Mayhem postscript

By JoAnne Young

A note on restaurants to accompany this week's blog.

I have walked by a little restaurant near a popular coffee shop fairly often and wondered about its name, otherwise not giving it much of a second thought … until this week. It’s called the Naughty Buddha Burger Bar, and since I don’t eat burgers, I figured it wasn’t for me.

 

This week, however, after our Wednesday Food Bank deliveries, my husband suggested we have lunch there. He had been there the week before with a vegan friend, and he thought I should try it. I skeptically agreed. Turns out, the burgers and wraps are plant based. And they, as well as the salads that accompany them, are amazing. 

 

I’ve never said that about a plant-based burger, and only occasionally say that about restaurant food. I live in a state where most residents, and so most restaurants, eat and serve a majority of  meat-based meals. It’s been multiple decades since I stopped eating meat. I tried being  vegetarian-only for a while, completely plant based for a few of those years. In the end, if I wanted to go out for a meal with family or friends, without having to order only sides or salad, I had to add fish to my diet, become a pescatarian. 

 

I’m honestly not sure why I started down this no-meat road, except I think it’s healthier. But I did, and I became stubborn about it. No turkey at Thanksgiving. No prime rib on Christmas Eve. No succulent roast pork at Easter, or chicken noodle soup during winter cold season. 

 

It probably didn’t help when, as a young girl, I watched my grandmother walk to her back yard, grab a hen – one minute leisurely pecking for morsels in the warm Louisiana sun, the next spinning in her hand ‘til she popped its neck and head clean off – then seeing and smelling the feather plucking and the chopping of it into pieces that fit nicely into her caste-iron skillet. 

 

All this to say, I appreciate a restaurant that serves good vegetarian and vegan food. We have only a few in Lincoln that focus their menu in that direction. Grateful Bread/Freakbeat Vegetarian and Pepe’s Bistro does that, but Freakbeat’s hours are sporadic and they take long breaks. Pepe’s menu is limited. 

 

Things are improving at bigger restaurants that have wider menus. I am thankful for that and for Surf and Turf in south Lincoln that sells a good variety of fresh fish, soups and other items I can cook at home and serve with salads, rice, pasta, potatoes and veggies. 

 

Have a great week, Mayhem readers. We appreciate you! 

Eating our way through an election year

By JoAnne Young 

 

This is going to be a tumultuous year. 

 

Can we calm our nerves, perhaps, with food? With cioppino or Hungarian tomato soup? Havarti dill scones or lavender shortcake? Fully loaded baked potato soup or deviled eggs? Rye bread toast and chamomile tea? Or perhaps Empower Mint ice cream? 

 

Instead of letting the angst of 2024 and its issues get to us, let’s think about a spoonful or two of comfort. 

 

I don’t mean to state the obvious, but food is a big deal. For all creatures great and small. 

 

I’ve been watching the birds gather around our feeders in the past couple of weeks, happy that we could provide them sustenance in the deep snow and below-zero temperatures. I have seen the appreciation on the faces of folks who need supplemental food, which we deliver to their homes once a week, courtesy of the Food Bank of Lincoln. 

 

I’ve read with interest, via NPR, how sushi restaurants are thriving in Ukraine, through air raid sirens and missile strikes. 

 

I’ve cringed at the idea that food and starvation have become weapons of war in Gaza, and that a decision to reject a summer food program for kids in Nebraska was made in the name of conservative politics. It’s also scary to see the cost of food go up and up and up at our local grocery stores, knowing it won’t likely come down. 

 

Food is about more than keeping us alive. It nourishes memories of pan-fried chicken served up at Sunday dinners with buttery mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas. It soothes us with  cheesy pepperoni pizza we had with coworkers on election nights that stretched into late hours, or eased us through curious birthday parties with strawberry Jello birthday cake. 

 

It triggers that great idea of feeding Mom’s not-so-tender round steak to the cocker spaniel waiting eagerly under the table. And Santa slipping a coconut into your Christmas stocking, one he no doubt picked up on landings in the Philippines earlier that night. 

 

As famed food writer M.F.K Fisher tells us: “It seems to me our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.” 

