November Five Fabulous Finds

1. Smoked Cheese

In October's Five Fabulous Finds I mentioned  Michelle Obama's recipe for macaroni and cheese made with cauliflower that I had slightly modified.  One of those modifications was that I used smoked Gouda.  In the past month I have come to the realization that  I love smoked cheese. - any kind of smoked cheese.  We made butternut squash and crispy kale pizza the other night and used smoked mozzarella.  It was awesome!  Brooke then made leak bread pudding for Thanksgiving in which she used smoked cheddar.  The smoked cheeses took each of these recipes over the top.  This latest obsession led to investigate just how one goes about smoking cheese.

Weber smokes our Thanksgiving turkey.  This year Brooke asked that he also smoke some kosher salt for her.  Surely we have the basic tool necessary to smoke cheese - the smoker.  I googled smoked cheese.  I found this,  a YouTube video that shows you how to smoke cheese in an electric smoker. Score!

We will have to try this during the Christmas break.

2. shortcourses.com

Shortcourses.com is a site with a digital library for photographers.  I discovered them while trying to find some tips for something I was trying to do with my camera.  They sell all kinds of photography books from the basics for true beginners to stereo photography.  

One thing that I particularly like is that they offer some basic photography courses that are camera specific.  When information is being given about the shooting menu or where certain buttons and controls are located, the illustrations and commentary are relative to your specific camera.  The books are well written, thorough but easily accessible.

As an aside, their customer service is friendly and helpful as well.  Somehow, I was attempting to download one of the books to my iPad and failed miserably.  In trying multiple times, I exhausted my allotted number of downloads.  I emailed customer service and they made some suggestions as to what the problem might be a reauthorized my download.  I had no problems this time.  They then followed up the next day just to make sure that I was able to access the book this time.

3. Thanksgiving List

I read about this new book

on this blog.

Like I have mentioned recently, Thanksgiving is not my favorite when it comes to holidays so I was not too interested in a book about Thanksgiving, even if it was a cookbook.  I did, however, find the following, excerpted from Sam Sifton’s book, to be enlightening and a little entertaining.

10 Laws of Thanksgiving Dinner
by Sam Sifton

1. Let me speak plainly: you are going to need a lot of butter. Thanksgiving is not a day for diets, or for worrying about your cholesterol. It is a day on which we celebrate the delicious. And there is precious little on a Thanksgiving menu that is not made more delicious by butter. (Note: It should be unsalted butter. There is something magical about a piece of toast with salted butter. But for Thanksgiving, you want the unsalted variety, so that it is you, and not the butter maker, who is in control of the saltiness of your cooking. Figure at least two pounds for the day.)

2. Thanksgiving is a holiday that anchors itself in tradition. Which means: You should make turkey. Turkey is why you are here.

3. I’ll risk starting a brushfire by saying with great confidence that the two most important factors in any credible Thanksgiving feast are the cranberry sauce and the gravy. Debate that all you like. But they tie every element on the plate together, acting as frame and foundation alike. Cranberry sauce only enhances what is already excellent, and good gravy can cure almost any Thanksgiving ill.

4. You can make mashed potatoes lumpy with a fork or a masher device, or smooth with a food mill or stand mixer. And of course you can make them without peeling the potatoes, if your scrub the skins well. This makes for an attractive, rustic-looking dish. Indeed, the only trouble that should ever present itself when the subject comes to mashed potatoes and Thanksgiving is should someone demand that garlic or basil be added to the mix. Your response to this heresy should be brief and unequivocal: No. There is no place in the holiday for a mixture of garlic and potatoes, much less basil and potatoes. The flavors clash with the turkey and other sides. No.

5. Start serving drinks the minutes your guests arrive, no matter the hour. Thanksgiving is not a time to judge.

6. When hosting, do not be afraid to delegate.

7. Dessert need not be extravagant. It absolutely should not be experimental or overly cute. It must not involve individual tartlets or parfaits, nor marshmallows in any form. Save the chocolate for nights of depression and anxiety. Instead, focus on the proper execution of the American classics: apple pie, for instance, with a mound of whipped cream, or pumpkin pie with same. These represent Thanksgiving’s highest achievement. They are an explanation of American exceptionalism, in pastry form.

8. There is no “right” wine for Thanksgiving, no must-have grape or vintage, cocktail or spirit. Nor is there a “wrong” one, though I’d stay away from the low-end fortified stuff unless you are in a boxcar, hurtling west. What you want is a variety of grapes and vintages. Encourage guests to bring wines that interest them, wines that they would like others to try. Additionally, lay in some specialty items: beer for your uncle who only drinks Bud; nonalcoholic sparkling cider for the children; and plenty of Diet Cokes and ashtrays for those who no longer drink.

