Category Archives: Food

2022, Business, Family, Food, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Sweet Conundrum

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My father loved buttermilk.  Unfortunately my mother did not.  This meant that my father didn’t get buttermilk very often because my mother just didn’t purchase many things that she didn’t like, even if someone else did.  She was in charge of the kitchen, the shopping and the cooking and there just wasn’t room in her cart for things she wasn’t going to consume.  Fish, liver, brussel sprouts, mushrooms – none of these ever saw the inside of our fridge.

So my father would often order buttermilk when we ate out.  This got troublesome occasionally.  At Perkins in particular, he always asked for buttermilk and was always told they didn’t have it.  He would immediately point out the buttermilk pancakes on the menu and ask for buttermilk again.  It didn’t matter that every single time the waitstaff explained that the pancake mix already had the buttermilk in it, he just couldn’t understand how you could have buttermilk pancakes but not have buttermilk. 

I was thinking about this a few days ago.  I had a morning appointment up in Robbinsdale and the doctor agreed to an 8 a.m. time slot even though the office didn’t normally start taking appointments until 8:30.  To thank her, I stopped at a bakery/coffee shop up the street from the office to pick up coffee for both of us (and a doughnut for myself, who are we kidding).  It was quiet in the bakery; I was the only customer.  From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the cream/sugar nook so I asked the guy behind the counter.  He pointed out a table in a corner but then said “but we don’t have sugar”. 

I was sure I had heard him wrong so I said “you don’t have sugar?”.  Nope, they had sweetners, but no sugar.  I started to suggest that you can’t have 20 kinds of doughnuts and pastries along with cookies and cakes and not have sugar but then I remembered my dad always haranguing waitstaff about buttermilk and I decided to zip my lip.  But five days later, I’m still wondering about it.  No sugar in a bakery?

Any little mysteries bugging you this week?

2022, Art, Automotive, Fantasy, Food, Mysteries, Seasons, Travel

All Aboard

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Yesterday Bill mentioned the disappointment that Botticelli’s Venus isn’t shown to it’s best advantage in its home in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  I know someone who was disappointed at seeing the David by Michelangelo in that same city; she thought that many fewer people should be allowed into the gallery at any given time so that it is quiet while you are observing the statue.  I also know several folks who were underwhelmed by Stonehenge; they feel it is too close to the highway (technically the highway is too close to Stonehenge) and there is a chain link fence along the road that runs up to it.  And of course I did have a client once who just didn’t love Paris the way he thought he should. He couldn’t explain it at all and felt a little sheepish about it.

One of the days I was visiting Pat in Nashville, we drove down to Chattanooga for a day.  After we’d gone all through the huge aquarium there, I told Pat I wanted to see the Chattanooga Choo Choo.  After all – why not.  I’m guessing if it took me 66 years to get to Chattanooga the first time, I probably won’t get another chance!

We turned on the GPS… we were only about 3 miles away but it was downtown traffic so we wanted to be sure.  A left turn took us to the back of a hotel where there were some older trains but there wasn’t an entrance so we turned back.  A right turn after the hotel was the same… train cars but no entrance.  The front of the hotel has mostly pay parking and there was no signage whatsoever for the CCC.  We finally parked in a questionable spot and I called the hotel itself.  The gal who answered the phone said you had to go through the hotel lobby to get there.  Hmmmm.  We left the car in our questionable space and traipsed into the hotel.  It became clear immediately that this hotel had been the train station at one point but these days it is in sad shape and most of the retail spots in the big open atrium are dark.

If you walk all the way through, you do indeed come out to the train yard and the CCC is right there but that’s about all there is to say.  Not clean, not spiffed up, no signage, no speakers playing the famous song.  No little café serving coffee with cute names and no gift shop with magnet and postcards.  All the other train cars in the yard are in very sad shape; a few look like there might be some refurbishing going on, but I wouldn’t bet any money on when it will actually be finished.  As long as we were there, Pat snapped a photo of me in front of the engine, proof that we had actually found it!  Truly, the model of the CCC in the hotel lobby was more impressive than the actual train itself.

Luckily since we hadn’t thought about looking for the CCC until that morning, neither of us had any great expectations so it wasn’t nearly as disappointing as it could have been.  I think it’s the big build up in our expectations that causes most of our disappointments – at least it is for me.

What would you call a coffee drink at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Coffee Shop?

2022, Art, Family, Food, holidays, Mysteries

World Kindness Day

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Yesterday was World Kindness Day.

YA and I celebrated (although I’m not sure she even know it was Kindness Day) by heading off to the Botticelli and Renaissance Florence exhibit at the Minneapolis Art Institute.  It was a nice exhibit; not as much Botticelli as I would have liked, but I suppose the Uffizi in Florence didn’t want to completely empty out their galleries for us!  YA wanted to see this one

(unfortunately it stayed behind in Florence).  She did talk me into buying a magnet of it for the refrigerator though!

