Category Archives: Food

Family, Food, holidays, home, Nature

Maple Syrup

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The son of my BFF is what we used to call “a gentleman farmer”.  He and his family live in the big farmhouse and they have goats and chickens, a massive garden and maple trees.  Every fall he taps the trees and boils down the sap to make syrup.  He also has black walnut trees which are harvested.  I don’t understand the science behind any of it but the output of the maples and the black walnuts varies greatly from year to year.  I try never to get my expectations up about whether I will see the syrup and about whether any of the syrup will be “maple black walnut”.

This year the maples did fine but not the black walnuts our holiday gift was maple alone.  This is not a problem for me and I was looking forward to a couple of months of fresh from the farm syrup.  (This is particularly good when paired with Ben’s fresh from the farm eggs!)  YA tends to shy away from foods that are “different”; this means that farm eggs and fresh maple syrup are usually left completely to me.  Last years black walnut syrup was all mine.  Delicious.

For some reason YA decided to taste this year’s syrup.  Then she decided to make pancakes that night.  She’s now made pancakes four more times since Christmas – she even went out and purchased a new box of Bisquick after she used up the box in the cabinet.  I’m thinking I’d better make some pancakes of my own pretty darn quickly or I won’t even get to TASTE this year’s syrup!

How do you like your pancakes?  Is there a place that makes particularly good pancakes?

2023, Automotive, Business, Family, Food

Mixing Your …. Metaphors

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YA and I don’t do much fast food but we do like Taco Bell.  I’m probably in the drive-through at the Edina location every couple of weeks. 

Two weeks ago our fridge was filled with ingredients for party food so I stopped by Taco Bell on the way home for lunch.  We almost always get the same thing so it wasn’t a very eventful  stop until I came around the back of the building.  Right in front of me was a Papa John’s delivery car, complete with the sign on top.

I thought it was pretty funny and understandable.  Even if you get all the pizza you want to eat for free when you work at Papa John’s, every now and then you probably need something else to tease your tastebuds.

Hopefully his management thinks it’s funny too and not poor advertising!

Do you ever do the drive-through for anything?

2023, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Caramel Rolls

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Our daughter had an inexplicable yearning for a caramel roll the other day and went out to find one in Tacoma. No one she asked knew what she was talking about. Some people suggested sticky buns, but they didn’t look right to her. The ones she likes are available in every little café around here. The caramel is at the bottom of the pan, and the rolls are dumped upside down when they come out of the oven and the caramel drips down over the hot rolls.

She did some research and found that the caramel rolls that she was familiar with as well as the name caramel roll are peculiar to the Dakotas, Minnesota, and maybe parts of Wisconsin. She phoned some friends from California and they confirmed that they had never heard of caramel rolls. They had sticky buns. A Bismarck friend who lives in Virginia said no one there knew what caramel rolls were. Her best friend from childhood now lives in Reno, NV, and she said no one there spoke of caramel rolls, either. That led to her friend getting her aunt’s recipe for the caramel rolls that she bakes at her restaurant called The Cowboy Café in Medora, ND. Daughter sent me the recipe. It makes six pans of rolls, and the girls are hoping I can reduce the recipe to a single batch so they can make them. Her friend’s mother also sent them a caramel roll recipe from a cookbook published by a Lutheran church in Sharon, ND.

Husband found the cookbook from my Lutheran Church in Luverne. It had two caramel rolls recipes. He also found caramel roll recipes in the New Prague Hotel Cookbook and in The Norske Nook Cookbook from Osseo, WI. I sent the recipes to Daughter and her friend in Reno. They are thrilled. They both like to bake. Now they have multiple recipes to choose from when they are feeling homesick.

What do you miss most when you are away from home? Ever had genuine homesickness?

2023, Food, Travel, Uncategorized

A Little Tipple

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If you don’t count the wine advent calendar, I probably have three or four alcoholic drinks a year.  It’s just not something I think about often.  Even when I’m out and about, I often abstain since I’m usually driving (although YA drinks less than I do and can be counted on to drive if necessary). 

So why I thought I wanted to go to the Old Smokey Moonshine Distillery when I was in Nashville.  A friend of a friend had gone there and mentioned it on social media; when I mentioned it to Pat, she said she’d never been and would like to see it as well.  When she told her son Chad that we were going, he volunteered to drive if he could join us.  Voila, a party of three.

