Author Archives: glenderella

The Leo the Cat Page

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I thought I should do a page for each of the feline inhabitants of the house. Since my niece S. complained that all I ever write about is food, and I asked her dad what I should write about the, and he said “Probably your cats!” so I am going to go with that.

Leo was a rescue cat from the Longmont Humane Society. A friend of mine at work had a batch of foster kittens, and she knew we had two older cats. She kept telling me what a love bug Leo was, and how every one that visited her thought he was really special. She brought all the kittens into the office one day prior to taking them to the vet for shots. Ken and I talked about it, and since both of our cats were older, and Misty had a heart condition, and was not expected to live very long, we decided we would adopt Leo. This was in the summer of 2007.

Two comparisons for size sake: Then and a few years ago. He is even bigger now.

We used to put soft paws on him so he wouldn’t scratch the furniture. Now we have just given up on the furniture.

We were watching an Animal Planet show where they talked about the features of a Maine Coon cat, and there were some disturbing similarities. “M” in the fur above the eyes, check. Long hair, tabby coloring, check. Furry feet like a snowshoe rabbit, check. Large frame, uh, yes.

This is not to say that he isn’t capable of physical activity. This picture is from his glory days chasing the cat dancer toy.

He doesn’t jump quite that high right now, we are working on getting him to exercise more.

Hobbies: sitting in boxes. Being annoyed when MaryAnne gets to sit in a box, too.

Sleeping.

Being annoyed at his mother for taking pictures.

Current weight: 20 pounds. I think we need to work on that, his father thinks he is just “big boned.” It is hard to get him to play because MaryAnne butts in and then  he just sits back and watches her.

Bad habits: trying to eat thread in Mom’s sewing room, (yes, we know that is bad, yes we try to keep him out of there), barfing, sleeping in the closet:

Biting things he shouldn’t:

Yes, that is my shoe.Other hobbies: Meowing sadly when he thinks everyone has left the house. Dragging socks and or a small stuffed kitten around the house.  Getting up inside the box spring of the bed when he hears the doorbell. Destroying Mom’s yarn if she isn’t careful and leaves it out.

Likes: Food, his cat Hammick, cat dancer toy. His mommy. His mommy brushing him and scratching him on the back of the neck. Spearmint instead of catnip. He likes his sister MaryAnne and would like to play with her more but she objects to being jumped on by someone who weighs twice as much as she does. Scratching post.

Dislikes: Strangers, loud noises. People who spend the night (he sits and growls at them when they come out of the spare bedroom, consider yourself warned.)

Nicknames: Leo Beo, Fuzzy Lumpkin, Podge bottom, Fancy Pants, Leoski, Ya big scudder.

Works in Progress – March 2012

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There are several works in progress at the moment. Some of them are in process every day, some have been sadly neglected.

These quilt blocks are for my niece K. I try to get a pieced quilt, an embroidered quilt, and a crocheted afghan done for each niece or nephew within a year of them being born. Ever since three of them were born within 6 months of each other, I have been behind. This niece MAY receive this quilt in time for her 5th birthday this fall, I hope. I hope she is still fond of bunnies at that age. Next time I am picking a quilt that does not have 12 blocks. My goal is to get this one done in time to enter in the Boulder County Fair this summer.

The next four blocks. June is out of sequence because the transfer on that one didn’t work well and I need to do some tracing. And I see that I neglected to do July’s eyeball, poor rabbit. This pattern was a vintage pattern that came from Patternbee.

Close up of April.

I started these socks in a class on knitting two socks at once on one circular needle. I am not sure that I totally agree this is possible, when it comes to the heels. They are called “Kickline Socks” and I think this would have been a better pattern in a solid color yarn. I am not sure I like these, but they are nearly done. I think the last time I tried them on, they wouldn’t stay up, so I may rip them back part way or all the way and make a pattern I like better, so I could actually wear them, because I really like this yarn color, it is Lorna’s Laces in the colorway Lorakeet.

