Tag Archives: Food

Vintage Watkins Cookbook Brownies

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Since I take such delight in posting bad/scary recipes from vintage cookbooks, how about if I post a good recipe. I was emulating one of my favorite food blogs, Time Travel Kitchen, and I thought about submitting this as a guest post, but now I have my own blog and am short on materials, so here it is!

This is from an old Watkins cookbook, I don’t know how old because I didn’t take a picture of the copyright page, and right now I can’t find the cookbook. That is how it goes in this house sometimes. Watkins was a company that used to have sales women like Tupperware, etc. I don’t know if they ever had parties. They had spices and flavorings (like vanilla extract) and maybe cleaning products. They are still listed as a home business opportunity online. Or you can order the products online. Whenever I see someone at a fair or festival selling Watkins, I stock up. You can also buy Watkins at Walmart now, but the bottles are pretty tiny.

Artsy picture of brownie ingredients. I am not really sure I succeeded in being artsy. Do you wash your sifter? Obviously I don’t. But it is flour and cocoa and stuff like that, and it would probably rust if I washed it. So there.

Here is the cookbook. I also have a Watkins cookbook that is strictly salads.

Here is the recipe:

I did not use Watkins Baking Powder or cocoa. I did use Watkins vanilla. The book does not tell you what size pan to bake in, but it didn’t make a huge amount of batter, so I used a well-greased 8 by 8 glass pan. I do believe I cooked them at 350, that is about what a moderate oven should be. Don’t you love how these old cookbooks assume everyone will know that. Along with “little salt” – I used about 1/4 tsp. They taste flat without salt.

They kind of cave in in the middle and are all cakey and fudgy. Despite the recipe suggestion, these do not need frosting. They are quite rich already.

Some of the better brownies I have ever made. Very rich. Unfortunately, I took these pictures several months ago, so I have no hot and delicious brownies to go eat now. Oh well, at least I had something to write about!

So have you ever used Watkins products? Do you have a Watkins cookbook?

New Pasta at Panera Bread

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I saw a sign for new pasta at Panera, and of course I can’t remember where….it seems like it was outside my usual stomping grounds, but who knows where that is. Anyway, I couldn’t find ANYTHING on line about it, so I figured it was a test market thing and I had come across one store featuring it. But when I went to Knit Knight at the local Panera, there it was. So, as a public service, and to get it out there on the internets, here is my review of Panera’s new pastas. Well, two of them at least. (My review of the tortellini, here!)

I am betting they added these because of the success of their macaroni and cheese. According to a known mac and cheese fancier, my friend Cathy, who is a known macaroni and cheese fancier, it is pretty good. So they are trying three more kinds, and you can get them by themselves (more on that later) in a small size with a cafe soup or salad, or a large size with a cafe soup or salad. Well, at Knit Knight I had the pesto sachettini, with a Ceasar salad, and a chunk of baguette. The small combination is $8.29 and the large is $9.99. I find that to be a kind of questionable value. Even better, I stopped at Panera near work the next day because I of course forgot to pick up a copy of the flier that had information about the pasta on it, and I wanted to get one more kind, so I could have sampled at least 2 different kinds before I wrote this review. Without the salad or soup (you still get the bread) – a little tiny bowl of pasta is $7.79. Holy catfish. They are making money on this hand over fist. However, I guess it about in line with their other prices, which I do not consider to be a bargain. This is my opinion and my opinion only. Our knitting group is meeting at Panera, at least temporarily, and it is refreshing to have something different to order. I will try the tortellini next week so I can have a complete report.

Colorado is apparently a test market for these, since I have seen them in at least 2 different cities (and maybe 3, if I could remember the first place I saw them….)

On to the actual food. At Knit Knight I had the sachettini pesto. The sachettini are little “purses” full of cheese. They say there are six different kinds of cheese in there, but it was just kind of bland and cheesy. The pasta was well past al dente. I wasn’t wild about the pesto, because I like my pesto pretty strong, but it turned out to be pretty strong later when it was repeating on me all night (is that a tactful way to say that?) Maybe I was just drinking too much soda. One of my other friends tried it too and she gave it a seven or eight out of ten. I gave it a 5, better than Fazzoli’s but worse than Noodles and Company.

Now, the Rustic Penne Bolognese which I had by itself, was very tasty. The noodles are thick and quite sturdy, and hold up better than the sachettini. The bolognese sauce was very tasty. However, this is what you get for $7.79 –

If you don’t want a soup or salad with it. So, that soup or salad is valued at about 40 cents if I am remembering the prices right.

