Not all harassment is sexual. My story.

After a 30+ year career, I can honestly say I’ve worked in several jobs that were dominated by men: college athletics, economic development, lobbying. My takeaway: while I didn’t deal as much with sexual harassment, I did encounter an almost consistent effort to be undermined and belittled by the men I worked with because they perceived that my gender meant I also had a lack of industry knowledge. Interesting enough, it more often came from my peers than from my supervisors.

It was most prevalent during my years in sports administration – in the early years after Title IX was passed. As a young woman with an interest in sports, I’d worked for four years in Western Kentucky University’s Sports Information Office. I was the first woman to keep official statistics for the Hilltoppers’ men’s football and basketball teams. In those years, women’s sports were strictly club sports so those talented young women didn’t have the opportunity to compete on the intercollegiate level. We worked solely for Western’s men’s sports. Interestingly enough, I didn’t feel any discrimination in those years – it only happened after I entered the field full-time.

When I graduated from WKU, I was fortunate to have guy friends I had worked with (who looked at me as an equal) seeking opportunities for me. When a University of Florida Sports Information position that would work primarily for women sports opened, one of my friends who was at Iowa State at the time recommended me for the job. Coming from what was then a Division I-AA university, working at an SEC school was an amazing opportunity. I was so excited when I got the job and moved to Gainesville.

While I was solely responsible for the women’s teams – basketball; gymnastics; slow-pitch softball; cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field; tennis; and golf – I also worked men’s football and basketball, and handled both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams. Needless to say, in an office of four full-time professionals (including our administrative assistant), we usually worked 70 to 80 hours a week.

I had a great boss – Norm Carlson – who really supported me as a young woman in a male-dominated world. He pushed me to improve my writing and have more confidence in working with coaches and administrators. My bigger issues were with my peers – young men either early in their careers as sports reporters and administrators or finishing their journalism degrees while working as stringers for the major newspapers in the state. They did their best to make me feel I didn’t belong.

One of my most vivid memories was the time a group of them came to me asking me to rank – one through nine – the difficulty of the major league baseball positions. While I’d worked hard to learn about sports (especially given that no one in my family had any interest), baseball wasn’t a sport I’d worked on at Western or had had the opportunity to learn as a child. I remember trying to come up with my list – and upon turning it in to these guys, listening as they made fun of my selections. Didn’t I know how difficult it was being a catcher? Or a shortstop, third baseman or center fielder?  It was humiliating.

Did I understand it at the time? I don’t think so. I was just working so hard to fit in and do the best I could at the job. For those young women like me who were hired in collegiate sports in the early ‘80s, there were no rules, no “this is how it’s done.”

Do I think these guys deliberately set out to humiliate me? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. I think they weren’t sure what to do with young women entering their historically men-only world. Many of them became friends in later years – sadly, I have never told them how they made me feel.  I do hope that if they think about it now – given the climate we’re seeing today (including multiple sports figures being accused of harassing women) – that maybe they’ll recognize their role in the early years of women entering the field. It saddens me to hear today’s stories of women in sports and the fact that so little has changed, but I’m hopeful that maybe what’s happening today will finally change the sports landscape.

Our Thanksgiving memories

While I will give thanks for family and friends tomorrow and for our special life in New York City, Thanksgiving is not a holiday I remember in the traditional sense.

I’m sure as a young child we must have spent the holiday with my grandparents Pop and Honey since we lived next door to them, but I have no memories of those days.  My holiday memories with them are all focused around Christmas. By the time I was around 11 or 12 my brothers were serving in the military, married and/or on their own – and they didn’t typically come home for the holiday either.

My first real memories of Thanksgiving – interestingly enough – are when we went to Disney World for the first time in November of 1971, seven weeks after the theme park opened its doors in Orlando. Several families – the Rogers, Martins, Beards and us – stayed at the Polynesian Hotel that Thanksgiving, finding a lot of the hotel still under construction (that became apparent when checking in we noticed several of the rooms still didn’t have locks on the doors). The cost of a room in the Polynesian in 1971: about $25.

Disney World's Crystal Palace

I don’t remember if we ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Crystal Palace at the end of Main Street on the way to Adventureland, or the restaurant in the Polynesian Hotel’s Grand Ceremonial House. Wouldn’t have really mattered, Disney World’s early food was nothing to write home about. The Crystal Palace featured a Morrison’s-type cafeteria line with the greenest, crunchiest peas I’ve ever seen; turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes with a non-descript gravy; and crystal goblets full of shimmering lime-green Jell-O.