9. If you find yourself as a guest at someone else’s Thanksgiving, there is no finer gift to bring than a pie and a bottle of brown liquor.

10. As everyone takes a seat and prepares to eat, there is the delicate moment where you or someone at the table should ask for everyone’s attention, and offer thanks to one and all for being present, and for helping out. This is extraordinarily important. It is the point of the entire exercise. William Jennings Bryan wrote, “On Thanksgiving Day, we acknowledge our dependence.” I think that’s just about right.

4. Chocolate Chip Scones

On Thursday evenings, Weber and I have been taking an ongoing class.  It has quickly become a tradition to stop at Dunn Bros. Coffee on our way home and get a pastry.  Though everything that I have had from Dunn Bros. Provisions Bakery has been great, my favorite has become the chocolate chip scones - not too heavy, not too sweet and with chocolate.  They are absolutely perfect with a nice bold cup of coffee.

When Brooke was home last week, she asked if there was anything in particular that I wanted her to bake.  My recent obsession with chocolate chip scones immediately came to mind.  Brooke makes an awesome vanilla scone; all she would have to do is throw in a few chocolate chips and voila!

Literally as she was walking out the door to fly back to Chicago, she filled a plastic bag with ready-to-bake scones.  She also kindly wrote the cooking instructions in purple Sharpie on the bag.  

Last night being Thursday night, I had the first of Brooke’s scones.

All I can so is “Yum! These are worth every calorie!

I sent this picture to Brooke as a "thank-you."  Her response, "You can tell they are good because you can see the layers of butter."  

5. Scramble With Friends

One of my students introduced me to this game. 

It is much like the board game Boggle.  In two minutes, you have to find as many words as can that can be created using contiguous letters.

Yes, it is one of those games played on your phone or iPad.  Yes, it is addictive.  Yes, I have multiple games going at any given time.  Yes, I most often get beat.  Yes, it is still fun.

October Five Fabulous Finds

1. Cauliflower Mac and Cheese

Sometimes you have had a hard day and all you want to eat is some good old-fashioned comfort food.  You try to combat these urges by telling yourself, "I will really regret it if I eat a huge plate of cheese fries or a big bowl of mashed potatoes or a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies."  And then, you open the refrigerator and you see two big heads of cauliflower staring at you.  They mutter things like, "If you don't eat me soon I will turn brown and smelly and maybe even liquify before your very eyes.  If I do that, you will regret even more having eaten those mashed potatoes or cookies instead of me."

Guilt wins and I decide it best to make something with the cauliflower.  As I poured over all kinds of cauliflower recipes, I came across one that had the potential to be a win-win - Cauliflower Mac and Cheese.  Mac and Cheese definitely fits the bill as an old-fashioned comfort food and I could use the cauliflower and thus keep myself from again being threatened by the cauliflower twins residing in my fridge.

The recipe that I used is an adapted version of the one by Michelle Obama that appears in her cookbook, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America.

Ingredients

1 pound pasta  
1 cup 2 percent or skim milk
1 pound shredded cheese
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

These are the original ingredients.  I used farfale pasta.  It gives the dish that "grown-up" look.  I also used a cup of chopped kale instead of parsley.  And, the thing that I think sends the recipe over the top is using smoked gouda instead of plain ol' cheddar cheese..  I also added a few buttered bread crumbs  and baked it in the oven for a few minutes just to give it a little crunch.

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Bring salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente.
2. Steam the cauliflower until soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender along with a few tablespoons of the steaming liquid. Puree the cauliflower, adding more steaming liquid to thin the puree if necessary.
3. In a medium size casserole dish, combine the pasta and hot cauliflower puree. Add the milk, both cheeses, parsley, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. I added this step at the suggestion of another blogger.  In a small bowl, mix the butter and breadcrumbs with your fingers until it resembles damp sand. Sprinkle across the top of the pasta mixture, then place the dish in the oven for about 20 minutes until the top is crispy and the sauce is bubbling.

This was an awesome version of mac and cheese.  If I do it again, and I definitely will, I'll halve the recipe.  We ate dinner and several lunches from the batch I made.  As good as it was, I was tired of it after the fifth or sixth meal.

2. Capture Your 365 Idea Lists  (http://captureyour365.com/category/idea-list/)

I had a lot of fun over the summer with the Visual Cents Project.  I was surprised at the void left in my days once it was over.  With the extra time I had, I surfed the web for websites and blogs about photography.  I stumbled upon the site Capture Your 365.  It is a site that encourages you to take a picture every day of the year!  Suddenly, accomplishing my hundred days of pictures seemed so small. 

