24 posts tagged “food”

So we're having a late dinner because Craig mowed the lawn after work.  I made a quick cucumber salad with rice vinegar, and Craig had just taken the sweet potato and steak off the grill.  Mmmmmm!!!

[there's a knock at the front door]

"Coming!" I yell, running out to the living room.

I get to the door and see a man and a woman holding bibles and pamphlets.  *snarl*  So much for the village's "no solicitors" ordinance.  It's always the religious people that ignore that law.

Faith-Pushing Man (FPM):"Hi, I'm _______, and we're from..."

Me: "I'm Pagan!"

FPM: "Nice to meet you, Pagan.  We're from..."

Me: ?!!!

Me; "No!  I am Pagan, [FPM looks confused]  ...as in my spiritual path [FPM still blank] ...as in NOT Christian??? [nothing]  Ok.  [reaching for the pentacle hanging around my neck]  I was raised Christian, but it didn't work out for me."

FPM: "Well, I'll leave this pamphlet with you in case you want to be saved..."

[Jen fails to stifle a snort]

FPM:  "You can just throw it out when you get back in the house.  [I nod]  We're at the church down the street if you ever want to be saved."

Me: "Have a nice night."

[runs back to the kitchen to load up a plate with yummy dinner, drops the pamphlet into the recycle bin, and has an uncontrollable giggle fit]

I'm having trouble getting my brain on task this morning, so I'm going to sip some coffee and blog about my fabulous weekend and hopefully get those mental gears turning by the time I'm done.

I don't remember much of Friday.  I think we basically chilled, which is good, one of my favorite "activities" actually.  :)  OH!  I remember!  I had recorded those shows on Burning Man so Craig could see what got me all hyped up, so we watched those Friday night.  After watching videos of some of the flightiest people ever to be featured on tv having a blast at Burning Man, Craig's comment was, "If those people can survive a week in the desert, we're going to be fine."  *snort*  :D

Saturday was date night.  Craig had bought us tickets to the symphony to celebrate our twelfth anniversary.  After a relaxing, slow morning of doing nothing, I took a long bath and primped for a couple of hours until it was time to head out for dinner.  We dined at Byblos, one of my favorite restaurants.  We had a quiet table in a corner, and we talked about a bit of everything while noshing Mediterranean delights and sipping wine, wrapping up the meal with baklava and the best cup of coffee in town.

The symphony was delightful.  It was the Toledo Symphony Orchestra's season finale, and they played a fine mix of works, from the lively to the bittersweet.  They even had a soprano to entertain us with Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne.  The last piece was my favorite though, Elgar's Enigma Variations.  Each variation was inspired by one of his friends, and it was pretty easy to envision a few of the personalities represented by the music.  I have to admit that I was distracted by a percussionist though.  The guy on the cymbals had me mesmerized.  :)  He'd stand there so patiently, once in a great while bringing the cymbals gently together and almost immediately stifling their ringing.  but once in an even greater while he take a stance of readiness and you'd know something big was coming.  He'd bounce a little and slam those cymbals together with some might, then hold one over his head in what seemed to be a gesture of victory and let the sound ring out from it.  It had me giggling and fighting the urge to shout out as if it was a sporting event and my team just scored.  :)  Silly, but good times.  :)

Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes

George Nash

Sunday we went out for brunch then hit up a bookstore looking for a good book to guide us through our looming kitchen remodel.  We are by no means construction experts, but I do think we've done enough work on this house now that we've outgrown the basic how-to books kept stocked on the store shelves, because there wasn't anything there that we didn't already know and have experience doing.  I did find one great book all on what to do with old houses, everything from deciding if it's even worth fixing to shoring up the foundation to fixing the leaky roof to pulling old wiring ... it basically covered it all.  The pictures were amusing me because it looked like someone had photographed all the trouble areas in our 100+ year old house.  :)  It was a bit of a pricey book, but the information looked totally worthwhile given the age of our home and the projects we have yet to tackle, so it came home with us.  I also picked up the latest "Art Doll Quarterly" (my favorite magazine ever) and a handy book on short bike rides in Ohio.

