Tag Archives: Featured

2023, Family, Food, TV

Cherry Bakewells

21 Comments

Several months ago I watched several episodes of a show made in Britain called “Inside the Factory”.  It’s pretty interesting mostly because the host, Gregg Wallace has an infectious excitement.  The format has him following the manufacturing process of whatever item is showcased that week.  There are a couple of other actors who did other bit parts but Gregg is the main draw.

One of the episodes featured the Cherry Bakewell, which is a popular treat in the UK and Australia.  It is a pastry base, filled with a layer of raspberry jam, then a layer of frangipane (almond-flavored custard), then a layer of almond-flavored fondant icing and topped with half of a glace cherry (yes, that’s the only cherry involved).  They come six to a package and are the kind of thing you might put in your kid’s lunchbox or serve as an after-school treat.

Of course, after seeing the show I searched a bit to see if I could find Cherry Bakewells in the US.  It wasn’t a productive search and I gave up pretty quickly.  I’ve found the recipe online but it’s a little putzy so I haven’t attempted it yet.

Then I found out that YA would be going to Dublin for two weeks for work.  I still have contact with someone in Dublin who works for the DMC (destination management company) that BIW uses and I suggested to YA that I would ask my friend for a favor in finding Cherry Bakewells in Dublin for me.  YA wasn’t crazy about this but then I found out the client has brought in a different DMC for their program, so I let the project slide and then forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise when a few days after YA returned from Dublin, I found two boxes of Cherry Bakewells in the fridge.  Apparently the little pastries are not commonly found in Ireland but a more thorough internet search had turned them up here.  A late birthday gift.

I’ve been spreading out my enjoyment of the little tarts, so I actually have a couple left.  And while I am enjoying them, it’s not earth-shattering delight and I doubt I’ll ever order them again (the shipping probably cost more than the bakewells).  Maybe someday I’ll try whipping up a batch to see how they compare freshly made.  Maybe not.  But it’s been fun to try them and fun that YA remembered.

What kinds of things were in YOUR lunchbox as a kid?

2023, Family, Food, State Fair

Fair Food – A Review

39 Comments

This is not only not a comprehensive look at the 2023 State Fair Food Offerings, it is also not objective or even fair.  Just reflections from YA and me.

Don’t Bother

Cheese Curd Dill Pickle Taco.  Sounds good on paper but dill pickle ends up taking away from the cheese curd taste.  It also made the fried taco shell really soggy really fast.

Sweet Corn Ba-Sant.  Marketed as a cross between a bagel and a croissant with a creamy corn custard, this didn’t live up to its hype.  Not a lot of custard and if there was corn in there, I couldn’t tell.  A little dry.

At Least Once Every Year

Sweet Martha Cookies.  Get these early (so you don’t have to wait in a long line) but only get what you think you (and any companions) can eat before the day is up.  Wonderful when warm but “meh” if you still have some around the next day.

Pickle Pizza.  So much better than you expect.  White sauce, garlic, dill and then the sliced pickles.  Not an every day taste, but fun at least once.

Hot Honey Cheese Sticks.  Strips of fried Haloumi cheese slathered with a hot honey sauce (and for some silliness, a sprinkle of honeycomb cereal).  Hot sauce on cheese might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it didn’t keep YA and I from having it for breakfast more than once.

Yes Yes Yes

Roasted Corn.  Fabulous as always.  Perfectly roasted, dipped in melted butter, salt and pepper.  What more is there to say?

Cheesy Siracha Bites.  Little ball of dough, deep fried and then covered with cheese, green onions and chives.  Served with a siracha sauce that is the perfect hot/not too hot blend.

Hawaiian Shave Ice.  Still the best way to cool down on a hot summer day.  Biggest shave ice on the fairgrounds.  I always do cherry and orange.

Sota Sammie.  Grilled sandwich with peanut butter, almond butter and fresh blueberry jam.  Sounds good and tastes even better.

Deep Fried Blueberry Pie.  Really, how can you go wrong with this.  Freshly fried blueberry hand pie with a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream.  This vendor added a cookie dough version of the pie this year but both YA and I say “why mess with perfection”?

Wedge-Hammer.  Refreshing combo of orange juice, lemonade, ginger and a splash of lime.  Not too sweet so just right for sipping in the sun.

Birthday Cake Mini Donuts.  The big surprise of the year, this new concoction turned out to be great!  The donuts themselves were a little fluffier than the usual mini donuts, doused with a cinnamon sugar mix and then drizzled with icing and sprinkles.  It was the consistency of the donuts that really made this a winner.

There were plenty of other foods and beverages over the visits we made, but we decided these were the highlights.

Can you stomach carnival/fair food?  Any favorites? Any really NOT favorites?

