Poetry Wars

I hadn't set out to do it, the day I broke one of the most basic rules of the sorority of sisterhood: do not play with another woman's husband.

Does it matter that she was there, laughing (out loud, literally) as she watched the whole affair unfold? I'll leave that to you to decide.

In fact, it started like any other lazy Sunday in late September. My boys would both be at dinner that night and I had a new experimental recipe on my mind, one to celebrate the upcoming official beginning of Halloween month October.

Pecan Crusted Chicken with Pumpkin Thyme Sauce

I decided to take a peek at facebook and that's where it all began.

"Wait", you're thinking, "it's October. You're supposed to post something Halloweeny, something creepy, something scary. What are you doing posting a confession?"

Creepy? Scary? I'm getting there. Bear with me.

Because what I saw on Facebook, the thing that precipitated this whole involvement? Well let me tell you friends, it was mighty scary.

My friend's husband had posted a picture. One, sadly, I cannot un-see. Now I can describe the picture, but it's best, if you want to truly understand how this all proceeded, that you see it yourself. Click HERE. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

Did you see it? Guy standing in traffic with his bicycle and wearing a thong. Yes, just a thong. Well, a headband on top and socks and sneakers on the bottom but covering the whole rather voluminous middle? Just a thong.

See? I promised you scary.

Now I could have just laughed and moved on. Probably should have just laughed and moved on, but it turns out that not only had he shared the picture, but below it, Darrell (who is an author, btw, you can buy his book HERE) posted a poem:

He wore a thong outside that day,
he wore it to the beach.
When he walked in front of me,
his butt looked like a peach.

  
Many of you Most of you All of you normal people would still have laughed and moved on. But we all know I'm not a card carrying member of the "normal people" subset. Where yo might see a funny poem, I see a challenge. So I responded:

He wore a thong outside that day, 
he wore it to the beach.
When he walked in front of me, 
I couldn't help but screech.

He wore a thong outside that day,
it seems with no rebuke.
When he walked in front of me, 
I couldn't help but puke.

Now had it ended there we would not be talking about my transgressions. But it seems Darrell and I agree on one thing, a challenge is a challenge. His turn:

His wife joined him in a thong also, 
I had to tell this tale.
His wife came with an ass my friends,
that was bigger than a whale.

Although I'd already broken one cardinal rule of sisterhood, there's a line and making fun of a woman's butt was not a place where I was going (either that or it just hit too close to home, one or the other). So although I did respond, I kept my eye on the prize (so to speak):

His wife saw him in a thong that day, 
and had to tell this tale,
"Didn't realize, in the light of day,
his butt was quite that pale."

But Darrell was not to be diverted:

He saw his wife in a thong that day,
he'd known that she was large.
He didn't know when he went to bed
he'd been sleeping with a barge.

Maybe he should have been diverted because it seems we'd gone too far. Duh, duh, daaaaa, the wife interjected:

This poem is fiction. My butt is not a barge. But . . . his is pale.

To which I had one final verbal tryst, a warning of sorts to my partner in crime:

When writing poems publicly, 
be clear of whom you don't speak.
Or I'm afraid your sleeping arrangements,
for tonight may be quite bleak. 

And from Darrell to his wife:

I was NOT talking about you!!!

Smart guy. Clearly wants to stay married.

PS: Thanks to Dawn and Darrell for a fun Sunday. And for giving me permission to share this story here on the blog.

PPS: Stay tuned, Poetry Wars, the Sequel (yes, there's a part two) is coming up on this blog next week.

Pecan Crusted Chicken with Pumpkin Thyme Sauce

                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com


Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup flour
1 egg beaten with 3 TBSP water
1 stack (about 30 crackers) Ritz crackers
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 stick butter, melted

1 cup chicken broth
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1/3 cup orange preserves
1/4 tsp dried thyme
dash of nutmeg 

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 casserole dish.
*Place the crackers and pecan pieces in a food processor to crush, then place on a plate.
*Cut each chicken breast into equal size pieces. I usually get 3 pieces per breast. You may choose to pound the chicken a little first to make the pieces more unified in thickness.
*Dip each chicken piece in flour, then in the egg wash, then press all sides into the pecan mix to coat.
*Place chicken pieces into casserole dish, drizzle the melted butter over the top.
*Bake for 45 minutes or until the chicken is fully cooked and the crust is browned.

*Just before the chicken is ready, whisk together the chicken broth, minced garlic, pumpkin, preserves, thyme and nutmeg in a small pot. Heat to boiling over medium high heat and boil, whisking, for 2 minutes. Serve beside or drizzled over the chicken.

A True Horror Story: Use Your Words

Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I'm using: glow ~ fall ~ river ~ hit
They were submitted by Jules of The Bergham Chronicles.

                          
I'm from Massachusetts, for those of you who don't already know. Every time I looked at these words, preparing to write my post, all I could see was Fall River, the name of a town in Massachusetts. I couldn't think of those words separately, perhaps because, coincidentally, they were submitted together and in the same order as the name of the town.

Or maybe it's Halloween I have on my mind. Because, it just so happens, that glow and hit work right into the most famous story that comes out of the city of Fall River. Glow, as in ghost. And hit, as in strike.

Fall River is the city where a young girl lived with her sister Emma, father Andrew step-mother Abby and maid Bridget Sullivan. The house where they lived is now suspected of being haunted. As in most haunting stories, it's the scene of a horrible tragedy. But the story starts somewhere else, with a bit of a different cast, some of whom made it to this home, some who did not.

