End of October Cards

Well, It's the end of October

 

and I made some cards.

That's about all there is to say about that.

Autumn Sonata

What a piece of Heaven is this:

Autumn is bliss

Autumn is bliss!

There, that's my sonata!

And this is my latest...Dutch Apple Pie....served with a giant helping of Jigsaw Puzzle. 

I love this life!

Poverty Cooking 101.1

When life gives you celery...

Make Celeryade!  Otherwise known as cream of celery soup.

1 head of celery
1 cup heavy cream
1 can chicken broth
2 T. pesto in a jar
1 small mild onion
Shredded Parmesan to garnish.

Dice up the onion and the celery.  Food process it until it's mushy. Put it on the stove with the cream and the chicken broth and the pesto.

Simmer for 30 minutes or more until it thickens.

Garnish with the Parmesan!  The pesto adds all the flavor and spice you need and the Parmesan takes care of the rest.
***

Squeeze Me Jesus! I Baked an Apple Pie!

I know you aren't supposed to supplicate unto the Lord and beg for the ability to bake a pie, but I did it anyway.

I didn't crimp the edges well enough, I guess, so it kind of oozed out the sides instead of the slits on top but at least it BAKED without burning to a crisp and at least the pie dough behaved like it's supposed to!  

Also thanks to Aunties Cookieman and B. for sending me Gramma's 'never fail pie dough' with egg in a cup.

Food Failure 101

I'm a failure at food, I've finally admitted it out loud! I have high hopes but the outcome is a dismal failure more often than not.

What with all the excitement of fall in the air and the apple season in full swing, I just wanted to make an apple cobbler...I've made many of them from this recipe, they always turn out different but very delicious. But this time the dough portion did not rise and I just had apple lumps in a dish.

 

This was supposed to be delicious, delightful hand-made Maple Buns, just like they have at the apple festival every year back home.

But the chocolate was too runny and the maple fondant was too stiff and the whole thing tasted like soured cream cheese because maybe the cream cheese was a little off...

I just admit these things so you know that even the happiest of Julie Child Wannabees has her BAD days...

Bon Apetit! Just don't eat anything I've prepared!!!!

Pumpkin Festival

I went to the Pumpkin Festival in Elk Grove and it was really fun. I love the autumn festivals...they are so warm and quirky.

That scary thing behind me is a giant white pumpkin. I was pretty sure they had it fenced in so that if it HATCHED or started to move in any way, there would be a containment field.

These are the ones that were the 'runners up' in the Biggest Pumpkin Contest.

This is a pumpkin at the carving station. 

Not much to say in this post except "Happy Harvest, everyone!"

Flying Saucer Days

 

I was driving down the highway this morning when a plain white paper plate flew out of a wetback's truck and wafted past me on a freeway wind.

Last night Patrick had asked me down to the river to see this 90 foot boat that had come upriver to dock at Old Sac.  The pictures don't do it justice: it truly was a lovely ship! Very similar in look and feel to the one that Goldie Hawn has in the old movie Overboard.  White and large and needing a real crew to sail her.  And she came all the way from Bikini in the Marshall Islands.

 

 
 It gave me that sea-faring feeling...the one of longing to see the Southern Cross and to sleep out under an entirely different set of constellations in the middle of the ocean.

Right now for 5 bucks you can sponsor a rubber duck that will be tossed off the I street bridge with 5000 other rubber ducks and then somehow be scooped up once it reaches the Capitol Bridge, a few feet downriver from whence it started.  And if your duck gets there first, it wins a prize. All the proceeds go to fund something for the Special Olympics. 

 I was surprised they would let something like that happen, in this day and age. They would call it littering and a public nuisance and a bio-hazard if one of those little duckies escaped the nets and headed for the open waters of the Pacific. Neither Patrick nor I can see how they can guarantee that all those ducks will make it downriver. We fully expect the little inlets and docks along the way to have a stray rubber ducky or two floating in to land, beached and belly-up, with the tide.

I hope some of them escape. I hope at least one makes it all the way to Bikini, M. I. 

Today, with a severe headache and at absolutely zero on the energy scale, I saw that paper plate come flying past me and I remembered: 

I remember when you were allowed to toss bottles into oceans and throw rubber duckies into the cricks and rivers and set them free. 

I remember being a wee tot and being told that it was 'Flying Saucer Days' and what a BIG event that was! 

All the merchants of the town got together and put their names on paper plates with coupons for free things like ice cream and shoelaces. And at a certain time a local pilot would fly over the town and release all 5000 of them and we were allowed to run and chase them and pick them up and claim our prizes.

I'm pretty sure I won a free ice cream cone and maybe a buck or two, redeemable at the local bank.

For most of my childhood, at least, the sight of a paper plate windblown up against a barbed wire fence down some dirt road gave me a feeling of hope and expectation. Like finding an Easter Egg someone had forgotten about.

Nowadays, a paper plate is just a paper plate. But can you remember when...?

October At Last

It's finally October! My favorite month of the year! To celebrate I will show a picture of...what else? FOOD!  This is what I ate from the Greek Festival this last weekend. Stuffed Grape Leaves (dolmas) and greek salad Gazpacho.  It was truly delicious! Opa!!!

  I love October because it is my birthday month. I'll be 53 on Oct. 17th and that makes me pretty happy.

However, I took the "Real Age" quiz online last night and discovered that I'm actually 70 years old. I kid you not! What a scary blow!  Of course I've learned from past experience that fear, shame and scary blows have absolutely NO EFFECT on whether or not I lose weight or get healthier.  At this point it would probably take a Dr. Phil Intervention.

In the meantime, here's the house all spruced up for Autumn.