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.