I was pretty close to pitching my perfectly good grey motorola flip cell phone after spending quality time with a cluster of smart phones and then I learn this. Over half of the world’s population have never made or received … Continue reading
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Potluck Gold
Food For My Family is a blog full of recipes, clear step by step instructions and the kind of photography that makes you think you could be a much better cook if you just got in there and rustled around a bit more.
Here is something to take to your next family barbecue. It’s Watermelon Lime Sorbet actually frozen in a scooped out melon rind (chocolate chip seeds) and sliced into wedges.
“Oh, this?” You say modestly to Aunt Phyllis who never fails to snark about the plastic domed food trays from Costco that you usually tote in.
“It’s just sooo hot, I thought we needed to have something sweet ‘n cool.” Truth be known, you’re thinking. Shut the front door! Winner, winner – chicken dinner!
“Oh, no, Phyllis. Actually, it’s easy. I make a simple syrup, chop up some watermelon and add lime. The recipe is from a great online food blog.”
“No, Phyllis, not a bog, a blog. It’s B.L.O.G. I’ll show it to you later. Here, have a slice.”
Bit O’ News
I read a snippet in the paper under Weird News that 6 strippers were awarded $195,000 in a lawsuit in Florida after claiming 4 of them were unlawfully strip-searched by police at a raid at the Biggins Gentlemen’s Club where they worked — as strippers.
I snickered at the irony, finished reading the rest of the paper and threw the whole thing in recycling.
Much later, I fished out the paper to check out the “Thirty Minute Recipes” for dinner inspiration and ran across the stripper story. Hmm, I thought — Why can’t strippers object to an unlawful strip search? And what is so G.D. funny about that? And another thing, Biggins Gentleman’s Club? Pul–leeze.
So, what’s my take-away? Pay attention, it’s the price of admission to the human race.
Google Doodle
One of the rules Google breaks a lot is, “Thou shalt not mess with your corporate logo.” The quirky name in colorful curvy letters really works for me and evidently for everyone else.
Since its inception in ’98, Google is now both noun and verb in the dictionary: n. a search engine and v. to look for information on the internet.
One day one of the founders added a doodle to the site logo just for grins. He was going to the Burning Man Festival and he slipped a stick figure with outstretched arms behind one of the o’s. It was an insider’s joke that grew legs.
Today a Google Doodle team comes up with all manner of logo variations to celebrate interesting events, people and anniversaries of all kinds. According to the official facts, there are 300 doodles aimed at the U.S. and 700 that are global. 
A couple of years ago, Google started Doodle 4 Google. Kids, k-12, are invited to create their own Google 
Doodle using a theme such as, What I want to do in my life. The winning entry is used on the Google site.
If you want to see what you’ve 
missed, click here. If you have an idea for a doodle, send the Google Doodle team an e-mail at 
proposals@google.com
I’ve included a few of my favorites: Total Eclipse, Einstein’s Birthday, Thanksgiving and Gregor Mendel’s Birthday. (Friar Pea Body, anyone?)
Friar Pea body
Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, liked to play the lottery. I imagine him lining up with everyone else at some rickety stall in the market place to take his chances at winning the big one — $25,000 guilders. (A little over 14,000 dollars at today’s exchange rates.)
He evidently gave up playing and got about the business of life, going to college and deciding at 21 to become a monk. Always a smart guy, between monk duties and teaching he got interested in how physical characteristics passed from one generation to another.
By growing peas for 8 years he discovered that both parents equally contribute to their kids’ gene pools; it’s the mix of dominant and recessive traits that decides Junior will have red hair like crazy Grandpa Jake.
Too bad Mendel died (1822 – 1884) before the rest of the world caught up with his ideas. It would have dampened the sting of losing the lottery. Oh, and I wonder what he would say about today’s supermarket tomatoes — firm, red, round and tasteless. Hmm, guess taste is recessive, Gregor?
Re-entry
Long Lake in Park Rapids, Minnesota
Hey, whasup? You’ve been gone forever! Can’t wait to hear all ’bout it. Didja have a wonderful time?
… Glad to be home?
Hellllo. Yeah, right. It’s been forever. It was Graaate, realllly great.
Weather was good most of the time, everyone got along and we did lots. Plenty of food, drink and late hours. (Ha. Ha.) Yeah, am glad to be home to my own bed. Got lots of pics.
…Wow, sure is hot.
Can’t wait to see ’em all. Saw your facebook updates. Yeah, it’s been really hot ever since you left. And it’s suppose’ to stay like this until next week sometime.
Really? Glad the A.C. is working, though the ice maker isn’t. Think I’ll pick up a bag of ice at Costco.
… Wanna go?
Sure. What are you doin’ for dinner?
I dunno, you?
No clue, let’s check out the samples.
Deja View
Today I went to a new Trader Joe’s store in town. I expected the Big Dealness had died down since the store already had a big week-end launch. It made the paper and everything. But I am wrong.
The scene looks like a colorized film version of a Russian grocery store in the 1950’s. (Although the Costume Department somehow didn’t catch the eastern european vibe.)
There are long lines of shoppers brushing by each other as they trudge past rows of partially stocked shelves. They wince, murmur and with a huge air of resignation, reach for a jar of this or a package of that. They toss things into their carts, grip their handlebars and push off with a lack of expression.
- Two buck chuck at Trader Joe’s, image by Wikipedia
At the back of the store there is a huge wall of wine with a jaunty sign that announces, $2 Buck Chuck! Inflation has raised the price; Charles Shaw’s famously cheap, not-bad wine is selling for $2.99 a bottle.
There is plenty of it.
Customers who have reached this special place happily hoist mixed cases on their shoulders or fill all the empty space in their carts. People laugh, share stories and exchange all kinds of personal information the way you do with someone you will likely never see again.
A tall, muscular clerk lifts cases from the top of the pile and sets them on the floor. He looks an awful lot like Ronald Reagan. ( Nice job, Casting.)
Souvenir
- A vacation photo from a trip out west.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Party Food
Let's all eat cake.
Cooks all over the U.S. are dusting off their recipes and making long grocery lists for fourth of July celebrations. Plain Chicken , a food blog by a Southern cook, featured this cake.
Even though I am really not a fan of blue and red tinted food, I kinda love the sense of Americana kitsch; it’s a flag-waver just sitting on the table.
First Vacation
I'm feeling those good vibrations. I'm feeling...
There are dog beaches, party beaches, nude beaches, city beaches, historic beaches but nothing beats a baby’s first beach.
What a treat to be along for the ride.