hope springs eternal, winter edition

Where did he go? Where did he go?

I t'ought I smelled a rodent!

Dang! Got away!

Ah, well. Tomorrow's another day.

Sunday night, we can expect to see lots more canine hijinks over at Weekend Dog Blogging at Sweetnick's place. Head on over for head shots, tummy shots, jump shots and what nots!

caramelized onion and bacon tart

Dispensing Happiness is hosting a blog party. How fun is that? Does anyone else love word play as much as I do, I wonder? And how is it that this is the eighth party already, and I'm only just finding out about it? Echoes of high school ... seems like there was always something fun going on that I got wind of way later than everyone else. But that's a story for another day.

The theme for this blog party is brunch. Now, mind you, we're not talking about your average everyday brunch. Nosiree. This is brunch that you serve with cocktails, and finger food, and probably has more in common with happy hour than the after-church affair you might be thinking of. Brunch as appetizers. Genius! After all, who wants to get up early to cook brunch? Not night owl me! I love brunch, but I don't like getting up at the crack of dawn. So over the years I have sought and found many recipes that allow me to do most of the work the night before, and then assemble & pop in the oven an hour before it's needed. But even that is a story for another day!

I served this caramelized onion and bacon tart in precisely this fashion just a few weeks ago, when I had hordes of ravenous twenty-somethings --- terrifying, the appetite one has at that age --- OK, not hordes, but 12 or 14 --- coming over to dinner. I had made my menu plan, but then had second thoughts about whether there would be enough food. So, the day before the dinner, I set out to make this tart. (You don't need to do it the day before, but it was helpful to me to get some of it ready so as to not be totally slaving over the stove the day of the visit.)

Cut into small pieces, and with napkins alongside, it made perfect finger food. Every bit of it was snapped up (as was every bit of the rest of the meal, so I guess it's good I made it). The caramelized onions are so sweet that people asked whether the recipe had apples in it. Try it yourself, and see!

But first, some hints: Half the trick to this scrumptious recipe is a light hand with the pastry. Handle it very, very gently. The second half of the trick is to roll out the crust on a piece of floured parchment or waxed paper, then invert your baking dish over the crust and turn it all upside down to transfer this light crust without breaking it. If you do break it ... no problem! Pinch it together and, if it shows, everyone will know that you didn't get it out of a box. You can't lose, either way.

The third half of the trick is patience with the onions. Cook them slowly on a low heat to let their natural sugars emerge.

I got this recipe from Yankee Magazine, and tweaked it a bit (more eggs, less sage) to get a recipe that seemed just right to me. By the way, I've gotten lots of great recipes from Yankee Magazine. Not a place most of us would think of turning to for recipes, but there you have it.

Makes 12-16 appetizers.

Pastry
1 c all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 T shortening
6 T unsalted butter, cold
2-3 T ice water

• In the bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine the flour and salt.
  
• Add shortening and butter and pulse until batter just starts to come together, as little as possible. It's OK if there are small lumps of unblended butter.
  
• Open lid. Sprinkle in 2 T cold water. Pulse to combine, as little as possible. Add more if needed.
  
• Press into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for about 30 minutes.
  
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  
• On a floured surface, roll out dough so that it's 2 inches longer and wider than your tart pan. Transfer to pan and tuck and trim edges.
  
• Line pastry with foil and fill with dried beans to keep crust from shrinking.
  
• Bake 10 to 12 minutes.
  
• Remove foil and weights and continue baking until crust is lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
  
• Cool to room temperature.

Filling
½ lb (about 9 strips) bacon
2 large vidalia or white onions, sliced thin
1 tsp butter
3 sage leaves, thinly sliced
3-4 large eggs
1/2 c half-and-half
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
fresh sage leaves for garnish

Slice the bacon crosswise into ¼-inch strips. In a large saute pan over medium heat, cook bacon until done but not crisp. Remove bacon, reserving grease, and drain on paper towels.

I like to use thick-sliced bacon, and usually I'll choose Garfield's because I know their quality is good. The picture to the right shows about the right level of doneness. I noticed when I cooked it that the fat foamed just before it was done the way I wanted it. But I haven't repeated the experiment to see if that would reliably tell you when to stop the cooking, so try it yourself, and please let me if it works out that way for you, too. Sometimes these things have more to do with the phase of the moon or the humidity level or something than anything related to what/how you're cooking!