 What is really cool about this website is that its owner, Katrina Kennedy, publishes a monthly list of photo prompts.  Where was that back in August when I had photographed every duck and flower in Farmers Branch and was wondering where to shoot next?  The prompts are interesting, fun and leave room for one's own creative take.  The site also has a gallery where readers can post their images and look at how others interpreted the prompts.  Though I have not successfully kept up with a picture a day, I do stop by the gallery every day to live vicariously through those who are committed to the Capture Your 365 project.  I'm trying to decide whether or not I can make and, more importantly, keep that kind of photography commitment in 2013.  I'll let you know when I decide.

3. Gas Fire Logs

I have always been a purist when it comes to fires in the fireplace. Big hunks of wood fueled by wads of newspaper and empty cereal boxes is the only way I thought a fire should be built.  This poses a bit of a problem though because I am also afraid of fires inside.  Even lighting candles makes me nervous.  Outside is a different story.  I like campfires, bonfires, barbecue fires and citronella candles.  I can build a pretty mean campfire.  Maybe my fears stem from the fact that in a past life I was a pyromaniac that burned a house down or something.  I don't know . . .

Anyway, one of things that we have done during the whole house renovation is redo the fireplace.  It has gone from a brick facing to a stone facing, from no mantel to a beautiful hand carved wood mantel and from only a gas starter to a set of gas logs. 

 I was afraid that the whole cozy fire ambiance might lose something with "fake" logs.  It doesn't. They are pretty darn amazing!  (This photo doesn't really tell the true story.)

And, coincidentally, we had them installed the very day that the cold front waltzed through Dallas and dropped the temperatures to the upper thirties!

4. Mr. Potato Head Pumpkin

When the girls were little, Halloween was the big kiddie celebration at our house.  We had a big party with kids in costumes, games, crafts, food and pumpkins.  We did it right!  This was mostly because the girls' birthdays are over the Christmas holidays; we could't count on their friends being available for a party during that time of year. 

 In my effort to do it right,  I made all of the girls' costumes, a feat that both of them have thanked me for in the last couple of days.  I'm glad that they remember and appreciate that I did that.  They seem genuinely grateful that I never dressed them in "one of those lame store-bought costumes." And Erin made me promise that I would do the same for her kids some day because she doesn't sew.  I think that I might be better off teaching her how to sew rather than committing to another generation of handmade Halloween costumes!  Although, I did enjoy making all those crazy costumes . . .

I also liked to carve jack-o-lantern thought I have not done that in years.  Carving pumpkins is a great deal of work and generates a great deal of mess.  I thought about doing it this year, but quickly realized that I really didn't have the time to dedicate to it but I really wanted a Halloween pumpkin.  

Walking through Target the other day, I came across Mr. Potato Head pieces for a pumpkin.  How cool is that?  Or, maybe it is just lazy.  Whichever the case, we bought one.  With a screwdriver (for punching the holes) and a few minutes l ended up with this.  Isn't he handsome?

Yes, I was deprived of handfuls of seeds and pumpkin slime all over.  I also avoided the very real possibility that I would slice some portion of a hand or finger with a sharp knife.  I think the trade off was worth it.

We are becoming fond of our Vampire pumpkin.  We'll look forward to seeing him again this time next year.

5.  Peace Through Music 
Click on the title above link to see and hear an amazing tale about the power of music.  The video is nearly twenty minutes long so make sure you have time to watch it if you click on it now.  If you don't have twenty minutes right now, make sure you come back and watch it when you do.  It is well worth the time.

On a similar note, here is another opportunity to see how music impacts the lives of others and the world around us.  Those of you in the Dallas area should come hear Resounding Harmony on Saturday November 17th at 8pm at the new Dallas City Performance Hall..  The concert benefits the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundations.  For information about Resounding Harmony and to purchase tickets for our upcoming concert visit our website www. resounding harmony.org.  

Like the above-mentioned video, this concert is also well worth your time.  You'll enjoy a fun-filled evening of music and children living with brain tumors will benefit from the proceeds of the concert.  Another win-win situation.

I hope you all enjoyed October and Halloween!  Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas are just around the corner!

September's Five Fabulous Finds

Pencil Case (http://www.jetpens.com/Nomadic-PE-09-Flap-Type-Pencil-Case-Navy/pd/4414)

I am a sucker for pens and pencils.  I like to have certain writing implements for certain writing tasks.  This means that I usually have a selection of such with me - gel pens for journaling (black or blue), purple pens for grading (red is too harsh), highlighters  (yellow and green), Tricondaroga pencils (that necessitate their own sharpeners because they are triangular) . . .you get the picture.  Then there are the paper clips, sticky notes, thumb drives, and all the other small stuff that floats around in my backpack unless it is properly contained.  So, I began a search for the perfect pencil case.  After browsing various websites, I finally settled on this one.  

