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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Et Voila! (Open Thread)

Et Voila! (Open Thread)

by | 141 Comments

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As I mentioned in a thread yesterday, I made Italian wedding soup from scratch for supper last night.

Soup in a colorful bowl.

It was an unexpectedly arduous task that involved making dozens of tiny meatballs. It’s tasty, but if I ever make it again, I’ll add some diced tomatoes. (Kind of a gross picture. I need a food stylist!)

Bill has had a Man Cold™️ for the past week, and unfortunately I’ve contracted the lady version. It’s weird having a regular illness. I’ve become used to more exotic ailments, so a common cold is almost welcome in a strange way.

To treat the most annoying symptom, after supper I made myself a toddy similar to what my father administers to children afflicted with a cough, i.e., a shot of whiskey with lemon and honey. (I use better bourbon than he does, but the recipe is otherwise identical.)

It still works — I promptly fell asleep on the couch and missed most of Monday Night Football, which featured the Broncos vs. Browns. I don’t really care about either team, but Jameis Winston is the Browns QB, and I hate him with the white-hot heat of 10,000 exploding supernovas.

Since I was asleep, I missed the second pick-six and a fourth quarter interception in the end zone thrown by Winston, which doomed the Browns’ late drive to retake the lead. I enjoyed reading about it though!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  3. 3.

    TBone

    Soup is rarely easy on the eyes.  The aroma makes up for that!  I can smell your lovely photo.  I’ve been eating hot soup for breakfast for the past two days in our frigid temps and wish I could have some of yours for a nice change of pace from turkey noodle.  Yum!

  5. 5.

    catclub

    administers to children afflicted with a cough, i.e., a shot of whiskey with lemon and honey.

    Isn’t that a whiskey sour?

    I administer that with or without a cough.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    The soup looks delicious, and I love your china!  The bright red, and the vaguely Asian design.

    @TBone:   Soup for breakfast sounds like a plan.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    Tiny meatballs is an excellent metaphor for why I dislike fussy cookery. Also, I have a coordination thing that makes all those domestic dexterity tasks torture, and yet I can type like the wind.

    Met a nice lady who unwinds with knitting, and I had to explain that I can’t do that. Which she didn’t believe, until I told her my grandmother started me on crochet and I can never get the hang, never got that far.

    That convinced her.

    Ironically, the culty church I grew up in assured me God made me to be a housewife. Never mind I was terrible at most of it, was bored to tears during it, and already had a lifetime of it as a parentified child.

    I concluded their god was as incompetent as these worshippers.

  11. 11.

    TBone

    I made hubby gargle with warm, kosher salted water three times per day and his sore throat from two days ago is now gone.  The old ways can be best.  I’m gonna go do a shot of apple cider vinegar to ward off germs now!  Wish I’d remembered to do it sooner.  I am an old wife.  I relish being a homemaker in retirement because I wanted to do that for years instead of making office coffee (*winks).

  12. 12.

    sab

    Soup looks good and those bowls look great.

    I sympathise with you about the tiny meatballs.

    I only once made genuine key lime pie in Ohio. I had a bag of key limes ( much smaller than golf balls)  that I had to grate for the zest and then squeeze for the juice. Never again.

  19. 19.

    sab

    @TBone: Next time make half of the leftover turkey soup be turkey mushroom wild rice. Also too you can freeze your soup. What you are sick of in December you will love in February.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    @JML: & @Eunicecycle: Winston was Tampa’s QB for five interminable years. He throws like a dream but is also an interception machine. That’s not why I dislike the guy, though. He’s been credibly accused of rape and groping both as a college and pro athlete. Can’t root for a guy like that.

  22. 22.

    Andrew Abshier

    @JML: Jameis is a better man than Deshaun Watson, but that’s not saying much.  Jameis has been accused multiple times of sexual assault.  When he played for Tampa Bay, he was known for throwning TD passes, but to the wrong team.

  23. 23.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Incredible red bowl.

    I think it’s a beautiful soup photo.

    Tiny meatballs would make me crazy. Crazy.
    i might mix the meat, and Pat it out very thin, and cut it into small itty bitty squares for cooking.
    your soup looks yummy.

