Waiting on the Cable Guy

Thursday after Easter, nine hardboiled eggs down, three to go. I knew it would take us a while to eat a whole dozen HB eggs. Tired of looking at eggs so it's egg salad for lunch.

Everyone knows how to make egg salad. Mine is basic but pretty decent. Coarsely dice the hard boiled eggs and use lots of freshly chopped celery and plenty of spring onions. If you don't have spring onions on hand, finely dice some regular white onion and add a smattering of fresh, or if it's all you have - dried chives, as a substitute. Use good mayonnaise, not the fake stuff and then liberally add dill weed and a little salt and some freshly ground pepper. Dill weed makes egg salad taste like springtime.

Don't serve your egg salad on light bread. "Light bread" is what we in the South call that crappy Wonder Bread type doughy stuff that you should never eat anyway. Find a slice of hearty whole grain bread if you are going to consume bread carbs. I prefer bread that has assorted whole grains - good and crunchy. So, take your slice of good bread, add a thick layer of fresh egg salad and then top that with a high heap of mesclun greens.

Mesclun greens are assorted baby greens, not that iceberg lettuce that tastes like cardboard. Save the iceberg lettuce for when you are having something that requires shredded cardboard as a garnish. Anyway, pile those baby greens (I buy it already mixed and washed and always have it in the fridge) up high, pour yourself a nice glass of white wine and enjoy your lunch.
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BTW, how could you possible eat that light bread crap?? And no, I don't like tomato on my egg salad. If I want tomato, I'll eat a tomato and lettuce sandwich so don't get me started.

Yes, I am grumpy. I have waited all day on the cable dude to arrive and install boxes for my HBO which they switched to digital which is fine but I can't sit here all day and wait for them. Grrrr. Communicom promised me he would be here within a certain hour. I even let them choose the hour. No show and I am ticked. I shall seek revenge tomorrow.

Up To My Ears

I am up to my ears, in ... well, earrings. There are 56 pairs of vintage earrings on my desk as I work on an update for Eclectica Vintage Jewelry. Photographing earrings is tedious. Then try being glib as you write 56 unique descriptions. Argh! The only thing that soothes me during updates is mellow music.

Am listening to that darlin' boy, John Mayer. The CD is "Room for Squares" and I am addicted to it. Must pick up his latest CD, "Heavier Things," soon. I often listen to his HT album online from his website but must own it. Here's the web site for "Heavier Things." Oh, I am sure all you young whipper-snappers have been turned on to John Mayer for ages but this ol--err, mature lady, only discovered him in January. That boy has the soul of a poet. Now, if I could just figure out how to introduce him to my daughter...

Didn't plan anything for supper tonight. Will ask DH to pick up go food on his way home from JAX since all I did all day was fiddle with earrings. The good news is that my burger fantasy was fulfilled last night. It was 6 inches long, I measured. Don't have a cow, man. Only an inch of it was ground sirloin, the rest was a huge slab of juicy, red tomato, fresh bakery bun and two inches of spring lettuces.

Shake Gently

Must make time to learn about this blogging stuff. But, it's such a busy time of year to say nothing of having Spring Fever and not wanting to be tied down at the computer. To make it worse, we haven't even started our taxes yet. I guess I should load up TurboTax tonight but damn, I hate thinking about taxes. Taxes and lawyers are two things that I wish I could avoid. Speaking of lawyers...

Two alligators were sitting at the side of the swamp.
The smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, "I
cain't unnerstand how you kin be so much bigger 'n me.
We're the same age, we was the same size as
kids..I just don't get it."

"Well," said the big 'gator, "What you been eatin'
boy?"

"Lawyers, same as you," replied the small 'gator.

"Hmm. Well, where do y'all catch 'em?"

"Down at 'tother side of the swamp near the parkin'
lot of that law firm."

"Same here. Hmm. How do you catch 'em?"

"Well, I crawls up under one of them Lexus and wait
fer someone to unlock the door. Then I jump out, grab
'em on the leg, shake the shit out of 'em,and eat
'em!"

"Ah!" says the big alligator, "I think I see your
problem. You ain't gettin' any real nourishment. See,
by the time you get done shakin' the shit out of a
lawyer, there ain't nothin' left but lips and a
briefcase."


Did I mention this is Gator Country?
GO Gators!

Craving a big juicy burger so here I go, out on the side deck to sip a bourbon, inhale the heady fragrance of the orange blossoms and toss a couple o'hunks of ground cholesterol onto the grill. The sunset is brilliantly orange and blue and all is right with the world.

Butterflies

Windy as a cuss today but at least the sun was shining. Everything outside is freshly washed, a thousand shades o'green and blooming. The fat robins and red breasted tourists have headed North. After Easter, all the snowbirds head home. Driving is a lot less complicated when one doesn't have to keep a constant eye out for vintage Cadillac's the size of Sherman tanks piloted by little white headed Q-Tips who never look where they are going even if they might once in a while be able to see over the dash.

Give me back my state, please! It's time for snakes, bugs, rabid gators and hurricanes so everyone who doesn't need to be here should kindly evacuate immediately. Thankyew in advance.