It has two pouches and a pocket with smaller pockets inside!  At present, it is the most perfect that I have found.

DYAC http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/category/best-of-dyac/

DYAC stands for “Damn You Auto Correct”

The other night I had the following text message exchange with Erin.

I should have ended it with LMAO, but I didn’t.  What I did do was discover that the Internet is full of hilarious screen shots of text messages that have gone to the dark side thanks to auto correct.  After reading some of those, Erin’s message seemed tame by comparison.  I spent more time than I am willing to admit LMAO.

I have often thought it would be funny to keep a list of things with which auto correct has tried to help me.  A week or so ago I was trying to send a student an email about a composition that had an ostinato bass line.  Auto correct wanted it to be “obstinate” bass line, which may also have been accurate, but not the word I was looking.  

(FYI   As I write this, ostinato is underlined in red.)

Cookies

I love cookies.  The problem is that I don’t eat them very; when I do, I hate to decide which kind I want.  Should I have one that is just OK so I won’t eat as many?  Or, should I eat a really good one so that the caloric sin is worth the guilt that accompanies it?  Still there is difficulty.  Chocolate chip?  Snickerdoodles? Peanut butter?  Oatmeal?

I promised I would bake cookies to take to the knit shop the other day.  I thumbed through a cookbook that I had not looked at for some time and came across the perfect recipe, one that I used to make fairly frequently.  It is from the cookbook, Seasons of Santa Fe.  The cookies are Linda’s Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies.  What makes them outrageous?”  They contain chocolate chips, peanut butter and oatmeal.  What could be better?  And they are healthy too because they contain whole wheat flour:-)

Sorry, I have no picture; they didn’t last long enough.  The best I can do is the recipe.

LINDA”S OUTRAGEOUS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 stick butter (room temperature)

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

2 large eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups chocolate chips

In a large bowl, cream together the white and brown sugars, butter, peanut butter, vanilla and milk. Add the eggs and mix well. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, oats, baking soda and chocolate chips. Slowly add to the egg mixture combining well. Chill the dough covered overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Form dough into 1 inch balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake on the center rack for 12 minutes.

Eat and don’t feel guilty!!

There are lots of other tasty recipes in this cookbook, but it was worth the price just for these cookies!

Power Washer

You may remember a few posts ago where I chronicled the clogged kitchen sink, the holes in the kitchen floor, the corroded cast iron pipe, and the mounds of dirt in the middle of the kitchen floor.  If not, you can read about it here.

During that time, the house was filthy because of all the jack hammering and digging.  Trying to stay on top of the dust and dirt with the broom and vacuum cleaner was a futile effort.  So what did we do?  We power washed the patio.  I know, this probably sounds futile too, especially since we have the dog who mistakes concrete for grass.  That aside, power washing the patio brought immediate gratification.  We watched as the force of the water pounded away years of dirt.  It was amazing.  So, let me introduce you to my new best friend.

This is Paul’s power washer.  Hopefully Santa will bring us one of our own!

Bubbles

Sometimes you just need to play.  And, there is about no better way to do that than by blowing bubbles.  At the beginning of the school year, the teachers at Weber’s school drew names for a back to school secret pal.  They were supposed to give each other something that would start the year off on a happy note.  We got diet coke (per request) and bubbles for his secret pal.  When the secret pals were revealed, his pal stopped and told him what great fun she was having with her bubbles.

We usual have a bottle of bubbles at the house.  Every now and then we remember to play with them.

Several years ago, I wrote a more serious post about bubbles.  However, I recommend just having fun with them!

July's Five Fabulous Finds

Chooze Shoes

A few weeks ago we were wandering around REI.  My attention was drawn to a rack of what turned out to be brightly colored children’s shoes.  These canvas shoes came in lots of multi-colored patterns.  As I looked more closely, I realized that the right and left shoes did not absolutely match each other in pattern; they complimented one another - very nicely.  I stood there looking through all of the choices secretly wishing that they came in adult sizes.  While enjoying the kaleidoscope of colors before me,  I remembered a comment by composer Igor Stravinsky when he said, “To be perfectly symmetrical is to be perfectly dead.”  Who is it that decided that our shoes had to match each other anyway?

When I got home I decided to google Chooze Shoes just to see what they were all about.  The company’s mission is to create shoes that allow children to embrace and celebrate their uniqueness and their differences.  They also strive to make this world we share a better place for all of us.  Part of the Chooze Shoes mission is to teach children about the importance of caring for our environment.  The shoes are made from vegan friendly materials and they come in “art boxes” rather than shoe boxes.  These boxes are constructed from recycled materials and they provide the shoe recipients the opportunity to color their own box.  At the end of each year Chooze Shoes also invest its profits in various anti-poverty programs.

