Ted and I were going through our pictures from our Southwest trip and I found one I meant to blog. It’s a picture of an awesome chocolate fountain at a candy shop in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Go ahead–salivate!
Category: Food
A family finish
We arrived in Longmont and were happy to see Jeff, La, Kyra, and Zaque. Kyra will be leaving on September 13 for her 18-month mission in Bakersfield, CA. To celebrate, Jeff and La took all of us to Kyra’s favorite restaurant, Benihana, for a farewell dinner. Jeff has told us many times how much they like this restaurant, so Ted and I were eager to see what it’s like. (Remember the trail mix lunch in Cheyenne? We were ready for dinner.)
There were six of us, and Benihana seats tables of eight, so two other people were seated with us. The six of us ordered the filet mignon; the other two people ordered salmon. I mention this because you can tell which food is going where in the pictures below. If there are only two of an item, that’s what the other people ordered. Everyone gets many of the same side dishes, so there are eight of some things.
The first course (vegetables) included the onion volcano. I’ve got to try this at home!
This man had sharper knives than I’ve ever seen. He has to cut the food to chopstick size and his knives slid right through everything, from the zucchini to the steak. Here he’s stirring the chicken cubes he cut.
And now, the main course–our steaks. It was so much fun to watch him cook and to smell everything, then have it served piping hot.
On Saturday, none of us wanted to do much of anything, so we relaxed at home. I found an interesting lamp in the room where Ted and I sleep and asked La about it. She said her mother made it for her.
La’s doll lamp.
Look what La’s mom used for the lamp base: a weighted Clorox bottle. You never know what women put on under their clothes to look good.
Sunday was church day and it was special because it was Kyra’s last Sunday and she was scheduled to give a 20-minute talk to the congregation about her upcoming mission. She had worked on the speech a lot before we arrived and she also spent several hours Friday night and Saturday polishing it and timing it so it would be just right. The speaker ahead of her went over his allotted time, but Kyra was told to use her full twenty minutes anyway. Her talk was excellent. She has a gift for personalizing what she says and it’s always interesting to hear the personal side of people’s stories. Church worked up an appetite, though, so when we got home, it was time for a snack.
At 4:00, we headed back to church for Kyra’s setting apart service. This rite set her apart as a missionary and she will have to follow missionary rules from this point forward. Only family and close friends attend the setting apart, and Ted and I were honored to be present. I asked Jeff ahead of time if this was a photo op celebration or if it was reverent and without pictures. He said “reverent” (no surprise to me), but I brought my phone along anyway. After the prayers and congratulations, the man who conducted the service (I don’t remember his title) smiled at all of us and asked, “Does anyone want a commemorative photo?” I produced my phone and he took a group picture of us.
Knowing what a busy and important day this would be, La had a beef roast in the crockpot. Combined with fresh seasonal corn on the cob, we had a delicious dinner and then sat around talking and playing games.
Sheephead has become a favorite of Zaque’s and Kyra’s. They must have some Wisconsin blood in them.
At one point, we found ourselves talking about rewards and punishments parents use with their children. Jeff’s family started talking about the “bucks” the kids used to get for good behavior that could be redeemed for privileges. Naturally, that required digging out some souvenir bucks.
Zaque tried to duplicate the expression on his childhood 10-buck.
Kyra’s grown-up smile is the same as her little girl smile.
Alex is still in Peru, but we included his bucks in our discussion. When she was little, Kari would have called these recollections “rememories.” I’ve always liked that word.
Much too soon, it was bedtime and our time together was over. Ted and I plan to leave at 5:30 am; Jeff and Zaque will be going to seminary at 6:00 am; and Kyra’s missionary rules say she should get up at 6:30 am. It looks like only La can sleep in tomorrow morning. We said good-night and good-bye to each other before going to bed. Jeff was up and dressed when Ted and I were ready to leave, so he wished us a safe trip and we were on our way. This MAT was one of our best trips ever. (But we say that after every trip.)
The sun rose as we drove eastward from Denver.
Summer beverage?
Kathy sent me a picture of some punch that would go well with the owl fruit plate I posted recently.
Fun with fruit
Here’s a summer fruit idea.
In the summertime. . .
Is there anything better than summer fruit in season? I don’t think so. I made this for dinner and it tastes even better than it looks.
Cookies!
I brought cookies to school today to celebrate my birthday with the kids I help on my weekly volunteer day. They are all teenagers, so of course they’re always hungry. Even so, they were very appreciative and repeatedly complimented me. The most frequent remarks were, “Thank you,” “Did you make these?” and “Did you work as a baker?”
It was fun to bake a variety of cookies like I used to do before our kids left home. While the kids were growing up, I baked about three batches of cookies every two weeks; now I make a half batch and it still lasts too long for Ted and me. I split these 14 dozen cookies three ways: some for school, some for Kari’s family, and some for Ted and me. At least for a few days, while Ted and I eat our share of the cookies, we can enjoy the variety of flavors like in the old days.
