Category Archives: Food

Food, holidays, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Faux Sacrifice

April 6, 2018 Barbara in Rivertown 26 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown.

A few weeks ago I was laughing out loud at the following exchange on The Trail:

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NorthShorer

March 10, 2018 at 10:49 am

Another funny moment in my “annals of kindness” I often leave a loaf of bread hanging on the door of our next door neighbor when she comes home from teaching music all day. I left a loaf Thursday. I just found a note telling me very tactfully that she has given up bread for Lent. 🙂

PlainJane

March 10, 2018 at 12:41 pm

Guess she doesn’t want your wonderful bread to go to waste.

littlejailbird

March 10, 2018 at 2:28 pm

If I was your neighbor, I would never give up bread for Lent.

Of course, I’ve never given up anything for Lent, but if I did, I would give up something like liver or blue cheese.

PlainJane

March 10, 2018 at 2:46 pm

Tut, tut, ljb, it’s supposed to be a sacrifice.

littlejailbird

March 10, 2018 at 4:25 pm

how did you guess that it wasn’t?

PlainJane

March 11, 2018 at 9:56 am

Just a hunch.

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Although Lent has already come and gone, if you were going to give up something for Lent that was a true sacrifice, what would it be (knowing that it was just for a few weeks)?

What would be your faux sacrifice alternative, like ljb’s liver or blue cheese?

Food, Kids, Stories, work

Feed My Starving Children

March 23, 2018 verily sherrilee 41 Comments

One of the great things I like about my job is that the management believes in giving back. There are lots of ways during the year to contribute to various programs but one of my favorites is Feed My Starving Children.

FMSC packs food and sends it around the world to places where children are at risk due to malnutrition. But the best part is that this isn’t just an organization to give money to; volunteers actually do the packing of the food. Vitamin mix, veggies, soy and rice make up the “manna pack” that gets reconstituted in places like Haiti, Mali, Pakistan, Cambodia, Guatamala and many more.

Normally we go as a group every other month to one of the Twin Cities’ FMSC locations but today, they came to us. They had all the packing stations set up, surrounded by palates of bales of rice and soy. After all the instructions, we split up among the stations to get going. Today I did the “get the bag onto the funnel” job. After I do that, then other team members put in the ingredients. Then I weigh each filled bag and pass it along to the folks who seal the bag and the packer, who gets the packs into boxes. 6 meals per bag, 36 bags per box, 32 boxes for my station in 90 minutes. If I’m doing the math correctly, that’s 6,912 meals from just my group’s station.

Tonight I’m sore from bending over and my feet are a little achy from standing in the same spot for the whole session, but having done the work is like a salve – I feel like I’ve done a little bit of good in a world that seriously needs it right now.

What’s your favorite rice dish?

Food, holidays, Stories, work

As Easy as Pie…

March 15, 2018 verily sherrilee 31 Comments

For many years my company was closed on Good Friday. Five years ago they made the decision to be open on Good Friday but they didn’t want us to feel like we were being gypped out of a holiday so they gave us each a “floating holiday”. I use my floating holiday every year on Pi Day, March 14 (3.14….). I refer to it as my geek holiday.

This year’s menu:

Dutch Apple Pie
Key Lime Pie
Amish Sawdust Pie
Chocolate Whoopie Pies
Crack Pie
Tangerine Raspberry Pie
Blueberry Pie
Carrot Cake Whoopie Pie
3 Musketeers Pie
Buttermilk Pie
Banofee Pie
Peaches & Cream Pie

It was a stretch to have all these pies on the menu but I couldn’t decide what to cut so I decided to go for it. I always start with the hardest, putzy-est recipes and this year it had me a little panicked at 10:30 when I had a HUGE mess and not much to show for it yet.

But I did get it together… phew!

When have you bitten off more than you could chew?

Fifty Words, Food, News

Waffle Kindness

March 10, 2018 verily sherrilee 43 Comments

In world that sometimes seems cold and heartless, where bad behavior gets rewarded too often, it’s wonderful to see the story of a waitress who was given a $16,000 college scholarship for being kind to an elderly gentleman who needed help cutting up his breakfast. The story speaks for itself.

Has some ever been kind to you?

Family, Food, Uncategorized

Leftovers

February 22, 2018 reneeinnd 57 Comments

Husband and I have vastly different ways of dealing with leftovers in the kitchen. I just eat them until they are gone. Husband gets bored with them and tries to improve them. Last week he made some Italian bean soup. The recipe made a lot, and after a couple of days he added rice, leftover cooked yellow zucchini, green beans, and a jar of home canned tomatoes. Instead of having six cups of bean soup that we could have finished in a couple of days, we had 10 cups of minestrone that I am still eating. The minestrone was pretty good, but most of his renovated leftover aren’t very palatable, and he ends up eating them for a day and them throwing them out. I call those creations “glop”, since that is their consistency and their appeal, and I am often afraid to eat them. He has never been able to appreciate my argument that what he does just makes for more leftovers. Boredom trumps volume, I guess. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to heat up some minestrone.

How do you manage leftovers? What are you afraid to eat?

Family, Food, Kids, Medicine, Uncategorized

Ice Cream for Breakfast

February 17, 2018 Barbara in Rivertown 81 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown.

