Compact Follow Up

Okay, full disclosure here, I have lumped a WHOLE BUNCH of things in to this one idea for myself for the year and I am now completely overwhelmed.

1. Yes, I am committed to the Compact and reducing my purchasing of new items. Yes, I am staying within the guidelines as much as possible.

But I also said I would do a Freezer/Pantry challenge in which I am using up all the food in my freezer and pantry rather than buying something else to prepare for dinner. So there's that.

Then I agreed to a Savings Challenge of seeing how much I could put away in my savings account for the year.  My goal is $5000.  I think this is very conservative and do-able.  But I haven't been accountable in that I didn't write down my starting balance and make note of each deposit.  I think I need to get some of this written down so that I can track where my savings are coming from.

And on top of this!  I signed up on the cleaning-decluttering daily challenge.  Daily is just too much. I  have not been able to commit to this.  I would bet that I haven't even opened this week's daily emails due to the fact that I have been babysitting all week and this is the first time I have been on the computer since last week.  So, I can't very well do the challenge when I haven't even SEEN the challenge.  It's too much.

This is for my own accountability.  But I will try to keep regular updates to stay on track.

If Wishes were Horses . . .

You know those thoughts of "oh, if I had all the time in the world I would learn this, or that"?  Remember when you were little and every day there would be a new "when I grow up I want to be a pilot, astronaut, archaeologist, princess"?

Well, when you are on the back side of 50 those thoughts come back to you.  You have much less time left to achieve any of those dreams.  Sad to say it, but it's the truth.  If you want to be a librarian you best get to figuring out the qualifications and getting to it.

I have a list of dreams that I would think of but only in the abstract, never in the real life.  And in no particular order, here we go!

Archaeologist

Psychologist

Writer/Storyteller

Midwife

Chef

Owner of a cozy book store

Librarian

Artist (not necessarily a painter, but something artistic)

Healer

And what have I achieved in my life?  I never did become an archaeologist, or a psychologist, or write any books.

But I am a massage therapist and I have read, studied and learned to heal and treat with herbs, oils and natural remedies.  I am a birth and postpartum doula and I am good at it.

I am a pretty damn good cook and am an adventurous person in the kitchen.

I would never claim to be an artist or an author, but I am creative.  And I have spent many years making things, learning needlepoint, cross stitch, embroidery, sewing, crochet, knitting, and quilting. I took a class one time on making Battenburg lace.

I am a nurturer and hope to be blessed to be a grandparent one day.

And the things I wish?  I still wish I could write.  I would love to write stories, poems and straight-to-the-point diatribes on what's wrong with the world.  Because I am opinionated.

I still wish I knew what it takes to be an archaeologist.  I think it could still be in the realm of the possible.

But no way I am going to get to have a cozy book store like the one in 84 Charing Cross Road.  Barnes & Noble killed off most of the fabulous little book stores and then Amazon gutted what was left.

Any wishes you have?  Any dreams that you haven't reached for yet?

Moon Diet

Yes, you read it right.  The Moon Diet.  According to several different sites I visited to learn more about this

"It's well known that the moon affects the earth's oceans and rivers with its gravitational pull. It is less known that the moon also affects the water contained in the human body. The moon diet takes advantage of the moon's power to help you cleanse your body and lose weight. On certain days you can lose up to 6 lbs in a single 24-hour period!


Human knowledge and mythology throughout time have spoken of the moon's effect on the earth and the human body. The moon's gravitational pull dictates the action of the ocean's tides. A woman's menstrual cycle runs in parallel to the cycle of the moon. Some believe the moon affects the emotions—for example, the full moon stimulates aggressive behavior.

In addition, the moon can affect the water contained in the human body. The human body is 60% water. When the moon reaches its full phase and new phase, its gravitational pull combines with the sun for the greatest gravitational effect. This period of increased effect lasts about 24 hours."


So with this in mind, I set out to find what is meant by The Moon Diet.  It is important to note when the  moon will be full (date and time) to start this regimen.  It seems to me that it is a good monthly detox.


Here is how it lays out if you want to follow along.  And by the by, the full moon starts tomorrow at 6:52 p.m. So if you want to try it this month, you better get to the store!

1. At the onset of the full moon:

    Choose A: 24 hour diet of spring, boiled or distilled water, fresh squeezed fruit and vegetable juices in abundance.

or B: 3 day diet: Day 1 - raw or cooked vegetables. Day 2 - only the liquids listed above. Day 3 - fresh cut up pineapple and fresh mushrooms either steamed or cooked with olive oil and spices.

or C: 6 day diet: Day 1 - raw or cooked vegetables. Days 2, 3, 5, and 6 - the fresh cut up pineapple and mushrooms as above. with Day 4 being the liquid fasting as in the 24 hour hour diet.

2. At 1800 hours (6 p.m.) of the evening before the new moon, begin this diet. Eat these foods for 36 hours. Soups and vegetable broths. Soups made of your favorite vegetables. Take these 4 - 5 times a day. Drink lots of pure spring, boiled or distilled water. To avoid monotony - once a day drink a cup of poultry, meat or fish broth. 

Avoid alcohol, coffee and black tea during these times.  You may drink herbal teas like mint as much as you want. The pineapple is a really good diuretic and the mushrooms are a very low calorie/high water way to consume protein that your muscles will need.

Here are the remaining full moon dates for this year, 2012.

3 July 18:52 (6:52 p.m.)

2 Aug. 3:38 (3:38 a.m.)

31 Aug. 13:59 (1:59 p.m.)

30 Sept. 3:19 (3:19 a.m.)

29 Oct. 19:50 (7:50 p.m.)

28 Nov. 14:47 (2:47 p.m.)

28 Dec. 10:22 (10:22 a.m.)

What do you think? Are you interested in trying a cleansing/detox diet that has ties to Mother Nature?

 

Bad Service and Yelp

I have bitched and moaned before about bad service and how customer service in general has just gone in the toilet.  People flat out do not give a big hairy rat's ASS about your satisfaction at the end of a business transaction.  It's as if they have no inkling of an idea that you may, oh I don't know, ever want to darken their doors again!!


What the hell is up with this trend?  It is just getting worse.  People don't seem to know how to say please, thank you or come again.  And you know I am leading up to something that happened recently, don't you?

Just yesterday I ended up The Cove a local eatery.  It's one of those cute little places that sits between a laundromat and a car wash.  It has a beer garden, live music in the evenings, lots of beer and is known around here for being a vegetarian friendly, mostly local and organic food kind of place.  Really casual and on the funky side.  We eat there quite a bit actually.  The food is good.  It is not great by any means.  But it is good and you walk away feeling like you made a healthier choice than many other places you could have gone to.

But yesterday?  Not so much.

There's this one chick who works behind the counter taking orders who is just rude, doesn't seem too bright, isn't really with the program you might say.  And of course she was there.  Now, they have 2 registers but mostly only run with one of them and have people lined up and out the door waiting to place their orders.  So that's a problem right there.

Typically, I get salads or burgers.  But yesterday I was thinking about the nachos.  I have seen plates of nachos being delivered to other tables and they looked good.  On the chalk board menu waaaay up in the air above the counter it said "Bean and cheese nachos with avocado dip".  (wth is avocado dip?  is it guacamole? is it mayonnaise-y?)

So when it was my turn to go to the counter I asked the Rude Chick "What is the avocado dip on the nachos?"

Rude Chick: Oh, it's avocado mixed with sour cream.

Me:  That sounds really good.

RC: Yeah, it's got like pico de gallo stuff, tomatoes, onions, cilantro in it too.

Me:  No, I better not get that.  I don't eat onions.

RC:  Oh, you'll like this.  It's really good.

Me:  No, I don't do onions.  But, could I just get . . . .

RC: (interrupting me) No, it is already mixed in.  We can't take it out for you.  But you should try it.  it's really good.  You would like onions if you tried this.

Me:  No, I wasn't going to ask that.  I was going to ask . . .