    We had a retreat at a Japanese owned college in town, and the cafeteria served miso soup, rice and fish for breakfast, as well as some western selections. I love soup for breakfast.

  24. 24.

    TBone

    @sab: My freezer has 5 containers of frozen soup in it (I only add the noodles before mealtime so they don’t get smooshy) and one of homemade cranberry relish plus a freezer bag of my apple onion dressing I will stuff some pork chops with soon!  Some of the turkey soup will be made into stew or pot pies later.  Not a drop wasted!

    Wild rice and mushrooms can perk up a thawed container of basic soup in January YUM!

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Working my way through the mini-series Taboo on Freevee via Prime (formerly on BBC and FX). Early 18th century layer upon layer and wheels within wheels drama. While a little to free with the F word for my taste, two and half episodes in a stolid B+.

    May qualify as old news to some; I had never heard of it before.

  27. 27.

    sab

    OT: satby cat report. We had a drain malfunction on Saturday. The plumber managed to flood one room in the basement with backed up sewage ( yuck.) Solomon the new cat was dragged against his will upstairs, clawing several people badly including me. We locked him in the main bedroom. He was horrified to discover my husband sleeps there. By day two he was snuggling against sleeping husband.

    ETA  All repaired so Solly is back in his basement. I suspect he will come upstairs tonight.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    I noticed a few years before Covid that I almost never got head colds anymore. Used to be having two or three of them a year was normal, now I go years between them. I don’t think I’ve had more than one in the Covid era.

    Same with headaches – used to get them periodically, now almost never. I’m pretty sure I had one during the past year that lasted an hour or two, and then it was gone again. And the last one I had before that one was probably years earlier.

    I mentioned the part about no more colds to someone awhile back, and they suggested that maybe I’d already been exposed and developed resistance to all of the relatively common ‘common cold’ viruses. I have no idea if that’s how it works, but it makes about as much sense as anything else I can think of. In which case I guess it’s a hidden benefit of longevity. Regardless, I’m certainly not complaining!

  30. 30.

    schrodingers_cat

    @WereBear: I would just buy sausages and cut them into slices and saute them and put them in the soup. In fact I do make a soup with Mexican flavors which uses crumbled sausages, hearty and delicious

    Speaking of fussy cooking. I am bone tired cooking separate vegetarian meals.

  31. 31.

    Leto

    @Betty Cracker: that’s Deshaun too. Clemson qb, went to the NFL and then all his rapey shit came out. Traded from the Texans to the Browns, rape stuff settled, then 2 months ago new rape allegations. And he fucking sucks as a qb, but that’s besides the point.

     

    @Andrew Abshier: uhh, no.

  32. 32.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Andrew Abshier: In other words, Winston’s a better person than Watson in the same sense that Mussolini was a better person than Hitler?

    I don’t know quite where this world’s going, but wherever it’s going, it’s got an awesome handbasket to travel in.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: My art supply haul from the shopping weekend, I got substantial savings on things that I wanted to buy the whole year. I am quite happy.

    90 color set of acrylic paint pens

    3 coloring books

    2 Quill brushes

    2 fountain pens

    a set of syringes to fill the said pens easily

    A set of 4 drawing inks

    Stencil detailing brushes

    Desk easel.

  35. 35.

    satby

    my father administers to children afflicted with a cough, i.e., a shot of whiskey with lemon and honey.

    My father did the same. He once miscalculated how much whiskey (bourbon) to use for my size and I passed out on the floor right in front of my mother. She was furious with him 😆

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NotMax:

    Color me jealous of all your people with capacious freezer space.

    If you have room for one in your basement, garage, or what have you, buy a chest freezer.  We’ve had one for about 30 years now, and I’ll be damned if I know how we managed without one.

  37. 37.

    Leto

    @Betty Cracker: also, your soup looks good! That’s the thing about Italian wedding soup, it’s versatile. Sub in this, add a bit more of that, take that out… doesn’t matter.

