So...whats for dinner?

So Bedo - I didn't even know there was such a thing as Quaker co-housing. I looked it up & found this paragraph about mealtimes most interesting.

Family dinners, a tradition since the house's founding in 1957, are a central community activity for residents. (the) director of the Beacon Hill Friends House, views mealtime - often curry chicken or tofu with rice and salad - as a chance to practice sustainability while interacting. We consume less by buying things in bulk, so our footprint is smaller. We strive to live as better stewards of the earth, she said. I think that when we live in a community like this, we are fixing a lot of our basic needs, [including] social needs [by] eating together family-style.

Hooray for your new four day work week. That's great.

Lacey - the latest meal sounds good - and like lots of fun.

I had a giant omelette for 'linner'. My 4 choices were fresh mushrooms, asparagus, spinach & havarti cheese. This was served with a lunch size salad w/blue cheese dressing on the side. Is it just me or has blue cheese changed? Of course I prefer Roquefort but I don't know anywhere in town you can order that. And somehow blue cheese dressing now is oil & vinegar, or yogurt or something. Where's the creamy delight of my younger years? I can't even find a dressing in the grocery store that I like - refrigerated or not.

For those of you having problems with pantry moths, a few years ago I started using the Safer sticky traps (I think raid makes one too). I haven't had to throw one thing away since then because of weevils or moths. You might have to order the Safer unless you have an organic gardening supply source but the raid brand is available at home depot and Lowe's. They last about six months. I love them.

Dinner tonight was an old fashioned Cobb salad with a vinaigrette and some bread from an artisan loaf made with herbs de Provence.

Went to the retina doc today. Weird eye disease is stable but cataracts are progressing enough that I need a surgery evaluation. SIGH. Hope Sandy is home and recovering comfortably.

Oh Lacey, I forgot. Your first chance to see the rock when you take the dog back!!! Exciting.

Why not? Buttermilk freezes VERY well!! I will write up the recipe and post tomorrow.

Glad it went well, Sandy! But I cannot imagine how determined you were to read and post given that level of pain, blur and overbrightness. Impressive!

I tried those moth catchers this year for clothes and then pantry. The pantry issue was not significant, but I got some bio something traps which caught a very few moths. Recently a friend had introduced me to the Safer product, but I checked reviews on Amazon and decided to go with GreenWay for the clothing moth traps. Definitely works faster than my Safer ones. Kind of creepy to see how many were propagating in my closets. The Greenway product attracts both male and female moths which may be the reason for increased captures. I hardly see a thing flying about anymore, so either there are many larvae secretly chomping away or the problem has mostly been resolved.

Yes, Susan it is annoying to hear the huge trucks and loud banging at 7AM, and the new third floor definitely dwarfs the whole neighborhood. Imhear the plans show eight bathrooms. Oy!

And YES, Minus, we got to see the ring today....actually, the real rock, but in a "loaner" band until she selected the one she wanted. I did not know the concept of a loaner band. That tells you that DS2 did this by himself so it would be a surprise. Cute... Just DF was home to receive the pooch, (she works from home a lot since moving here) so we had a chance to chat with her about the process, and it was interesting to see her open up more about how she handled waiting this long for him to be ready to make the commitment and how he is now "all in" and so excited. Very sweet....and she is a smart girl. Oh, the solitaire diamond is beautiful!

What a creative living idea, Bedo! Can the cats go with you?

