kmkat and her kneedles

Sunday stuff.

1. Arrow :: shirts.
2. Hum :: ho.
3. Cornerstone :: of democracy.
4. Flight :: of the bumblebee.
5. Music :: box.
6. Determine :: -ist.
7. Analysis :: financial
8. Better day :: tomorrow.
9. Audio :: video.
10. Meditation :: sleep.

* * * * *

I am nearly done with my bulletproof socks. They were not as much fun to knit as I expected. Worsted weight yarn on US#2 needles = hard work. The socks will last forever but I'm not sure they are worth the effort. I think the second pair will be knit on US#4s.

* * * * *

We think winter may be over. It hasn't snowed for over two weeks. (Hope I didn't jinx us with that statement.) Ice went out of the lake two weeks ago. We haven't had the heat on since Tuesday or Wednesday. Temp has been well over 70˚ for several days. I have opted for capris instead of long jeans. Our winter down comforters are just too warm for comfortable sleeping.

Let the summer begin!

* * * * *

I ran out of coffee a couple days ago. Oh, the horror!

Happily, I had put in an order for my favorite -- a 3-pound bag of Alakef French Roast -- at the coffee kiosk in my tiny town. Younger Son picked it up for me on his way here today so I am currently enjoying a perfectly marvelous homemade quad latte.

::sigh:: Life is perfect again...

* * * * *

Cleaning out my blog folder.

 

It pays to pay attention at all times.

See these two spice containers. Notice how similar they are -- size, shape, color.

Guess which one I put on my oatmeal this morning.

What's happening at my house.

Smokey got a new bucket and tool holder insert for it. This will be his carry-it-to-the-site toolbox.

The second time he tried to show it to me and explain all its finer points, I told him that, nice as it was, it had already received all the attention it deserved.

However, I do need to show you one more thing about the bucket.

* * * * *

Look what I discovered! These are going to be my new go-to lunches at work. <$4 each, often good for two meals.

Even better, look at the ingredients lists:

I could hardly believe it -- everything in that list is REAL FOOD! No multi-syllabiccally named chemicals nor preservatives nor *flavor enhancers*. 

Of course, the real test is in the eating and the tasting, and these prepackaged meals passed those tests with flying colors. I cook up a pot of brown rice periodically and serve half of one of these over a small bowl of it. Yum. (Except for the ones with spinach. I like spinach, but not, apparently, in these. But there are plenty of different choices, so no problem, mon!)

* * * * *

A couple days ago I got a cortisone shot in the hip, so I am walking (largely) pain-free again. 

Life is good.

 

Words to live by.

 ...especially when dealing with hedge fund K-1s.

Here is my printout of the sign hanging by my desk (in a place where it is not immediately obvious to everyone walking by -- never a good idea to broadcast one's ignorance at work). I had to print it in b&w and go after it with colored markers.

See that bag of Udi's granola on the desk? It came with a story. Let me tell you it. 

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work* last night to pick up some breakfast and snack and dinner provisions. I was idly watching the screen on the checker's terminal while she scanned the items and noticed a $634 total at the bottom of the screen. At first I thought that must be a shift total or her personal total on that machine, but as I scanned the column of scanned-in prices I saw that my bag of granola came in at...

...

...

...

...

(wait for it)

...

...

...

$618!

I pointed that out and she rescanned it, with the same result. She did a price check, same result. But this time she was laughing and telling the other checkers about my $618 bag of granola. Apparently the price had been input wrong on the front end. In all the hysteria and laughing and trying to correct the error she reversed the entry for a box of crackers (normal price of $2.42), but I was so disgustingly honest I pointed it out.

* Yes, Smokey is well enough now that I can leave him for days at a time. He walks with just a cane now, has been able to cut way back on the pain meds, and will probably return to work sometime in the next month.

Catch!

But first, this week's mutterings.

Desire :: Elms
Paint :: house
Sides :: laughing
Gauze :: bandage
Telegraph :: Hill
Slip :: nylon
Recommend :: movie
Amused :: tee-hee
Sorted :: arranged
Canvas :: oil painting

* * * * *

From  YouTube:

Practice made perfect! This is an Indian dish named 'Parotta'. The man makes it flat and throws it to the cook who will cook it in a hot and flat iron top.

