Recipe Wednesday

As I mentioned last Wednesday, I will endeavor to bring you a new recipe every Wednesday on the HORST ONLINE Blog. This week I will again take the recipe from the 'Creative Cooking' cookbook published by the West University Baptist Young Women in 1978. This week I will use one of the recipes submitted by my sister, Michal Cook. She was a member of West University Baptist Church and part of the W. U. B. Young Women group. My sister passed away in March of 1977 after a brief battle with cancer and this cook book was dedicated to her. The dedication began with:


"This book is dedicated to Michal Cook, whose Christian spirit and faith under severe trial deeply affected our lives for our eternal good."


Please try, and enjoy the following recipe from Michal. This sounds like another good recipe for some summertime enjoyment.






CREAM OF CUCUMBER SOUP


Michal Cook


In the container of a blender combine:


2 c. peeled cucumbers, coarsely chopped
1 c. chicken broth
1 c. light cream
¼ c. chopped chives
¼ c. chopped celery leaves
3 sprigs of parsley
3 Tbsp. soft butter
2 Tbsp. flour



Cover the container and blend the mixture until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serve either hot or cold. If served hot garnish with a very small amount of dill weed. If served cold, garnish with finely chopped cucumbers and a bit of grated lemon rind.

Murder Mystery

This is a very serious story of a sinister and upsetting topic with a set of bizarre and apparently still unknown facts. I will attempt here to summarize some of what is known and make you aware of the apparent mystery surrounding a number of deaths in numerous states across the country. My interest here is to let others know about these cases and to help spread awareness of the mystery surrounding these seemingly unrelated deaths. I will attempt to give a number of links to various sources related to the story and allow you to follow up on as many as you wish. You may then draw your own conclusions about the possibilities and hopefully help to spread the awareness of this story to others who may not have heard about this Murder Mystery.

Warning, this topic may be too upsetting for some and you may want to link off to another site at this time.

One of my favorite places to get away from it all!

I recently heard a news story on that late night radio talk show, Coast to Coast A.M. hosted by Ian Punnett who was filling in for the regular host George Noory. The topic of the story was the ‘Smiley Faced Serial Killers'. Investigative Reporter, Kristi Piehl, was interviewed and questioned by the radio talk show host. They discussed the cases of numerous unexplained deaths of young men who were last seen at a party are bar who then turned up missing. After some time their body turns up in a nearby body of water usually along the bank of some riverfront. Since the deaths were being investigated by a number of different local law enforcement agencies across the country, it was a number of years before anyone made a connection between the numerous cases. In all cases the deaths was initially ruled as an accidental drowning and usually explained away as tragic, but simply an accidental death blamed on the alcohol since the young men apparently had just left a party or bar. Finally, in one case the law enforcement agency involved went back and changed the ruling of death for Chris Jenkins in Minneapolis from undetermined drowning to homicide. Chris Jenkins went missing Oct. 31, 2002 and his body was later found in the Mississippi River in Feb. of 2003. This is when two retired New York City policemen began to make a connection to a previous case they first investigated more that 11 years ago. The initial case was investigated by then NYPD Sgt. Kevin Gannon who made a promise to the parents of Patrick McNiel that he would not let the case rest until he found the killer or killers. This seemingly intelligent and well fit young man was last seen leaving a NYC bar in 1997. His body was found 50 days later and 11 miles downriver from where he went missing. The parents “knew it wasn’t suicide” and then Sgt Gannon had a ‘feeling’ that there was more to the story than could be explained away as ‘accidental death by drowning’. Now retired Kevin Gannon has teamed up with a former colleague Anthony Duarte also from the NYPD and they have devoted their time and personal resources not only to the further investigation of the initial crime,the recent case of University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins, and also to dozens of other deaths from across the country over the last decade. All of these deaths which were blamed on a drunken accident now appear to be connected by a set of mysterious and bizarre similarities. The most striking similarity is the clue which has been found at a number of the sites not where the body was found along the waterfront but where investigators have tracked back to where they believe the body to have entered the water. Initially the only crime scene investigated was the site of where the body was found. Gannon and Duarte took a larger view and reasoned that bodies may have drifted and been found in a different location from the initial crime scene. Many of these initial crime scenes have been revealed to have contained similar ‘tags’ or graffiti, the most notable being a Smiley Face. Thus we have the mystery of the ‘Smiley Faced Serial Killers’.

You may use the following links if you wish to learn more about this apparent Murder Mystery:

Coast to Coast AM

Investigative Reporter, Kristi Piehl

Smiley Faced Serial Killers

Recipe Wednesday

New Feature!