Reduce the heat under your pan to low. Add onions and butter to the pan with the reserved grease. Yep, butter with the reserved grease. Not to worry. We'll get rid of most of it later.

Cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until they turn a caramel brown color, about 30 minutes.

Turn off heat. Drain the excess fat (I use a paper towel to soak up as much of it as I can). Add the sage and the chopped bacon. Cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs and half-and-half together. I would think you could get away with using Egg Beaters and/or fat-free half and half here, but again, I haven't tried it so can't vouch for it. Whisk in the salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 350. Spoon cooled onion and bacon mixture into pastry shell. Pour egg mixture over it. Bake until the tart is set, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Cool at least 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with sage leaves.

MAKE AHEAD PLAN

Up to 3 days ahead

Cook bacon, onions, cool, mix well, store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Day before

Make crust, cool completely, wrap tightly and store at room temperature.
Combine eggs, cream, salt and pepper. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator.
Chop sage, store in refrigerator.

One to two hours before serving

Combine bacon mixture and sage; spread in bottom of crust.
Shake or stir egg mixture, pour over.
Bake as directed.

Note: To use a 9" tart or pie pan: Use the same amount of bacon and onions, 3-4 large eggs, 3/4 c half-and-half, 3/4 tsp salt, and 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper.

Tags:
brunch breakfast appetizer eggs

Standing sentinel

Simba takes his rodent patrol duties very seriously, even when he's not outside. Patience and diligence have yet to yield a successful hunt, but if you're patient and diligent, you don't let that deter you. Is there anything as hopeful as a dog?

See a previous picture of Simba

To see this pic and lots of other canine cuties, head on over to Sweetnicks for the Weekend Dog Blogging event. Or submit your own! The pictures are usually posted late Sunday evening.

mondo gumbo meatloaf

... In which our heroine proves that one can indeed add fat to fatty meat and survive to tell the tale ..

I keep promising to blog my gumbo recipe, and someday I will. The delay comes because when I make gumbo, I'm usually cooking for company. It's too good not to share. When I'm cooking for company, I generally have no time for stopping and taking pictures. So my gumbo recipe, to date, goes unblogged. I do want the world to have it ... I call it spreading the gumbo gospel ... and have even taught a couple of classes on it at our local cooperative food store. So, trust me, I will blog it. Someday.

The last time I made it, it occured to me (as I stirred the brown roux for longer than you might think one would) that the first few steps create a very tasty roux-and-veggie concoction that might be a nice addition to other dishes. As I cast about for ideas, I hooked a good'n: meat loaf. I don't usually think of putting a roux in a meatloaf, but this is no normal roux. This is a roux full of flavor (she said rouxfully). And I do like a meatloaf with big chunks of onions in it. So, sez I to meself, let's give this'n a try. Next time hamburg goes on sale. Which happened this week. $1.59 a pound in family-size packages. The latter detail, of course, accounts for the "mondo" portion of my meatloaf title!

So here's a blogger's tale of makin' meatloaf with a distinctly southern accent, y'all.

Quantities are approximate, as I didn't exactly measure ... I'll tell you how to tell when you've got it right where appropriate.

The roux:

~½ c olive oil or butter
flour
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green pepper, chopped (I always use frozen)
1 stalk celery, sliced (about 1 cup)
~1 c stock (chicken, veggie, beef)

The loaf:

2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 Tbl tomato paste
1 Tbl worcestershire sauce
1 tsp dried thyme leaves
3 lb ground beef
¾ c fine white bread crumbs
ketchup

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Over medium-high heat, preheat any pan that's not nonstick. You can use a large skillet or a pan. In the pictures, I use an anodized aluminum dutch oven. A real southern cook would use a cast arn pan (that's "iron" to us yankees), but with a ceramic cooktop, I don't dare. Those babies are really, really expensive to replace once you crack 'em, and I'm prone to dropping things!

Add your oil, allow it to heat for just a couple of seconds, then whisk in enough flour to get yours to look about like this. It's more flour than you think. Start with ½ cup and then add more till it's not quite dry-looking.