I fell (more like jumped) “off the wagon” yesterday--it was a comfort-food kinda day. When we got back housekeeper made one of my faves from my pre-low-carb days: corned beef hash cut with diced bell peppers & onion, topped with a fried egg, accompanied by a piece of low-carb toast. (Grahams, apple juice & coffee in the recovery room just didn’t cut it for me). And last night I ordered out for a NY-style sausage pizza, salad (craisins, cherry tomatoes, red onions and gorgonzola over mesclun with raspberry vinaigrette) and beignets. Bob & I each had a beignet, 2 slices of pizza and 1/3 of the salad. I had to teetotal for 24 hrs., so I had some Minute Maid Light lemonade cut with seltzer. This morning I still felt lousy, and had to leave early, so I had just my meds, vites & black coffee. A 40-min. trip took 90, due to rain and unpublicized lane closures on Lake Shore Drive; but the ophthalmologist was late too. I was able to keep my eye open in the car, with the shield on and the special shades over it. (Rode home with my regular glasses beneath the shades). But I was still in comfort-food mode. Alas, Mickey D’s doesn’t do biscuits for its all-day breakfast menu, but Drunken Donuts did have a chicken-and-waffle sandwich. Never tried fried chicken & waffles together before--way to carby, but again, today was about comfort. Kinda soggy, but it crisped back up in the toaster oven. Unfortunately, there was no way to scrape off the American cheese (what idiot puts THAT on fried chicken?). My housekeeper confirmed that cheese has no place in real Southern chicken & waffles. It was an okay experiment, but with my curiosity satisfied, one I don’t care to repeat.

My eye is much better today. Surgeon says to use the shield only for sleep or in the shower--no shampooing for awhile except by my hairdresser (who has the right stuff that won't strip the keratin out of my hair). I had my follow-up today and was able to keep my eye open while riding in the car (the special shades fit over the shield). And the pain pretty much stopped when he applied a lidocaine drop. (Too bad I can't use it all the time, since it can destroy the cornea if used more than once in a blue moon). I can also start using the NSAID, steroid & antibiotic drops, which helped pretty quickly too. Turns out the pain was from a couple of tiny blisters on my cornea (it figures--I get blisters on my feet all the time, and I'm a seroma-former) which should resolve with the drops. Therefore, no contacts, ever. My acuity (sharpness) in the "new" eye isn't there yet (have to wait till the swelling goes down and I do still look like hell)--but the lens is much clearer and everything looks more vivid and 3-D. By comparison, the acuity in the left eye is still a little sharper (which is why I can type this) but everything out of that eye looks like it has a yellowish haze, like smog, over it. Guess you could say the right eye is blurry but the left eye is foggy. It'll be 3 more weeks till the swelling is down enough to refract that eye for reading correction--right now it's at about 20/80 (had been 20/40 before the cataract ripened), same as the left. And there is no astigmatism--I just put on a pair of drugstore readers and a square grid looks square, not like a rhombus or trapezoid.

Have a Black Tie Gala From Hell to attend Sat. night (we’ll Uber or cab it--Bob wants to drink freely and I don’t want to take the wheel at night yet) but my right eye, while pretty functional, is still bloodshot and looks half its normal size because it's so swollen that the lid is protecting it. And no eye makeup for a week. Will have to let my hair & jewelry do the talking....and look mysterious in sunglasses.

Tonight will be the leftover salad, with some sardines on the side. Diet "Arnold Palmer" (gonna actually brew some decaf tea to ice) to drink with it; when Bob gets home, limoncello shots out on the deck.

Sandy I hope that surgery went well and Nance I hope that your eye appointment goes well as well and - minus

Susan I hate to tell you but I See Seven Stars every Saturday at the farmers market and completely bypass it because if I had a loaf of bread and some butter I would eat the whole thing in one day Seven Stars is about a mile from my house

Regarding the friends house total cost is $1,000 including room and board and meals per month

Lacey I think it is actually something I would like as I have lived with many people before in groups I am not sure about the cats they are really my daughter's haha and congratulations on the engagement

NANCE

My 10 foods for the island would be lox and bagels with cream cheese and red onion and capers I guess that's five anchovy pizza I'm going to count that as one ginger ale Lobster cheese fresh bread and butter I don't think I would be very healthy

Dragon that sounds very good and tasty

I am sorry for anyone I have missed I have to go look up some things

oh Sandy I forgot about the tomato and now I have to eliminate one item and I can't think of which

Sandy - glad the eye is some better.

The top of my list is bread & butter. If I could rotate good breads with EXTRA butter, I probably wouldn't care about anything else. Well, maybe popcorn w/melted butter.