My Daddy fell in love with Disney World that first visit and our family spent at least the next nine Thanksgivings (including the four while I was in college at WKU) in the park. We’d typically spend 3-4 days in Orlando, then head to Ft. Myers Beach (or Treasure Island) for another 3-4 days. I honestly believe I didn’t miss a year visiting Disney World until after I married.

Once Larry and I married, we started creating our own Thanksgiving memories in Gainesville. Most of you know I love to cook so you can imagine we began collecting recipes for our own turkey-day traditions – the meal eventually evolved into a feast that featured an herb butter-roasted turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potato casserole, a traditional green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (Larry always complained that we had to have both potatoes represented, but it’s not Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes), pecan pie and pumpkin bread.

Jenni got these for us from Publix when she worked there

Most years, my parents would join us for Thanksgiving in Gainesville and those years when the girls were young are among my most memorable. As the girls grew and started participating in extracurricular activities, and Larry began doing more and more play-by-play for Gator football and basketball (both of which were usually on the schedule for that week) we’d often find at least one empty chair at Thanksgiving. After my Daddy died in 2001, we made certain my Mommy joined us for the holiday.

These days, I still start planning for our Thanksgiving dinner weeks in advance, but now it’s even more likely that one of us will be missing. This year, Jenni is living and working in South Sudan so we’ll miss her around the table (and I’ll miss her help in the kitchen). We’ll join Dana and Nate tomorrow morning to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade over brunch, and then we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving dinner on Friday this year because of work conflicts.

While Thanksgiving brunch remains the same this year (three-cheese egg casserole, bacon, and brie bites), we’re mixing-up dinner a bit - serving ham instead of turkey, but my sweet potato casserole and Nate’s green bean casserole will still grace the table. The pumpkin bread is already made (and being consumed) and these days, we pass on the pie.

So, come Friday, we’ll pop open a bottle of bubbly (followed by a bottle or two of a nice light red), sit around a tiny table in Dana and Nate’s apartment, and give thanks – thanks that even though we may not all be in the same place this year and our dear Mama Doris and Daddy Quent are gone, our years of Thanksgiving memories are strong, and that they help sustain us and remind us of the love we share. So, Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

My take on General Tso's Chicken

My favorite delivery/take-out Chinese is General Tso's Chicken (if we were still in Gainesville it would be Chicken with Snow Peas from Mr. Han's). Yes, I KNOW General Tso's Chicken is not really Chinese - it's our American take on Chinese. There are a couple of places up close to work where I can find a nice take on the dish, but closer to our apartment we're still struggling to find a good Chinese delivery place (unlike 20+ years ago when there were wonderful local Chinese restaurants in every NYC neighborhood.

So, against my better judgment cause my argument for ordering delivery is now gone, I've learned to make my own version - every bit as good or better than anything we can order out. If you are a fan as well, here's my take.

General Tso's Chicken - serves 3-4

Ingredients

1 1/2 head of broccoli
7 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, breasts, or a mix, patted dry, cut into chunks
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 large garlic clove, finely grated
3 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon Sriracha
1 tablespoon tomato paste
6 (or more) dried whole red chiles (easy to find on Amazon - if you can't find them, just substitute red pepper flakes to your degree of hotness)
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Cooked rice (for serving)

Directions

Blanch the broccoli to your desired crispness (in boiling water for 2-5 minutes then plunge into ice water) - can also roast broccoli in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes or so if you prefer it that way).

Whisk cornstarch, 1 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper in a large bowl. Heat 3 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet  or wok over medium high. Add chicken to cornstarch mixture and toss to coat. Cook half of chicken, turning occasionally, until chicken is cooked through and a light brown crust forms, 5–7 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix honey, soy sauce, garlic, vinegar, Sriracha, tomato paste, 3 Tbsp. water, and remaining 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper in a medium bowl.

Transfer first batch of chicken to a plate. Heat remaining 3 Tbsp. oil in skillet over high. Cook remaining chicken for about 5 minutes, then add chiles and cook, stirring and making sure chiles make contact with bottom of pan, until chicken is cooked through and chiles have toasted and puffed, about 1 minute more.

