One flows into another

When one day flows into another and they tend to be much the same it is easy for me to relax a bit on my blogging. Our thoughts are beginning to turn southward, however, we have some doctor appointments to get through first. The last one  is on October 23rd so we know we will be here at least that long.  We are both beginning to experience "hitch itch".

 Our friends Pete and Jerilynn are too. They stopped by to visit last evening about their trip to Florida and the preparations for such. And then they decided to go to the Casino for supper. We were asked if we wanted to go and accepted the invite. We had been avoiding the place because we had not heard good reviews and we wanted to give them time to get their act together if it was ever going to happen. Well, it has! The food was excellent and the service was good and they were very busy! We were told at the entrance that there would be a 20-minute wait so I turned to Butch and said, "Is that too long? "Want to go somewhere else?" And the hostess said, "Just a minute. Let me check." And sure enough an open table for four appeared magically. Our order was taken promptly and the wait was not too long. Jerilynn ordered almond crusted chicken tenders for an appetizer and they were excellent. An order of those as an entree and a side salad would have been plenty for two people. We ordered a tenderloin and shared it and it was more than enough for both of us.
After dinner we did go in the gambling portion and found a penny machine where you could play as small an amount(1 penny 1 line) as you might want and that is the perfect place for me. Butch handed me three dollars and it magically became $10.00 after quite a bit of playing. I sat there quite satisfied with playing ten pennies on ten lines a whack and cashed out when I reached $10.00 giving me a profit of $7.00. So it was a magical evening all round.

Butch and I have been watching "Hell on Wheels" on Netflix. It is a series of 43 episodes with each episode taking 42 minutes. No Commercials! Aaah the beauty of Netflix. When evening comes around one of us will turn to the other and say, "Are you ready to go to Hell tonight?" A little one of our inside jokes. We have one more episode to go. I must put out a warning that it is bloody and violent in many places and I would have to watch through my fingers but it is a very well-done production.

1. 


Hell on Wheels
The Civil War is in the past, but former
Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon can't put it behind him.
Fresh are the horrific memories of the death of his wife, killed
at the hands of the Union soldiers, an act that sets Bohannon on a course of revenge. This contemporary Western tells the story of his journey, a story that rides on Union Pacific's construction of the first transcontinental railroad. Bohannon'swestward travels take him to a lawless melting pot of a town called "Hell on Wheels," which moves with the construction of the railroad.

Tools for life: dictionaries and cookbooks by Colleen O'Brien

Tools for life: dictionaries and cookbooks
September 16, 2015
Greene County News Online
~a column by Colleen O’Brien

When I read that poet Phyllis McGinley liked to read cookbooks in bed at night, I thought her odd. I’m not a cook who loves her work, so I figured it wasn’t a habit I’d get in to. Cookbooks were a necessary reference for me now and then (what does it mean when it says “clean the turkey”?); they were not best friends but casual acquaintances. But when a neighbor gave me a cookbook she published, I did indeed take it to bed one night. And it was a good read! I was captured from the appetizers right through the after dinner drinks. So, periodically over the years, I read cookbooks, even though I never feel compelled to practice what they suggest.

I had received the big loose leaf Betty Crocker cookbook from my mother when I married, when cooking — my own cooking –actually entered my life. Betty, now dog eared and spattered with spaghetti sauce, has lived in my cupboard and moved from state to state with me ever since. What I discovered in moments of cooking panic is that it is not the recipes in Betty that are important but the helpful hints she adds at the back of her book. When I look up a word in the dictionary, I often get carried away and read the next word and the next. It’s the same with the end papers of a cookbook.

In the middle of making a cake I discovered I had no baker’s chocolate (What is baker’s chocolate, I wondered?). I turned to my friend Betty and she told me what to do (cocoa and butter). And I discovered the next hint was just as interesting: “If you have no sour milk, add 1 TBS lemon juice or vinegar to milk to make one cup.”

The dictionary, one of my favorite reads to get lost in because I look up the word “lilied” (which means covered with lilies), and find, remarkably, that there are 10 entries for one of the simplest words in the language — “like”! Who would have thought to look up a word everyone knows and likes, like “like”? Cookbooks are the same: that there is born a person to think up and put to use a recipe. The helpful hints in a cookbook impress me as do the definitions in a dictionary. Who did think them all up, the words and the entrees? Was it a matter of trial and error or a lucky guess? Whoever these bright souls were, both the word makers and the cake bakers, I am thankful for their ingenuity and common sense.

In a Lithuanian cookbook full of mouth-watering but complicated recipes for unpronounceable dishes like Velyku Boba, Brandeles Su Lasiniais and Mocuites Smiltiniai, the secrets in the back mark the book as invaluable.

“Add baking powder to mashed potatoes to make them lighter.” I tried this, and amazingly it also eliminates lumps.
“To remove the burned taste from scorched food, quickly place pan in cold water.” Had I known this from the beginning, would it have forestalled my having earned the Mother’s Day plaque that said “Where there’s smoke, there’s dinner”?
“To keep pies from running over into the oven while baking, use macaroni as ‘smoke stacks’ in the top crust to allow for escape of steam.” (Do not use elbow macs, as I did, because of course they direct the steam right back into the pie.)
“Rinsing the pan with water before heating milk in it will prevent the milk from sticking to the pan.”
“If eggshells are moistened before placing eggs in water to boil, it will help avoid cracking, and the shells will also come off easily.” This is SO worth it.
“To prevent cheese from drying out, spread butter on cut side and before wrapping in foil, place a lump of sugar in the package to prevent mold.”
When you send your kids into the world, give them a dictionary and a cookbook. With job problems, car problems, social problems, house problems, they’ll be on their own; for communicating and cooking, they’ll thank you.

Bill Brooker shot an eagle...

with his camera!!! Thanks Bill that certainly is a rare opportunity.

Jason and Laura's new driveway

Before

After-Looking Good!!

Mummified Frog

Laura's son, Michael came up from Florida and brought his dogs. One of them found this mummified frog in a hole in their house. Jason said it was perfect in every way, except for being dead and hard as a rock.;-)

I knew you would want to know.