 

Though my childhood associations with food involved a family of women, and one girl making fudgy brownies on a Sunday afternoon, I am proud to say the associations I have as an adult involve men, specifically sons who season and grill delicious main courses or pasta and plant-based entrees, a son-in-law who makes the best of the best pizza from scratch and darned good pancakes and egg dishes, and a fellow journalist (I’m looking at you Andrew Ozaki) who serves a yummy smoked salmon to his wife’s book club, of which I am happy to say I’m a member. 

 

As I said, food is a big deal. 

 

Not only does it get a dedicated room in the house, it takes up whole stores. It spreads out on acres and acres of land and claims sections of shelves in libraries and bookstores, and online. On those literal and digital shelves are hundreds of cookbooks, anything you might imagine, including:   

 

-- Heroes Feast Flavors of the Multiverse with the tastes of Dungeons and Dragons, including Kender Stumblenoodles;

-- The Unofficial Bridgerton Cookbook, which instructs on how to dine like lords and ladies;

-- Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, official baking and cookbook with Dr. Finkelstein Charlotte Royale Brain Cake.

-- The Art of Eating Through the Zombie Apocalypse: A Cookbook and Culinary Survival Guide. Just because the undead's taste buds are atrophying doesn't mean yours have to, Amazon explains. 

So here’s to the tastes of home, and all you brilliant cooks and bakers out there, and the restaurants and bakeries we love that are providing a respite from the election rhetoric that only promises to get worse.

 

And salud to the interesting vegetables we can distract ourselves with next summer from 2024’s The Whole Seed Catalog.

 

Berkeley Tie-Dye Green Tomatoes, Red Dragon Arugula or Magnolia Blossom Tendril Peas anyone?  

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Taking Care of Nebraska's Kids

 By Marilyn Moore

Gov. Pillen concludes nearly every speech with a reference to his goals: grow Nebraska, cut taxes, make things good for agriculture and business, and “take care of Nebraska’s kids.”  I agree with taking care of Nebraska’s kids. I suspect most educators do.  I’m pretty sure most parents and grandparents do.  In fact, I would wager that nearly every thinking person in the state would agree with that goal; “after all, kids are our future,” is a common sentiment. There’s not likely an urban/rural divide on this one, nor on any of the other demographics that so frequently polarize conversation about social and political issues.  “Taking care of Nebraska’s kids” might be just about as popular as Nebraska volleyball, and that’s saying a lot.

Where we might have some differences of opinions would be in how we go about achieving that goal…just how do we (that’s the State of Nebraska “we”) take care of our kids?  Government has been described as coming together to do that collectively which we cannot do alone.  Things like build highways, fight wars, enforce laws, and, in the words of the US Constitution, “promote  the general welfare.”  I think taking care of kids falls in that provision…a recognition that government has a role to play in making lives good for the people who live here.  

When I think of taking care of Nebraska kids, I think first of the absolutely basic necessities that children need to live, including adequate nutrition, safe water, secure homes.  Most times, most parents can and do provide these basic necessities for most children.  But not always.  For decades, governmental assistance has been available to fill in the gaps.  Not perfectly, not consistently, not without arguments about cost and benefit, but in the end, most folks agree that children should have food, and safe water, and a safe place to live.  

If we’re going to take care of Nebraska kids, it would seem to me that we would want to grab every resource that helps meet these needs for kids.  Resources like federal dollars that provide funds for low-income families to purchase additional food when their children are home during the summer, when the children don’t have access to school breakfasts and school lunches, meals that for many children are their most reliable and most consistent source of nutrition during the school year.  But Nebraska, along with a handful of other states, has declined to participate in this program, a program that would help about 150,000 children, Nebraska kids.  Sen. Day has proposed a bill that would commit Nebraska to participation in this program in 2025, as we’ve missed our opportunity for 2024.  Supporting this legislation would be a real and visible commitment to taking care of Nebraska kids.

Safe water.  Water is a big deal in Nebraska.  It’s one of our most treasured resources.  It makes an agricultural industry possible.  We’re trying to get more of it from Colorado, to assure that a contract signed in the 1930’s that assures us of our fair share from the South Platte River crosses the state line to Nebraska.  Lincoln is beginning the staggering task of developing a second source of water for our growing city.  We pay attention to drought maps, because we know it matters.  There is concern that large, out-of-state people and companies and countries might buy Nebraska land in order to get Nebraska water.  All evidence of our understanding of how important water is.  And, we know that quantity is not the only concern; water safety ranks right up there, too.  Except when it doesn’t….when large scale corporate practices result in run-off that pollutes the water, resulting in dangerously high levels of nitrates and other chemicals.  Remember the AltEn disaster outside of Mead?  Or recent reports of high nitrate levels from runoff from hog farms?  We know from experiences elsewhere, such as the contaminated water from lead pipes in Flint, Michigan, that unsafe water results in life-long damage to growing children.  If we’re going to take care of Nebraska’s kids, we need to assure that the water they drink is safe.  