This sock is going to be the subject of future articles entitled: Can this sock be saved? I  made these ankle socks for my mom a few years ago, and she wore this one out, and then tried to fix it herself. They are toe-up socks, so I think I will be able to just rip it out down to the hole, and start re-knitting. I still have the yarn, so she lucked out there.

This is the “Nancy” one skein shrugigan. A friend at Knit Knight made one and I loved it, so am working on my own. By the Shaefer Yarn Company.

I realize I totally forgot the socks that I am currently working on, whoops. Maybe later this week.

And now for the big project, the color class project. Can you tell what it might be from my design wall? I have no mad drafting skillz, so I just taped out an approximation onto my design wall with masking tape. You can see my youngest niece A’s pieced quilt off to the side, I have ONE strip sewn together.

Here is a rough draft of the design. I decided to do a landscape, but not really a traditional one. And I wanted to draw a design by hand instead of with the computer this time.

It will be something along those lines, at least. We will see how it goes. I have it marked out to be pretty big, so I better get going on it. The colors of the tetrad I chose are blue, orange, yellow-green and red-violet.

Last Day in Nashville

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It was our last day in Nashville and we had meetings scheduled for most of the day, but we did take time to drive to Cracker Barrel for breakfast rather than eat at the expensive hotel breakfast again, no pictures of that but it was delicious. Then, as long as we were so close, we HAD to visit Cooter’s Place, the Dukes of Hazzard Museum. This museum has memorabilia from the show, and most of the cars from the show, but mostly it has ALL of the merchandise the show generated. From Dukes of Hazzard Underoos to sleeping bags, video games, puzzles, and beach towels, they had it. It was fun to look at. We did not pay for the privilege of having our pictures taken sitting IN all the cars, but taking your picture in front of the cars was free.

Most favorite picture of myself in a while. No, we did not slide across the hood of the General Lee.

We went to meetings all afternoon and then decided to eat at the Italian restaurant, Ravello, at the Gaylord that night (I, of course, had scoped out the menu on the internet well beforehand.)

This is the bread with an amazing marinara dipping sauce. I think the sauce used crushed tomatoes, had a very nice texture. Mmmmmmm.

We ordered the antipasti selection for our appetizer – 3 different kinds of Italian cured meats, and 2 cheeses. They don’t specify which kinds on the menu, and I wasn’t taking notes, but one of the cheeses was a soft cheese with cow’s, goat’s, and sheep’s milk, and it was amazing. The hard cheese was also good, and the three cured meats were delicious. The side plate contains pickled vegetables, raspberry compote, and preserved figs, all of which combined well with the meat and cheese. The little triangles are pita bread.

I love soup, so of course I had to have the soup. This was carrot bisque with a citrus ricotta garnish. Again, amazing.

Going around the table, our entrees. Above: Aqua Pazza, classic spicy southern Italian seafood stew with lobster, scallops, shrimp, and mussels over pasta, lemon, and grilled ciabatta.

Angel hair shrimp scampi – tossed with San Marzano tomatoes, roasted eggplant, basil, and ricotta salata.

Gnocci in a Marsala mushroom ragu, with beef tenderloin tips and dulce gorgonzola.

I, of course, want to sample as many things as possible, so I ordered the appetizer sampler as my entree.

Hearth fired meatballs, in a house made tomato sauce with Bonnie Blue Chevre, fresh basil, and sambuca.

Charred beef carpaccio, seared tenderloin with crispy capers, shaved Grana Padano, red onion, and arugula, drizzled with Coloratura aioli. This was amazing, is essential Very Very Rare or raw beef, but it is cut so thin, and then seasoned so perfectly, it was the best thing I had all week. I know some of you are shuddering over the raw beef, but you know I will try anything once. I will definitely try this again.

Caprese – mozzarella burrata, slow roasted jewel box tomatoes, and fried basil leaves are drizzled with pesto and a balsamic reduction. I prefer my caprese with all fresh tomatoes, not roasted, but this was still good.

