toss with one of the other band members, Tommy Allsup.

Buddy Holly, inducted into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, was 22. An annual memorial concert is held at Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom, which hosted the artists’ last performances.

“Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself and forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.”

— Wilferd A. Peterson (1900 – 1995)
American author

We all know that freedom is not free, for there remain people with ideologies who would take it from us. For National Freedom Day, I look at comments from two people who worked hard to protect and preserve our freedoms. Our deepest gratitude to all who have served our nation.

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

— Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)
34th President of the United States
Five-star US Army General
World War II Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force

“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he is vigilant in its preservation.”

— Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
United States General of the Army
Served in WWI, WWII, and Korean Conflict
Headed the United Nations Command in Korea