In addition to the need for food and water to support physical growth (which of course affects cognitive and social growth), Nebraska kids need safe and nurturing childcare during their first five years.  Our governor recognizes that childcare is a need in the state, because businesses have made it known that childcare is related to their ability to hire workers.  With 900 children on a waitlist for childcare in Lincoln, it’s pretty easy to guess that the number statewide is in the tens of thousands.  To eliminate that waitlist will take space, it will take staff (who are among the lowest-paid workers), and it will likely take a complex public/private partnership to meet the need.  My own suggestion would be universal pre-school for four-year-olds, and in many communities with declining school enrollments, the space is already there.  Not an easy implementation, statewide, but worth it, because it would be another step in taking care of Nebraska kids.

Another need for Nebraska kids?  Public schools with all the supports and opportunities for children to reach their promise and potential. In Nebraska, 90% of students are in public schools. The local school is the lifeblood of many rural communities and of many neighborhoods in urban settings.  It’s a place to belong, a place to be safe.  It’s the place where every day, adult eyes are on kids, noticing who may need a helping hand.  About public schools, our governor is proposing hard spending caps, with a goal of reducing property taxes.  Hard spending caps will result in fewer opportunities for Nebraska kids…classes that won’t be offered because the enrollment is too small, or increased fees for activities that make participation prohibitive for many families, or elimination of early intervention programs that serve a small number of students, but the students who most need them.  These are not practices that take care of Nebraska kids…but they are the inevitable result of hard spending caps.  Doing more with less is a popular slogan, but the fact of the matter is, in any business that is people-dependent, having less generally means being able to do less.  

In post-pandemic years, there are nationwide reports of increased mental health needs in every segment of the population.  That is true in Nebraska, and that is true with Nebraska kids.  We need more counselors, more psychologists, more mental health providers, in schools and in private practice and in public agencies.  A hard cap on local governments, e.g., schools, and searching for “efficiencies” (like increasing the case load of providers and caseworkers) in state and county agencies, will not result in more mental health services.  And that’s not taking care of Nebraska’s kids.

And one other area…taking care of Nebraska LGBTQ kids.  They’re feeling particularly singled out and diminished right now, partly because of last year’s contentious legislative debate.  Trans kids, especially.  Some are now forced to leave the state to receive the medical care that is necessary for their physical and mental health, a health plan that was decided upon by the kid, the parents, and the health care providers.  Let’s help these Nebraska kids by leaving them and their families alone and staying out of their health care decisions. 

I recognize that in every organization, just as in every family, there are times that there are competing goals, and hard decisions and trade-offs must be made.  Of all the state’s goals, “taking care of Nebraska kids” ranks number one on my list, and I intend to lend my voice in support of that goal when legislation that affects Nebraska kids is being considered.  I hope you will do the same.  

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Barreling into 2024 with the roar and rumble of a pickup truck

 

By Mary Kay Roth   

Most of my life I have self-righteously chanted the call for small cars, practical, energy efficient and commonsensical.  Little guys like Toyota Corollas, Honda Civics and Honda Fits.

I never understood the appeal of trucks, those nasty behemoths that hog the road.

Last year the world changed. My daughter and I bought a pickup. 

Not just any pickup. An almost vintage 1986 Ford F150.  Extended cab.  Long bed.

Mind you, a year ago I had no clue about this kind of trucker lingo.   But now I know the Ford F-series has been the best-selling truck in America for nearly half a decade – with the 1986 version representing the final hurrah of the F-series’ seventh generation.

My own 1986 model goes by many names. My granddaughters call it the Chocolate Truck, my neighbors, Count Chocula.  I call her the Rusty Beast.

A square-body Bullnose Ford, she’s tarnished and corroded, and bellows upon starting. Yet driving high above the throngs of pedestrian sedans, I am master of the road when I get behind the wheel. 