Polenta and asiago fonduta – creamy polenta dip with jumbo lump crab meat and grilled ciabatta. This was the blandest item of the sampler, all of the others were very tasty but this one just didn’t stand out. It was fine, just not my favorite.

The convention concluded with a trip to the Grand Old Opry with a concert set up just for our attendees. The featured entertainers were: Mike Snider (awesome mountain music/bluegrass and very funny), Sarah Darling, John Conlee (Rose Colored Glasses), Joey + Rory, and Darryl Worley. And, it pays to go over to thank the sponsors of the concert because then you might get invited backstage to meet Darryl Worley.

So all in all, a pretty good trip. I guess I can’t say my job is not interesting. And look, the biggest miracle is that I wore that white shirt all day and DIDN’T GET ANYTHING ON IT!

The Parthenon, Nashville

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Friday afternoon we visited the Parthenon in Nashville. It was originally built as part of the Centennial Exposition in 1897 (out of plaster), and was then re-built out of sturdier materials. The building and the 42-foot tall statue of Athena inside are full scale replicas of the originals in ancient Greece.

We were interested in both the building and the art collection inside. The Parthenon houses the City of Nashville’s art collection, which was donated to the city in 1927 by James M. Cowan, an art collector who had spent part of his childhood in Tennessee and considered it his ancestral home. No photography was allowed in the art gallery, but some pictures are available online. Here is a link to the  Cowan Collection, with photographs of some of the paintings. I think my favorite was Widening Sea by Frederick Waugh – no picture, but this blog by Armand Cabrera has pictures of several of his works. Very turbulent seascape.

Neither one of us had any desire to have this one in our houses:

That dead fish is even more dead in person.

The art gallery visit was not enhanced by a screaming baby and a horde of college kids who were apparently there for a basketball tournament. Then again, when I was a college kid, I would not have been enthused about the art gallery either.

Exterior of the building. This one is all restored, the one in Greece has been damaged/looted over the ages and is missing most of the statues and friezes.

Look at that blue sky, does it look like a tornado warning is headed our way?

Once you are inside, there is a small admission fee, and then you can walk around the art gallery and displays of some of the history of the Nashville Parthenon, showing its history and how it was built, and re-built, and the renovations.  Upstairs you find the statue of Athena which was added to the Parthenon later, after funds were raised from private donations and school children collecting nickels and dimes.

Athena is 41 feet 10 inches tall, making her the tallest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. Yes, she is rather frightening.

This is the head of the medusa on her shield.

While we were at the Parthenon, they announced they were going to be closing an hour and 15 minutes early because of expected severe weather. When we got back to the Gaylord, it had clouded up and was starting to sprinkle. We were promptly sent into the service corridors by the hotel staff to wait out the tornado warning, which only took about a half an hour. Text messages were flying and everyone was checking in on Facebook. S. and I were really wishing we had our wine we bought at the plantation with us……

Arnold’s County Kitchen

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Note to my niece: Sorry, no General Lee picture yet, I have to post that when I write about Saturday, and I am still writing about Friday! XXX000 love you!

When I found out I was going to Nashville, of course I checked into what area restaurants had been on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” (My favorite TV show.) There were a few in the area, but I thought the most authentic Southern-sounding one was Arnold’s Country Kitchen, which is cafeteria-style and serves “meat and three” – your choice of the meats they have that day and then you can pick three sides. Or two sides, or whatever you like.

My friend S. the artist (who gives invaluable advice on newt quilts) had diet RC Cola, BBQ beef on a jalapeno grit cake with jalapeno cheese sauce, grilled asparagus, and mashed potatoes and gravy. She said everything was excellent, especially the jalapeno cheese sauce.

I had a diet RC cola, roast beef, greens (with bacon and a little wasabi), squash casserole, and white beans. I would drink Diet RC regularly if you could find it around here.