Afterwards we went to Hola Arepa for brunch.  I had the Fried Egg Breakfast – the Arepa version of huevos rancheros with two great sauces and yuca fries.  It was really scrumptious but made even better when half way through, YA suggested that she pay for our meal.  I accepted so quickly that she laughed.  NEVER before has she volunteered to pay for a meal in a restaurant for us. 

I’m putting it down to World Kindness Day although I’m not sure YA was in the know!

Any kindnesses to report?

2022, Food, Nature, Seasons, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Carpe Vinum

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One of the days I was in Nashville, Pat and I drove out to Arrington Vineyard – a lovely place about 45 minutes from the city.  It was so beautiful that day and the winery is definitely set up and marketed to folks who want to come out and enjoy it.   Various dining venues including outdoor tables and umbrellas as well as picnic tables on the hill overlooking the vineyard.

Bringing your own picnic is definitely encouraged but if you need to add a little spice to your meal, there are pre-packaged olives, cheese/salami slices, crackers galore, pickled vegetables, and lots more.  Even desserts.  The stars of the show are, of course, the wines and you can purchase bottles or you can get flights of wine to go with your meal.  I’ve never actually purchased a flight of wine before so was a little surprised at first that you can’t just pick your own four wines (or six depending on what size flight you want).  I guess the winery figures they know better than you about which wines go together and which don’t.

The little gal who was working the register looked to be about 15.  Obviously she had to be old enough to sell liquor, but the older get, the younger they all seem!  I ordered the flight we wanted and the young gal asked me for identification.  The shock must have shown on my face; after all it’s been 40+ years since I have been underage.  She quickly told me that they are required by law to card everyone.  Seems like a lot of wasted breath to asked clearly geriatric folks for their ID.  But I did consider slipping her a big tip!

Do you remember the last time you got carded?

2022, Business, Food, Travel, Uncategorized

Pastry Fusion

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When I was in Nashville, my friend Pat and I had a list a mile long of things we wanted to see and do.  Pat is not a Tennessee native, so she was as eager to explore as I was.  Last  year I saw some cooking show that featured a bakery in Nashville that looked splendid.  Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name so we ended up googling wildly to try to find something that rang a bell.  Nothing.

We did find Five Daughters Bakery which came up over and over again in searches for the best bakeries; they have three stores in Nashville so we decided they would be our bakery of choice. 

Turns out that they make a version of cronut which they call the “100-Layer Donut”.  I’ve never had a cronut before, although I have heard of them.  They were “invented” in 2013 by a French baker, Dominique Ansel at his bakery in New York; made with croissant dough and pastry cream, cronuts LOOK like doughnuts but are similar to croissants in texture.  They are bigger than most doughnuts and considerably more expensive; we cut them in half and saved the second half for the next morning.   I remember these pastries making a big splash at the time with people standing around the block for ages to get a crack at them and now I know why!

I haven’t done a thorough search but so far I haven’t found anyone making a cross between a doughnut and a croissants!

Do you have any favorite mash-ups?

2022, books, Food, History, Movies, Mysteries, Travel

Bob’s Your Uncle

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You all know that I am a little obsessed with Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.  Just recently I finally splurged and purchased the David Suchet as Poirot version of Death on the Nile. I’ve watched it repeatedly since it arrived and despite having seen it previously, I was surprised to find the Simon Doyle character saying “Bob’s your uncle” in the market scene.  From context it clearly meant “there you have it” or “easy peasy”.  I was fascinated so headed to the internet to figure out exactly what it meant and where it got started.

The more prevalent explanation is that it came about when Robert Cecil, the Conservative British prime minister appointed his unqualified nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary to Ireland back in 1887.  Since Arthur was clearly not fit for the job “Bob’s your uncle” became the explanation about his selection.  Of course, this account is controversial as the phrase can’t be found in any print reference until almost 40 years later. But this is the etymology that I like.

So imagine my surprise when just two weeks later, in a restaurant in Chattanooga (during my trip to Nashville), I stumbled upon Bob’s Your Uncle Hard Cider on the menu.  I almost never do alcohol at lunch but I had to make an exception this time.  I even managed to remember the source of the name.

And as if “Bob’s your uncle” hasn’t fallen into my path enough, last week one of the YouTube channels that I follow did a list of popular idioms and it was titled “Bob’s Your Uncle”.  Apparently the phrase is fairly common in Britain, but crossing my path three times in a month seems remarkable. I keep telling myself it’s just a coincidence but….

What could the universe be trying to tell me?