RC: (interrupting me continually) Here, let me get this.  (she walks off and returns with a small cup of the dip stuff)  Taste it.  and she shoves it across the counter into my face.  Here, taste it!

Me: No, thank you.  I don't want it.  I am trying to tell you that I don't want it.

RC:  Well, are you allergic?

Me:  Let's just say I don't like them and they don't like me. (looking back at my friends in line, and wondering WTF)

RC:  If you would just taste this, you would like it.

Me:  No.  I didn't get to be 50 flipping years old without knowing what I like and don't like. No thank you.  (I was trying my best not to blow up on her triflin' ass, but she was making it extremely difficult)

RC:  Fine. Do you want beef or chicken on your nachos?

Me: You know what, I don't want any.  I am not eating here.  (And at this point the white hot rage that comes from the pit of your stomach and moves up had come up and hit the top of my head.  And I had had ENOUGH).

And I walked over to my friends and said "Sorry, but I can't eat here.  We'll have to meet another time".

And I left.

Yeah, I probably could have handled it better.  I could have stood there and demanded to see a manager and held up the line that was going on f o r e v e r.  I could have stood my ground and insisted that the Rude Chick not take my order and get someone else.  But at that moment I was just so completely over all the business of no one listening to me and taking my words seriously, that I could not imagine dragging this out any further.

But I did get on yelp.com and write a scathing review of the service.  My friend, the Mom of the Peach says that I should also call the owners and managers and tell them.  I don't know if I care to even bother.

If a place of business doesn't care enough to hire the best possible person to be the Face of the Company to all who walk in, why is it my business to tell them to handle their shit better?  Do it right or expect to lose customers.  That's it.

And as of right now, they have lost me.  I was going there about once every two weeks.  And I never went alone.  So that's a fair amount of business from one source.

The restaurant business is notorious for being hard to keep your head above water.  I have read that most businesses don't last 7 years.  It is a tough, very competitive line to be in.

All the more reason it would behoove the owners to make sure, make DAMN SURE that one rude employee who half-asses her job is not ruining their business.  Is this not Rule #1 in any business handbook anywhere?

Another thing about this particular restaurant's system that is bad is that the servers tip jar is at the register.  How many of the servers get short-changed on the tips due to the interaction with the Rude Chick behind the register?  My guess is a whole bunch.

What say you?  Should I follow up as a courtesy to the owners or managers of this establishment or just let it lie and not go back?

At long last, another recipe

I swear it has been forever since I posted a recipe here.  Maybe you don't care?  Maybe you don't cook?  Maybe no one is really out there reading this?

Whatever.

Here's the deal with the recipe.  I got it off of Pinterest!  Yes, it is the first recipe I have gotten off of my board and actually made.

Both my kids claim to be gluten-intolerant.  I say "claim" because I don't think either of them have ever gotten any type of scientific confirmation.  But that is just like me with my stupid menopause stuff and the fact that I have noticed that the hot flashes are REALLY BAD whenever I eat meat.  I haven't needed anyone to corroborate this for me, I have just learned to not eat meat very often.

So the kids are gluten-intolerant.  You know what this means, don't you?  No sandwiches, burgers, no pasta, no pizza.  Pretty much no fast food, no take-out.  And it is much like back in the day when Rachel Pie was vegan, you have to think a lot and plan a lot before every meal choice.

This recipe is gluten-free.  It is tasty.  It is so versatile!

Check it out:

Broccoli and Cheddar Quiche with a Brown Rice Crust

2 cups cooked brown rice
1/4 cup cheddar cheese, finely grated
5 eggs
1 cup milk
2 cups broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces and blanched
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
4 green onions, sliced
1 pinch nutmeg
Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Mix the rice, finely grated cheese and one egge in a bowl. Press the rice mixture into a pie plate, about 1/4 inch thick.

2. Bake in a preheated 450 F oven until the edges and bottom just start turning golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes.

3. Mix the remaining eggs, milk, broccoli, sharp cheddar cheese, and green onions in a bowl and season. Pour the egg mixture into the pie crust.

4. Bake in a preheated 375 F oven until golden brown and set in the center, about 30 to 35 minutes.


***Okay, here are MY notes and changes.


1. Make sure you have COOKED rice.  Remember that brown rice takes almost an hour to cook.  Then you have to cool it a bit before you mix the egg into it.  


2. The pre-baking of the rice crust took longer for me than the 5 - 7 minutes, but I was also doing 2 at a time.


3. Instead of blanching the broccoli, I sauteed it quickly with some garlic and seasoning.  Because if you read this recipe it says "Salt and Pepper to taste". Then it says "add the seasoning to the raw egg mixture".  Really?  No, I prefer the method of not tasting the raw eggs.


4. Baking time was right on.  30 - 35 minutes worked out perfectly.  


Think of the possibilities for this recipe.  Different seasonings, herbs and cheeses in the crust.  Completely different filling combinations.  We were thinking of spinach, bacon, gruyere or fontina cheese.  Or chicken, chiles, corn, and tomatoes.  


When you make rice for a meal during the week plan to make enough for 2 cups leftover to make this dish.  A "planned-over", as it were.  Use whatever is in your fridge to create a new way to enjoy it and create less waste.  


And by the by?  This was delicious.  I made one for us and one for my client who had just delivered her baby.  


Try it and let me know what you think.

Doing the Can Can

Recently I made a King Ranch Chicken Casserole which I love, but haven't made in a very long time. Partially due to the fact that it requires 5,233,739 cans to open.

Have I ever told you how much I hate a recipe that is really just "open 10 cans out of your pantry and mix together" type recipes?  This is why I hate, loathe, and despise that horrid Sandra Lee "Semi Homemade" travesty of a cooking show.  That is NOT a cooking show!!  That is a "let's justify being lazy" show.

Anyhoo, I was making King Ranch Chicken and opening up the  5,233,739 cans.  And what did I spy inside these cans?

Some of them have that crappy BPA plastic coating and some do not.  Those companies that do are going to be getting letters from me complaining, and those that do NOT will be getting Attaboy letters from me.

Do y'all know about the BPA stuff?  It stands for Bisphenol A, a chemical which can mimic human estrogen and which is linked to breast cancer and early puberty in women.  You know how over the last 15 years or so people have been blaming the meat and dairy industries for all the hormones causing 9 year old girls to start puberty?  Well, the canned food people need to shoulder their part of the blame on this one.


What I am saying is this BPA is bad news.  We don't need it.


Let me show you my cans.

There are all sorts of brands of cans I used there, but the two that stand out as being bad in that they are lined with the dreaded BPA are two of my favorite canned products.


Ro-Tel tomatoes & chiles and also Hatch brand Green Chile Enchilada Sauce.


It is a sad day when I have to tell these two companies that if they don't change their process of adding white plastic lining to the inside of their cans, I can't buy from them again.  But there it is.


Does anyone know and can anyone effectively explain to me why on earth anyone thought we needed this?  Why do we need to take perfectly good metal cans and paint carcinogenic cancer on the inside of them?  Do my tomatoes care if they are in white or shiney silver metal?  Does my body care if my tomatoes come with extra carcinogens for free?  Why yes, it does!


I will let you know if and when I hear back from Ro-Tel and Hatch.  In the meantime, check your cans.  Do you use many canned products?  If so, how many of them have the BPA lining?  Do you care?  Do you care enough to write companies and demand change?  Or do you care enough to find an alternative that is packaged in a safer manner?

Spicy Scallops Recipe

Remember way back a couple weeks ago when I was telling you about the scallop debate?  Whether to buy the smaller bay scallops (imported from China AND raised in a "farm") or get the larger wild-caught U.S. scallops that were not exactly perfect for the recipe?  And I promised to post the recipe for you?

Well, here it is!

First off, this comes from a cookbook my mama gave me for Christmas back 1993.  It is called Accents of the Orient - Eastern Influence on Western Cooking.   Just in case you love this recipe as much as I do and you want to find your very own copy of this book.  Most likely you will need to check Amazon or a used book store as I can't imagine that it is still in print all these years later.


