I went to see The Blind Side at 10:00 this morning, then came home and played Star Wars Battlefront II for a couple of hours, falling asleep after a while. Then I watched Star Wars Episode VI, followed now by AFV. Then after this, it will be Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. I really don’t want to go to school tomorrow, I feel so…blegh. But I think I’m going to the library Wednesday, so at least its something to look forward to. And the Band Banquet is on Saturday. That should be – interesting. In any case, good night, talk to you guys later.

I haven’t laughed so hard in a very long time.  I watched The IT Crowd season 3 on Netflix Instant Watch.  I laughed until I almost puked.  You don’t have to work in IT to get the jokes but it probably helps.

I recently went through a bit of an electrical shock (excuse the pun) when we started getting our electrical bills, for our newly purchased home. We bought it in early spring and noticed that our electricity usage kept going up. We discovered that our local library loans out electricity power meters so we borrowed one for a few weeks. We were determined to find out what was causing our electricity usage to continue to rise.

We were concerned about the obvious appliances as all of the appliances that came with the house were all 20-30 years old, nary an Energy Star ranking among them (as far as I could determine), so I started to test them all. Bear in mind that although I tested all of these appliances (the ones I actually could, of course, not able to test 240 V ones) I have no “current”, modern ones to compare the results to. What I can do is compare all of the items tested with each other. My fridge, being greater than 20 years old, is no worse than my 8 year old water cooler. The big shocker for me was my computers. I have 2 computers, one is my desktop that is for everyday use, the other is my server that I use for streaming music from, a website to play with, etc. My desktop I discovered has power saving abilities but weren’t active (in the OS) so I activated it then tested it over a 24 hr period. A certain amount of that time was actual usage, the other was when the PC was idle. Since I was able to activate its power saving abilities, the cost of running that machine over the year amounted to approx. $280. My server unfortunately had no such power saving abilities as its a server machine. Its always on, always available. Its calculated power cost for year turned out to be $1187.14. That’s just about 5 times more than the desktop! Needless to say, I only have that machine on when I need it.

This has made me aware of all of the power that is being consumed, not necessarily when something is being used but simply because its plugged in. Everyday items that you don’t even think about like toasters, or cell phone chargers, or TV’s, stereo equipment or printers and fax machines.

The following YouTube video was taken from the site http://www.vampirepowersucks.com, it has some interesting information there with links to a blog with some interesting industry articles. Check it out:

I finally managed to get out into the garden yesterday! What with all of the sewing and knitting and working I have been doing there never seems to be enough time however the longer I left it the bigger and more time consuming the job was becoming!

The ivy that had been taking over the tree at the end of the garden had it’s roots chopped a while ago so as well as the normal leaf fall of autum we also had all of the dead ivy to contend with. It is still out there but now in tidy piles ready to be picked up and bagged tomorrow!

The most exciting part was spotting the lovely cabbage that had survived the snail attack and the beginnings of the broccoli I thought would never show its face!

My Fennel is also beaming and should be ready to harvest very soon!!!

I also managed to rescue my chocolate mint which was not very impressed with the lack of attention it was recieving, it is now in a lovely pot of its own on the kitchen window sill ready for the love I am going to bestow upon it. Joining it on the sill are the parsley, basil, coriander and of course Chlliomena.

Unfortunatly due to the high leaf fall my squash and pumpkin plants were smothered so had to be pulled out but the strawberry plants survived quite nicely and have been re-potted ready to be covered to protect them for the winter months. The bed they used to fill is once again covered with the chicken wire I made all those months ago. I left the leaves on the soil as I read that it gives the soil good protection from the frost.

It is looking a lot better now and I am off to pick the cabbage to enjoy with my sunday dinner!

Ahh, Thanksgiving. A time for a gathering of dear ones, a feast, and a few extra days to get things done. Here’s an update on T-day, and the weekend as it is unfolding.

We began on Thursday morning to paint the studio. Amy realized that the rugs were coming back from the cleaners next week, so we had to get moving to get the room done before then. Our painting system involves Amy as the cutting-in artist, and me as the wall-paint-roller. As she cuts, Amy assumes one of her positions that absolutely mystifies me – if I did this I would fall over in a nano-second. Take a look.

We are on the hunt for a second work table, which will go along the wall where Amy is in this picture. Then I will have a table to write on, and a table to draw and paint on. I can hardly wait. We have been prowling around but haven’t found just the right one yet.

The other side of the studio looks like this, below. Yes, I did put all the books in the bookshelves before the painting, but so it goes.

