You Can Do Magic: Part Four

Finally the staining and painting is done (for now, at least). The back porch with a couple of coats of new paint to touch it up and my newly planted pansies in the hanging baskets:

Pretty mums in the corner:

The stairs, freshly stained:

The front porch:

My next projects include getting a new roof on this place, repainting the front door, and painting my bedroom ceiling.

Next up: restocking my freezer.

The Tide is High

I thought that some of you gentle readers might enjoy seeing some of my daily route to work across one of the gorges. This is the suspension bridge that I walk across:

Here's a photo of the gorge from the bridge:

Looking down into the gorge from the bridge:

The other side of the gorge, looking out onto the city and the lake:




...and back at my house, I had some visitors for the holiday weekend:

I hope that you enjoyed this little taste of central New York in early September.

Reminiscing: The Rival Crock Pot Cookbook

It seems like I never run out of these cookbooks, although I will admit that this one isn't quite as horrible as some of the others have been. Unfortunately, this one doesn't include any pictures, which I think are usually the best parts of these cookbooks. So, without further ado, I give you some of the most disgusting recipes developed by Rival for the Crock Pot:

I have no problem with slow cookers at all. I own one. I use it occasionally. It saved me from many a horrible meal in the dining hall while I was in college. However, I generally believe that the only reasons to use slow cookers are either to keep food warm when you have already cooked it, to serve as a supplement to your stove or oven when you are doing a lot of cooking, or for foods that just need to cook for a long time. I do not believe, for example, that anyone needs to use a slow cooker to make hot dogs.

Why would you do this? Cook your hot dog in a pan on the stove, grill it--hell, microwave it--all of that will take less than 45 minutes. Who wants to wait 45 minutes for a hot dog?

I love the title for this one. I think I'm going to start adding random words like "abracadabra" to my recipe titles. Plus, I love "sauce-ry." This is one of those recipes where you raid your pantry for any kind of canned soup or sauce that you can find and then you throw it all into the slow cooker and hope for the best. Here's the problem: I don't think that mushroom soup, pork chop cooking sauce (what is that?), sweet and sour sauce, cream of chicken soup, chicken and rice soup, and barbecue sauce would taste good together at all. That just seems like one of the worst flavor and texture combinations since the potato chip crusted pieces of avocado from my last "Reminiscing" post.

In case you were wondering if you could cook organs in the slow cooker, here's your answer:

Okay, now I really want to know. Has anyone out there ever eaten tongue? What is it like? Was it good? How about beef heart? All of the recipes that I have found for organs makes it seem like these were very popular dishes in the 1950s and 1960s. Is that true? I am asking honest questions here--don't be afraid to leave a comment if you have experienced eating any of these delicacies.

The following makes me want to cry and confiscate the saffron supply of anyone who would consider making this dish:

You want paella? Come to my house or try this.

Why would you try to make a cake in a Crock Pot? Just use the damn oven! That seems less complicated than putting a coffee can or mold in your Crock Pot, cooking it for 5 hours,and then trying to get the cake out of the mold. You could bake the same cake in less than an hour in the oven. This makes no sense to me.

The few photos from this cookbook are on the back cover:



I am pretty sure that until about ten years ago, Mother of Ken had the fake wood model Crock Pot that you see in two of the photos above. I also feel like I know someone who had the one with the drawings of vegetables in the top left photo.

Well, that's it for now, gentle readers. Coming soon: the completion of the porch staining and painting project (and it only took two weeks!).

You Can Do Magic: Part Three

So you might be wondering what happened with my staining project since I haven't written about it in almost a week. We have had rain, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, every day since last Tuesday. Finally, today there was some sunshine, so I put one more coat of stain on the porch. I'm starting to like the color more now that it has had some time to cure. It still isn't ideal, but I think that it looks a lot better than it did before.

I also had a chance to stain a few spots on the stairs that I missed before, so here they are, looking a lot better. The one part that isn't stained or painted at the top of the stairs will be painted the same red as the porch floor. I had to wait for the porch floor to dry today, so I plan to paint it tomorrow. Once that is finished, this should all look a lot better.

Wish me luck and no rain for a few days so that I can finish these projects!

Reminiscing: Good Housekeeping's Appetizer Book

...and I'm back, gentle readers, with another example of the fabulous fare of the days of yore.

This time, I present Good Housekeeping's Appetizer Book:

I will apologize now for the wonky scans. Apparently my scanner was drunk and some of the images are strangely oriented.

This book is full of "irresistible canapes, hors d'oeuvres and nibblers." I do not care for the word "nibbler" in reference to food and this cookbook really overuses the term. By the way, I have to mention the odd "tablescape" on the cover--are those "cracker kabobs" sticking out of a pillar candle that is sitting in a base full of fake flowers? Fancy...

So, on the first page of recipes, we have the following: "Garlic Cheese Dunk," which contains something called "garlic cheese" that I have never heard of, "Speedy Tuna Dunk," which is a combination of butter, olives, and canned tuna, and my personal favorite, "Peanut Butter-Catchup Dip." Peanut butter mixed with catchup with corn chips to dip? Is this a joke? Can you imagine the color? The texture? Ugh.

