Lettuce Eat Local: Unusual Ubleck
Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local
A description of Scattergories came up in a parenting book I was reading the other day, and I recalled how much I love that game.
Above all when acquaintances allow my admittedly ample alliterative adjectives. If you’ve never played, play goes by rolling an alphabet-sided die, and then coming up with answers to categories that begin with that letter before the timer beeps. The more alliterative words, the more points — as long as everyone else agrees the utilization is appropriate and not overdone. I am gleefully guilty of often being ridiculous, simply because I can.
The gift of vocabulary verbosity can come in handy other times, too. My column’s theoretical alphabet die has rolled U this week, and the difficulty of culinary u-sage came as a surprise to me. I expected to be limited on my options for letters like J and Q; while the upcoming V and Z won’t have a big selection of options, at least we know there’s vanilla and zucchini.
But what is there for U? I didn’t go through all my cookbooks’ indices, but the armful of ones I did check had literally nothing listed for the absent 21st letter. The only thing I thought of was uni, which is the edible part (the reproductive organs) of sea urchins — I’ve never had this upscale luxury and never expect to, nor do I anticipate ever seeing it at my local Dillons.
Speaking of upscale, that’s when I started to wonder if I needed to employ my adjectival skills and get to U by just modifying other foods with words like upscale, unripe, underbaked. It would have worked, because no one but myself is making me alphabetize like this, but it seemed a little underhanded. Ugandan or Uruguayan food was on the proverbial table, as was ugali (thick white cornmeal we ate a lot in Kenya).
I was still pondering these things as I cleared off the counter in preparation for making slime with Benson. It was Saturday, a few days post-Christmas/Ohio vacation as well as blustery and pre-blizzardy, and the kid needed a low-key yet entertaining activity. I had found a big container of cornstarch when putting some stuff away downstairs, and Benson helped make it by carefully pouring the water into the mixing bowl. Even stirring it together begins the strange fun of this non-Newtonian fluid that seems to break the laws of science: its viscosity changes as pressure changes, its behavior particularly mysterious to a three-year-old. Hard touches make it almost solid; a gentle touch turns it into quicksand.
Also known as oobleck, this simple craft fascinates even me, although I don’t love the feeling of the cornstarch. Benson, however, was utterly absorbed in it (fortunately not physically, although that’s also probably technically debatable since his hands were fully covered). I’m not sure we’ve had a quieter hour in…the last year? And I mean 2024, not the few days of 2025. He played and played and played. We made a few different colors, and he lived in his own happy messy world with just some plastic animals, little cups, a strainer. It was unnerving and magical.
I’m sure it’ll never go that well again, but that recipe was certainly a winner.
Particularly since I remembered the value of umlauts and oobleck’s potential alternate spelling as übleck. U r welcome.
Unpalatable Übleck
This recipe is not unedible, since it’s cornstarch and water, but I would not recommend ingesting any quantity as far as flavor goes. My kids both tasted it of course, but their opinions are not always valid. It’s unconventional to share a recipe not intended for consumption, but not unpleasant in this case. I hope it affords your kids/grandkids (or yourself, I don’t judge) some fun this wintery week!
Prep tips: the mess can look a little terrifying, but it cleans up very easily with just a little water and soap. It’s not recommended to go down the drain in large quantities, but you can let it dry in a bowl/on a baking tray and toss it in the trash when it’s powdery — or add water and play with it again like Benson insisted we do.
2 cups cornstarch
1 cup water
a few drops of food coloring
Add cornstarch to a large bowl, and stir in water. Divide if desired, adding coloring. Play! Stick your hands in it, drizzle it on a tray to “paint,” submerge animal figures in it, etc.
Good Things From 2024
Well, we did it, we completed one more revolution around the Sun. The year 2025 holds many hopes and aspirations for many people, and why shouldn’t it? The year prior has brought up a lot of uncertainty about the way the world works. From generative AI progressing rapidly, to assassination attempts, to the incredible polarization our Nation felt during the past year’s election cycle, it’s been a bit much to chew. With that being said, it’s important to know that 2024 was not a terrible year by any means. For every piece of bad news, I prefer to believe there is a piece of good news. So let’s take a look at just a couple of good news stories we can try to emulate in the New Year.
I’d like to start off by saying that despite what Hollywood may put out there about the developments of AI, it’s actually proven to be incredibly useful in our society. Planning, scheduling, and even answering random questions on Google has become incredibly easy. Not only that, but AI has already had lifesaving impacts on our world. Many fire watchtowers have begun using an AI-enhanced camera imaging system to detect fires in remote areas throughout the Western United States. The new application of this technology helped in identifying 77 wildfires beginning before any 911 calls had been made for them. NASA has also been using AI to help detect solar flares from the Sun early. To put it simply, AI is a tool that we can use to help us in our society, and these are just a couple of stories of people doing exactly that.