The color we are using is called Elephant Tusk. Go figure. Anyway, it’s really taking shape now – Amy spent this afternoon pushing things along – and we should finish it tomorrow or so.

After a few hours of painting it was time to shower up and get ready for our T-day outing to join Nancy Buckett and her three daughters and their kids for the feast. We had an absolute ball – tons of laughing and teasing and tall tales of all kinds. A really warm and wonderful time with this crew.

Nancy has three daughters, Deirdre, the eldest, Laurie, the middle one, and Kristine, the youngest. The feast was at Laurie’s, with her and her husband Scott, and their kids Emma and Cody. Kristine came with her terrific son Lawrence. And then there was Deirdre and Amy and I – ten of us in all. Oh, and Stan, Cody’s parakeet. Who bites.

Here is, from left to right, Scott’s left arm, Kristine, Laurie’s daughter Emma, Laurie, Deirdre, and Nancy’s right arm, as they pick names from a bowl. The three girls, Nancy and Scott exchange gifts at Christmas, and each one draws a name from the bowl to determine who their gift is aimed at. A Buckett family tradition at Thanksgiving. They had to redo the lottery many, many times because they kept picking their own names. It took 20 minutes before Christmas was set.

As Laurie darts in and out of the kitchen, Nancy does the honors while Amy supervises. 21 pounds of roast beast – yum!

Amy took this picture, below - the groaning board. The food was great, and there was so much. We sat and ate and gabbed and laughed for quite a while.

From in front, on the left, Lawrence, Emma, Cody, Kristine, Nancy’s left arm, HD, Deirdre, Laurie, and Scott with his quaff.

We headed home after the gathering along the scenic route – a very lovely drive through nearly deserted Rochester. What a nice afternoon and evening.

Yesterday, Friday, it dawned sunny and absolutely gorgeous – take a look out the library windows into Washington Grove.

The morning light here is astonishing. The dog house, however, will go, as soon as we can find a suitable taker. Or any taker. It’s free folks.

Even though the day dawned clear, it soon clouded up and rained – not much though. After breakfast we ran over to see Nancy O’Neill. She is staying with her friend Kathy as she nurses two broken ankles. Yes, two. We gabbed for a while – she is doing mostly okay – and then came home for lunch via Mayer’s, our local hardware and neighborhood shrine. What a great hardware – and only blocks away.

After lunch, Buckett came by and we continued planning for the installation of the Hecker-Decker collection at 347. Huge progress. And so today, after multiple errands involving the Public Market, Wegmans, and yes, Mayers, I hung artwork while Amy continued to paint the studio. Here’s a couple of views of the hanging.

Illinois landscape painter James Winn, who lives in Sycamore, Illinois, takes the honors over the fireplace, flanked by a painting and an etching by Ivan Summers (1886-1964, Woodstock, NY).

And here I am hanging an etching by Robert Marx. Interestingly, Marx has a lot of pieces at Davidson Gallery in Seattle, and pieces in the Seattle Art Museum. It turns out, though, that he is one of our neighbors here on Cobbs Hill – a block and a half away. He is a good friend of Nancy’s, and Amy got this piece from Nancy when Nancy had her gallery here.

So that brings you right up to the minute. Dinner is percolating in the kitchen, and I’m hungry, so off I go. More soon.

My friend Karen was asking me about the Czech dumplings I was making for dinner while we were on the phone…here are some pictures!  We have these every Thanksgiving dinner and today we made some more loaves to eat with gravy.  Yum! Michael is slicing the loaves using a piece of dental floss.

Everyone knows the best part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers.  Well, it’s Saturday and I’m still living off of mine!

I’d like to share a couple family recipes that always raise a few eyebrows.  The first two are my two all-time favorite holiday dishes – cranberry soup and rhubarb pie.  The third is the Northern version of stuffing.  The main difference is the bread — people from the South make cornbread stuffing and people from the North make stuffing with actual torn pieces of bread.  I prefer cornbread, but both are delicious.  Here they are:

Jolynne’s Cold Cranberry Soup

(From The Madd Apple Café – a pretty soup for brunch, lunch or dinner.)

Makes about 2 quarts

• 3 cups fresh cranberries, low bush
• 2 cups water
• 1 to 2 whole cloves
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 cup sour cream
• ¾ cup dry red wine
• ¾ to 1 cup fresh orange juice
• fresh mint sprigs*

Simmer cranberries, water and cloves in large saucepan 10 minutes. Drain cranberries, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.  Discard cloves.  Puree cranberries in blender.  Press through fine strainer into heavy large saucepan.  Mix in reserved cooking liquid.

