What I'm Reading Now

Islands, by Anne Rivers Siddons.

Siddons used to be one of my favorite authors. Colony, Peachtree Road, and The Outerbanks were fantastic books. I would read her books as soon as they hit the shelf. But after a while, she started to get a little "samey" - woman is trapped in a middle-aged rut, woman is taken out of her comfort zone, woman has extreme extra-marital affair, woman returns liberated and affirmed. (Sorry, I just don't see the extra-marital affair as the true road to wellville.) So I took a break, and haven't read one of her books in ages.

But this was on the sale rack, and I decided to give it a try. And I'm liking it. In fact, I did little else but read all afternoon, so I guess that's an endorsement of some kind. Mark and Ben went on a hike with the Scout Troop, and Daniel and I stayed in and read (he finished the second Harry Potter book and started the third.)

Islands is more for the sixty-something set, but I'm enjoying the Charleston/Sullivan's Island/Edisto Island setting. And I've got a hankering for seafood something awful.

I finished Becky - it was really good at times, really ho-hum at times. Becky was your classic, headstrong, southern heroine. She was borderline unlikeable, as she was in Tom Sawyer, and frankly, a bit of a tramp.

Saturday Baking

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Banter Blog has some pretty neat looking stuff. I've had the best of intentions to try some of their recipes for a while now, and today I finally did. They posted a recipe this week for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe adds canned pumpkin, spices, and walnuts to chocolate chip cookies to give them an autumn-spicy kind of feel. It reminded me of a Harvest Loaf Cake my mom makes (and I love), so I spent the afternoon giving them a whirl.

I did some substituting - I used white whole wheat flour (because I like it) instead of regular all-purpose, and I subbed cardamom and nutmeg for ginger (because I didn't have any ginger). Otherwise I followed the recipe.

My cookies didn't spread at all, nor did they get the yummy color they were in the picture. And they were a might bit dry. They were more cake-like than cookie-like - no crunch when you bite them. And without the icing, they aren't sweet at all. But with the icing, they are tasty, just not what I had in mind. I think I'll just stick with the Harvest Loaf Cake next time.

Daniel helped me ice them. (He didn't need to stand on the stool!)

The finished product. Compare to the picture on the King Arthur blog and you'll see why I was disappointed. :(

Hooray for Dollywood!

The boys are on Fall Break this week, so Mark and I took the day off and we spent the day at Dollywood. The weather was awesome, and the park wasn't crowded. (Well, actually there were quite a lot of old people there, but they weren't riding the rides, so it was all good.) Enjoy the pics of our day! And if you really want a good laugh, go over to Daniel's blog and check out his video of his first real roller coaster ride - it's hilarious!

There is something uniquely satisfying....

...about getting in a good day's work, spending a quiet evening with the fam, enjoying a warm bath followed by clean jammies and clean sheets, and then turning on the TV for a final send-off to your day, only to discover that the Red Sox are losing 11 - 1 to the Rays at Fenway Park in the ALCS. The RAYS! At Fenway! Ahhh....

Ben came in to watch a few innings with me, and maybe it was just the tired talking, but we got really giggly about the Red Sox folly. Big Papi squeezed a double into a triple and we said "Here it comes! Here comes the rally!" Then we looked at each other and cackled. When the much-hated Mike Timlin came in and gave up two more runs (for a total of 13, at this point) Ben said "You know, that just never gets old."

Now that it's coming down to the wire, and it looks like Joe Torre will be out of it, I have to say "Go Rays!" It would be really good for baseball for the Rays to win it all, proving once again, you really can't buy a world series title. The Rays have that intangible something that makes them play as a team, not a conglomeration of all-stars.

Go Rays indeed.

What's for Dinner?

Venetian Grilled Chicken with Marinara Sauce and Tri-Color Rotini.

For the first time in probably six years, I am not teaching a class on Sunday night. So for the last few weeks, we drop the boys off at church, Mark watches football, and I make "just us" dishes for supper. Last week it was the trout, this week it was another nostalgic meal.