Then it was off to the theater to meet up with Dave and Kelly to catch a matinee of "Angels & Demons".  Dave and Kelly are very anxiously (especially Kelly!) awaiting the arrival of their first child, who is due tomorrow!  Kelly has been wanting that baby born for weeks now, and I thought for sure if we went to see a movie this late in the game, Murphy's Law would kick in and she'd go into labor ten minutes into the movie.  It didn't work though.  For the sake of her sanity, I hope the baby comes early this week.  :)

The movie was good.  It was true to the book, which I loved, and the art and scenery made for a very pleasant viewing e
experience.  I couldn't find anything to take issue with, but then again, I'm ***EXTREMELY*** easy to entertain.  :D

Sunday evening Craig was trying to plan out some things for our kitchen floor replacement coming up next weekend.  Awesome Memorial Day weekend plans!  heh.  At one point he says, "I want to check something - be right back," and heads down into the damp dark of the basement.  What he found puzzled him, so he recruited me to stomp around on the kitchen floor while he investigated further.  See, our kitchen floor sags in a scary manner.  There are solid, north-to-south lengths, with very squishy, sagging spaces between.  We've been working on the assumption that the joists are those N-S solid spots.  Turns out, looking at it from the crawl space, the joists run E-W!  WTH?  We puzzled over that one for a little bit, then I said, "What the hell, let's just cut a hole in the floor now and see what we're dealing with!"  So we pulled back one of our utility rugs and started cutting through the fugly linoleum and the very weird underlayment.  We found N-S running floor boards, so I guess the squishiness is just soft floor boards?  Or more accurately, the high points seem to be floor boards that are warping and pulling up from the joists.  Craig says the floor looks great from the crawl-space perspective though, which is a relief and will make the work this weekend far easier than our worst-case fears we were planning for.  So yeah, we've got a "fun" weekend in store (very heavy on the sarcasm there), but it's not going to be as bad as it could, and I'm finally going to be rid of the world's ugliest kitchen floor!

And... yeah.  That was my weekend.  Now I have a week of hard work ahead of me, followed by a weekend of hard work.  Fortunately, Craig has Friday, Monday and Tuesday off.  I think we can get teh floor done in two days at the most, so there should still be plenty of time for play and relaxing in there too.

OH!  And I got word the my brother is coming home to visit soon!  For real this time!!!  I'm so damn excited and I can't wait to see him again!!!

I've been cooking a lot of new-to-me things lately.  I hate cooking, I really do, but I love eating!

The elk steak was a real winner.  Oh my gods!  That was delicious!  I would take an elk down if I saw one.  *nods*  Yummy, yummy wildlife.

This weekend I had some cheese in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I whipped up some white mac & cheese that was frakking gourmet!  It was so creamy and CHEESY!  It was a masterpiece.

Last night I was madly craving chocolate, but we have none in the house, so on a whim I googled "recipe microwave chocolate lava cake", and the internet provided!  It wasn't the best chocolate desert I've ever had, but it was exactly enough to satisfy my craving.  And it was sinfully decadent.

But the thing I'm most excited about is the strawberry rhubarb pie I have in the oven right now.  *swoon*

Strawberry + rhubarb is one of my favorite flavors.  It rivals chocolate IMO.  I love strawberry-rhubarb jam, I love it SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!  It's hard to find around here though.  I thought I'd recently found some in a specialty food store, but with the first bite of my jam-covered toast, I spat it out.  PTOOEY!  My first thought was that it had gone bad somehow, but it didn't really taste "bad", it just didn't taste like strawberry rhubarb jam *AT ALL*.  I took a closer look at the jar and in script under "Strawberry Rhubarb" it says "with Bourbon Vanilla"  WTH???  Why mess with a perfect thing?  It is damn near inedible, IMO.  Not that it tastes bad, but just that it tastes all wrong.  I've had some since then, but I have to constantly remind myself that it is NOT strawberry rhubarb jam, or I'm still tempted to spit it out.  It is not what I wanted at all.