They carved the roast beef right there in front of you, it was excellent. I was so excited to eat here I forgot to pay. I did go back and pay after I realized that. Everyone in line was busy talking about the expected tornado warning, and I just managed to wander through and not pay.

 
I don’t know what was in this squash casserole but it was very sweet and it was delicious.

Don’t you love the macro setting on this camera? Wouldn’t you like to get closer to my food?

These greens were great. Bacon, wasabi, probably a good quantity of bacon grease….

These white beans were great, another recipe I will try to figure out. I believe that is ham in there. Anyone who knows how to make these, please let me know.

A new culinary discovery! Bruce’s Tabasco Peppers in Vinegar. I don’t believe you can buy these in stores up here. I will look. They had them at our hotel but they wanted $10.95 for a bottle, and they are $1.99 online, so I think I will be ordering them if I can’t find them locally. I just put the vinegar on my meat and greens, I did not eat a pepper, although I am looking forward to that too.

 
The missing camera has been located! I apparently knocked it out of my bag when I was rummaging for something on the airplane, so thank goodness for Frontier Airlines. I have also lost my Blackberry on a Frontier flight, and got it back safe and sound, so I appreciate their good service.

Belle Meade Plantation, Tennessee

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A few of us ventured out into the Greater Nashville Area to see some local sights. Friday morning, we visited the Belle Meade Plantation.

We couldn’t take picture inside the plantation house, but this is the front porch. Please note the bullet holes in the columns from the battle of Nashville. This was our tour guide, Tom.

The Plantation is actually in pretty good shape, and was not looted/destroyed as much as some others because the owner, General Harding was a friend of future vice president Andrew Johnson, who advised him to sign a loyalty oath, and when he didn’t, sent him to exile in Michigan. However, he did give protection to Mrs. Harding and the plantation. The main money maker for the plantation was thorough-bred horses.

The Plantation now includes a winery whose proceeds are used to support the maintenance of the plantation. There is evidence that used wine bottles were purchased by the plantation and those were probably used to make homemade wine.

 
We tasted a red muscadine (grapes native to the U.S.), a blackberry wine, their “Racing Silk” red, and a chardonnay (white). I purchased some of the muscadine, red, and blackberry, and had them shipped home. They are not here yet. I am hoping SOON.

The wine jellies you can see in front were also delicious.

The crypt on the Plantation. They dug up all the bodies in there and moved them to a cemetery. Still pretty creepy.


This little vine was quite happily growing out of the stone wall

An interesting old grist stone

Three grist stones.

The dairy and the view back to the plantation house.

The area around the plantation is more developed now, but the grounds are still pretty extensive. It was a very interesting tour, and besides the winery, they had a great gift shop, which featured painting by local artists. Both of us on the tour had paintings we wanted to take home. If you are in the area it is definitely worth a visit. They also had a restaurant there, but we had other plans for lunch (to be continued…..).

More Nashville

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Sorry this is later than usual, but I was still recovering from the trip and didn’t have the energy to write one last night!

Well, I had been complaining about this convention that we attend every year being back in Nashville over and over again, but now I can see the reason why. I hadn’t been in Nashville since this convention in 2008, and we had to stay at a hotel across the street in 2008. This time we actually got to stay at the Gaylord Opryland, and it is a pretty nice hotel.  It is kind of spendy so I don’t know if I would stay there if it wasn’t a business trip, but it was a lovely place to stay. Also very handy to be at the convention hotel instead of across the street.

The Gaylord has three large interior atrium spaces, with tons of plants and flower and trees. Very relaxing to walk around and enjoy the greenery, especially if you are from somewhere that it is not so green right now!

I leave you with a few pictures from the atrium – more to follow! Now, I am trying to track down my camera, which disappeared somewhere between Nashville and Colorado, hoping it turns up (especially since it has FOOD pictures on it!)

This is one of my favorites.

It was HUMID in there too, as well as outside. My skin looked great!

More Southern Fried Goodness

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Thursday night in Nashville, we ventured out to Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant. It was a Facebook recommendation and it was excellent.

