ness

We're heading over to StL tomorrow morning for the weekend. Gonna see the Doobies Saturday night at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheater, which looks to be northwest of downtown near St. Charles. There were some posts about the sandwiches here somewhere but I couldn't find them after a quick look. So....please give me the sales pitch again. Where to go, what to get. If we do it it'll likely be Saturday late lunch.

We can get everything prepped in advance, but when it's go time, it's make a pizza, cook a pizza, repeat. And cooking in an Ooni requires attention, so there's that too. When future SIL is here, we'll split duties but that wasn't the case for this.

Glad to see you post here again! I always find your Asian twist on things interesting.

Step son’s girlfriend was the 10th but we had the party last weekend. Happy belated birthday!

Birthday pizza party here yesterday. Prep Saturday to give folks what they want, go time Sunday. I didn’t get the sourdough started soon enough to go that way, and really I didn’t want the added baby sitting that requires, so I was happy to do yeast. Second pizza was done and I was walking in the door when… I got stampeded by Rusty Ray D. Dog. I stopped, the pizza didn’t. Splat! Sorry grandma Bev, let’s try this again. All went well but I was worn out after it all. Second weekend in a row with a big to-do. One of the highlights was a BBQ chicken pizza. Pre-cooked chicken, thinly sliced red onion and a big dose of Marty-Q sauce. I haven’t made this in a long time. Folks really liked it. The downside is that’s the end of the Marty-Q sauce. Hint hint @BilletHead 🤪

Twins? Cool.

It’s really resilient stuff!

Coming up on 10 years on that culture!

Woah, that’s from me? I thought you had a new one. That’s cool! I just revived mine the last couple days. Was going to do sourdough pizza tomorrow but got started too late. Regular yeast dough with some sourdough mixed in. Stay tuned!

Did you ever have something that just took you into a new food direction? We ate at an Austrian restaurant in KC. Excellent schnitzel, lingonberry sauce, red cabbage and an interesting mustardy potato salad. We’ve had all this before, and the first post in this thread has a jaegershnitzel and red cabbage. But this was something we haven’t had in a long time delicious! But this dessert! Double-dang!! Slightly sweet, sorta savory. Kinda like cream cheese but different. Thin, crispy strudel pastry. That’s lightly flavored whipped cream on top. I can’t stop thinking about it! 🤪

Earlier in the year I was getting bitten by mosquitoes and chigger so badly I didn’t even want to go out. It has gotten a lot better. Also, when there was all the talk about cicadas a month or two back I just want seeing them. But a few weeks ago I started seeing them here. Rusty loves to chase them down and eat them😀

Top down: Extra virgin olive oil, Parmesan cheese, parsley and basil from the garden, V’s frozen cheese raviolis, Jasper’s marinara. Making the most of what we had.

The Southern Comfort and Yukon Jack incidents, of 1977 and 1981 respectively, led to a lifelong avoidance of all sweetened whiskeys.

Back to my ciders: They've been in the bottle since last November. I opened up a #9 (Safale S04 yeast) last week and it was really good. That was our favorite of the 3 we did, and it has definitely improved! Just finished a #7 (Cotes des Blancs). My, oh my that one has improved as well. If there's anybody out there with any of these limited edition, small batch, handcrafted, super special ciders, I recommend you give one a try! Just started another three gallons, all with Safale S04 yeast. This will be another test with varying sweetening/carbonation levels.

Those are shooting ear muffs😀

A first for me yesterday: a bridal shower. Yippee! Step daughter is getting married this fall and had her shower here at the house yesterday . I was tasked with making a couple brunch casseroles and taking pictures. I made a pretty simple with canned crescent role base, then egg, sausage, hash browns and cheese from the missus’ collection. This is good stuff The other was a request from the bride to be: Joanna Gaines eggs Benedict casserole. This one is more involved but very worth it because it’s delicious. Torn English muffins, heavy cream, 18 eggs, deli ham, butter. Topped with a bit of hollandaise (8 more eggs) and served with more sauce on the side. This was really outstanding. I got busy and didn’t get a picture. I can link a recipe if anyone cares. The get-together was a lot of fun for the girls. Champagne, Prosecco, mimosas and wine were flowing. I spent time taking pictures and attending to the two grandmothers. Lots of chiefs, so Kathy and I settled into our roles as Indians to preserve our sanity. I knew we were in for it when the first girl showed up an hour beforehand and started rendering opinions on how things should be set up. Her poor husband I kept thinking. And they were loud! 30 women can make a lotta noise! Kinda bummed and kinda glad there weren’t leftovers. Wished we’d had a little left but glad we didn’t have a bunch.

Those guys are studs.

Agree -- we've never had it so good. Could it be better? Sure. My grandparents immigrated from Lebanon. Here's the house my mom and her 10-person family lived in. 1,200 SF, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath. I see they've got a couple window units in it now. When we visited and stayed there in the 60s and 70s there wasn't any. I still remember how miserable it was trying to sleep.

Watching the Olympics the other day the thought came to me that I approach people kinda like the gymnastics judges do execution scoring. Everybody starts with a 10, regardless. Now, if you walk up with prosthetic horns and inked eyeballs, that's an automatic 1 point deduction. But, other than that, it's pretty easy to keep your 10.

Here’s the deal from my viewpoint: If I encounter a racist, and I do occasionally, it doesn’t ruin my day. I don’t feel the need to fix them, but I may slide in a comment that lets them know I that know some fine folks of that ilk. I kinda look at it as the long game. Sprinkle a little positive out there, then back off and see what happens. It may take more than one pass. We kinda got into all these discussions here because of someone who just couldn’t let it slide. It was justified by the (false) idea that it had to be fixed now, or it was the end of the world as we know it. Wrong. So, let it go. Read the room. Play the long game.

It’s not. It’s how you communicate and treat others.

I’m not a floater either, but if there’s a get-together with food and fellowship afterward, I’d be interested in that if the stars align.

It feels like we might be heading in a better direction.

Here’s a couple recent photos of mine. Redwood roots, Muir Woods, CA Forest floor, Muir Woods Old vines, Sonoma Valley, CA

Mirrorless and full frame. Nice upgrade!! And you get to use all the Nikon lenses and other accessories you already have. Cool! How is it weight/size-wise compared to your DSLR?