So...whats for dinner?

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.

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*

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).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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*

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.  

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.

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!

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

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.

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.