     

    @WereBear:

    Tiny meatballs is an excellent metaphor for why I dislike fussy cookery.

    Italians don’t eat huge meatballs. Plus it’s a soup and you want a meatball with every bite! Can’t do that with American size monster balls. :p

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Michael Bersin: North Carolina’s legislature is having one more go at messing up the state while Republicans still have a super-majority. Yesterday the state Senate overrode Governor Cooper’s veto of their “sham” hurricane relief bill, and I think today will be the lower chamber’s turn. The bill is a power-grab intended to hamstring the incoming Governor and Attorney General.

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I would just buy sausages and cut them into slices and saute them and put them in the soup.

    Makes sense to me – I do this when making chili.  Actually I don’t even bother to sauté them when I put them in chili.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @

    No basement, no garage. For that matter, no attic either.

    See upright freezers at Costco which look more convenient than a chest model, but sadly no room for one.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    Eye and fingers refuse to work in concert this pre-dawn. Fix.

    @a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2024/12/03/et-voila-open-thread/#comment-9450368″>lowtechcyclist

    No basement, no garage. For that matter, no attic either.

    See upright freezers at Costco which look more convenient than a chest model, but sadly no room for one.

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    I saw a funny meme this morning, on Laura Rozen’s social media account. It showed a guy relaxed on a couch with partner and dog beside him

    It read:

    Me at 21: “As long as I get to bed by 3am I’m good.”

    Me now: “8pm is to late to start a movie!”

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @lowtechcyclist

    I saute slices of Portuguese sausage first when making feijoada. It’s fatty and sauteeing renders out a goodly portion of that. Over the years have gotten more indolent and don’t bother browning the beef cubes first before adding them. Minimally noticeable difference in the final product.

  52. 52.

    Trivia Man

    Betty: did you see the melon baller suggestion in time to make the  meatballs? Huge labor saving trick.

  53. 53.

    frosty

    I didn’t watch Monday Night Football but after the Ravens game* I tuned into the Buffalo Snow Bowl. My favorite part was watching the players slide on the snow after they got tackled.

    *It was very hard watching Justin Tucker miss two field goals. He’s won so many games in the last few seconds; it’s going to be strange if he’s not Mister Reliable any more.

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    I am thinking of putting together a series of what you would need if you want to start an art practice of drawing, sketching and coloring, as an absolute beginner. Do you think anyone would be interested in this

    Since I rediscovered my art practice during the early days of COVID it has been a source of great joy to me.

  58. 58.

    AM in NC

    Yum-o!  I make a version of this soup that my family loves.  We call it sausage-kale soup, and instead of hand-making meatballs, I buy locally produced link breakfast sausage, fry them up in the stock pot as a first step in the soup, slice them into bite-sized pieces, and add them to the soup at the back end of the process.

    I use the sausage rendering to sauté the onions, celery, and garlic for the soup base.  And yes, I do add canned tomatoes and canned white beans.

  60. 60.

    Shakti

    @TBone: A warm salt water gargle is good for sore throats.

    I also make turmeric milk if I’m feeling under the weather.

    If I’m really clogged up I’ll put hot steaming water in a bowl, vapo rub, drape a towel over my head and sit there until the water isn’t hot or for as long as I can stand.

    That, and I try to get as much sleep as humanly possible, because I tend to have colds forever….

  61. 61.

    satby

    @schrodingers_cat:  😂 Irish-British thing for sure, but I bet every culture has some boozy remedy for some illnesses. Booze and herbs was all humanity had for eons to treat illness.

  66. 66.

    Shakti

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    It looks like it’s delicious!

    Food styling isn’t bad at all.  If you had an extraneous bay leaf or green leaf to stick in the soup that would’ve been enough for food styling. A spoon in the bowl is good.  I like your table cloth/placemat.

    [Many food styling tips render the food inedible. And IG food people tend to post puree looking soups, or arrange the little pieces in the soup. Which makes it cold.. which dnw.]

    It’s 48 degrees here, which is some kind of record for this time of year here? I put on the space heater and used a blanket.

  67. 67.

