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Show The Emery County Review, Tuesday, November 4, 2008 AT YOUR LEISURE Casey’s Pockets Swell Book Reviews Swell Recipes B3 Entertainment SWELL RECIPES Sharon Jensen Shares Her Favorite Canning Recipes Kathy Ockey Sharon Jensen of Emery retired from working at Ferron Elementary after 30 years and said it was the ideal job to have while raising a family. “My children went to work with me and came home with me. I knew what they were doing at school and what they needed. It was just the perfect job for me and I loved the work and the people I worked with,” she related. Jensen says she is constantly seeing people who were students at Ferron Elementary when she worked there. They remind her how she bandaged their elbow or gave them a hug when they were hurt or scared. “I wanted to be what they needed when they weren’t home,” she said. Now that she is retired, her life hasn’t seemed to slow down much from those busy days at school. “There isn’t enough time in a day for me to get everything done that I want to do. I have so many hobbies I can’t get anything else done”. Sharon and her husband, Delbert, are both Emery natives and have four children and 10 grandchildren. All of their children live close by and they see them often. They also have a farm, horses and cows that keep them very busy. Sharon likes scrapbooking, hunting, fishing and being in the mountains and is also an EMT in Emery. She likes to sew and piece quilts together and then hand-quilt them. She wants to be self-sufficient and does a lot of gardening and canning of the produce she harvests. She said if it can’t be bottled she dries it, but then she gives most of it to her family for them to enjoy. “I have a good life, and I count my blessings everyday,” she said. Sharon is sharing some of her favorite canning recipes. “I have fine-tuned these recipes over the years. If you follow the recipes and measurements closely, they will turn out good every time,” she said. Spaghetti Sauce to Bottle 16 pounds (sink full) tomatoes, diced 4 medium onions 4 medium garlic cloves 2 tablespoons parsley 2 tablespoons oregano leaves 2 tablespoons salt CASEY’S POCKETS The Approaching Holiday Season Casey Wood With Halloween behind us, stores have already begun advertising the next big holiday: Christmas! But wait, aren’t we missing something? Oh yes, Thanksgiving. It is commonly said that the holiday season begins earlier and earlier each year. Some may disagree with this simple observation, but the fact of the matter is: Christmas does begin earlier and earlier each year! Christmas displays at stores before Halloween rivaled the Halloween displays, and in some cases were larger, and as Halloween displays are taken down, the Christmas displays take the place of the Halloween displays, along with holding their old place, and Thanksgiving displays are scarce, if there at all. Granted, Thanksgiving is more of a holiday for feasting than for decorating, but there is more to Thanksgiving than the food, although you wouldn’t know it you were looking for Thanksgiving themed decorations. Prior to Halloween there were television advertisements for Christmas, and until about the week before Thanksgiving, Christmas advertisements will continue to dominate the television screen. Thanksgiving gets that one week prior to the holiday for advertisement and for recognition. Until then, mention of the holiday will be scarce, if any at all. Many will have their Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving. Many more will consider Thanksgiving a day to plan out their course of action and prepare for “Black Friday” following Thanksgiving. Some may recognize the importance of Thanksgiving, but of those who do, many will see it as important simply because of the opportunity they have to feast and kick back. I do not consider Christmas to be a bad thing, on the contrary it is my favorite time of the year, and I certainly do not see feasting and relaxing on Thanksgiving as bad things, I just believe that it is important to recognize why we have Thanksgiving, and what it means. Thanksgiving is a time for just that, giving thanks for all of the things we have, and for all the people we have around us. It is an opportunity for families to gather and be together, and it is an opportunity for those who have plenty to help those who have little. It certainly should not be overlooked and taken for granted because of the upcoming Christmas season. If we don’t appreciate Thanksgiving, then what is the point of having it? If we only see it as an opportunity to get a day off school or work, then why celebrate the day at all? As the Christmas holiday draws close, don’t overlook the Thanksgiving holiday that draws closer. Use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to look at all the great things you have and to be grateful for them. Use it as an opportunity to rekindle the relationships you have with your family or friends, and as an opportunity to help someone who really needs it. 2 Tablespoons basil 2 Bay leaves Cracked pepper 1/2 cup sugar 3 12 ounce cans tomato paste Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for one hour. Discard bay leaves. Add three tall cans of mushrooms at the very last. Put in sterilized quart jars. Pressure at 10 pounds for 30 minutes. You can simmer tomato mixture for two hours and then steam process for 45 minutes instead of pressuring it. Chili Sauce 8 quarts tomatoes (chopped) 3 cups chopped onion 1 chopped green pepper 2 teaspoons nutmeg 1 pint vinegar 2 Tablespoons salt 3 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon cloves Combine all of the above ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least one hour. Add 6 cups sugar and three large cans tomato paste. Boil another 20 minutes. Put in sterilized jars and steam for 30 minutes. Jerky 2 bottles liquid smoke 2 bottles water 2 tablespoons garlic