Recipe Wednesday: I was looking through an old recipe book and I got the idea for a regular feature for my HORST ONLINE Blog. Every Wednesday I will endeavor to share a recipe from one of my numerous recipe sources with my Blog readers. The first recipe I share with you comes from 'Creative Cooking' a recipe booklet published by the West University Baptist Young Women. This was a social group at the Church my sister, Michal, attended when she first moved to Houston and after she was married. I will share several recipes by family and friends from this book and I will have more information about the recipe book in later blog posts. Let's get started with the recipe for now. The following recipe was submitted to the book by my mother, Bobbie Horst. I don't really ever remember her making this recipe, but I did find it in the recipe book. It sounds like it might be a good recipe for summer. Here we go with:

PICKLE SCRAMBLE
Bobbie Horst

1 (16 oz. ) bottle whole dill pickles
1 (16 oz. ) bottle whole sweet pickles
1 (16 oz. ) bottle whole sour pickles
1 cup brown sugar

Reserving juice from each jar, slice all pickles into strips. combine juice from each jar and add sugar. Stir well. Mix pickles together and add pickle liquid and sugar. Let stand in a large jar (or return mixed pickles to indivudual jars) for 12 hours or more. The longer their their flavors mix together, the better and crisper they are. For those who like pickles, this is a super recipe.



Please note: I have not personally tried this recipe as I just recently found it in the book. I do hope to try it soon. As already mentioned I don't remember my mother making Pickle Scramble for our family. If any of you Horst family members remember this recipe please leave me a comment to let me know. You are all invited to try it out and enjoy! Please come back for more recipes in future posts.

That Teacher Thing!

My brother recently wrote to an issue in one of his blog posts. Something about the Good, the Bad – no make that the Good, the Stupid (see his blog post for Sunday, April 6, 2008 by clicking on the link). The post dealt with some recent news stories he had seen or heard concerning educational type issues and the good or bad (stupid) results which follow. I’ve noticed that my brother and I frequently do similar things and this is one of those things. I tend to focus on education related news items and pay close attention to those stories. In fact, I had heard both of those same stories in the news and had some of the same thoughts as my brother concerning the issues related in those stories. I recently read a Letter to the Editor on the Editorial Page of the Houston Chronicle. This letter dealt with a tendency among many in this country to place the blame for the failures in education on teachers rather than on any personal, family, or social issues which might be involved. Please read that letter ‘Tired of being Scapegoat’ for the entire story. In her letter to the editor the writer refers to ‘Back to School’ a previous editorial about the No Child Left Behind Act. I agree with the writer of ‘Tired of being Scapegoat” wholeheartedly!

Now I’ll get to the point of this whole story. I’m trying to figure out if this is a family thing or a teacher thing. I believe this is one of those ‘teacher things’ since I taught school for a number of years before becoming a school counselor. My brother is also a teacher and has also been a principal and administrator in some of the districts in which he has worked. My sister was also an elementary school teacher and had worked at both private and public schools. Well now wait a minute. Now this is starting to sound like a family thing! How did we all end up being teachers? Neither my mother nor my father were teachers. I do remember though that they were both frequently at school for various reasons. My mother was in P.T.A. and I believe she may have been P.T.A. president a time or two. My father always came to school any time there was an event like the Fall Carnival or May Fate Dance. That was where each class in each grade level learned some sort of dance like a May Pole dance or Square dance. Each grade in turn went out onto the playground to perform their dance for on looking parents. Wow, what an event! Maybe that is why I hate to dance but, that is another whole topic.

For more information about my brother and his family as well as pictures of my sister you may visit his Blog at Horst Household Happenings. He has a Picture Monday thing where he posts old pictures from our childhood. Some of them or pretty interesting and they are a quant reflection on past times. They show what it was like for us growing up in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Now there is the History teacher in me. Maybe it is a 'teacher thing' after all!

Egg Hunt

Here is one for the books: An Easter Egg Hunt in a wading pool.

Since Kira is so young Kari was concerned about having the Egg Hunt outside. As it turns out she and her dad, Thomas, were both a little 'under the weather' so the Egg Hunt inside turned out quite alright. Check out the following family photos for the Easter Egg Hunt in a wading pool.

Relatively speaking it all went real well with all of the Houston family together for Easter.

Egg Hunt in a wading pool. Wasn't that an ingenious idea!

Janna watches on for all the festivities. Grandparents are in their usual place behind the camera.