Whisk, stir, whisk some more. Your pan will no doubt start smoking. Not to worry. Whisk, stir, whisk. You're aiming for a brownness close to peanut butter. From time to time, if it seems to be going a bit too slowly for your patience level, you can stop stirring and let the roux sit in the center of the pan for a short time. Keep an eye on it, though. When you start stirring again, you'll see that the bottom has browned. Good! Now whisk to get all that brownness mixed in. Repeat. I'm sorry I didn't pay any attention to how long this took. Perhaps ten minutes?

You'll end up with roux that will look like this. It looks a bit wetter than it did when raw, and that dark, rich color means dark, rich flavor, y'all. If you let it burn, you'll see dark specks in your roux. It's ruined then, and you'll want to throw it out and start over. Trust me on this, people. You do not want to use burnt roux, tiny though those black spots may appear. It's nasty bitter stuff.

Ok, now you have this smokin' hot pan with roux that's still cooking in it. Dramatically dump your chopped onion in, and listen to the sizzle! Stir vigorously until the onion is totally coated with the roux. You have now stopped the roux from cooking. The color you've got is the color you've got, and all that heat is now cooking your onions rather than your roux.

Keeping the heat at medium high unless it makes you too nervous, let the onions cook down a bit (precision is not required here) and then throw in the celery and green peppers. You can lower the heat in the pan if you want to slow things down, but it will take quite a bit longer if you do.

At this point, you get to decide how long you cook the veggies. If you like them to show up as chunks in your meatloaf, you'll cook them a shorter period than if you want to disguise them to fool your kids into thinking they're not eating veggies. In my case, I just cooked them till they were done, but not all the way down to mush.

You can see that there's browned roux stuck in the edges of my pan. Excellent! Don't be too obsessive about getting that scraped up and mixed in. It's all good.

Next, add a little stock to deglaze the pan, stirring constantly. I love the sizzle and steam from this. It's surprising how much stock this little bit of roux can absorb without getting watery. Look at the picture below to see the approximate gooeyness I was going for.

You can probably turn the heat down at this point. While adding the stock, run your spoon or whatever you're stirring with around where the brown bits are to get them incorporated. You'll end up with about 2 cups of roux, a little less if you cooked the veggies down further.

Here's what my mixture looked like just before adding it to the meat mixture. It's kind of gooey and wonderfully rich. This is the point at which I looked at it the other day and asked myself what else I could put it in. Love this stuff!

Ok, when you're done cooing over your lovely roux, take a swig of your cold beer (people, this is not a wine kind of a night) and set it aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the meatloaf. Of course, if you're like me, you've been preparing the rest of it all along, and swigging your beer all along, and you really don't need to me to orchestrate all that, now do you?

Ok, whisk your eggs in a bowl large enough to contain all the ingredients and let you get your hands in there and mix it all up. (I had to put in a large picture of my bowl here; isn't it pretty?) Add to it the other ingredients except bread crumbs and meat. Whisk well, then dump in the meat, bread crumbs and the roux and wash your hands so you can just get in there and squoosh stuff around. Latex gloves?!? Oh, all right, but make sure they're food grade. Mix, mix, mix. Tra la la la la. Done.

Now wash those greasy hands (or strip off your gloves, if you must) and line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. I have baked this directly on a baking sheet in the past and will never do that again. Entirely too challenging to clean off.

Dump the meat mixture onto the foil, and shape it into a long loaf. Spread ketchup over the top. Put some hot water in a brownie pan or some such thing and put it on the bottom shelf of the oven to keep the loaf from splitting. Put the loaf in the top shelf. Bake for one hour, or until you can cut into the middle of the loaf and see the doneness you're after. We like ours with no pink, and this recipe still was tender and moist.

The bottom line, or did the experiment pan out, y'all?

Was it worth the extra trouble to brown the roux? I'm not sure. I can't say the browned roux flavor was particularly prominent in the meat loaf. I think next time I would just saute the veggies and go from there. But it was worth a try, and we are definitely enjoying our tender, moist, mondo gumbo meatloaf! The Huz is a major cheese lover, so he happily dumped a LOT of shredded monterey jack on top of his. Mine was more demurely enjoyed with some extra ketchup. Haute cuisine it ain't, but there's something to be said for comfort foods too. Right?