2023, Food, Kids, Mysteries, State Fair

Waiting

14 Comments

One of the new vendors at the fair this year is a bakery; they have three items on their menu – an Amish donut, a peanut butter chocolate donut and sweet tea.  No coupon.  We stopped by a few time over the last week and the lines were unbelievable.  The photo above was taken at 11 a.m. on Friday and doesn’t even begin to do the line justice.  It was the longest line I’ve ever seen at the fair – even longer than Pickle Pizza last year and Nordic Waffle their first year.  Based on how fast people were being served, I’m guessing people were waiting 45 minutes or so for their donut.  Pickle Pizza and Nordic Waffle at least move faster than that!

I once slept out overnight outside of Dayton’s to get Bon Jovi tickets.  I got to the Fitzgerald at 5 a.m. for the last Morning Show and several baboons waited with me for quite a while for Jim Ed Poole’s service.  And I will admit to sitting outside Aldi’s once a year for 2+ hours to get the wine and cheese advent calendars, but at least I’m one of the first few in line and the wait is spent sitting in my stadium chair.  But I’m generally not good about lines; I tend to start weighing the benefit of what’s at the end of the line versus the time I’m spending standing in it. 

So I’ll be passing on the Amish donut.  If they return next year, maybe it won’t be such a crush.

What are some times you’ve stood on line for a long time?  Was it worth it?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

BLT – Bean, Layers, Tomato

25 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Where are we with Growing degree units you might well ask. We are about 450 growing degree units above normal here in Rochester. Extremely hot days don’t add as much as you might think because typically the plants shut down over 86 degrees and below 50 degrees. 

Too bad the weeds never stop growing. I mentioned once before, my soybean fields have really filled in and from the road, although short, they look pretty good. Except for all the weeds. I’m really discouraged about all the weeds. If this was a normal year, I probably would’ve had a second application of herbicide applied. But this year, I can’t justify the cost. 

You can see from the photo, because the plant is so short, there’s not a lot of pods in the first place, and those pods that are in the bottom 3 inches are difficult to get in the combine because it doesn’t typically cut that close to the ground. I have talked before about guys rolling their fields after planting to help level them and to press rocks and such down into the soil. This is exactly why; to get as close to the ground as possible but still, it’s hard to get that low. 

And the beans that are there, are not very big. There just hasn’t been the moisture to develop and fill a bean.

The corn looks kind of rough from the hail as the leaves are shredded up, the ears are OK, except again, small, and not filled to the tip because of drought stress, and I expect the kernels will be small because again, not enough moisture to fill the kernel.

Notice the kernels on this ear and how the tip didn’t fill. Drought stress and the plant pulled resources from them to save the other kernels.

This ear is 13 rows around and 43 kernels long. Everybody remember our math from last year? 13×43 equals 559 kernels on this plant. 80,000 kernels per bushel (bushel meaning 56 pounds), means I need 143 ears to create a bushel, but if the kernels are small and light, it will take more than 80,000 to be a bushel. Be sure to subtract deer, raccoon, and turkey damage. This year will be what it is.

I made a little more progress on the shop. I have some of the two by fours installed on the walls that the interior steel siding will be fastened to. And electricians came back and installed the breaker box and some outlets. The other end isn’t hooked up at the pole yet, but he’s hoping to get that on Tuesday. 

Momma and the chicks are doing well. Kelly calls her ‘Mother Clucker’. How many chicks can you find in this photo? (She’s still got all 13) And the 4 young guineas are hanging out with the older guineas. And we like this batch of ‘mixed breed’ chicks from this spring. They have pretty plumage.

Kelly has one tomato plant, growing wild, and doing better than her plants in a pot.

Daughter waters the plants. She enjoys having chores. And it’s fun to watch her do it. She turns on hose, puts it in plant, thinks for a few seconds, counts “1,2,3…4,5……..6, 7…. 8…. 9,10” thinks for a second, takes hose out. Good thing the pots have drain holes in the bottom.

Last week I mentioned the lack of women behind the parts counters. I feel like I should clarify: There are a lot of women in agriculture. I just don’t often see them behind the counter. There are women who are large animal veterinarians. There are several women agronomist’s I work with and the lady who runs the Crop Insurance agency. There are a few women who are solo farmers and there are several on YouTube I follow. There are many out there working with their families and contributing as much as the men. I am in no way disparaging them. Being a farm wife is a huge task.

We used to have one woman farmer in our neighborhood. Rita. Hair all done up and nails painted and she ran the farm while her husband worked in town.

Kelly and I try to spend a few minutes in the evening sitting on our veranda without a roof watching the world go round.

Do you drink the recommended 15 cups of water in a day? Who do you know in non-traditional roles?

2023, Family, Food, Kids, Mysteries, State Fair

Wagons Ho!

