Pressure cookers

Pressure cookers 

I Had lunch with my mother today. It is cold and the snow is starting to fall. I walked over to the fireplace and turned it on. Gas is fast. Right away I was able to stand close and warm my back side. We had potatoes and gravy. The potatoes were from my own garden. My mother told me she cooked the meat in her pressure cooker, she told me she likes that old pressure cooker. She reflected on others that she has used over the years. She has a new one that has never been opened. That old one will probably out last even me. Maybe I can sell the new one to the Smithsonian. 

That old pressure cooker got me thinking, it doesn’t take much to start me thinking about life now days. A forgotten talent? Maybe. My English teachers weren’t able to pry it out of me, I am stubborn that way. Has to come from within. 

I thought about the times when I felt like I was in that pressure cooker. Heat coming at me from all directions. The burner red hot.  I decided to find out some more information about pressure cookers. Google, here I come. Huh?... Did you know that there is a web site called, pressurecooker.net? They have some really good reggae music. Nope, thats not what I was looking for. Back to google search. Oh, here is one about “Sexual claims common in a pressure cooker world.” No, not that one either. Back to google search. Oh, here it is. Pressure Cooker history. The pressure cooker was invented by Denis Papin in 1679.  “The first version of a pressure cooker was created by Denis Papin, French physicist and mathematician (1647-1712). In 1679 he made a large cast iron vessel with a tightly fitted lid that locked. His invention raised the boiling point of water and at this higher temperature, bones softened and meat cooked in quick time. He promoted it as, "A New Digester or Engine, for softening bones, the description of its makes and use in cookery, voyages at see, confectionary, making of drinks, chemistry, and dying, etc."

Softening bones ... quick time. Thats the thought that came to me while I was eating lunch today. I have been in that pressure cooker more often than I will ever admit to you. It has been good for me to get softened up a bit. I have been hard and tough in my early life. unwilling to bend in the wind. The heat has been on high for a long time, the pressure has done its work. The heat has been turned down to simmer now. My life is much more comfortable. I am tender and my bones are softened. I can smell the roses, and prune when the season calls for it. 

Oh, the olive fingers? They will never go out of style. Give an olive to a kid and instinctively they will put them on their fingers. Give enough and there will be 10 olives on 10 fingers.

That old pressure cooker? I think I will hang it on the wall. A relic from the past to remind me of the changes I have gone through. A memento of my days of walking into the wind, when all I had to do was turn around and let the gentle breeze push me along my road of life.

I love Google, I should have named one of my kids that. Wouldn’t that be a name? I don’t think google was a word back then. My English teacher would have given me a red circle for sure on that one. Doesn’t matter now. Didn’t back then ...