Postscript: Sweetnicks just tipped me off about the MeatLoaf Madness event over at Eating For One. Is that serendipitous or what? Another venue to share to wealth. Thanks, Sweetnicks! Oh, and besides being generous with her tips, she's being generous enough to allow a meatloaf entry to qualify for ARF (antioxidant rich foods) Tuesday! Even though this meatloaf has LOADS of veggies in it, that's still a stretch. Sweetnicks, I owe you one for sure!!

gingered carrot soup: no dill!

It seems as if every recipe for carrot soup has to use dill. It's true, sweet carrots and tart dill do make a wonderful combination. But I love my own recipe, which has an unusual component: crushed rosemary! Who'dathunkit? But it makes a lovely difference in this favorite recipe.

The bonus about this soup (and many cream soups) is that it can be made in advance all the way up to the point of adding the cream, then chilled and kept in the fridge for as much as three or four days before reheating and adding the cream. It makes for a wonderful, fresh-tasting soup that nobody will believe hasn't been made just minutes before.

Even after the cream has been added, it reheats nicely. The Huz loves to take this to work for lunch, with some bread or blue corn tortilla chips and (always) something for dessert. He says it holds him nicely till dinner. If you saw how much he eats, you'd say it would hold you nicely, too! (I'm not saying that behind his back, he would say it himself. Tall, skinny, and voracious. I seriously covet his genes and metabolism.)

1 c chopped onion
¼ c. butter or margarine
4-½ c carrots, sliced
1 large potato
2 cans chicken broth (total 29 oz)
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 T honey (more if carrots are not sweet)
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

2 c whipping cream

• In a 5-qt Dutch oven, saute onion in butter until tender.
• Add carrots, potato, broth and ginger.
• Cover and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
• Cool 15 minutes.
• Puree in small batches in a blender or food processor until smooth.
• Add remaining ingredients except cream
• You can make the soup up to this point and refrigerate it or hold it on a warm burner.
• Just before serving, add cream and heat through.

This is my entry for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge AND Sweetnick's ARF (Antioxidant Rich Foods)/5 A Day Tuesday.

FWIW: tiles, grout, paint, colors, whatever makes you happy!

Felicia over at The WebSorceress Cooks posted this interesting article about her new kitchen and her desire to add some color to it. The article has a series of pics of her house when it was empty, and it looks to have some very nice space! I don't consider myself a design professional by any stretch of the imagination, but my interest was piqued when I noticed that the tiles on her backsplash look a lot like the colors of the tiles in one of my bathrooms.

Our house was built by a builder for himself and his wife. It has a lot of lovely features, with lots of wood and ceramic tile and big windows and a big brick fireplace in the living room that rises all the way up to the 2-story cathedral ceiling. All these natural product provide lots of textural contrast, so we've decorated with pretty quiet colors, for the most part. An architect who visited once to help us think about expanding our living room commented that the colors created a very peaceful feeling. I didn't consciously set out to do that, and didn't realize that's what we had achieved, but I looked around the room with new eyes when she said that. What a nice compliment! The rooms have a very comfortable feel about them, and I still love our little house after 14 years of living here.

Which is not to say that there aren't some things I get a little itchy to change everyone once in a while, and the ceramic tile in the upstairs bathroom (left) is one of them.

The house was built in the early 80's, but the tile colors reminded me a lot of the "earth tone" trend from the 70's. Tan tile kitchen counter and floors, with dark brown grout. Light tan tile and grout in this bathroom. Not really my cup of tea. Dark brown patterned tile in the downstairs bathroom. Really not my cup of tea!

About 8 years ago when the Huz was out of town for a little over a week, I surprised him by remodeling the downstairs bathroom completely. The tiles there were the most egregious. They darkened our tiny bathroom beyond belief. I was So. Incredibly. Tired. ... of looking at their dreariness, that I replaced them with WHITE! White walls, white countertop, white floors. Yup, white floors. I knew at the time I would regret that, and I did, but I thirsted for white and the thirst had to be slaked. I added some cobalt accent tiles and a school bus orange color on the walls, and this is now a doggone bright place to do a little reading, I must say.