A friend has forwarded to me the information that (get ready) February 18 is “Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast” day. According to one story, E.I.C.F.B. originated to increase awareness about childhood cancer, and to commemorate the short life of a little girl named Malia Grace, who lived from February 18, 2001 to Dec 7, 2010. “First celebrated by a group of close friends to commemorate her life and creativity, Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day went on to become a day to honor all the children who have or are battling childhood cancer. It exploded onto the scene, with thousands of people from all over the world taking part and spreading the message to thousands more.”

Happily, this year February 18 falls on a Sunday, when many of us have more time to hang out with our family, our pets, etc., and indulge.

I also came upon a different site: This article relates that a mother named Florence started the trend to cope with the boredom experienced by her six children. The next year her kids remembered, and it got to be a tradition. And “thanks to Florence’s grandchildren, who have traveled extensively — Ice Cream for Breakfast Day has been celebrated in countries all over the world, from Germany, to Nepal, to as far as Namibia.”

Whichever story you relate to, enjoy! As the t-shirt says, “Life is short. Eat dessert first.”

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

What else should we have for breakfast that doesn’t usually come to mind?

Food, holidays, Uncategorized

Carnival

February 13, 2018 reneeinnd 38 Comments

Today is Shrove Tuesday, when all our sins are forgiven, and when we need to eat pancakes and all the cream before Lent. Husband and I celebrated early and had Norwegian waffles on Saturday. Shrove is the past tense of shrive, which means to confess one’s sins, repent, and be forgiven and absolved. Pancakes are powerful. Germans eat pastries called Fastnachts for the same effect.

We visited Montreal several summers and stayed in the Old Port. There we purchased carnival masks made in Venice in a lovely book store near the Notre Dame cathedral. We tried to find Renaissance Commedia dell’arte masks instead of the fantastical masks you can find in more commercial venues. We managed to get a zanni mask. A zanni is a servant who sometimes has a long nose. The longer his nose, the more ignorant he is. The mask reminds me of a plague mask. His name is the derivation of our English word “zany”.

A couple of Harlequin (Arlechinno) masks. He is another zanni, but with a shorter nose. He is a somewhat clever servant character:

And two Columbine (Columbina) masks. She is Harlequin’s love interest and a very perky, very clever servant.

Our local Catholic School district has a major fund raiser they call Mardi Gras every year in February. It involves games, entertainment, and lots of good food. It is open to the community and region. People are most unhappy since the new bishop in Bismarck decided a couple of years ago that all the money raised had to be sent to the diocese, and he would decide how much of the money should get sent back to the local Catholic schools and how much would be used for diocesan expenses. Sounds like a perfect Commedia plot. I am sure the clever servants would get all the money back, further any thwarted love interests, and show the bishop to be a fool.

What does the word carnival mean to you? What is the appeal wearing a mask? What kind of mask would you like to wear?

Food, Stories, Uncategorized

Slurp

February 5, 2018 verily sherrilee 37 Comments

You all know that I’m fascinated by coincidence and the baader meinhof phenomenon. I don’t know why, but it won’t surprise you that it’s happened to me again.

Last weekend, while watching some cooking show (something about how you’re eating it wrong?), there was a snippet about slurping noodles. The theory is that slurping makes the noodles taste better because the increased air in your mouth allows the flavors to mingle and develop.

Then last night I started watching “I’ll Have What Phil’s Having” (thanks BiR for the suggestion). The first episode is filmed in Tokyo and Phil spends one whole afternoon and evening going from one noodle shop to another. In the first of the shops, the owner/chef tells Phil that he needs to slurp the noodles and then explains how they will taste better with the extra aeration! This is amazing to me to hear this tidbit twice in a week when I’ve I’ve never heard it before.

How to you like your noodles?

Family, Food, Kids

The Melting Pot

January 22, 2018 verily sherrilee 28 Comments

My treasure has turned 23! I so clearly remember going to China to get her – how little she was – it seems just like yesterday sometimes.

We celebrate Family Day every July and for the past 10 years or so, we’ve splurged with a trip to The Melting Pot in downtown Minneapolis. (Yes, I completely get the irony that we’re celebrating the blending of two cultures/two races by eating at a place called The Melting Pot).

This year YA had a really hard summer with several summer school classes and a lot of work as well and we could never find a good time for The Melting Pot. With her birthday last week, we decided we should go now.

Usually we take the bus downtown because I really dislike driving downtown, but with the sloshy weather and how long it takes, we decided to drive. Instead of splitting a salad, we each had our own. YA remembered that last time we were there we tried their blackberry lemonade and didn’t care for it, so we just had water. Even though these parts of the tradition were different, we went with the only fondue that will do – the alpine with gruyere and emmentaler. They make the fondue right at the table so you get to see the wine, the garlic, the fresh ground pepper and even fresh ground nutmeg go in before your eyes.

And even after scrapping every bit of cheese out of the pot, we always finish up with chocolate. This year we did the milk chocolate with peanut butter. Little bites of pound cakes, brownie, strawberries, banana and pineapple – YUM-O! A wonderful end to our wonderful little tradition.