In Repose Blog

Sudden Death Sauce

My daughter just returned from a trip back to the east coast and was telling me about her adventures. One story was how she ordered chicken wings for dinner and chose "mild" over "hot" sauce. When her dish was delivered, she frankly thought that the cook failed to put any sauce on the wings at all.

She totally forgot she was not in Texas.

She likely would have loved the "hot" version, and thought it mild compared to what is offered here in our home state.

There are hot sauces, and there are hot sauces, but there is nothing like : Sudden Death Sauce.

I first became aware of this extra hot chili sauce when we lived near Syracuse New York. There was a fabulous teensy tiny little store downtown, really no bigger than a large closet, that sold nothing at all but hot sauces of every variety you could imagine. Floor to ceiling, there were bottles of sauce on small, shallow shelves. I often wonder if the store is still there. I still can't believe such a shop existed so far north, and so far east!

I brought home a couple of bottles the last time I was there, including a bottle of Sudden Death Hot Sauce. Not that I really was planning on trying it, I was given stern warning from the shop keeper about its potency and very real power to cause harm.

My kids were very small at the time so I kept the sauce completely out of reach. I double ziplock-bagged it and treated it almost as if it were a household poison, but I kept it for years.

A couple of different times, during a dinner party when someone claimed to be a hot sauce lover and could eat the hottest sauce put front of them I brought out the bottle. Most people declined to try it. It was a great party prop. I do remember a couple who could not resist. The most memorable reaction was from a tough Texas cowgirl named TJ who swore there was nothing too hot for her to eat, and she liked the hottest of the hot. A few drops of Sudden Death were applied to a chicken wing and the table of guests held their breath.

"Oh that's really good sauce," TJ claimed. I was impressed. I think the only other person brave enough to try Sudden Death was a big tough man who at another barbecue left the room for a great long while and came back later hanging his head and drooling from the mouth a bit. TJ had tough taste buds, I thought.

After a couple of minutes I noticed TJ had stopped talking, and was looking down at her plate. Soon, the entire table took note. "TJ," I asked, "Are you OK?"

She slowly raised her head and we all stole a look at her face, which was beet red, and her eyes, which were streaming large quick tears. "I'm fine." She sort of squeek-whispered, and hung her head back down, willing us to stop looking at her and let her have a chance to recover with some sort of dignity
(We did).

After the party, I took the bottle of sauce, put it back in the double bags and threw it away.

Oh, and the other bottle of sauce that I bought? To this day it remains my very favorite but its no longer manufactured and unavailable anywhere. It was called Inner Beauty and it was simply divine. A big reward to anyone who finds a stash for sale.

Confessions of a Former Carnivore

I used to be a voracious meat eater. I loved my pork chops and I especially loved steaks. I loved them big and thick and I loved them rare. I even liked gnawing on the t-bone after dinner when I was a kid. You can’t be a polite adult and do such a thing, but I do remember that I enjoyed that part of being a carnivore, (when I was a kid of course.) 

I could eat about as big of a piece of steak as you might serve a volunteer fireman or maybe your local high school linebacker. I paid attention to this at cookouts. I could eat about as much flesh of a cow as any man twice my size. I ate as much or more than my dad or my husband. Easy. I did love my steak. A lot. 

Obviously I was and am aware of where those pork chops and t bones come from but I did what most people do, I put that reality utterly out of my mind. I just liked meat too much. 

Until one day. 

It was early in July of 1992. I was visiting my in-laws in Southern Illinois with my husband and two small children. When I say small I mean small too, I was still breastfeeding my youngest child who was about 8 months old. (That fact will come into play later in the story.)

I had the opportunity to go on a guided horseback ride in a nearby National park. I was thrilled. I had not been on a horse in quite some time and I was looking forward to having someone else mind the children for a good chunk of the day while I spent some time in the saddle.

The ride was nice enough, and the horses were calm and steady mounts. It was just me and the one guide and he was a man of few words, which was just fine with me. I had long stretches of my own thoughts, the view of trees and the sound of my horse’s hooves walking along the dirt path. I was quite happy and really at peace, enjoying the quiet sounds of the woods around me. 