And best of all, they do come in adult sizes!  REI does not carry them but they can be ordered online here.

I have not ordered any yet because I can’t decide which ones I want.

“To live is to choose.  But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to go there.”  - Kofi Annan

Rick Guidotti

I have been reading about Rick Guidotti and his organization Positive Exposure for several years.  Rick began his career as a New York fashion photographer, taking glamorous photos of top models for the top fashion magazines all over the world.  One day after finishing one of these shoots he was walking down the street in New York City where he spotted a young girl with albinism waiting for the bus.  He says that he was instantly struck with her beauty, a different beauty from the models he regularly photographed but none the less beautiful.  He wanted to take her picture.  It didn’t work out that day, but Rick perservered.  He has now turned the focus of his career as a photographer to capturing images of people with all kinds of genetic differences from all over the world.  His work is absolutely amazing.  

Not only is his work amazing, but he too is an amazing person.  I was blessed to meet him and have his undivided attention for a conversation while we were at the NOAH conference.  We talked about albinism, photography, cameras, Texas, and probably a few other things that I now can’t remember.  For me, talking to him gave me the same thrill that a young athlete gets from meeting his or her favorite superstar.  He even offered to put a link to my blog on his Facebook page.  I have not taken him up on that offer though I do believe he was absolutely serious iwhen he made it.

Here is a link to Rick giving a TED lecture.  The fifteen minutes it takes to watch this are time well spent, I promise.  You can also read more about him and Positive Exposure on their website.  

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Neither Weber nor I are big movie buffs, but we both enjoy a good movie every now and then.  Though we toy around often with going to the theater to see a current movie, that has not happened yet this summer.  On a hot Sunday afternoon not too long ago, we had intentions of going to see The Exotic Marigold Hotel at the theater.  As it got later in the day and the thermometer outside rose above a hundred degrees, we ditched the plans for our excursion to the theater and opted to stay home and instead watch something on Netflix.

Because we are not movie buffs, we are often at a loss for what there is to watch much less what we most likely would enjoy watching.  In the case of this hot summer afternoon, we let Netflix make recommendations based on movies we had watched previously, settling on Gifted Hands:The Ben Carson Story, one that we had not ever heard of.

I’m not going to give the story away.  Suffice it to say that this movie based on the true life story of Dr. Ben Carson, played by Cuba Gooding, is a must see for every student, teacher, parent, brother, sister, preacher, professor, doctor, and anyone else that I may have left out.  In my humble opinion, everyone should see this movie!

If you don’t have Netflix, call me; you can come watch it at my house.  I will gladly watch it again and again and again . . .

Hummus

Though I love to cook, preparing hot meals during the summer heat loses much of its appeal.  Though from a taste perspective I could live on a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, my body gets kind of cranky when it doesn’t get enough protein.  And protein is usually what needs to be cooked.  

Enter the bean.  I am a fan of almost any kind of bean.  Yes, they do need to be cooked, but you get more bang for your buck when you cook beans than when you cook meat.  Lately I have been cooking a pound or sometimes more of beans and freezing the cooked bean in containers comparable to the 15.8 ounce cans of beans sold at the grocery store.  I don’t season them at all at this point.  I just cook them; they are then ready to be used just like canned beans in any recipe.

Hummus has become a staple of our summer diet. It is cold, tastes great and can be eaten on pita or crackers or used as a dip with freshly cut vegetables.  Though you can buy hummus already made, I always make my own.  I’ll share my secret here - I use great northern beans rather than the traditional garbanzo beans found in “authentic” hummus.  

If you are a fan of hummus or would like to try it for the first time, here is my basic recipe.  I’ll have to confess that I don’t always measure so mine does not come out exactly the same each time, but it is always pretty darn good.

2 cans great northern beans, drained

1/2 C tahini

8-10 cloves of garlic

1/4 C lemon juice

6 Tbs. Olive oil

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

• some recipes call for coriander.  I usually don’t use it.

Place the garlic cloves in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  Add the rest of the ingredients and process until you have a creamy texture.  You can add water a little at a time if your hummus is too thick.

All of the seasoning can be adjusted to suit your personal taste.  Experiment.  And, enjoy!

Stella Artois

I am a fairly wimpy drinker and certainly not a beer connoisseur.  I just know what I like and know what I don’t.  Most of the time I can’t give you an intelligent reason for why I like or don’t like a particular beer.  I like Stella Artois.

