Category Archives: Food

Fitness, Food, Games, Gatherings, News, Uncategorized

Feeding Frenzy

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Photo Credit: RitaE

In odd news this week, Molly Schuyler, a competitive eater, has taken the Z Burger Annual Burger Eating Contest for the fifth time. This year she ate 32 burgers in 10 minutes (complete with buns), breaking her record of 27 burgers last year.

I’ve never understood competitive eating. I’m not sure why being able to stuff your gut with massive amounts of food is something to be lauded. There is a show on the Cooking Channel right now called Man vs. Food and each episode ends with the host (whose name I can’t remember) takes on an eating challenge.  I haven’t watched a whole show but have seen bits and pieces, enough to know that there is always a crowd standing around urging him on as he gorges on whatever platter is in front of him.  Why is this interesting, I just don’t know.

And competitive eating during which the contenders eat hot things like peppers baffles me even more. I think it would be a sad thing to say about my own life if I’d need to get a high from torturing my digestive system.

Have you ever won a contest?

Family, Food, holidays, Uncategorized, Weather

Parade Swag

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The first time I experienced parade swag was at the Great American Cheese Festive in Little Chute, Wisconsin. Child was about seven.  There was a Great American Cheese Parade at the kick-off to the festival and as Child and I settled in, the family next to us said “don’t you have a bag?”  and  gave Child an extra plastic bag that they had brought along.  I wasn’t quite sure why but it didn’t take long to figure it out.  Most of the participants in the parade were tossing candy to the kids along the route; Child made a candy killing.

The practice of handing out candy has morphed into handing out parade swag of all types. At the Richfield Fourth of July Parade this year, there were all kinds of fun stuff.   There were lots of folks doing candy: Dum Dum suckers, Jolly Ranchers are staples, but a couple of groups upped the ante with Butterfinger minis and Skittles.  YA even scored some Sweet Tarts.

The first swag of the day was actually a small flag that we could wave throughout the parade. Then there were coupons for the Renaissance Festival, dog treats from Chuck and Don’s and a smoothie place.  There were icee pops from Cub, icy cold water from a youth group, a ballpoint pen from one church and a nicer pen from a high school band.  There were two different groups giving out can cozies and we also ended up with a little red rubber football and a mini-frisbee.  A Lions Club volunteer even handed YA and I each a paper bag with White Castle Sliders.  We’re’ not sure why she singled us out, but since we’re vegetarians, we offered them to the family sitting next to us.

The best swag of the day were the sunglasses from Davannis. When we were parking the car before the parade, it was pretty cloudy so both of us left our sunglasses in the car.  This was an unfortunate choice since right about the time the parade got started, the sun came out.  The Davannis sunglasses  were just the right swag for both of us.  And of course we learned our lesson after the Great American Cheese Festival Parade – we had a bag!

Have you ever gotten any good swag?

 

 

 

 

Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Picnic

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“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”          Erma Bombeck

YA had our first 4th of July picnic early this year.  We made our annual trek up to Fawn-Doe-Rosa on Tuesday.  We have several traditions around this trip, including taking a picnic lunch and enjoying it after we’ve had our fill of goat/dear/llama petting and bunny whispering.

This year we had sandwiches (cheese for YA, PB&J for me), coleslaw, watermelon and strawberries as well as tortilla chips and salsa. All packed in our trusty cooler and enjoyed with pop purchased from the pop machine at F-D-R.  It was a beautiful day and I think eating outside in the shade made the food taste better!

What kinds of foods do you pack for picnics? Any favorite picnic spots?  Any picnics planned for the 4th?

 

Family, Food, gardening, Uncategorized, work

Got Out Of That One

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Husband and I used to erect three, 10 foot long, steel hog panels in the garden for the peas to grow up. We secured the panels  to thin, plastic coated metal poles using  wire. The panels worked great,  but they got too heavy to move and too bulky to store, so, the for past couple of years we have used plastic poultry netting stapled to wooden poles for the peas to grow up.

This year the wooden poles are tall, thin, and not very straight or stable. I put the fence up, and it looks very crooked and  has lots of  droopy gaps. The finicky, Dutch part of me cringes when I look at it.  It will do for the peas,  though, and I have every confidence that no rancher in his right mind will ever ask me to help him with fencing.  It is nice to think that is one responsibility I will never have.

What skill do you lack that you either wish you had or you are glad you don’t possess?

Business, Fantasy, Fitness, Food, Media, Science, Uncategorized

Down the Rabbit Hole

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Over lunch today I thought I’d watch John Oliver – he always makes me laugh while he’s giving me something to think about. That video led me to a SciShow piece debunking last week’s news about a study purporting that cell phone use was causing horns in young people.  That led me to a long piece on “How I Found Out” about flat earthers and the next step was to look up the big 2024 solar eclipse to see the closest spot to Minneapolis to see it in totality.  That led me to the calendar to find out what day of the week that will be in 2024.  Then I searched a bit to see if the calendar that I like for my fridge was done for 2020 yet, which led me to Amazon.  There I decided to check on an order that I placed a few days ago and was happy to see that my world map was on the truck for delivery. Then I got a text from a girlfriend about dinner tonight – how about El Jefe?  I googled them, they are closed on Mondays, so then spent time googling a few other restaurants, which  led me to recipes using corn and queso fresco.