We were fairly near the end of our long ride when the trail came through a picnic area. There were a few people gathered there, setting up for what seemed to be a rather large Fourth of July party. A man was getting out of a pickup truck and opening a stock trailer. We were coming up on the truck and circling back around toward the trailer itself. The man had gone inside and untied a rope and at the end of it was a rather large sow. At this point we were about 30 or 40 feet away and getting closer to this man and his pig. He was rather rough with the poor thing and yanked her hard down the ramp of the trailer. 

The pig was scared, you see. She did not know where she was or what was happening and she was planting her feet with trepidation. I watched her stop and then try to hide from what was happening. She was trying to hide her face behind the man’s legs. She was looking to him to protect her you see. She was looking to him for help…just like you would see a dog do with its human. Her tail was tucked, she was trembling, and she was trying to bury her head in the back of the man’s knees, just peeking around him to see where she was. 

This did not please the man much I could tell. He wanted her out of the trailer without this resistance. He yanked harder and pulled her down the ramp. At this point we were nearly upon the pair. 

We stepped a bit closer and the pig saw the horses and me and the guide walking towards her. I then noticed that she must have recently given birth and nursed babies. Her teats were big and swollen and recently suckled. I thought to her and myself, “You are a nursing mama, just like me.” She looked up at me directly and she held my gaze and I saw the fear in her eyes, I felt like she was asking me to help her, because the man was not.. 

Still, and ridiculously, it seems to me now, I did not realize what was about to happen. 

The man bent down and pulled a long sharp knife from a holster on his leg. Not wasting any movement and still bent over he began to slice the mama sow’s throat. 

She widened her eyes in surprise and screamed. She was still looking at me, she did not blink, and she fixated on my eyes. She screamed and screamed again, tried to struggle but was held tight. 

I never stopped walking the horse. I was in my own state of shock I guess. My guide did not seem to be terribly interested in what was happening from what I could tell. He never interrupted our pace or turned away from what was taking place. My eyes were locked with mama  pig's eyes. I had no power to look away.

At the third or fourth saw of the man’s hand and as the blood streamed from the mama pig’s body into the dry brown dirt we finally passed the pair. My stomach started to churn and my eyes began to sting with tears but I walked on. Amazingly, the horses moved forward steady and true, and did not react;  as my own body wanted to react, by running away or maybe with some screams of my own.

The pig was still making terrible wet and struggling, choking noises as I finally turned my head and that’s when I saw a group of women nearby chit-chatting. Probably about shoes. Or maybe recipes. 

At first they did not even seem to acknowledge the harrowing scene so near by, but one woman finally did say something. She seemed very annoyed that she had to raise her voice to be heard over the death cries of the pig. She turned her head and wrinkled her nose toward the man and then said to her friends, “God, I wish that pig would just shut UP already!”  She looked at me. She rolled her eyes. 

Slowly, the horses made their way out of the picnic park and my ride ended and without a single word to that guide about what we had witnessed; I got into my car and drove back to my mother-in-law’s house.

I knew I wouldn’t be eating meat anytime soon and it ended up I simply gave up eating mammals all together from that day forward. In my mind the body language and mind connection I had with that pig, the thing that I witnessed could just as easily taken place if the animal was a smart and docile dog.  From that day forward the idea of pork seems interchangeable with one of dog meat. And in Korea, that would be a reality and not so far fetched.

So, that makes 16 years since I ate a bite of steak. 

I still eat fish. I still eat chicken. My body insists upon and operates better on protein. I decided that for myself, I could not eat anything that I myself would not want a hand in killing. A sort of “Little House on the Prairie” theory of eating, as it were. 

I often think about Native Americans. Many tribes had wonderful sacred ways regarding the animals they hunted and killed for food. They reverently acknowledged the spirit and were so appreciative of the gift the creature gave with its life for the nourishment of the tribe. It’s a far cry from the attitude of that woman at the picnic, or from someone picking up a sanitized, refrigerated and cellophaned piece of an animal at the grocery store. We don’t even call the meat pig or cow. We say pork or beef. Better to separate us humans from other classes of mammals that we eat, I guess. 