    AM in NC

    @Geminid:  I hate these vandals so fucking much.  These assholes did the same thing 8 years ago when Cooper was elected – their lame duck Republican Governor, Pat McCrory, signed everything the reichwing General Assembly put in front of him, stripping all kinds of power from the Office of the Governor and moving it into the poisonous, rigged legislature.

    We are not giving up here, and Anderson Clayton seems to understand the need to fight every single day in every single county to claw back some shit.  We can’t force any real change until 2028 at the earliest (when we would have our first chance to recapture the Supreme Court and un-rig our gerrymandered districts).

    You probably know all this, but the BJ community may need reminding.  Long, tiring slog, but I’m up for punching Nazis wherever I find them.

  69. 69.

    frosty

    @zhena gogolia: My father fell down on the job. No hot toddies in my house, dammit! Martinis for them, though.

    And in later years when we visited on a Friday night we got Whiskey Sours and a steak dinner, so all is forgiven.

  70. 70.

    schrodingers_cat

    @frosty: Thanks. I need to put together my studio space. Because inks and paints are too messy to work with otherwise. I am itching to try some vintage dip pen nibs that I acquired from eBay.

    OT: Are drafting compasses better than the children’s variety that you get in the school geometry sets

    Really looking forward to the desktop easel. My right hand has been  hurting.

  72. 72.

    frosty

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes, drafting compasses are better. I just checked and the Staedtler website has more than a dozen. I have no idea which one is better for a particular use. They weren’t something I ever had a use for.

  74. 74.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: For the last week here on the Mason-Dixon Line the high has been barely above freezing and the low in the 20s. This is the time of year when Ms F is ready to chuck all our plans, hitch up the trailer, and get outta here.

    Sadly, we have to wait until mid-January. We’re picking up the trailer today after getting it winterized. Hmm, winterized. Maybe we should skip that and pack up and haul it south instead!

  75. 75.

    Shakti

    @Betty Cracker:

    The man got interminable chances and he’s not that good and he’s a PR nightmare. Interception machines are embarassing. It really put into contrast how Colin Kaepernick was treated.

    TBH, never was a fan of the bucs when he was playing; not really a fan even when Brady was and I just don’t care now.

    I have an enduring grudge against Raymond James stadium and their NFL stadium rules (the bag rules, I have long rant about it as a femme presenting person, also the crap about not being to keep your top for your bottled beverage) and I refuse to see any event that happens there.  The TSA at the airport is less restrictive in some ways.

  76. 76.

    JCJ

    Your description of having a “regular” illness reminds me of my daughter who has had significant problems from lupus for the last 12 years.  She describes having a cold as being “muggle sick”, apparently a term others with lupus or other autoimmune disorders use.

  77. 77.

    schrodingers_cat

    @frosty: I want to draw my own mandalas. I think I will wait for an eBay bargain since this is a want not a need

    Just checked eBay and they have several vintage ones from Staedtler. I need to figure out exactly what I need.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @Shakti: The dishes I cook typically aren’t much for looks, but last week I made some chili that looked kind of pretty. I cut up a half-dozen large Jalapeño peppers but left them a little undercooked, so the pieces were still bright green. I also used a couple cans of dark red kidney beans on account of their iron content, and V-8 for my stock. The color contrast made the chili look a little Christmas-y.

  80. 80.

    Shakti

    @Betty Cracker: Ugh.

    And yet this wouldn’t be a real winter temp up north.  First year here I bought a cute wool skirt thinking I’d wear it in winter. And it was always far too warm for it. At least I can wear the impractical boots without worrying about an automatic wipeout.

    I remember three years ago I had an aunt visit and it dipped down to the 30s. She still insisted on going to the beach and dipping her toes in the water. She was from Toronto and was dying…lol.

  81. 81.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Michael Bersin:

    Sigh.

    Years ago when the total whacko right started getting more seats in the legislature, I always said their goal was to Out-Kansas, Kansas, in the batshit, crazy right wing legislative arena.

    They have succeeded.

