So...whats for dinner?

Minus, Illimae, Special, so glad you made it through with not too much damage. Happy to hear that. Everyone has been in my prayers even if I dont pop in often. Since I last came in, i passed another lovely stone, and just as I was recovering from that, i got a cold/ flu thing with headache, fever, running nose. Fever is still 99.8 since I got this Sat nite. Ugh. I've really had quite enough.

Illimae, this is my go to recipe, because its pretty much dump and go. i make this dish in the slow cooker, in the oven or on the stove. 4 porkchops, whatever size works for you. If putting it in the oven no need to brown them. Toss in carrots, onion, potato in chunks. Pour a can of turkey gravy over it all. Add soy or teriaki sauce about a quarter cup. A couple dashes of worchestershire. Cover and cook. On the stove, for about 45 min. In the oven about an hour. Slow cooker at least 4 on low. Unless you have an old one, then you might need 6 to 8 hrs. In the pot in less than 5 minutes, comfort food so easy.

Supper tonite is a piece of toast. Maybe, cause I'm freezing. Guessing my temp is crawling up.

Much love to all.

Special, so glad to hear that you are all safe and w/o much damage.

Both of my friends in FL managed to stay safe and only have tree damage, not over their houses fortunately. They are all w/o power however, and I imagine that could be for some time. A HS friend of mine called Sat nite and shared that her adult son and family who live on St. John, VI were reported to be safe, but clearly the home they built there was impacted as that island suffered some of the most destruction. She had yet to hear directly from him, which must be really hard.

How are things in Houston, gals?

Moon, I'm sorry that you have had such a challenging time with health issues, and hope your fever is soon gone.

Dinner was a really nice salad with (salad bowl and Boston) lettuce and tomatoes that I got at our Farmer's Market, some crusty bread, and cod cooked with sauteed veggies and simmered in a spicy Rao's spaghetti sauce over orzo. With this dish, a half lb of fish goes a long way! Visual below...

Definitely a tomato theme there!

Things are getting back to normal in many parts of Houston, roads reopening, etc but some have major flooding clean up to do I'm back to working on the clean up from the state level and rads are back on track. I'm hoping that not flooding is a big selling point when the time comes to sell our house

Special - thinking of you.

Missing dinner for a big Civic Club meeting. Lunch was left over rotassarie chicken breast on a Hawaiian roll and 1/2 of a cucumber sliced for nibbling.

I splurged with dinner last night. Went out with a group of neighbors to an old Italian/family place. Most of the family is dead & they serve other things now besides Italian, but good comfort food. I had 'spaghetti works' which included meat sauce, meat balls, mushrooms and grated cheese on top - melted briefly in the broiler. The best part is the endless garlic bread. Oh my downfall, and I hope I only ate 4 pieces - but it could have been more.

Putting

farberware pressure cooker nutrimaster

Into Google got lots of "hits". I don't know if they are useful..

It's crazy here too as far as temps go. Usually we start seeing 70 degree weather here but we have been getting 80 or better recently. Shuddering at the thought of when the cold weather is going to finally set in

Special, thanks for your status report. I've been worrying about you being without power and a.c. But I know you were prepared!

Off to the g.i. doc today - still having stomach issues. Sick of it. Hope he can fix me.

Hopefully the pressure cooker works. I remember my mom and grandmother using them for all sorts of things and it's something I'm looking forward to trying myself (after next month).

Had my Prolia shot this a.m. (forgot to switch from Zyrtec to Claritin last night, d'OH!), plus prelim. bloodwork. (Chem panel & CBC). All I know is that my enzymes & calcium are ok, otherwise they wouldn't have given me the shot. Was gonna train tonight, but my trainer got sick and had to cancel. (A reminder that even gorgeous perfect specimens of humanity are, well, human).

Brought home fried chicken, boneless rib tips, red beans & rice and slaw last night en route from my bc support group meeting. Lots of leftovers. So will have some of those tips, a small ripe tomato, and saute some dandelion greens for dinner. (No, I didn't pick the latter off my lawn). Maybe also rinse and drain some of the slaw. Gordy had a drumstick and half the red beans & rice, so I'll leave him at least the rest of those and the thigh.

Hoping, though, that Bob gets home early enough to visit the corner phone store and see if an iPhone 7+ will fit in his shirt pocket. (He always wears dress shirts. His idea of leisure wear is a brighter or patterned dress shirt with an open collar and no tie. Even the scrubs he wears as PJs have a chest pocket). If the 7+ fits, then so will the 8+. He has big hands and long thick fingers, and with his aging eyes he needs a large screen—and we both need two hands to use a cellphone (even a little 5S "back in the day" for me). He needs to ditch his ancient wheezing iPhone 6: it’s not water-resistant (and his fellow docs told him horror stories about getting caught in a downpour and trashing their iPhones), so he has it in a LifeProof case—which muffles the sound so he has to put it on speaker half the time, and it howls and screeches the other half; it also has a slowly dying battery; and his main hospital has ordered everyone on staff to switch to Verizon ASAP. He’s on Sprint, which has miserable coverage and a weird proprietary home screen interface overlay the Sprint Store installed on it. So it doesn’t make sense to port it over to Verizon. The 7 or 7+ are cheaper, have longer battery life and are water-resistant—but why upgrade to 2016 technology? The X is not an option—not shipping till Nov. 5, and so radically different that the learning curve (new OS & hardware’s gestures & conventions) would drive him batty.