salt 2 tablespoons pepper (coarse ground) 4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 2 tablespoons non-iodized salt Cut meat into 1/4 inch thick strips. Soak in above marinade for 24 hours. Put on jerky rack or cookie sheets (lined with foil) and bake in oven at 175 degrees for 8 – 12 hours or until completely dry. If you cook it on cookie sheets you will have to turn it over at least once. Nummy! Canned Potatoes Sharon Jensen Peel and cut new potatoes into cubes. Fill quart jars. Add 1 teaspoon non-iodized salt to each quart. Fill with water to 1/2 inch from top of bottle. Pressure at 10 pounds for 40 minutes. These are really good to take camping. Canned Dry Beans For each quart of beans desired, pick over and wash 1 cup of dry beans (pinto, black, navy, red or any dry bean). Add 1 teaspoon salt to each quart. You can also add 1/2 teaspoon onion salt to each quart. Fill to within 1 inch of top with boiling water. Seal. Pressure in pressure cooker 60 minutes at 15 pounds pressure or 1 1/2 hours at 10 pounds pressure. These are very nice to have on hand for quick, easy meals. SWELL BOOKS Rowley Family Enjoys Reading Books Together Kathy Ockey Virginia Rowley grew up in Manti and graduated from Snow College with a math major and a minor in music. She met and married Huntington native, Chris Rowley and they began their life together in Huntington. Today they have five children ranging in ages from 16 years to 3 months, so Virginia finds herself a very busy wife and mother. Virginia taught piano lessons until her responsibilities to her family made it impossible to continue teaching, but she still plays for pleasure. She also enjoys doing family history work and does a lot of research in this area. Her family loves to picnic on the desert and when they are there they try to identify the various trees, shrubs and flowers. Her father-in-law got them interested in geo-caching and they enjoy hunting for hidden treasures with their GPS. Virginia said it is important to make time to read, “I’m always reading.” She also said most of her reading now is with her children. They love reading together and have learned a lot about books and also about each other. They have read the KL Fogg series: Serpent Tide and Widow’s Revenge, and the Harry Potter series. She really enjoys J.K. Rawlings because she writes so well. The family recently completed reading “Holes,” by Louis Sachar. Virginia said they really enjoyed the book and then bought the movie and watched it. There are really three stories in this book, but the main theme is how teenager Stanley Yelnats (Stanley backwards) IV tries to reverse the curse that was on his great-great-grandfather and all of the Yelnats family through the following generations, by Madame Zeroni. The story begins four generations earlier when Elya Yelnats falls in love with a beautiful girl and asks Madame Zeroni’s help in getting the girl to marry him. The courtship goes wrong, Elya doesn’t fulfill his promise to Madame Zeroni and she places a curse on the family from that time on. Three generations later, Stanley Yelnats is on his way to a boys’ juvenile detention center for a crime he did not commit. Stanley is unassertive, overweight and knows he will be bullied at school. He is forced to dig holes at the detention school. He wonders why, but when he finds a strange can in one of the holes he knows there is more to digging Virginia Rowley and her daughter Kaylee the holes than just punishment. This is an involved story and has a lot of characters through the many generations. Will Stanley break the family curse that has plagued the family for so many years? Virginia said, “It is a twisted story but comes together in the end. It is a good book to read with your children because it teaches the values of keeping promises, hard work, greed, friendship, helping each other and family ties.” Virginia also encourages everyone to read together as a family because you learn together and you can spend time together, but most important, your children learn the value of reading. Scanning the Bookshelf I Think, Therefore I Think I Am (Just Guessing) Robert L. Pincus At the time of year when skulls and skeletons get their due, Russell Shorto’s new book, “Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason,” seems to have good timing. True to its title, the philosopher’s bones are central to Shorto’s saga. And for Rene Descartes (15961650), one of the inventors of modern secular culture as we still know it, it’s somehow fitting that his skull was separated from the rest of his skeleton about 16 years after his death. Much of Descartes’ fame hinges, after all, on his 1637 essay “Discourse on the Method,” with the words “I think, therefore I am” -- the essay that set up the split between mind and body, which has been central to Western culture ever since. Thinking back to the 16th and 17th centuries, probably only a few passages from Shakespeare rival it for lasting familiarity. So, you can see why someone might want to make off with Descartes’ skull. It was an emblem of celebrity. Shorto, a journalist and historian, has a gift for explaining Descartes’ ideas, the rise of Cartesian followers in the 17th century and the conflicts between faith and reason. One of the book’s revealing themes is showing how this conflict became a three-way affair: between traditionalists, who believed rational thought and scientific discoveries were a threat to religious authority; radical rationalists, who felt that the logical conclusion of Descartes’ insights would be the end of religion; and moderate secular thinkers, who thought rational and religious thinking could coexist. As Shorto writes, the contours of the conflict remain the same. And Descartes’ skull? Its history and the history of Western culture were intertwined all along, uncannily. This book is the story of both. (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.) |