In the early dating days, Mark and I ate at Olive Garden a lot. Mark almost always ordered the Venetian Grilled Chicken. They don't have it anymore - it was your garden-variety boneless chicken breast grilled up with Italian herbs. They served it with marinara sauce, and a side of spaghetti.

So tonight, I brined three chicken breasts for about an hour (the third one is for lunch next week). Then I topped them with salt and pepper, basil, and oregano and slapped them onto a hot grill pan until they had good grill marks on both sides. Then I finished them in a 400 degree oven for about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, I took one can of diced tomatoes and thickened them with almost a whole can of tomato paste. I added ample sprinklings of basil and oregano, smaller sprinklings of garlic powder and onion powder, and finally a couple of dashes of red pepper. I heated it over low heat until the chicken was done.

I got the chicken out, let it rest, and made some rotini pasta. When the pasta was done, I sliced the chicken breasts, topped mine with the sauce, slapped some pasta on the side, and topped the whole plate with fresh-grated Parmesan cheese.

Pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. Mark loved it, but he didn't eat the sauce. Come to think of it, he never ate the sauce at Olive Garden either.

As a side note, all of the spices I used came from The Spice House. I am a BIG fan. I get everything from there now, except salt. Overall, you get more for your money, and you get a much better product than you would in the grocery store. The vanilla extract is phenomenal. Just keep a list of what you need and order everything at once to get the most for the shipping charge. And order more vanilla than you think you need. Once you smell it, you will want to bake things. Lots of things. Lots of vanilla things. It's that good.

A Tribute to Ferdlings

I have been so impressed, as I'm sure most of you have, with my brother's creative videos, that I have created a tribute of sorts to him in my sidebar. It allegedly feeds from Youtube, so we'll see if it works. At the very least it pulled four of his videos, so watch those if you haven't seen them already. Let me heartily recommend A Countdown to Edisto Beach for those of you unfamiliar with his work. It's a light-hearted, yet detailed look into his cinematic genius.

I was disappointed that Driving Around and Singing, and The Shaving of the Beard did not appear. I will have to look into what happened there. Surely they have not been removed from Youtube. That would be a travesty.

For those of you unfamiliar with Ferdlings's early career, he directed a video in the late seventies shot at Cherry Grove called Cops and Robbers. He delved into acting in that short film, playing the part of the robber. I was honored to appear as the cop. It involved great use of props, and ferdlings even did his own stunts, including a fifteen foot jump off a deck into hot sand. Pirated copies of this video are selling for big bucks on ebay.

Who knew then the heights to which his genius would soar?

6 Quirky Things

OK, so I got tagged. My mission: share six quirky things about myself. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. When I eat Skittles, I sort them by color. I never mix colors.
2. I assign gender to letters and numbers. 1 is male, 2 and 3 are female, 4 is male, and so on. Likewise with the letters - A and B are female, C and D are male, E is female, F is male, etc, etc.
3. I have never had wisdom teeth.
4. I have to check that I set my alarm two or three times a night before falling asleep.
5. I have such extreme arches in my feet that I leave two footprints (a total of four, if you count both feet.)
6. I have an unusual fear of ground hogs.

Well, that was actually sort of fun. Good idea, Rick. Glad I played. And if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

What's for Dinner?

Parmesan breaded trout with a lemon-caper sauce.

Clearly, not our normal fare. There's a story here.

Mark and my favorite restaurant is the Troutdale Dining Room in Bristol, TN. It is the only five-star restaurant in the area. The original owners were a couple who moved here from the New York area, and were disappointed in the quality of local restaurants. So they set about to improve that. And improve it they did. The woman was in charge of the food, the man was in charge of PR. His name was Bruno. He had one of those thick Brooklyn accents, and he did a series of radio commercials. His tag line was "Come to the Troutdale Dining Room, where we make everyting but the buttah." And he wasn't kidding. When you arrive, your trout is swimming in a pond out back. Seriously.