I am wondering why the front guy hits his surface twice. The first hit is to alert the guy at the cooker that the front guys has just tossed a parotta to him. Why the second stroke? Maybe to let the back guy know that there will be another parotta coming momentarily? Front guy would only hit once if he were, say, going to scratch his nose. Or something...

Ten on Tuesday: pizza!

Top Ten Toppings for Pizza.

1. Cheese. Of course, every pizza has cheese, but in my fifty years of eaten frozen pizza I have noticed that those made in Wisconsin are superior -- and I noticed this long before had any connection to The Dairy State. Good cheese is essential to a good pizza.
2. Sausage. I'm a traditionalist in this regard. Good Italian sausage is my favorite topping.
3. Mushrooms. If I'm feeling anything but boring the second topping I request is mushrooms.
4. Fresh tomatoes. Elder Son introduced me to this. They add a nice tomato zing.
5. Pepperoni. Younger Son prefers pep on his pizza so it is often on the pizzas I eat.
6. Green peppers and onions. I kinda like a nice vegie pizza sometimes -- green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and fresh tomatoes.

Okay, that's it. Those are my favorite toppings. Contrary to many other parts of my personality, in pizza toppings I am narrow-minded and traditional. Others in the family like green olives and black olives and bacon and Canadian bacon on their pizzas, so I tolerate them. But the six above are my tried-and-true.

Things that I find awful on a pizza:

• Chicken. Can't understand this, chicken is great in every other format, but on a pizza? It gags me every time.
• Shrimp. Had a shrimp pizza once. Well, one bite, then gag. Weird, cuz I love shrimp. Just not on a pizza.
• Jalapenos. Once again, I like them in other formats but not on pizza.

Although I went [mostly] non-gluten last May, I still have pizza about once a week. Tried a gf frozen pizza, crust was blech, so we still have the regular ones. 

photo credit: Amarand Agasi via photopin cc

A drive-by post.

Avoiding gluten has produced amazing results. Yes, my hip feels a bit better, but the amazing part is that so do the rest of my joints, those aching joints for which I have been taking 800mg of ibuprofen twice a day for years and a few months ago had to up the dosage to three times a day. (Diagram THAT sentence, sucka.)

Apparently I have a gluten sensitivity. Let me tell you, no one was more surprised than I was at the results I am getting.  Yeah, I had read here and there about how gluten and wheat (and red meat and dairy and sugar and soda and pretty much everything tasty) was bad for us, but yowza, now I am a Gluten-Avoidance Convert. I'm not fanatical about it (fanaticism and 100% avoidance does not seem to be necessary for me, thank FSM); I have the occasional burger or sandwich, although I might only eat the bottom half of the bun. A frozen pizza last weekend, Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese once -- as long as I only consume minimal wheat/gluten with the occasional splurge I'm fine.

My thanks again to Chris, who sent me a lovely, detailed email of which brands of GF products she finds to be worthwhile and where to buy them in the Twin Cities*. Chris = hero.

Life is good.

Smokey's back surgery has been pushed back from June 25 to the third week of July. The VA hospital called last week to say that they had goofed on the scheduling, the surgeon who would operate... would not be in on June 25. WTF? So now everything is pushed back. Good thing I'm having some luck with the GF diet, or I'd be chewing nails by the time it is my turn for surgery.

* We were in Minneapolis on Saturday for a belated Mother's Day/Younger Son Birthday  and Father's Day/early Smokey birthday dinner at YS's apartment. Before we went we made a very productive stop at the Wedge Coop in Chris's neighborhood. Awesome selection of GF stuff throughout the store, not just a puny section like at my local supermarket. I stocked up, youbetcha.

 

Saturday.

This was the Saturday activity for my friend Colleen, the county librarian and fellow knitter, and I. She picked me up at 10 am and we were off.