So when I went shopping last week, I noticed a lovely bunch of rhubarb.  I didn't think much of it because I've never cooked with rhubarb.  I did pick up some deep red organic strawberries though, and once I was at home and putting them in the fridge, I thought, "DAMMIT!  I should've bought that rhubarb!"  I went back to the store for it, and now I have my very first strawberry rhubarb pie in the oven.  O.M.G!  It smells SOOOOO DAMN GOOD!  I have to wait to eat it.  There's still dinner to make and eat, but DAMN!  Dessert is going to be so very happy tonight!!!

Ok, so Saturday morning I got up insanely early and went to the museum to glue glitter on stuff.  I want to mention that not only did my husband get out of bed with me at that stupid hour, but he made me breakfast and warmed up the car for me.  And before you ask if he's for real, I'm pretty sure he's an alien.  ;)

After the workshop, I came back home and did a few little things while Craig finished up his work in the garage, then we went into town for the dreaded shopping.

I've needed new clothes for ten years or more.  I HATE clothes shopping.  I'm not at all fashionable; clothing has always been a practical matter to me and not a matter of style.  My closet is filled with "this will do" kinds of clothing and very little that I really love or feel good wearing.  I've had a few reasons to dress up a little recently, and I've been frustrated by my lack of nice clothes, so I've spent (literally) weeks surfing the internet looking for some new threads.  This past week I'd picked out some stores I wanted to check out, and even noted some particular things from their websites that I wanted to try on.  To my complete surprise, the first store I stopped at had all sorts of cute, well-made things in my size, and I was armed with a 25% off coupon I'd found on their website, so I had the best clothes shopping day I've ever had.  YAY!  ...I think I have a problem though, because now I want to replace everything in my closet with nicer stuff.

After the clothes shopping, we went to Hobby Lobby for a few things, and then we went to Sakura for sushi.  Now, I'm perfectly aware that I blogged about how sushi wasn't for me after taking my husband there for his birthday a couple weeks ago, but something weird happened.  We were playing PS2 one night last week, and out of nowhere, I started salivating for sushi.  It was a vicious and very specific craving, and Craig was not at all disappointed when I told him we HAD to go out for sushi.  We went.  I ate.  It was really damn good.  I have no idea how I went from "eh" to "WANT!" in that one instant, but there you have it.  Perhaps they really do roll crack into that stuff.

So just on this one particular Saturday, I developed glitter, shopping and sushi addictions.  That's a pretty productive day.  There will be many future interventions required.

Ok.  Sunday gets it's own post.  I need a break and more coffee, plus I still have some pictures to sort through.  ...Told you it was a busy weekend.  ...And yeah, I know, I ramble.

The winter course catalog for the museum finally came out this week.  I downloaded the PDF and did the electronic equivalent of ripping it open and madly turning pages to find the class Craig and I want to take.  It was more exciting than any Christmas morning ever.  I found the class we wanted, but was confused by the listing.  There were two five week sessions listed, which our teacher had explained would be the new format, but then I wasn't sure if the price listed was for both sessions or just one.  If it was for just one, we were screwed, because that meant the class was twice as expensive as I was anticipating.

Friday I called registration and asked about the listing and the price for the class and my fears were confirmed.  Because this class was to cover a array of media, the cost for supplies was significant, and the class was WAY out of our price range.  I mean, I could absolutely justify the cost, but we just didn't have the money in our budget for it.  I hung up the phone and pondered this dilemma.  I hadn't been this excited about anything since I was anticipating our trip to Ireland, but I just couldn't afford such an expensive class.  My brain was trying to digest this information, and then my eyes started to well up.  I felt like such an idiot, like some spoiled brat throwing a tantrum.  I willed myself to snap out of it and just deal with the disappointment, but wound up sobbing instead.  I went to take a shower to calm down and gather my wits.

By the time I'd gotten out of the shower, I had it all figured out.  We had it in our budget for half a class, one five week session, so we'll just take that first half of the class this winter, and the second half in the spring.  No big deal. 

