CNN says: The epicenter of the earthquake---the strongest in the region in 40 years---was about seven miles below ground and 38 miles north-northwest of Evansville, Indiana, the USGS said.
* KSDK: Aftershocks felt in St. Louis
* WLS: Chicago is a trembling town
* WLWT: Ohioans tell earthquake tales
A few aftershocks followed, with the largest registering at magnitude 4.5.

SANDWICH POEM

Slice of Sandwich
by Janet Grace Riehl

Everything's a poem.
(Even making sandwiches.)
If you slice it right.

What is your sand-wish?

RIEHLIFE EARTHQUAKE SANDWICH

These are open-faced. Assemble these ingredients:

The BREAD is: Ezekiel 4:9 Sesame Sprouted Grain Bread, the original 100% flourless.

The SPREAD is a combination of: Marzetti (since 1896) roasted garlic hummus with flax butter (you make yourself or find at the bottom of the bottle of flax oil)

The JOLT (besides the earthquake) is: Sicilian Olives (split these in half and place strategically on top of the bread and spread.

Munch.

EARTHQUAKE MEMORIES

November 9, 1968 Illinois Earthquake

An earthquake of intensity VII, magnitude 5.3 shock, felt over 580,000 square miles in 23 states. There were reports of people in tall buildings in Ontario and Boston feeling the shock.

Talking on the telephone with my brother, he reminded me that there was an earthquake on the day of my first wedding on November 9, 1968...also my father's 53rd birthday...at my parents' home on Evergreen Heights in Southwestern Illinois. Mother had baked and decorated an amazingly beautiful 4-tier cake, each tier with a different flavor so that no one of the 50 guests present would go away unfulfilled, cakewise.

My brother was up in his old room, dubbed "The Cowboy Room" for its wallpaper designs. The antique glazed windows shook and he feared they might break. In those cold war days, his first thought was that we might be under attack somehow. He rushed downstairs where the rest of us were just standing around. My brother, ever the man of action (he would have been about 21 at this time) urged us to run outside, which we did.

We always kinda thought that earthquake was a shaky portent for that first pancake of a marriage. No earth moved that night.

Gary shared a second earthquake memory. He and his wife Patty were fishing on a small pond when they suddenly saw a fox and a deer dart across the dam. Since they were in the water, they felt no sensation from the quake. The animals fleeing were their only clue something was amiss in the world.

The Loma Prieta Earthquake, aka the Quake of '89 or the World Series Quake

I lived in Oakland at the time of the 6.9/7.1 surface level quake, and it was a pretty big deal. When it happened, I was driving and couldn't pinpoint the sensation. For 15 seconds it felt like slip-sliding on snow, and it was October 17th, no snow in sight at 5:04 p.m.

Wikipedia says:The quake killed 67 people throughout northern California, injured 3,757 people and left more than 12,000 people homeless[2] The earthquake occurred during the warm up for the third game of the 1989 World Series, coincidentally featuring both of the Bay Area's Major League Baseball teams, the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. This was the first major earthquake in America to be broadcast on live television.

There you go---an earthquake sandwich with a poem, a recipe for a sandwich, and a few earthquake memories...jolts from the past.

Oberle's Meat Market
21529 Highway 32
Ste. Genevieve, Missouri 63670
(573) 883-5656
Offering the original famous Oberle sausage, smoked pork loin, garlic cheese and a wide selection of other prepared meats and cheeses. Oberle's will also vacuum pack some of their famous Oberle sausage and send it to your family and friends. Hunters can bring their venison in and have it made into deer sausage.

That's what I'm imbibing (yes, imbibing) this morning with my tea...looseleaf black tea with condensed milk whisked in.

The thing about these super-rich extra darks is that they go best with a beverage so they melt in your mouth.

As the saying is in Ghana, "No be so?"

Forty years ago today (February 17, 1968, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) my brother Gary Thompson and Patricia (Patty) Murrary wed to become Gary and Patty Thompson. They've stayed that way for 40 years. That's no small feat in today's fast-dissolving-of-everything world.

They've founded a family of 3 children and 4 grandchildren (see Family Ties, below). Of all three of my parents' children, my brother is the most stable and conventional, and keeps on earning those Eagle Scout Merit Badges helping out everyone in the family. He could not have chosen a more perfectly-suited woman to be his wife than Patty.

Congratulations to you both!

He's been sending us a steady stream of photos from their month-long Hawaiian 2nd Honeymoon Tour. Here are a few, along with my brother's commentary. ---JGR
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ALOHA!

We spent yesterday viewing and hiking the Wiamea canyon area. We went on what was supposed to be an easy hike to see twin waterfalls. When we arrived close to the end, I got the picture of the falls at their starting point. We didn't descend the final, almost vertical drop, to the base of the real falls. The other pictures were from the beach in front of our place we are staying on Kauai.There has been a lot of rain but other than that it sure has been a perfect vacation. The rain has brought BEAUTIFUL single and double rainbows.

