Lincoln's Four-Score Olive and Seven Bean Salad

Reiko and I were cooling our heels in the base pass office this afternoon, wondering how it could possibly take someone more than 72 hours to substitute one teacher's name (Kathryn) for another's (Margaret), when I started giggling. This had been happening off and on all day, thanks to the first comment Diane left on yesterday's post, the one where she suggested adding four-score olives to a tossed salad.

I was launching into a rather pedantic explication of "score" when Reiko -- no doubt recalling my 45-minute synopsis of Guns, Germs, and Steel just last Friday -- cut right to the chase. "Isn't a score twenty years? Like in 'four score and seven years'?" "Exactly! Or maybe like in 'four score and seven bean salad.' Or how about 'four-score olive and seven bean salad'?"

Voila! West meets East and explosive synergy results! The package already enroute to Norfolk has been hastily re-imagined as a prize rather than a surprise. It's a Japanese cookbook published by our mutual friend/photographer extraordinaire Kim Jordan.

Erin and Geraldine will both be rewarded for providing presidential trivia questions, although I'm a bit tempted to deduct cookies from Erin for sending me cherry trifle recipes peppered with heinous adjectives like sugar-free and low-fat.

As for Reiko, she's going to be my Ikebana guest next week. We're going to make kimekomi balls at Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura. It looks like quilting minus the threading a needle part. Christmas ornaments, perhaps?

Okay, I'm off to track down seven different kinds of beans.

This is Absolutely, Positively the Last Theme Party I'm Throwing This Year!

Way back in September I promised the Seventh Fleet Officer Spouse Association (C7FOSA) they could meet at my house in February. They said I could pick the theme. Eek! I have no idea why military wives are so fond of theme parties and, frankly, I feel uncomfortable about expending more time and energy entertaining my fellow spouses than I put into celebrating family milestones.

The party is this Friday, the 12th. They were expecting a Valentine's theme but I'm forcing them to celebrate American Presidents instead because (a) February 12 is Abraham Lincoln's birthday, (b) history tickles me, (c) the big box of patriotic party supplies fell on my head when I was digging in the cupboard for the Valentine's stuff, and (d) I am desperate to unload the 20+ presidential bookmarks I intended to send to grandnieces and -nephews for Christmas until I realized that I don't want to be remembered as the "Aunt Who Gives Boring Educational Gifts."

So. I have four days to throw this party together, dear friends and family, and could use a little help. My guests are expecting to lunch on Herbert Hoover's 'A Chicken in Every Pot' Pie -- a rare stroke of genius on my part since it means I can utilize my trusty pot pie recipe AND eliminates the cherry pie expectation (which is a good thing because I still haven't mastered the subterfuge of shifting a frozen pie from its aluminum plate to one that screams 'homemade').

They are also expecting a Martha Washington Cherry Trifle -- what in the world was I thinking? -- so if anyone (that means you, Erin) can direct me to a trifle recipe that uses cherries or cherry pie filling or any sort of red fruit that might pass for cherries, I would be deeper in your debt that I am already.

I also need a presidential sort of name for a salad (either tossed or fruit, your choice) but try to avoid Carter and Reagan if you can because I'm using them for snacks (peanuts and jelly beans, of course).

Also, presidential trivia questions would be greatly appreciated. I promise to make it worth your while. All the outstanding prizes for previous contests are now sitting in the trunk of my car, the crucial first step toward the post office, just to prove my utter seriousness.

As for my quilt square, since someone was polite enough to inquire about it, the kits I bought at the Tokyo Dome last month all sport Japanese themes (there's that pesky word again) and require me to master teeny-tiny handstitching to applique little fabric pictures.

Hisayo insisted I start with the Setsubun square since it's a February holiday. I will be amazed if I finish it by next February but stranger things have happened.

Finally, thanks to Betty, I now own everything I need to knit my first pair of socks. The needles are as thin as spaghetti and pointed on both ends. We can use them to skewer shishkebobs if this sock thing doesn't pan out. As for the yarn, I could have walked two blocks down Blue Street and bought six pairs of socks for the price of that skein so be sure to feign appropriate gratitude if you unwrap a pair of somethings that vaguely resemble socks come December.

At least it won't be a presidential bookmark.