It is a Belgian light lager distributed by Anheuser Busch.  Though I believe it was originally created to be a seasonal beer for the Christmas season, it is now available all year long.  It’s light, less than strong flavor and aroma make it a good choice for a hot summer evening.  It might even taste pretty good with a little hummus and pita bread.

Remember that I said that I am a wimpy drinker . . .

June's Five Fabulous Finds

Zum Clean

We make a conscious effort to use household items that are environmentally friendly.  For me, one of the most difficult places to implement this was with laundry detergent.  This is not because such a product is hard to find; there are many earth-friendly detergents on the market.  The problem for me is that I have this thing about the way the detergent, well really my clothes, smell.  I want them to smell good.  Seemingly I have different ideas than most about what good smelling clothes really means.  Simply stated, I don’t want my clothes to smell sweet and I don’t want them to smell like food.  When I say food, herbs are okay, but no pears or apples or coconut or vanilla.  Because nature, or maybe its nurture, is such a powerful thing, my youngest daughter shares my quirkiness with regard to laundry detergent.  She and I have had a few mother-daughter bonding moments while opening and sniffing the various brands of detergent in the grocery store.  We are both happy with anything that smells clean.  I know you are wondering what I mean by clean.  To me, clean is mint or eucalyptus.  I can’t really explain this; its just the way it is.

My search for an earth friendly good smelling laundry detergent ended with Indigo Wild’s Zum Clean aromatherapy laundry detergent.  

I love the eucalyptus citrus scent.  If that doesn’t do it for you, they have several others.  You can read more about this and Indigo Wild’s other products here.

Photoshop Express App

I have all but eliminated the use of my laptop in my life in favor of my iPad.  I have had to sacrifice a few things doing this, but I am learning to adapt.  I am a fledgling Adobe Photoshop user.  I have it on my desktop and I use it regularly - especially since I have started the Visual Cents Project.  I primarily use it to crop photos and do minor tweaks to the brightness and contrast.  I know that the software is capable of so much more than what I do with it.  Maybe some day I’ll figure out how to make myself look fifteen pounds lighter and wrinkle-free.  Until then I’m happy with the basic effects that I know how to use.  Because I don’t employ all of the fancy stuff available in the full version of Photoshop, I am happy with the limited things that I can do on my iPad with the Photoshop Express App.  Like most things, it has pros and cons.  This past week its biggest pro was that I could take, upload, edit, and post pictures to my blog without having to carry my laptop.  This App is definitely geared to the general consumer rather than the photo professional, but it is fun to play with and does an okay job with minor photo enhancements.

Jet Fuel K-Cups by Coffee People

At our house coffee is a basic food group.  And in our personal food pyramid, there is no maximum number of servings allowed per day.  We drink a lot of coffee - from morning to bedtime - and yes, then go right to sleep.  Though we have a “regular” coffee pot, the majority of the coffee we drink at home is brewed in the Keurig.  Doing this means that we can have a variety of coffees on hand.  

One of Weber’s household chores is to make sure that we never run out of K-cups.  He keeps track of what we have and who has K-cups on sale.  He knows that I am a fan of bold coffee.  The bolder and stronger it is, the better I like it.  When he ordered K-cups this month, he bought Coffee People’s Jet Fuel for me.  It is an extra bold coffee and is so smooth.  It is full of pure coffee lfavor and not bitter at all.

Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport

(http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/Airport/Pages/default.aspx)

If you have been reading my last week’s posts you know that we spent five hours in the Charlotte airport last Saturday.  Over the years, I have spent many hours in many different airports.  The Charlotte airport is by far the nicest airport that I have experienced.  It was easy to navigate. There were lots of food and beverage choices.  You could get a pedicure.  The concourses were lined with rocking chairs.  And, every airport employee with whom we came in contact was helpful and cheerful.

I was most impressed by the women’s restroom attendant on Concourse C.  She sang.  She sang to everyone who came into the restroom.  Her song whose words were intended to bless all of her guests that entered her restroom were from her heart.  Because we were in the airport for so long, I made several trips to her restroom.  On my last visit she said, “Here comes my friend again.”  She followed this by saying that she hoped that I got where I was heading soon.  This attendant did her best to comfort all the weary travelers with whom she came in contact.  She ushered mothers with small children to the larger stalls.  She made little boys who felt uncomfortable about being in the women’s room with their moms feel okay about being there.  She also offered wisdom to all who entered.  She urged all of us waiting in the airport to use this time to call a friend.  She went on to talk about how important friends are in our lives.  

This woman clearly took her job seriously and gave all that she had to doing it well.  Most of us don’t think about making a career of being an airport restroom attendant.  However, if all of us in the working world were as happy doing what we do and as committed to serving the people with whom we interact each day as this woman was, I guarantee the world would be a much better place!

