So...whats for dinner?

auntienance

The experimental rosti looks delicious! And Olivia is a gem - so adorable!

Today is my birthday so we are headed to Costco in search of birthday cake and a new toaster to replace the one that just died. (We are very hard on toasters.) The cake is a delicious white cake (my favorite) with mousse filling and fresh fruit on top. I'm hoping they have some cold water lobster tails for dinner (steak for DH of course) to be eaten along with some fresh corn and sliced tomatoes from the garden. For me, this is a feast.

Normally we might see a movie for my birthday, but we have our grand-dog Olivia while the kids are in Boston doing the same things Sandy is talking about and I hate for her to be crated all day.

Dad is not doing well. He is very depressed and is not eating or getting out of bed. They have put him on an antidepressant, which I'm not sure is a good idea. I feel very helpless about it all and somewhat guilty about wanting him to hang on when his quality of life is so poor. Ugh. Old age is not wimps.

illimae

auntienance

susan_02143

Nancy,

Happy Birthday! So sorry that your Dad is having such a rough time. Not sure why everyone is descending on Boston during a heat wave! Miserably hot today and will be through the weekend.

*susan*

carolehalston

Happy Birthday, Nance! The cake sounds good even though I would have chosen dark chocolate.

Ouch, SpecialK. Hard to understand how such errors can occur when you were careful to explain your allergy. Unforgiveable.

The swordfish looks delicious.

ChiSandy

Massive flooding in the NW, W and far N suburbs; 2000 mi., away, wildfires in the Sierras. Mother Nature is being a bee-yotch.

Haven’t owned a toaster, ever (though my parents did). We got a Toast-R-Oven as a wedding present in ’71 and have been “multitasking” ever since. The closest thing we have to one-trick-pony appliances are the coffee grinder, deep fryer (I’m scared of open pots of boiling oil), coffee makers, and panini press. But we use the Keurig and big espresso machine as hot water dispensers and the panini press as a grill. We kept an old blade grinder for spices, but I’m a lazy cook and use preground spices for the most part. Our Krups toaster-oven-broiler looks like hell but has been cranking away for 9 years w/o fail. (Since I stopped baking after my FIL died, I barely use my regular oven for anything other than roasting turkeys and preheating cast iron skillets).

susan_02143

It is hot here. Really hot. I fried up some falafel for lunch, but there was no way I was turning on any source of heat tonight. So, I washed the last of the market lettuce, and sliced up the carrots before adding the swordfish salad. Of course the leftover fish was spectacular. Added some cornichon, capers, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and just a bit of homemade mayo. On the side, a loaf of ciabatta pulled from the freezer.

Now that I have switched hospitals, I am getting a ridiculous number of solicitation letters and emails. Drives me nuts! No options to opt out at all. Anyone else get these? Does it bother you as well?

*susan*

illimae

DH grilled chicken breast and I made a big salad, very good 🙂

auntienance

Good looking salad Illimae


Thanks for the birthday wishes fellow diners. It's been a good day in spite of my stomach not cooperating and the blast furnace heat. Oh Eric, how do you do it. You too Minus. It takes it out of me.

SpecialK

auntie - happy B-day! Hope your cake was fab

MinusTwo

Nance - belated Happy B-day. Your cake sounded delicious. Sorry about your Dad. Been there. "Everyone" insisted I make my dad eat vegetables & fruit. At 95, all he wanted was candy bars & cokes & doughnuts. So what? He never had an illness in his life except gout - and even if he had, I respected his choices at that point. He just wanted to sit in his recliner & watch TV or sit out in the sun in the afternoon & doze. I think he earned that.

Susan - the swordfish salad looks delicious. I get a few solicitations, but usually only 3 or 4 companies/clinics/hospitals. I just keep their free gift cards, or labels or whatever and shred the rest.

lllimae - your salad looks cool. I find our daily rain storms reminiscent of the 1970s. I was down by Rice today and there wasn't a drop, but by the time I got home to the NW of the City, my rain gauge showed 1-1/2" & streets were flooded. Nance - the 100 degree temps are only aggravated by the rain. Turns the city into a sauna. But the air conditioning is soooooo cold anywhere you go, you have to take a jacket.