Spicy Scallops


2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp minced fresh gingerroot
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1 1/2 lbs bay scallops
1/2 lb cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tsp sambal oelek
2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 tsp Kosher salt


Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the gingerroot and garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the green onions and cook for 30 seconds longer. Add the scallops and cook until barely opaque, about 1 minute longer. Add the tomatoes and cook until soft, about 2 minutes. Stir in the sake, cream, and sambal. Bring to a boil; stir in the cilantro and salt, then serve.


Makes 4 servings. 
Their notes: Scallops are one of the sweetest of the sea's treasures, perfect for all kinds of quick dishes. This one is made with a creamy sauce flavored with spices of the East. Serve it over plain rice, with quickly sauteed green beans, snow peas, or spinach on the side. To complete the meal, add a salad of mixed greens.


**My notes:  See why you need the smaller scallops?  So they are similarly sized to the cherry tomato halves.  You know I never use the green onions, but I do everything else exactly as written and this is so delicious you will just love it.  I usually make jasmine or basmati rice and serve it with either the green beans or asparagus.  But the snow peas idea is what I am going to do next time.


Last time when I did this with the larger sea scallops, I cut them in half so that they would cook faster, more like the smaller ones.  It worked perfectly.


I hope you try it and let me know what you think.


¡Buen Provecho!

List of Six

I just got an email that talked about the List of Six.  I am over 50 flipping years old and am just now being told about this! What gives?  Why am I always out of the loop?

Apparently there is a List of Six things that you are allowed to be as snobby about as you want to be.  But only six.  After that you are just being a snob and no one wants to put up with your triflin' ass.

This article gave examples of the perfect cup of coffee, hubcaps, head-turning boots, whatever floats YOUR boat.  You are allowed six items to be that particular about and the whole world will be with you and support this.

So of course I had to start thinking about what my perfect List of Six might be.  And as they love to say on DWTS, "here in no particular order" is my list.

1. Vosges Chocolate Bars

Have you tried these?  Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness.  The absolute BEST chocolate bars made.

The very first one I ever tried is the Red Fire Bar.

It's like letting all the best things about Mexico melt on your tongue at the same time.  Deep chocolate, vanilla, a little cinnamon, and then different types of dried chiles that wake up the back of your throat. Lordy, lordy, I don't even know what to tell you about this one.  It is still my favorite, even after trying so many others.

My second favorite bar from Vosges is the Mo's Bacon Bar.  Chocolate, applewood bacon and alderwood smoked salt all combine to make the perfect taste experience ever.

Until . . . . .  My sister bought me a box of Vosges Mo's Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix!

I know, right!!!

Some warm pure maple syrup on top of those babies and you will want to sit right up and slap your mama.  It's like a bit of heaven on a fork.

So yeah, I am gonna be a snob about the Vosges chocolate.  Check out their website to see all the outstanding flavor combinations and giftie stuff they have.

2. This one is going to be completely different, but I am going to be a pushy advocate here.  I have become extremely selective about how things are packaged, where they come from and how those companies choose to treat their employees and Mother Earth.  So if I have a choice of a product that is inexpensive but bad environmentally produced or an alternative that is much more sustainably produced and more expensive I am going to support the sustainable one.  Less often due to the cost, but enough so that they know to keep doing what they are doing.

Case in point; I was looking for some bay scallops for a recipe the other day.  Bay scallops are the cute smaller ones about the size of mini marshmallows, not the big ones you want to wrap with bacon.  The store I was at had 2 scallops, the big ones and the little ones.  I needed the smaller ones for my recipe (which I need to share with you) but on the sign in the scallop bin in the fine print it said 2 things that got me. 1. Farm Raised and 2. Product of China.  Ewww and Ewwwww.  There was so much wrong with that product there was no way in hell I was going to buy it.

If you don't believe me just go google factory farming of fish and seafood and see what you think.  Then think about doing that in China.  They are willing to put melamine in the baby formula, put almost nothing in their cheaper drugs so essentially you are wasting your money and NOT getting well by taking them, and to top it all off these scallops then have to be shipped all the way across the world to get here.  That sounds safe and appetizing, doesn't it?

By the by these farm-raised Chinese bay scallops were going for 5.99 per lb.

The other scallops that I ended up buying claimed to be wild-caught from the U.S.A.  They were 15.99 per lb.

I consider the extra $20. I paid for those 2 lbs. of scallops a bargain.  And if it meant that I couldn't afford the difference, then we would have had beans and rice instead.  Be selective and never settle for an inferior product.  I promise you won't be happy with it anyway.

So that is my number 2.

3. My Teva sandals.

I used to be a shoe-holic.  I had so many pairs of shoes it was crazy!  Like more than 100 crazy.  That's how crazy I was about shoes.  Love the shoes!  I still love shoes.

But if I look at my life on a day-to-day basis and what I do and where I go and what I wear to these things, I see a pattern of wearing the same 7 or so pairs of shoes on a more consistent basis and the others less often.

And I said to myself the other day, "Self, if you could only have one pair of shoes for the rest of your days, which ones would they be?"

My Teva sandals.  Hands down. Number one choice, no debate.  Love the Tevas!  Other than dressing up, there is nothing you can't do in these shoes.  Nothing.

4. Giant screen t.v., cable and dvr.

Oh please!  I know it makes me look like a wiener that watches too much mind-numbing t.v.  But have you met me?  I can't imagine any person that loves their t.v. as much as I do.  And t.v. combined with a great cable package with a dvr?  Well, you have just hit the motherlode!!

I can think of many, many things I would, and do, give up to keep that t.v., cable, dvr combo going.

5. Customer Service.

I am fanatical about great customer service.  If you as a company don't care enough to put your best people in the front lines dealing with your customers, you don't deserve to have my money end up in your profits.  That's it.

Treat me with respect, consideration and above all, do what you say you will do.  Have some integrity, for heaven's sake!  And I will be a loyal customer forever.  But you fuck me over and treat me badly (speaking directly to YOU dickweeds at Home Depot) and that's it.  We are done.  I will never, never darken your door, I will never drop another penny into your coffers and I WILL tell every single person I ever come in contact with about your shoddy excuse for customer service.

Oh hell, now I have gone and gotten on my high horse about the jackwagons at Home Depot again.

I treat my clients with the respect that I expect to be shown and can't imagine why it should ever be otherwise.  And this is why I am happy with T-Mobile.  They are always, and I mean ALWAYS, great to deal with.

Yay T-Mobile!!  (boo, hiss on the Home Depot)

6. My Borsa Bella Bag.

I have shown you my Borsa Bella bag before.  (Good Lord, that was alliterative!!)

This is the fabric I chose.  It's called Kleo Pink.  Isn't it gorgeous?  I have the larger Kindle DX and so I have the larger eReader bag to house it.  In the front zipper pocket I have room for the headphones, the little reading light, the charging cord and any other little things I need to have with my Kindle.

If you have an electronic device of any kind , an iPad, an eReader, a laptop, whatever it is, if you want to carry it around with you safely and in style you should have a custom-made Borsa Bella Bag.   I truly love my Borsa Bella bag.  Enough so that I called Melissa and had her custom make a particular bag with a certain fabric and do custom monogram on it for my mama for her birthday.

So go check out Borsa Bella Bags and tell Melissa I sent you.  She had a deal on facebook for a while that if you liked her page she would give you a code for a discount.  Check it out and see if it is still running.

Okay, that's my List of Six for today.  I am sure if I made it again next week it might be different.  Maybe not.  But it's a woman's perogative to change her mind.  Just ask Bobby Brown!

Please do share your List of Six here, I would love to see them.

Plastic & Carb Update

Since I am doing the Plastic Purge and the Carb Purge at the same time I am just going to do combined updates on how it is going.

First up, Plastic.  This is so difficult.  If you aren't doing this, but are following along, I hope you are noticing when you pick up something if there is plastic involved in the item itself or in the packaging.  And not only notice that it is there, but whether or not it is necessary or could be done with another substance.