Renewable energies have also made leaps and bounds globally in the past year. In fact, India recently finished their first solar panel installation in a remote village. It’s a new model for more sustainable living in rural areas. Wave harnassing technology has also made progress. The Department of Energy speculates that the ocean waves have enough potential energy to provide two trillion Watts of power. MIT scientists are designing new ways of trying to harness this power with anaconda-like receptors that flow with the tide. It’s cutting-edge technology that can help so many coastal populations and those that are farther inland through energy import. Whether we like it or not, we seem to be leaving more and more of an impact on the ecosystems around us. Looking at these stories of sustainable initiatives can help us understand how to move forward as a global society.
Continuing on the theme of earth health, many different National Parks and wildlife conservationists made moves to reinstitute natural wildlife across the nation. In the North Cascades of Seattle, Grizzly Bears were reintroduced in hopes of bringing up the population again. In another story, our very own state of Kansas released several Alligator Snapping Turtles in hopes of bringing them back. Once a natural part of our ecosystem, Alligator Snapping Turtles have been all but lost from our waterways since 1991. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks teamed up with Missouri State University to release tagged turtles in the Neosho River of Eastern Kansas.
This is naught but the tip of the iceberg of good news that happened in the year 2024. There are so many wonderful things that happen in our personal lives and in the world around us, it just sometimes takes patience to observe. As the new year takes off, I would encourage you to look through your memories of the previous year and take time to reminisce over the good times, it can be rather rewarding.
Loading the Harvest
Over the years, I’ve had lots of help getting my harvested deer out of the field and/or into the pickup. I hunt mostly on land owned by a family member, and my sister usually helps hoist my deer into the truck. Last year, however, I harvested a really old deer that was also the heaviest deer I’d ever taken. After it was tagged and field dressed, we tried multiple time to get the beast loaded with no luck. With her in the pickup pulling and me on the ground lifting, it just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, a heavy equipment operator working in the field next door agreed to come to the rescue, and with the extra muscle on the ground to lift, it was soon loaded.
I’ve also had some mechanical help loading deer over the years. A few years back, my deer went down on the neighbor’s land. He was quite alright with me going there to retrieve it, but he was slowly clearing much of it for pasture, so the place had become forty acres of brush piles consisting mostly of thorn trees with long massive thorns, and thorny limbs from those trees lay everywhere. A deep creek bed also meandered through the property in several directions. If I had dragged the deer, it would have meant getting it down one side of the creek bed and up the other, or somehow heaving it over a fence, neither of which appealed to me. Its possible I could have weaseled my pickup in there, but rubber tires would just have been fodder for the thorn limbs. I walked out and drove to the neighbors, not really sure what good that was going to do, but viola, he had a skid loader on tracks, and in a short while, the deer was rolled onto a pallet on the forks, and away to the truck we went.
When Joyce and I were first married, we hunted on her uncle’s land where she grew up in southwestern Kansas. The first buck she shot was there on an evening hunt. She made what looked like a great shot and the whitetail buck went down immediately. But before we could celebrate, the buck stood up again and ran off down into a maze of briar patches and coulees. Both of our hearts sank, as we knew what lay ahead. We began searching, and soon it was dark; not just any normal “dark” as I remember, but pitch black. Somehow God helped us eventually find that deer, which had ended up down a steep embankment into a ravine. This was well over 20 years ago, but luckily, we did have a cell phone. I was able to clamor down to it, and while I field dressed the buck, she called her uncle, but what would she tell him? We had no idea at all where we were, but after explaining where our blind was and which direction the buck had gone, he seemed to know right where to find us. Soon we heard the motor and saw the lights of the tractor, and after dragging the buck up out of the ravine with a chain, and plopping it into the bucket of the loader, off to the shed we went.
Perhaps the most memorable story comes from harvesting my first deer in Kansas back in the late 1990’s. I hunted on Joyce’s uncle’s property in southwestern KS, and stayed in his basement. This particular morning was the last day I could hunt before I had to come back home, and that morning the fog was so thick you could literally see nothing. I debated on just throwing in the towel and heading home, but visibility slowly got better as the morning progressed. I walked up their lane to look down into a grassy pasture below, and as I stood there, 2 whitetail bucks cantered across the pasture and into his corral below, of all places. I found a spot between some
trees, and watched until the bigger of the 2 gave me a shot. The buck ran out of the corral and went down in an open spot in the pasture. I drove an older Ford Explorer with a rack on the roof, and easily maneuvered to where the deer lay. I tagged and field dressed the buck, but I guess I hadn’t very well thought about how I was gonna’ get this beast on the roof of my Explorer. I walked to his round top shed, opened the door and there sat the answer with the words Massey Ferguson written on its side. I drove to the deer, got it rolled into the bucket, but then it became a juggling act, getting the bucket just the right height and angle so as to slide the deer out of the bucket and onto the roof rack without crunching the roof of the vehicle or dumping the deer over the side and having to start all over again. After many trips on-and-off-the tractor, the deer finally lay on the roof. I returned the Ole’ Massey to its stable, strapped down the deer and headed home, mission accomplished!