Stir in honey mixture. Return first batch of chicken to skillet, toss to coat, and cook until sauce is reduced and thickened, about 2 minutes. Add broccoli to the sauce and combine (or if you prefer your General Tso's chicken with the broccoli on the side, then just add it to the plate alongside the chicken.

Divide chicken betwen 2 plates. Top with a handful of scallions. Serve with rice alongside.

My 9/11 story . . .

I wrote this several years ago before we ever dreamed of moving to New York City. It still resonates today - and I still feel the loss of my Daddy every single day. Now that we live here, it is even more real.  

Everyone has a story about 9/11.  Maybe that’s why I want to share my remembrances – it’s a collective memory that is meant to share.

Mine? Well, it’s a bit complicated.  My Dad, Quentin, (in case you wondered where my name originated) died on the Friday before 9/11, after fighting his battle with heart disease for more than 24 years. We had his funeral on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, in a town of 2,000 people in western Kentucky, where the sign leading into town says, “Welcome to Hartford, Kentucky; Home of 2,000 Happy People and a few Soreheads.”  The day before, more than 700 people – roughly ten percent of the people in their rural county – visited the funeral home to pay their respects.  We greeted these folks for more than nine hours. On Monday, my Mom – married to my Dad since she was 17 – guided the casket out of the church to the song, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 

On the morning of 9/11, my husband, Larry, and our two daughters, Dana and Jennifer, were in the air at 6 a.m. – roughly the time the planes were hijacked - flying Delta back to Gainesville from the Nashville airport.  There was no time for them to stay in Kentucky to mourn; there was school to attend for the girls and Gator games for Larry to work.

Thankfully, we didn’t have the television on in the family room of my Mom’s house that Tuesday morning.  Instead, my brother and I were talking with my Mom, planning the day ahead.  We still had legal issues to address, and final payments and arrangements to settle with the funeral home.  So when my daughter Dana called to tell me they were stuck in the Atlanta airport – which I immediately assumed was because of the incompetence of ASA – I never envisioned that Hartsfield International was as far as they would fly that day.

“No, Mommy,” Dana said. “You don’t understand.  Turn on the TV.  Planes have just flown into the World Trade Center.”  She didn’t need to go on and say what I could hear in her voice: that we’d had Father’s Day brunch at Windows on the World just three short months earlier or that her Dad had grown up in the Bronx and considered himself a New Yorker for life.

Suffice it to say that Larry and the girls finally made it home that day, thanks to a UF student from Atlanta who was on their Atlanta-to-Gainesville flight and after realizing no one was flying back to UF that day, asked her Dad to drive her and her new friend and his daughters back to Gainesville.  

Me?  I had a rental car in Kentucky (gold in those early days after 9/11) that was due in Nashville Thursday morning when I was supposed to fly back to Gainesville.  Instead, I drove it 11 ½ hours back to Gainesville on Wednesday and upon delivering the sedan to the Budget Rent-a-Car counter at the Gainesville Airport, said “You know that car you THINK is going to be in Nashville tomorrow.  Well, instead, it’s in Gainesville today.”  Budget didn’t charge another penny: no additional drop-off fee, no additional mileage – and to this day, if Larry and I have a choice, we rent Budget.

The toughest thing of the entire 9/11 experience for me?  It was and still remains today: it is difficult to mourn the loss of my father.  Instead, my loss was – and is today – wrapped up in the loss the collective country felt.  I wonder. Are the families of those people who died that day, or the citizens of the cities of New York and Washington, D.C., where life will never be the same, or for those Americans whose sons and daughters have died overseas in places most of us will never view, able to separate their loss from the whole? I can’t. 

My Dad – who landed on Omaha Beach on what we believe was D-Day +5 – would have been devastated to view 9/11.  The first words my Mom uttered after we turned on the television that Tuesday morning shortly before the first tower fell was, “Thank God your Dad didn’t live to see this day.”

My three favorite cooking magazine issues from the past 25 years

I think I've made it fairly clear I love to cook.  As you can read in a post from last July, I started learning to cook when I was in junior high when my Mommy was attending nursing school; I've been experimenting and having fun cooking ever since.  In addition to my favorite cookbooks I’ve written about earlier, I also love cooking magazines.  I get a ridiculous number of them (just ask Larry): Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Cooking Light – and before its demise, Gourmet.