Here is the little informational sheet they have about the pastas:

So, my recommendation is: If you are tired of the “Pick two” option, you can try this one for something new and get pasta instead, with a soup or salad. Next week I may even try the ‘large’ tortellini to see how large it is. The sacrifices I make for the reading/eating public. But I wanted to get something out there because Google is remarkable lacking in information. So, here it is! Worth a try, especially the bolognese. I will report back next week on the tortellini. Great taste, at least on the bolognese, maybe not such a great value, but decide for yourself.

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.

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.

2010 Thanksgiving San Francisco Trip Report Part 4

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Links to all of the trip reports from this trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Sunday: I was up at 7:00, why oh why oh why. But then I decided to use the time to write up this trip journal, so that was OK. We will have fun looking back and reading this.  Cinnamon rolls for breakfast (family tradition). Nick started out the day by getting the left turn blinker fixed.  Then after much debate about which direction we should start our circular tour in, we were off to the Embarcadero, Pier 39, and Fisherman’s Wharf.  When we got a few miles down the road, I discovered I didn’t have my  Bruce the Shark finger puppet, even though I had talked about him and carried on about how I was bringing him and how he wanted to see the Pier. Nick was not willing to turn around and go home and get Bruce, go figure. I thought I must have dropped him when I went into our room to get my chapstick or something. If I dropped him in the living room, the cats were going to have something to amuse themselves with all day.

Parked at about Pier 5, so we then walked backwards along our planned loop to the Ferry Building which has little shops, mostly food or food related.

I got a Macaron (because we don’t seem to have any little bakeries that make those in Denver) and then came to Nirvana – Boccalone! I have seen this place on some Food Network show, just can’t remember which one. Anyway, they have a paper cone that they fill with “Tasty Salted Pig Parts” and it is fairly amazing.

I quickly grabbed one and we all shared the bits of meat, nothing big, just a good appetizer for the day.

I can’t believe that this place is the only location and we just stumbled across it. Was verrry tempted by their T-shirts. Bought some local olive oil as a “souvenir” – I like souvenirs that are either edible and then they are gone so you don’t have to dust later, or wearable. Was sorely tempted by another t-shirt at another meat shop that said “Praise the Lard” and had a picture of a pig.

Then we wandered down the Embarcadero, past all of the piers, most of the piers still have boats of some sort stopping at them, not as much for shipping things as in the past, but there are a few that have warehouses still, and of course various tourist boats that will take you out to the Golden Gate bridge and/or Alcatraz. We didn’t manage to have time for that. We hit Pier 23, both the pier and the restaurant of that name that Guy Fieri has visited, April and Nick say this is a big biker bar in the summer. Decided I wanted to save my lunch calories for crab, etc., later on down the Pier. Then to Pier 39 (there are a lot of piers, but they are not really that far apart, so the walk isn’t that bad.)

We started encountering street performers at this point: guys who do paintings with spray paint, and various shields and scrapers – the first one we saw was not using any sort of breathing filtration, I can’t imagine that is very good for you, with all the fumes. Various musicians, including on of the worst ones I have ever heard – he was singing in one “non-key” and playing guitar in a different “non-key”, he also had a harmonica holder, I kind of wanted to hear him fire up the harmonica and hear how he didn’t play that in any sort of normal fashion. Then there is a guy called Bushman, who essentially has two handfulls of bushy twigs taht are pretty tall, he crouches next to something so he looks like a bush, and then he jumps up and scares you. He got April pretty good because she was walking next to that side of the sidewalk. Does he expect to get tips for that???? Odd. And then guys who were being statues, all spray painted gold or silver. We did not take advantage of the opportunity to purchase churros from a vendor, they looked good though.

Then Pier 39 is where the sea lions hang out, and where there are a bunch of tourist shops. And – MINI-Donuts! Well, you don’t get to eat mini-donuts every day, so we had to have some of those. Mmmmmmmmm. Greasy burning hot goodness. It is sad, some of these shops make the stuff like corn dogs and even funnel cakes in advance, so they sit around and get non-crispy. That is the POINT of this stuff, people. Anyway, the mini donuts were nice and fresh.