2022, Family, Food, Gatherings, home, Uncategorized

Playing Hostess

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As you read this post this morning, I will be welcoming four psychologist interns from the Human Service Center in Fargo to my Human Service Center on the opposite side of the state. The Fargo HSC has a 12 month internship accredited by the American Psychological Association, and when the interns finish next August, they will graduate with their doctorates and start their postdoctoral training wherever in the US they choose to go. They are being sent out to tour the two centers in the western part of the state in hopes that they would consider doing their postdoctoral training at our western HSC’s that are understaffed. I will only have the morning with them, so I plan to entice them with homemade banana bread at our morning Youth and Family Team meeting, and then have them watch me do intellectual and adaptive testing with a 2 year old. They don’t get to do that kind of testing at the Fargo center, as there are private providers on the eastern part of the state who do it. I am the only psychologist, in either the private or public sectors west of the Missouri River in this state who tests, so I get to do all sorts of evaluations no one else in the state system gets to do. It is testing Nirvana, as far as I am concerned.

It was always a big deal when my mother was a hostess for the various women’s groups she was a member of. Out would come the glass plates with the special section for the coffee cup. She would make egg coffee, serve butter mints and mixed nuts, and get fancy finger sandwiches and cakes from two elderly Norwegian sisters in town. The living room and bathrooms had to be spotless. It was always much more formal and fancy when she had her Lutheran Women’s Circle over, more relaxed when her sewing club or fellow elementary teachers came over. I would sit on the periphery of the group, observing and taking in all the conversation.

What sort of gatherings did your parents host? Any special plates or foods? What sort of host are you?

2022, Family, Food, Media, pets, Uncategorized, Words

Favorite Words

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I look up lots of recipes on-line, and I somehow got signed up for the free delivery, multiple times a day, of recipes from a German-based Instagram site that sends me baking recipes. The recipes show up in German, and then are translated into English when I click on them to read them. The site is called Einfach Backen, which means Easy Baking.

I love the German descriptions of the recipes. One yesterday was:

Kirschpfannkuchen-Wie bei Oma. Soo fluffing & aromatisch!

I think that means cherry pancake just like grandma used to make, light and tasty. I don’t speak German, but some of the words are easy to figure out. I have never made any of the recipes. I just like trying to figure out what they are before they are translated into English.

The other day, one of the recipes was described as being blitzschnell, which I take to mean lightening fast to prepare. I just love that word! Our terrier is very blitzschnell, Husband less so. He is amused when I say “Mach Blitzschnell!!” when I want him to speed it up. I love it!

What are some of your favorite non-English words? What are your favorite English words or phrases? Learn any new words lately!

2022, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Food Feelings

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Daughter has made some wonderful friends in Tacoma, and they all seem to have a shared interest in good food. Daughter tells me weekly what she is cooking, and has really expanded her cooking repertoire.

The other week, Daughter and a friend realized the extent of their food obsession when Friend and her husband went out to eat at a favorite restaurant and found that a beloved spinach artichoke dip with sun-dried tomatoes had been discontinued permanently. Her friend was horrified to find herself actually bursting into tears at the disappointment. Her grandfather had died quite recently, but Friend said that had nothing to do with her reaction to the loss of the dip. That dip was really special to her.

Daughter is always eager to point out when I haven’t been a perfect parent, and the spinach dip incident reminded her of the time she phoned me in tears because a friend had forgot to put a pan of enchiladas that Daughter had made in the fridge overnight, rendering them somehow spoiled. She admits she reacted to it like a 13 year old girl. Her takeaway from the phone call, though, was her hearing me say “You talk to her, Chris. I can’t deal with her right now.” Husband proceeded to say all the right things to her, about how this wasn’t about the enchiladas but about her disappointment that her friend had been careless. Dad 1, Mom 0.

What foods do you have an emotional reaction to? How did your parents differ in their ways of interacting with you? What is your favorite artichoke recipe?

2022, animals, Art, Business, Food, History, Music, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World is VS?

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A friend of mine recently re-located here and just moved into her new townhouse; she invited me to come down for a few days to visit.  Although I have been to this state, I’ve never been to this city before, despite having sent a few groups here over the years.  I’m looking forward to a few relaxing days of sightseeing and entertainment.

    • The city is named after a Continental Army general during the American Revolutionary War.
    • The person who first called the U.S. flag “Old Glory” lived here.
    • The largest songwriter’s festival in the world is held here.
    • There is a full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon in this city.
    • President Theodore Roosevelt coined the phrase “good to the last drop” here.
    • This was the first city in the nation to be granted an FM-broadcasting license.
    • The first seeing-eye dog training school in the U.S. was founded here.

Where am I?  And if you know, what should I see while I’m here?