Then suddenly my lunch hour was over and I hadn’t even finished eating my lunch!

What distracts you?  What rabbit hole have you been down recently?

Family, Food, Gatherings, Uncategorized

Melts in Your Mouth

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Renee’s blog over the weekend was a perfect segue for me; I headed down to Northfield at 6 a.m. this morning to pick strawberries.  After I made some jam, I decided to make my favorite biscuits for Blevins.  Here is that recipe:

She’s Angel Soft Biscuits
1½ c. flour
2 tsp. sugar
1½ tsp. salt
2½ tsp. baking powder
¾ c. half & half
¾ c. heavy cream

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
  2. Add the wet ingredients and stir together until just mixed.
  3. Knead 10-12 times on a floured surface (this is wet, so be prepared).
  4. Roll out dough to about ½” thickness.
  5. Bake 10-12 minutes in 475°F oven on greased cookie sheet (or parchment covered cookie sheet).
  6. Optional: brush with melted butter immediately after taking biscuits out of the oven.

I served them with macerated strawberries and whipped cream – but you can served them with practically anything. These are YA’s favorites – I had to tell her to lay out so I had enough for book club!

What would you like to put on biscuits?

 

100 Words, Family, Food, gardening, Kids, Uncategorized

Bumper Crop

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Husband picked an enormous amount of strawberries yesterday. It is the third picking this year. The header photo is shows what he harvested. We figure we have one more big picking before strawberry season is over.

Our 14 month old  grandson ate about 2 cups strawberries yesterday. It was a pleasure to watch him savor the tart jewels from the garden. I will have to freeze a lot of berries this weekend.

What has been your most successful production?

Family, Food, home, Music, Uncategorized

What Will The Neighbors Think?

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We live in a very quiet neighborhood. When our windows are open, sounds and smells often waft out to the curb.

Our son liked to guess what we were cooking when he pulled into the driveway, just by sniffing.  We cook food that would be considered  pretty exotic by most people in town. We often hope that homesick Pakastanis and East Indians will follow their noses to our house so we can give them a good meal that  tastes like the old country.  Tonight we are cooking Stifado, a garlicky Greek beef stew, and Turlu, a Turkish version of ratatouille. (We had leftover Eye of Round, and we were hungry for spicy vegetables). I can smell both in the driveway.

When husband isn’t home, I like to crank up the classical music. He loves classical music, but at a reasonable decibel level. On Thursday night I had a strange compulsion to hear the 1812 Overture. Really loud. Especially the cannons. Maybe it was because it was Midsummer’s Eve.  When it came to the first cannon shots at 12:43 into the recording, I stopped it and replayed it multiple times. Then there are the cannons at the end, about two minutes later.  I played and replayed that part. Both cats were hiding under the dining room table. I then saw two people walking their dog past our house. Oh, my, what must they have thought about us?!

What could people surmise about you by walking past your home? What smells and sounds waft into your neighborhood from your home?

Business, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Pucker Up for Inflation

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Two young girls had a card table set up outside the hardware store on Saturday, selling lemonade.  They had made up matching t-shirts for their cause and were very friendly and respectful.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before that I am a sucker for kids selling stuff.

I know I talked about my childhood KoolAid stands before. My mother always allowed me to use any Kool-Aid packets and sugar that I could find as well as Dixie cups and she never made me pay her back for the ingredients with my profit.  5 cents a cup.  Most days I made between 50 cents and a dollar, depending on how long I could keep it up.  I always felt a little like John D Rockefeller with this money.

These girls had options: water or lemonade. They also had something I never did – a choice of size!  Small, medium or large.  Their pricing started at $1.50.  I gave them $2 and told them to keep the change, thinking it wasn’t too much more than the pop I bought from a kid during the Lyndale Open Streets  festival a couple of weeks ago.  As I was driving home I thought back to my Kool-Aid days and hoped the money they made felt like a lot, like my 50 cents did to me way back when!

What’s something you’ve noticed has substantially increased in price since you were a kid?

 

 

Food, gardening, History, Uncategorized

George Washington Liked Ice cream

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Today is the anniversary of the first commercially produced Ice cream in the US in New York City in 1783.

Ice cream had been sold in ice cream parlors in New York since 1776. George Washington is said to have spent $200 on ice cream  ($4500 in current money) in the summer of 1790.  That was a lot of ice cream! Thomas Jefferson had an 18 step recipe for an ice cream dessert  similar to a baked Alaska. By 1800, insulated ice houses were invented, so that ice cream could be stored and sold to the masses. In 1945, the Navy provided a barge in the western Pacific that produced 5400 gallons of ice cream an hour for sailors.

I love ice cream.  We don’t make our own, although we have an electric ice cream churn. I see that our strawberry bed is flourishing, and perhaps there is some strawberry ice cream, or at least strawberries to put on top of ice cream, by the end of the month.

What is your favorite ice cream treat? Tell about ice cream from your childhood.  (Gelato, Froyo, and Sherbet count here, too).