The next tiles that need to be replaced are in our kitchen. The tiles aren't awful, but the thick dark brown grout, besides being kind of unsightly in my opinion, is impossible to keep clean and is starting to crumble, besides. I haven't settled on the color and style of countertop that I want in there, though, so it will have to wait. We want something that is as impervious to heat as ceramic tiles; we've really enjoyed being able to set down a hot pan anywhere in my kitchen. And it needs to be easy to clean, but not show every loose crumb. Nothing shiny. [I'm considering acid-etched concrete. Does anyone have any experience with that? I've seen some pictures that look like you can achieve a few nice colors with the acid.] Anyway, over time I've learned that I need to let these things just percolate around in my subsconscious for a while. One day, voila! The answer will be there. I just need to be patient. Isn't it cool how that works?

The least objectionable tiles are in the upstairs bathroom. I'd still like to replace them because brown just isn't my thang, but they're livable. At least, they are now. For the longest time, I tried to get other colors to work with them. I am a lover of all things yellow, so I added some yellow paint in there that, shall we say, co-existed with the tan peacably. They didn't really talk to each other, but they didn't fight, either. I added some light sage green as a mediator, and it worked out OK. But nobody was really happy, including me.

I also tried white. White paint, white towels, white bathmat. Sort of trying to overcome the tan with blindingness. It was ... OK. Just OK.

Finally, I gave in to the essential brownness of it all. I decided if I painted the walls a medium tan, and did all black accents, it might actually feel pulled together. And what do you know ... it does! As it turned out, I had lots of accent thingies for the counter, and a fabulous print for the wall, just waiting to go in there. With black towels, and happy little black squares mimicking accent tiles sort of crawling along the wall above the wall tiles, I do believe I've hit upon the scheme I'll stick with. Third time's the charm.

Until I get someone in there with a sledgehammer. :o)

So, Felicia, I don't know if any of this little walk down memory lane is of any use to you at all as you consider your options, but thanks for asking for input. It's been fun to share this little corner of my house with you, and with everyone else. And I wish you the best of luck and much happiness in the choice you finally settle on!

A blog to visit

Please check out Kokblog. It's a food blog, illustrated with the most enchanting little line drawings rather than photos. If you love the drawings, be sure to click through to her JohannaK blog, which is nothing but drawings, some food-related, most not. She calls it her sketching blog, but I can't denigrate these wonderful, witty line drawings to call them sketches. I'm an instant fan!! Adding her to my links list immediately.

She's baaaack!

I'm back from all the craziness, and recovering quite nicely, thank you. The 20-person cooking stint turned out to be a 16-person stint, and I had an absolutely excellent helper. I never do these things solo (sorry if I made it sound as if I did). There's always someone to come along behind me cleaning up my messes, setting the tables and clearing them, running the dishwasher, running to the store for forgotten or newly-needed items, etc.

For years, my assistant has nearly always been my friend Terri, who is mellow and funny and really prefers to be in the assisting role, but who can take over cooking a dish if needed. She wasn't available this time. Instead, a woman named Claudette (yep, French roots!) whom I'd met some years ago volunteered to assist, even though her husband had just had hernia surgery and needed some level of help at home. And she was fabulous! This gal's the local version of the Energizer bunny, so fast that I was in awe. We really clicked as a team. It was touching to hear that helping me in the kitchen reminded me of when she was a child helping her mother. And no, I'm not old enough to be her mother, in fact she's got a few years on me. But it was nice to know that she was truly enjoying the time she spent helping. I expect we'll work together again from time to time, and I look forward to that. I never thought I'd be as happy with anyone as I always have been with pal Terri, so it's really delightful to find this wonderful teammate!

So, the meals got made, the snacks got served, the kitchen got cleaned, and everyone left happy. A number of the guests asked for recipes, asked about how I learned to cook, made sweet comments about the quality of the food. One couple runs a B&B and said I could come cook for their inn any time. That's exactly the atmosphere I'm shooting for at these events, so that made me happy.

Sunday was very busy, church in the morning with a quick bite to eat at a local truckstop (but think "local diner," this food is great!) and then an afternoon of writing up the shopping list for the cooking class Monday night. The Huz had to clear our driveway of over a foot of powdery snow. It's a big driveway, and he opted to do it with a shovel instead of the snowblower because the snow was so powdery, he wasn't sure the snowblower would throw it very far. It took him a couple of hours. Then I was off to do the shopping for the class, stowed everything in the class kitchen, and then headed off for a couple of hours of play rehearsal. Whew! End of day.