First stop was Fibre Functions in rural Frederic, WI. (No website; link is to the Facebook page.) Audrey, the owner, is in my book group and in the alternate-Thursdays-knitting-group I attend when I can, and Colleen had taken a knitting class from her, so we were already acquainted. (Such is life in small towns.) But I had never been to her shop, which is housed in a small building behind her lakeside home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audrey had LOTS of yarn crammed into the tiny three-room building. We spent nearly an hour touching, squeezing, stroking, and drooling. (Wait, that sounded pornographic. Yarn, people, yarn!) After doing serious damage to Colleen's checking account and my credit card, we were on our way to the next stop....

...which was Blackberry Hills, the enterprise of Jerry and Loretta Pedersen. They have sheep and llamas and alpaca (and goats and cow and rabbits, oh my). I have seen and purchased Loretta's yarns and fiber at Yarnover and Shepherd's Harvest. The studio, in the walk-out basement of their home, has Loretta's spinning wheel(s) and loom(s) and lots of fiber. More damage to our respective checking account and credit card ensued. Happy damage, though.

[digression] The day before the event it occurred to me that the very last thing in the world I needed was more yarn. However, what was the point of going on a yarn shop hop if I didn't buy some yarn? So I resolved to buy something at each stop. Buy local, support local businesses, etc., etc. So I did. [/digression]

By this time it was noonish and we were hungry, so we headed to St Croix Falls to find some lunch. On the way we passed Chateau St Croix, a local winery that you have seen here before, where we noticed many tents on the grounds and lots of cars. We stopped to see what was happening, which turned out to be an art fair. We briefly walked through, but the food for sale did not tempt us, mainly because the outdoor temperature was quite possibly equal to the surface of the sun and we did not relish perching on a picnic bench in said sunshine to eat. So we left, but not before I bought a quarter pound of truffle cheese upon which to feast at bedtime.

And also not before I took my sole photo for the day.

Wine-themed ceramics. Click to embiggen so you can read the inscriptions.

Lunch was at Grecco's in a shady corner of their lovely outdoor deck (sort 0f) overlooking the St Croix river. Grilled salmon sandwich to die for for me, grilled chicken sandwich and a cup of carrot ginger soup (also to die for) for Colleen, and a glass of cold Sangria for each of us.

After lunch we headed across the river to Shelley's, site of my other knitting group and housed in a former bank. That is the former drive-up window at lower left in the first photo, and, no, Shelley does not sell drive-up yarn, sorry.

These photos are old and have been patiently waiting their turn on the blog.
Today is the day, guys!

I left Shelley's with yarn and a pattern for the cutest baby sweater EVAH (no, I don't know anyone who is having a baby, but they seem to crop up about once a year; this time I will be prepared) and the yarn to make it.

There were lots of knitters and shoppers in Shelley's small shop while we were there; it is just that sort of welcoming place where one feels the urge to hang around and chat and maybe sit and knit a few rows. I overheard a woman say to another shopper, "There are shops with yarn, and there are Yarn Shops [I could hear the bold and Caps in her voice]. This is a Yarn Shop." I totally agree.

Last stop was the St Croix Art Barn in Osceola, where Mrs. I was selling her inventory. Her shop had been located in a former church on Main Street, but she had recently closed it and is looking for a way to continue her business with lower overhead. I left there with a couple balls of cotton chenille to make the softest face cloths on the planet.

Tomorrow (or soon), photos of the haul.

* * * * *

Colleen and I had both been to Shelley's and the Art Barn many times, so we had no trouble finding them. But Fibre Function and Blackberry Hills were both out in the wood and unknown to us. The day before I came up with this: screen shots on my iPad of the Google Map to each place.

Sometimes I just amaze myself.

This is a rebuilding year.

You know how sports teams, when they have lost all their star players and consequently are not winning many games, they call it a "rebuilding year"?

That's what Smokey and I are having in 2012... literally.

But not in the traditional sense. More in the personal sense.

Thirty years ago Smokey fell off a ladder and hurt his back. While it has bothered him for almost the entire time since, the pain has become debilitating in the past couple years. A doctor finally x-rayed it and found that his spine looks like this:

X
X
X
X
  X
  X
  X
  X

No wonder it hurts! It seems to be pinching a nerve so is giving him all kinds of leg pain, too.

Although surgery is not necessarily the best alternative for lower back pain -- rest, pain meds, and proper exercise are -- his problem is clearly a mechanical one that can be solved by surgery. We have hopes that he will be able to resume more-or-less normal activity once he recovers from the surgery, which is scheduled for June 25, the day after his birthday.

