Alexa, Why Do You Smell Like Cloves?

 

Today I worked on campus and walked with my colleague during my lunch break, then Travalon picked me up from work and we went to Jilly Moose's place. She lives in a very large apartment complex, and we had a lot of trouble finding her building (it was just as hard as the first time I went there), and then once we were in her building, we weren't sure how to find her apartment. We did find her, and she introduced Travalon to the moose - his favorite was one called Maverick that was one of her first moose. Jilly Moose made lasagna and garlic bread and salad, and it was all delicious. She asked how it compared to Richard Bonomo's lasagna, but I said it was so different that I couldn't say which was better. Rich's actually tastes a lot like my dad's, so I suspect it is Sicilian style, since my dad learned to cook from a Sicilian when he was in the monastery, and Rich learned from his Sicilian mother.

After dinner we swam in Jilly Moose's pool. Unlike the pool at my old condo complex, this one was warm and had a lovely clubhouse with bathrooms - so handy not to have to run all the way back to a faraway apartment building when you have to go! Maybe it's osmosis, but after twenty minutes in a pool, I almost always REALLY have to go. Tiffy's pool is in between for convenience: warm, but no nearby toilet facilities. As we swam, I thought I saw a green heron fly overhead and land in a nearby tree, and then later Travalon saw it too, when it landed in a different tree. Green herons usually hang out around water, and I'm not familiar with any nearby water, but Google Maps shows there is a small pond on the other side of the road. Or who knows, maybe the pool is good enough water for a green heron, although there wouldn't be any fish in it... that I know of. I sure didn't see any. 

The funniest part of the whole thing for me might have been how we were pestering Jilly Moose's Alexa with questions, and then I went into the bathroom and thought there was another Alexa speaker there, so I started asking it questions... until finally realizing it was a diffuser making the room smell like cloves. Maybe it was responding to me by putting out more scent? You can see what a Luddite I am, that I am so amazed by a small speaker answering questions that I assume anything looking like a small speaker can answer questions.

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Morel Quesadillas and a Crabapple Mystery

 

My neighbor is back from Florida, so we walked today before work and on my breaks, and again after work. I spotted a whole bunch of morel mushrooms as we walked, so the next time we went out with bags and collected them. Here they are!

Guess what Travalon and I had for dinner? Morel quesadillas! 

On Sunday Travalon bought me a rose, and I forgot to take a picture of it until now, when it's starting to look a little sad. But it's still lovely.

Here are some tulips that were blooming in our neighborhood today.

These are the tulips in Rich's yard. As you can see, the only ones blooming are the purple ones our late organist gave him years ago. The orange ones Travalon gave me disappeared years ago, and there is no sign of the ones I rescued from around the carillon.

My neighbor wanted to take this photo of me in front of the redbud right by her house because she said it matched my shirt.

And here is the redbud in Rich's yard - you know, the one I moved as a seedling that is now shading the rose. If the rose is still alive after my stupidity, we're going to move it this weekend.

This one really weirds me out - when I was out walking midday, I noticed this crabapple tree, which I have featured on this blog before... only I could have sworn it was fuchsia, not a pale shell pink.

When I came back in, I looked at photos on my blog, and sure enough, in both 2020 and 2021 it was a bright fuchsia color.

The mystery deepens, because when I mentioned it to my neighbor as we walked after work, she said it had been fuchsia this morning when we walked before work. I honestly didn't notice, but then, it wouldn't have struck me as weird because it had always bloomed that color. I think this must have something to do with the heat; today broke the record for this date by eight degrees F. It was so hot that we had to have the air conditioning on. It was crazy hot! Did it bleach our crabapple??

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Photos from the Zoo

 

As promised, here are some photos from the zoo yesterday. First, the polar bears:

The lion always likes to sit on this rock:

The alpacas were kind of giving us the side-eye:

These are bactrian camels. We don't have dromedaries at our zoo.

Here you can see both kinds of flamingos, the light coral ones and the dark coral ones:

This hornbill seems to be new. It is much smaller than the ones at the Milwaukee Zoo.

This is one of the white-handed gibbons. They like to sing.

In fact, once I was visiting the zoo with a woman from church, and the gibbons were singing (kind of more like whooping), so she sang Gregorian chant to them, and they were fascinated.

An update on the fight from yesterday: our coach was fined ten grand, and the other coach was fined forty grand and suspended for five games. Nobody wanted to press charges.

(Jilly Moose, feel free to skip this paragraph.) We had gotten some oyster mushrooms from Mother Fool's Coffeehouse, and tonight Travalon brought home fixings for quesadillas, then he fried the mushrooms and put them in the quesadillas. Oh my goodness, were they ever delicious! We will have to get those mushrooms again! Travalon says they would also be good on chicken breasts.