And then we sat and watched the sea lions for a while. They weren’t very active but it was relaxing to watch them lollygag in the sun and relax, so we could relax for a bit. Walking on the pavement is harder than walking on beaches. The highlight of the sea lion watching was when a little kid swiped my soda. I turned around to look for it, and his mom saw him about the same time I did. “Reuben, that’s not yours!” That was rather amusing. He didn’t into it, although just about, I am sure diet is not his preference anyway. There were not that many sea lions, April and Nick say in the summer there are many more, and they were being quiet. There was a little boy there making sea lion noises at them, but he wasn’t being really loud about it. Ken knew that I could do REALLY LOUD sea lion noises, but I wasn'[t willing to do it unless people would give me tips like the street performers. Plus I thought the wildlife preservation guy who was running around there might give me a lecture for bothering the sea lions.

Walked back around the tourist shops, purchasing a Golden Gate bridge magnet, and an accordian magnet for my mom, and finding a place that was going out of busines, and getting a half price sweatshirt. Then we headed for the Fisherman’s Wharf area.

One of the big things is the Boudin Bakery (now, Boudin is a spicy Cajun sausage with rice, and I didn’t see any of that around, so that was disappointing) but they are famous for their sourdough and sourdough bread bowls. They have a big window where you can watch their bakers, and sometimes they are making the bread loaves into animal shapes, well they weren’t doing that while we were there, they were makingh jalapeno cheddar bread, that looked pretty darn good to me, I may have to try to make some of that. We went through the quick bakery line and April had a grilled cheese sandwich, Nick had  a bread bowl with clam chowder, Kenny had a sourdough pepperoni pizza, and I had clam chowder in the bread bowl. The bread bowl was great but that clam chowder had about half a clam in it, if that. April and I looked around the store a little bit before we all ventured outside to the super scary public bathrooms. They were not nearly as bad as the one at Golden Gate park.

Next: Museum Mechanique- this is a collection of old-time arcade machines, some of them REALLY old – the man who collects them had been doing it for a long time. There are several have little vignettes of things like hangings and guillitines, many music boxes of various types, and some actual games – Nick did the boxing game, where you have to give the punching bag your hardest punch. He was trying for the longest time to figure out how to get the punching bag to come down on it after you put the money in, when April pointed out the “Start” button is up above your head, and he pushed it, and pretty much got hit in the face by the punching bag coming down, so that machine CAN fight back. We spent some time wandering around looking at all of the old gadgets, and then crammed all 4 of us into one of the photo booths for a picture strip, which turned out greatly entertaining, of course.

Before we left the Fisherman’s Wharf area, I wanted to have crab and Nick wanted to have crab, so we found what we thought would be the best place, that Nick had scoped out earlier.

They have crabs there ready to go, steamed already, and  when you order one, they re-heat it by plunging it in and out of the boiling water bath, and they make all the cracks for you, so you don’t have to deal with crab crackers, and the meat is easy to get to.

April and I wait for the crab.

Look at the cute crab!

Look at the delicious crab!

See the aftermath!

We all shared it, figuring that was a good way to do it without getting too full of crab. Kenny even tried a couple of little pieces, declaring that it was “Ok.” Of course you end up with crab under your fingernails, and then you think about all of those machines you touched at the Museum Mechanique, and how you are now eating with your hands…….but it was delicious nonetheless. Need to remember the packet of hand sanitizer wipes next time. There were plenty of little shops all along here but I had my magnet and my sweatshirt so I was quite happy with those as souvenirs.

The shark was, unfortunately, not for sale. This is one of my favorite pictures of me EVER.

So then we trekked up the hill to Ghiriradelli chocolate factory. They have quite a complex there – but apparently no factory tours yet. In one of their shops they are usually handing out samples of their chocolate squares – April and I got ones that were Peppermint Bark on top, chocolate on the bottom, those were good. Then to the Soda Fountain- we decided to share again so we could have ice cream but not totally fill up (not that we weren’t still moderately full from lunch and then from crab….) so we had a Cable Car Sundae, which had chocolate ice cream, Rocky Road ice cream, and chocolate chip ice cream, marshmallow sauce, hot fudge sauce, caramel sauce, and whipped cream, oh my was that good.