Sarna Lotion

I am an insect magnet.  There could be a hundred people in a room and one lonely biting insect and I would be the one to get bitten.  I think those biting bugs know that they will get the most bang for their bite if they gnaw on me.  Once i’m bitten, huge welts appear and the itch becomes crazy-making.  I don’t know if I am truly allergic or just hyper-sensitive to insect bites.  I have also read that people with lupus are often particularly sensitive to insect bites.  It doesn’t really matter what the reason is.  The fact is that bug bites make me miserable.  The misery comes from the fact that none of the standard anti-itch remedies seem to work for me.  I can pour a half a bottle of Benadryl on a bite and continue to scratch.

While in Delaware, I became a feast for the east coast mosquitoes.  The various parts of my body became the stops for a progressive dinner.  By the time they were fat and happy, I was miserable.  The Benadryl that I had with me was useless.  My dad offered me Sarna lotion, something that I had never heard of.  

On the bottle it says that it is for itchy skin from rashes, sunburn, eczema, poison ivy and insect bites.  A that point I had nothing to lose and would have tried just about anything.  I slathered it on all my welts.  Almost immediately the itching subsided.  A miracle occurred!  And, it has continued to work, even on the Texas bugs who seemed to have been malnourished while I was gone.  Sarna Lotion’s active ingredients are camphor and menthol.  No steroids.  I am now a fan.  Hopefully the magic will continue.


Farewell June.

May's Five Fabulous Finds

NOAH

NOAH is the National Organization for Albinism and Hypo-pigmentation.  The group’s purpose is to provide support education and research with regard to albinism as well as to create a community for individuals and families whose lives are impacted by albinism.  By the time NOAH was founded in 1982, I had made it through grade school and graduated from college.  I had successfully maneuvered the challenges of albinism somehow on my own.  I did not discover this organization until a year or so ago.  Since then, I have become involved by writing for their member publication and Weber and I will attend the national NOAH conference this summer.  In an email exchange I had with another NOAH member, I said that I was surprised that I hadn’t discovered NOAH sooner.  She said, “People find NOAH when they need it or when they have something to offer.”  I hope that I have something to offer.

SLAW CHOPPER

We have gotten at least one head of cabbage, and sometimes two, in our CSA bin every two weeks since February.  That is a lot of cabbage, which because I prefer uncooked cabbage, translates to a lot of cole slaw.  And a lot of cole slaw translates to a lot of chopping cabbage.  Sometimes you don’t have to go any further than your own kitchen for a fabulous find.  Though we still have no doors on our kitchen cabinets, we do have shelves and completed under counter drawers.  This has allowed us to finally unpack, sort, whittle down, and put away all of our kitchen stuff.  In doing so we found Weber’s mother’s Serrated Edge Slaw Chopper.  Seemingly these are not the preferred modern tool for slaw chopping, but it works great - and is a lot less trouble than dealing with the food processor and a whole lot safer than a serrated edge knife!  Our cole slaw recipe is  “Zesty Cabbage Salad” from Ginny Callan’s BEYOND THE MOON COOKBOOK, slightly modified by adding just a few red pepper flakes.  This is an awesome slaw recipe!

KEN ROCKWELL

As part of the “Visual Cents” project I have been doing some reading about how to improve my photography.  I ran across this online article.  After reading it, I explored the rest of Ken Rockwell’s website.  It is one of the most down-to-earth, readable, and helpful websites I have ever seen.  

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

Now that I am on break, I have been doing a little pleasure reading.  At the recommendation of one of my students I am reading Milam Kundera’s THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING.  I am somewhat hesitant to include it here at this point because I have not yet finished this novel; however, I was drawn into it in the first few paragraphs.  In a nutshell, it is a love story of sorts which is couched in a discourse with Nietzsche and his ideas on eternal recurrence.  That is all I am going to say about this right now.  Perhaps I will say more once I have finished the book.

FOOD TRUCKS

Food trucks are a late addition to this edition of fabulous finds.  Tonight we went literally around the corner from our house to have dinner from a food truck, our first such experience.  It was great fun.  The area was packed with people young and old, black, white, hispanic, asian, families with children  - in strollers, on bikes with training wheels, walking, running, dancing,  couples strolling hand in hand, lots of people with their canine companions, and ten or so food trucks.  Food choices included sandwiches, pizza, burgers, tacos - both Mexican and Korean, frozen desserts and beverages that ran the gamut from water to beer.  We drove to the trucks this time because we were on our way home from running a few errands; next time we’ll walk so that we can partake in the beer.

And tomorrow, June will be bustin' out all over!