I shall be busy this summer waiting on him hand and foot the same way he took care of me when I broke my ankle in 2008. 

Then there is me. I have been suffering from hip pain for about a year and a half. Have had several cortisone injections, which helped. Until the last one, in December, that I didn't think helped... until it wore off in March and I had significant pain. Pretty much constantly. Finally went to the ortho doc last week, they x-rayed, and said things to the effect of "oooh, I bet that smarts!" Turns out that hip is bone on bone, all natural cushioning is gone.

So once Smokey is up on his feet again, probably near the end of summer, I will be having a hip replacement. 

::sigh:: and ::hurrah!::

In the meantime the PA told me to 1, eat 50g of protein a day to ensure my muscles and other tissues are as healthy as possibly and able to heal quickly; B, try to avoid gluten and sugar, as they can promote inflammation (inflammation = pain); and iii, eat lots of dark green leafy vegies like kale, mustard greens, asparagus, and broccoli because they have the trace minerals needed to grow bone; and d, have physical therapy to see if any exercises can reduce my pain in the interval until surgery.

Now, my first thought at eating 50g of protein every day was Whoopee! This will be fun! But it turns out to be not as easy as I thought. 25g of protein is a serving of meat about the size of my fist. Imagine eating that much chicken or fish or steak or seafood twice a day. That is a lot!

The gluten and sugar avoidance will be harder, although I am doing well so far. Chris gave me some brands to look for in the store and also some to avoid. The Glutino crackers have replaced saltines in my crackers & cheese snacks. Rice, quinoa, and oats: fine. Wheat, rye, and barley: no. I bought some rice-based spaghetti that we will try and some non-gluten flour (Bob's Red Mill) that I will try substituting in baked goods. Thanks to Cookie I had already planned to buy some frozen fruit bars -- found some that were no sugar added. 

All this diet stuff will be good for both of us. Smokey is diabetic so should avoid carbs. I have a hunch that if we stick to the high protein, lots of green (and other) vegies, we will lose a few pounds, which will also be good for the surgery and long-term recovery.

Ten on Tuesday, the chocolate edition.

Carole has asked us for our ten favorite chocolate treats. Hah! 

Ten Favorite Chocolate Treats

1. Chocolate.
2. Chocolate.
3. Chocolate.
4. Chocolate.
5. Chocolate.
6. Chocolate.
7. Chocolate.
8. Chocolate.
9. Chocolate.
10. Chocolate.

Can you tell I am not particular about my chocolate, as long as it is chocolate?

Ten on Tuesday, the soup edition.

Ten Favorite Soups.

1. Al Quie's Lentil Soup. Al Quie was a congressional representative from Minnesota, 1958 - 1979, and governor, 1978 - 1982. The recipe was included in his campaign literature. I blogged it here.
   
   
2. Cream of broccoli. Whenever I buy fresh broccoli, I use just the tops of the bunch as a vegetable and make soup from the stems. Slice thinly or chop in a food processor; cook slowly in butter with chopped onion until soft. Puree in the blender with some chicken stock. Return to pan, add additional stock and/or milk and/or cream until it reaches the desired consistency; season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a splash of sherry or white wine if desired, ditto a dash of nutmeg. Heat to serving temperature. I cook the broccoli and onion while we eat dinner and finish the soup afterwards. It generally makes one generous or two modest servings.
   
   
3. Cream of asparagus. Same as the broccoli, above, except that I garnish it with some reserved cooked asparagus tips.
   
   
4. Campbell's chicken noodle. Is there anyone in America who didn't grow up with this?
   
   
5. Campbell's cream of chicken. My mother always served me this after a dentist's appointment when I wasn't supposed to chew for a day. (I had terrible teeth and lots of fillings, the result of non-fluoridated well water and an aversion to brushing.)
   
   
6. Split pea with ham. I made up my own recipe years ago,
   starting from the recipe on the bag of dried peas but using pretty much every herb and spice I had in my spice rack (except maybe cinnamon). It's pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. You can duplicate it -- just make regular split pea soup and raid your spice cupboard.
   