Monday, I worked on my teaching plan, made a chocolate cream pie so there would be one all firmed up and ready to eat at the end of the class, and got out all my cooking equipment that I wanted to take to the class. By 4:00 I was out the door, needing to stop & pick up an item that wasn't available at the first store Sunday. Got to the class kitchen by 4:40, and my awesome friend and assistant Ruth was there already! She wasn't due till 5:30. With the extra help, we were mighty dang organized for the class!

By 6:20, class participants were filtering in, washing their hands, signing their forms, picking up the recipe sheets and feedback forms, and we started the class nearly on time at 6:35. With Ruth and me, we were twelve. It was a most congenial group of adult food lovers. We had a retired Air Force guy, a middle school music teacher, a couple of lawyers, a stay-at-home mom, a mom with 3 part-time jobs, and a few others whose occupations, sadly, I didn't have time to inquire about. They all pitched in and helped with the chopping and the stirring and the searing. The theme was "Mardi Gras", and we made a honey pecan pie first, got it into the oven and then into the fridge so it could be eaten that night. Then we started the chicken gumbo, and while various activities were going on around that we made the killer corn bread. We nibbled on that while we finished the gumbo. Lastly, we still had time so we made a chocolate cream pie. Then we all sat down together with some bottled water and the fruits (meats, vegetables) of our labors. It was a perfectly lovely time! The participants all got to take home the leftovers, of which there were many. And I got to bring home the as-yet-unset chocolate pie for my tall skinny fast-metabolizing Huz. Home by 10:00. Much happiness all around.

And then .... sleeeeep!!! One more night of it, and I should be back to human again. Yeah!

Yawwwnnn!

I'm afraid my little guy is beginning to show his age a bit. He's sleeping more these days. He's so contented to curl up and tuck his nose under his tail like a little fox, or to assume what The Huz calls his "arrow" position, and drift off to dreamland, complete with little arfs and whoofs signalling days of glory and battles supreme. He's a very snuggly dog, loving to sleep on or near me, content to receive a little tummy rub and then drift off to sleep. He's not as surefooted as he used to be on our bare wood floors. And I think I might be noticing the first signs of cataracts in his sweet brown eyes.

But he still wakes up delightedly when I call him to chase squirrels and anything else that runs away from him. I call him The World's Softest Predator ... not that he ever catches his prey. But his efforts have definitely reduced the numbers of those pesky chattery red squirrels under our feeders.

I can't bear to think that someday he won't be with us. It's the bargain we must accept if we join our lives with our canine companions. It's a hard bargain.

See a previous picture of Simba

With tears, this is my Weekend Dog Blogging entry.

You are Lucy!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

putanesca, anyone?

... or is that puttanesca?

I'm looking for a great chicken putanesca recipe (my old Spanish training comes out ... no double t's!) for a large benefit dinner in April. Do you make it? Do you love it? Do you think it's OK to serve a meal to large numbers of people that includes greek olives, anchovies, and red pepper flakes? Am I MAD???

I've done it again ...

I've overscheduled myself. In my defense, I had no possible way to know when I committed to all these things that they would all land in this little section of my calendar. What things, you may ask? Thanks for asking; I've been wanting to whine!

1. Cooking for a group of 20(!) for four days the end of this week, in a small kitchen with no commercial equipment and marginal ergonomics, a dining room barely able to contain that number, with only part-time help, in a town 75 miles north of here.
2. Cooking as much as possible for said group in advance of going there.
   
3. Practicing for a play for a murder mystery dinner benefit scheduled for early April.
4. Learning lines for said play.
5. Acquiring a disco outfit for said play.
6. Contriving and learning a dance routine for said play.
   