The little girl was born in 1860 to her parents, Andrew and Sarah. They had 3 daughters, Emma, their first, was born in 1851. Their second daughter Alice was born in 1856. By the time their youngest was born (9 years after their first), in the initial tragedy of this story, Alice had died at the age of one from what was then called Dropsy on the Brain but is now known as Hydrocephalus. Just a few short years after the little girl was born, in the second tragedy of this story, their mother died at the age of 39 of uterine congestion (no idea) and spinal disease.

Two years later, dad Andrew remarried a woman named Abby. Emma was 14. Her little sister not quite 5. The family, well off financially, moved to their new home 9 years after Andrew married Abby. It's said that the girls did not like their step-mother, not calling her Mom or even Abby, but "Mrs.", and believing she and her family were conspiring to get Andrew's money.  

In fact, they were so comfortable they had a maid living on the third floor. Bridget, originally from Ireland, was responsible for the dusting, sweeping, laundry and all of the cooking.


On the day of the final tragedy, in 1892, Emma (41 and still living at home) was out of town, and Bridget (who had been living with them for 2 years at this point) was in her room when the younger daughter (not so young any more but at 32 also still living with her parents) cried out. She had found her father dead in the parlor. It's unclear as to whether it was Bridget or the police who then found Abby dead in her room. 

Four months later, the deceased couple's youngest daughter was indicted for their murder. Six months later, with the support of her older sister, she stood trial and was acquitted of the charges in June of 1893. Ordeal over, the sisters sold the family home and, having inherited from their father, purchased another home in Fall River where they lived comfortably for many years.

The family home where the murders occurred is now a bed and breakfast. Where you can sleep in the room where Abby was murdered, and quite possibly see the glow of ghosts late into the night.

Bridget, after being forced to testify but really having nothing of substance to contribute, disappeared after the trial. Rumor had it that she returned, at least temporarily, to Ireland, possibly funded by the sisters. The next we have any inkling of her was 12 years later in 1905 when she married at the age of 35 in Montana (where she had family). It's believed she never again spoke of the sisters or the tragedy. 

And what became of the girls? They lived quite comfortably together in Fall River for many years. This home too may have been comfortable but it also was not a happy home. Although acquitted, the younger sister was thought of as guilty by most of the townspeople and basically shunned by the community. It didn't help that in 1897 she was accused of shoplifting. And in 1905 Emma moved out and, according to legend, never spoke to her sister again. She died in New Hampshire in June of 1927, coincidentally just 9 days after her little sister died in Fall River.

You know who I'm talking about by now, don't you? Heard the story? Perhaps even spoken about it yourself:

Lizzy Borden took an axe,
gave her mother forty whacks. 
When she saw what she had done,
gave her father forty-one. 

Anyone want to go sleep in her bedroom?

PS: I always share a new recipe in my posts, but today I just couldn't pass up sharing one I posted a few years ago, my Raspberry Swirl Halloween Cake. It may not be a new recipe, but I'm technically sharing a recipe so let's not split hairs (so to speak), shall we?
Follow the link to the original post to find the recipe.

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:

On the Border
 The Bergham Chronicles
The Blogging 911
Cognitive Script  
Climaxed

Raspberry Swirl Halloween Cake recipe and printable recipe HERE

                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Team Pumpkin: October Poetry

This month our poetry group picked the theme Pumpkins. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a gift because today's my birthday, but I'm pretty happy to have my (rhyming) say about pumpkins. They take quite a beating right about now. Not so much because people don't love them, probably because bloggers and websites pluck them way too early, starting to post pumpkin recipes in the summer and keeping it up steadily straight through October.

Not me. I have a hard fast rule, all things Halloween, including pumpkin recipes don't start until October 1st. But then, well, all bets are off. 

 Team Pumpkin

Little seed so small and brown,
planted in the Spring. 
Burrow deep into the ground,
happiness you'll bring.

In the patch grow big and round,
green to gold to ripe.
Soon the kids will be farm bound,
October's favorite hype.

Corn maze, cocoa, a hay ride,
caramel apples too.
Picking and choosing with utmost pride,
ends in holding you.

Jack-O-Lantern you'll become.
And recipes, a slew.
I'll be making more than some,
pies and cake and stew.

Pepita Harvest Bars

Oh, I've heard it, the boo-hoo,

complain and whine and groan. 

"Too many recipes, too soon too".

Please! Quit your insufferable moan.

'Cause on my blog . . .

For one month out of every year,

I'm sorry happy to publicly say, 

I'm "team pumpkin" and to be clear,

and that's (more than) OK.

Before you go, click on these links to more poetry from some of my friends:
Dawn of Cognitive Script shares Pumpkins.
Diane of On the Border shares Pumpkin Time. 
Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares 4 Little Pumpkins.

Pepita Harvest Bars       

                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 packages Chips Ahoy Thins Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
3/4 stick butter or margarine, melted
1 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup quick oats
1/2 cup cranraisins
1 cup Pepitas, roasted and shelled
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Directions:
*Grease a 9 X 13 baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Mix the cookie crumbs with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the pan.
*Sprinkle the prepared crust with the white chocolate chips followed by the quick oats, then the cranraisins and last the Pepitas. Whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice. Pour over the top.
*Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until the top is bubbling and has browned. Remove from oven. 
*Allow to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a knife around the edges. Cool completely before cutting.