Christmas

My Christmas treat for myself is this chicken terrine. I baked it last night after I returned home from Stowe, Vermont. I spent Christmas there with my family. This terrine is made with carrots, haricots verts, and black olives. It's amazing, and, being French, probably contains my daily requirement of cholesterol, sodium, and fat.

Thanksgiving

Before heading to my friends' for turkey, I walked Wollaston Beach. I tried out the telephoto lens feature on my new camera. I was probably 100 yards away from these kids playing on the beach.

Then over to Marina Bay, which was almost deserted at 10:00 in the morning.

I'm very happy with this shot of a duck swimming in the cold ocean water. They lost interest once they realised I had no bread for them.

Dinner Time

A quick Saturday night meal. I forgot to stop at the store, so I had to improvise. This is boneless chicken breast, cooked in olive oil, with asparagus and rice. I put shallots in the rice.

November 16

Almost the same photo, a week later. I thought it looked kind of neat the way there's almost no color except for the yellow leaves. The other difference, aside from the leaves being almost all gone, is this photo was taken on my brand-new camera ! Doing what little I can to help the economy.

November

Maybe my favorite month. Thanksgiving. Cold but no snow. Leaves burning (at least when I was a kid). Football. Hockey. Thanksgiving (I mentioned it twice). Roast turkey, stuffing, gravy.

Golf on Martha's Vineyard

Here we are on the first weekend in November playing golf at Farm Neck on the Vineyard. The weather couldn't have been any better. We had dinner at the Newes and turned in our 500 wooden nickels. Joe gets his own personal beer mug at the bar, Gary got a tee shirt, Jay got a hat, and I got a beer mug. We left with 50 new nickels too.

Chicken Pot Pie

This is Chicken Pot Pie, semi-home-made. I did cheat and bought a pie crust. It's pretty good.

Sense of Humor

I inherited my father's sense of humor. Here he is, in 1957 in Brooklyn. The gag is pretty obvious (to me at least). I once posed on the other side of a sign that said "Area behind this sign is unsafe". Now I know where it comes from.

Thoughts of the Departed

I went to a funeral yesterday and I always start thinking about the past afterward. I have a lot of old photos ( who doesn't ? ) and I have been meaning to scan them so my sister can have a copy too. This is my great-grandfather, in Germany, probably around 1885.

I think these are my great-great-grandparents ( my mother's father's grandparents ) around the same date.

This is their grandson, my grandfather, in August 1911 ( thank you for writing on the back of the picture ! ).

This is my father's father (left), at the family farm in Warren, Pennsylvania. My guess would be 1910.

Beef stir fry. I am not much of an Asian cook, but you can't really screw this up. It never has enough flavor, though. Guess I'll have to open my cookbook next time.

My new kitchen rack/shelf from IKEA. I guess your pots and pans have to be really clean if you're going to hang them up for all to see. I bought a sponge when I moved in; guess dish soap will have to be next !

50 ! Who'd a' thought it ?

I turned 50 yesterday and my sister and her family got me 50 various beers as a present. These are very interesting beers from just about everywhere. I am sampling them even as we speak (even as we blog !) and I will report any "finds".

Day Out Fishing

Yesterday my friend Steve invited us out on his boat. We cruised around Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. We fished and drank beer. We caught sunburns.

Wow. My 2nd 4th of July post with video of my flag. Downside: I'm pretty boring.
Anyway, happy Fourth of July; I hope you're all enjoying it ! Very quiet here by the sea.
Tomorrow will have to be a little more adventurous. I will be walking Wollaston Beach.

Old sayings are going through my head this morning. I already 'woke up and smelled the coffee', and then I 'took time to smell the roses'. These are swiped from our bushes out front of the buildings. I am convinced that you're supposed to cut them to force more to bloom. No one I ask seems to know. Guess my Google project will be to find out. It must be true if it's on the Internet !

Grilled chicken over salad with ranch dressing. I tend to use too much dressing. I guess I'm incorrigible.

Marina Bay, Quincy, 8:30 this morning. They're getting ready for the onslaught later today. Ice chests were being filled with beer, and you could hear glasses clinking in each of the bars. I think there are six of them : Waterworks, Captain Fishbones, Skyline, Krabby Joe's, Siro's, and The Chantey. It's a great place to people watch, and it's only ten minutes away from home.

This is what a pound-and-a-half of salad looks like (no, I am not kidding !). Artichoke hearts, cheese, peas, tomatoes, pasta, and (I think) couscous. Whatever it is, it's good.
It's raining pretty hard out there today. People are driving like they usually do in the rain (slow !) so I'm glad I'm inside today and not out making deliveries like I did yesterday and Friday.

Lasagna (I know; pretty predictable). Let's just say I know what I like, and I like lasagna ! This will be lunch for the week, unless I go stir-crazy and buy something.

The Boston skyline in the distance; Marina Bay (left) and Squantum (right) flanking the view. A plane coming in to Logan above the buildings.

Wollaston Beach, Quincy, around 6:30 this morning. I wanted to get the sunrise . . . . I missed by about 10 minutes. There were half-a-dozen joggers,walkers, 1 dog walker while I sat in my folding chair in the breeze (and shivered; it was 38). The breeze did not stop for even a second.

New Orleans

The view from my room of the Mississippi and some river traffic. I wish I could post my Bourbon Street video but it's too long ( 10 minutes ). A riverboat docks right at this spot and goes out for an hour at a time, full of sightseers.

Chicken Piperade

A recipe from Gordon Hammersley's book : " Bistro Cooking at Home ". Chicken, onion, garlic, tomatoes, red pepper, smoked ham, and watercress. It smells so good I almost stopped cooking and took it off the heat and started eating it. If there's any left, I will bring it to work so my faithful readers ( and you know who you are ! ) can see it.

It's kind of frightening that both the before and after photos look the same. Nonetheless, this is some good lasagna, despite my lack of Italian upbringing.

Lasagna ( I have also seen lasagne ). This photo is pre-oven; the next will be post-oven.

A quick dinner. Birdseye Chicken Alfredo. Compared to the "other" stuff I consumed today, this is healthy eating. One item ( roast beef hash ) contained 50% of my daily requirement for saturated fats. That was per serving, and I ate both of them, so I might be in trouble ( ha ha ). Oh well, a day off tomorrow will take care of that !

Finished product. It has been tested (briefly); full scale workouts begin around 6:00 if I remembered to buy food this week.
This has been a long time coming. Now I can cook things like meatloaf and roasted chicken and lasagna again !

Part 2 of the new stove means goodbye to the old one. She did not want to leave; I had to turn the gas back ON to get around the handle of the shut-off ( it's removed in the photo ) and pull her out while the room filled with gas. Luckily I was almost done with my cigarette anyway, so I put it out, slid the stove out, and reached behind and turned off the gas.

I am getting a brand-new stove tomorrow so I had to cook one last time on Old Faithful. She is making Birdseye "Voila!" Three Cheese Rotini.

A make-your-own salad from Sudbury Farms ( ** Free advertising alert ** ). I can take a perfectly healthy meal and turn it into a high-calorie fat fest !

We got about 6 or 7 inches of snow today (notice the car across the street). The ride in to work this morning was a little more exciting than usual as a consequence.

Sorry I haven't posted in so long ! Here is today's lunch, leftover Kielbasa over rotini pasta with pesto sauce and tomatoes. Doesn't rotini pasta sound better than spiral pasta (which is what my friends call them) ? **Diet Tip !** I have now satisfied my daily requirement of trans fats and carbs in one sitting (ha ha).