The monk seal has been at the beach since we got here Saturday. He is molting and they just seem to rest and roll around in the rocks for a few weeks while that is happening, from what we have been told.

Monk Seal Sign (photo by Gary Thompson)

Monk Seal on Beach (look closely...underneath the cover of sand) Photo by Gary Thompson

The family ties run down like this: Patty Thompson is the daughter of Grace Murray of Aurora, Colorado, and the late Ernest Murray. Gary Thompson is the son of Erwin Thompson of Godfrey, Illinois and the late Ruth Thompson.

Gary and Patty Thompson are the parents of three children, Janean Baird (husband, Mike) of Bloomington, David Thompson (wife, Lori) of Normal and Sarah Wilson (husband, Jeremy) of Cottonwood, Arizona.

Gary and Patty have four grandchildren. Gary and Patty are both retired from Jacksonville, Illinois School District 117. Patty taught for 22 years in Washington, Jefferson and North schools, and Gary taught vocational subjects for 33 years at Jacksonville High School, and headed the Industrial Arts Department.

Sail in the Sunset (Photo by Gary Thompson)

Alla is what makes Alla's B & B a stand-out with warm-hearted hosting, world-class cooking, and stories that reach across cultures.

The John C. Pelt Home of Duncanville (a guesthouse in a museum) is "the oldest original all brick home in the city of Duncanville (South-West Dallas County) built by the chief Mason in 1927, John C. Pelt." Rick, Alla's husband, is a collector and dealer of Edison-era grammaphones and telephones, and evidence of this passion throughout the house adds layers of historical authenticity.

John C. Pelt home of Duncanville (a guesthouse in a museum)

I stayed here after the Story Circle Network Conference in Austin, Texas. I jumped in my rental car and, true-to-Texan-form, just popped right over to the Dallas area to reunite briefly with my god daughter, Andria Ebel, just back from Peace Corps Service in Mongolia. Since we hadn't seen each other by ourselves for several years, it was a huge treat to have one-on-one visiting time...and to meet the people in her life now who form a loving circle around her, D.C. Brooks and his mother, Lisa. We had two great meals at Los Lupes.

Hear the ring of cell phones amidst rings from the working antique phones in the house...then open up your laptop for high speed internet connection seated in a plush red velvet antique chair. There you are, surrounded by the charm of the 1920s and 1930s, with all the 21st century conveniences we've come to rely upon right in the heart of a small town.

Wake up to bird song and the crow of the neighbor's rooster as the bell rings for one of Alla's fantastical breakfasts!

Rick, Alla's husband, with Janet, taking a break from eating Alla's large homecooked country-style breakfast.

Alla's full table...can you possibly eat it all? No problem...save some for a snack later in the day or to take on your journey.

415 Hustead St.
Duncanville, TX 75116
Phone: (972)-697-6067
Fax: (972) 883 6938
Email: allasbandb@gmail.com

Daniel Barth's article is well-researched and chockfull of information about Big Picture Publishing and how three authors in his region, Northern California, have responded in three distinctive ways to get their work out, promote their work, and create a writing life worth living and sharing.

I'm off today to the Story Circle Network's National Memoir Conference where I'll be one of three panelists speaking on publishing, "Pen to Print," on Sunday. I've made an attractive broadside reproduction of the Barth's article as my handout for the session. But, you, dear reader, can see it first!

Dan became interested in interviewing me after hearing my talk (sponsored by Poets and Writers) at the Colored Horse Studio in Ukiah..."Story Poems: Of and For the Families of the World," dedicated to my mother. I constructed the talk around the poems from her section of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary." You can read the full text of this talk on the sidebar of my website (just look for "Sightlines"/"Talks").

Improvisational cooks know the best strategy is to have ingredients on-hand for quick assembly. It's like being your own under-chef (sous chef) in a restaurant kitchen. I pulled out these ingredients to pull together the Send-Off Stew for Daniel.

--sautee onions (but, of course!)
--sautee mushrooms
--cooked bulk Italian sausage
--polenta (yup, the kind that comes in a tube)
--mufaletta mix (olive tapenade often used for sandwiches)
--Stephanie's cranberry chutney (homemade...someday she'll share her recipe)

I cut up the polenta into cubes. The polenta gives the stew a soft comfort food texture. The mufaletta mix brings the sour/pickle into it while Stephanie's cranberry chutney brought in a sweet note...complementing the savory of onion, mushroom, and sausage.

That's it...just throw it all in a skillet and scramble it around until you're satisfied.

SECOND DAY SEND-OFF STEW

My Uncle Willard, a hoboe, visited us when we were young and the entire family was down with mumps. He introduced us to 7-day stew, and I guess the idea stuck with me. After Daniel left, I ammended the above recipe as follows:

--substituted shrimp (cook a mess of frozen) for the sausage
--added green beans
--Lost the chutney for this rendition...feeling it might overpower the shrimp.

In improvizationtional cooking, you are assembling tastes and textures through assembling ingredients.