  82. 82.

    narya

    @Betty Cracker: A second use for a melon baller: scraping the seeds out of squash (butternut, acorn, spaghetti, etc.). I got one as a gift and I don’t think I’ve ever used it to make melon balls, but it is extremely helpful for the seed-scraping.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    I’m up north in Michigan snowed in by myself for the day – all I have in the house is raisin bran, shelf stable milk and canned soup. Its kind of nice.

  85. 85.

    Shakti

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    @Geminid:  I should do something like that for some of them.

    A lot of the food I eat doesn’t look pretty in the slightest and wouldn’t look pretty by western cuisine mores.

  87. 87.

    TBone

    I never got liquor growing up for any reason in our WASP household, but in my late teens I found a wonderful doctor who would prescribe the purple stuff (expectorant plus codeine) that always cured me because I could sleep after taking that warm fuzzy purple goop.  I miss that doctor, he would take $20 and make an appointment at his home for any time convenient to his patients and he restored harpsichords and painted  oil paintings from the Dutch Masters in his free time.  He gave an authentic antique Longbow to an ex BF of mine who reminded him of Robin Hood (stealing from the rich to give to the poor).  He was an old school country doctor and a wonderful human being.  I was spoiled for years.

    Swarthmore.

  92. 92.

    raven

    @TBone: In the Netflix “Mo” about a Palestinian living in Huston he drinks that with coke because Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @TBone

    AFAIK Swarhmore remains a dry town.

    Could have keggers on campus but forbidden to charge any admission or attendance fee.

  96. 96.

    Rose Judson

    I have a 102° fever (COVID tests have been negative so far) and I am making avgolemono. I wasn’t quite tired enough to nap earlier so hopefully even if the soup doesn’t turn out I’ll be worn out enough to sleep when it’s done.

  97. 97.

    Citizen Dave

    @Shakti: ​
      When they outlaw bottled beverage tops, only outlaws will have bottled beverage tops.

    This year my interest in the No Fun League is waning. Maybe because the Colts are so very boring. Waiting for the playoffs.

  98. 98.

    lowtechcyclist

    @AM in NC:

    I hate these vandals so fucking much.  These assholes did the same thing 8 years ago when Cooper was elected – their lame duck Republican Governor, Pat McCrory, signed everything the reichwing General Assembly put in front of him, stripping all kinds of power from the Office of the Governor and moving it into the poisonous, rigged legislature.

    I remember that.  Does NC have a process for amending the state constitution by referendum?  An amendment that defined the powers of the statewide offices might stop this crazy shit of redefining their powers up or down based on which party held them.

  101. 101.

    No Nym

    @Michael Bersin: I think we already knew who they were, they are just formalizing it so others have to submit to their edicts. It is just more stage dressing for Xtian nationalism. Their “religious and moral convictions” [sic] are meant to govern all.

    MO HB 38: “No public school or school board shall require an employee or independent contractor to address, identify, or refer to an individual by pronouns that are different from the pronouns that align with such individual’s biological sex if such usage is contrary to such employee’s or independent contractor’s religious or moral convictions.“

  102. 102.

    TBone

    @raven: not surprised ! “The Purple” is a famous thing now, but didn’t become famous until the opioids years (which I’m very grateful for since it works miracles on a bad cough).  Good luck getting any of it these days. Verboten.

  103. 103.

    NotMax

    @No Nym

    “What’re you in for?”

    “Pronoun violation.”

    “::gasp::”

    “And they all moved away from me on the Group W bench.”
    ;)

  105. 105.

    TBone

    @NotMax: wow, I didn’t know that!  Never partied there, obvs.  Only went there for the doctor, the Deli (restaurant) and the Market!

  108. 108.

    No Nym

    @NotMax: Exactly. I am curious to see who gets appointed to Underwear Patrol to make sure genitals match representation so the world feels safe for them. I’m pretty sure they can form a battalion with the creepy pedophiles and sex abusers in the ranks of their churches.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    I was checking out Al Arabiya for news on Syria last night, and they had a lot. There were also a couple Iran stories. One headline:

    “Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian expresses doubt about legislation imposing toigher sanctions on woman flouting mandatory hijab regulations.”

