Hi Nancy,

Replying from the Pond, 10 October about 8:58pm...

Hopefully you had a good trip up there. Were the leaves in full color
or past their peak?

When I was at the Pond that week, the leaves were beautifully at
peak... a week later, when we went up to close camp for the winter and take RJ
to Montreal for his flight out, most of the leaves had dropped... so I
was there at the right time... :)

Sounds like it--we're losing a lot before they turn color (other than
brown) thanks to the dry weather we had over the summer. We do see some
spots of color but it's nothing like you had at the camp.

along some of the kids, including me, usually.... I just don't
remember now if the forays to the outlet stores happened in the
same trip, or if that was separate... And I suspect that why I
don't remember quantities is that he'd get what was available,
and that would fluctuate from trip to trip.... :)

Sounds logical, we ate a lot of white sandwich bread over the years. That's probably why I remember it more; to have something different
was a rare exception. Mom and Dad had more of a variety after us kids
left home, especially after Bread Alone (an artisinal bakery) opened
up on the road to Kingston. Steve and I stop there whenever we can and
I bought their bread making book some years ago.

True... the exceptions are easier to remember than the day-to-day routine... ;)

Basically so. Bread Alone sends a lot of their stuff to the NYC area but
does also sell some products in local stores. They have a small cafe
store front that has more of an assortment than the stores so we like to
try to get our bread from that. It's all natural, no yeast, wood fired
ovens etc---IOW, good stuff!

ventures into other cuisines weren't very taxing... "Italian"
was spaghetti with the sauce mixed into the same pot, "Asian"
was LaChoy, and I don't think we ever had anything resembling
Mexican... But we did have things like tongue and liver and
heart fairly regularly,

I remember having tongue sometimes when I was young but once Mom
started working for the school, it was off the menu. Still had a lot of liver but no other offal meats.

I think that both my parents had grown up eating at least some forms
of offal, and thought it just normal to add that into the rota....
also,
back then, those were less expensive than most cuts of meat... :)

The last reason is probably why my parents bought it. They never said
anything about eating it as children and it's too late to ask them about
it now.

along with beef stew with canned
tomatoes added to the veggies, and various forms of meat,

I put tomatoes in my beef stew, along with a sprig of fresh rosemary.

Ours was more a tomato juice based stew... not thickened or
gravy-like... Always had a bay leaf or two or three.... along with the carrots, potatoes and onions... dried parsley, too...

Mom's was a standard beef/carrots/potatoes/bit of onion stew, with a
thin gravy. Seasonings were just salt and pepper. I took her version and tweaked it to our tastes.

chicken and fish (the sort that came in a box, frozen)...

Our fish was usually fish sticks.

I don't think we ever had fish sticks....

You didn't miss much. (G) Probably as much breading as fish per stick.
Over the years Steve and I bought anything from fresh off the boat to
frozen in the commissary, depending on where we were living. I don't
think we ever bought fish sticks tho.

Ah. :) I rarely stop to eat, anyway... I tend to use various
eateries as a sort of landmark as to how far I am on the
journey... :)

So if you go 15 south into MD often, you'll recognise Chubby's
as a landmark. (G)

If/when I started taking that route.... ;)

You might be tempted to stop. (G)

Not likely.... I tend to not eat on the way... just the nibbles I
pack, as we've talked about before...

OTOH, we like to stop so we can get a bit of exercise (walking) and it's
fun to try new places occaisionally, or revisit old favorites.

The concert was last night--glad it's over but enjoyed participating
in it. Got some new CDs to add to the music mix for when we travel. (G)

Sounds good... :)

That's the plan.

but not as bad as it would have been last year. Talking with our
mail man (he's had both replaced), he said to figure a year

before RH>> it fully settles down. It'll be 8 months on the 15th
so.....

Visited with Linda Peters last night... she said the same... her
knee took about a year to settle down.... Now the other knee is
getting bad, but she's not ready to deal with it yet...

She'll reach the moment when she knows it's the right time for the new knee.

Yup, just like the last time...

Then she will be glad she did it.

Dr said my quadricepts muscle is still somewhat weak but I think
he's overall happy with it.

Just keep working at it... I'm sure it takes time and therapy to
really get where it needs to be...

As always.

And she indicated that she isn't making bread... she said you

and NB>> Steve made it look so easy, but that she'd not found it
so...

Probably she just didn't do it soon enough and often enough

after NB>> she'd been shown... ;)

That sounds reasonable; you have to make it often enough to know how
to recognise the various stages--when it has been kneaded enough for instance. I made some on Monday--came out looking really pretty.

Exactly... Maybe one of these days, I'll get a chance to sit down with
her and talk her through it... have her do most of the work, so that
she actually gets a chance to feel what it feels like, how the dough
works
at each stage and all... :) Again... when she's ready... ;)

Sounds like a good idea--do you remember how you did it?

---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net FIDO 1:396/45.28


... Gone crazy, be back later. leave a message at the Beep!

--- PPoint 3.01
* Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28)