I pour over these magazines each month and while I don’t make something from every issue, even today I study the articles and use what I learn to improve my cooking. If I do the math right, I’ve gotten at least one of these magazines for more than 25 years, starting in the early 1990s when I first started subscribing to Gourmet and discovered the amazing writing of Laurie Colwin, who tragically died in 1992 at the age of 48.

Of the hundreds of cooking magazines I’ve gotten over the years, I’ve saved just three.

The first is a Special Collector’s Edition of Bon Appetit from May 1997 that was my inspiration for tackling real Italian cooking. From it, I learned to make risotto and Pollo alla Marengo (Chicken with tomatoes, onions and mushrooms), and discovered how wonderfully diverse the regional cuisines are in this relatively small country.

The second magazine takes an amazing look at the history of American food. Also Bon Appetit, this issue from September 1999 chronicles the American century in food. Starting with 1900 it takes the reader through a century of food, restaurants, libations, cooking essentials and made-in-America food products.  Its timelines share the years when thousands of iconic items such as Tabasco (1868), Oreos (1912), Tupperware (1946), Cuisinart (1973), and Velveeta (1928) were created. The articles on each decade share those years' favorite recipes and the societal changes that impacted the foods Americans ate and the people who cooked them. It is a fascinating look at our country. (One of the most interesting articles in the issue is each decade’s take on apple pie).

Crab cakes

The third cooking magazine I’ve kept is Food and Wine’s 25^th Anniversary issue published in September 2003 that featured what they considered their 25 best recipes ever. From this issue have come many of our favorites: an amazing macaroni and cheese with buttery crumbs, spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, molten chocolate cake, and Mrs. Duvall’s (Robert's mom) pan-fried crab cakes. (Note: Jenni and I always got a kick out of the irony of the tofu with spicy meat sauce recipe that’s described as the “tastiest tofu recipe the magazine ever came across” – not hard to imagine why that tofu tasted good. LOL).

Over the years, I’ve adapted Mrs. Duvall's crab cake recipe to create my own version.  Here’s the recipe:

Crab cakes with mustard sauce

¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ minced onion
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat, drained (break each piece into a couple of smaller pieces, but don’t shred or get pieces too small)
Approximately 2 cups of panko crumbs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

In a large bowl, combine mayonnaise, onion, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, salt and cayenne. Using your hands, gently fold in crab, being careful to not break up the crab any further. Start adding in panko crumbs with your hands, a 1/3 cup at a time until the mixture comes together and will form small cakes. Form into 6-8 crab cakes depending on the size you like. Coat the crab cakes on both sides with the remaining panko crumbs. (At this point, you can cook right away or refrigerate for a few hours.

In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium heat until it foams. Add half of the crab cakes, cook for 2-3 minutes each side. Place in a warm oven. Wipe out the skillet and heat another 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of oil and cook the remaining crab cakes.

Serve with mustard sauce.

Mustard sauce

1/3 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of English dry mustard
Dash of hot sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate for several hours for flavors to combine.

Remembering the Fourth of July on Rough River Lake . . .

The Fourth of July is the holiday when I most miss my parents. Most people would probably choose Thanksgiving or Christmas, but not me. The Fourth of July always found us on Rough River Lake for at least two days; more often than not, we managed to stretch the holiday to three days. My heart aches just a little when July looms.

By early July, Kentucky temperatures would rise to the 80s and low 90s, warming the clear lake water to where it was refreshing (and not bracing as mentioned in an earlier post). The sun would sparkle across the water, the warm wind blowing through my hair as our ski boat flew across the water (my Daddy at the helm, a silly hat covering his head).  We’d spend countless hours on the lake (we’re talking 9-10 hours a day) water skiing and swimming.

The best part of boating in those days was the group of families (and the slew of kids) who spent those idyllic summer days with us.  Danny and Suzanne Schapmire, Kenny and Sandy Baughn, Bill and Phyllis Vincent, J.B. and Delores Eskridge, Joey Triplett.  Every family brought their best homemade goodies that when piled together, created lunches for the ages. Some brought desserts like oatmeal cookies and cherry cream-cheese pies; others’ favorites included bean salad, Watergate salad (Google it), cold fried chicken and cole slaw. My Mommy’s contributions were always blonde brownies, tuna fish salad and pimento cheese spread – sometimes she’d add in this wonderfully decadent banana pudding (with real homemade custard).