Combine sugar and flour in medium bowl.  Stir in sour cream, wine and orange juice.  Mix into cranberries.  Slowly bring to boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Cool.  Refrigerate until well chilled.  (Can be prepared 1 day ahead.)  Garnish each serving with mint sprig*.

*optional

Jolynne’s Rhubarb Pie

• 4 cups ( 1lb ) rhubarb in 1” slices
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 Tablespoons flour
• dash salt
• zest of ½ orange, minced

Combine sugar, flour and salt.  Toss rhubarb and orange peel with sugar mixture, mixing well.  Let macerate several hours if rhubarb is very tart.  Use a 2–crust 9” pie shell; cut decorative slits in the top.  Bake at 400 for 45-50 min., until juices have thickened and start bubbling out of the slits in the pie.

Note: I cut the rhubarb and freeze it; then toss it into the pie shell frozen and allow an extra 10 minutes baking time.

Macerate – to make soft by soaking or steeping in a liquid

Tim’s bread (and onion) stuffing

• 8-10 cups sliced onions
• 4 cups sliced celery (about 1 head)
• ¼ cup butter or olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 teaspoon rosemary
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large loaf of crusty Italian bread or San Francisco Sourdough, torn into 2” chunks
• 3-4 cups poultry stock
• Diced giblets (cooked in giblet broth)

There is so much to be thankful for this year.  Our family sat around the table going around lap after lap for about 20 minutes, giving thanks for all that happened, the people who helped us along the way, and each other.  Throughout this past year, through different facets of my life, one lesson kept repeating itself:  nothing is permanent.  Elated happiness, deep despair, living dreams or living nightmares – none of these states last.  What held steadfast through the peaks and valleys of 2008-2009 though were inner peace, intuition, and the people who kept me/us going along the way.  And for those things, I’m most grateful!

Prompt:  Write a recipe for something unexpected.

Recipe for Living with Your Parents When You May Not Have Expected It

• 3 cups gratitude
• 2 cups patience
• 1 job
• 2 Tablespoons confidence
• 1 empty notebook
• 3 dashes of good humor
• 4 of your closest friends’ email addresses
• 2 helping hands
• 2-3 nights out a week or nights in home alone + 5 of your favorite CDs + 2 speakers that have already been blown-out
• 1 teaspoon of gratitude to remind you of the 3 cups you already added in

Toss with a reminder that change is life and life is change, and enjoy in the present moment!

friday 27 november 2009

at home – sky movies

will ferrel and john c. reilly’s parents get married and they all have to move in together

imagine my surprise when p decided to watch this! there was no coaxing, no hinting, no anything from my part. she just said “shall we watch this?”. i said “are you sure, p?” and asked her again, just to make sure. but she was cool with it.

so we watched it and i laughed. i think p liked it too – not as much as me, of course, but i think she sort of likes will ferrell now!

let me ask her what she thought. this is what she says: “i thought it was funn- not funny, silly. i thought it was silly. not funny ‘haha’, silly”. that sounds like a success to me!

and it really was. very silly! haha! i liked it.

i think the funniest thing for me was the whole bit with dale and brennan’s brother’s wife. haha!

cast:

will ferrell

john c. reilly

the dad from six feet under

that woman from parenthood, mary steenbergen, apparently

friday 27 november 2009

at home – sky movies

eric stoltz likes this rich girl but he doesn’t know that mary stuart masterson (who plays drums) is actually better for him!!

p and i saw this long ago and as we were just sitting around yesterday when it came on, so p put it on.

i remember finding all of it much more frustrating the first time round, but then i guess that’s what one is meant to feel – frustration and fear for eric stoltz hanging out with the rich people who one knows are just messing with him, and then the added frustration at knowing that mary stuart masterson was better for him and that she actually liked him but he couldn’t see it!!

it was nice to see eric stoltz and his blue eyes again – and to see him so young! and mary stuart masterson (it takes forever to write that name!) too. the rich girl didn’t look nearly as glamorous as i expect she must’ve back in the day and, in fact, she looked a but old-ladyish!

poor old elias koteas was good. i’d forgotten about his part in this and enjoyed watching  him again. i say “poor old” because p always comments that she thinks he’s trying to be robert de niro. i don’t know if i agree with this but it’s one of those comments that really sticks and so it’s now a lingering thought in my mind whenever i see him!

