Food & Drink

This & That

/ Ally Bean / 16 Comments

{november  – monday – morning}

√  I’m still trying to get used to my iPad.  I got one about 2 months ago, but have yet to really use it for much of anything.  It seems to be a device on which one consumes, not creates, media.  I didn’t realize that when I got it.  I thought it was like a small laptop computer so I planned on using it to write blog posts and do photo editing.  But so far I haven’t seen any way that I could use it for my intended purposes.

And as I don’t have a smart phone, I’m finding all this app crap to be rather tedious to learn about.  How in the world do I know if an app is something that will be useful to me if I don’t know what the thing does/replaces/adds to my life?  And more importantly, if I put an app on the iPad can I get it off/deleted/made to go away forever– not just hidden somewhere out of my sight, like a portrait of Dorian Gray?

√  I started re-decorating our home office about a month ago.  First, Zen-Den and I re-configured the desks and the file cabinets.  We left the 6′ x 4′ bookcase in the same place, but I decided to take out all the books so that I could re-do the shelves in a way that is more user me friendly.  I re-commissioned an older table lamp that was catching dust in the basement because I thought that it’d provide better ambient light in the room.

When I began this project I was all optimistic that I could do it with what we have sitting around, but so far I haven’t been able to get a groovy vibe happening in that room.  Pretty much all that I’ve managed to do is create a big mess that spills out of the office, across the foyer and into the LR.  So much for flying by the seat of my pants.

√  We’re hosting a Holiday Party in a few weeks.  I decided that we’d do what I’d call bar food.  That is, a menu that is more filling than just munchies, but less bother than a buffet supper.  We’ll have trays of small sandwiches & bowls of chips.  Then hot dips & crunchy snacks.  Plus a table of cookies & candy.  We bought all of our beer & wine over the weekend, so that’s out-of-the-way.

Any suggestions for a great dip of some sort?  I’m making Skyline Dip & Jalapeño Popper Dip already, but would like to add something more to the menu.  Also, if I make some hot mulled cider what kind of alcohol would you want available to put in it?  Rum? Red wine? Bourbon? Something else?  [I’m not a fan of mulled cider so what to add to it is kind of a mystery to me.]

… enough babbling for now.  later.

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.]  

Odds & Ends

/ Ally Bean / 21 Comments

::  ON SUNDAY I MADE a Ratty Apple Pie.  That’s my name for an apple pie made from a mix of not so good-looking apples.  My pie included 2 Melrose, 1 Granny Smith, 2 Red Delicious + 1 mystery apple [Gala?] that was in our frig.  Then I put what my Betty Crocker cookbook describes as French crumb topping on the pie.  The pie was yummy.

::  I READ AN ARTICLE in the Sunday paper about the increase in incivility in daily life.  It rang true with me.  I know that in the last few years I’ve encountered rude drivers, indifferent sales clerks, one incredibly hostile bank manager, a couple of ill-mannered [former] friends, and countless offensive individuals shrieking about politics.

My guess is that after watching violent movies, viewing rude tv shows & absorbing the hostility inherent in extremist political views these annoying people are so desensitized that they don’t know that they are, indeed, rude & uncivil.  The sad part is that I’ve come to realize that sometimes being rude right back to an uncouth person is the only way to accomplish anything because these. people. do. not. get. kindness.   

::  WE HAVE AN INFESTATION of icky miniature fly-like bugs in our house.  The man who washes our windows was here yesterday.  He told me that the bugs, which are coming into the house through the holes in the mesh of the screens, were from the Hackberry tree.

[Having never heard of a Hackberry tree before I googled it.  Natch.  I learned that it is sturdy;  produces tiny dark-red colored berries for the wildlife to munch on;  provides a safe haven for birds in the winter;  was cultivated in 1636;  & in pioneer days was used for making barrel hoops.]

As for getting rid of the icky little bugs– not going to happen until we have a hard frost, the window washer man tells me.  Seems that the dumb little bugs are impervious to all types of removal– including my withering gaze and vacuuming the screens.