45 Comments

YA was three when I took her to the fair for the first time.  We took her umbrella stroller although she didn’t use it too much that day (YA never liked any kind of enclosure – no exersaucer, no playpen, no doorway jumper).  The following year we didn’t bother with the stroller at all – she kept up with no issues or complaints.

Since this is our experience, we are both a little surprised at the stroller revolution.  Strollers have gotten bigger and bigger as the years have gone by.  Now there are side-by-side doubles, front to back doubles, not to mention all the additional pockets, cupholders and clip-on fans.  They seem like a lot of trouble to me but they are clearly popular with parents of toddlers.

I shouldn’t be surprised that strollers have taken the next step – wagons.  The fair was full of them – large wagons, almost all with canopies.  They remind me of the old Conestoga covered wagons that took settlers west. Most of them also have a lot of extra storage area and, of course, cup holders.  Most of them have seating and trays (think tv tray) inside.  And have I mentioned storage?  Cookies, stuffed animals, shirts, bubble blowers, straw hats…. If you can find it at the fair, YA and I have probably seen it in one these wagons over the last week.  I saw a handful filled with so much stuff that there wasn’t room for the kids.  On Wednesday, a family with their full wagon held up the bus back to the park `n ride as they figured out what to do with all their stuff before they could fold it up to go in the bus luggage compartment. 

Who know what the next step in stroller evolution will be but for now I’m absolutely sure that if I looked closely enough, I’d find that one of these covered wagons was named “Intimida”!

What would you have wanted in your Conestoga if you were heading west?

2023, Family, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Low Tech

28 Comments

Wednesday was the most frustrating day. I drove from St. Cloud to near Oshkosh, WI to visit husband’s sister and BIL. I have never encountered such road construction for so many miles. The trip took about six hours. The day before our trip to St. Cloud took seven hours. I haven’t encountered such traffic for a long while. Where are all these people going?

One of the detours near Watoma, WI took us past several huge fields of cabbage. That was lovely to see. When we arrived at the family house, I found that they didn’t have wifi, so I couldn’t use my computer to show them the Ancestry info I had promised them. They have a computer and pay for wifi but have it all unplugged and turned of. This is a low tech household. We will go to the local library to access the wifi there. Whatever works, I guess. One problem is that I couldn’t figure out how to insert a header photo on my phone. Maybe I will add it tomorrow at the library.

Tell about your most memorable trip? How do you deal with being off-line?

2023, Family, pets, Uncategorized

The Burden Of Beauty

23 Comments

The breed standard for our Cesky Terrier calls for a rather long skirt and long fur on the legs, with long bangs that go all the way to the tip of his nose. The fur on his skirt and legs is very fine and feathery, and attracts weeds and sticks. He really dislikes being brushed, but he would be a tangled mess if we didn’t attend to him. Here he is sitting on the bench in the front looking for bunnies in the garden. He is a rather pretty boy by Cesky standards. It takes a lot to maintain that beauty.

Husband always wanted to grow his hair long when he was in college in the early 70’s but his hair is so curly he could only get it a little above his shoulders before he started looking like Bozo the Clown. My boy cousins in Pipestone were mortified that their dad insisted they keep getting crew cuts when everyone else had longer hair and bangs. Uncle Harvey thought that a crew cut was all a boy needed to look good. I had the standard long, straight hair popular in the 70’s. My mother had a wash and set every week at the beauty parlor. I read the other day that a North Dakota man holds the record for the world’s longest beard, at 17.5 feet. Oh, the things we do for looks!

Who did you want to look like when you were a teenager? When have you been the happiest with your hair?

2023, education, Family, History, Kids, Uncategorized

First Day Of School

37 Comments

Last Wednesday was our grandson’s first day of Kindergarten. He was happy, proud and confident. He is, after all, 5 years old, and in his mind, he can do anything! His parents were dewy eyed, and our DIL had to redo her eye makeup when she got to work after dropping grandson off. I reminded son that I missed his first day of school since I had moved to Iowa to do my psychology internship, leaving him for the year with his father.

My first day of school was in Mrs. Helling’s room. I teased my mother in the weeks before school as she, a Grade 3 teacher, was getting her room ready and I would go with her to the school , warning her that I would slip into Mrs. Cooney’s room next door. Wouldn’t you know, my teasing got me all confused and I actually went into Mrs. Cooney’s classroom and was told to go next door. I was mortified!

What are some of your memories of first days of school?

2023, Kids, Mysteries, State Fair

Notes From Opening Day

39 Comments

Just a few observations from Opening Day at the Fair!

Cookies.  Sweet Martha’s has made a big change, well a big change in my book.  Instead of the smallest size coming to you in a paper cone, it now comes in a cup.  Of course, they still fill it up 50% higher than the lip of the cup, so I continue to need my collapsible cookie container!

