oy vey

All weekend I have been following the protests and general chaos in Iran. It is really fascinating and scary. I have wondered if it would take a sort of generational shift to sort of bring about this kind of action. From what I have been reading it seems pretty apparent that a coup has happened to insure that Ahmadinejad stayed in power. I think if they hadn't been so arrogant with the number (and how quickly they announced the results after the voting) that he "won" by; people would have bought it. Voter fraud isn't something new there, but to the degree it was done this time? Woah nelly.
And as for the protests, I have noticed how young everyone is and that there are women out there as well who have been taking beatings from the police for calling shenanigans. It will be interesting to see how things go this week.
There has been a great deal of live-blogging to assist the very brave journalists and photographers on the ground who have been cut off from much of the outside world. (BBC Persia and a few other networks had things jammed, social networking sites were knocked out; as was cellular service at various points during the weekend in an attempt to prevent people from getting information. In addition to journalists being arrested, detained and beaten.) A number of foreign journalists have had their equipment confiscated and have had to rely on their cell phones to get information/footage out. Obviously the powers-that-be are very very nervous about what is going on.

In less politically iffy news, I am thinking about things I can bake or cook. Time to stare at the fridge.
When I am not dealing with a two year old who is on the verge of a break-down every five minutes.

dinner and other meals.

Looking through the recipes in the family cookbook that my Mother is letting me borrow there are some things that strike me as interesting. There aren't really any directions for most of the recipes because there was the general assumption that you knew what you were doing. The recipes that came from my Grandmother's Mother tend to have a theme. Most of the things you bake are baked at 325F. My Mother told me that this is because Grandma T (as she was known) spent a number of years as a farm wife in Minnesota in the early 20th century. 325 is a heat that a farm wife could handle standing over in the middle of a humid Minnesota Summer and could equally work in the winter. I never met my Great-Grandmother but I heard some entertaining stories about her. To get my Grandmother and my Great-Aunt to do the dusting around the house, she would write the word, 'shit' in the dust. The girls would be so horrified that they would go and dust. (this is a woman with a sense of humor I like.) She didn't let the girls learn how to milk a cow. Her reasoning was, "if you could, they could make you." This was a woman who knew that if you ended up a farm wife, your lot was going to be tough and there was no point in making it more difficult. She gave birth to five children and she gave them names with the idea that no one could make nick-names out of them (she had some particular ideas but all the women in my family have definite ideas about everything. And we aren't afraid to tell you.) and all of them ended up with nick-names. She was one of several sisters. They were named (as I recall, my Mother would probably remember it better) Zelma, (my Great Grandmother) Helma, Alma, Melba and Mabel. Yes. Hand to God that is true. Obviously a theme started and then fell off the tracks.
I am looking at a couple of recipes to try this week. I will have to report back on the successes.

As for non-family recipes, I was trying to think of something meat-free and non-pasta to make for dinner. I ended up making a rather delightful cheese souffle. I served that with a spinach salad and some bread. We have a ton of eggs right now since my Mother brought over a bunch of hers and we always have a lot of cheese. It was a win all around. I think it makes a good light dinner. I will have to remember to do that more often. I tend to do souffles for dessert and I forget how much I like savory souffles too. Of course I have to think of something to make tomorrow. Time to look through the books again and go, "okay now what."