Sure, I absolutely believe that humans are omnivores and as I said in a previous post, I do not begrudge anyone’s choice to eat meat be it from pigs or cows or lambs or horses or dogs or cats or any other creature mammal or not. I can’t personally be a part of it. But, I don’t think I have a right to make that choice for others. Please hear that idea loud and clear, you carnivores out there. 

Eat all the meat you want. I am not telling you NOT to!

What I do hope for, and sometimes really insist upon, at least in conversation with some people, is an acknowledgement of what it is you are putting into your mouth, and how that piece of flesh got there: How that calf was born, how it lived, how it was treated and what kind of life it experienced and how it was killed to get on to your plate.

If you can live with that knowledge and still swallow, so be it.

It’s the hypocrisy of those who cannot, that I truly abhor.

In Repose Interview: Floramorial

Readers of In Repose Blog might remember my post of May 23, 2007, Tomatoes to Die For where I talked about yet another way cremation remains might be used in a memorial.  Recently, In Repose spoke with Bob Jenkins of Floramorial

Hi Bob, can you describe how Floramorial came to be and how long you have been in business?

Floramorial came to be by a request of a dying wife.  Marge Strand was dying of cancer and requested upon her death to be cremated and turned into a rose bush.  Her husband of fifty years, Frank Strand, made it a mission to find a way to fulfill his wife’s wishes.  After several years of research, today her cremated remains, along with her mother’s cremated remains are living as a tree and a rose bush on the church grounds where they worshipped.  Frank spent several years researching cremated remains, developing plants and sitting in on focus groups.  We brought our product to market in fall of 2006.

Can you briefly describe the science behind Floramorial?

Cremated remains are primarily calcium phosphate, an inert, insoluble stone much like a fossil.  Floramorial is created by a chemical conversion using a catalyst to separate the calcium and phosphate, allowing the phosphate to be bonded with the root system of living flora.

What type of plants can be fed with Floramorial?

Any type of flora can be nourished by Floramorial.  The boundaries are the limits of the mind.

Are edible plants really a good idea?

That is real personal question.  The edible plants would certainly be nourished by Floramorial, but as far as someone creating an edible memorial would be a personal decision.

How much product is actually returned to use in the soil?

That is the choice of the family.  We can convert the entire amount of cremated remains, which on average is five to six pounds of cremated remains or a small portion, allowing the family to keep some ash for a keepsake, place in a mausoleum niche or bury.  If a family chooses to scatter, Floramorial is the perfect solution.

Can I save some or all of the product to use in the future?

You can save portions of the cremated remains for use later but the soil is an organic soil and we recommend use within one year.  There is no age limit on cremated remains, so ashes can be of any age and converted into Floramorial soil.

Can it be used with an indoor potted plant?

Floramorial can be used with indoors plants, outdoor plants, existing landscape, new plants – any type of flora that exists.  If placed with existing indoor plants, the phosphate will be dispersed in the current soil and become part of the flora of that plant.

Can I touch the medium with my hands?

Floramorial soil is safe to touch.  It is an organic soil and cremated remains are safe to touch, even though they are not visible in the soil.  The breakdown of the calcium does not take place until water comes into contact with the soil and even then, it is still safe.

I don't have a green thumb, what if my plant dies?

The plant can be replaced at anytime.  Once the phosphate is released into the soil, it will remain there for many years.  If the original plant dies, a new plant can be placed in the soil and it will be nourished by the phosphate in the Floramorial soil.

How do you feel Floramorial fits into current "green" thinking?

There are many ideas of “green memorials” but Floramorial truly contributes to the environment in a safe and positive way.  It is a real recycling process, allowing a loved one to go back to the earth and provide nutrients in a positive manner for plant growth, while enhancing the environment.

What is the most common misconception about your product?

