Food & Drink

So Anyone Know Where I Can Get Some Steel-Toed Flats?

/ Ally Bean / 21 Comments

[Sub-Titled: A Party In Review*]

THE GOOD:  The party went very well.  The pre-party helper elves were wonderful.  Highly recommend that approach to party giving.

The homemade hot dips were a hit.  Next year I’ll make more of those.  Chips & dips were very popular as well.  Healthy veggies & humus & dry snacky snacks, like sesame sticks & salted cashews, were not so popular.  [Of course, those may be more for me than the party guests.]

The wraps and the pretzel sandwiches, which we got from the Kroger deli, were snarfed.  Inhaled.  As was were the fancy cheeses & fruits pastes & crackers & wafers.  God bless Murray’s Cheese [at Kroger] for putting together a perfect cheese board.

The plates of cookies from a local German bakery were a big hit.  Truly yummy.  And the adorable cupcake Santa from the Kroger bakery was almost all eaten, leaving behind a rather Dali-esque image of Mr. Claus.  Oddly though, candy like M&Ms and Snickers was hardly touched.  Who’d of thought?

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THE BETTER:  The pre-party started at 5:30 p.m.  The last party guests left at 1:30 a.m.  [The helper elves were spending the night with us.  So we all went to bed at 2:00 a.m. after doing a fast pre-collapse clean-up.]

During our 8 hours of merriment we went through 7 bottles of wine, 40 bottles of beer, 20 cans of soda & 20 bottles of water.  There was also some shots of bourbon & a Brazilian liquor.  [Both were gifts.  Both were tasty.]

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THE UGLY:  I got hurt during our party when I dropped an ottoman on my left big toe.  The wooden leg of the ottoman went exactly onto my big toe.  Not onto the floor.  Not onto the top of my foot.  No, it went onto my toe which was inside my cute Stuart Weitzman flats– which I’m sad to report do nothing to stop a falling object, like an ottoman, from hurting a toe.  Wussy shoes.

Nothing is broken so I’ll probably survive this self-inflected act of stupidness.  But really, it hurt when I did it.  And it still hurts as I sit here typing.  *meh*  So on that cheery note, I’m out of here.  Going to put my foot up with a bag of ice on it.  Take some acetaminophen.  And rest my weary self.

Later kids.

*  This post is probably more for me than for my readers.  I need to put this info somewhere where I’ll find it next year.  And as I always know where my blog is, a post here seems like the logical place to me.

[Hello FTC!  Please rest assured that I was not compensated for my opinions here.  Just a few of my personal thoughts about stuff & things.  This & that.  Nothing for you to worry about really.  But, as always, thanks for stopping by, FTC.  And Merry Christmas to You & Yours.]

Red Wine Served In The Wrong Glass

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

~ • ~ 

After a rainy Monday our weather this week has turned sunny and unseasonably cool– cold even.  I’m rather torn about this.  While my spirit likes sunny days, my body prefers gray days.  I always have more energy on gray days than on sunny ones.

I know, it’s backwards from how most people operate.  But that’s how I roll, so I’ve been in low gear all week.

Unique.

~ • ~

I attribute this weirdness to my childhood.  For me, grays days were in the fall + winter + spring when I was in school and involved in all sorts of extracurricular & church activities.  If it was gray outside, I was busy.

But sunny days were summer days when I was free to do nothing.  I learned to relax during the summer when the sun was out.

Mellow.

~ • ~

Earlier this year I bought some cut crystal glasses.  I thought the small size was about right for one healthy serving of red wine.  Plus serving red wine like this makes it easy to hold & pretty to look through.

Unexpected.

~ • ~

I told a friend that I was drinking wine from the wrong glass.  She was not enthused.  She explained to me all the different types of wine glasses that she has, and how she keeps track of them in her home.  She reminded me that the shapes of the wine glasses were for a definite purpose– to enhance the wine.

She shook her head from side-to-side about my lapse in proper wine glass procurement & management.

Concerned.

~ • ~

It’s not as if I go out of my way to do things in an unusual fashion.  I just do my thing– and somehow it often seems to be the odd thing to do.

It’s not a bad way to live your life.  But it does, from time-to-time, give me pause as I wonder how it is that I naturally end up doing things differently from everyone else.

Unconventional.

~ • ~ 

A Question. An Answer. An Insight.

/ Ally Bean / 13 Comments

When queried about her choice of Newtons, she said:

I like my Newtons figgy and original.  

Proving once again that she is a woman who does, indeed, live by her stated motto:

IF SOMETHING WORKS, STICK WITH IT.

[Hello FTC!  Just to be clear, you do realize that I’m not being paid for my opinion here, right? That I’m just babbling without any compensation whatsoever.  OK then.  We’re good.]  

Looking For Apples. Finding Pumpkins.

/ Ally Bean / 18 Comments

I wanted some local apples.  Considering that this is the part of the country where Johnny Appleseed did his thing you’d think that finding some local apples would be EZPZ.  But you’d be wrong.

There really aren’t very many local orchards any more, so it takes some driving way out into the countryside to find one.  Which is exactly what we did on Sunday.

However, once we got to the apple orchard we discovered that pumpkins were the raison d’être for this orchard’s existence.

It was the pumpkins’ orange-y cuteness that drew the customers into the barn market & adjoining fields.

First, a first sign told us what to do.

Nearby piles of [pre-picked] pumpkins showed us what we could expect to find if we chose to pick pumpkins.

Then, a second sign, explained to us what not to do.  I’m sure that Ralph Waldo Emerson upon seeing such a sign would scoff.  As you may remember, Mr. Emerson said: “I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”  But apparently the management at this particular apple orchard had other ideas.  [Please note: no velvet cushions were provided in lieu of pumpkins.]

Entertaining as it might have been, we decided not to pick pumpkins.  Instead, we went into the barn market and bought a bag of apples, a jar of zucchini relish & a jar of quince jelly.  Then we returned home to enjoy our local apples purchased from one of the last apple orchards in the area.  Yum.