    President Pezeshkian succeeded the deceased President Ebrahim Raisi in an election held this May, after Raisi’s helipcopter flew into a mountain in northern Iran.

    Raisi’s crash was by all appearances an accident, but it was fortuitous for the men running the Islamic Republic. Raisi was very much a hardliner, but Pezeshkian’s election has allowed a pivot to a less repressive system, at least outwardly.

    While Pezeshkian doesn’t have a lot of clout in Iran’s parliament, but the office of Supreme Leader Khameini does, and Khameni’s advisors seem inclined towards conciliating Iranians angry at the Islamic Republic’s social policies. So, Pezeshkian might win this battle.

    The headline of another Al Arabiya story:

    “Iran releases prominent regime critic and hip hop artist who came to fame over his lyrics about the death of Mahsa Amina, local media reports.”

    Mahsa Amini was the young Kurdish woman whose death after a beating by Tehran’s “morality police” sparked months of anti-regime protests.

  113. 113.

    catclub

    @NotMax: See upright freezers at Costco which look more convenient than a chest model, but sadly no room for one.

    But chest model conserves the chilled air best.

  115. 115.

    Jeffro

    Betty, I saw a graphic or meme or whatever on Bluesky to the effect that between his nearly 500 passing yards and nearly 200 interception-return yards, Jameis Winston had set a new NFL record.  I LOL’d

  116. 116.

    Elma

    @sab: My sister brought me a bag of key limes from her tree when she visited from Florida.  I made the damn pie; but told her if she ever brought another bag there would be trouble.  Subsequently her key lime tree was killed by frost.  She says she now has another started in her Tampa yard.  Wonder if it survived this year’s hurricanes.

  117. 117.

    AM in NC

    @lowtechcyclist: Nope. We have no citizen initiatives. Only the General Assembly can put an amendment on the ballot. And they use this power to stoke their base (and I do mean BASE).  See HB2 (anti-marriage equality bill) and this year’s completely unnecessary  “Only US Citizens are legally allowed to vote” Amendment.

    These people are horrible. To a person, they are horrible. And they have locked in control until we flip the state Supreme Court.

  119. 119.

    Quinerly

    @raven:

    A favorite!

    I am a huge Knopfler fan. I have everything he has done.

    Check out his duets with Van Morrison….”Irish Hearbeat” and “Last Laugh.”

    I so loved Van Morrison before he went (more) coo coo during Covid Times.

  120. 120.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @NotMax: i have a friend w a small chest freezer in their living room. Suppose you could put a tablecloth over it, to look nice. It’s hard, in a smaller space.

    hey thanks for the reminder about streaming services and Black Friday.  I made the jump in.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    I’m done
    Posted by Liberal Librarian
    December 03, 2024

    President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter this past weekend.

    In his proclamation, he noted that Hunter’s prosecution was politically motivated and intended to damage his father. And, not said in the notice: as a father, he wasn’t going to allow his son to swing in the wind while new Attorney General Pam Bondi begins the Trump Revenge Tour.

    The reaction from the commentariat made it seem as if Pres. Biden had pardoned a child-murderer. The Economist inveighed that he “abused a medieval power.” Senator John Cornyn rose up on the Senate floor to chastise the action for “setting a bad example” as to the rule of law. Matt Yglesias did a U-turn from his previous position that Pres. Biden should pardon his son.

    Fuck you all. I’m done.

    ………………………………..

    “Joe Biden saved his son but didn’t save us from Trump!” No, asshole. That was on you. That was your job. All you had to do was vote. All you had to do was drop a ballot in the mail, or go to an early-voting center, or, heaven forfend, get your useless ass up on Election Day and go vote. Too many of you didn’t do that.

    Pundits. Columnists. Republicans. Fairweather Democrats. Shut all the fuck up. None of you have done one lick of work to preserve “norms.” You’re all useless, or actively malicious. We don’t care what you have to say. What you’ve said and done have led us to where we are right now, where a traitor to this country is about to assume office yet again. We’re done.

    https://establishmentbar.blogspot.com/2024/12/im-done.html

    CLAP CLAP CLAP

  124. 124.