Troutdale is one of those places you only go about once a year, and only on special occasions. (Unless you're obscenely rich, in which case, knock yourself out - go whenever you want to.) The food is phenomenal. Seriously. Their signature dish is the Parmesan breaded trout with a lemon-caper sauce. I honestly didn't know you could do something that wonderful to a fish. It is fantastic.

So dinner tonight was my attempt to recreate it. I did OK, but I made the classic blunder: I didn't let the oil get hot enough before dropping the fish in. It fell apart in the pan. But it was still tasty. I breaded rainbow trout in panko and grated Parmesan. The I pan-seared it in olive oil (except I botched the sear). I made the sauce with white wine and cream, then added lemon zest and capers. We ate it with lentils and baked sweet potatoes.

Troutdale's best dessert is something called Between the Sheets. It's a mousse served between two sheets of white chocolate, drizzled with raspberry sauce. We opted for Ben and Jerry's creme brulee ice cream for dessert tonight. Not the same, but tasty.

We haven't been to Troutdale in several years, and they've changed ownership since we were last there. I hear the food is just as good, and I hope we get to go again soon. Because while dinner tonight was good, it wasn't five-star good. If I'd paid thirty dollars a plate for what I made tonight, I'd be chapped.

What I'm Reading Now

Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher, by Lenore Hart.

I love a book with a really creative concept. In this one, Becky Thatcher of Tom Sawyer fame is all grown up and telling her story. She is married to Tom's cousin Sid and they have two sons before he leaves to fight in the Civil War. She flashes back to her childhood a lot - running around with Tom and Huck and "little Sammy Clemens". ("Little Sammy Clemens" grew up and wrote a really famous book about all of them, but he didn't remember things quite the same way Becky did, apparently.)

I'm liking it so far. My only frustration is that I don't remember Tom Sawyer all that well, and I'm struggling to remember which parts actually happened in that book, and which parts this author is making up. But the later story - Becky on her own during the Civil War - is quite good. Huck Finn has made numerous appearances, as has Jim and old Judge Thatcher. We don't know what became of Tom yet, but he gets mentioned a lot, so I'm expecting him to show up any page now.

Fall Court of Honor

Ben's Boy Scout troop held their fall Court of Honor tonight. Ben earned merit badges in reading, scholarship, and golf. I'm o for 2 on Court of Honor photos - this time I got a lovely photo of the back of Ben's head.

The Uniforms Are Here!

With only five games left to play, the Galaxy finally got their uniforms in. Daniel put his on tonight for his drills. By drills, I mean five soccer drills that he does every other night or so. He is working on the Physical Fitness Belt Loop for Scouts, and one of the requirements is to choose five different physical challenges (like a 50 yard dash, standing long jump, etc) and practice them over 30 days, showing improvement on each. Daniel came up with five challenges to help him with soccer. He runs the length of the house three times as fast as he can, runs the length of the house backward, dribbles a soccer ball through an obstacle course (i.e., the trees in the front yard) as fast as he can, and kicks the ball as far as he can, with both his right foot and his left. He's already improving, and we're seeing a difference in his play during actual games. Everyone wins!

Sarah?

Since some of my blogger buddies have been posting photos of their spouses looking like Sarah Palin, I thought I would get in on the fun:




Uncanny, isn't it? Probably need to work on the up-do.

Sports Update

Ben's team won their first game today! Ben even scored the winning run. They were all tied up 6-6 in the bottom of the fifth. Ben got plunked (right between the shoulder blades - it looked like it hurt) and took his base. Then he managed to steal around the bases and scored to make it 7-6. We kept the other team from scoring in the top of the sixth, and that was the ball game (you only play six innings in little league.)

Daniel's team took their record to 4-3-1 with a 2-0 win this morning. They finally got their uniforms, which gave them a little extra spark. I would have taken pictures, but it was raining and I chose to hold the umbrella instead of the camera. Life's full of tough choices...

New Job!

OK, I've been keeping this on the down low, but I can finally speak freely: I have a new job! I will be working for the same company, but in a different area. I will be moving to our QA lab, doing software testing for our POS (point-of-sale) applications. You know those pay-at-the-pump gas pumps? I'll be testing the software for those. And those little machines in stores where you swipe your credit card? Them too.