I am one bad ass. 

When you drive a pickup – apparently, especially a 1986 Ford F150, extended cab, long bed – folks wave at you. Drivers roll down their window to ask about the vintage. At gas stations, people circle around the truck to marvel.

Truly, there is an entire underground world of pickups out there with websites and Facebook pages dedicated specifically to Ford trucks of the ‘80s.

I now know the Ford F-150 of 1986 could carry a payload of about 1,500 pounds – featured a Windsor V-8 with either a 5L or 6L electronic fuel injector – had a six- or eight-cylinder engine that produced from 115 to 150 horsepower.

OK, I actually have no clue what that previous paragraph means. It just sounded cool. 

But when I was reading through a website of testimonials from other owners of 1986 Ford pickups, I did come across this fellow’s delightful gem: “Mine doesn't have all the bells and whistles but we can leave that to the luxury vehicles and sedans for old women. Mine tows and hauls, handles ice/snow.”

Whoa. 

Admittedly, this is a new and curious time in my life, no longer able to cling to any farfetched notion of middle age.  I am getting old.  I am an old woman.

I know some females avoid those words like the plague, but perhaps the words are not the true issue. Perhaps it’s time to redefine … old woman. 

Aside from the unexpected and mysterious body creaks, my health is solid – and I’m pretty sure I love getting older.  Somehow age offers an acute awareness that life is precious, should be lived with dignity and ferocity rather than resignation.

Old age is truly a fine time to run for office, run a marathon, ice skate.  To howl at the politics of the land, collect signatures for important petition drives, wear whatever you like. 

And drive a truck, dang it.  The Rusty Beast – with nary a luxury bell or whistle – pulls my daughter’s ski boat.  Hauls my beloved kayak. Helps out many a friend and neighbor. 

Granted, the gas mileage sucks. And there are underlying and surprising implications for gender and politics with a pickup truck.  My daughter and I have purposely plastered feminist bumper stickers on the Rusty Beast to counter country song stereotypes.

In fact, it took some time for the truck and me to get acquainted.

Initially, since the Rusty Beast groaned and moaned when we started her, we installed a push-button ignition. Then came the dilemma of the back tailgate. 

One summer afternoon, after taking my kayak for a spin at Holmes Lake, upon returning home I discovered the truck tailgate was down and my kayak had vanished. (She was rescued by retracing my path to find the helpful guys who had watched the kayak slide off my pickup, had retrieved it and were wondering if and when I would return.)  

Robust bungee cords now crisscross my tailgate.

And I have learned so much truck lore.  FYI, Henry Ford produced what is considered the first American pickup truck in 1917, the Ford Model TT. Fast forward to 1948, when Ford released the now famous F-Series, which would end up becoming not only the best-selling truck in America but also the top-selling vehicle overall. 

Today only about 16 percent of F-series owners are women.  My daughter and I belong in that prestigious minority.

Perhaps that’s why I was thinking of the Rusty Beast this year as – per tradition – I contemplated a guiding quote for my New Year … and borrowed these words from Dylan Thomas: 

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

You see, I don’t feel like tiptoeing into this new year. I feel like barreling into 2024 with the roar and rumble of a pickup truck.   

No, I’m not giving up my Honda Fit.  She’s still my main squeeze.  I will always believe in energy-efficiency and common sense.  I will recycle and conserve.

But there will be days this year when I’ll climb into my pickup truck, crank up the rock ‘n’ roll and drive off into the sunset – as this old woman is gonna burn and rave at close of day. 

On Wintering in the Midst of Mayhem

 “Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle,” says Katherine May, author of “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.”  A few thoughts on wintering, from 5 Women Mayhem …

Winter Reflections

by Marilyn Moore

Winter is the hardest of Nebraska’s seasons for me.  I recognize its importance in the cycle of life in this latitude in the middle of the continent…but that knowledge doesn’t make it easy.  It’s not just the cold, it’s the short days, the days that are dark and dreary, and the sheer difficulty of being out and about on icy, snow-covered walks and roads.

I’ve tried to talk/plan/organize myself most years to get through these next two months, usually by planning a big project that will occupy my indoor time and make me feel really accomplished when it’s done.  The reality?  I seldom accomplish said project, and instead I feel discouraged that once again I didn’t make good use of the time.