Special - how is your skin doing with the steri strips?

Hope Eric's vacation is going well.

illimae

Minus, I'm NW too,near the Copperfield area, had some big rumbles but not much rain. I enjoy a variety of lettuces as a base for my salad but I forgot the red onion this time.

ChiSandy

At Wildfire (Oakbrook) tonight, courtesy of our broker: macadamia-crusted halibut over grilled asparagus and butter sauce, with a baked sweet potato. Half the entree and most of the sweet potato went home with me for Gordy.

Moonflwr912

Happy Belated, Nance!

Still working on gettingy blood sugar levels down. Im now on a once daily insulin to try to help my kidney. Getting an ultrasound on them on Monday. Anyone tell me why my salad with hard boiled egg and vinegar and oil dressing with shrimp, raised my bloodsugar? Argh. But it seems not to matter what I eat. Went out with my 2 sisters last night, we went chinese. LOL! I ate Gang chicken, chicken in coconut milk with bamboo shoots with a bit of heat. I added onions though! I only ate 1 tablespoon of rice, and my sugar was still 220 this am. And that's WITH the baseline insuline. BTW, the dinner was delicious. I have leftovers today, it heats up well, because the sauce is thin anyway, almost like soup. Arggghhh. Kidney ultrasound Monday.

WHEE!!! Ain't life fun? LOL

Much love.

auntienance

Monica, take it from someone who's been there (and continues to visit from time to time) your levels probably have less to do with what you're eating than what's going on with your body and the stress you're experiencing. It's an on going struggle.

Speaking of stress, our a/c continues to malfunction in spite of two checkups showing everything is fine. For the second day in a row it's 80 degrees in here. NOT conducive to food preparation. In spite of that, I processed 26 ears of corn for the freezer this morning. Dinner is supposed to be tikka masala but I may just cheat and use some jarred stuff.i usually cook the chicken on the grill anyway. Ready for some relief here.

ChiSandy

Happy Belated B-day, Nancy! Hope it was all you wanted it to be.

Monica, seems any food, even protein, can raise glucose. That's why they do an a1c, because it's longer term and gives the big picture.

Checked in at our hotel. Breakfast at the White Sox Cafe (formerly Harry Caray's) at Midway was, well, edible. It was much better and cheaper when it was HC's. Ordered lemon ricotta pancakes with maple syrup, but there was no ricotta I could taste, they looked like plain pancakes, and there was a sort of lemon syrup/sauce on it. And the maple syrup was maple in name only--I could actually taste the HFCS.

At the hotel, we had a snack of local oysters and tuna poke. Pretty good. Going to La Voile in about 90 minutes. Bob is napping--he hurt himself badly last night by taking a long walk in dress shoes and thin dress socks. Huge, bleeding open blisters on L toe and R ball of foot. He swears he's fine, and wants to walk the Freedom Trail this weekend. I dunno--somehow I think we may be visiting the minute clinic at Walgreen's first. I packed as much foot first aid stuff as I could find.

MinusTwo

No need for sorry at the kitchen table KB. Your diner sounds excellent. Last time I boiled potatoes I ate 1/2 of them immediately with butter & salt and turned the rest into potato salad. I'm waiting for some good corn before I declare myself satisfied (as in the Rolling Stones for those old enough to remember)

susan_02143

Moon, I don't understand the whole blood sugar thing at all! Only time I have to worry about those numbers is before a PET scan. I know that I am lucky.

Sandy, the U.S.S. Constitution will be taken out of dry dock this weekend with a bunch of ceremonies, if that is interesting to you.

It is still bloody hot here. Olivia was so much fun today. We took her out to lunch since I simply wasn't interested in heating the kitchen. We went to the Courthouse, a seafood restaurant. I ordered a cod cake for her, and then we got our normal fish & chips and the small side of Gulf shrimp [for Mr. SMT.] She loved the cod cake and she tried some shrimp as well. She chose the fish/shrimp over the French fries, which she loves dearly. Dinner was some grilled chicken mopped with Inner Beauty. I ran out of veggies, so we had a tortellini salad.