April's Five Fabulous Finds

RENTTHERUNWAY

Anyone who knows me knows that fashion is not my deal.  A comfy pair of jeans and an over-sized shirt are my idea of personal style.  So why did I include this, a website where one goes to rent designer dresses, as one of my Five Fabulous Finds this month?  Sometimes it is fun to venture into foreign lands even if we feel a little ridiculous doing so.  Offspring No. 1 introduced me to RENTTHE RUNWAY.  She is a fashion maven.  And, she recognizes and respects my personal style.  I love that kid!  Anyway, because she is a fashion maven, she knows where to go for clothes.  She got her dress for our wedding from RENTTHERUNWAY and I must say that she looked awesome!  While Brooke was home, we logged onto the site and “shopped” together.  She pointed out all the dresses that perhaps I could wear if by some rare chance I found myself in a situation that required me to give the allusion of having any fashion sense at all.  The truth is that I might be willing to wear the dress; it is the appropriate (Translation: high-heeled) shoes with which I have serious issues!  But, you never know.  I do have a wedding to attend next month.

EURO-CUISINE YOGURT MAKER

We eat a lot of yogurt.  Like most things, it is better when it is homemade.  When you make it yourself you know exactly what is in it.  Plain yogurt is exactly that - plain yogurt.  It contains nothing but milk and yogurt cultures, which came from the last batch of yogurt that you made.  Vanilla yogurt contains milk, cultures, vanilla, and tyour sweetener of choice in the amount of your choice.   When Weber and I married, we made intentional decisions about what kitchen “stuff” to keep.    The general rule was that there was no place for single use appliances and gadgets.  It is surprising the things that did not make the cut. The yogurt maker is now one of the few single use appliances in our kitchen.  It is possible to make yogurt without such an appliance.  In fact, many people use a heating pad to keep the yogurt warm while it processes.  For me, however, when it comes to mixing food and bacteria, I want to make sure that this relationship happens correctly.  The yogurt maker assures that. It maintains the exact temperature necessary.  To quote Goldilocks, “It’s just right!”  For this the yogurt maker earns every square inch that it occupies in the pantry!

HOMEMADE BUTTER

Not only do we make our own yogurt, we also make our own butter.  I ran across a cookbook not too long ago entitled Bake the Bread Buy the Butter.  I haven’t read the book so I’m not sure why the author commands this.  I have to assume that it must be because the truth is that it is not really any cheaper to make your own butter.  (Just like it is not any cheaper to knit your own sweaters.)  It certainly is not because butter is difficult to make.  Butter-making has become a weekly ritual for Weber.  It is kind of a Zen experience.  Each week we buy a pint of organic heavy whipping cream.  This and a stand mixer is all that is necessary.  You put the cream in the mixer bowl with whisk attachment and turn it on.  After about ten minutes the liquid and fat begin to separate.  A little more beating and the butter turns yellow.  The key to successful butter making is to squeeze every last drop of the liquid from the solid.  Once this is done, rinse the butter under cold water and store it either in the refrigerator or in a butter bell on the counter.  It’s easy!  My advice, bake the bread and make the butter.  It’s worth it.

EATING FROM THE GROUND UP

Based on the fact that we make our own butter and yogurt, why I like this blog written by Alana Chernila really needs no explanation.  Check out the link.

I am really not obsessed with food.  Well, maybe I am.  Well, my obsession is not with eating food but with the importance of developing a meaningful relationship with the food that we allow to enter our bodies.  I want to know the food that I am eating as intimately as know the person with whom I am living.  How we feed our bodies is as important as how we feed our minds and souls yet, as is evidenced by the statistics surrounding weight related disease in this country.  so many people these days neglect this extremely important relationship.

MARBLE COMPOSITION BOOKS

I admit that I am a slave to technology.  I have a computer, an iPad, and an iPhone; and, I use them all daily.  I also use an “old-fashioned” marbled composition book daily.  Here on my blog I chronicle many of the important, and a fair number of not so important, aspects of my daily life.  These posts are written on the computer.  But every morning I handwrite several pages in a marbled composition book.  These are the pages where I sort out all that is going on in my inner world.  Some of the ideas that I write in these books make it into blog posts, but not all of them.  You guys should be thankful for that!  Just trust me on this one.  I like these composition books because the covers are sturdy, not wimpy like spiral notebooks.  The pages don’t get bent back.  The binding is sewn.  I don’t have to worry about pages tearing out like with a spiral notebook.  Composition books come in many colors and in either college or wide ruled.  And, they are cheap.  They are the perfect repository for all those thoughts, ideas, questions, and complaints that we all have but are better kept to ourselves.

Farewell April.  I’m looking forward to the May flowers.