Here is an example:  I have recently posted about trying to buy dish soap, the kind for the sink, not the machine and how there is not one brand or type of dish soap that doesn't come in plastic.  Have you looked?  Your choice is really clear plastic or white plastic.  But it's plastic.

So my Compacty Bloggy friend Julia who is the genius who thought this challenge up, corrected me.  She posted a picture of what they used in the olden days before the days of plastic bottles.  Take a look at this thing:

Isn't that a clever little contraption?  You put your leftover bits of soap bars in the basket and when you are filling up your sink with hot water to wash, you stick this soap swisher in the water and you, well you swish it around!  I am now on the hunt for such a treasure.

If you would love to read how this came about and follow Julia's progress through the Plastic Purge of June 2011, please click over here to the first day of the purge and read along.  Julia is a wonderful, clever, and creative person, an accomplished writer, and just a joy to read.  I am proud to say I know her, even if it just internet-ally and not physically in person!

So there is an answer to every query, a lid for every pot, a back to every front. Whatever with that silliness!

Back to the Plastic Purging, I haven't posted much in the last 2 weeks about it because with the sciatica kicking my ass and I just left the house for the first time in over a week, I haven't bought anything, I haven't been anywhere to drag plasticky stuff in.  Mr. Big Ed has been really good about taking care of me and even coming home for lunch every day to cook for me.  So if he has brought anything in, I haven't seen it and I refuse to say anything to him if he did.

But the big thing for me is that I am noticing how little I really need to buy.  What do I need?  Occasionally we run out of some consumable item, be it food or body products or whatever.  But what else do we truly need?  Are we suffering from lack of something?  No.  We are all happy, healthy, and surrounded by more "stuff" than we would ever use in 10 lifetimes.  All of our bedrooms have beds, sheets, quilts and blankets. We have mostly-new towels in all the bathrooms. What else do we need?  I have a box set up in the garage continually for Goodwill donations.  You would think that eventually we would run out of shit to donate. But no.  I have already shared with you my rule of Nothing in the front door without an equal item going out the back door.  If that holds true, we should always stay at the same level of stuff or slightly less.  But no.

So I have not brought a lot of plastic into my home, but I haven't brought a lot of anything in either.  It's not like I went out and chose the lovely environmental item over the shoddy Made in China plastic crap, I just haven't brought anything home.  But what I have done so far is to become really mindful of everything that I put on my shopping list.  How is it packaged?  Is it really the only thing that fits the bill or is there an alternative of equal value that might be less plasticky?  Is this an item of quality that will last or of beauty that brings joy?  If it is a food or consumable item, how close to it's natural state is it?  Has it been adulterated beyond what is necessary?  If I buy orange juice I have to deal with either a plastic bottle with a plastic top or with the frozen concentrate paper tube with metal ends and a plastic strip; but if I buy oranges, all I have left is orange peels that can be dried into pot pourri or grated for another dish or composted.  Try to get your purchases to be as close to the original as possible and you will have less packaging and therefore less plastic to deal with.  That is what I have learned 21 days in on this challenge.

Now, on to the Low Carb, High Protein, Low Fat food regimen that I am following courtesy of my good friend Judy.  Judy is the most wonderful person. She just radiates joy and positivity.  If there are angels walking among us, she is definitely one.  Check out her blog if you want to follow this or just go to be inspired.

I am on day 4 of Phase 2 of the diet.  And let me tell you in just 11 days I have already learned so much about my body.

1. I am carb addicted.  Physically and mentally.

2. I don't normally eat enough food, and never enough of the right foods.

3. I haven't been treating my body well.

4. Plan ahead!!!  You can't eat healthily and take care of yourself if you don't have a plan!

5. The scale can be your friend.  It can let you know that things are going well or that something isn't right and you need to think about it and recalibrate something.

6. I need a new scale.  And like everything else I have to do all kinds of research and ask everyone what kind they have, what is the best, does it have plastic, is it accurate, etc.  So please, PLEASE, in the comments let me know about your scale.

7. When Phase 2 started and I could add in a bit of carrot and beets I was never so happy.  The bright colors cheered me as did the crunch, texture and flavor.  Have I mentioned the carb addiction?

8.  If you think I was happy with the carrots and beets you should have seen me with the orange.  Cold, organic, juicy and delicious in its orangey perfection.  That was the best orange I have ever eaten.

9. I am learning to enjoy my morning hot tea WITHOUT sugar or cream.  It's not nearly as satisfying, but I am learning.

10. In the first 5 days I had several evenings where I suddenly had a craving for a spoonful of peanut butter.  I mean I would have beaten down anyone who got between me and my Jiff.  It was strong and powerful.  I was taken aback by this as I don't eat peanut butter on a daily basis.  Wth was that about? So I listened to my body and I did have a spoonful of peanut butter.  And it was good.  Then I resisted the next night and didn't do it.  But the third time it happened I had the spoonful.  After that I haven't had a single craving.  Not for peanut butter, not for anything.  I am trying to just live in the moment and enjoy what is in front of me.  Which leads back to number 4.  If you haven't planned, there isn't anything in front of you.  So make a plan, and use it.

That's it for me right now.  Any thoughts?

What to post

I have been trying all morning to decide what to talk about here.  And I was perusing previous posts and you know what?

It seems like all I ever do is promise to follow up one post with some pictures and stories that tell you the rest of the story.  And then . . . . . nothing.  wth?

I had no idea I was that big of a dingbat.  So I either need to come up with a system that tells me it is time to take some pictures and do a follow-up post, or I need to just shut the hell up and quit promising things I am clearly not capable of delivering.

Did any of you notice that I do this?  If not, never mind.

But!  I do have something awesome to show you.

This is actually courtesy of Mr. Big Ed.  Follow the link here to the Washington Post and see this slide show.  I tried and tried to capture each photo and post them individually here and could not make it happen.  I also have no idea how to imbed this slide show here.  So please, click over to the Washington Post and scope this out.

If you have been here for any length of time you already know about my love of Peeps.  And did you know that you can go to the Peeps website and have loads of fun??  When you are in the Peeps site, click on the general store and there are gift tags, coloring pages, wallpaper, all sorts of fun things you can print up.  Not to mention recipes using Peeps!  Love the Peeps!!

Since St. Patrick's Day I have been listening to my Irish Drinking Music and I finally had my fill of The Clancy Brothers and switched today to my 70's Soul Music.  This is my go-to play list.  What could be any better than a couple hours worth of Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Isley Bros.?

I got sucked into a 30 minute long infomercial the other night by Smokey Robinson.  It was all Time-Life DVDs of Soul Train.  And do you know it took the the whole 30 minutes to figure out that the Soul Train DVDs in question were in fact . . . . DVDs???

The whole flipping time I was thinking that it was going to be cds to listen to, not watch.  What a goober!  Anyhoo, if you haven't seen old Soul Train episodes in a long, long time you are probably like me and didn't remember how epic the outfits and the hair was!  O.M.G. Indeed!

I am probably going to have to go to the Time-Life site and order the damn set.  Oh!  And the DVDs are supposed to include the old Afro-Sheen and Ultra-Sheen cosmetics commercials.  Woot!

I really didn't like being a boring white person without an afro in the 1970's.  I could have rocked a nice big afro and carried a pick in my back pocket.  But no, sadly I am just a generic Irish-German white person.

It is only a month till Easter.  Time to start making my plans.  It's not like I have that much to do with grown kidlets and no grandbabies yet.  Pretty much it's just a few decorations, and planning the Easter menu.  And that has become entirely too easy since we have settled on our very traditional Easter paella. I mean paella is a big one dish meal with some salad and bread.  I still boil and color eggs so that we can have deviled eggs, egg salad and such afterwards.

Enough rambling from me.  Let me hear from you!  And I hope it's a great day for you.  Thanks for stopping by.

