Food for thought

1.  Some of my favorite writers are also the wackiest:  Carl Hiaasen,  Janet Evanovich.  They never fail to make me laugh.  Like this paragraph from Evanovich's Top Secret Twenty-One:

"God bless," my father said, offloading half a cow onto his plate.  He added a mound of mashed potatoes and four green beans, then poured gravy over everything. My father never got the memo about red meat, colonoscopies, or heart disease.  His philosophy was that if you never went to the doctor, you never found out there was something wrong with you.  So far, it was working for him.

 This makes me laugh.  Sorry about that.          

Back in Bidness...

1.  With help, the problem relating to access to Xtreme English has been fixed. 

hoo boy.....

1.  I've had Xtreme English as my blog for about 9 years!  And then Google told me I had to buy a domain from them, so I did, and pfft!  Can't get into Xtreme English any more.  I can use this one, XE Xpress, but not the mother blog....

A Day in the Life.....

His name is A....., and he works in the back of the pizza slice shop 

on U Street in front of which his book stand sits.  I've been taking 

a small bag of books to donate to him every day this week. This aft 

when I was taking another bag down there, a nice man caught the 

elevator door for me with his cane at Col. Heights metro. 

He asked about the books, and I told him about A....'s little stand. 

He asked me if I had any books by John Grisham.  I said I didn't 

think so, but he was welcome to look through what I had. He dug 

around and pulled one out..."Yoga!" he cried, delighted.  He shook 

my hand...."I'm J......," he said, "I'm Mary," I said, and off he 

limped to the gates. 

2.

Books I'm keeping....I've put two on my dining room table/workspace 

for further investigation:

Feed Your Soul by George Fowler and Jeff Lehr.--an interesting book 

given to me by one of Sally's friends.  What's interesting is how 

it meshes with what I'm learning about food as I get older.  For 

example, there's a recipe titled "Unexpected Companions," which is 

about a sandwich made out of leftovers:  whole grain bread/bun, 

avocado, roasted chicken, and zucchini-garlic sauce.  As I read it, 

it seemed to me to be like bahn mi, which some old friends from Iowa 

adore now that they're living here and have access to many Asian 

restaurants. I may have an avocado in my fridge, do have

roasted chicken, can improvise the sauce (mayo is good), add whatever 

veggies I want, Bingo!  I know from glancing through Kramerbooks 

yesterday that making a proper bahn mi relates to HOW you assemble 

it. First open the bun, add a smear of sauce on both open faces, 

then slices of avocado, then slices of chicken, veggies. I have some 

pickles I want to use, then more sauce, if you want, Close the sandwich, 

and it's ready to eat! very simple, very delicious. Very flexible! 

Cheese, pork roast instead of chicken...

Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative 

by Austin Kleon. One of those impulse purchases for $10.95 plus tax 

that I couldn't resist. The Table of Contents is interesting--I simply 

could have read it in the bookstore, but I wanted to have it for a 

while. The first page in the first chapter, "Steal Like An Artist," is

a quote from Pablo Picasso:  "Art is theft."  You learn this when you 

cook, btw.  Am I stealing Julia Child's dinner?  No.  I'm copying her 

process and wanting to share her esprit!!  Further along in the book, 

in the chapter "Start Copying," the writer Wilson Mizner says 

"If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism, but if you copy from many, 

it's research." 

Cabbage, continued....

1.  Today is the big day for cabbage in Irish households.  Remember this song?

https://youtu.be/TCQbksGz67U?list=RDTCQbksGz67U

2.  colcannon:  mashed potatoes mixed with shredded cabbage (cooked), cream, and a big knob or two of butter.

3.  I've already had my cabbage today for breakfast, but there's potatoes yet to go.

4.  No more drunken revelries for me.  having a nice cup o tea.

5.  Happy St. Patrick's Day, All!!

Soup.....

1.  I've been looking for a good recipe for cabbage soup.  Cabbage is still "only" 69c a pound here.  The recipe I found for the "best cabbage soup ever" had half a head of shredded cabbage and a pound and a half of ground beef + catsup, and 1/4 cup of brown sugar.  Sounds more like goulash.  I'm sure it's tasty, but not exactly soup. 

2.  I know...borscht!--the good old country recipe we had in ND.  It had beets, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and possibly carrots.  Have given away all my old ND recipe books, but I can probably improvise.

3.  Soup!!  It's what's for breakfast!

thank god it's friday music only once a week!

1.  Cop Car's blog is featuring "bonaparte's retreat" today--and I have NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE.  She also says that she is not allowed to sing in the car or in the house when anyone else can hear her.  HMPH! 

2.  When they were very small, my NJ grandchildren always said "NO SING-GING" when I struck up a tune.  I did like to sing around the house, but I abstained there, at least.  I don't sing much around the house now because I live across the hall from a professional singer (Little Margie Clark).  I do sing on the way to and from the metro station.  My favorites recently:

3.  "Green Green" by the New Christie Minstrels <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jom1n67_QOY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> and

4.  "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone" by Bill Withers (....<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tIdIqbv7SPo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>