So...whats for dinner?

Happy birthday, Nancy! 70 is indeed a milestone—it's the new 40.

It's easy ordering meals one-handed—that's all it takes to open a menu. We attended the up-sell presentation, which was pushing us (gently) to swap our Vegas HGV timeshare for the more expensive NY one we owned for about five minutes (or so it seemed) before re-buying Vegas—which had a far lower maintenance fee. NY owners get priority staying at the two midtown properties, but we'd have had to fork over the $15K we got back for swapping to Vegas as well as a $3K annual maintenance fee (vs. $1K in Vegas) due to higher state property taxes. 18 mos. ago it sounded like a great deal, but that was before Bob realized that not only can't he retire at 70, but as his practice's only cardiologist every day he takes off costs >$2K in lost revenue—and we'd also have to pay office overhead ourselves from our savings. I'm the only one with freedom to travel often enough—and traveling alone is less fun with tougher logistics. (The Bar Assn. trips abroad are with 60 others who can help me).

Lunch afterward was at Petrossian Cafe—there used to be two branches in Chicago and one each in Vegas & Boca, but now it's just this one and one in L.A. Bob had borscht and salmon roe with blini; I had the tasting plate which had a flute of bubbly, 10gm. Osetra, smoked salmon and the most tender smoked sturgeon I've ever tasted. Portions were big enough that we shared the fish. They gave us a taste of their hot chocolate as dessert, too

Happy Birthday Nance! 70! Thats awesome. Keep it up!

Much love to all.

Bbq Pork Ribs on the grill

Oh - I need some pork ribs. And some brownies with ice cream.

The fam made homemade pizza tonight. I didn't have to do a thing. It was awesome.

Nance - what a nice B-day treat. Special - sounds delicious. So you can have popcorn for dinner the next couple of nights. Moon - new patterns... The fireworks will be there next year. So glad the DH is well enough to be home.

Carole - how is it going with your Mother? When do you go back to the north country?

Dunch was a large spinach salad with shredded carrots, red onion, fresh mushrooms, campari tomatoes, slivered almonds, crumbled blue cheese and a blue cheese oil & vinegar dressing. I toasted the small ends of my leftover Rosemary Olive Oil bread to use as "pushers": Anybody else remember those? My Mother was a stickler for using a piece of bread as a pusher to get the small pieces of food onto your fork or spoon - NOT fingers. Even when I eat alone I have a hard time overcoming this etiquette rule. Besides, it's a way to sneak in bread.

Question - what is the best way you've all discovered to keep mushrooms fresh? I'm so tired of wasting at least half of each package that gets mushy or slimy.

Picking DH up from the airport, he texted that he was hungry before boarding, so I’m thinking it’ll be Whataburger as soon as we’re out of the terminal.

minus - I usually use whole baby Bella mushrooms or white button. I also wanted to mention that sometimes when I have a bunch that I don't think I will use all at once I sauté the leftover ones and freeze them to add to marinara or to stews later.

Tonight I made a main dish salad of romaine, roasted chicken, peaches, pecans, goat cheese with a vinaigrette made from peach balsamic vinegar

Damn Dodgers, I do believe I am inspired to have steak and scallops this week 😀

Frogmore stew tonight using fresh corn picked just this morning. Yum.

Carole - Have a safe trip.

It took me a LONG time to even begin to figure out how to cook for one. Now I separate most of my efforts into 3 portions as soon as they're done, two are frozen and one provides two meals. Or one goes to a neighbor who is home bound if it's one of the few things she'll eat. Even worse although I do sort of plan meals ahead and grocery shop once a week, it's so frustrating to buy 2 bananas, 2 peaches, 2 avocados, etc. and still have a problem with them going bad before I eat them. If I'm in a salad mood, I have to stay in that same mood for several days in a row or waste the lettuce. Even (horrors) the pre-bagged salad that I usually buy now. My closest decent grocery store is way too far to drive out every day for fresh food.

The biggest problem is balanced meals. When I try to prepare those, it's too much food at one sitting. So I'll eat meat one day & salad the next & pasta the next.

Last night's irresponsible supper was Jarlsberg cheese cut into match sticks and five Snapper's - mini pretzel's with carmel, dark chocolate and sea salt - served with a glass of Apothic "DARK" wine.

Today will be a container of the Bombay Curry Chicken I made last month & pulled out of the freezer.

Eric - are you deployed? Or ongoing training? Or just for fun?

The leftover Bombay Chicken was good again, but now I can't help but noticing the color. The neighbor I shared with last month said she had to close her eyes so she didn't think of baby poop.

The first of the Olathe Corn has just appeared. Just small shipment so far, but still, I will eat that until I'm sick for the next couple of weeks.

Tonight was Ribeye with grilled squash/zucchini and seared scallops to celebrate a good brain MRI.

illimae - yay!

DH and DD are still out of town so I wasn’t planning any dinner, got a text from my neighbor while I was out running errands that she needed warm bodies in the seats at a wine pairing dinner she was hosting at her workplace - um, yes, count me in! Zoomed over and tasted a variety of Italian wines with pasta, cheeses, stuffed olives, herbed ricotta crostini, shrimp, meatballs, and tiramisu - it was great! Met some other lovely people and had a really nice time

Thanks Minus!

Tonight I made BLT’s (BL for me because I don’t like tomatoes) and they were great! I don’t think of it often but end up really enjoying it whenever I do make them.