I am very lucky to have two board members along who understand my quirks and don’t mind when I say “Don’t eat it yet, I have to take a picture.”

We had been told to try the fried green beans and Yazoo beer. I am not a beer person, but my two board members tried it and said it was great. I had a apple pie moonshine martini which was excellent.

I had the fried chicken, excellent.

It came with a corn cake, green beans, and mashed potatoes.

I was torn on whether to order the chicken or the shrimp and grits, so I was glad when one of my board members ordered the shrimp and grits, because then I got to sample them.

They had a lot of cardamom in them, so very Indian spicy tasting.

Mmmmmm. My other board member ordered chicken fried chicken. It was a little larger than he expected it to be.

He also gave his meal the thumbs up. We were too full for dessert. They also had a live bluegrass band, Quickfoot and the Slow Downers – they were really very enjoyable. We hadn’t been actively seeking live music, but it was really nice to have someone to listen to. A delightful evening! And on our return to the hotel, “weather alerts” including the unnecessarily apostrophed “temperatures expected to rise into the 70’s and 80’s which could lead to the outbreak of tornadoes” so that may be festive.

Southern Goodness

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I am in Tennessee for work so will give a brief report on my travel so far. First of all, apologies to those of you (Tim) that I freaked out when you thought I had another fire right before my trip. No, those were PAST fires. I haven’t had a really good one since the grease fire in October.

I would like to give some appreciation to the Denver airport for their art on display. In the bridge to the A Concourse, they have several cases of Colorado art and design. I have taken the time to walk up both sides now and look at everything, the exhibit is mostly geared toward design but it is well worth looking at.

Then I would like to tell you that if you are going to eat on A Concourse, stay away from Panda Express’ veggie spring rolls, which have absolutely no taste or texture. The hot and sour soup was a very mediocre version but it was leaps and bounds above the spring rolls. There are not a lot of good places there at the hub on A, I would go out to C and get a calzone if you have the time.

Our first meal here in Nashville was at Caney Fork River Valley Grille. This is pretty close to our hotel, and we gave it a try. Our party had the chopped steak, the filet, and the Camp Fire Fish Fry, consisting of Southern Fried Catfish, fried shrimp, Fried frog Legs, Fried Cod, a crab cake and some hush puppies and some french fries. Plus two sides: fried okra and baked beans.

Two of us shared this and it was still too much.

Fried okra and various dipping sauces.

Plus, at the beginning of the meal they bring you fried corn fritters with powdered sugar.

Sorry, I took these pictures with my phone and they are not the best.

The best thing was the frog legs. They were really quite good. The catfish was fine, the okra was very good and fresh, but the cod had way too much breading, it was better when I picked it out of the breading. The baked beans were also excellent. And the corn fritters were good. Even splitting this between two of us, it was too much food.

The restaurant also had an excellent version of Long Island Ice Tea “Backwoods Tea” which was very good and about half as expensive as the ones at our hotel.

Plus they had many interesting stuffed and mounted animals on display, including many deer with “atypical” racks. So I would recommend it if you like a place with character. If you are a vegetarian, maybe not so much.

Please pardon any random capitalization, I have been at a reception where there was Wine.

San Francisco Trip Report – Day 5

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Links to all of the trip reports from this trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Since I am once again on business travel, I thought I would finish up with the FINAL day of my trip report from San Francisco from Thanksgiving 2010.

Monday:  The LAST day. We have been touring pretty hard, if we were staying any longer, we would have to take at least this afternoon off to rest. But instead we will be getting on a plane, so we better fit in some fun this morning.

The most exciting moment of the morning – April found Bruce the shark finger puppet! He was between the seat and the door in the back seat of the car. It is amazing that he didn’t fall out, he had at least seven opportunities. Just shows that he loves me and wanted to stick around even though I dropped him out of my pocket. Bruce went with us the rest of the day, riding in my sweatshirt pocket, when he wasn’t on my finger making comments.