This spring, I am looking forward to visiting the Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Everyone says it is delightful. We have many beautiful butterflies in Florida and the University of FL has a really dandy Natural History department.

After you view the link above, click Home on that page and read more about it. And, if you love butterflies as do I, you will enjoy visiting Eclectica's Butterfly micro site. Have a look, brighten up your day. Go ahead, you'll like it. ::::nudge::::nudge::::

It's Abundanza Night here at the old house so I am not going to take pix of leftovers even if they do look delish.

Happy Easter!

A relaxing Easter for us this year. We had a laid back morning with wheat waffles topped with mounds of fresh strawberries and of course colored, hard boiled eggs and vanilla coffee. DH did the breakfast cooking, serving and cleaning. This is the first year ever that I didn't cook Easter Dinner for the family. We ate at Bonefish. As always, it was delish.

We took our buddy David with us since his wiffy, best buddette Cathy, is out of town visiting her mom. Two handsome dudes and l'il ole me for Easter dinner? Yippee Ky Oh!

Seated at 3:00, everyone had a cocktail - I had a huge Lemon Drop martini :::slurp::: and then, we had Calamari and "Bang Bang" Shrimp for appetizers. This turned out to be all we needed for dinner but like brain-dead piglets, we kept stuffing ourselves.

We all had the massive house salad of mixed greens, tomato, feta cheese, kalamata olives, herbs and pine nuts. By now, I am REALLY totally stuffed. I cannot eat another bite. Everyone is flushed and has puffy cheeks.

Oops. Our waiter, Dan the Man, forgot to bring the bread and the herbed dipping oil. Oh, my! How can I possibly eat this warm bread that I can soak in herbs and virgin olive oil? Woe is me, I'll have to force myself. After all, it is a holiday.

Dinner arrives and DH has the Pistachio Parmesan Crusted Rainbow Trout with artichokes and lemon butter. David selects the Ahi Tuna topped with lump crabmeat, asparagus and rich lemon butter sauce. I have selected the Mahi (that's dolphin, the fish, not the mammal) topped with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese and lemon basil sauce. Delicioso! We nibbled and cooed and each managed to put away some seafood as well as a bit of our potatoes au gratin and the yummy steamed carrots with tarragon but we each ended up taking half or more of our dinners home in go boxes and waddled out of the restaurant. Hey, I didn't even have my usual chocolate martini for desert. I hate it when I eat too much.

But, we now have more dinner selections for tomorrow night . Monday night at our house is "Abundanza Night." I clear out all the leftovers each Monday night. Period. Eat it or toss it. Usually, we have a pretty interesting blend of foods and something for every taste. But now that there are just the two of us, we have to eat our way through several country's cuisines and odd combinations each Monday night. It's tough duty but someone has to do it.

Rain, rain, go away.

I can't remember the last time it rained like this on Easter weekend. At least, I don't have to worry about draggin' myself out of bed at 5:00 AM for Sunrise Service tomorrow morning. It has finally stopped lightning and everything is so green outside that it hurts your eyes. Even with the rain, the heady fragrance of the orange blossoms, Carolina jasmine, plums and wisteria is intoxicating. Sensory overload. When the sun comes out, it will be glorious.

Speaking of orange blossoms, I have been asked by a production company, RIVR Media in Knoxville, for permission to use my photographs of orange blossoms as background for a new TV program in production called "Backyard Habitat" for the Animal Planet Channel. How cool is that!? Whatever photo they select will only be shown for a few seconds but I am still flattered that they asked. I've requested a credit so we shall see what happens. You can see the whole spring tour by starting here..

Dinner last night appears below.
Grilled Salmon with my homemade Raspberry Chipotle Sauce
Fresh Broccoli and Roasted Sweet Onions.


I have realized that if I show dinner most every night, there will be a lot of pix of salmon. We eat it at least once a week and often twice per week.

Nothing quite so interesting as looking at a slab o'fish, is there?

Good Friday

Why do colored eggs taste so good this time of year? I probably eat eggs two or three times a month. I maybe eat hardboiled eggs two or three times per year. Still, I am compelled to color eggs every Easter. Unless I make deviled eggs, it will take us a week to eat a dozen hard boiled.

I like the colors of my eggs.
Easter eggs make me smile.

I cheat on my cookies. I make Italian Biscotti twice a year from my MIL's recipe, bake off 20 dozen and freeze in small batches. Then, I can decorate them with fondant and sprinkles as needed. The secret of good biscotti is to use anise oil, never anise extract. It must be the oil and it's hard to obtain. I special order it from the pharmacy. I wonder why pharmacies carry it and not grocery stores?

I usually make round biscotti.
If you make a loaf, you have to cut it and it breaks easily.
Round is easier.

Fish for supper. It's Good Friday.

The Two Martini Blog

Hey! This blog stuff is easy.
Select Template.... check.
Add some links.... check.
Drink Bombay Sapphire martini.... check
Edit blog. (don't check)
Drink martini #2.
Reload blog.
Blog has disappeared.
Lesson Learned: Do not drink and blog.

March 23, 2005

Bloggy bebe Flaurella is conceived and born all within a span of 4 minutes. Gotta love technology.