Craig came home and I told him my thoughts on splitting the class up, and he said we should just sign up for the whole thing since we'll be getting our tax refund in February and can just use that to pay off the second session of the class.  Just like that he was ok with totally blowing our budget, saying the class would be totally worth it.  I tried to sit on it and think it over for a while like a reasonable and fiscally responsible person, but I was too excited and before long I had the phone in my hand and was calling to register.  YAY!  ART CLASS!!!!  You might think you know how excited I am about this class, but I can guarantee you I'm even more excited than what you suspect!  :D

Yesterday was Craig's birthday and we started the day with coffee and presents.  I gave him the traditional Hallmark Star Trek ornament of the year and a couple of Cylons to start building his army.  We ate a lovely breakfast and then got cleaned up to run into town for some shopping.  We picked up some home-improvement/craft stuff at the general store and then hit up Kohl's so Craig could find some new work clothes.  (I hate Kohl's with a fiery passion, but they do have decent deals in mens' wear.) 

We drove across town in the direction of a newer Japanese restaurant in town and met up with Dave and Kelly for dinner.  It was one of those restaurants where you sit around the hibachi and watch the chef prepare your food, which was quite entertaining.  Well, we watched him prepare everyone else's food.  Craig was there for birthday sushi, and I figured I'd be adventurous and share some sushi with him.  I can say that I give it an honest try every once in a while, but sushi just doesn't do it for me at all.  Now, don't get me wrong!  We had some delicious rolls, and the white tuna and shrimp pieces were pretty good.  I just can't ever imagine ordering sushi for myself.  It just doesn't do anything for me.  And the texture thing gags me once in a while too, especially that red tuna piece I choked down.  Does the world not realize that fish is raw???  :)  Craig was in heaven though.  Even a sushi novice like myself could tell just by looking at the food and the presentation that it was excellent quality, and as long as the birthday boy was happy, all was absolutely as it should be!

After feasting, the four of us drove out to the zoo to see the Lights Before Christmas.  It had only just opened Friday night, and the air temperature was well below freezing, so the place was practically empty.  Every other time we'd been to see the lights, traffic had been backed up a long ways in the street before you even got to the parking lot, so this far less crowded night where we could drive right up to the front of the lot was a new experience for us.  It was ten times as fun having Dave and Kelly with us too.  We walked the whole zoo, drank hot chocolate, sang along with the "dancing lights" presentation, had a hundred laughs or more, saw some fish and bugs and snakes (most animals were tucked in for the night), and talked at length to really nice guy in the reptile house about reticulated pythons named "Fluffy" and how to die by snake.

It was a fabulous day, but all that walking in the cold air *really* kicked our asses.  I haven't been that thoroughly wiped out in a long time.  We came home and had birthday cupcakes and quickly gave up and called it a night.  Slept like logs too and still had trouble getting out of bed this morning. 

Today was supposed to be productive, but my ass is still dragging from all the fun we had yesterday.  Sundays are designed for slack though, so no worries.

Art class is amazing.  We're both thoroughly enjoying it.  I'm already wanting to take the next class our instructor will be teaching in January.  I need to save up for it.

Every week we have to bring in produce to draw.  The pumpkins and other gourds we bought get re-used from week to week, but drawing the same stuff gets boring, so I always pick up some new material at the store every week.  Tuesday is drawing class, and Wednesday is turning out to be the night I try to make dinner out of the perishable items from our still-life set-up.  :)  You'd think I'd get smart and pick a recipe to shop for first, then use the ingredients as a still-life, but I'm still working it the other way.

This week I have an eggplant and some tomatoes that will likely be the first to spoil, so tonight looks to be eggplant Parmesan for dinner.  I also have some interesting peppers I'll have to look into stuffing with something maybe as a pre-pizza appetizer for Friday.

It's an amusing way to get more vegetables in your diet though, trying to make dinner out of your still life.  I really need to learn to like eating various kinds of squash, because there's a lot of it right now, and next to peppers, I think they're the most fun to draw.

Friday was the only day on our trip that we would be going to bed in the same place we woke up, so we decided we would most likely spend the day exploring the area and avoiding excessive driving. 