This is a whole new thing for me, and I'm very excited about the change!! I start on October 13th. Good times!

My Trip to the Doctor's Office

Late yesterday, I started feeling a stiffness in my lower back. Now, I'm no stranger to back pain, but this was a whole new thing. By bedtime, it was much worse (I had a hard time sitting still during the Heroes premier) and by this morning, I decided I should check in with the doctor. I didn't really think anything was wrong besides normal back stuff, but I wanted to be sure. And I was hoping to get some good drugs out of it. Then the rest of my week would go much easier, and everybody wins. So I made an appointment to see the doctor.

I actually love my doctor. She's a jolly German woman who always answers all of my questions and takes as much time as I need. The only downside is, apparently, she does this for all of her patients, because by 8:15 everyday, she's about two hours behind on her appointments. My appointment was for 11:00, so I was prepared for a wait. I wasn't disappointed.

This time, one of the nurses actually came out and told everyone that the doctor was running even later than usual (someone had come in with some bizarre illness that wreaked havoc on the whole morning) but sit tight, we'll be with you in a minute. Since sitting was much more uncomfortable for me than standing, I opted to stand tight while I waited. Apparently, standing up is the universal sign for "I'm next" because every time someone came in and approached the desk, they looked at me and said "Are you next?" "No, I'm just standing tight."

After a few days, they call me. And I get to wait in a much smaller room. But I stood in there patiently and read every magazine they had (did you know that Amy Grant and Vince Gill routinely have 75 people over for Thanksgiving? or that you can make a wicked sweet hummus out of edamame?) before finally seeing the nurse.

My doctor's office recently started using electronic medical records, which I think is kind of cool. I feel like I'm in sickbay on the Enterprise. So I sit (and stand periodically) and answer this barrage of questions about my pain while this nurse types away. "Does it hurt more at some times than others? Is it excruciating? Does it radiate outward? Do you have any tingling anywhere? Are you incontinent? Do you have any abnormal secretions? ("No, just the normal ones.") And so on.

Then she starts reviewing my history. "It says here you are allergic to betadine?"

"I don't think so."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. I don't even know what that is."

"So, you are NOT allergic to Betadine?"

"Do they make cats out of betadine? I'm allergic to cats."

"It says here that you broke out in a rash and your throat closed up when you came in contact with betadine."

"Nope. I think I would remember that."

"OK," she says "I'll just take this off." She said it like I was returning a pair of socks I had already worn.

Now, I realize that most of you would be seeing a red flag at this point. But please know - when this office first converted to electronic records, my doctor was covering my history with me and it showed a record of gall stones and herpes. I have had neither. So my doctor said "Oh well, we'll just get rid of those." (I'm telling you, if you ever get gall stones or herpes, go see this doctor.) So I'm not at all concerned that my record shows a betadine allergy (I still don't know what that is.)

But then she continues to ask questions that don't seem quite right to me. Remember the Seinfeld episode where the newspaper reporter was interviewing Jerry, and she thought he and George were gay, and Jerry wasn't quite following her line of questioning? Remember the face he was making? That was me.

Finally, she says "And you're still taking claritin and naproxin?"

"Neither. Are you sure this is me?" (I point to the screen.)

"Do you live at 119 Suchandsuch street?"

"Nope."

"Is your name Ginger?"

"Nope."

"Oooohhhhhh." "I'll be right back."

So she finally finds my record and we go through the incontinence line of questioning again. (I was incontinent at that point, so we had a whole new set of answers to work with.)

Finally, I see the actual doctor, who diagnosed me with standard lower back strain, and who very gladly wrote me a prescription for some good drugs. I'm about to take some, and drift away to the land of rainbow ponies and marshmallows. But can I really rest well, knowing that some woman named Ginger with a horrible betadine allergy no longer has record of that allergy in her medical history? If the drugs are good enough, I bet I can.