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More Whipped Coffee Info

So I was chatting with Handy Woman via email, and while I still don't know what I did wrong making whipped cream, that is not even how you are supposed to make whipped coffee. The reason you have to make it with instant coffee is that there is a gum in there that allows it to be whipped, and macha powder does not have that gum in it. So you have to add egg whites. This sounds like a wonderful solution to me, because the Vietnamese egg coffee I plan to make on Sunday takes egg yolks, and I wasn't sure what to do with the egg whites. Of course, currently we have neither macha powder nor instant coffee, but since I haven't heard that people are hoarding either of these items, we should be able to get them on our next trip to the grocery co-op. Stay tuned to find out if I am successful in making any of these creations... Handy Woman did make the whipped coffee successfully, but she put it in the fridge for later, and then it deflated. So that's one more rule for making whipped coffee: drink immediately and do NOT put it in the fridge for later.

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Whipped Macha Failures

I am on a committee where people take turns taking the minutes from our meetings, but for some reason I ended up doing them several times. (Of all the odd things to have a talent for... I am so known for my meticulous note-taking that I end up taking minutes for every committee I am on, and my department's meetings as well. Why couldn't I be good at something useful, like basketball or making money?) Anyway, the head of the committee joked that he owed me coffee or tea, which did I like better, and I said I was an equal-opportunity caffeine fiend. I thought he had been kidding, but one meeting he did bring me both a bag of coffee and a box of macha powder! I just brewed the coffee for our usual morning cup o' joe, but I have been experimenting with the macha powder.

There is an Instagram fad right now of showing off your whipped coffee, which has only three ingredients: instant coffee, sugar, and cream. I am not actually on Instagram, but I have seen pictures of this delectable whipped coffee, and the instructions said you could use macha powder instead for a cup of green fluffy goodness instead of light brown. Since we only have real coffee around the house, I tried it with the macha powder, but my results have been less than photogenic. The first time I whipped the cream for hours, and it got thick but not fluffy, but Travalon said it tasted really good. The next couple of times the cream just stayed liquid, and again Travalon said it tasted good, but it was definitely not worth photographing and posting. Today I thought I knew what had gone wrong, but this was the day Travalon did not say, "At least it tastes good," because I beat the cream for hours, but it remained liquid... at least on the top. Unbeknownst to me, there was butter on the bottom. So we had chunks of butter in our macha lattes! I am now out of macha powder, so this experiment will have to go on hold until we can acquire either more macha powder or some instant coffee. Who knew making whipped cream could be so difficult? Feel free to tell me where I went wrong in the comments.

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Team Effort Catfish Dinner

Yesterday Travalon went fishing in the Fox River in Princeton, and he caught two catfish, one 18 inches long and one 22 inches long. When I got home from band practice, he was watching a video on his phone of how to fillet the fish. I said, “Let me have a crack at it,” and to my surprise it was very easy to do, considering that I have never filleted a fish before. I filleted the first one, and he filleted the second one. I was planning to bake the catfish, but Travalon had gotten Cajun Shore Lunch mix to put on the fillets before frying them, so I ended up frying the fillets while he cleaned up the fish remains and cooked the rest of our dinner (broccoli and tater tots). It was truly a team effort! And guess what? Fresh fried catfish in Cajun coating is delicious! We’ll have to do it again sometime, especially since we have half the box of Shore Lunch left. We can buy catfish fillets at our neighborhood meat market (and regularly do), but it is so much more satisfying to eat a fish you have prepared yourself. Travalon really brought home the bacon (so to speak) last night!

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Slow Food Bonomo

Last night was another round of Slow Food Bonomo. Handy Woman dug up a couple of redbuds growing in Rich’s front yard, because he has no use for them and she wants redbuds. We did move one to the backyard a couple of years ago, and now it is a small tree that gets lovely purple flowers in the spring. A neighbor must have one nearby, because little seedlings keep popping up in Rich’s front yard, under the pine tree, where they won’t have a happy life – too much shade. Handy Woman had baked delicious bread for the Slow Food dinner, and the other two regulars made salads. One was an amazing curry quinoa salad. It turns out one regular just had a birthday, and the other will have one Friday, so we joked that it was a joint birthday party for them. Kathbert picked black raspberries from Rich’s garden, and we put them in the Moscato that Jilly Moose brought. Prairie Man joined us, and Luxuli came a little later and made sauce for the pork roast Rich had cooked.

