Category Archives: Family

books, Family, Food, gardening, home, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Really Cookin’!

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A couple of days ago LJB mentioned finding a recipe and sticking to it. I’ve been thinking about her comments a lot, since I am the exact opposite.

I had a lot of vacation days to use up, so have been off since the 22nd and I have been on a cooking jag.  There are two main reasons for this.  One of the reasons we’ve already discussed recently – TOMATOES!  The other reason is that I’m a morning person. As much as I love to cook, I am just not up for cooking after I get home from work.  Warmed up leftovers (or take out) in my jammies are pretty common fare for me at night.

So the combination of many mornings at home and my glut of tomatoes had me cooking up a storm. I started my vacation by dragging out about a dozen of my cookbooks; for some reason that I don’t even remember now, I pulled out a lot of vegan cookbooks.  Then I flipped through them and used little slips of paper to mark some of the recipes that looked good to me.  I marked about 16 recipes – only one of which I had ever made before.  Then YA looked through and vetoed a few.  I shopped for six recipes and then got going.  I did the last one today – vegan lasagna rolls (which ended up being not vegan).

Here’s what got made on my vacation: Fried Bread Panzanella, Roasted Carrots w/ Parmesan & Garlic, Pico de Gallo, Pasta w/ Tomatoes & Olives, Roasted Tomato & Garlic Sauce, Smash Potatoes w/ Pesto & Parmesan, Apple Honey & Arugula Pizza and today’s Lasagna Rolls. Now we have enough leftovers to last another week or so.

When is repetition good for you? Or not?

Family, Food, Kids, Stories, Uncategorized

We All Scream For Ice Cream

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We went to a wedding reception last night at a local brewery in Northeast Minneapolis – Able Seedhouse & Brewery. It was a lot of fun, with indoor and outdoor seating and an excellent food truck dinner.  The most fascinating thing however was watching the continuous stream of folks going to the ice cream shop across the way and the amazing ice cream concoctions that were coming out with them!

YA is not normally a sweets gal, but if she is interested in a dessert, ice cream is the top of the list, far surpassing cake and cookies. So after not finishing the reception cupcake dessert, she convinced me that we should head over to the ice cream shop before we went home.

At 8 p.m. on a Sunday night, the line was out the door of the shop on the second floor and down the stairs. There were four employees scooping and the line did move faster than I expected – about 15 minutes before we were at the counter to order.  As we made our way out, the line had almost doubled in size and was outside the door of the building and out onto the sidewalk!

I had a pretty traditional chocolate/vanilla swirl with some butterfinger crunchies; YA had a huge cone with a combination called the Berry Nice. We sat outside until I was done (since I was driving) – a beautiful night with our unexpected treats.

What are you willing to stand in a long line for?

books, Family, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Read!

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My daughter has been quite concerned about me because I have not been reading very much for the past several years.  She thinks  I have been depressed since my parents died. She is probably correct.

Daughter insisted that I buy at least one book on our trip to Washington. We stopped at a lovely independent bookstore in Kirkland, WA, where I purchased a murder mystery set in southwest France. Daughter chose David Sedaris’ most recent book of essays, along with four other books that I am sure she has finished by now. She insisted I take the Sedaris book home with me to read. It was very funny and poignant. He is one of her favorite authors.  (Her Grade 5 teacher was rather concerned why we allowed her to read such material after she took one of his books to school to have for free reading time.)  I like the murder mystery.  Husband is reading VS Pritchett.

It is a long weekend and I feel like reading this weekend. I wonder what the Baboons are reading now.  What will be next on your “To Read” list?

Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

In Vino Veritas

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We are travelling home today from our vacation to Washington State.  We ended our trip in Kirkland, in  Washington wine country. Wine is big business here.

We sampled quite a few wines we can’t get at home, and delighted in the descriptions of wine in the restaurants we ate at. This was our favorite:

Fanti Brunello di Montalcio: A big powerful red with dense tannins and black cherry flavors. Balanced in a muscular way, this remains tight and brooding despite the long, fresh, finish.

We had fun crafting personal descriptors for each other. Husband came up with this for me:

RENEE: Sweet, German dessert wine. Full bodied and robust.  Good for long cellaring.

Daughter, perhaps more accurate, came up with this for me:

Mom: Effervescent and fruity with an occasional sharp finish. Needs to chill.

What kind of wine are you? How would you be described on a restaurant menu?

Family, Food, Kids, The Future, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Working Vacation

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Since we left on vacation on Wednesday, I have replied to about 30 emails from the regulatory board of which I am the chairperson. Husband has had phone calls and emails  from tribal court and from the addiction treatment center on the reservation where he works. Daughter is somewhat annoyed with us. I can’t blame her.  Really, vacation should be more like this:

I do not plan to work after I retire.  I need to keep telling myself this so that I don’t work after I retire. I need to spend retirement having  photo ops with enormous, two-legged garlic bulbs.