This heat should break on Sunday.... can not wait!

*susan*

HappyHammer

Olivia is a doll!

Happy belated birthday, Nance.

The posted salads look delish as well as cool and refreshing...around 100 with high humidity so even more appealing right now!

Low key birthday here as my DH is working in VA- have been able to get lovely okra and heirloom tomatoes this week...made batch #3 of gumbo today.  Freezing it for the fall and winter.  We will enjoy it for sure!  When DH comes home will prob make a fresh batch and add some shrimp for a lovely, easy summer supper.  DS2 is coming tomorrow to cut grass and has asked if I have an "extra" container of gumbo for him....of course I do! 

HappyHammer

Oh, Sandy- hoping Bob will not be too stubborn about the walking and will get checked out...we are all getting too old to fool with possible infections and the like...healing mercies for him.  

HappyHammer

Oh, Moon....so sorry you are struggling with this.  EVERYTHING has carbs and the additives are maybe the worst culprits...reading every label may be the key- but darn....that is hard, takes time and is no fun!  Have you looked at the ketogenic diet?  Once you get going with it- it is pretty straight forward.  Many people report great success in getting their blood sugar in check.  Just an idea.  Sending healing mercies to you.

ChiSandy

Well, right now Bob is fuming mad over the hotel wi-fi appearing and disappearing capriciously, because he has to read echocardiograms & EKGs. His Windows won't let him join an open network, nor will his hospital's firewall, so he paid for the secure one, which is erratic as hell. If he can't read the echoes and EKGs (yeah, even on "vacation"), he will lose a couple thousand in billings. I spent over an hour unpacking and setting up the room, and we may have to move to another Hilton tomorrow.

I asked him why even take a vacation if he has to work during it, and he said that if he doesn't, someone else will and they will get paid instead, and that his practice is "marginal." Well if it's that shaky, maybe it's time to walk away and retire. We met with our broker last night, who is aghast at all the unrealized gains we're not cashing in--normal people USE their money. We're not filthy rich, but we are very comfy and highly unlikely to outlive our money--we will probably be able to leave Gordy a decent nest egg to boot.

My FIL was pathological about money (half-Scots, half-Swiss, the perfect storm of parsimony), and though Bob was developing a healthier attitude about enjoying life, during the two years his dad moved in with us (he didn't want to waste his money on assisted living) the apple rolled right back to the foot of the tree. Because my FIL left us more than enough to retire on, and Bob doubled it by investing, he feels that we must leave at least as large an inheritance. He doesn't mind spending money on food, drink and concerts, operas or shows; but he feels he has to "keep the machine cranking" till he gets too old and sick to work. And then, of course, he will be unable to enjoy the fruits of his labor andinvestments. When is enough enough?

Dinner-wise, we went to La Voile, and had the very reasonable prix fixe: foie gras terrine, duck breast over fingerling potatoes (supposed to have been risotto but I guess they couldn't get a good batch going) and dessert--I had the cheese plate to use up what was left of my wine, he had raspberry sorbet in champagne.

ChiSandy

Bob was finally able to get online, but not only is it slow, but the real problem turned out to be his hospital's firewall. It took forever, but he did get to read echoes before we had breakfast (salmon Benedict for him, avocado toast for me).

Susan, we'd planned on going to see the Constitution (last saw it in 1986), but it was too far up the Freedom Trail for Bob to comfortably walk. He grudgingly admitted this morning that he needed to have his feet looked at, but didn't want to take off the bandages so I could do it. No "minute clinic" at the Walgreen's, and the closest urgent care center ("The Doctor is In") said they'd probably triage him to MGH's walk-in clinic, so that's where we went. Good call--they had to debride before dressing the wounds. Sent us on our way with a script for Keflex, and a bunch of Tegaderms, gauze pads, tape, gloves and a suture removal kit.