I’m torn between the 8+ and the X, though I’m a bit leery of Face ID’s security (all a mugger would have to do is point the phone at me and voilá: it’s unlocked; with Touch ID they’d have to go to the trouble of either knocking me out first or making me press the Home button at gun or knife-point). I don’t really care about the cool large screen in a small footprint, augmented reality or the ability to voice a talking poop emoji—I’m more interested in better battery life, two cameras and all those lighting filters that the 8+ has also. Also have the nagging feeling that Apple still hasn’t worked out all the X’s bugs yet—if they did, they’d already have iOS 11 available as a download. And I’ve been burned twice in the past having been the first on the block to get the latest and greatest (especially with the two Androids I used to have)—if I have to pay close to $1K I want to be paid to be a beta tester. The nice thing about the 8 and 8+ is that they’re available in 64GB—our 6 and 6S are each only 32GB, and my 6S’ hard drive’s nearly full. True, a 256GB 8+ is as expensive as a 64GB X—but who the heck needs 256GB on a phone? I don’t even have that on my iPad. 64 is the sweet spot.

But Bob wants me ordering the phones tomorrow so they’ll arrive next weekend. So we need to decide tonight: 8 or 8+? (I’ll miss my headphone jack and am not looking forward to either having to Bluetooth yet another device to the phone or choose between listening to music & charging, but Bob never uses headphones, so he doesn’t mind).

Ilona, there’s a Jewish comfort food recipe my mom & grandma used to make with farfalle (bow ties) called Kasha Varnishkes. You use medium or coarse ground buckwheat groats (kasha), toss them gently in a little beaten egg to coat, on a skillet set to med-low, stirring to keep them separated & dry. Saute some mushrooms & onions. Add them and then some chicken stock and cook gently till the stock is absorbed and the grains are fluffy (not enough starch in buckwheat—which is really a type of grass seed—to use the risotto method). Correct the seasoning and then add some buttered cooked farfalle to taste (should be roughly 50-50 kasha/farfalle).

Ah, what we used to call “mishmosh” soup (sometimes we’d throw in kreplach—Jewish potstickers). My grandma used to call those fine noodles “luckshen.”

Slight change of plans tonight. Bob just called from a seafood/steak place out in Oakbrook where he attended a drug co. lecture. I ate a tomato and made the lemon-garlic dandelion greens (boy, do they ever shrink down in the pan); and he’s bringing back a mid-rare ribeye with the trimmings. He hasn’t had a chance to go to Best Buy or a phone store to see if an iPhone 7+ would fit in his shirt pocket—if it does, so would an 8+. If not, he has a hard decision to make: go with the 8 (same size as his decrepit 6 but water resistant) and have nothing new to learn; or wait till Nov. for the iPhone X (screen bigger than the 8+, body same size as the 8). His hospital is breathing down his neck, insisting he switch carriers from Sprint—which has been nothing but grief—to Verizon. If he’s gonna switch carriers, it’s time for a new phone. But the X starts at $1K and because it has no Home button and Face ID instead of Touch ID, its hardware and OS will pose a huge learning curve. It’s taken him more than 5 yrs (and 2 iPhones) to learn the basics as it is.

Under time pressure because he’d like me to order the phones online tomorrow so we get them by the end of next weekend. Might have to make a cardboard cutout of an 8+ to see if it’ll fit.

Awesome daughter you have there SK!

GI doc appt inconclusive as yet. Endoscopy scheduled in 3 weeks. In the meantime he's taking me off all supplements (vitamins except calcium) and COQ10. I'm skeptical that that will help but willing to try anything at this point.

Minus what a wonderful trip and awesome Bday dinner. Special your dd is awesome. To give her time to help others is priceless. How proud but worried you must me. Nance I hope dropping the supplements helps. A while back I was taking a lot of tumeric, when I tapered off, my lack of appetite and rumblings stopped. Who knew.

I made a large batch of spicy sausage lentil soup with cornbread. Time to freeze the leftovers. Plan to grill a ribeye. I bought a prepackaged set of small potatoes in garlic and parsley from Whole Foods. You can either grill them, or do in the microwave. We'll see.

Special, I also appreciate your update and am glad that you are safe...especially given that wild ride to your doc appt post storm! And I add my admiration to your daughter and her service orientation. Not a surprise given the family in which she was raised!