When I began to paint in the 1990s, I'd go into an art trance as I painting large-scale banners on cloth. Before I went into studio time, I'd cook for a morning, making sure there was bountiful nutritious food in the refrigerator so I'd have something at hand to eat when my body was ready. For me, it's as if I have a personal chef on staff.

_____________________

A sous chef (pronounced soo chef) is in charge of the production, or actual preparation and cooking of food, along with continuously supervising the staff.

Or, you may be bored in this week of the dead in these days between Christmas Day and New Year in which my birthday happens to fall.

Or, you may even be collecting yourself for next year. You may even be collecting recipes for next year.

If you are collecting recipes for next year, you couldn't find a better one than this one from my Mother.

Mother's recipe came from her mother, Grace Johnston, a farm wife during the Great Depression, and one of the strongest and most clever you might find anywhere. The Johnston Fruitcake was a part of Mother's growing up memories. When the family was hard up they used to roast beans to substitute for the nuts. Many of the ingredients that we use today for the fruitcake were not only not affordable, but simply not available during the Depression, especially in rural Illinois.

After Mother set out on her own and started her own family and her own family traditions, she, as an inveterate tinkerer, began to fine tune the Johnston Fruitcake recipe and make it her own.

Mother loved to collect recipes. My brother, Gary, told me as we baked that she'd morphed the Johnston Fruitcake recipe and the Golden California Fruitcake recipe found in a cookbook together to make the Ruth Thompson Fruitcake Recipe as we know it today.

No citron and candied cherries for her. No spirit-instilled dark and heavy confection for her. No, this is a light lovely batter wrapping the freshest and most delectable of dried ingredients. She first discovered these a few decades ago visiting me in California, and brought them into her fruitcake.

My brother and I made six fruitcakes this year, slated only for those fruitcake aficianados of the world. Gary figures the world is made up of those who like fruitcake and those who don't...and, I think...those who have yet to taste my Mother's Golden Fruitcake. Here's the recipe. If you like, and if you think you're a fruitcake person, you can try it for yourself. --JGR

_____________________________

RUTH JOHNSTON-THOMPSON'S GOLDEN (CALIFORNIA) FRUITCAKE

Instructions:

1. Cut waxpaper (2 layers) and put in bread pan, sides then ends (have a second bread pan ready to add the overflow if needed)

Sift 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt together. Sift more than once if necessary and have this ready for step 3 below.

2. Chop 1/2 pound pecans (slice these into 1/4s)
Add to the pecans in a mixing bowl:
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup raisins
2 cups dried apricots chopped fine (the size of raisins)
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped dried mango
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped dried papaya
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped dried pineapple
1/4 cup coconut
Mix this all together by hand and "dust" with 1/4 cup of flour to make it less sticky.

3. Put in mixer:
1/2 stick butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
Turn this on for four minutes until texture is like ice cream

Add flour mixture from step 1 slowly and blend into this batter.

4. Add the batter to the fruit and stir in with a wooden spoon.

5. Add 1/4 of a can of concentrated frozen orange juice and stir this into the mixture. The mixture will be rather stiff.

6. Put the batter in pans pressing it down into the pan and smoothing off the top of the cake batter.

Use a rubber scraper to scrape the sides of the waxed paper so it has no excess batter on it.

7. Bake the cake (cakes) at 325 for 1 to 1 1/4 hours until they are GOLDEN in color, not dark. Test with a toothpick.

I got above 1,000 grains of rice...44 vocab level...decided I'd better stop and put it on my blog.

For every word you get right, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to end world hunger. Click here.

INGREDIENTS

Chose a good quality bread. Any will do. Since I'm in Northern California right now, home of Alvaroado St. Bakery, with its excellent line of sprouted breads made with organic grains and no added sugar, I chose their Sproted barley bread. This is lighter than the Ezekiel breads, though I like these, too, for concentrated sweetness and quick energy.

Choose a good quality chocolate bar. This is getting easier and easier to do as the big companies like Hershey's and Mars (under the Dove label) are now getting into the gourmet chocolate game. From the budget store I brought home one of the new dove origin bars...this one a rich dark chocolate from the dominican Republic with 61 percent cocao. If you're new to the chocolate aficianado game, higher cocao percentages are linked with higher degrees of satisfaction with smaller quantities consumed. That's good for us boomer women no?

I love copy writing. Lisen to this "The country of origin determines the subtle differences in taste. Where would you like to go today? Our life is a journey Live it well. ...Visit www.cocasustainability.mars.com to learn more."

Okay, you could use some good butter or butter-like spread as well...or not. Your choice.

ASSEMBLY

Now that you have the ingredients, here's how to assemble them. Butter the bread. Place pieces of chocolate around the bread, leaving lots of space to spread it on to later.

Place bread in 450 degree oven (or other temperatures...experiment....this seemed to work). Wait until the chocolate is molten and the butter has sunk into the bread. Remove. Spread chocolate with knife, as if it were Nutella (another fine invention).

CONSUME

Cut into quarters. Eat with your hands. Prepare to lick your fingers.