Day 11-Another Day in the Garden

I woke up this morning to another cloudy day with a promise of a warm temperature. My KETO breakfast consisted of egg salad loaded with chopped scallions, onions, celery, and green pepper. Lunch was some very old freezer burned Groton fish sticks with cheese and a few green grapes. Supper will be fried Tilapia, cauliflower mash, and a mixed vegetable medley of brussel sprouts, green beens, and onions. I weighed this morning and I have not lost any weight for a couple of weeks now. That’s what I get for falling off the diet and overdosing on carbohydrates. I am about ten pounds away from my goal which is to weigh what I did when I was in the prime of life. Not that this isn’t the prime, but at the point when I was a serious bicycle rider, overly horny, and had energy to spare. Some of those prime qualities are beginning to reappear since my weight loss and I don’t have the carb sluggishness. But none of this has anything to do with what I began to write about.

I have just a few more days remaining before I completely clean my gardens from winter detritus. By then more plants will be pushing their way through the ground and buds will begin to appear on shrubs and trees. That is when I begin the Monet Vision 2020 overhaul. My goal this year is to minimize the amount of work I do ever year to create a new vision. Instead large spreads of colorful annuals I want to use existing perennials to turn the garden into a lower maintenance picture. I also intend to do better at vegetables by adding a salad garden. Big dreams, not really, but that is what day-eleven of self imposed exile is doing to keep my mind occupied.

Yesterday, I dredged the pond and removed about six cubic feet of heavy decayed leaves. It took an hour and a half to wear me out. Today, I attacked the backside of the pond and cleaned it out, but I only lasted for forty-five minutes. At least I now have the entire garden encircling the pond cleared. Next, will be the north garden defining the the property line between neighbors. After that, is the garden that provides the background for the pond. Eventually, I’ll get to the frontside of the house. I take a philosophical view of the front side. I don’t look at the front, but I spend a lot of time looking at the back garden. Sorry, folks, but I have the Italian approach to my gardens, i.e. why should I expend effort on making things look good for strangers. I learned from my friend Marco with whom I spent a whole day in Italy at our manufacturing plant. We went to lunch at a deli which looked like a dive from the outside, but once inside it was magnificent; paneled in mahogany, with granite countertops, sparkling glass show cases, chandeliers, mirrors, and tons of delicious foods to please our palates. I commented on the surprise of seeing such a dump externally, but at the beauty of the interior. Marco then told me the Italian custom to spend money living elegantly inside your home, and not spending money to show off to your neighbors. Made sense to me.

 

 

 

 

I am also hooked on watching mini-series TV programs, the latest is “Homeland.”  First I watch regular TV if any of my favorite shows are on, if no regular tv I watch a movie from On Demand, and if the movie ends early I will switch to a series.  A typical series consists of six to twelve episodes of a continuous story, each episode is one hour long without commercials. So far, I have completed “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel,” three-seasons, “Jack Ryan”, two-seasons and now  I’m nearly finished with”Homeland” season one. I love watching spy movies and both Homeland and Jack Ryan are based on CIA type plots. All I can say is if only ten percent of what I am watching is true I can understand why the world hates the USA and the CIA. We do a lot of bad things in the name of protecting our country from bad guys. Bad things happen both ways. The atrocities committed by our enemies are worse than those we commit against them. Two of the series have been about Muslim terrorist plots and nothing in the stories has convinced me that the muslims are poor good-guys that we are picking on.

Food Czar

The Frankfort library has an extensive movie collection and I take advantage of it frequently. Two days ago I checked out three films none of which I have ever heard of before. All three are relatively recent: 2014. Magic in the Moonlight, They Came Together, and Chef. Of the three, I definitely liked Chef the best, it has all the elements of a story that I like. The cast was familiar but I must admit I did not know the main character John Favreau, but I recognized Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergaro, and Scarlett Johansonn.

The story revolves around Chef Carl Casper, his ex-wife Sofia Vergara, and their son Emjay Anthony. Chef Carl is preparing a special menu to serve a food critic that evening. His boss, restaurant owner Dustin Hoffman, tells him that he has a winning menu and he should stick with it. Chef Carl obeys his master. The food critic hates the food, and pans Chef Carl on his food blog. To make matters worse he Tweets a disparaging remark about the Chef. Everyone sees the article and the tweet except Chef Carl who is so into his food that he doesn’t have time for social media. His ten year old son helps him get started by signing him onto a Twitter account. He shows his dad how to send messages. Chef Carl sends his first tweet which is a return remark at the food critic, equally caustic. His message goes viral and he instantly picks up nearly two thousand followers. The two of them Tweet insults back and forth and the follows increase. Then, the story gets interesting.

Without a doubt this movie is hilarious and serious at the same time. The story about the relationship between a divorced father and his son is sometimes, happy, sad, and funny. The son becomes a hero by building his dad into a food czar on Twitter. I loved this story, I give it five stars.

Trust Me I’m An Engineer

One of my engineer friends sent me this series of photos and I just have to share them. These inventions are ingenious for the most part, but my all time favorite is just plain stupid. Thanks Rich for a genuine belly laugh. These people are real aren’t they? Will someone SNOPES me on these photos?