Lunch was Bok Choy lightly sauteed in olive oil with almost the last of my MeiYen seasoning (I've been rationing because Spice Islands no longer sells this). Side was 1/2 a toasted pumpernickel bagel w/butter. (tomorrow will be bagel w/cream cheese & lox) Dinner was raw cauliflower & radishes dipped in ranch dressing. Main dish was 1/2 a baked potato with lots of butter. (as you can tell, butter it at the very top of my food group & I never gave it up).

SO supper tonight was spaghetti - made with fresh garden tomatoes, basil, garlic and Italian sausage over spinach noodles.  Lovely tossed salad with homemade vinaigrette of olive oil and apple cider vinegar with herbs.  De-lish!

Tonight making Kalbi (Korean barbecued beef short ribs) which are home marinating as we speak and so will be ready for grilling. Because it is 9 gazillion degrees tonight (really only 93 and very, very humid), I'm making the entire meal on the grill. Grilling asparagus and ears of corn as well as "tin foil potatoes" It will still be hot work. The ribs only take about 8 mins per side so should be ok. Enjoy your evening everyone!

I like the new dimension that April has brought to our kitchen table. Now I have two new words to google.

Long day, no lunch. I did get to the gym for my second day this week on the treadmill. Trying to work up to 3 days a week but I'd so much rather read. Went to a friends to take guacamole that I'd defrosted for our dominoes game that got cancelled. They plied me with a bloody Mary. First one in ages. I was too tired to fix what I'd planned so I had toasted fresh Pugliese bread - three slices with just butter to assuage my hunger then one slice open face with tuna. Well, it was a mini loaf. Then for good measure, 1/2 a Pumpernickel bagel toasted with more tuna. No carbs there... ha ha. For starters I had 5 or 6 radishes as I was cleaning them.

Grocery store had a "buy 3" deal for $0.99. I don't usually do that since I live alone, but this was a good one. $0.99 each for 1/2 a gallon of milk, 18 eggs, and a package of Mexican shredded cheese. I froze the cheese & I think I made out like a bandit. Deviled eggs in the plan for this weekend with the dozen that were already in the fridge.

I had to take some vacation so I wouldn't go over the "you lose it" maximum, so I took off 1/2 the day today, ran 5 miles and then took one of the cars to the tire store for new tires.

Dinner tonight was Sharon's Jenny Craig, nuked to perfection in the microwave oven. I had home made beef chorizo and a "microwave nuked" baked potato.

Sandy, your description of the vision change reminds me of my grandmother's comments. She was in her very late 80s when she had hers done and once the "it's so bright it hurts" went away, she was thrilled beyond belief with how well she could see. She was an avid bird watcher and it was again easy for her to identify the birds.

As for the tomato plants, it's cooling off enough that my tomatoes are starting to look lively again. Unfortunately they will die out in November when it freezes. They are in large pots, so I suppose I can cover them and put an old style incandescent light bulb under the cover, but I don't think it's worth that much effort.

I, too, am having to look up some of the new food names. It reminds me of my college days, looking in recipe books and having to go ask the neighbor, "What does ..... mean?"

Susan, Sharon and I have a favorite bed and breakfast place in Bisbee, AZ. They have a world map on the wall and guests can put map pins to show where they live. The map is amazing, especially since Bisbee is not a big city.

If I were stuck on an island....eating the same foods for long periods of time doesn't seem to bother me. If pressed, I would miss nice crisp and somewhat tart apples, but that's about it.

I have a problem with the pantry moths. The first time I found them, I pulled everything out of the pantry, cleaned, vacuumed and wiped everything down, followed by putting everything not already in glass jars or cans into Tupperware or gallon pickle jars or those resealable plastic bags. The moths returned in a few weeks...I wish I knew what they were eating. I never wanted to use any pesticide in the small area with foods and the regular sticky traps did nothing. I'll have to try some of the kind of traps you all have mentioned. Thank you everyone.

Eric even when you take a break you work!

April that looks so good

Today I am going to try to find some fresh lima beans to make succotash

None around here in CT that I have could find either. Most of the farms do not grow them or if they do, they don't sell them to the public that I have seen.