Old Smokey is in a huge building: half large bar and half tasting bar and merchandise.  It was a gorgeous day and there was a lot of outside seating with music as well.  It had not occurred to me that we would be tasting moonshine, but apparently it’s “the thing to do”.  Four bartenders serve the tasting, one takes care of one quadrant of a big rectangle bar, serving 8-10 people at each tasting.  Each moonshine is served in a teeny little shot glass – can’t hold more than a couple of teaspoons – and there were five flavors of moonshine that day: apple pie, peanut butter, peppermint, butterscotch and eggnog.  Then there was also a piece of moonshine pickle and a piece of pina colada pineapple.   The bartenders have their schtick down pat – fairly enjoyable.  I didn’t eat the pineapple and I only had a small sip of the peppermint (it was 100 proof) but even considering that and the tiny size of the offerings, the alcohol went straight to my head.  I was really glad somebody else was driving.

It was a fun experience and the moonshine tasted better than I had expected but it didn’t convince me that I should buy a bottle of my own.  They make a huge variety of moonshine and they have the bottles all strategically stationed along the windows so that the sunshine lights them up.  Harriet enjoyed sitting among bright colors.  She’s underage, so while she could look at the week’s flavors, she wasn’t allowed to imbibe!

What did the bartender say after Charles Dickens ordered a martini?

2023, Baboon Achievers, Food, Music, Songs, The Baboon Congress

End of an Era

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I teared up more than I expected listening to the re-broadcast of the last Morning Show at The Fitzgerald.  Since I was in the theatre, none of the re-broadcast should have been a surprise, but 15 years does dull the memory and I ended up crying just as much as I did that day.  At the end when Neal and Leandra did “End of the World”, I completely lost it.  (I simply could not explain this to YA who happened to come upstairs right at that point.)

When I went downstairs to make a little dinner, I decided I needed comfort food; Ralston Hot Wheat Cereal was on the docket.  Ralston isn’t making the hotel cereal any longer; I’ve known this for a couple of months, but I still had my container in the freezer.  When I measured it out, I had exactly enough for one serving.  Somehow it seemed fitting that the last of one of my favorite comfort foods was eaten after hearing the re-broadcast. 

I’ve done quite a bit of research and I THINK that Wheatena may be close.  I did purchase some last month but haven’t tried it yet.  Fingers crossed that it’s close.  The Ralston has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, so we’re talking DECADES.  I’m trying to take it in stride, but it’s hard.

Concerning the LGMS and the final broadcast, I am definitely seeing the bright side, as I would not be part of this fabulous community without the Trail! The Morning Show probably wouldn’t still be on the air at this point anyway and we baboons keep going and going!

What’s a product you’ve had to learn to live without?

2023, Family, Food, History, holidays, Uncategorized

Ich Mache Engelsplatschen (nicht)

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I make a variety of cookies for Christmas that I send to friends and relatives. This year our son asked me to make some marzipan cookies called Engelsplatschen, or angel cookies. He provided the recipe. One of our daughter’s friends, a young woman originally from Stuttgart, also was interested in them, as she is having problems with gluten intolerance, and these only had two teaspoons of flour in them. The only other ingredients were marzipan, almonds, powdered sugar, and an egg.

I have never cooked with marzipan before. My Aunt Leona made marzipan fruits that she painted with food coloring. She learned how to make them from her mother, who was a professional cook in Hamburg. I expected the cookies to stay in the round balls I rolled them in, just like her fruits. Well, they spread out all over, ran into each other, and burned.

I did some research, found a better recipe, and ordered more marzipan. My new recipe has quite a bit of almond flour. They will still flatten out, but will have more substance. Live and learn.

What are your favorite Christmas cookies? What new things have you been learning about or learning to do?

2023, Food, Nature, Travel

Henrietta Makes a Pig of Herself

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I love bakeries – you all know this.  Luckily most of my close friends are also bakery fiends, so I never have to worry about any bakery withdrawal when I travel.

Long before I visited Pat in Nashville last month, she had emailed me a link from a bakery that she wanted to try with me.  Most mornings we made breakfast at her house but one morning we did save for The Franklin Bakehouse.

Franklin is a small community about a half hour from Pat’s home in Nashville.  I expect that the folks in Franklin would bristle at being labeled an outer-ring suburb, but as Nashville has grown, that’s exactly what it has become.  It is the epitome of a small town – lots of little shops, wide sidewalks, picturesque streets.  It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful fall day in Tennessee, making the drive very pleasant.  There were huge pots of chrysanthemums at every corner of the “downtown” – just gorgeous.