The Single B-Boy came too, because he is going on a hiking trip with Rich, Handy Woman, and another of the Slow Food ladies in August, but they didn’t really discuss the trip. It will be to Isle Royale, should any of my readers be interested in joining. Me personally, I have no interest in hiking for five days with a 50-pound pack on my back. Perhaps I should cultivate an interest, if I ever hope to complete the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, as has been my goal for many years. I always said I’d do it after my student loans were paid off, and they have been paid off for years, but somehow I have never actually made the pilgrimage. My friend Ethel recently did, with her oldest brother. She is 17 years younger than her brother, so this gave them a chance to actually get to know each other. They left spouses and kids at home. Ethel did give me a tiny incense thurible thing modeled on the giant one in Santiago de Compostela; I think it’s just a model and not fully functional. I haven’t actually tried to use it.

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Soul Train for Christmas

I hope my regular readers had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was great, but this whole year has been amazing. It has seriously been the best year of my life, and I’m going to have some trouble saying goodbye to 2014. Travalon and I spent our first Christmas Eve together, and as my regular readers know, mine are usually crazy, while he is used to kicking back and relaxing. So we compromised: we ran around getting supplies for the cassata and eggnog, then I made the cassata. My choir put on a half-hour carol sing before “midnight Mass” at 5 pm, and I had a two-line solo. After Mass Travalon, Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, Luxuli, and I went to visit our former organist, who had the flu so we all had to don masks. The most romantic part of the evening was when Travalon and I went to dinner at Lilliana’s, where we had pumpkin soup and salad with gingerbread in it. He had steak and lobster for dinner, while I had turkey stuffed with goat cheese, cranberries, and spinach. For dessert we had pumpkin cheesecake. It was one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever had. After we got home, we exchanged presents, and he gave me a Soul Train DVD, an iTunes card, Lady and the Tramp stuffed animals, and a mug of Grumpy Cat saying, “There isn’t enough coffee in the world to make me rise and shine.” I gave him a coffee table book on the history of DC Comics.

Christmas morning we went to Mass again (and heard the same homily from the night before), then we drove to the Five O’s to have lunch with Travalon’s family. We gave his mother a blue sparkly poinsettia, and he gave the 42^nd Doctor a book about Darth Vader. For dessert there was homemade strudel, as well as our contribution – cheesecake. Then in the evening we went to Rich’s house, where the main course was lasagna. Cecil Markovitch made an amazing Turkish vegetable stew that everyone loved, and I always enjoy the positive reception to my cassata and eggnog. Cecil helped separate eggs for the eggnog, and he is really good at it! We couldn’t stay too late because we all had to work the next day.

Friday I had promised Travalon a quiet night at home, so we put on the Soul Train DVD and danced around to it. I had also promised him we could just be lazy around the house on Saturday, as long as I could go to the Lutheran Third Day of Christmas Carol Sing. He agreed, having two basketball games he wanted to attend that evening. So he dropped me off at Rich’s house and went to watch basketball, while Kathbert, OK Cap, and I figured out how to cook up a “mess of greens” I had bought for hardly anything at the grocery store. We aren’t even sure what they were – either collard greens, turnip greens, or mustard greens. We ended up cooking them with butter, garlic, and onions. Luxuli and Rich also joined us for leftover lasagna, then we all drove in Rich’s new Jeep to the Lutheran church for the carol sing, where we joined Cecil Markovitch. Afterwards my OTHER choir director invited us over for some leftover fruit soup, and then we all went back to Rich’s for leftover eggnog and the cookies Anna Banana II had sent in the mail. Travalon, Catzookz, and Twins Fan joined us as well, so we were there kind of late.

Yesterday Travalon and I overslept, but we couldn’t go to a later morning Mass because we were treating OK Cap to brunch at the Nau-Ti-Gal for her birthday. It was a big one – 29! Ha, just kidding, but if you want to know how old she is, you’ll have to ask her yourself; I will not reveal another lady’s age on this blog. I said we would have to go to Mass at 5:00, but that would be right in the middle of the Packer game, so Travalon called and got our TV hooked up so we can record shows. Rich joined us for brunch as well, and it was quite a feast. Before the game Travalon and I took Rodney to the dog park, then we watched the first half of the game, went to Mass, and turned on the radio to hear what we had missed. And guess what? They were beating the Lions 28-14! We drove to the Free House to meet OK Cap and Jilly Moose for a birthday drink, and in the end the Pack won 30-20, so they are the NFC North champions for the fourth straight year. More good news: today we found out Ndamukong Suh got suspended from next week’s playoff game for stepping on Aaron Rodgers while he was down on the ground. Awesome! There was no penalty called during the game, so we wondered if he was just going to get away with it. He’s a notoriously dirty player.

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Hanging Out with Rodney

Once again I have forgotten to mention something on my blog, which was that Travalon cooked dinner for me on Tuesday evening! Wasn’t that sweet of him? He made Cajun chicken and potatoes, and we also had raw veggies and fruit salad to round out the meal. Then he had the leftovers last night while I had dinner with Richard Bonomo, Prairie Man, and another guy from our church at Noodles before our first choir practice of the season. Tonight is the first Lutheran choir practice, but I will probably not join that choir this year – too much going on with the old condo to get ready for sale and a new husband at home.