The next page offers a recipe of equally squicky color: "Avocado Cream Cheese Dip," which not only contains fresh avocado and cream cheese, but also milk and green food coloring. And then there is the picture and recipe for "Pineapple Dip-Its." You know it's a party when the hostess brings out some canned pineapple stuck with toothpicks and some piles of cheddar cheese and flaked coconut for dipping.

I really like the name of the recipe on the top left corner: "Carra-Chee Appetizers." This one includes my favorite: frankfurters.

Also, there is a recipe for "Cress and Curry." This seems like they ran out of ideas on page six and had to think of something to fill the last two inches on the page. Dip water cress into "mayonnaise stepped up with curry powder."

The people in the illustration really seem to be enjoying the "Deviled Ham and Cheese Spread," "Peanut-Ham Spread," and "Surprise Cheese Whip." Again, why were people so into deviled ham in the 50s and 60s? And in what world does deviled ham taste good with chunky peanut butter, mayonnaise (or salad dressing!), and dill pickle?


You just have to read this one for yourself--the phrase "stick and pick" should draw you in anyway. Click on the image to enlarge it.

The things these people do to avocado. "Avocado Crunchies" are cubes of avocado rolled in French dressing and then in crushed potato chips. How horrible! The textures, the flavors...the textures... And then, of course, you have your "Salami Kabobs" which include salami, stuffed olives, and canned pineapple. All three are delicious on their own. Together on a "pick"? Not so much.

Two things on this page. First, "Ham-Grape Pickups," which are pieces of deviled ham on crackers topped with sour cream and half of a grape. Seriously? Second, "Twin Bars," which are pieces of "process cheese" rolled in caraway or poppy seeds or parsley served with pumpernickel (why waste good pumpernickel?) and bottled mustard.

Below you will find recipes including frankfurters! My favorite on this page is the recipe for "Pineapple Sausage Kabobs." The instructions sound like something Father of Ken would write (he tends to put things in the most basic terms possible): "With each pick, stab a pineapple chink, then a piece of sausage." Then, you put them in a chafing dish full of hot pineapple juice to serve. Yummy.

Glamour shot! At the top, we have "Avocado Cream Cheese Dip" (the one with the green food coloring) then, below that, "Ham-Grape Pickups" which look as good as they sound. On the board is a "Chili-Cheese Log." I dislike the word "log" in reference to food as much as I dislike the word "nibbler" and I also think that they should have cleaned the knife next to the log before they took a picture.

On this next page, the authors got creative. They tell us how to make "Bologna Lillies" and "Planetary Frankfurters." You can read the recipe for the frankfurters for yourself and then take a look at the photo on the left--they do look tasty.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see the "Bologna Lillies" in the top left section of the serving dish.

I scanned this page for Leah:

Pickle boats! I love to make my food look like a sea faring vessel! Plus, you can use salami to make a sail!

For the next birthday you celebrate, how about a tasty "Hors d'Oeuvre Birthday Cake"? I mean, who wouldn't want a cake made from pumpernickel bread layered with cheese, olive spread, deviled ham, and liver pate and then frosted with cream cheese? Mmmmmm... I believe that the next birthday person in my life is Maile. I wonder if this would make it to Kansas in one piece?

Since I got you thinking about Christmas earlier this week, I wanted to offer an idea for any of your winter/holiday gatherings: "Snowman Appetizer Server." This is simply two plastic foam balls (one large and one small) purchased from the dime store, fastened together, and then topped with a "jaunty paper hat" (see the photo below).

This is so weird I don't even know where to begin. This is the photo on the back page of the book--shrimp on "picks" stuck randomly into a basket? How does that work when everyone is trying to get a shrimp? Does one person hold on to the basket while the others have a tug-of-war over the shrimp?

As I end, I have one more question. Do you think that when people went to these parties where the hosts served food on "picks" and "sticks" and they got really drunk there were ever any serious accidents like people getting stabbed in the eye or slipping on a random glob of deviled ham that someone dropped on the floor during a game of Twister or accidental "pick" swallowing and subsequent choking? This kind of party with "picks" and "sticks" seems potentially dangerous.

You Can Do Magic: Part Two

Day two of the staining process is now complete. This is the porch this morning after drying for about 20 hours. It got a lot lighter than I thought it would.

I got two coats of stain on both the porch and the stairs today. I ended up choosing "Redwood" to match the little patch of siding that you see to the left of the front door in the photo below. I couldn't find a stain that matched the house, so I tried to at least match that little patch. Here is the porch after two coats of stain, which I am leaving overnight and then plan to hit one more time to even it out.

I'm not crazy about the color, but I'm not sure that I can do much better. I'm hoping that once I get the planters and rug back on the porch, it will look better.

The stairs after two coats of stain:

I'm planning to paint that horizontal line that looks gray at the base of the porch tomorrow when I do the touch up work on the porch floor with the red paint. I noticed a few spots after I took this picture that I missed, but in general, it looks pretty good.

Again, I don't love the color, but I only have to live with it for another year or so. The whole idea here is to neutralize the treated lumber surfaces so that they blend in more with the rest of the house for when we put it on the market.

Stay tuned for the painting of the back porch floor (again) and the third coat of stain on the front porch tomorrow. For now, most of my body is "Redwood" in color and I am headed for the shower to become a white girl again.