Some people mistakenly conclude that cremated remains are nutrient to support plant life.  Chemically, cremated remains are inert, non-biodegradable.  It is rock phosphate which must be converted to orthophosphate plant food.

Can I have my funeral home take care of the ordering process for me?

We recommend you go through a local funeral home or cremation society.  If they are not aware of us, the funeral establishment or the family can contact us and we will work with the funeral professional of their choice.

This photo is of the container the family receives when they order Floramorial.  It contains one cubic foot of soil, which is approximately 22 pounds of soil.  Included with the container is a Certificate of Authenticity that is notarized and proclaims the soil contains the ashes of said person, planting tips and suggestions, a garden trowel and two pairs on plastic, non-latex gloves.  The gloves are included because some people may be uncomfortable putting their hands in the soil knowing their loved one’s ashes are mixed in.  The soil is completely safe to touch.

Want a Latte before the Funeral Service?

 

If the answer is "yes" and your loved one has a service at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Gotha Florida, now you don't have to make two stops. You can have a muffin and a cup of coffee before the funeral without leaving the premises. Their new Signature Cafe caters to those attending services as well as the general public.

A cafe in a funeral home? I had to stop and think about that concept for a little bit.

I believe this idea, done well, without being too casual or cute, has some real merit. It could provide a sense of caring and attention to those attending a service and might provide some much needed comfort.

I do, however, think the idea needs to be very carefully thought out. The details would be so important here. Where is the cafe located, exactly? What is the ambiance of the room? Are grieving people compelled to smell roasting beans or warm apple scones? Do they have to pass by the cafe if they could not imagine how anyone could eat at a time like this? Are to-go cups taken into viewings? And what if someone sloshes their cappuccino over dear old Uncle Henry while peering into the casket to say good-bye?

One thing I am certain I would not want to see in any funeral home, and that would be a Starbucks!

Tomatoes to Die For

My friends John and Jo Dwyer are farmers at Angel Valley Organic Farm. They grow the most amazing tasty organic vegetables. Their pinnacle, their superstar veggie, the elite of the elite of the vegetables they grow are absolutely their organic heirloom tomatoes.

I will never forget the first time I tasted one.  The most beautifully ripe Purple Prudence heirloom tomato. It was warm, room temperature and freshly harvested. It was so rich, so ripe, so amazingly fragrant and so red/purple it was almost black to my eyes.  I sliced a few and added fresh basil, extra virgin Italian olive oil, a splash of some good balsamic vinegar, and some very fresh mozzarella. A bit of salt and freshly ground pepper rounded out the meal and I grabbed my fork.

After one bite I closed my eyes and held my breath. Heaven! It was as if I had never really tasted a tomato before in my entire life. I promptly made myself another salad and ate until I was stuffed full. It was really one of the finest sensory experiences of my entire life. REALLY! I remember it so vividly.

Those tomatoes were, to turn a phrase, to DIE for.

As promised on the blog yesterday, I will tell you now a bit now about an option the eco-friendly human has when considering their end-of-life choices especially if cremation is the preferred choice. One can now contact a company called Floramorial and have themselves turned into honest to goodness plant food.

"Cremation ash can now be used to grow trees and flowers. Floramorial soil was created to convert cremation ash into a planting medium to grow a decorative plant, bush or tree as a living memorial. Cremation ash is an inert, granular material like stone or sand that can now be transformed into plant food thanks to recent developments in horticultural science.This is an exciting new answer to the question, “What should I do with the ashes?”

Well, what about TOMATOES?  Can the plant food feed the most beloved of all of the plants of summer? <Smirk>. I bet it could but it might leave, um, a bad taste in one's mouth. I guess that is why the word "decorative" was used in the description. I already know the answer to the question.

I know John and Jo operate by very strict organic standards and I highly doubt that Floramorial's product, would be accepted in their farm's program.

But I remain curious anyway. If, just if, my family planted one of those fabulous Purple Prudence Heirloom Tomato plants in the backyard, and fed them Candace's Floramorial Ashes plant food, what heavenly fruits would result?

As an admitted "foodie" I can think of few finer ways to go!