Labor Day Travalon and I had brunch at the Coffee Gallery, then he headed off to Randolph to attend the Corn Fest with his high school buddy, while I plotted with Rich and Kathbert to get together for a hike like we hadn’t done in ages. Pre-Travalon, I used to hike with them in the Arboretum on many a Sunday afternoon, and that was our plan this time as well. However, Rodney the Poodle pleaded to come along with me. I hadn’t thought he would want to hang out with his step-mom, but being with me is probably more fun than being alone all day, with just an unfriendly rabbit for company, so I took pity on him and brought him along. Since we couldn’t hike in the Arboretum with a dog, we went to Pheasant Branch and checked out the bubbly springs. We were planning to head up the hill when Rich checked his new smart phone and found that rain was imminent in our immediate vicinity. We hurried back toward the car, but the rain caught us and thoroughly soaked us. I tried to pick up Rodney so I could run with him, but he was having none of it, so we lagged behind the others. Kathbert got to my car first and reached into the open window to unlock the door… which triggered the car alarm. Finally I got to the car with Rodney and turned off the alarm, and we all sat there, soaking wet with the windows steaming up while Rodney grinned – he enjoyed his adventure even if it ended in such a less than ideal manner! Maybe he decided Step-Mom and her pals are some crazy fun to hang out with. Then I was driving home when Luxuli called, so I went to her house. Rodney was shivering violently, so she wrapped him up like a burrito in a purple towel, and I held him on my lap while he slept very hard. Guess we wore the poor old doggy out! He slept as the humans ate a delicious dinner of gazpacho made by Luxuli, veggies and walnut burgers grilled by Rich, potatoes cooked by Prairie Man, and brownies made by me (confession: from a mix). I was concerned that he had really overdone it, but when it was time to head home, he woke right up and was very peppy. We both had an excellent time hanging out together and bonding.

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Holiday Potluck

Friday we had our holiday potluck at work. The theme was German and Jewish food, so I was searching for an easy yet somewhat authentic recipe. A coworker actually found a perfect one: take two pounds of kielbasa, slice it into inch-long pieces, throw it into a slow cooker with sauerkraut and beer, and let it cook on low for six hours. I thought, "Even I can handle that!" My coworker was going to bring her crock pot in for me to use, but she stayed home sick, so I borrowed Rich's. And wouldn't you know I was about the only one who brought in something homemade? Most people brought boughten stuff. (Spell Check doesn't like that word but Kathbert will tell you it's a real word.) Then the director brought around sprigs of holly, so I have one sitting in a vase on my desk, looking all festive. Because none of the desserts were homemade, it was very easy to say no to all of them. Travalon does not like anything but the beer in what I had made, so Rich, Kathbert, and I ate the leftovers.

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Who's a Foodie?

Monday night I went to Slow Food with some coworkers as usual, and we met a guy there that I know from early music circles. He was talking about the food and how they made it, and how he had made something similar at home, and one of my coworkers said, “You’re a real foodie.” He denied this characterization of himself, and I wondered why. What makes a foodie, after all, if not interest in food? Of course, foodies tend to be interested in more gourmet foods, whereas lots of people are interested in food but would just as happily eat a box of macaroni and cheese. This guy was saying how he took a box of macaroni and cheese and then made it fancy with all kinds of additions, I think radicchio was mentioned and who but a true foodie would add that to something? I always think of foodies as being the food equivalent of beer snobs, you know – people like me. I love microbrews but don’t drink the big name flavorless stuff. So maybe this guy objected to being classified as a foodie because he thought it implied snobbery, but since he also has rarified tastes in music, he should just embrace his inner snob. What’s wrong with preferring real food to overly processed stuff? Nothing! We should all be foodies.

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Pepper Spray

Every time I can't think of anything to blog about, Toque McToque comes through with something. This is a true story that happened to her and her husband:

Last night Mr. McToque was making dinner, a mix of potatoes, eggs, veggies - what we call a “garbage plate.” He thought he’d add a couple of jalapeños from our plant. We were both aware that this year the heat and dry conditions made for hotter peppers, but had no reason for concern as we love spicy food.  Mr. McToque chapped them up and tossed them into a hot pan…that didn’t have enough oil in it. What happened was that the oils from the peppers were released into the air instead of staying in the pan. The end result? It was like being pepper sprayed, we coughed and sneezed for several hours, even after we opened the windows.  

So thanks for pepper spraying yourself for the sake of my blog, Toque. I can always count on you!

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