Musings

We dined this evening on hoppin’ john slightly re-imagined, which I sure hope still qualifies to give us good mojo for 2025. The black-eyed peas were fresh, mmmm. I lightly cooked the collards. The grain is off piste—it’s wild rice, which of course isn’t rice botanically…. The broth of all three was from some turkey thigh bones I held back for this evening.

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on Fiber-loaded augury

I arose before the sun (I know it’s relative), and thought, this is the last dawn I’ll see of 2024.

When we were out doing our final errands, I chose some red food…that’s pickled beets and duh raspberries. I haven’t tried the former (yet), and the raspberries, uh, almost flavorless…but gorgeous (eat with your eyes doesn’t really cut it sometimes).

Posted at 8:28 PM | Comments Off on V late 2024

As the household menu-planner (mostly), I’ve been trying to move us away from red meats and toward fish and non-meat proteins for dinners. This is one of our current favorites….

Posted at 7:50 PM | Comments Off on Not your grandma’s salmon salad

Oh, and the new coffee maker is a Ninja! I can’t figure out how coffee-making fits with a mercenary warrior, but the device makes lovely coffee.

Posted at 10:08 PM | Comments Off on Footnote to yesterday

The morning routine began as normal: measure water into the electric drip coffee maker, measure ground coffee, assemble machine, poke on-button, watch the blue light illuminate, return to morning fog—wince and check a few headlines.

Cock ear toward pot…hmm. No gurgling. Glance. Yup, there’s the blue light. Wha?

Despite off-on restarting, gentle shaking, etc., still no heat.

Hmm. Plan B.

I dug out our souvenir Moka Pot, and remembered that it always takes a long time (to me) to heat and brew. Still, it did so, and I sipped fine hot coffee. Whew.

I invaded the Guru’s fog with the news…and he sipped the substitute coffee, and surfaced…. By noon we had researched electric coffee makers in our preferred price range, (no, not paying $400 plus tax—or more), and fetched the chosen model home. By one, we’d unboxed, done the two water-only brews to clean the new machine, and had actual coffee brewing.

Serendipity followed by mission accomplished.

Posted at 7:28 PM | 1 Comment »

We walked around the corner to a coffee shop and I had an artistic matcha latte…

…sitting in the sunshine by the sidewalk under autumn leaves.

Posted at 8:47 PM | Comments Off on Street tea

Nothing quite looks like a rambutan…with those aesthetic spinterns in a variety of greenish and rosy hues.

Posted at 10:20 PM | 1 Comment »

We finally got out from under the cloud cover associated with Helene, and had smooth sailing under blue skies…very pleasant. We crested a hill, and Eden was marred by a fog-belt. Turned out it was right over Sturgeon River, and when we cleared the valley, we enjoyed unbroken blue skies again. 😎

We dined this evening on a spring green salad with chunks of smoked whitefish…surely five-star dining for this part of the world. The orchard grasses are browning out, but the trees remain overwhelmingly green, with some brown-orange tinges.

Posted at 7:09 PM | Comments Off on Fish tales

We departed from air fryer cuisine and used the cast iron skillet to sear a slab of tuna, plus “stir fry” some veg. Tasty. BTW, the golden veg is “orange” cauliflower.

Posted at 9:59 PM | Comments Off on Dining yum

I see, at minimum, DQ and St__bux are both already vending pumpkin-flavored beverages. These used to be timed with October, even late October, leveraging Halloween symbolism. No longer.

Here’s another tidbit…in the last two weeks, The Hubby received six (SIX!) anti-Kamala oversized postcards. Me: nothing. We’re both registered voters, both with very gendered first names. I’m going with clear gender bias.

Posted at 9:06 PM | Comments Off on Careful timing