Rambling and Musing

I have not been able to string two coherent thoughts together for over 2 weeks now.  Maybe it is this virus from hell that has attached itself to my body?  I am so tired of the headache, the chest wheezing and the infernal cough, cough, cough, cough, run to the bathroom so I don't pee on myself, and then cough some more.  Things need to be getting done, and I am not doing them.  It sucks being sick is what it does.

So my brain has had all sorts of random thoughts and I thought I might share some of them with you.

1. It is a tradition in my family to put out a jigsaw puzzle during the Christmas holidays and leisurely work on it with Christmas carols playing in the background while nibbling on cookies and such.  This year we have left the big round folding table up that houses the puzzle and have done one after the other after the next.  I think we are on the 7th one since the holidays.  We are some jigsaw puzzling fools!

If you have a puzzle that needs putting together, send it on down.  We will do it and then take a picture of it for you.

2. I have been researching on ancestry.com since I have been sick.  It's a new hobby and it is a good change of pace from the usual things you do when you don't feel good.  I work on one branch for a while and then switch over to another.  It has been really interesting looking at the old census pages and seeing what all you can find out from reading them.  And reading between the lines, too.  For example, in looking at a census of one family branch I noticed that a different branch of my family was listed on that same page. This means that they were neighbors.

Some of the censuses, censi, whatever the hell the plural of census is, ask questions like
A. What color is this person?
B. How many children have you given birth to?  How many still living?
C. Where was your father from?
D. Highest level of school attended?
E. Rent or own home?
F. Employment?
G. When did you come to this country?

In every case, the man is listed as head of household, unless he is dead and the widow is working the farm with the help of a bunch of the living kids.  When she gets older, the son or son-in-law is then listed as head of household and she is listed as retired, even though they never moved!

In the early 1800's the census also asked for an accounting of how many free white people and how many slaves.  Where did the indentured white people go on that list?  There only seemed to be the two categories.

3. Spring is springing up all over!  It is so beautiful.  If we could get a good long misting, sprinkling rain I think it would be just what we need to push all the wildflowers into bloom.

4. Showtime's new series to fill the void left after The Tudors finished, The Borgias is due to start on Sunday, April 3rd.  And if this isn't the best thing on t.v. (since the Tudors) I will eat my hat.  Go, run over to Showtime and scope it out.  Read up on those e-vil Borgias and get ready.

5. Over at Bye Bye Pie in the comments the last couple of days, we have been discussing our favorite soups.  Now, this is NOT what June posted about, but somehow the comments over there take on a life of their own and there we go.  Anyhoo, we were all discussing our favorite soups.  So I am curious, what are your favorite soups?  Homemade?  Restaurant? Cream based? Brothy?  Do you have one in each category?

Soup, it's good food!

Time for me to go make some more hot tea and get a cough drop.

Get your corned beefs ready!  Get your Irish soda bread made!  Bake up some gingerbread!  Get your Guinness or Harps beer on ice. And think about ole St. Paddy.  Driving the snakes out of Ireland.  Makes you wonder what happened next, doesn't it?  I have a book on all the saints, so I will look it up and give you a full report on St. Patrick tomorrow.

Ash Wednesday

It is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten Season.  40 days or so leading up to Easter.  It is traditional in different faiths to observe this time by giving up something, doing without, or just being extra mindful of what you have and how you can improve yourself.

In the last few years I have taken to cutting back on preparing one dinner a week and with the supposed savings I make little brown bags of things for the homeless.  I put little affirmations in them and a piece of fruit, a bottle of water, crackers, granola bars and a wet-nap.  That kind of thing.  I found some little toothpaste samples I am going to put in bags till I run out.

I will do this again this year.  I always have fun putting them together and carry around 5 bags with me every time I leave the house.  They get really good responses from the recipients too.

I learned about a blog challenge called 40 bags in 40 days that lots of bloggers are going to participate in and put weekly updates on their blogs.  It looks great.  I think I might start it as well.  Check it out and see what you think.

For me Lent is about stretching and expanding my spiritual self, finding new ways to put myself out there for my fellow man, not about "oh can I live without chocolate or chips for 40 days".  Of course I can.  But I want it to be about adding a new habit to my life that is meaningful.

How will you acknowledge the Lenten season?  If you aren't Christian, would you consider using these 40 days as a time to look inward and start some type of meditation or even doing the 40 bags and de-cluttering your house?

Food Art

Do you like to look at gorgeous food?  How about those Ace of Cakes people?  They do some awesome work.  I have always wondered if a cake that pretty could possibly taste good, too.

I found a cake bakery place that is in Austin, TX that looks like they have fabulous cakes.  No rush or anything, but if my Rachel Pie would ever decide to get married or something, we could start taste-testing these things and make some plans.  She promised me years and years ago that I could completely plan her wedding.  When she was turning 15 we were living in Mexico City and she flat-out refused to have a quinceanera. Then the next year, no again to a Sweet 16 party with the promise of "leave me the hell alone and you can plan my wedding".  I know what she was thinking, "if I can just put her off long enough she will forget about it and I can go flitting about on my merry way.  Tra la, Tra lee."  Well, you have another think coming, Miss Rachel Pie!  Yes, indeedy.  This mommy is never forgetting.

In days past I used to dream of the fairy tale wedding we would do at DisneyWorld with the whole Cinderella coach and horses and the whole shebang.  But, truly that is like the opposite of Rachel Pie.  So, no Disney wedding for me to plan. (insert sad face)  I have decided to think completely out of the box and tradition be damned!    We can do anything we want, right?

But there should definitely be a cake.  Just sayin.

Return of one of my favorite things

I had a jar of Pickled Spiced Peaches in my pantry last year and I had no recollection of how they got there. I am sure I bought them somewhere, but where?  Anyhoo, I broke them open and, my oh my!  It was like nectar of the Gods.  It was the perfect contrast of sweet, tart, spicy and juicy.  It was perfect, is what it was. So I searched high and low.  I searched near and far.  I even got smart and scoped out their website.  They claimed that the closest grocery store to me is about 300 miles away and it's a chain I have never been in. Hmmmpph.

I let it go.  I assumed that I had picked them up when traveling sometime and the likelyhood of running across these little gems was zilch.

And what happened yesterday, I ask you?  Do you think I was at one of my favorite stores and ran across these Pickled Spiced Peachy little wonders?  Yes indeedy!  There they were.  Cases of them standing at the end of the cat food aisle. (Not exactly where I would market jars and jars of peaches, but there they were)

So I snagged 2 jars this time.

This is what the old jar looked like.  The new one is squatter and fatter.  I am beside myself to open one of them up and find something to go with them.

Last jar of these started out as a side dish for a pork loin and it was fabulous.  And then I started pouring out the juice and some of the peaches on yogurt and on cottage cheese.  This is one of those awesome things that people say you could put on a turd and you would love it.  I, myself, will not be mixing turds in with my fabulous Pickled Spiced Peaches.

On the website they have recipes using their products and here is the one recipe they have starring the peaches.

Pickled Peach Salad

Ingredients:

-3 oz. Packaged orange jello
-1 cup of boiling water
-22 oz. Jar of Pomona Sunshine Pickled Peaches undrained
-cup finely chopped celery
-cup chopped nuts (optional)

Recipe Instructions:

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water; set aside. Drain peaches, reserving 2/3 cup juice. Add peach juice to gelatin mixture and stir well. Coarsely chop the peaches and add with the celery and nuts to the gelatin mixture. Pour into individual molds. Serve with dressing of pineapple yogurt with a little cool whip and miracle whip added in.

I might even give this recipe a test drive and see.  I bet it would be better in apricot jello rather than boring orange.

Don't you just love finding unexpected little treasures like that?  It sure made my day!

Christmas Tamale-Making Tired

Yes, I am so tired I am Christmas Tamale-Making Tired.  And THAT, my friends, is t. i. r. e. d.

Little Rachel Pie and I have made this year's tamales.  We spent Wednesday at the store buying everything we needed and then soaking the beans and cooking the beans and also cooking the pork.  Basically, doing all the prep work we could ahead of time.