Then back down the hill to the line for the cable car. We had to ride on the cable car if we were in San Francisco. The line was HUGE, and there was a street musician standing there “entertaining” all of us while we waited. He had an electric guitar, speaker, and microphone all set up. He was not really greeted by much more than apathy from the crowd. Perhaps because he had some serious pitch issues and also pretty much sang every song at the same tempo, which was basically too fast. I was trying to make some money on my own by seeing how much $$ April, Nick or Ken would give me if I caught one of the many pigeons that were wandering around, but they weren’t going for it. I told them that would be real performance art….We were near a swimming club, and there were people out in the ocean swimming, which is just insane, because it was COLD – April and Nick say it never does get super hot here in the summer, so it isn’t really a beachy place.  But then again it doesn’t get super cold in the winter, which is a good thing, because there are all these incredibly steep hills, and there is no way you could drive on them with snow.

So we (eventually) rode the cable car up the steep hills and past Lombard street again, and hopped off in Chinatown. I was hoping to find a glow in the dark Buddha to go along with my glow in the dark Lady of Guadalupe but apparently glow in the dark Buddhas are not an item that is in big demand. Will have to search the internets. Wandered around the many mysterious food shops, which were doing quite a good business in various produce and fresh fish, etc. Walked back down Broadway and we had made a big circle for the day and were back to our car.

Headed back to Nick and April’s and sprawled on the couches while we debated going out for Chinese or eating Thanksgiving leftovers. I decided I was in the mood for Chinese food since we were just in Chinatown, so we did that (Kirin’s, in Berkeley) – had the most amazing jasmine tea I have ever had, and excellent wonton soup- usually wonton is in a clear broth, and this was in a really rich beefy broth, it was incredible. Then they promptly brought our orders, but totally NOT what I had ordered, so after I dug in, I was like – hmmm, this does not seem to be soup, it does have noodles, but no scallops, oysters or shrimp….so that was switched and then I had a huge bowl of soup in about 5 minutes – of course, waaaay too huge for me to finish at that point, but all the seafood was tasty and the scallops were incredible.  Ken had broccoli beef, Nick had red pepper chicken which was very tasty, and April had Cashew mushroom chicken.  It was all good but I would most recommend the wonton soup.

Then we came home and played progressive rummy – this does take a while to get all of the rounds in, so it was kind of like playing drunk by the later hands….I was getting a little loopy and tired. And April pretty much whipped us all soundly in that, I ended up with the high score (I think this is two games in a row where that has happened now) and I was ready for bed after that.

We all spent a significant amount of time looking for Bruce the shark, everywhere the cats hide their toys, under the bed, in the refrigerator, in the garbage, on the lawn, etc., but he has not been found. I am hoping he comes to light when we pack.

What would really be handy for visitors would be a website “Clean Public Bathrooms of San Francisco.”

 http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/

http://www.boccalone.com/ (tasty meat cones)

http://www.pier39.com/index.cfm

http://www.boudinbakery.com/

http://www.museemechanique.org/

http://www.ghirardellisq.com/

http://www.sfcablecar.com

http://www.thekirin.com/

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90159340

San Francisco Trip Report – Day 2 (Thanksgiving 2010)

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Links to all of the trip reports from this trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Friday: I was up around 7:30, of course, would be nice if I could sleep in on vacation but the older I get the more that seems impossible. By the time I am Mom’s age I am sure I will be getting up at 5:30 a.m. like she does.

Before we got on the road to Muir Woods, Nick asked if anyone got carsick on twisty roads….I said I might but I would let them know how I was feeling. Well, this road was considerably worse than either the road between Hermosa and Custer where I used to get sick as a kid, or anything in the Black Hills for that matter. But I was OK as long as I had the window rolled down. When we got to the hiking area, to hike to see the redwoods, we knew it was a bad sign when the parking area was full. Then the overflow parking was full, then all along the road was full, then a mile down the road was full, so we decided we didn’t want to have to hike 2 miles for the start of the hike, and just continued on. Nick told us about the eucalyptus trees in the area, they are kind of an invasive plant, they were brought over from Australia to provide wood for building but their wood is terrible for that. But, they are really flammable, so they are good for brush fires!

Next we went to Rodeo Beach.  This beach is rocky instead of sandy, and you know how Petersons are with rocks.

So I was picking up good rocks and putting them in my pockets, of course. Found some tiny pieces of green sea glass. This beach is surrounded by bunkers and gun emplacements. I didn’t know about all the military installations in the area, but SF was considered such an important port in the late 1800s that all of these bunkers and buildings were built to guard and protect the coast, and there are still barracks, etc., where the soldiers stayed. After the advent of radar, these facilities were declared obsolete, but the ruins are still there, and are historic landmarks today. Ken really thought one was a great place to make a zombie movie.  I also discovered that while I am not typically bothered by heights, I am bothered a bit by heights that involve tall ocean cliffs with rocks below. Yikes.

