isalicat

Your husband's breakfast (I presume its breakfast) has all the carbohydrates I eat in a month 🙂 My dad loved Cheerios and Grape Nuts but I never saw him combine the two. I tried Grape Nuts a couple of times but unfortunately they scraped the top of my mouth unmercifully and then I stopped eating any cereal anyways. Now its either scrambled eggs and cheese (I vary types of cheese depending on the day of the week) or fried eggs and bacon for breakfast. Once a week I treat myself to one of those amazing Icelandic yogurts (Siggi's - try it if you like yogurt!). So tonight I have some prime "Brazilian picanha culotte" steak to make, which I have never purchased before but it was on sale so I thought, why not? I'm just going to grill it failing any other suggestions from the talented cooks hereabouts.

So thank you for the Ian Rankin recommendation - I just finished the first one and it was great! Had planned to go to the library today to look for more and come to find out although seven branches of my county library system are opening today, my branch is not. And the next closest one is only by reservation and they are discouraging browsing (so, like forget it....I go to a library to wander the stacks - its like going to church for me). I guess I'll keep enriching the used book sellers for the nonce.

That all sounds so delicious! What are "steak tips"? And do you have a personal trainer to mitigate all this wonderful eating or are you one of those super lucky people that can eat whatever? (I'm fast gaining that "Covid 15"! LOL) I just had leftover chili colorado with a huge yellow peach for dessert last evening. Being super lazy, I am taking advantage of my local deli's roast chicken for tonight (the spice rub they use is amazing!).

Just so y'all know....there is no real recycling going on of plastic anything anymore - all that stuff used to be shipped to east Asia for re-processing but they stopped taking our stuff and in fact started sending it back. There is recycling of cardboard apparently as people are ordering so much stuff on line that cardboard boxes need to be reused to make more as soon as possible. So all those plastic bags you are assiduously bringing wherever...they are most likely landing up in landfills. And more sadly, the ocean is now filling up with all those plastic gloves and masks people are just throwing away one right after the other due to the YACKVirus! (TM). Because of this I insist on taking clean reusable bags to my grocery store and bagging my own groceries rather than accepting yet another new plastic bag (or even yet another paper bag, each of which makes me think of the death of yet another tree).

Has anyone any idea when or if this series will be renewed? Any rumors? I have not heard any....:(

J'adore BritBox. All the content I would probably need for the rest of my TV viewing life. Plus it works perfectly - always saves where I am in any given series when I go back for the next episode.

A dear friend of mine taught me a most useful phrase to end a phone call: "Let me let you go now." and then a firm goodbye and you hang up. That makes the other person think you don't want to keep them on the phone any longer to *their* benefit even if they are the ones stringing things out. I used this a lot professionally as I was on the phone all day long for 40 years where I initiated the call (for the most part) but also needed to accomplish the purpose of the call and then get on to the next one. As a woman in a very technical arena, I wound up talking to mostly men, many of whom apparently had rarely received a call from a woman previously and wanted to stretch the conversation on as long as possible 🙂

Thanks for the Jane Casey recommendation, Calvada! I just went to Amazon and read a bit of the first chapter of the first book in the Maeve Kerrigan series and yes, it is just the kind of thing I like! Now of course I must curb my enthusiasm until the library opens again next Tuesday to see which ones they have available or can get from another branch. I am generally a patient person but not when it comes to a book I long to read which is why I have spent way too much on books the last few months since the libraries closed 😞

I signed up for NextDoor in my neighborhood and I have found it really useful to sell stuff I don't need without resorting to Craig's List or the classified ads (such as they are) in the local newspapers. I've sold stuff like a paper shredder I wasn't using, a shop vac I wasn't using and a couple of bicycles - all the transactions were very swift, pleasant and profitable. I generally ignore all the daily (endless) posts about lost pets and topical issues and the griping about the fireworks (let me be clear: I have lived in my current location near the beach in central California for ten years and every year about 3 weeks before July 4th the neighbors start in with fireworks, culminating in a street vs. street competition for the best display on the night of the 4th, and then tapering off for the week after before ceasing altogether. No one shoots anything off after 10 PM (on the 4th that may run to 11 PM) and there is no fire danger right here to worry about. Yes, I get that your dogs don't like it, but why are you living here then? All the realtors tell their prospective buyers about this as the people here have been doing this for forever around here and I just love it! Put the dog in the bathroom with the windows shut or give it some doggy tranquilizers and let people have some fun!)

I'm having guests for dinner tonight! (very dear old friends who have been entirely isolated, as I have for the most part, so we should be safe) So I spent Sunday afternoon making chili colorado (basically chili that starts with good stew meat - NOT ground beef - onions and garlic and then I add tomato paste, oregano, cumin and red pepper and lots of water and simmer....this is one of those dishes that really tastes better a day or so on so I cooked it for a few hours on Sunday, then refrigerated and now I am finishing it off by cooking it down to the right consistency - no beans!). We will be starting with some brie and an interesting apple/walnut cheese I found and the chili will be served with a green salad (lots of avocado!) and warm corn tortillas. Giant fresh strawberries and chocolate ice cream for dessert! I have a bottle of Robert Mondavi Cab Reserve from 1984 I will decant in a few minutes that is going to be well past its optimal drink-by date but I want to see if there is anything left there....and of course I have two bottles of that great Alexander Valley cab (Technique) as back up although my friends are sure to bring something winey with them.

Well that was great up until the very end when it got just a tad too didactic. Nonetheless big fun and I do hope we get a second season.

True, dat, about the expiration dates being more of a sell by than use by....but I unexpectedly found a sealed large plastic bag with three entirely unopened packages of corn tortillas (a dozen each package) in the back of my freezer. Reveling in my good fortune I thawed a package and went to use a couple last evening and they smelled weird. Not super strong and there was nothing visible about the tortillas but I googled how long corn tortillas last in the freezer and the answer was 6 months - these were over a year old so I binned the whole lot. Who knows - they may have been fine but I just did not feel like this was a good time to take the risk.

Thanks for the suggestions! No, I have not read any Josephine Tey...but I just went and looked her up and will definitely seek out her books at the library in a week or so (before I spend yet more money on line 🙂 I watched all of the Inspector Morse TV shows as they were aired back in the day and now that I have BritBox I was planning on watching the Vera series but will look for Ann Cleeves' books as well....I have been binging on the Midsomer Murders series (up to halfway through Season 5 now) and I love it so much! BritBox is really my "crack"!

So I am really excited - I just got an email announcing that our county library system will re-open on July 7th! I have been spending way too much money on buying books that I will never read again so the library will allow me to return to normal frugality and keep going through all these awesome British mystery writers (I read all 26 of the Peter Robinson "DCI Banks" series, and now I'm starting Ian Rankin - his very first is on the way, while continuing with Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series). Any recommendations for more in this vein gratefully accepted! (I have already read all published Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Dorothy Sayers, Deborah Crombie and Martha Grimes.)

I am SO bored with everything I have been cooking so tonight will be a hybrid meal: crab cakes with hot curry sauce on corn tortillas. The crab cakes were on sale but I forgot to buy any traditional Louis type sauce or some fresh salsa so I'm going to try curry....probably do a chopped tomato, red onion and cucumber salad on the side.