My Interest in Pinterest

My maternal grandparents grew up in Switzerland, and came to the United States in 1925, part of the great migration of Europeans looking for a better life. My grandmother’s father delivered milk by horse and buggy. Likely, they probably didn’t see a lot of cars until they arrived in the United States. I picture the small Nebraska town they moved to having a mixture of cars and horses for some time, until cars became more commonplace. My grandparents witnessed the proliferation of radios, the invention of television, telephones in every home, all sorts of things that we simply take for granted every day.

But I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime also. I think there was a television in our home when I was born, and certainly a radio, but I remember when we got our first color television, and let me tell you, it was a BIG DEAL. Mom let us watch Captain Kangaroo before school in the morning. At night, after dinner and our bath, we sat down as a family and watched Big Valley, Bonanza, Lawrence Welk, or Gunsmoke. Simpler times.

But obviously the biggest changes I have witnessed have been in the area of technology. Over the years, I have watched as computers became smaller, less expensive, and therefore more common. It once was that only businesses had a computer; now everyone has a computer as part of their telephone or as a tablet, with more memory than I can even get my mind around.

But the thing that is most remarkable to me has been the proliferation of the internet. I remember when Bill and I moved into our house after we married in 1992, and he began talking about this concept that was entirely foreign and beyond my understanding called the World Wide Web. Bill has

always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. He was the first of his friends and work colleagues to have a cell phone – literally the size of a brick.

But I am sounding like an old person. As inept as I am with most forms of technology, I love it and rarely fear it. I own a smart phone, an Ipad, and a laptop computer. I read almost all my books on a tablet. I blog. I read blogs. I do Google searches.

What mostly stumps me now is social media. I have a Facebook page and enjoy sharing the photos and learning about the activities of my “friends.” I haven’t really tackled Twitter or Instagram yet, but I will.

But the thing I have most embraced is Pinterest. I love Pinterest. I love following both friends and strangers on Pinterest. I pin recipes. I pin crochet patterns. I pin house decorating ideas. I pin gardening ideas. I pin book recommendations.

What I don’t do is actually make any of the recipes or read any of the books or crochet any of the baby clothes I pin. I don’t garden and my house hasn’t been remodeled in 20 years.

So my resolution for at least this week is to make a couple of recipes that I have pinned but have never actually made. Then I will give you my impression.

I’m going to start with a yummy sandwich that I pinned from Ree Drummond’s web site.

Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich

Ingredients
1 large onion
2 sticks butter (lots and lots of butter)
2 – 3 lbs. cube steak
Seasoned salt
½ c.Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce
4 Hoagie rolls

Process
Slice the onions and cook in ¼ stick butter until soft and light brown. Remove and set aside.

Slice the cube steak against the grain. Sprinkle with seasoned salt. Heat 2 T butter over high heat in the same skillet until melted and beginning to brown. Add the meat in a single layer. Cook one side until brown, and then flip and cook until brown, about a minute on each side.

Add ½ c. Worcestershire sauce, 5-6 shakes hot sauce and 2 T butter. Add the cooked onions. Stir to combine.

Butter the halved rolls and brown in a skillet.

To assemble, lay the bottom half of a roll on a plate. Place the meat mixture, followed by a spoonful of juice from the pan. Top with other half of roll, cut in half and enjoy.

My note: Overall, this was a very good sandwich. My husband liked it very much. I added half of a red pepper because I had it in the fridge, and I didn’t particularly like the flavor of it in the sandwich. My bad. Also, for me, the amount of Worcestershire was overwhelming and I might cut it with a bit of beef broth next time. But I really like cube steak for some reason, and this is a good way to use it. I will make this sandwich again.