   
7. Creamy wild rice. My recipe came from (what is now) here, but it is not on the new site. This recipe at Cook's is the closest I could find; mine also includes 1/2 cup grated carrots, 1 cup of cooked chicken or turkey breast of ham, and is seasoned with ground sage, thyme, and sherry. And mine only has 2/3 cup of Half-and-Half, not 2 (two!) cups. You can find my recipe here.
   
   
8. Corn, zucchini, and tomato chowder. This is a good late summer recipe, when the corn, zuccini, and tomatoes are fresh. Sometimes I add minced clams and substitute some fish stock for the chicken broth and season it with thyme instead of rosemary. (Typepad refuses to let me link to my uploaded recipe. Shout out in the comments and I will email it to you.)
   
   
9. Tomato-fish chowder. The recipe for this one is in the cookbook that came with my first microwave, and that is packed away somewhere. It uses canned tomatoes and chicken broth and chunks of cod. Mmmm.
   
   
10. Vegetable beef with barley. This was the first soup I learned how to make after I moved away from home. When I eventually used a recipe that called for some tomato paste I knew I had found the secret ingredient; up until then the soup always had tallow-y taste from the beef, but the acid from the tomatoes took that away.
    
    
11. Roasted vegetable. This one is soooo easy. Make roasted root vegetables using carrots, onions, and potatoes (and any others you like). When they are done, puree in the blender or food processor. Add broth if needed. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

That's just the winter soups. There are gazpacho and cold cucumber soups for summer. Was there ever a food as versatile as soup? 

Chicken disaster.

Carole asked for the recipe for the chicken and rice that ended up as a cinder. I am nothing if not compliant. It is a very easy recipe and one that is infinitely variable and tolerant of being held in a warm* oven until your family arrives.

No-Peek Chicken

2 cans Campbell's cream soup (cream of mushroom, celery, chicken, broccoli, whatever sounds good)

1-1/4 c. brown rice (The original recipe used white rice but that stuff has never had a place in my kitchen.)

1/4 c. water

1 envelope dry soup mix (Ex:  Lipton's onion; onion-mushroom; Knorr Fine Herb + 1 t. instant minced onion)

8 - 10 pcs. chicken, or 1 chicken, cut up (Remove skin to lower fat content and calories.)

PREHEAT oven to 325°.

COMBINE cream soups and half the soup mix; reserve 1 c. for top.  Combine remaining soup mixture with the water and rice.  Put the rice mixture into greased 9"x13" pan.

SEASON chicken pieces with pepper and onion salt or Lawry's seasoned salt, if desired.  Arrange on top of rice mixture.  Spread with reserved soup mixture and sprinkle with remaining onion soup mix.

COVER with foil and bake for 2-1/2 hours.  Uncover and bake additional 15 - 30 minutes.

YIELD:  6 - 8 servings

* A warm oven, not one that has decided to go into Fires From Hell mode as mine did.

 

Dinner. Or not.

On Thursday I put a chicken and rice dish in the oven at 4:15 at 325˚, then returned to my office for the second half of a four-hour virtual classroom training session on gift tax and generation-skipping transfer tax issues. (Don't you wish you were me?)

I noticed a burning smell but remembered how dirty the oven is and thought about how maybe a french fry or two had fallen off the cookie sheet to the bottom of the oven when we were reheating them earlier this week.

The smell worsened.

At 6:20 when the class was over I went to check on dinner. The recipe calls for it to cook for 2-1/2 hours covered, then uncovered for another half hour.

The house was full of smoke, and more was streaming out around the oven door.

I opened the oven and flames burst out.

I closed the oven.

Opened the oven again.

More flames.

I turned off the oven and opened a couple windows, hoping that the strong winds that had been blowing earlier would air out the house. No wind now that I needed it, of course, but the open windows did help some. 

I found a squirt bottle in the laundry room, emptied it of its non-H2O contents, and filled it with water.

This time when I opened the oven and the flames erupted I put them out with the squirt bottle.

All this time I was trying to figure out what had happened. My best guess was that when Smokey had taken a package of English muffins from the freezer as he had mentioned earlier, he had put them in the oven to defrost in a pet-proof space; somehow I had not noticed them when I put in the chicken.