We got on the road for Fairfield, home of the Jelly Belly factory.  I love me some  Jelly Bellies, so I was very excited to do this.  NEXT time we will do wine country, this time I wanted to see Jelly Bellies. Nick and April had done this tour before, but never on a week day, so they were interested to see if there would be actual workers in the factory.

Bruce the Shark loves Jelly Bellies almost as much as I do.

We got there and had to wait about 15 minutes for our tour. This time was spent sampling Jelly Bellies, of course, they  have a sample bar where you can try one of any kind you want. They have these NASTY flavors (Bean Boozled) that are a take off on Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans, and April was just insistent that we each had to try one. I think Ken got the best end of the stick, with pencil dust, I tried centipede, Nick tried baby wipe, and April tried canned dog food, which made her dance and hop and exclaim about how bad it was and how it tasted JUST LIKE dog food smells. Well, don’t eat it then!  We had to drive the tastes out of our mouth with some normal jelly beans. Having a burp later that tasted like centipede was not very pleasant, however. Bruce was really hoping for a Human Flesh flavored Jelly Belly but no such luck.

The tour is very interesting and fun. No pictures allowed in the factory, so no documentation of that. They were making Buttered Popcorn flavored beans that day, so the factory smelled of buttered popcorn, and April hates that flavor and I love it. We got to sample the Jelly Bellies in the different stages: in the Pupa stage as I would call it, when they are just soft jelly, then with the candy coating but not polished, and then all polished of course. We got to try their new flavor for Christmas, which was Candy Cane, which tasted like, well, a Candy Cane. Like a strong mint gum drop, nothing to write home about. I tried a birthday cake one at the sample bar that was my favorite new flavor.

The tour took about 40 minutes, and at the end, you got two tiny bags of Jelly Bellies and one of Christmas candy corn. They make all kinds of candy there at the factory besides Jelly Bellies.

Bruce says why fool around with those little tiny bags of Jelly Bellies?

Then: shopping! They had showed us on the tour the sorting machine which sifts out all of the Jelly Bellies that are too big, too small, weirdly shaped, etc. (I was telling Ken earlier in the day that you could get a good deal on the malformed ones, except he thought I was saying mouth-warmed ones, and he wondered why I would want that.) So they have these “Belly Flops” in 2 pound bags in the shop, and they were on sale for 5 bags for $30. So of course I had to have 5 bags! There was some debate as to whether this purchase, along with my rock collection and olive oil, was going to put us over our weight limit for luggage.

Then back home to Richmond for one last meal together: Leftover Thanksgiving – Nick and April were bemoaning how long they were going to have to eat turkey sandwiches, so we tried to help them out with that as much as possible. We crammed everything into the suitcases and were on our merry way back to Colorado.

This is my awesome crabby sweatshirt I got at Pier 39.

No problems at security, although Kenny did get to go through the naked scanner (this was a novelty at the time), but only because the woman in front of use (again) had a million pieces of jewelry on, and she got pulled aside for the full pat down, so that put our line behind, and they were running people through the naked scanner to reduce the line. We got on the plane, and Kenny pretty much passed out and slept most of the way. Full flight again, but not as many screaming children. I finished reading the book that I didn’t like and that was mostly annoying to me, because I didn’t have anything else to read and it was really too crowded to knit.  Landed at DIA and opened up our bags and got out the heavy coats again.

Remember how I said I burned my finger with my curling iron on the morning we got up at 5:00 a.m. to leave?

Yeah, it still hurt.

Best last part of the trip: We were getting off of the shuttle bus at the extended parking lot at DIA, and this approximately 9 year old boy was looking at our largest suitcase. “That looks heavy,” he said, as we were dragging it off of the bus. “It should,” I said, “It has 10 pounds of jelly beans in it.” The look on his face: priceless. “Ten pounds of jelly beans?????!!!!”  I could tell he wished he had been on vacation with US!