ah – and i got to hear that soundtrack sound effect that quintin’s brother derek always used to love imitating…

cast:

eric stoltz

mary st… masterson

marty mcfly’s girlfriend

elias koteas

24 november 2009

at home – sky movies

brad the pitts and frances mcdormand try to blackmail john malkovich

i really wanted to watch this at the movies but it was another one of those which i, or we, just never got around to…

charlotte knew how much i wanted to see it so when it came on in an idle moment she thought we’d give it a go!

it was weird. i mostly enjoyed it but i felt that it totally lost its direction halfway through! the ending was particularly abrupt and happened with no build-up at all. there was no indication that the story was coming to an end.

nevertheless i enjoyed it – it was fun to watch. frances mcdormand wasn’t as good as she can be but john malkovich was on form as usual and it was great to see brad the pitts doing some comedy work again! he’s so good at it yet he seldom does it.

charlotte thought it was very weird indeed and didn’t quite know what to make of it. she likes john malkovich, though, so that helped. but then, george clooney “doesn’t do anything” for her, so he didn’t help.

i liked jk simmons too – he was funny! the last lines, even though i didn’t know it was the end at the time, were the funniest lines of the film. afterwards charlotte and i repeated it to each other and laughed

ah – yes – before i write that line, an early one from john malkovich was funny too:

Osbourne Cox: I have a drinking problem? Fuck you, Peck, you’re a Mormon. Compared to you we ALL have a drinking problem!

okay – here are those funny lines that charlotte and i liked:

CIA Superior: What did we learn, Palmer?
CIA Officer: I don’t know, sir.
CIA Superior: I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir.
CIA Superior: I’m fucked if I know what we did.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir, it’s, uh, hard to say
CIA Superior: Jesus Fucking Christ.

charlotte: what did they do?!

(and i just learned that p didn’t even know who they were! haha! )

cast:

brad the pitts

frances mcdormand

john malkovich

george clooney

tilda swinton

jk simmons

sunday 15 november 2009

at home – sky box office

tom hanks gets called to the vatican to solve a mystery

we’d planned to go to the movies again as our sunday film has quickly become a tradition. even after the first one it already felt like a tradition! unfortunately we were both broke so we couldn’t go. but we wanted to have something of a sunday film experience so we decided to get something on sky box office.

charlotte’s sudden nachos addiction meant that i was sent out into the wild in search of the ingredients for her nachos treat – a quest from which i returned nearly an hour later. but charlotte’s little gleeful smile made it all worthwhile. she really loves these nachos!

so we went for angels and demons and it did exactly what you’d expect and passed the time. ewan mcgregor’s accent wasn’t noticably annoying, so that was a bonus and tom hanks was dependable as always. this time he had a new foreign brunette with whom to run around and solve puzzles and she was okay too.

the main assassin guy did a better job than paul bettany did in the last film. he was really quite efficient and a bit menacing too…!

hooray for sunday movies!

cast:

tom hanks

ewan mcgregor

an italian brunette

Jessica and Tyler are coming over! I’m gonna see them for the first time in like – three weeks! So excited. We’ll watch videos of the show, play games, see a movie…so much fun. Can’t wait!

I will miss you.

Though I realize the official first day of Winter isn’t for another three weeks or so, in my mind Thanksgiving marks the end of Autumn.  My eldest woke me up yesterday morning to inform me that he had taken down all the Fall decorations and was ready to set up the Christmas tree, and that we did…a few hours later.

I will miss cooking and baking with my yummy little pie pumpkins (though I still have one left in the pantry, which will become our final pumpkin pie on Sunday).

Until next year…

To be fair, it was very good.

Although it was the last book in a series I read in 5th/6th grade.

XD

Skillet "Pizza"

I try to do the majority of my eating by cooking meals at home, but my problem is that I end up eating the same things all the time because I never really venture out and try to come up with anything new.  So, when regular blog reader Show recently sent me the recipe for Skillet Pizza, I got interested because this recipe includes a lot of things that I usually have around the house and it wouldn’t require me to go to the store.  Plus, who doesn’t love pizza, especially with a neat twist to it?  It’s also very cheap, easy to make and will give you enough for a minimum of two to three servings, depending on how big of an eater that you are (Show says that he usually gets about six servings out of this; I got three).

