Way too long since last post...

especially when I had every intention of reporting on what was probably one of the nicest Christmases I've had since my kids grew up and I started spending Christmases with them instead of them with me.  I enjoy all our Christmases, but this one was really special.  Part of it may be that I think the older I get (and I'm sure getting older!), the more I'm relaxing and just enjoying whatever is happening - no worry about this or that detail.  Anyway, it was great.

But today, I'm posting partly to say isn't weather a strange thing?  At least this year.  We have had, overall, one of the coldest winters I can remember - I mean FRIGID!!  And even though we never seemed to accumulate much, it snowed off and on all winter.  But spring finally comes, the trees start budding, one day all the whatever kind of trees are suddenly blooming, it gets too warm a few times, and then on April 15, it snows!  And I have tried over and over to get pictures of the snow and they're never good and neither is this one, but I'm posting it anyway cause, I mean, April 15!!!

This first one is the snow picture and if you think hard you can see little white dots.  It really did snow heavily periodically but never did accumulate since the day before it was in the 70's and then rained all night!  The second one is just to prove that stuff really was blooming. :) 

So that was Monday.  Today, I went to The Wild Ramp, a "local food" market, to get some eggs.  Bought my standard half dozen that always has 5 brown eggs and a real pretty soft green egg.  Then I noticed that they had quail eggs!  They were so cute I could hardly stand it but I wasn't real sure what I would do with them.  I know they're kind of the rage now at upscale restaurants, but my home isn't an upscale restaurant.  However, I decided to get them and check in with Google.  Did that and there were all kinds of ideas, especially Asian-type goodies, one of which was serving a poached quail egg on Soba noodles.  That made me think "Eureka!! - I'll make some spaghetti carbonara!"  I love it and have made it occasionally but using just two ounces of spaghetti and a large egg, it ends up with the egg not cooking and coating as well as it should.  So I'm thinking maybe two, or even three of these little bitties would be just about right.  And... yesterday I had just bought some Oscar Mayer "carving board" smoked ham which is thicker cut than their sandwich ham, thinking I would use it in my egg strata.  Now I will also use it in the spaghetti carbonara.  I realize you're supposed to use pancetta or bacon, but I've used ham before and it's good too.  And when I make the strata, I plan to use one regular egg and one little quail egg because all the comments about them say that they have a higher ratio of yolk to white than a chicken egg and therefore taste a little richer which should make the strata even tastier.

Aren't they just cute?  That's a quarter in the picture (and it just dawned on me, I should have used a chicken egg for comparison).  I realize all of this is probably pretty uninteresting to a lot of people but if you love cooking and are single, maybe you'll find it exciting too.  I will report on how it all goes...

And, if you've made it this far, I just came across this in my drafts which means I never published it, so I will now. 

Woo-hoo for Huntington!!  Follow this link and check out #7 to find out why.  After you've checked that out, you're allowed to look at the other nine and see if any of them would make a nice weekend trip for you. :)

Thanksgiving Day and I'm Waiting to Eat!

And it dawned on me I had never finished reporting on my sister's visit.  I guess the main thing to report would be that we did another letterbox search on Friday.  This one was in Ritter Park and involved three letterboxes planted by the same person.

It was such a pretty day compared to the day before.  Beautiful blue sky, lots of sun, but still quite chilly.  And this was a much easier quest than the Rotary Park one also.  I mean, we had to really search for the exact spot which is harder than it sounds, but it was all on level ground - no hills to climb and slide down.  We did find all three eventually and I have to say - it's just fun to have to follow clues and poke around here and there and finally...success!!

I took a fair number of pictures because Ritter Park is a beautiful area and it was a beautiful day and there were beautiful trees.  So here's my attempt to capture some of the beauty (oh, and we saw a deer right there in the park, but I wasn't quick enough to capture that).

Pictures of our first find of the three.  I didn't take pictures of the other two - I think Chinch felt like we were going to be stopped by the Letterbox Police at any moment or, if not, then at least by some passerby wondering what these two crazy old ladies were up to.

The second one was probably the hardest to find - the planter had done almost too good a job of hiding it.  The third one would have been relatively easy except for the fact that it was about two somethings (can't say what) beyond where the clue said it would be.  But we persevered and found them both.







The rest of these pictures are just some of the trees that caught my eye.

Aren't they just something??  And isn't that sky also something??  Same tree in both pics, by the way - just the one on the right shows it all the way to the ground...

This tree is really incredible - four huge trunks coming out of one base.  These were sycamores so they're that beautiful bright white which is so lovely against a blue sky.

This was so pretty because there were two huge white sycamores across the stream from each other.  Couldn't really get the white to show well, though...

The one on the right is basically the same place but we were on a little stone bridge so I got some of that in the picture ...


















And this last one we noticed on the way back to the car because of the way the two trees were leaning in towards one another.  Had a very friendly look...

So that was our Ritter Park day.  We went to Huntington Prime that evening for dinner and to have a drink up in the new 15th floor place only to discover that it wasn't open yet!  So that was a disappointment.  But all in all, it was such a very nice visit.

As I say, I'm still waiting to eat my Thanksgiving dinner.  This is my second year of staying here by myself for Thanksgiving and, like last year, I've gone whole hog with my dinner.  But I will report about that after I've eaten it. :)  I'm trying a new roast pork recipe and figure if I don't like it I have a whole 9" pumpkin pie I can fill up on!  LOL!!