Eventually I was able to remove the pan from the oven -- it was very, very much lighter than when I had put it in -- and see what remained of our dinner.

The scorched top foil told me that the upper element, the one that comes on when the oven is preheating and was supposed to turn off when I turned the knob from preheat to cook, had stayed on for the entire two hours. (Yes, I did switch the knob from  preheat to cook -- I checked.)

That total charcoaling of the rice and liquids at the bottom of the pan told me that the lower element had stayed on for the entire two hours, too. Good grief.

So this stove, which was brand-new when this house was built in 1976 (see? harvest gold?), may be on its last -- or very nearly its last -- legs. I bought a new stove when we remodeled, but the remodeling has been stalled for several years and the stove sits in the garage, waiting its turn. Removing the old one and installing the new one -- and the gas line it will require -- is more than we necessarily wanted to tackle this week. Or this month. Or maybe this year.

Underneath that quarter-inch of pure charcoal was a bit of edible meat that Smokey was happy to try. He likes his chicken overcooked and dried out -- although not necessarily this much.

Needless to say, we went out for dinner. After all that smoke the only thing I could think of eating was barbecue. So I did.

Dinner last night.

Kale salad -- yum!

I had had a very large, very late lunch at a Chinese buffet on Monday so was only slightly hungry in the evening. This is a salad I often purchase at a supermarket deli in Minneapolis (Kowalski's, for those of you who are counting), and last weekend I attempted -- successfully! -- to recreate it at home.

Kale Salad

1 bunch (4 - 5 stems) of kale
1/4 - 1/2 cup raisins, sultanas (golden raisins), and/or craisins
1/2 large onion, sliced very thinly
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup sweetened vinaigrette; I used Cardini's Balsamic Vinaigrette
with about 3/4 teaspoon sugar dissolved in it

Cut the center stems out of the kale leaves. Cut the leaves into bite-sized pieces; discard the stems. Add dried fruit, sliced onion, and pecans; toss. Add dressing; toss.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to several days. I know this one was good after 2 days; it would probably still be good in 2 more... and 2 more... and 2 more.

Enjoy!

(The kale was a pale bluish-grayish-green when I bought it, but turned this lovely bright green after being tossed with the dressing. Who knew?)

Ten on Tuesday Wednesday, the pumpkin edition.

Ten Ways To Eat Pumpkin.

1. Pumpkin pie. Duh. The recipe in the old, old Betty Crocker cookbook with the orange cover; imnsho, THAT is how a pumpkin pie should taste. #1 Son loved pumpkin pie so much that he requested it every year instead of a birthday cake. He savored each bite so thoroughly it might take him half an hour to eat a slice.
   
   
2. Pumpkin cheesecake. Yum. #2 Son and BGFE* are coming up this weekend; maybe I should make one of these... 
   
   
3. Pumpkin bread or muffins.
   
   
4. Pumpkin yogurt. Gaymont used to make a pumpkin yogurt and a lime yogurt; they were my very favorite. I made up my own recipe for the pumpkin one; something like equal parts vanilla yogurt and canned pumpkin, spiced with the same spice combination I would have used for a pie.
   
   
5. Pumpkin seeds. I haven't made these for years, but I remember them as being darned tasty.
   
   
6. As usual, I am running out of ideas long before I hit 10...

I seem to remember, maybe from the Alexander McCall Smith"s Precious Ramotswe books, that pumpkin is a staple food in sub-Saharan Africa. Why not? It is delicious and nutritious and easy to grow. 

* This originally meant Best Girlfriend Ever, but now it means Best Fiancé Ever.

Random musings.

I am a charter member of the apostrophe police, and I currently trying to find out who I need to arrest for this egregious overuse of the little curvy devils.

 
* * * * *

This year's birthday was quite restrained, but Smokey and I did go out for dinner at a very picturesque location nearby. Tthe menu turned out to be unimaginative, but the food was excellent and the setting was lovely.

* * * * *

The shawl is slowly coming off the needles, which leads me to the all important question: what to cast on next? Should it be the sweater on the left but done with vertical stripes like the swatch on the right (please turn the swatch 90˚ clockwise in your mind), using the Noro yarns below?

