About Me

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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

November 03, 2009

Neato, Pete-o!

Big times for Huntington today.  Jamie Oliver is back in town for some more filming for his upcoming mini-series on ABC. 

Today, they're having a Cook-a-Thon with a stated goal of getting 1,000 people to come and cook.  When I first heard about it, I thought "well, good luck with that".  But I didn't realize he was going to be here - I thought it was just going to be go and cook one of his quick, healthy recipes.  But with him here, I don't think there's any danger of them not having enough people.

I went over to Fourth Avenue to investigate and it's set up in the street.  There are two sets of tables, each with three cooking stations (a gas burner with a wok).  I think each set of tables probably accommodates 30 cooks.  The assistants get the woks heating up and then the participants come in, find their assigned space, Jamie gives a little welcome and pep talk and they start cooking.  They're doing a noodle stir-fry and it sure smells good down there.  They're easily done within 30 minutes - then he goes around and pretty much speaks to everyone there, goes back up on his raised cooking space, turns around to the other group of tables, where the next group is set up ready to go, and they start cooking.  All of it being filmed.  I really can't wait to see the show to see what they do with all of this.  I think it is an incredible event for Huntington.  If it was just going to be on some obscure cable channel it might not be so exciting (although I'm probably the only person in the United States who doesn't have cable), but to be on one of the three major networks is just wonderful.

So, here are the pictures to prove he was really here and to give my daughter, January, a treat. :)


Waiting to cook - my across-the-hall neighbor is the thin guy in the back


And there he is, right outside Five Guys (tee hee).  I think it's kind of neat he has a camera, too.




Everybody plating their finished product and making all the bystanders hungry!  Oh, and when I first saw those fire trucks in the back I thought "gee, do they think the place is going to burn down?"  But in a little bit, here came a group of firemen in their boots and firefighting pants each with a plate of the stir-fried noodles they had made.  How fun is that?!


This is the only young person I've seen at the sessions.  One of the main goals is to get kids interested in cooking and healthy eating, so hopefully there will be some others that show up.

So, that was all pretty exciting.  What wasn't very exciting was my latest shipments from Clarkcolor.com that I was bragging about earlier.  I'm getting more and more puzzled (and aggravated) at how they run (or don't) their business.  I had ordered a photobook of all my Arno River shots - 20 pages.  You are able to arrange the photos in the order you want, put more than one on a page if you want, add text, choose colors, etc., and I was anxiously waiting for mine to arrive.  So today it came and I'm leafing through it thinking this is pretty nice when here comes my last page with a white page after it that has a Clark logo on it.  I thought that was sort of a pain, but if that's how they did them, then...but then I realized there were more pages to come and thought surely, it's not just some more blanks and no, it wasn't, it was the rest of the photos out of order.  The book was okay through page 10, then came page 20, then the blank white page, then pages 17 thru 19 and then pages 11 thru 16.  And I can't for the life of me imagine how they managed to screw it up so completely.  So, I've requested a free replacement if they think they can get it right.  And if not, I told them to refund my money.  But that wasn't all... Saturday, I had received all my shots of Montefioralle and, as planned, today I got them put into a special "memories" album that a friend gave me and am real pleased with that.  But lo and behold, when I got the mail later, there was the really messed up book, but there also was another complete set of the Montefioralle pictures!  This makes probably 4 or 5 times I have received duplicate photos.  I'm not getting charged for them - I just keep getting them.  Good grief is what I'm thinking.

It will be interesting to see how things progress.  Before I got the mail, I had spent this morning figuring out for sure which photos I've ordered and received and then I ordered all the rest in one fell swoop.  Who knows how many times I'll receive them (or some of them - I also received a batch of pictures that included 9 photos I had already received once).  And I just keep throwing them in the trash and telling Clark "you're losing money".

All in all though, a neat day.  And I think I'm all inspired to fix my pork tenderloin with chopped apple "stuff" that I like real well.  Will probably have it with a sweet potato.

2 comments:

Christopher said...

How cool! When will YOU get on the show, that's what I want to know! :)
And maybe your photo saga will end up like the classic story of the hotel guest story; the guy who just wanted them to stop leaving fresh soap bars during his stay, and ended up with dozens...
Too bad about your book---I'm sure Clark doesn't do the actual printing/binding... better luck on the replacement book, and if it doesn't work out, there are several other online publishers to try... :)

Unknown said...

That's super cool, Mama! I'm glad you went down and investigated. I thought it was going to be on cable as well, and sort of thought, "Oh well, one more thing I won't watch," but if it's on ABC I'll totally tune in!
I had been thinking about Clark photo for our wedding pictures based on your initial reviews, but now...?

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