Far Away Places (With Strange Sounding Names)

One of my best friends is currently working in the Middle East country of Qatar. I only vaguely know the whereabouts of Qatar, but I know it’s very far away from Denver. She has been away since last June, and will be away for a much longer time. I’m trying not to think about how much longer she will be gone.

She is here on a visit, and we had breakfast together yesterday morning. Well, breakfast that ran into lunch, really, because there is a lot to talk about with a good friend when you haven’t seen her for a long while, and she lives in a country where I couldn’t even begin to read the street signs.

Really, it’s one thing to have a friend move away to, say, Boise, Idaho. It’s even conceivable that a friend could move away to London. But Qatar? A country with a name I can’t even pronounce? She, by the way, tried to teach it to me yesterday morning. That took about half of our time together. Something about having to use the back of my tongue. Whatever. I can say Boise, Idaho.

Anyway, we did a pretty nice job of catching up. We talked about my life (grandkids and blogging). We talked about her life (work and trying to figure out how to stay entertained in a country that Netflix doesn’t serve). We talked about what she missed most (pork, with her husband a close second). We talked about getting used to a life totally different from the United States, or even western Europe (e.g., weekends being Friday and Saturday).

Afterwards, I stopped at Steinmart to return a sweater I had purchased for my husband. Handing the cashier my receipt, I anticipated smooth sailing. He asked me for the credit card onto which I had charged the sweater. I dutifully handed my credit card over to him. “No, Ma’am, I need the card ending in 0087,” said the man pleasantly. Surprised, I told him that was the card, knowing that it’s the only card I ever use. He handed it back to me, suddenly looking very suspicious, and said he was sorry, but that isn’t the right card. I looked at the card, and discovered that though it was exactly like my card – Chase Preferred Sapphire – it indeed bore the name of the friend with whom I had breakfasted/lunched. We had split the tab, as we always did, each giving the server a credit card. We each ended up with the wrong card.

Why is it that when something like this happens, I feel compelled to explain every detail to the cashier? There can be no question in the young man’s mind that I was using a stolen card because I instantly began telling him about having breakfast with my friend who is visiting from Qatar and we had split the tab and each of us had given the server a credit card and can you believe her card was exactly like mine and I’d better call her as soon as possible so that we can get our own cards back. I’m sure I was sweating. My only saving grace was that there was no one behind me in line. That, and they didn’t have a security guard to lead me away in handcuffs.

Anyway, I called her and told her about our mix-up before she was placed in an embarrassing situation as well. As we speak, she is probably doing her Christmas shopping on Amazon using my Chase card!

Onto cooking….

While perusing my mother’s recipe box (Oy vey! Again with the recipe box!) I found her recipe for a broccoli/cheese/rice casserole that she always made on Thanksgiving. It came from the woman who had decorated cakes at our Nebraska bakery. I only tell you this because it wasn’t in my mother’s handwriting, and my sister had to remind me whose handwriting it was. More memories. Marie decorated a pretty cake.

Anyhoo, I made the casserole, and it was as good as I remembered. Even Bill enjoyed it, and he isn’t terribly fond of rice. Perhaps its because I told him he needed to eat his vegetables to be entitled to the last piece of Candy Pie.

Cheese Broccoli

Saute 1 large onion and 1 clove of garlic (chopped fine) in butter and a little oil. Add 1 pkg of frozen chopped broccoli, 1 can cream of chicken soup OR cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 c. milk, 1 c. Velveeta cheese (1 small bar), and 3/4 t. salt. Undercook 1 cup of rice (which makes 2 c. of cooked rice. Mix all of the ingredients in a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Nana's Notes: I cut the recipe in half and it was enough for Bill and me with a bit to have for lunch tomorrow. And,by the way, the title of this post -- for anyone under the age of 50 -- comes from a song that was sung by the likes of Dean Martin and Bing Crosby when I was a little girl. My family is familiar with the song because we had a little neighbor girl who stood at the end of our driveway one year as we left for vacation and sang that song to us. Funny memory. We weren't (as the song suggests) going to China or Siam, but only to Colorado.