There isn’t any need for a Weber grill at this house, just pull up a chair and light up the charcoal.

An emergency fix which probably became permanent because of its simplicity and functionality.

Have you lost your exhaust pipe?

Just reach into your clothes closet and steal the coat hanger from your best suit.

Now this invention is a space saver. I’m sure the only place this guy had for installing a washing machine was in his john. All the plumbing was right where he needed it. I’m not to sure about the way he has the washer mounted, but it looks scary at best.

I’ll never want to sit on that toilet while the thing above me is spinning through the rinse cycle.

Morning sausages ready in a jiffy, I bet the wife appreciates the nice shiny look she gets on her blouse when she irons.

Grandma has the best idea yet. This is something I will try the next time I work on a  new recipe. The darn instructions are always covered with flour, eggs, or some other stuff used in cooking.

I bet this guy lives in a one room apartment. A rather unique and inexpensive way too cool your hot computer.

Quick draw McGraw has it all figured out. I wonder if his wife is looking for her slipper.

Hey, this fix beats taking the car to the dealer to get a new handle. I’m sure the dealer would charge several hundred dollars. I love the rubber band he uses to get the handle to return.

Need an egg beater quick. A battery-powered drill and a pair of scissors works fine.

This one cures the problem of taking home all the groceries on a bike.

This guy’s Chinese mother in law was too old to squat any more so he rigged a sit down toilet for her.

I hope this not a union electrician at work.  He lives on borrowed time for sure.

The world’s laziest guy couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs to pick up his laundry. My favorite after the electrician.

Ugleee!

ugly-tomato-contest-winner

ugly-tomato-contest-runner-up (1)

For all the folks in the world who think I am a loser here is evidence that I am not. A few months ago a blog that I follow offered an ugly tomato contest and solicited entries. This was my big chance to show the world I can grow a tomato. The plant came from Home Depot and I planted it late. The species was labeled as Big Beefy. I wanted a big, juicy, meaty, red tomato to slice on to my sandwiches. Alongside the Big Beefy I planted a cherry tomato. I can report that I thoroughly enjoyed the cherry tomatoes in abundance all summer. The Big Beefy was somewhat sluggish to produce. When it did finally yield a fruit, it was always a distorted orb with tumor like growths projecting. The one in the photo caught my eye as a work of art and not as a meal. I picked it green to take photos. That’s when Soulsby Farm was looking for candidates. I seized the opportunity if only to redeem this fruit’s self-esteem. It would be an entrant in the ugly tomato contest. Never in a hundred years did I expect Big Beefy to become a finalist. Big Beefy won the runner up award.

I must confess I doctored the fruit just tad. Big Beefy looked very much like an Ogre. So I got creative and used a heavy marking pen to enhance his features with eye-pupils and eye brows. I thought Big Beefy looked rather scary. If he lasts until Halloween he will be my contribution to the night of horrors.

Thank you Soulsby Farm for an entertaining post.

I Hate My Nu-Wave

It wasn’t long ago when I posted a short piece titled “I Love My Nu-Wave” about how great my Nu-Wave infrared cooker is. Oh how I gave it lauds. It is a great cooker, but on Easter Sunday, I learned its limit. We invited the family for dinner. Grandma Peggy and I decided to put a ham on the table. I decided to use the Nu-Wave. I have never cooked a ham this way before, but the cooker works so good on everything else I’ve tried why not use it on the ham?

The cooking chart instructed to give it fifteen minutes per pound. The ham we bought was ten pounds. That translates into one hundred and fifty minutes, or two and a half hours. Not bad for a chunk of meat that large. We asked our guests to arrive in time for a four o’clock dinner. I made a note to start the ham at one o’clock.

Everything was going on schedule and as planned. Then it happened. What? I’ve left out the part about this being a spiral  cut ham.  I placed the ham into the cooker with the bone horizontal. The traditional way. I placed the cooking dome over the ham and set the timer.

An hour later the aroma of fresh-baked ham filled the house. I love the smell of freshly baked ham. Something told me to check things out. I stopped the machine and lifted the dome. There was the ham with the spiral slices fanned out like a blooming onion. The outer one inch of the edges were dark red, no, they were black. When the ham fanned, the individual slices exposed themselves to the heater and cooked rapidly. Thank God, a section in the center was still pink, and edible.

I checked the internal temperature.  It was ready after one hour, and the guests don’t arrive for another hour and a half. I tore off a piece of the dark red outer edge and popped it into my mouth. Yep, it was crunchy, but still tasty. Grandma Peggy got on the phone and called our guests and explained. She asked them to come earlier if they could. Since the guests were all of our children, they did us the favor.

Instead of serving at four, we served at three. I explained my error in cooking and presented the ham on a platter. I suggested that they eat the pink parts only. To my surprise several of the kids loved the crunchy outer pork chips. The company politely said nothing and ate the burnt offering. Actually, many feasted on the sides.

After the party ended, it occurred to me that I should have stood the ham on end.  Oh well, next time.