The only thing that was absolutely on our agenda was having a lobster roll at Red's Eats for lunch, so we decided to drive down to the touristy center of Boothbay Harbor to spend the morning walking around the galleries and shops building up an appetite.  We wandered around a few blocks, constantly reminding each other, "If you see anything you want to stop and look at..." but we just aren't the shopping types.  Eventually, we walked by the docks and noticed a little booth booking two hour sailing excursions.  We walked right by it at first, but it slowly sunk in my thick skull that I had seen something worth stopping for, so we turned around and bought tickets for the 3pm sail.

We were told to be back at the dock at 2:45, and with needing to run to Wiscasset for our lunch, that didn't leave us much time to dawdle, which was fine since we weren't really finding anything interesting down there anyhow.  We'd seen an ad in a tourist brochure for a wood-turner's gallery, so we plugged that address into our GPS and headed for the one gallery that had peaked our attention.

The wood turner was truly a salty old Mainer.  He was 74 and willing to talk to Craig about the trade, even though we could barely understand his accent and he seemed mostly to want to talk Craig out of his hobby.  It was kind of funny, actually.  The guy would go on and on about how difficult it is to make a name for yourself turning, interjecting every few minutes with, "Have I discouraged you yet?" and then continuing on with ever more reasons why it's nothing anyone should want to do on any level beyond casual hobbyist.  Craig was a saint for patiently listening to the man.  I was just trying to look like I wasn't listening while I fought down the giggles. Eventually some new victims ...er, customers showed up and we had our out.  We got back in the car and laughed and laughed!

Mack Bear Fused Glass Art

We'd passed a glass gallery on the way in, so we stopped there next.   The gallery was in a renovated 1800s church.  Between the church, the original chandelier, the glass and Susan Mack Bear herself, I was totally smitten!  I mean, who hasn't dreamed of having their own glasswork gallery in a renovated old church on the coast of Maine?!!!  Ok, so maybe that's mostly just me, but still, this woman was living out one of my dreams.  We talked to her about the glass a little, but we mostly talked about fixing up the church and living in Maine.  She was wonderful to talk to, and she let me snap a few pictures of the building.  They don't have a website up yet, but they're working on it.  I'll be watching for it because she had a painting for sale that I really wanted but couldn't quite afford that day.  I bought a few pendants from her and we got back in the car and set out for lunch.

Red's Famous Lobster Roll

There was one thing we foolishly hadn't counted on when planning our day, and that was the fact that you don't plan to eat at Red's Eats right around lunch or dinner time.  We knew this; we'd just forgotten.  We remembered when we drove up and saw that the line rounded the corner and went on quite a ways.  We found parking and got in line, and then started to get nervous about whether or not we'd be able to eat lunch and be back in time for our sail.  The line moved so slowly, but after half an hour, we finally got to the front.  I had Craig go get the car while I placed our order and got it to go.  While waiting for our order, I had a quick chat with a lovely fiber artist (weaver) originally from Dayton, OH, who had been behind us in line and heard us mention we drove from Ohio for a Red's lobster roll.  She assured us that even though lobster rolls at competing locations were less than stellar this year, Red's was still serving the deliciousness they are famous for.  Our order came up and I wished the woman a good lunch and a pleasant day, I snagged our food, and we drove as fast as traffic would allow back to the docks.

When we got there, we still had over half an hour to eat (whew!), so we found a picnic table not far from our meeting place and tore into our lunch, the reason for our journey.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that everyone who walked by cast hungry eyes at our lunch.  One woman commented that there must be carry out near by, but we corrected her and told her we'd driven to Red's for it.  I swear I saw her whimper ever so slightly.  Then a biker couple walked by and commented that it looked like we had found a great lobster roll.  We told him we drove to Red's for it, and he nodded approvingly, commenting that he didn't realize they were still open this season.  I bet I know where they had dinner!  *L*  Craig gets cranky when he gets hungry (quicker than I do) and had been a little stressed by the wait and the rush to get back on time, but as soon as he started eating, he melted into peaceful bliss admitting, "I'd forgotten how worth it this is.  I'm sorry I doubted you, Red's."  :)  Gods, that was a DAMN GOOD lunch!