My friends in FL lucked out with only tree damage and a period of no power. But my friend whose son and fam live on St. John had still not had communication from them since I last spoke with her, since the communications systems are out. She did hear that they were at least safe by Saturday, but I'm guessing that they may have lost everything. They had in recent years built a beautiful home by the water. I was glad to see Tim Duncan (NBA retiree) promote donating to the Virgin Islands, where he was raised. He certainly convinced me! Always admired him as a person as well as a player....sorry to bring my basketball addiction in even before the season begins....blame Irma!

Minus, I loved the sound of your birthday lunch! And your upcoming trip will be so much fun. Good for you for making the effort! Everyone benefits from these reconnections. Enjoy! And I certainly remember Pat. Please extend my best wishes to her when you next get together!

Carol, as I read about your extra food, I am reminded that I think our lake association started our Labor Day Pot Luck party to give folks a chance to use up, and not have to schlep home with, all the stuff in their freezers.

Yesterday, I used some of my "farm stand bounty" making ratatouille which we had with a poached egg over top, and some Providence corn I'd picked up at Volante's, which was delish. Tonight, DH is out in Western MA for his board meetings, where he will be wined and dined for his efforts, and I had a Minus-esque meal of Trader Joe's krinkle potato chips with ranch dip, and a nice ripe sliced tomato. Hope its okay to relate that to you, Minus. I rarely have a chance to eat like that, and it is so satisfyingly reminiscent of my early adult lifestyle! 😉

Tomorrow we are taking a good friend, S, out to dinner. When we reconnected with he and his wife after the summer, he told us his prostate cancer has finally metasticised to his bones, and after successfully treating this cancer for over 18 years off and on, his docs have let him know they will just try to keep the progression slow. He is just a great guy who is a true life contributor, so it's very sad news....and especially since he is in nagging physical pain. Anyway, S and his wife were scheduled to take their grandkids to NYC this weekend, but he is tired and is going to stay home and rest before starting his first round of chemo on Tues. They had a friend from Ariz visiting them last week and he brought some marijuana chewables, which he offered to S to mitigate some of the overnight pain. It helped. And S asked his oncologist if he might be able to have a prescription for this...legal in MA now. The doc told S he did not use marijuana for pain relief, but he could prescribe him oxycodone. What?!?!? Granted the research is not in about all the effects of mj use for alleviating pain, but we certainly do know what the issues related to oxycodone are. Anyway, while I was catching up on all of this with my friend, S's wife, we decided that DH and I would take him out for dinner this weekend so he is decently nourished while on his own but probably too tired (and depressed) to make good meals for himself. Cancer really does SUCK! This family has four members and three have had some form of cancer.

So, I think I will try to get some taggies completed tonight and tomorrow since several of my friends' children have been popping out babies frequently...and it sure makes sense for me to use some of the million yards of fleece and minky fabric I have gradually hoarded.

Illimae.....still loving your food porn!

Hope everyone is doing well....and thatyour reduction of supplements is the answer to stomach relief, Nance.

Thanks all for the compliments on my DD, she is a big-hearted helper personality, as is her older brother the firefighter/paramedic. She is headed back home today and based on my conversations with her over the last couple of days, very ready to resume her normal life.

chisandy - DD has indeed seen some incredible things on this mission to the Keys. She stopped at her old internship location at Theater of the Sea, sea lions had been evacuated but not the dolphins. They are all alive, and they are frantically working to keep them alive and clean up. Their other static animal displays - sharks and fish - all dead due to pump failure. I am not sure they have yet figured out how to get a steady supply of enough fish in there to feed the dolphins and the place is physically ruined. She gave them some food and water to assist. Many of the landmarks and restaurants she frequented are totally wiped off the map, others remain relatively intact. They did find the grandparents of the two friends she went down there with - alone in a house with trees down on top of it, mold growing inside - these folks are in their 90's, one is blind and the other has pretty advanced Alzheimer's. They hooked up the generator they brought and a portable AC unit, got them cleaned up and fed and they evacuated them last night. The father of her friends (son of the grandparents) was arrested at some point over the last several days and that is why they were alone. They had spent the storm located in Key West on the 8th floor of a hotel, and at least he managed to get them back to their home, but sheesh! Craziness. Yesterday they tried to mostly distribute their supplies to people who had no transportation to the established food/water centers - great that they have places to get food/water, but they don't do any good if you can't get there. Of course, they encountered some who were mentally ill, drug addicted, or just plain sketchy. They encountered a woman wandering the street in her bra and underwear so they got her some clothes too. She and her compatriots were armed and openly carrying their guns. On her way north last night she stopped at Marathon to brief incoming private SAR folks, all former Marines, as she and her friends have been the only private group to penetrate the barriers and do any work down there. I have been able to keep in touch with her throughout as they have put up a new cell tower in Marathon that has facilitated pretty good reception for the limited number of people using cell phone down there. She and her friends have been using radios to communicate with each other. I will be very happy when I lay eyes on her tonight. I have been both proud of her and worried about her.