Then yesterday we started making the tamales.  Typically, I have a group of friends over and some neighbors drop by and my s-i-l and with a kitchen full of people we knock those babies out.  But since we didn't get this planned till the last second and my s-i-l is traveling, it ended up being just the two of us.

And do you think I was smart enough to think of taking my camera out and sharing the experience with you here?  No, I was not.  I actually thought of it TODAY!  A day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes.

So visualize this in your head:  both of us in our Christmas aprons.  Rachel Pie did NOT like her Christmas apron and kept calling it a Muu Muu.  Then it became a M-apron.  Then it was Muu-pron.  Which to me sounded like a prescription drug for e.d. or restless leg syndrome or something lame.

Anyhoo, back to the kitchen.  We had the big giant silver ice chest full of corn husks soaking in water.  We had all 5 giant tamale pots out and at the ready.  There were large pans of mashed beans, shredded and seasoned pork, corn, chopped roasted Hatch chiles, cheese, and bowls of mashed chipotles.  May I just interject here that one of my all-time pet peeves is MORONS who mispronounce CHI-PO-TLE.  It is not now, nor has it ever been CHI-POLE-TEE.  Please don't say this, it just makes you look like an idiot.  Or like Guy Fieri when he says BUH-SAL-MIC in place of the correct BAL-SAM-IC.  It is not that hard to say chi-po-tle.

Anyhoo, back to the kitchen again.  Picture the giant tupperware full of the masa.  And also picture the food processor and all the masa ingredients on the other section of the counter.  What I am saying here is that the kitchen was full of stuff and looked like a tamale bomb had gone off.  And we are clean-as-you-go people.  And it still looked that bad.

We ended up with 18 - 20 dozen tamales total.  Some were pork, some were bean and chipotle, and the rest were were corn, chile and cheese.  In other years we have added in other varieties, we do sweet ones, we mix pork and venison, sometimes we put bacon in the beans, cilantro in the corn, chile and cheese (which I like to call C 3 or C- cubed)  If we had cilantro it would have been C to the 4th power, which I have no clue how to do on my lovely computer.  But that's how we label them when packing away in the freezer.

There was no set rhyme or reason as to how many we made of each.  We just started with the pork and made them till we ran out of the pork.  Then the beans.  And finally the C 3.

In case you are interested in the specifics, we started with about 5 lbs of pork shoulder which I cooked overnight in the crock pot with a little bit of chicken stock and a ton of garlic.  The beans were a 4 lb. bag of pintos that I cooked all day long with a ton of garlic.  When they were cooked well, I added in salt, chile powder, cumin and a couple cans of Ro-Tel.

I bought Chile ancho, chile guajillo, and those little Chile de Arbol (those are the hot ones) and we seeded them and roasted them and then softened them in boiling water and then processed them with lots of garlic and salt and some of the soaking water till we had about a quart of chile puree'.  This mixture got blended into the pork, and each of the masa mixtures.  I vary the ingredients of the masa to better coordinate with the filling.  When making the pork tamales I use the rich pork drippings and mix with chicken broth and some of the chile puree', but with the bean ones I use the bean juice that I strained off before refrying the beans.  Just to add another layer of flavor.  Make sense?

After all the giant tamale steamer pots were done and cooling we still had to package up the tamales and label them. And find room for them in the freezers.

Time involved:  2 people at 12 hours each, plus 2 people shopping for 2 hours, plus 3 more hours prep work.  Total:  34 woman hours.

Money spent:  No clue.  I hate keeping up with that end of things.  Plus how do you account for the baking powder and salt that was already in the pantry and used 1 tsp at a time?  All I know is that people who bitch about buying tamales for $5 or $6 per dozen have never made them.  There is no way I would do all that work and sell my 20 dozen for $6 each.  That's $120 and if you divide that by 34 hours of labor it comes to $3.50 per hour.  Isn't that slave labor wages?

Whatever.

The point was not to belittle our efforts but to show that spending that time together and producing a quality traditional food that our family loves is truly a labor of love. What other reason could there be for doing all that work?

Love of family.  That's what motivates most of these customs.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with your family.  And notice your customs.  Do them with love in your heart and a song on your lips.  Holiday beverages help, if you have too many in-law outlaws hanging around your kitchen.  : )

You'll Shoot your eye out!

Poor Ralphie, all he wants is the Red Ryder BB Gun and the adults around him keep telling him "You'll shoot your eye out".

Is this the best Christmas movie ever made or what?  According to a list of the top Christmas movies, it is.

Well, hold on to your hats, people.  Because look what is new in Seattle.

And check this out as well: Ralphie's house is now restored to what it was for the movie and is right across the street from the Christmas Story Museum.

And!  If going to Cleveland to see the house and the museum or going to Seattle for this year's production of the musical weren't enough for you, each of these places has stores where you can buy your very own Leg Lamp, or pink bunny pajamas or any of the hats the boys all wore in the movie.  It's sooo exciting!

Year before last I bought my kids each their very own small ornament sized leg lamps that come in the crate marked "Fra-geee-lay". And last year my son got me my very own 18" leg lamp that holds a candle. It is very prominently displayed.  Love the leg lamp!

It is grocery shopping day and cooking the ingredients for the tamale making. Tamale making will take place tomorrow.  It is going to smell great around here in just a few hours.

Enjoy your day, whatever holiday preparations you are taking care of. And thanks for stopping by.

Lots of stuff to report

Isn't it interesting how you rock along in your everyday life and nothing spectacular happens and you have to comb through the card catalogue that is your mind for something worthwhile to talk about?

Isn't it interesting that I think of my brain as a card catalogue?  I do.  I think of it as lots and lots of those teeny little card drawers and each little bit of information and facts and trivia are each stored on their own little card.  Many are cross-referenced into lots of locations.  But as I have gotten older I have added more and more files with more and more drawers each just chock-a-block FULL of information.  And as I have gotten older it takes a little longer each time I have to sift through the wealth of knowledge to find just that certain particular bit that I need.  Some people might think I have menopausal brain, or I am a dingbat, but no.  I am here to tell you it just means I have more drawers to sift through.

So, last night was our theatre night.  And we normally go to dinner ahead of time.  There are only so many restaurants downtown around the theatre (don't you like that I am using the British spelling theatre?) that are open on Sunday nights.  The rest of the week?  Hell, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a really good restaurant down there!

Anyhoo, I was reading the paper Sunday morning waiting for Patty Cakes to get up so we could read the obits, and while I was waiting I read the food section.  It's all about recipes, farmers markets, restaurants, people that have re-done their kitchens, etc.  The usual food section faire.  There were 2 articles about this new restaurant that opened less than 2 weeks ago and I was so excited to see that they were in fact, OPEN!

This is John Besh's first foray outside of New Orleans.  We are soooooo happy to have him here in our fair city!  I was beside myself.  Not to mention a year ago when he was on The Next Iron Chef I watched that series on the edge of my seat and was really hoping and praying he would win.  Nope.  Michael Simon won instead.

Here is a photo of the glorious Mr. Besh for you to peruse.

But that's okay.  Because if he had won, we might not have this restaurant to go eat at.  So, when we have theatre tickets we have to dine really early because otherwise everything is closed at 10 p.m. when we leave.  I got online and made reservations for us at 5:30 for a 7:30 curtain call.  The restaurant is only a block or so away from the theatre so it worked out perfectly.

Here's my review of our first dinner at Luke (which has the little umlout thingy over the "u", but I don't know how to do that and don't really care to figure that out right now).  The restaurant is very typical of a New Orleans brasserie/bistro.  I had a couple of complaints that were minor and did not concern the food at all.   First off, the tables are way too small.  Like 28" square.  Small.  Smaller than a card table small.  And for 4 people with water carafes, salt and pepper, glasses, etc. even before the plates and food get there.  Too small.  Secondly, our waiter was new and "overly-trained".  I hate that.  But not near as much as Mr. Big Ed hates that.  I could see him visibly cringe every time the waiter walked up, took in a huge amount of air in his lungs and started talking.  That boy needed to learn to relax and also?  Take a breath!