Sailing the Schooner Eastwind

It was time to set sail and we joined a small group of tourists in boarding the Schooner Eastwind with Captain Herb and Dorris Smith.  Not only had this couple built six schooners themselves(!) but they've sailed around the world several times.  Captain Herb steered us through the harbor while Dorris worked the sails and entertained us with tales of their travels and the local history and gossip.  It was an absolutely heavenly two hours.  This was Craig's first time sailing and my first time on a schooner rig.  I think we've decided sailing lessons and possibly even our own boat are in our future.  I'm definitely going to start searching for Great Lakes sailing charters and look for a working sailing vacation in the Atlantic for sometime in the future.  Herb and Dorris had taken people on working vacations before, and if they ever do it again, I'd *LOVE* to sail with them, but I got the impression they're at least semi-retired.  I really liked Dorris though.  She's my kind of people.  I could totally relate when she was complaining about people who tear down the old, huge, extended-family houses out there to put up new, single-family McMansions.  She was telling us about the dairy farm they ran for a while to take a break from sailing too, where she named her cows after all the first ladies from Hillary on back, and told us with a smile that her one bull, Bill, was quite the stud.  I also got a giggle out of her admission that on one trip, by the time they got to Burmuda, she wanted to drown her kids.  heh.  (It was much funnier and not at all cruel in context, trust me!)  Good people, lovely boat, heavenly way to spend a few hours!  We caught some good winds on the way back which made for a fun ride, even though we never quite got the rails wet.  Pure bliss.

After our sail, we found a westward facing spot on a pier on Southport Island to watch the sunset.  Artists, lobster rolls, sailing and still more staring out over the water.  That definitely ranks up there on my list of very, very good days!

Public Pier on Southport Island, ME

I've spent all of my life trying to like oatmeal.  It looks so comforting and warm and yummy, especially when you put apples or peaches and/or cinnamon and other yummy stuff in it.  I love comfort food, but I've never been able to eat oatmeal, no matter how it's dressed.  It's a texture issue.  Every six months or so I drag out the oatmeal and I make a bowl, sometimes with more water, sometimes less, sometimes with milk; I've tried all sorts of add-ins and methods of preparation.  I take one bite and I'm repulsed.  Sometimes I choke down a second, but the oatmeal has always wound up in the trash after no more than two bites.  I've even tried uncooked oats with cold milk poured over them.  That was the least offensive, but even those got slimy too fast and were trashed.

Then I found Scottish ground oats.  I've discovered that I hate rolled oats.  Ground oats are pretty good.  I want to give steel-cut oats a try too, but for now, I'm happy to find that I can finally eat oatmeal!

Oatmeal was my second breakfast this morning.  I had cold cereal, Peanut Butter Bumpers, at 4:30am.  I'm obsessed with that cereal.  It is *DELICIOUS*!!!

Inane posts like this and the previous one are likely to continue until I get a nap and can think about more significant things.  Unfortunately, I still can't sleep.

Tonight I had my first piece of baklava in...20 years maybe.  I've had some almond baklava and some white/cashew baklava over the years, but not the moist, wonderful, standard baklava made with walnuts.  My food allergies seem to be going away (walnuts was a bad one) and I had a craving, so I thought I'd try it.  O.M.G!!!  That was sooooo delicious!  I want more!  I've missed that soooooo much.  It used to be one of my very favorite treats before I developed that stupid walnut allergy.

...Now, if only I could some day enjoy fish and chips again...  *salivate*

The "Deluxe" pizza from American Pizza Box in Delta, OH is *the* ***PERFECT*** pizza!

I've had lots of delicious pizzas in my time, some of them gourmet.  I've had some really fantastic pizzas.  But when you want a pizza, something you know will be a good pizza, you can't beat the Deluxe from APB!

I *LOVE* that pizza!

...And this Merlot is pretty good too.

:D

It's a very nice evening here at Chez Szczublewski.