Thanks, Dewey!!!

It was about 108 degrees in Las Vegas today, and my spool was much too empty before I met up with you on the Lower Colorado River last weekend. Come visit. Soooooon!!!

Yay! Kitchen Toys!

My birthday was back in March, and I swear I haven't put this new toy away since I got it.

Here's one of my favorites snacks to make with it. I use one of my other favorite kitchen gadgets, my Good Grips mandolin to slice the apples. It's so quick and easy. How did I ever live without this? Not to mention the ease of making sushi at home now. But back to the apples, which next get plunked into lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Plus I like the added flavor.

The sliced apple alices all go onto the stacked trays. And about 24 hours, usually minus a few depending on my patience, voila!!! Apple chips!

Ready To Eat

Although I haven't been back for a few years, my good friend, Michelle, is returning to the States and New Orleans from a year-long teaching stint in Mexico (via Arizona, Illinois, and, I hope Las Vegas) in the next week or so, and it got me thinking about one of my all-time favorite NOLA treats. Luckily, we can make them at home (Cafe Du Monde beignet mix), which I did, and they were airy and sweet with the traditional excessive amount of powdered sugar, and the impromptu addition of strawberries. Yum.

Summer preparation

I've spent the glorious summer teaser weather in Chicago checking out ancient drinking vessels at the Art Institute.

       

Getting a new, laborious tattoo (oy, do I remember that swelling). And I totally got caught by my boss icing it, which necessitated that I show him what it was. He's an older gent, and this is a fairly conservative atmosphere so I'm not normally inclined to share, but we all managed to survive the ordeal. 

Learning to play clawhammer banjo. This was taken during lunch at work to prove to my husband I wasn't slacking on practice. 

I have a love-hate relationship with banjo. I always dread the classes, whining about it all the way. I also have SUCH anxiety about playing music and doing any creative stuff in front of people because if I was any good at it, it would be my job. I just like messing around, strumming along to Ryan Adams, NMH and Oasis on guitar. But taking a class means being out of tune and trying to read tabs IN PUBLIC. Not to mention to my utter horror the teacher has us sing along in class. The first day I just would have none of it! The hippies can do what they want, I would keep my voice to myself. That lasted a little while, anyway, before the teacher was all "Everybody now". So sing I must. But I keep it quiet as I have no misconceptions about the quality of my voice or ability to find a key. And I leave class feeling a little bit smarter. 

No sugar coating. It's a mini rant.

I would like to talk about myself. No, don't worry, I won't occupy your time right now with what I've been up to for the last 6 months or so (e.g., buying a house, moving, installing 1,000 square feet of flooring, refinishing and painting kitchen cupboards). This rant has to do with the use of the word, myself, which as just an example was used correctly in the first sentence. Unfortunately, it's misuse runs rampant these days. It's on the news. It's in e-mails. It's spoken by professional colleagues. Is it just me or has everyone forgotten there is another, shorter, and actually correct word to use more often than myself? That being me. A definition from Merriam-Webster for myself, "that identical one that is I -- used reflexively <I'm going to get myself a new suit>, for emphasis <I myself will go>, or in absolute constructions <myself a tourist, I nevertheless avoided other tourists>."

Here is an example of a common misuse I hear all the time...
          Please turn in your assignment to Kathy, Michael, and myself for review.
The subject here is an unspoken you, so using the reflexive myself is not correct, and when you stop to think about it, makes no sense. The word should be me. By eliminating the other reviewers in the sentence, it becomes evident what the correct word to use is...
          Please turn in your assignment to me for review.

To make this clearer, here is a similar example with a different reflexive pronoun...
          I will turn in my assignment to Kathy, Michael, and yourself for review.
This is incorrect. The correct word is obviously you. Enough said.

In order to keep this a mini rant, in a nutshell, myself is a reflexive pronoun, which means if the subject is not I, then there is no place in the sentence for the word myself. 

After that mini rant, I myself feel better. I also feel like I can't post without a picture, so here it goes.

Fat Tuesday

I'm an all purpose holiday loving fool. I take all comers, religion be damned (pun intended). So I would not let Fat Tuesday slide without a tip of the hat by way of something or other. Paczki was out because I lack coordination and I didn't grow up with it so it seems very odd. So: Mardi Gras it must be. I popped on my Annette Hanshaw station which has evolved into Dixie jazz and made a plan to visit Heaven on Seven.

This was the scene:

What I don't know is if it looks like this all the time or not. It didn't have as much revelry going on as I would have expected, but the decorations did help let me know that we made the right choice.

There was a sad rendition of gumbo. Better was the hoppin' john:
Which makes me think of one of my top 10 favorite movies ever.

And solf shell crab po boy:

It was my first time with soft shell crab of any kind, but it was nicely fried and everything tasted fresh. One dining companion opted for Louisiana crab cakes which (strangely, to us) contained cheese. Is this a thing? Because I call foul. Crabcakes are better without cheese. Especially melty cheese.

I was impressed by how diner-like Heaven on Seven is. They were beyond friendly and accommodating, especially when I messed up and made a reservation for their other location which I imagine might be a bit fancier. But for a grey and quiet Mardi Gras day in Chicago, this more than let us get our fix of gluttony before the big repent.

I spent my weekend making beer...

...and being stalked by this ferocious beast:

That is pure killer instinct. Now that Lily knows that I am a pushover and our other cat is super jealous she spends all day passive aggressively lording over us all. She tends to be so quiet that when she makes any noise we immediately reward her with whatever she's looking for. That usually is a trip to the basement, even though she's ended up accidentally locked down there for a few hours more than we care to admit.

The beer should be alright. It's the first time I've ever done it, and I was happy to have the collaboration of my friend Monica. We brewed, drank some Dreadnaught, and watched Marie Antoinette.

My temperament is not well suited to the "Relax, have a homebrew" mantra espoused by Charlie Papazian and so I had an absolute freak out when the yeast started doing its job and therefore kind of bubbled over into the airlock. Brew day was fun, but this brewing thing seems to be experimental, and the moments I spent thinking we'd wasted our time and money were dark.