The aroma inside The Bakehouse was amazing and the array of pastries and sweets made it really hard to choose.  I ended up getting a massive cinnamon roll and a beautiful blueberry tart, knowing I couldn’t possibly eat it all (I asked for the to-go container right away).  Pat had the dutch apple pie/bread pudding.  It’s in the picture above and was almost as big as her head.  She also ended up taking some home.  We also ordered coffee and sat at a window table and watched the world go by.  It was a fabulous was to spend an hour that morning.

Henrietta didn’t really make a pig of herself; she actually bristles at the idea as she is a peccary, not a pig!

When was the last time you were able to really relax over a nice meal?

2023, Family, Food, Uncategorized

Neurotic Rye Bread

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Husband loves to bake bread, particularly sourdough, and he also makes his own starter. He has what I would consider conflicted ideas about sourdough starter, such as should yeast be added at all, and if so, is he violating the code of the sourdough makers, and can he truly call himself a baker if that happens? Should the ingredients be weighed or measured by volume? What about covering the starter or exposing it to the air for a while? How long? The doubts and worries go on for days. I find it really exasperating to watch.

A few weeks ago he decided to make two kinds of sourdough rye; one was a Faroe Island rye recipe from Magnus Nilsson’s Nordic Baking, and the other a New York Rye recipe from the New York Times. He has successfully made plenty of starters with white flour, but there seemed to be some issue with the rye starter recipes. He fussed and fussed and hauled up one baking book after another until the dining room table was covered with them, consulted the internet endlessly, decided on one rye sourdough starter recipe and then changed his mind and chose another until he finally decided on one that he ended up making alterations to. He made enough for both recipes but ended up changing the New York Rye bread recipe so that he needed to use the entire amount for that recipe. It turned out well. It had a pinch of yeast added to the starter and more yeast added to the bread. The sourdough starter police didn’t come knocking on the door, either.

He has yet to make the Faroe Island bread but is mulling when he could do it. He also is trying to decide between making Finnish or Swedish Limpa. There are subtle but important differences, he says. I don’t know if I can stand any more fussing, but I think he has finally settled on his sourdough method. At least the bread is really good! Of course, I never get particular about the foods I prepare!!

What cooking or other skill are you trying to perfect? What are foods you are good at making, and what are challenges?

2023, Business, Food, Kids, Travel

Goo Goo’d

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One of the places that Henrietta and I visited in Nashville was the original Goo Goo Cluster store – it’s downtown just a block off of  Broadway. For those of you not from the south, a Goo Goo Cluster is a candy bar, similar to a Nut Goodie.  Instead of the maple center of a Nut Goodie, Goo Goo Clusters have a nougat/caramel center.  Goo Goo Clusters are VERY Nashville and you can find them everywhere, even at the register of a pizza place where we ate one night.  I knew about Goo Goos from programs that I’ve run in Nashville – it’s a fun welcome gift and I’ve purchased them for groups several times but had never actually tried one. 

The storefront isn’t a large space – most Goo Goo Clusters are made in a huge factory these days – but they make premium Clusters at the storefront and have some historical photos and old equipment on display.  And merchandise, of course.  Like usual, I sent several photos of t-shirts to YA to see if she liked any of them.  She thought about the long-sleeve cream version but eventually decided against it.  Just as well, because I got one of that design and she probably wouldn’t have been excited about us wearing matching shirts!

I also purchased a couple of boxes of Clusters to take home.  It wasn’t until I was home that I noticed that the Peanut box was mis-printed.  That’s a pretty big fail in my book.  Hopefully no one lost their job over it.  I thought about saving it – maybe someday it will be valuable – but decided against it.  I’ll have photos and a nice t-shirt to remember my visit.  (They tasted just fine despite the misspelling.)

Do you have a favorite candy bar?

100 Words, animals, Food, pets

Pate

52 Comments

YA picked up some free samples of kitty pate at Costco last week.  Nimue doesn’t like chunks in her wet food at al – she is a pate gal all the way.

I pulled one off the shelf this morning and was startled to see the flavor listed as “Mouse Pate with Chicken”.  Then I looked more closely.  “Mousse”.  Then I laughed out loud.  Not sure why I was put off by mouse pate – not like Nimue is unfamiliar with that delicacy!

Any unusual “delicacies” that you’ve tried?