Left to right: carmel-filled bars with mini chocolate chips; brownies with raisins and nuts, topped with melted marshmallows and fudge frosting; TV squares (no reason for that name) with mini chocolate chips in a meringue topping.
The only thing I brought home was an empty (reusable) box. I think the cookies were a hit.
Yee-haw! Gatlinburg!
Our drive today took us from Nashville, TN to Asheville, NC. We planned to drive and hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but that plan became dependent on how the unexpected winter storm warning turned out. The weather was cloudy, but dry, with not a single flake of snow outside of Nashville, in spite of the dire predictions for a major storm throughout our driving area. The Smokies are very scenic, so it was a pretty day of driving in spite of the clouds.
A typical scene in the Great Smoky Mountains.
We had no activities planned except for the park visit, so the highlight of the drive–a distant second to the scenery–was Gatlinburg, TN. If you’ve been to Gatlinburg, I need say no more; if you haven’t, you should go for the experience. Think “Wisconsin Dells, WI” or “Branson, MO” and you’ll be getting close. Just add “Tennessee” to the mix and you’ve got the idea. Gatlinburg is a one-street town, and all four lanes of traffic were slow–even at this time of year. I’d hate to be here in the summer! It’s the entrance to the national park, however, so we sat back in the car, crept along, and watched the show.
Slow traffic on the mile-long main street of Gatlinburg.
If you can’t keep it in the front yard or on the porch beside the washer and the refrigerator, put it in the upstairs window.
It’s Tennessee, so of course there’s moonshine . . .
. . . not to mention a mall with a denim-clad bear as its mascot.When we got to the eastern end of Gatlinburg, we had another surprise.
Hwy 441 is the road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
It was disappointing to see the barricade after seeing no snow all day. Darn those higher elevations! Since we couldn’t drive on the single road that goes through the park, we had to turn around and drive through Gatlinburg (again!) in the other direction, then drive around the park.
We stopped for dinner at a restaurant called “Applewood.” If it can be done with an apple, it was on the menu. We ordered chicken pot pie. Included with the price of that entreé were apple juice, apple fritters, apple butter, fried apples, and apple dinner rolls. We were too full to finish the meal with the special deep-fried apple pie. Apples of many varieties were for sale as well. We noticed the heaters running in the apple storage area to protect the fruit from the freezing temperatures tonight. The food was delicious and we more than met our required daily requirement of fruit.
Even the curtains in the restaurant are apple-themed.
Appetizer: apple juice with apple fritters and apple butter.
Side dishes: apple dinner rolls and fried apples.
Cute
Ted and I went out to lunch. Since it was a gray, blustery day, I ordered a cup of hot chocolate. It came with the whipped cream on the side in a miniature milk can. Awww!
Best if used by . . . when?!?!?!
This is our eighth consecutive day with temperatures in the 90s, so a cold potato salad and deviled eggs sounded like good components for dinner tonight. That reminded me that we use more mustard in the summer than in the winter, so I checked for a spare mustard in the pantry, only to discover that it expired last year. It made sense then to check the expiration date on the mustard in the refrigerator. Uh-oh! It expired 18 months ago.
As a result of those revelations, Ted and I thought maybe we should check some other items in the pantry before we leave on our European trip. It was unbelievable! We found quite a few things that expired between 2011 and 2015, and even one that expired in 2009! Apparently, we don’t need to keep our pantry as well stocked as we thought. We purged all the expired items, replaced a few, and decided to hold off on buying replacements for the rest until the current box is nearly gone.
Most of the expired items were dry foods–rice, pudding, graham cracker crumbs, Jell-O, cake mixes, etc. I don’t think any of them would have killed us if we used them, but if they’ve been sitting unopened on the shelf for one to seven years past their expiration dates, a fresh product is probably a good idea.
A boxful of expired rejects
Happy (chocolate) Easter
It’s a beautiful spring day and we had no other commitments, so we went out to lunch and then drove to the Central West End. Our mission (which we chose to accept): check out the chocolate Easter eggs on display in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel lobby.
We learned from a local news report earlier this week that we were admiring 150 pounds of chocolate. The eggs were molded and decorated by a local chocolatier. Decorations were also handmade and were attached by gently blowing air (from a compressor, not from the decorator’s mouth) onto the chocolate to melt it slightly. Unfortunately, to preserve them while on display, the eggs were sprayed with an inedible coating, so there will be no choco-fest to consume them next week. What a waste of good chocolate!
You could smell the chocolate from 10 feet away. Yum!
The gold must be a coating on the chocolate. Notice the chocolate curlicues on the left egg.
Beautiful decorations!
Proof we were there. ? Happy Easter from both of us.
Mmm, mmm good
Homemade hard rolls for sloppy joes tonight. Recipe credits go to Laralee. The smell of fresh-baked bread is all ours.
I’m seeing red
Bissinger’s is ready for Valentine’s Day! The superpowers of the beautiful red candy boxes pulled us into the store tonight and made us buy two chocolate-covered cherries apiece. Yum! The superpowers of chocolate are awesome!