These foods are seared into my summer memories.  Even now, when the Fourth of July rolls around, I reach for my Mommy’s recipe box and make a few of her favorites.  This afternoon, I made blonde brownies – they are simple, don’t require a mixer and just melt in your mouth.

Here’s how to do it (the recipe also halves well – just bake in a small square pan).  I will warn you, it’s important to be careful with the measurements – if you put in too much brown sugar, they get runny; if you’re heavy-handed with the flour, they’ll be dry and cake-like. Here goes . . .

Blonde brownies

1 stick unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 cups of brown sugar, lightly packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans or coconut

Melt the butter, cool slightly. Then mix all ingredients together by hand.  Put in light metal 9x13” baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull back from the side of the pan and are a golden brown along the edges. Don’t over-bake or they’ll be dry and lifeless. Place baking dish on a wire rack until completely cool. Slice and enjoy (they also are wonderful with vanilla ice cream).

The world I no longer recognize . . .

My connection with Kentucky – the place of my birth – and the views of some of the people who still live there has recently caused me to question my current relationship with the Bluegrass State. While I have wonderful memories of growing up in Kentucky, the views I’ve seen from many of its residents over the past several years have caused me to wonder if the state has changed or if I have.  Maybe it’s both.

I lean – and have always leaned – socially and politically moderate. I have followed an interesting path: I lived in Kentucky for my first 22 years – nurtured by similar families living in our tiny, Protestant-dominated, dry county; spent the next 35+ years in a liberal college town (albeit in the South); and now have moved to New York City, one of the most liberal bastions in the country. 

Over the past few months, I’ve asked several people I trust who either still live in Kentucky or have strong connections to people who do if they understand the vitriolic comments I see on my Facebook news-feed on an almost weekly basis. Yes, I see similar comments from people who live in other states, but it surprises me by how many I see from my home state. My Kentucky-based friends call them UCs – ultraconservatives.

Growing up, I felt most of our family and friends were similar to us. My parents often went out of their way to help those in our community who needed assistance. I remember one fall day my Daddy and I went up to what is today the back part of the Hartford cemetery to help an elderly black man (I believe his name was Lucian) whose home had burned. My Daddy called businesses throughout Western Kentucky and finally found an old, silver Gulfstream trailer that we could help the man buy, and my Mom and I went through our extra household goods to find everything we needed to set up Lucian’s new home.  I don’t remember my family voicing anything disparaging about Daddy’s friend's race or those of his neighbors.

Today I wonder when I see racist, sexist comments, have the ultraconservatives always lived in those parts – and if so, did I not hear their views because my parents didn’t follow that mantra? Or in those days, did they not publicly voice those thoughts in places we entered? Did the parents of the friends I grew up with agree with the racist, sexist comments being strewn about by their children today?  Did I look the other way? What has changed in what I have always considered a kind, God-fearing place that would make some people feel comfortable in voicing the hatred I hear today? The not knowing the answer is what bothers me most.

While it’s not my place to pass judgment on the current political environment or the comments I see, I am thankful I’ve been fortunate to live in vastly divergent regions of our country that I hope have helped me learn tolerance through a cacophony of voices.

It has taken me a long time to consider the labels people apply to themselves and I’m not sure I still understand why they're necessary: liberal, moderate, conservative.  Even now, I’m not sure I know where I truly fit. I certainly didn’t understand this in my formative years in Kentucky or in my first few years in Gainesville where it was easy to just vote for the Democrats on the ticket whose names were commonly known around town - because let’s face it in those days, if there were Republicans on the ticket in Gainesville they had a snowball’s-chance-in-hell of winning. Thankfully, it’s gotten a little more balanced in recent years.

So what does this post mean? It means I’ve always felt I belonged somewhere in the middle: socially liberal, fiscally moderate, and committed to personal responsibility. I lived through the 1970s when abortions were hard to come by unless you had money to travel out of state, when LGBT friends were afraid to let others know their true selves, when minorities – especially those who lived in our part of the Midwest – were few in numbers and looking back, had even fewer opportunities. I’m proud of the gains our country has made in these issues over the past 40 years.

I have never voted a straight party ticket. I’ve supported both Republicans and Democrats for every public office, including President. I hope that this strong division we see today throughout our country is not permanent. That it, too, shall pass.  These thoughts, however, keep me awake at night.