So we cabbed it to the world's largest Walgreen's to drop off the script, catch something to eat and walk the Trail. There, staring us in the face, was Luke's Lobster. Bob had a Nova Scotia lobster tail & Maine blueberry salad, and I had the best lobster roll I'd ever eaten--nothing but big chunks of lobster in butter. We began walking, and saw something labeled "food lab." It was a farm-to-table fast food place called Clover. We had zucchini fritters as dessert. Bob had a local Pilsener, and I had a transcendent cup of coffee (from an El Salvador plantation curated by "Third Wave" coffee pioneer George Howell). We walked some more along the Trail, including King's Chapel churchyard, Old State House, Park St. Church, and then back to Walgreen's to pick up the script. Bob's feet were really beginning to sting, so we cabbed it back to the hotel. Bob read EKGs.

Bob wanted seafood for dinner, and we were able to get into Summer Shack. Wow! We had oysters & cherrystones, chowder, shrimp salad, and split a pan-roasted lobster, which was wonderful. We brought the carapaces back to the room to refrigerate for breakfast tomorrow, because we plan on sleeping in. We also have some French cheese left from last night, along with breads and the chips from today's lunch. Tomorrow we will take either a whale watching cruise, duck boat tour, bus tour or a combination thereof. And for dinner? "A big fat sloppy lobster," said Bob. No argument here

No matter how good the seafood restaurants in Chicago, fish (except freshwater) is never as fresh in the Midwest as it is in New England.

auntienance

Oh how I want to share your meals Sandy! DS and DDIL keep sending me pictures of the seafood they're eating in P-town. Drooling. But poor Bob's feet! Glad you got them taken care of.

Tonight was kofte on pita with tzatziki and a Greek salad using the first of our tomatoes and a cucumber from the garden. Not seafood but pretty tasty anyway. We are also down to the last of the cake. Oh my, it's been good. this is what it looked like before it was cut. It no longer looks like this lol

And a happy (belated?) birthday to you too HappyHammer!

auntienance

Sorry about the HUGE blurry picture. All of my pictures are posting big for some reason.

eric95us

Almost to Thunder Bay, Ontario. I don't have internet access except where there is free wi-fi.

MinusTwo

Hey, you're up above Wisconsin on Lake Superior. Why did i think you were going to NY? I'll bet it's gorgeous.

M0mmyof3

Eric, did you through Duluth, MN? If so, you were not very far from where I was born in Wisconsin. I miss it so much out there this time of year.

eric95us

Im in Duluth right now. We went through upstate New York and are taking the long way home.

ChiSandy

Eric, you are quite the explorer!

Susan (and Minus & M0mmy), you steered me right for "foodie Boston." Though we did a tourist trap (Salty Dog in Quincy Market) for lunch--Bob wanted a beer and wanted to sit at a table, so we had to order food--it was decent. Shared a combo of fried oysters, belly clams, slaw & fries. Bob had the fries, plus a salad; I had the slaw, and we split the seafood. Walking through the North End, we were too full to even contemplate gelato or cannoli. Saw Mamma Maria's and made a reservation right then & there, Continued to Copp's Hill cemetery before turning around and going into the Old North Church. (Continuing to Charlestown would have required a brutal hill climb on the way back, and though we had time to kill before dinner, we didn't want to blow it--we got the last table available between 6 and 8:15).

Mamma Maria's was everything you said it was, and more. Fantastic pesto and olives for the whole grain bread. Summer salad with local tomatoes. Shrimp-escargot pasta. And the lobster agnolotti were huge and generously stuffed with lobster and adorned with asparagus and chanterelles. Our server recommended a Chianti with it because of the very rich saffron cream sauce, and she was right on the money. We shared fresh local berries for dessert. Wasn't impressed by the espresso (almost no cream), so we walked back to Hanover St. The line at Mike's Pastries was too long, so we sat down outside the Italian espresso joint next door and drank the real thing. Also bought a couple of mini-cannoli to go, for a bedtime snack after we finish packing tonight.

M0mmyof3

Wonderful Eric!

You are very welcome Sandy!