So this year, I’m thinking about what my body and mind and spirit most need in these two months.  It’s not a project.  It’s not even a plan.  It’s a vague image of what will be restorative and soothing, filling depleted energy stores.  It looks like more sleep, homemade soup and home-baked bread, time to read.  It looks like fresh flowers in the house, walks in the neighborhood and on the trails, as much sunshine as possible every day.  It looks like looking for beauty in browns, and time with friends and the little ones in our family to add color and sparkle. 

And, deep within, it looks like noticing every day that the sun rises a little earlier, sets a little later, and that deep within the earth, maple trees and beautyberry bushes and coneflowers are resting to grow again.  

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Time...

by Mary Reiman

Winter...

Time to read.

Time to settle.

Time to reflect on what is most important on this life’s journey.

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The Darkness of a January night …

by Mary Kay Roth

As a child, when I had to get up at night, I would soar over my blankets and out onto the floor – like a pole vault jumper leaping as far from my bed as possible – lest the bogeyman pull me under and into the darkness below.

I was terrified of those shadows.

Over the years, however, winter teaches us otherwise.

As dusk settles early on these January evenings, something quietly shifts inside as we pull winter nights around us like a warm, frothy comforter, diving into the deep cozy cave of hibernation.

Sadly, from childhood on, darkness gets a bad rap, a scary monster to approach with shivers and trepidation. Look up “dark” in a Thesaurus and you’ll find words like bleak, dismal, dreary.

If we truly allow winter to be our teacher, however, the darkness of a January night asks us to hug close – retreat and rest – discover its gifts and magic. Behind all the dark, long nights and cold winter mornings, there is something incredibly beautiful happening.  

Our bodies heal and grow in the dark while we sleep. Dreams dance in the dark. Music sounds infinitely better with lights off.  And throughout the coming months we will marvel at the unfailing human ability to find light in the middle of the darkest season.

At eventide, tonight, let’s wrap ourselves up in ridiculous amounts of clothing to watch dusk’s darkness fall around. Light a candle and let it flicker.  Head outdoors, come January 25, to stand sentinel as the full moon rises – the wolf moon – perhaps joining the nocturnal chorus to howl at winter’s dim glow.

If we allow darkness to warm us, winter shadows can lead to a place of well-being and wonder, to the quietest of quiet, the deepest shades of our soul – without a single bogeyman in sight.

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Epiphany in White

by JoAnne Young

I am traveling through the southern belt of Nebraska on this twelfth day of Christmas, 15 days after the winter solstice. The landscape is flocked in frosty white, shades of the usual tan and brown shrouded in crystal camouflage.

Hundreds upon hundreds of trees have offered themselves up as a visual feast for me and fellow sojourners. Some trees wear feathery crowns, others stand icy stark, still others hold a thickness of green fading to a sugary coating. The contrast of each bough in each tree contributes to their solitary beauty, and reminds me they are a lot like we can be in winter, stepping through these cold months and figuring out how to make a difference with our own uniqueness.

I will take this gift of winter beauty with me through the long nights of the season and, not to be greedy, but hope for ice bells on the lake and the crack and moan of frozen water, before the darkness melts away and the sunshine turns the land from white to green. And crocuses spring from their winter’s rest, eager to color our landscapes again.

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Finding Gratitude in Mayhem

by Penny Costello

It's a cold, snowy January day. For many of us, it's dark and dreary. In the dreariness, I am finding gratitude for truly seasonal weather, including some very much needed moisture to replenish our parched Mother Earth in this long period of exceptional drought. It's been so long since we had a truly seasonal winter here. I will take it. I'll welcome it with gratitude while I put food and water out for the birds and the urban wildlife who share this neighborhood with me and brighten my days with their presence.

I'd also like to express my gratitude and appreciation for this group of women who put up with what I call my mercurial meanderings and less than consistent contributions to this blog. It's fun to see what we each come up with when we do these collaborative blogs on various themes, and enjoy the glimpses into our individual processes and personalities when we approach a particular subject together. As I approach the winter of my life, I'm grateful, honored, and tickled to be a part of 5 Women Mayhem. And that gratitude extends to you, our readers, so generous with your attention, comments, and sharing of our stories. Thank you!

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