I suppose one day when all I can remember are things from 40 years ago, I’ll constantly bore the nurses at the care home with stories like these. Oh well, I guess I could do worse…Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!
Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].
Evolving American Names
Several times a week, while driving to the Old Geezer Gang Coffee Klatch, I drive past the elementary school in Riley. Out by the curb is an electric sign that gives passers-by a daily variety of messages about school happenings.
Almost every day, the sign will post a “Happy Birthday” message to some student and will list the student’s given first name. Frequently, I am mildly amazed at some of the modern creative first names that I read.
Eventually, it dawned on me that, in the main, modern first names differ significantly from the common first names of folks I wuz familiar with early in my life — back in the 1940-70s. Thinking back 60-70 years ago, I’d guess I’d classify those common first names as pedestrian, perhaps cumbersome, not particularly creative or unusual. Just functional.
Then my old mind got to conjuring up the first names — and some nick names — of folks I grew up with, both adults and kids. I’m not going to attempt to give a comprehensive list of children’s modern first names. But, I am going to list common first names of folks in the rural community where I grew up in southeast Kansas.
I’ll start with the first names I recall of adult couples. There were: Claude and Thelma; Delbert and Betty, Percy and Katherine, Herbert and Eileen, Ralph and Lena, Elmer and Estee, Harry and Ida, Sigel and Juanita, Austin and Orlena, Otis and Stella, Vol and Zelma, Lester and Edith, Adolf and Ruby, Burl and Ione, Harvey and Winnie, Pete and Isla, Warren and Vera, and Reuben and Alice..
Men’s names I recall are: Clarence, Homer, Ancel, Bertie, Odie, Pearl, Marion, Myron, Buck, Duard, Ebenezer, Isaac, Stanley, Mott, Forrest, Alvie, Theodore, Archibald, Henry, Hiram, Harley, Elwyn, Leonard, Rex, Virgil, Harlan, Ike, Eldon, Freeland, and Weldon.
Women’s names I recall are: Bertha, Gertrude, Pauline, Ethel, Sadie, Margaret, Gloria, Lucille, Doris, Margery, Florence, Norma, Lela, Nola, Nora, Claudette, Fern, Esther. Billye, Heloise, Charlene, Hazel, and Inez.
Men’s nicknames I recall are: Peanut, Fun, Bunt, Rabbit, Smoky, Chub, Gabby, Duke, Duck, Frog, Toad, Butch, Pus, Bun, Monk, Bud, Buddie, Glee, and Buster.
Well, that wuz a fun trip down memory lane. It shows that names change with the generations.
***
A farmer is having marital problems, so he decides to see a therapist. The farmer says, “I don’t know what to do. Every day my wife loses her temper with me for no reason.”
The therapist thinks for a moment, then says, “I think I have an answer for your problem. When it seems that your wife is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish, but don’t swallow it until she either leaves the room or calms down.”
Two weeks later, the farmer goes back to the therapist looking fresh and reborn. He says, “You know, that was a brilliant idea! Every time my wife started berating me, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and after a few minutes she calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?”
The therapist says, “The water itself does nothing. It’s keeping your mouth shut that does the trick.”
***
Three sons with the last name of Hyden inherited their father’s ranch and extensive cattle enterprise. The brothers were amicable with each other, but they were having difficulty in deciding what name to give their new one-third-each ranch.
One brother suggested “3-4-1 Ranch.” His brothers agreed his suggestion wuz rather creative, but didn’t trip their trigger.
Then the second brother got a little more creative and came up with the “Hyden Hooves Ranch.” That name got a lot of consideration, but in the end they canned it.
Finally, the third brother, the youngest one, said he’d thought of the perfect name for their ranch. “Let’s name it the “Focus Ranch,” he explained.
“The Focus Ranch?” both of his brothers questioned. “How does that name reflect our situation?” they chimed.
The young brother grinned and explained. “Well ‘focus’ is where the ‘sun’s rays meet’ — and that’s what we three sons do here — raise meat.”
I’m pretty sure that’s the name they went with.
***
Well, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are gone. We’ve see the shortest day of the year. Summer is on its way. So, don’t forget where you’ve got your T-shirts and tank tops stored away. We’re headed toward warmer weather.
However, before we have to worry about sun burn, we’ll probably have to worry about frostbite. My ol’ pappy, Czar E. Yield, always said, “When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen.
***
The new shop that I’m having build is finally enclosed and weather-tight. It still needs steel on the outside, and there’s a lot of work still to do. But, at least, it’s water-tight.
***
Here are my personal words of wisdom for the week: “No one has ever lived life faster and a day at a time. That’s a fact. So, we’d all be wise to live each day as a special occasion.”
***
Welcome 2025. Ya’all make it a good ‘un.