Tantrums.  Normally you see more tantrums in the afternoon but this one little gal (I’m guessing four years old) was getting the day off to a rip-roaring start.  I’m not even sure what she was raging about but her poor father was sitting on the curb, holding onto the stroller (which she was trying to rip out of his hands), while he tried desperately to “reason” with her.  I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t hang out long enough to see how long the meltdown lasted but as worked up as she was, it might have been awhile.

Community Building.  One of the bands in the parade was the Eden Prairie High School Band, which is a whooper.  As the muscians marched by, I noticed that the entire drum section was wearing pig ear headbands from the Oink Booth.  None of the rest of the band was sporting any headgear.

Creating a Stir.  There was a fairly large crowd at AFL-CIO Corner, but all but one of the little kiosks was quiet.  Turns out six St. Paul Firefighters were present to sign and sell the firefighters’ annual calendar.  Two of the six were wearing muscle shirts, the others no shirts at all.  They were doing a brisk business in calendars and photo ops.

Sad Shakespeare.  I have a pretty high tolerance for Shakespeare in any form and it’s a good thing.  There was a short performance in the West End towards the end of the day.  The little troop did the Pyramus and Thisbe play from the end of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.  It was a silly bit and only lasted 15 minutes but without the rest of the play to explain it, it didn’t make much sense.  The poor sound system didn’t help them much.  Pyramus’ death scene however was a hoot.

Have you ever worn a team hat?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Music, pets, Uncategorized, Weather

Lost And Found

44 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

It was hot. How hot was it? It was so hot Wednesday, I stayed at the college until 8:30 PM. The air conditioning units for the Theatre were recently repaired, so except for the fact there is no thermostat, (it’s either on or off), at least there’s air conditioning here as opposed to home where there’s only fans. Well, there’s not AC in the shop at the college, but I open the doors to the stage and turn on some fans and it’s very comfortable.

The chickens hang out under some bushes or somewhere in the shade from mid-morning until mid-afternoon. You can tell they’re hot when they lift their wings a bit. I’ve had their fan running all summer and the back door open for more ventilation the past week.

The cattle hang out in the shade too. By evening, everyone is moving again and having a drink.

Humphrey is really in a conundrum; he wants to be with us, but it’s cooler outside than inside. Decisions, decisions.

Back this spring as I was getting machinery ready for planting, I used my favorite wrench in one of the tractors, and I kind of remember setting it above the steering wheel and telling myself, “Don’t put that there“ and then, of course I couldn’t find it again all summer. I was delighted to find it in the toolbox of that same tractor recently. Putting a wrench in the toolbox? That was pretty good thinking at some point.



Has anyone else noticed all the dragonflies around lately? They were swarming all around the yard earlier this week and out in the fields. And my brother commented on seeing them at his place. I did some reading and they peak in July and August, they sure are fun to watch. And all the barn swallows are sweeping around; there’s a couple nests here that are working on the third batch of babies. That’s really impressive and these poor kids are hardly gonna learn to fly before they head south.

Was up to John Deere last week getting some parts and there is a new parts lady behind the counter. It was interesting that while she was still learning the system, and she didn’t know some common parts like a cotter pin, she seemed to know a lot of the customers and they would call her by name, and someone made a comment about her staying in the industry. Later, as we were trying to find some of my parts, (they were right here, and then they were put somewhere by somebody who wasn’t there now, and nobody else knew where they were) she and I had some time to talk. She ran the auto parts store in Plainview with her dad for 20 years.  So, she kind of knew the business, just not this particular system, and some of these parts. I don’t recall, in all the years I’ve farmed, I’ve ever seen a woman behind any of the parts counters that I frequent. There was a female in a welding place several years ago, and she knew what she was doing. And I know this lady will figure it out too. Even the guys, when they start, they don’t know much. It takes a long time to get into the swing of things.

I’ve been listening to a jazz station a lot lately. I have a membership to Jazz Radio and primarily I listen to modern big band, but lately I’ve done Latin jazz too. It’s a fun change. I’ve learned that I don’t like hearing the same music over and over. And while that rarely happens on Radio Heartland, it happens even less frequently on Latin jazz. I get some Maynard Ferguson on the modern big band station and I like that.

Last week at faculty duty day at the college, I saw this shirt and it made me laugh. I hope you get the joke.

That momma hen still has 13 chicks. She’s a good momma and she’s smart. There’s been a hawk trying to grab the chicks. Bailey actually chased it away a few times. We made a straw bale shelter for them to hide under, but she figured it out on her own and moved them down to the trees and taller grass during the day, and at night takes them back into the pen. I take corn down to them. Keep your fingers crossed.

One night Kelly and I burned up a bunch of brush we had accumulated. A bonfire on the second hottest day of the year? Why not.

GOT A LUCKY NUMBER?

EVER WON A LOTTERY?