Here’s the ingredients that I used with estimated prices of the items when you’d find them at the store (I buy all my stuff on sale, so the prices I listed would not be the regular price).  This recipe is very user friendly, so you can add or subtract any ingredients you want depending on what you like on your pizza:

• 1 lb. roll of hot sausage – $2
• 1 16 oz. package of elbow macaroni (you could use any pasta, I just had this on hand; this will be your “crust” of the pizza) – $1
• 2 cups shredded mozarella cheese – $2
• 4 oz. fresh mushrooms (I diced them) – $1.50
• 4 oz. sliced pepperoni (this is just a ballpark guess on the amount I used) – $1.25
• 2 cans (15 oz. each) of pizza sauce (I happened to have pizza sauce at home for once; I would ordinarily just use any random jar of marinara sauce) – $2
• Total Price of Ingredients:  $9.75 (remember, this can get you several servings so your unit price should be well below $4 per person)

Cooking steps (you can review a photo diary of these steps in my Picasa photo gallery)

1. Brown hot  sausage (you’ll need to break it up obviously) in skillet.
2. Add macaroni noodles to boiling water and cook.
3. When hot sausage is about 75% complete, drain the sausage grease, add in diced mushrooms, the pizza sauce and cover skillet.  Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about ten minutes.
4. When pasta is done (you’ll want to try to time it up so that the pasta is done about five minutes before the pizza mix), pull out of boiling water and drain.
5. After about ten minutes, remove lid from pizza mix and add pepperoni and top of mix.  Do not stir as you want this to be layered like a pizza.
6. After adding pepperoni, spread shredded mozarella cheese over the entire mix on the skillet, cover and remove from heat (the heat from inside the covered skillet should melt the cheese, but if you have issues like I did, you can take the lid off after a few minutes and throw it in the oven on the Broil setting and that will melt the cheese).
7. Once cheese is melted, you can season the “pizza” any way that you want.  I added in a little Italian seasoning and some garlic salt (this step is optional).
8. Cut into “slices” and serve on top of the macaroni noodles.

Like I said, this one is simple, cheap and reasonably quick.  I’ll definitely be making this one from time to time and I’ll also be playing with the ingredients.  Give it a shot if you are interested.

-IndianapolisEater

One of the great things about this time of year in Sydney is the fresh cherries. Head up to the Kings Cross markets on a Saturday and you’;l find at least a couple of stands selling beautiful boxes of cherries.

While the fruit are quite hard to whip up into cocktails, short of making syrups or muddling handfuls and steeping them in spirits, there is another side of the proliferation of these special little fruit, Pressed Cherry Juice. The juice is made from those cherries not pretty enough to move of the shelf, luckily, these are also some of the sweetest and juiciest as well.

The juice is not a manufactured product, so expect a lot of variation between products and you’ll need to tweak the recipe to make sure you don’t just end up with Cherry tasting juice that’s alcoholic.

The Cherry Gin Sour

60mls Tanqueray 10 Gin, 10 mls pressed cherry juice, 15mls freshly squeezed lemon juice, 5mls sugar syrup. Combine all ingredients over ice in a shaker, shake, strain over a sour glass filled with fresh ice. Green garnishes look great against the deep red of the drink.

It’s the end of a very nice day. The turkey was wonderful, and it was wonderful watching the guys eat like ravenous wolves! Wow! Men (and boys) can eat so much! It’s amazes me! Sheyu had his first American Thanksgiving dinner today. Okay he had three. The kid ate three entire plates of Thanksgiving dinner. Amazing. I would simply die if I ate like that.

My teacher friend gave me a book as a gift. Now you’ll never get that starry look out of my eyes. Buy me a book, and I’ll follow you anywhere. It was an older copy of To Kill a Mockingbird with the movie promo on it. Gregory Peck and such. I teach this book to ninth graders. It’s so full of ancient wisdom in the ways of the world…such a fine story.

About turkey, one thing that makes a huge difference in the spice of a turkey is using fresh herbs: Rosemary, sage, and thyme. I placed a bundle in before the stuffing, chopped some for the stuffing, sprinkled outside on the oiled bird, and then in the pan around the bird. Savory beyond belief! Noshy, nosh, nosh!

I sent my teacher friend and his adorable wife home with half the dinner. We’ll never eat it all. Sheyu is loving Final Fantasy on the Playstation. He’s been playing for hours. I also napped for hours in the massage chair following the exit of dinner guests. That was the best nap ever! It’s so awesome to be massaged to sleep. I awake totally refreshed and smiling serenely.

So ends another awesome day. There are blessings abundantly this Thanksgiving for which I am extremely grateful for. I’m happy, healthy, and well off. Most of my basic needs are being met, so life is good. I send up whispered prayers of thanks for the creature comforts I enjoy, my good friends, and good times.

‘Night

-Patricia