 

 

Alex has requested a rugby-style doggie sweater for Percy, her and Matthew's rescued pit bull terrier, and has chosen yarn from my stash:

    

I am all excited about lace knitting and am considering using some Rowan Calmer I bought on closeout at Webs for a Cece (but I would make it longer and with 3/4 sleeves):

 

(I am not fond of the color of the Calmer -- color at right side of skein is truest -- and am thinking of overdyeing it. Tea, for a browner tone? Rit, if I wanted dusky blue? Anyone have experience?)

There are a number of other project swimming in my head but I'll stop here.

* * * * *

I picked these wild blackberries three feet outside my front door.

Small but tasty.

Salad.

There was a package in the mailbox when I returned to Wisconsin last night. Much to my surprise, it was NOT for Smokey (he buys a lot of things on eBay) but for ME. 

I read the return address and didn't recognize it. (= duh)

What did I find in the box?

Careful reading of the birthday card informed me that this package of salad-y goodness was from Cookie! I immediately opened the wasabi wonton strips and found them deliciously addicting. Then I opened the wasabi almonds and discovered heaven.

Dinner tonight:

I added lettuce and tiny scallops and omitted the chow mein noodles. Tomorrow I shall make Asian noodle salad using the Newman's Asian Sesame Ginger dressing* and ramen noodles and the almonds and the mandarin orange segments and a little onion and whatever else I can find in the kitchen. And I shall eat the entire thing myself because cold noodles do not appeal to Smokey :-) Yay, more for me!

Thanks, Cookie! 

* This dressing is awesome! Both Smokey and I commented on how good it was -- and neither of us like ginger. Mmm...

Ten on Tuesday: the produce edition.

Ten Things To Do With An Overabundance Of Produce

1. Grate the zucchini and freeze it. Zucchini bread will always be welcome in February.
2. Can the tomatoes, either as whole tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, whatever. 
3. Make jam.
4. Take excess to work and share. Co-workers, at least those without gardens, will be grateful. Unless they have other co-workers/friends/relatives/neighbors who are also sharing the excess with them.
5. Offer it to your local food shelf. Sharing is caring.
6. Feed it to the cat. Of course you have a cat, right? 
7. Feed it to the dog. Ditto.
8. Feed it to the chickens. You do have chickens, don't you?
9. Feed it to the compost pile. If you have a garden, you definitely have a compost pile. If you don't, why not? Compost is black gold.
10. Send it to me. I don't have a garden.

That rumored side trip to NYC.

My husband loves our summer camping vacation in the mountains. He starts talking about the next one about a week after we get home from the last. He studies the calendar, calculates his work schedule, pesters me about what dates I absolutely positively have to attend to county or accounting business, and hops on the internet the instant one can book a campsite at our favorite national forest campground. Thus, this vacation has been planned since last July and the dates have been set since December.

Imagine my dismay when I got an email in early May that I had qualified for [another] Jeopardy audition -- to be held in New York City on June 28, smack in the middle of our vacation. I had taken the online test back in early March; when I hadn't heard anything from them after a month I figured I had not done well enough to qualify.

[Background] This is the fourth time I have qualified to do the audition. 1999, 2005, 2008, 2011. I blogged about the last one with lots of photos. This one was very similar. [/background]

Consternation quickly gave way to plotting and studying airline schedules. I could fly from Cheyenne, WY through Denver to La Guardia for 30,000 air miles (I had accumulated over 40,000 on my Visa card) and #1 Son said that I could stay with him for the two nights I would be there. A quick, cheap trip; a visit with Andrew; and a good story FTW!

The flight from Cheyenne to Denver was in a 19-passenger puddle-jumper.

 

There was one  bit of the 20-minute flight that was so bumpy that a ball of yarn jumped out of my knitting bag and rolled all the way to the other end of the plane. Happily, I am not a nervous flyer so I just sighed and had the flight attendent/copilot -- small crew! -- retrieve it for me when we landed.

The flight from Denver to New York was on Griz's plane.

 

 

We had to get up at 4:45 a.m. to start the drive from the Big Horns, in north central WY, to Cheyenne, in southeastern WY. I got to La Guardia at about 10 p.m. -- the time change accounts for two of those hours.