    Quinerly

    Food related….now with the kitchen update here, I am trying to get back into more complex cooking. Used to be really into cooking. I have collected used cookbooks for years. Plus, years of hosting dinner parties for clients.

    I treated myself to a set of Zwilling JA Henckels knives from the Cyber Monday sale at Cutlery and More. Their sale prices are really good, and I snagged a block set $300 off. I have always wanted a set of German made knives. Just never pulled the trigger. Had a Wusthof set in my cart first but just couldn’t justify the cost. If you are looking for just a couple of really good knives…there are a couple Zwilling chef’s knives still on sale under $50 which puts them 55%-60% off plus an additional discount if you are a first time buyer. Great selection of brands….the entire site is knife porn. Beautiful Japanese knives.

    I was poking around Amazon first. Seems to be a lot of counterfeit Wusthof and Zwilling JA Henckels out there. People aren’t finding out until they rust.

    JoJo and I are in our countdown mode for our departure for our southern AZ drive about. Going to cover some new to us backroads and sites. I’m trying to get my head wrapped around for packing for a month to be on the road. I feel like I am out of practice

    Have a great week!

  126. 126.

    laura

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes! Do start a list of things a beginning drawer may need. Personally, I love erasers of all kinds and sizes. Charcoal and erasers is one of my favorites- the absence reveals “the thing.” Also, aprons with pockets is a very necessary thing when arting it up.

  128. 128.

    Zippity

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m lucky enough to live an hour from the Blick warehouse in Galesburg, IL. They have an outlet with things that have been returned, in addition to a regular store. So many bargains, and a different selection each visit. I got a great Julian plein air easel in a bag for $40. If you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a stop.

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    @Quinerly: On one of the my trips to New Mexico I took back roads south from Grants on my way to Phoenix to see my cousin.

    The roads ran along the Continental Divide for a while, but I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t seen it on a map. It was like driving across a flat table where the water that fell off the east side eventually ran into the Rio Grande, and the water falling off the west side ran into the Colorado River Basin.

    Then I got on U.S. 60 and that became a different story as I got into Arizona. I’m scared of heights, and the approach to the Salt River Canyon was white-knuckle driving for me. Fortunately there was a place to stop at the bottom where I could cool out for twenty minutes before I pushed on.

    I hope you and your pup have a safe and happy journey, and that you find a less precipitous way across the Salt River.

  130. 130.

    Aziz, light!

    @lowtechcyclist: There are more than 160 different rhinoviruses (the virus that produces a cold), which explains why a cold is so common, and also why the common cold has not yielded to a vaccine. I have the same history: used to get ’em, now I don’t. Maybe our immune systems don’t need any more practice.

  131. 131.

    frosty

    @Quinerly: I’ve probably posted this before but I don’t go anywhere without using an app called Packing List. I made categories (with subcategories) for Days and Weekend,  Vacation, and Camping. Takes the place of random lists and scraps of paper.

  132. 132.

    Ohio Mom

    @lowtechcyclist: It may have something to do with your kid growing up. When Ohio Son was in elementary school, life was one cold after another.

    That abated as he got into the higher grades. Until Ohio Dad’s boss’s kids got to be preschool-age. Whenever Ohio Dad announced that Boss had been out taking care of a sick kid, it was usually only a matter of days until Boss came back to work with a cold, Ohio Dad caught it and then gave it to me.

    Then the Division closed that office down and everyone scattered. Sure, Ohio Dad had a bear of a time securing a permanent job but I was once again freed from frequent sore throats, sneezing and coughing.

  136. 136.

    pieceofpeace

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Include care and cleaning-up of brushes, storing tips, canvas information, etc.

    I have a set of VHS tapes re:  Helen Van Wyck oil painting (maybe 12+?) and would like to know where to sell or give them away.  I haven’t researched this yet, and would appreciate any ideas.  They’re excellent, especially for portraiture.

  139. 139.

    Quinerly

    @Geminid: Just seeing this. TY.

    Please feel to get my email from Betty Cracker. I hope that you and I can meet at some point.

    Take care.

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