If you are retired, is retirement what you imagined? If you are not retired, what do you imagine retirement will be like?

Art, Family, gardening, Uncategorized

Comfort Zone

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We are in Tacoma and I will soon be forced out of my comfort zone at an art and wine sipping event.  We are going to a wine bar stocked with an art instructor who will teach us how to paint dahlias on canvas with acrylic paints.

I cannot draw, sketch, or paint. It has been that way since I was a child. I don’t think it has anything to do with lack of training. I just don’t possess the capacity. Perhaps after a glass or two of wine I won’t care how my painting of dahlias turns out.  Husband and daughter are both good at art and are excited about doing this. I will enjoy being with them, but it makes me anxious to think about the actual painting part of it.

I think it is  good to try new things like this, but I wish I could plunge joyfully into them instead of creep hesitantly toward them.

How do you feel about trying new things? Are you a creeper or a plunger? How have such experiences turned out? 

Family, gardening, home, Travel, Uncategorized

Last Minute Rush

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We  leave for Tacoma in the morning. Tonight we learned a credit card was compromised and had to be cancelled.  The tomatoes conspired to have a mass ripening, so I am putting up tomato puree. Why does this all happen when we have so many other things to do?

What preparations do you make when you travel?  What glitches have you experienced while travelling or preparing to travel?  

 

Family, History, Uncategorized, Words

Hoighty Toighty

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I have connected with several members of my mother’s family over the past four years, both in the US and in Germany. The family name is Bartels, which is a patronymic name that is short for Bartholomew in German.  My Grandfather Bartels and his two brothers and four sisters all settled in Minnesota in Rock and Pipestone counties in the early years of the 20th century. They all lived within 20 miles of one another.

The name is properly pronounced BARtels, with the emphasis on the first syllable.  When my grandmother married my grandfather, she changed the pronunciation to BarTELS, which she considered more posh.  She was a city girl from Hamburg and considered my grandfather’s family too rustic for words.  It  only served to distance her from the family, and caused some hard feelings. After all, they were all in the same boat and were all starting over in a new country.  It didn’t much matter what you might have had over there, since now you were over here with not much. Grandma considered herself superior because she spoke formal German, not Plattdeutsch.

We have the same issue here with a German-Hungarian family with the last name of Lefor.  It is rightly pronounced Lefor, (like leper). The more hoighty toighty members of the clan pronounce it LeFOR, as though they are French.  They all live in the same county, and it is quite amusing.

I like the words hoighty toighty. I don’t know its derivation, but it sure captures a concept.

Who do you know who is hoighty toighty? Why do you think they do that? What makes you think well of a person?

 

 

books, Family, History, Travel, Uncategorized

Helpful Hints When You Travel

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I ran across a little book belonging to my father INSTRUCTIONS  for AMERICAN SERVICEMEN in BRITAIN 1942.  It was issued by the War Department, Washington, DC.  It is a delightful little manual for good relations when you visit Great Britain.  I feel like I should send it back to Washington so they can reread it. Here are some of the headings:

NO TIME TO FIGHT OLD WARS

BRITISH ARE RESERVED, NOT UNFRIENDLY

DON’T BE A SHOW OFF

THE BRITISH ARE TOUGH

AGE INSTEAD OF SIZE

REMEMBER THERE’S A WAR ON

BRITAIN, CRADLE OF DEMOCRACY

WASTE MEANS LIVES

KEEP OUT OF ARGUMENTS

BE FRIENDLY, BUT DON’T INTRUDE ANYWHERE IT SEEMS YOU ARE NOT WANTED

IT IS ALWAYS IMPOLITE TO CRITICIZE YOUR HOSTS; IT IS MILITARILY STUPID TO CRITICIZE YOUR ALLIES

I think this is a nice quote ” When you see a girl in khaki or air force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic, remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich”.

Well, that sort of sums up a lot, doesn’t it.

Do you have any advice to add to the list? 

Family, Kids, Uncategorized, work

Surprise!

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Our daughter phoned yesterday, full of excitement about some wonderful Chevre goat cheese and creamy Brie she had discovered at a farmers market, as well as the thrill of being held up as an exemplar of paperwork perfection at her work during a Medicaid audit.

This surprises me. In elementary, middle school, and high school I could have presented her as an exemplar of the biggest flibberty-gibbet, fly-by-night slacker of my acquaintance.  I guess maturation happens, but I never expected this from her!

Who or what has surprised you, for good or for naught?