One more irritating thing and then I will tell you all about the sumptuous food.  The restaurant is on the ground floor with outdoor seating overlooking the river.  The kitchen?  Up a huge curved staircase.  They had more young boys (not the waiters) hauling big heavy trays full of food up and down the staircase than you could count.  That seemed to me to be unnecessarily taking the chance that your food would come flying down the stairs with the poor waiter-wannabe.  It's not as if they had a gorgeous old building and that's the way it was designed and there was nothing they could do about it.  This is a brand spanking new hotel that was just finished.  So someone made a conscious decision to do it this way.

Now, on to the food!  Oh, the food!  It was so wonderful.  In addition to the regular menu there is also a Daily Special section that has a different special every day of the week.  The special is a cup of soup, the special of the day and the bread pudding.  So it's a 3-course dinner for under $30.  You can't beat that with a stick.  The regular menu was beautiful.  And small.  Not tons of offerings, just the right amount of each.

So at our table we had 3 appetizers; the Steak Tartare, a dozen fresh oysters and a rabbit and quail liver pate'.  They were each fabulous.  And gorgeously presented.  The pate' was one of the best I have ever had.  I am sure my arteries clogged up just looking at it.  Spectacular is what it was.

Then for entrees: 2 of us had the daily special which was a cup of the gumbo, smoked brisket with potatoes and bacon lardons, and then the bread pudding for dessert.  Also appearing at our table was the Wild Boar chop with fries and a big steaming pot of mussels with fries and bread to sop up the liquid.

We had the bread puddings and also an order of profiteroles for dessert.

Everything was superb.

Oh!  And guess who was there?  Gregg Popovich!  Coach Pop of the San Antonio Spurs!  Yes, it was a Spurs sighting.  I don't know what he was eating, but I do know he was celebrating our win from earlier in the day.  Go Spurs Go!  Gotta love those Spurs.

One more thing, did anyone watch the finale to Amazing Race?  I came home to watch it on my dvr which very nicely recorded it.  Or so I thought!  It definitely recorded CBS from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. but that isn't what I got.

I have complained (and complained mightily I might add) about fucking football running over. And then 60 minutes runs over.  And then prime time television is off by as much as a whole hour and all the programming of tivo and dvrs all over the world is for naught.  I can't tell you how much this irritates the beejeebers right out of me!  It should not be allowed.  If they are consistently running over, then schedule accordingly!  Why do I have to fix everything?  It doesn't seem that complicated to me.  Either get the game over in the allotted time or cut off the end of the flipping game.  That should rile up some people and then maybe the stupid fucking NFL would quit being such wussies and taking time outs every 5 seconds.  Play through like they do in soccer!  It's ridiculous.  Move the game along or move it off my t.v.

Dastardly dogs.

So I did not get to see the ending of the AR.  I had to wait and go online this morning to find out who won, but I didn't get to see them do it and by how much ahead of the other teams.  Seems like a waste of a whole season.  Like getting a book and having the last chapter removed but someone gives you the very last page.  Aaarrrggh!

And what is up on Wisteria Lane?  Good Lord!  Those people are jacked up on meth or something.  What a strange episode that was!

All done now.  I have a client who may or may not be in labor.  So I may or may not be going to a birth. Wish us luck that she gets a safe, healthy birth with a beautiful baby at the end.

Have a great day and remember just 12 days till Christmas!

Tomatoes, dogs and cats, oh my!

Time for more randomness!  My menopausal brain just fires out thoughts one right after the other that have nothing to do with each other and it is damn hard to keep them in a coherent pattern sometimes, so bear with me.

Take a look at what Mr. Big Ed brought in the other day when we were being threatened with a night dipping down to freezing:

There is a HUGE metal sheet pan full of green tomatoes as well.  Aren't those fabulous?  If you live up north and aren't currently growing your own tomatoes, well, all I can say is I am so sorry.

Look at those guys!  All organically grown heirloom stock from our own compost, no chemicals anywhere, and tasty too!

I was sitting on the couch the other evening with Ernest T. Bass (who by the by takes up 3/4 of the damn couch) and looked out and here's what I saw.  I quietly yelled at Mr. Deaf Big Ed to bring my camera and get this shot from both angles so you could also see this.

3 of the 7 all lined up in descending size order.  Bassie on the couch and then Stanley Manley and skinny little Angus MacPhee in front.  Stanley at least has the good sense to bend his front legs a little bit. Those other two look like they are going to have stiff joints when they try to get up if you ask me!

Today is my birthday.  It is also Pearl Harbor Day.  But I am not celebrating Pearl Harbor Day.  Mr. Big Ed woke me up singing to me and brought me a big mug of hot tea in bed and some flowers.  This will be the first time that my son Sparky will make my birthday cake.  Our family tradition is that you get to choose whatever you want for your birthday dinner and cake.  I have always chosen my Nana's Pineapple Upside Down Cake which is the best cake in the whole world.  One of my brothers always gets the chocolate and vanilla pudding layered up dessert thing, so in our family that thing is known as Chris' Birthday Cake.  Anyhoo, it will be Sparky's first time to make the Nana's Pineapple Upside Down Cake and carry on the tradition.  Hooray for Sparky!  And if I haven't already posted the recipe for the best cake ever, let me know and I will get it up here post-haste!

Time for me to head out and get busy.  I have already used up my daily quota of !!! excitement points.

It's my birthday and my wish is that each of you will have a fabulous day and find a little peace in the excitement of the season.

Here's a diet I could get behind

I know, I need to lose weight.  And seriously, before I go any further I just want to say that going into the age of 50 overweight has to be the dumbest, stupidest thing I have ever done.  You always hear it gets harder to drop pounds as you get older, but you don't really understand how much harder it is!  It is flipping hard, is what it is.

And now that my right knee has decided it is oh, maybe the knee of a 100 year old hockey goalie, or a football player or some other person who puts lots of strain on their knees.  Catcher in baseball!  That's another one.  My right knee has for several years bothered me when I would drive for long stretches, such as back and forth to Colorado to see Rachel Pie at school.  But since my last drive out to Grandma's a month ago?  Holy shit.  This knee is just killing me.  And instead of getting better it seems that I am taking more and more doses of Advil (really it is Walgreen's brand Wal-profin) to get through the day.  And if something is in the bottom shelves of the kitchen cabinets?  I would rather drive to Target and buy a new one than have to get down on that bad knee and retrieve said object and get back up again.

I have decided that my bad knee has some arthritis in it.  And being the smart person I am, I chose to research this on the Google rather than going to see a medical professional.  I really hate going to see a doctor.  And I wouldn't have any idea what kind of doctor you go to for arthritis.  Nor do I know what kinds of tests they administer to determine the type of arthritis or anything else.

But what I do know is this:  Without fail every single solitary website about arthritis in the knees says this:

LOSE WEIGHT!!!

LOSE WEIGHT NOW!!

Supposedly every pound you lose takes about 10 pounds of pressure off your knee.  And that should help your poor arthritic knee while you figure out whatever else you are supposed to be doing.

And I read this article today.  Now, this really is a diet that has my name written all over it!  Years ago in a galaxy far, far away I was going to Weight Watchers. This was back when they were strict and not all "oh, let's count points instead of actual nutrition".  I can't even understand the new stuff.  It makes no sense to me.  I like the old way.  Hmmmpph.

Anyhoo, back in the day, the Weight Watcher people told you to keep track of how many servings of Protein, Carbs, Vegetables, Fruits, Fats, and Extras.  I think that was it.  There may be more, but that was  the basis of it.  And it made sense.  And it matched with the guidelines of the pyramid and the heart association and the diabetes people.  I was always going way under on my protein counts and struggled to keep my carbs in check.  This new stupid pointy thing?  I would be all over eating all my points in potatoes, rice, bread and other bad white stuff and screw the damn protein.

