Gourmet News!

Have you heard the news about my cookbook, The Pseudo Gourmet? It's in its 4th...or is it 5th? printing. I have a new practically print-on-demand source, so order yours now while the presses are running. Special Internet price of just $10. Add $5 for postage if you want me to mail it to you. No extra charge for an autograph. E-mail me at perl1011 at yahoo dot com and let me know if you want it signed. Makes a great gift! Proceeds go to funding potholder loops and my pie addiction. I'm not ready for an intervention, so don't even try.

Read more about it *and* get a sample recipe here.

Egret Sighting

My most recent kayak trip was from the Algonquin dam down to E. Dundee, and I saw this lovely lady along the way. I drifted quietly on by and she let me take a nice photo before taking off.

Happy Birthday Xena!

08-08-08

Let the Olympics begin! My coworker, Hua, said it's Friday morning in China, so I want to commemorate the date.

She was just recently in China visiting her family. When she asked if I wanted her to bring me anything from China, I jokingly said, "how about a baby?!" And she said, "OK! I bring you baby girl!" Then I was worried that maybe she didn't realize I was just kidding. Turns out she did, but she still brought me a daughter, complete with it's own little certificate. Her name is Ying Ying. She's one of the mascots for the Beijing Olympics. There's one in each color for the different rings.


Here is the other souvenir she brought me. I haven't decided on a name yet. I'm sure I'll get suggestions -- we haven't had a potholder contest in awhile, have we? Post your suggestions by hitting the comment button below this post!


Speaking of potholders, thank you to Tracy for this hilarious cartoon! Love it! :)
(click to see it enlarged)

Enough Already

OK, I promise this will be the last of our kayak voyage photos. Probably. But I had to document Lenore's maiden voyage with her new Sevylor. Hers is the one-person version of mine, so it's lighter, cuter and very perky. Unfortunately, it has an even greater propensity to turn, so it's very difficult to paddle in a straight line. Lenore battled her way down the river without losing her temper too awful bad. At least the water wasn't boiling. We put my newly acquired skeg (I still think that's a weird name, why not just call it a rudder?) on her boat, and it helped a lot, so we ordered one for Lenore. I predict our next outing will go much better. Hopefully that will occur this weekend, because the weather's supposed to be splendid.

Anyway, here are a few shots of our most recent trip out with Roland and Amy. Remember you can click the photos to enlarge them.



Roland took some good pictures, so I stole these off his Flickr page.





This was odd.


I thought it might be a nice addition to my garden (something to distract the raccoons maybe), but it was too heavy to haul out of the river. Made for an interesting photo though.


Here's a waterside view of the Elgin Castle. Too bad the houses in front of it are so crappy. My mom was friends with the daughter of the guy who built this. Apparently, he was a little strange.


Along the way, we found an adorable new summer home. I just love waterfront property.



Later that same weekend...I went out to water the tomatoes and look who was visiting.
I think I've discovered who's been messing with my flower pots and leaving tiny incriminating handprints all over the watering can.

Voyage II

Roland and I went out for what was my second paddle in Ducky III while Lenore documented from the footbridge. I took my camera and took a couple pictures along the way too. I've gone on several voyages since this one, and it's been lovely. Lenore just got her boat yesterday, so hopefully we can go out this weekend if it's not too hot and steamy out. The river level has dropped dramatically though, so we might have to get out and walk in a few places. (!)





Also, I've added to my armada. Dad had this in the garage -- used once. I might sell it at the farmer's market. Anyone interested? It's got low miles!


Here are some pictures from paddling with Cora and also pasta making. She thought the dough smelled like pancake batter (and I agree), but sampling was discouraged due to the raw egg issue.

Roland and Amy paddled across the river to meet us...



Then we were on our way.





I guess these are out of order, since we had the pasta first. Oh well.

Perky Pie Potholder

This is Arlene, our favorite pie maker, modeling her new Perky Potholder. Coffee, pie, cookies...I really could live there.

In between pies, it was a busy weekend. Cora cashed in her birthday (the big 1-oh) "outing," which was a pasta making party. She came Friday night, so we had a "campfire" and roasted marshmallows (I was not aware that a 10-year-old could put away so many marshmallows). We also went farmer's marketing, bike riding, putzed around by the dam and went on a kayak trip with Roland and Amy. I for one am exhausted. Photos coming soon. And that was just Saturday.


Sunday Lenore and I went on a bike picnic (dad joined us), a bike coffee run, and biked to and from Ace Hardware a couple of times in search of lamp parts. Lenore oversaw the rewiring of my art deco (?) floor lamp, which we think is pretty old because it had asbestos insulation on the wires. Yeeks. Anyway, it works! Thanks to Roland for getting us started by handily ripping out the socket thingee that the light bulb screws into and then saying, "you can fix that, it's easy!" on his way out the door. ;)

Bread baking experiments continued with 2 regular sourdough loaves (no rye) and another Russian black bread, which I think is going to be the winner in my quest to create a bread machine recipe that resembles the Latvian rye bread I love. I'll post the recipe once it's tweaked. I suppose it's a little ironic, since Latvians are no fan of Russians. I shall have to rename the loaf. Dark Dundee Rye perhaps. The DDR bread doesn't require sourdough starter, however, so now I'm stuck with all this starter that I feel obligated to feed and nurture. Maybe I can sell it on ebay.

Tomorrow's my last Monday off...and my new kayak paddle is due to arrive. I'll be waiting impatiently for the mail person...