We hiked up one hill to look at the bunker at the top and see the view (while we were at Rodeo beach.) Ken would not let me pick up any large pieces of sea weed to take home. Or, the dead seagull which I know Nick and April’s cats would have enjoyed.  We drove to the other bunkers/gun emplacements. While looking over one of the cliffs, I had the first seal sighting. The boys were too impatient to stick around and see him poke his head out of the water, but April confirmed for me it was a seal.

I wanted to dip my toe in the ocean, so I took off one shoe. April joined me. The ocean had its own ideas, and so both of us got both feet wet.

Speaking of the cats, it is really nice for us to stay somewhere that they have cats, because then we don’t miss ours so much. Nick and April are way more strict cat parents than we are, however, they don’t leave a light on for the cats when they know they are going to be gone all day and get home after dark. Also, no cats sleeping on the bed in their house. We are having fun playing with Newton and Zoe.

Then we headed to Golden Gate Bridge. There were a lot of people there, but we didn’t have to park too far away. There is a park area, and a walkway with historic information signs  (and more bunkers and gun emplacements) and we walked out to the overlook for the bridge. Lots of picture taking.

We decided it was about time for lunch and headed back to the car. April and I investigated the bathrooms and decided that we could hold it until we got somewhere far far away from there.

We drove over the Golden Gate to get to Ocean Beach, where we ate at Beach Chalet (well, really we ate at “Park Chalet” which is the part of the restaurant that faces the park rather than the beach.) All of the other three had local beers, I had my beloved diet coke. April had wild mushroom and goat cheese pizza, Nick had the crab roll, Kenny had a burger, and I had calamari and ceviche. Oh, good April quote to Ken, I don’t remember when – “I didn’t know that you were so picky!” Uh-huh, welcome to my world. Then we had to go walk on that beach, because if I am anywhere near a beach, I have to go investigate.

This beach was sandy, with some small shells and parts of sand dollars washed up. I always have to collect some shells to take home for our shell jar. Once again, I was not allowed to take the very interesting large pieces of kelp.

Part of the fun of this trip to SF is that I have a science fiction/fantasy book that I really like called “Earthquake Weather” that is partially set in SF. So there were some locations that I really wanted to go to, like the Sutro Baths and Cliff house. The Sutro Baths were a large indoor bath house built along the ocean in the early 1900s, and they are only a ruin now. You can walk around on the old foundations, and there is a tunnel you walk into that has two cave openings to the ocean where you can hear and see the water, and a spot at the end of the tunnel where you can see the waves on the rocks.

I got Ken’s attention when I stumbled a bit on the foundations and he was pretty sure I was going to fall in.

I decided that if I was going to fall into the murky green water in the ponds or the rocks on the ocean side, I would rather fall into the water.

This is April and I reflected in the water.

After we staggered back up the large steep hill to get back to the car, we watched the sun starting to go down over the ocean, and you could see the clouds rolling in from the cold front that was supposed to move in. Over and over during the day we heard what a great day this was, how flat the ocean was, and how this was NOT TYPICAL!


Then we drove around downtown for awhile, drove the Haight Ashbury area, and then to that crazy Lombard street, that has all the turns – we were going to drive it but the line was waaaaay long so we drove to the other side and watched other crazy people drive it. We headed to the house where we started the debate on where to have dinner. G’s rule on vacations is to not eat anywhere she could eat at home – so we are supposed to go somewhere local! We tried to go to Looney’s, a BBQ place Nick and April highly recommended, but they were closed, must have given their employees the day off after T-giving. So then on to T-Rex, another bbq place, somewhat inexplicably named, because there was NO dinosaur theme, much to my disappointment. Had excellent ribs there, Ken and April had the baby back ribs, actually that is what all of us were going to have, and then our waiter gave us a bad time and told us we weren’t challenging ourselves…so Nick had the Long Cut Beef Short rib, which was something like the piece of meat Fred Flintstone orders that knocks his car over, and I had the spare ribs, which came in an order of 6 and I only managed to eat 3. They came with potato salad (red skins, fress dill! YUM!) We also ordered the side of mac and cheese with bacon, which was deeeeelicious and a huge hit. I had a ginger beer which made me feel old-timey and nostalgic for the 1890s, but was quite tasty and I am sure good for me.  And then we went home and the girls pulled out the yarn and the boys pulled out the remotes, and we discussed the possibility of cards or a board game and just never got around to it. We did watch an episode of Diners Drive Ins and Dives that had a restaurant on it that is in Berkeley and very close to Nick and April here, not sure if we will get there or not….so many things to do, so little time……