When I was a small person in elementary school we had to learn a song about Baked Potatoes.

"A baked potato, burns the fingers, mealy and plump and hot.
A baked potato, burns the fingers, careful because it's hot"

What a lovely ditty that was.  But every time I see a hot, fluffy baked potato with the top cracked open to let all that steam rise out, that is the stupid song I get stuck in my head.

And according to the article  me wanting to eat all those potatoes might not really be such a horrible thing!  Yea!!  I need to research further and see if they are going to list everything he ate for the 60 day challenge.  And also how potatoes fit with arthritis and knees.

So, bring on the wisdom of the masses!  Let me hear from you about what you know about:

A. Knees in general
B. Arthritis in particular
C. Potatoes and diets composed of
D. Losing weight and how horrific it is after you turn 50
E. Why my Christmas decorations are not jumping out of the boxes and draping themselves artfully over all surfaces.

Randomness and a Recipe for Joann

You know how I have mentioned my trees?  I have lovely large live oak trees in my yard.  There are approximately 30 of them in the front yard alone.  The whole neighborhood was built up around the oaks. There is a tree in my across-the-street-neighbor's yard that is one of those historic oaks that is hundreds of years old.  Mine are babies at probably 100 years old.  They are gorgeous and they create a fabulous canopy over most of the front yard.

This time of year you know what having 30 live oaks in your yard means?  It means any time you go outside you are getting pelted with acorns.  And I mean pelted!  It's as if the trees are winding up their branches and pitching those little bastards right at you.

My son, Sparky has a new car that he drives and an old car that he looks at.  He used to drive the old car and now he just looks at it.  Anyhoo, they sit one right in front of the other at the top of our circular drive and when the acorns hit them you can hear the difference in hitting the old car made of thick solid metal (BAM) vs hitting the new, lighter-weight car with lots of plastic (ping).

So Mr. Big Ed and I were sitting out front on our steps the other evening enjoying the sunset and watching the cats frolicking around the yard and playing hide and go seek, and BAM!!!

One of those damn acorns fell right on me and hit me in the face.  Not just in the face, but fell between my eyeball and my eye glasses.  Then it bounced off my eye and on to the lens and then rattled around like it was in a pinball machine and dropped out the bottom on to my cheek before I caught it.

Can you believe that?  Neither could I.  What the hell would be the odds of a random acorn just happening to fall off the tree at the exact minute that I was sitting in the exact spot and leaning at the perfect angle for it to hit between my glasses and my eyeball?

Now that I think about it, I wonder why I didn't just run right out and buy a lotto ticket or something!

If we decide to stay here rather than sell everything and buy some property and go off the grid for our retirement home, I have decided that I am going to get myself a bb gun, probably pink, and keep it filled with rock salt.  And I am going to sit on my front steps and watch people drive by.  Jack asses who drive way too fast like that damn Fed Ex man who just sped by are going to get shot at.  Nice considerate people are going to get me holding up a sign that says Thanks!  with a thumbs up sign beneath.

I am going to be like Robert Duvall and Michael Caine in Second-hand Lions

Yep, that will be me.  But with a pink gun.  And probably with Ernest T. Bass as my side-kick.

Isn't Ernest T. Bass a handsome sidekick?

Did I mention that I have gotten Ernest T. a DNA test?  June Gardens over at Bye Bye Pie has done this for her 2 dogs and so I thought it would be nice for Ernest T. to know what his heritage is.  Other than just dropped-off-in-front-of-the-house-like-he-was-disposable mutt dog.  So, I ordered the kit.  It comes in the mail and basically it is two really long handled mascara brushes and an return mailing envelope to send back the mascara brushes after you swab out the dog's saliva.  It has been TWO LOOOOOOONG WEEKS since I swabbed and mailed and we are all on pins and needles to find out Ernest T. Bass' DNA.

Here's the thing, in perusing the DNA people's website there is a Dog Breed Library.  And in going through the library to see what 170 breeds they use to find your dog's DNA, I found a breed that I would swear Ernest T. has in abundance in his blood.  These dogs look like all of Ernest T.'s kinfolks for sure!

Take a look here:

Can you tell which one is my Bassie?  He's the one on bottom.  The other dog is not.

Now look at this comparison.

Ernest T. Bass on top, unnamed Presa Canario on bottom.  Don't you hate it when people cut dogs' ears? Shame on them.

Ok, so now that you have seen the Presa Canario breed and you have seen that Ernest T. does indeed resemble these dogs, guess what?

This isn't one of the breeds that they test for!  Who knows what breeds are going to show up!  It will be a mystery, that's for sure.

And now for something completely different . . . . . .


A Thanksgiving Recipe for Joann!!!

This is my tried-and-true go-to recipe for turkey and gravy.  I have used many different ones but always come back to this one.  I don't think you can make a better turkey and gravy than this.  This comes from the Bon Appetit 1994 Thanksgiving issue.  You can sometimes find these at the Half-Price Books or at estate sales.

Roast Turkey with Maple Herb Butter and Gravy

2 cups apple cider
1/3 cup pure maple syrup (I always use 1/2 cup)
2 Tbsp. fresh thyme chopped
2 Tbsp. fresh marjoram chopped
1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon peel
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp.

1 14-lb. turkey, neck and giblets reserved (I always get a bigger turkey)
2 cups chopped onion (never use them, don't like them)
1 1/2 cups chopped celery with leaves
1 cup coarsely chopped carrot
2 cups canned low-salt chicken broth

Gravy Ingredients:

3 cups combined canned low-salt chicken broth and pan drippings from the turkey
3 Tbsp. all purpose flour
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 small bay leaf
2 Tbsp. apple brandy

Boil apple cider and maple syrup in a heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 20 minutes. (This always seems to take longer than 20 minutes for me)  Remove from heat. Mix in half of the chopped thyme, half of the marjoram and 1 1/2 tsp. of the lemon peel. Add butter and whisk until melted. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until cold.
Can be prepared to this point up to 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.


Position rack in lowest third of oven and preheat to 375 F. (I have started using my electric roaster for the turkey and it cooks so much faster than the regular oven)  Pat turkey dry with paper towels. Place turkey on rack set in large roasting pan. Slide hand under skin of turkey breast to loosen skin.  See if you can get your hands all the way up to the thighs under the skin.  Rub 1/2 cup maple butter under skin.  Rub 1/4 cup of the maple butter all over the outside of turkey. Reserve remaining maple butter for gravy. Tie legs together loosely to hold shape of turkey. (You may want to tuck the wing tips under as they tend to brown faster than the rest of the bird)  Arrange onion, celery, carrot and reserved turkey neck and giblets around turkey in pan. Sprinkle vegetables with remaining 1 Tbsp. of thyme and remaining 1 Tbsp. of marjoram. Pour 2 cups broth into pan.

Roast turkey 30 minutes. Reduce oven temp. to 350 F. Cover entire turkey loosely with heavy-duty foil and roast until meat thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 180 F or until juices run clear when thickest part of thigh is pierced with skewer, basting occasionally with pan juices, about 2 hours 25 minutes for unstuffed turkey or 2 hours 55 minutes for stuffed turkey. Transfer turkey to platter. Tent turkey with aluminum foil for 30 minutes; reserve mixture in pan for gravy.

For Gravy:

Strain pan juices into large measuring cup, pressing on solids with back of spoon. Spoon fat from pan juices. Add enough chicken broth to pan juices to measure 3 cups. Transfer liquid to heavy medium saucepan and bring to boil. Mix 3 Tbsp. of reserved maple butter and flour together in small bowl to form smooth paste. Whisk paste into broth mixture. Add chopped fresh thyme and bay leaf. Boil until reduced to sauce consistency, whisking occasionally, about 10 minutes. Mix in apple brandy, if desired. Season gravy to taste with salt and pepper.

Brush turkey with any remaining maple butter and serve with gravy.

This is so delicious you will want to sit right up and slap your mama.  Enjoy!