 

Next came a bus ride to Grand Central Station in Manhattan and a subway ride to the Upper East Side and a three-block walk to #1's dorm, but my back protested strongly after about half a block of that short walk. I called and asked him to come carry my [very small] suitcase and tote bag for me. I was waiting for him, sitting in the median in the middle of Park Avenue at 96th Street. For him, no problem at age 26; for me, no way at age 60+.

The audition was at a Sheraton hotel in mid-town the next afternoon. The group was small, only 23 of us.

The auditioners arrived. We waited.

 

Killing time while waiting is always such a problem for me.

 

The audition crew never tells the auditioners how we did on the 50-question test or if our interview and mock-game-playing skills were impressive enough to land us a spot on the show. There were 100,000 people who took the online test back in March; 2,000 were invited to audition; there will be roughly 400 spots available on the show over the 18-month period in which we are all eligible.

Time to wait for that phone call/email/letter. Keep your fingers crossed for me, m'kay?

* * * * *

That evening #1 and I went out for dinner at DBGB, a restaurant that was recommended to him by a friend in training to be a chef. If you go to the linked site, watch the slide show. We were seated just past the pillar in the center of the restaurant, and my view was of the wall with lots of cubbies and an assortment of copper cooking implements.

 

 
#1 studies the menu.

We had steak tartare with quail's egg (raw), grilled chibatta, cornichons, and some bitter greens to start. Andrew had never had steak tartare so wanted to try it; I am a big fan of extremely rare beef so it was a go. My entree was the chop salad with lobster, his was a burger with barbecue pulled pork and jalapeño mayonnaise. We drank beers we had never heard of before and I had an excellent glass of pinot gris. 

No photos of the food; I felt enough like a country mouse without pulling out my camera to photograph a raw quail's egg atop a neatly shaped patty of raw beefsteak.

The only fly in the ointment was that I had lost my wallet the first night we had left Wisconsin; I was able to locate it by phone at an Applebee's in Forest Lake, MN and they mailed it to me in Buffalo, WY -- complete with all the cash and credit cards!* -- but I had already cancelled my Visa card before I thought to call the Applebee's. So there I was in NYC, without a credit card and relying only on the cash that Smokey had given me.

The tab in at DBGB took almost all the cash I had, but I eventually made it back to Cheyenne with five dollars in my [new] wallet.

And that is how I made a side trip to NYC whilst camping in the mountains.

* I was so impressed with the honesty of the young man whom I dealt with that I sent him part of that cash as a reward. Sometimes I get lucky, even when I don't really deserve it.

Ten on Tuesday, the salad edition.

Ten Things To Put In A Salad.

1. Romaine lettuce. Always romaine, never iceberg.
   
   
2. Good tomatoes. Most of the year they might be cherry tomatoes or they might be the expensive, imported-from-Holland kind. For a few short months --- weeks, really -- they can be locally grown. (In the Midwest, Bushel Boy™ are pretty good in the off-season. They were developed to grow in greenhouses and have decent tomato flavor.) 
   
   
3. Fresh mushrooms, sliced.
   
   
4. Feta cheese, cubed.
   
   
5. A couple paper-thin slices of onions, cut in half and separated into half-rings.
   
   
6. Kalamata olives, preferably pitted. If pitted kalamatas are not available, go for kalamatas with pits and warn the diners to watch out. Do not substitute some other, lesser olive. You have been warned.
   
   What you have above is my standard salad, the one that #1 Son refers to as The Mom Salad . Dress it either with creamy caesar dressing or balsamic vinaigrettes; my preferred brand is Cardini's.
   
   Other possible additions:
   
   
7. Sliced cucumbers.
   
   
8. Pecan halves. Never walnuts. Walnuts are bitter; pecans are rich and slightly sweet.
   
   
9. Sprinkling of dill weed. Odd, but good.
   
   
10. Sprinkling of Kraft parmesan (if there is no feta in the house).

There you have it: The Kat™''s recipe for tossed salad. To make the salad a meal, add tuna, diced cooked chicken, or julienned strips of salami, ham, turkey, or beef. Bon appetit!