San Francisco Trip Report Day 1

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I warned you: I am on travel, and the cumulative exhaustion from all the travel this month has led me to post my trip reports from Thanksgiving 2010 while I am on my latest trip, rather than writing fresh. Not everyone has read these, and I still enjoy reading them, so I hope you do too. This first day doesn’t have any pictures but the rest of them will have pictures.

Links to all of the trip reports from this trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Well, how about one iconic San Francisco picture:

Leaving Denver: Got up at 5:00. This is not a good time for me to get up. Clamped my finger in the curling iron instead of my hair. That left a mark. Got to the airport and parking was kind of goofy, they have no signs for the Mt. Elbert parking lot, but apparently that one was full anyway and we followed the crowd to the Pikes Peak lot. Lots of cars but the airport had staff there directing traffic. Pretty full bus to the terminal, I was amazed at the number of people flying today. Security wait was pretty long, but it kept moving along. Did not see a lot of people getting pulled out and groped, but the lady in front of us who was apparently wearing ALL of her favorite jewelry and had to go through the metal detector 5 times was pretty annoying. Got there with plenty of time for me to go out to concourse C and get my breakfast calzone that is Tradition, but their quality has decreased, might have to get something else next time. Plane was full, and numerous kids that weren’t thrilled to be sitting still for 2.5 hours, but they were really pretty good. Kenny slept part of the way and I watched TV and knitted, although I discovered I dropped a stitch several rows down (sticky yarn, so it didn’t unravel) but it was going to drive me nuts so I had to unravel about 20 rows to fix that, so I didn’t really make much net progress. Lovely weather of about 18 degrees when we left.

San Francisco Airport: First off our plane nearly ran into another one on the taxiway. Not sure how close we came but the pilot slammed on the brakes. Don’t know if he was supposed to yield to us or we were supposed to wait for him, but I am sure there was a report written up about this. He was just a little tiny United Express jet so we would have come out better in the collision, I am sure.

At the SF airport, there are apparently two sets of luggage carousels. Beware, your ride may go to the wrong one to meet you. Beware, there is not a lot of parking on busy travel days.  He  made his own parking place that he wasn’t sure we were going to be able to get out of, but we did. Pretty drive in from the airport to their house, lots of gawking around at the scenery. I was unhappy on the bridges that they put the walls too high that you can’t see stuff. Brother-in-law Nick says, “They do that so you don’t go off of the bridge!”

On Thanksgiving, we hung out at the house and visited and smelled the turkey while it was roasting. Nick likes to make the Alton Brown brined turkey recipe. He couldn’t find any allspice berries at the store so decided to throw some fresh cranberries into the brine before he cooked the brine. If you do that, please consider that your turkey will come out of the brine bucket with pink skin. We really should have gotten a picture of that. But it did not stay pink, when it was cooked. It was very good. Sister-in-law April has a family recipe for mashed potatoes where you make them in advance, it involves a lot of butter and cream cheese, I believe, and that was delicious. There was kind of a pie crisis, because April wanted to experience making her own pie crust and then was not pleased with the results. Diagnosing the recipe, I think she has a family recipe (low in instructions, high on “everyone knows how grandma always made this”) that is meant to make 4-5 double pie crusts. So there was a last minute run to the store for pie, and gravy and stove top. Sorry, I come from a family that has to have gravy. (I remember how gravy was the main thing my brother would eat at most holidays). But really, I will admit, those mashed potatoes were so rich you wouldn’t need gravy!

So we ate and then got the phone call from the family on speaker phone. I think the kids were all running around playing so we didn’t get to visit with them. Ken’s dad had to give us his sales talk on some calendar lottery their church is running to pay off the mortgage, so both of us couples now are signed up to buy a calendar and win big $$ on a Sunday or Holy Day when they have a drawing.

Then we all pretty much went into food comas and watched TV and just relaxed and caught up.  There was reminiscing about last Christmas when we were all snowed in in South Dakota.  April and I pulled out the knitting and the crocheting. No games tonight, just went to bed.  Nick said we were lucky, it was an unusually clear and sunny day.