7. Chairing a heap big meeting (ugh!) Wednesday with the building contractor for our church construction project. I chair the committee, keep the notes and follow up on most of the items.
8. Meeting tomorrow with said contractor and interior design committee at local building supply company to view furnishings, wood trim, window styles, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
9. Teaching a cooking class next Monday night
10. Shopping for said cooking class

And did you notice I didn't mention anything about work, which includes building a web-based progress tracker for one client as a preliminary to a fairly large project for them, designing and building a website for a local friend with a real estate rental company, investigating the plausibility of offering a class on a hot new technology, exploring the early stages of another website for another local friend, and learning said hot new technology to apply to said websites?

Isn't that just depressing? But, this too shall pass! So, I'm ducking out of any more postings this week, and will be back middle of next week with, I'm sure, stories and/or pictures and/or recipes. And will look forward to hearing the same from you!

Sleep, blissful sleep

Can't a guy get a little shuteye around here without someone stickin' a camera in his face?

Ah, the heck with it. I'm goin' to sleep anyway.

Normally, I'd submit this as an entry for Weekend Dog Blogging at Sweetnick's, but she's a bit under the weather and may not be producing it this weekend. Best wishes for quick wellness, Sweetnicks!

See a previous picture of Simba

[Added later in the day ... ] Hey, dog lovers! Weekend Dog Blogging is on, over at Something So Clever this week while Sweetnicks recuperates from gall bladder surgery. Rumor has it she'll be back online soon. Meantime, head on over to SSC to see lots of cute dog pics, and/or send your own contribution to somethingsoclever AT hotmail DOT com.

A (very) little tourism in India

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a kind shopkeeper, Rajiv, was giving us a ride back to our hotel when he learned we had had no time for sightseeing on our trip. He very kindly drove us around for about half an hour to show us the sights below.

India Gate was originally called the All India War Memorial in memory of the Indian soldiers who died during the Afghan and World Wars. The names of 85,000 Indian Army Soldiers who died during the wars are inscribed on the walls of the structure. Below the arch is the memorial to the Unknown Soldier. An eternal flame called Amar Jawan Jyoti is an eternal flame (it runs on gas) that was lit in 1971 to honour the soldiers.

It sits on a broad boulevard reminiscent of roads in European capitols. This is no coincidence; this entire area was laid out by the British during their colonial rule. Before visiting Delhi, I wasn't sure whether to call the city "Delhi" or "New Delhi." I was thinking maybe it used to be called "New Delhi" by the British, but "Delhi" by the Indians. What I learned on this trip is that "New Delhi" is the section of Delhi that was built in the European manner during the colonial period. Aha! That makes perfect sense.

This huge statue wasn't far from our hotel, and we passed it several times in our travels about the city. I'm afraid this picture doesn't begin to do justice to this magnificent piece of artwork. The Ghandi memorial is a huge statue in bronze commemorating Gandhi's march to the sea to protest the salt tax in 1931. You can see much better photos of it here.

Finally, no trip to India would be complete without a chance to see the little monkeys running around loose. We spotted them atop the Parliament building first, but because of security concerns cars aren't allowed to stop in the street in front of the buildings, so I wasn't able to snap any pictures. So Rajiv took us along a thoroughfare through a relatively "natural" area where the monkeys run loose and tourists buy food to (illegally) feed them.


As you can see, they're not the cutest monkeys on the planet ... but they're monkeys! Loose! It's really fun to see. Check out the babies. You gotta love 'em. Or maybe you don't. Their mothers do.

Well, that was about the extent of our purposeful sightseeing. Even though we did see lots of sights, they weren't the monuments or the temples that you would normally expect to go see during a trip to India. We're hoping to do those on a later trip. For this one, the most important sight was little Hope Aradhana.

When I have time, I'm planning to do one last post containing just miscellaneous stuff seen around on the streets, some pics of some folks we met, etc. And I expect that will be the last post about our fabulous trip to India. So, until then ... TTFN!

Weekend Dog Blogging

Cute doggies with curly ears don't have to look at the camera, if they don't want to. Even if you make kissy noises with your mouth and call their name brightly and promise not to use the flash. Cute doggies with curly ears don't have to do anything they don't want to.

See a previous picture of Simba

Attention Dog Lovers! It's time for Weekend Dog Blogging!
To see more fun dog photos and discover yummy new food blogs, head over to Sweetnicks on Sunday night for the complete roundup. We'd love to have you join us. Just post your pup and e-mail the permalink to sweetnicksplace AT aol DOT com.