So You Don't Have To

There was a hullabaloo (talk about an archaic word, but there you have it) at the middle of April when Oreos announced a new flavor.

Of course, when I saw them in the store, I had to try them. It's a public service I provide, you know.

Ah Pop Rocks. I remember you from the early 1990's. They were mildly amusing then. Carole didn't like them. She wasn't thrilled with stuff exploding in your mouth. Let's see how the combination of Oreos and Pop Rocks goes.

Meh. I was expecting more of an explosion. There wasn't much taste to Pop Rocks, if I'm remembering them correctly. My memory leaves me with the impression that the smell upon opening the bag was more pronounced than the actual flavor. This was the same impression with Oreos. You had your typical Oreo cookie taste with an occasional pop when a fleck hit your tongue. Those pops were few, at least in my bag of cookies.

Sigh. I just don't see that Oreo is losing market share to anyone. So, I'm really not certain why they feel the need to do something like this. It was underwhelming. Supposedly, there is or was, a waffles and maple syrup version of Oreos out there. I haven't seen those to try them. I'm intrigued, but, again, why mess with the greatness that is chocolate wafers with white stuff in the middle of them?

I'm not sure you can find these anymore. I think they were out for Memorial Day and have disappeared from shelves. If, by chance, your retailer has a stash and puts them out for sale, save your pennies. These aren't worth it at any price.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

So You Might Want To

With a flurry of excitement, M&Ms announced a new flavor; caramel. /sigh. If you've spent any time here, you know I've been less than enthusiastic about their attempts to broaden their flavor base. It's kind of ridiculous. M&M/Mars holds a commanding lead in market share in the American chocolate market. They don't need to make anything other than M&Ms in plain, peanut, peanut butter, and pretzel, and they would still trounce anyone else. But they seem to always be trying something else.

Chocolate and caramel are a winning combination, however. Milky Way and Snickers bars have delicious gooey caramel. Cadbury has a chocolate caramel bar that is amazing. I should give this a try; that is, if I can find it. Reports were Wal*Mart had them, but I refuse to go to Wal*Mart unless that is the only place to buy something which is life-saving. M&Ms with caramel is not lifesaving.

Then, I found them on a site looking to position itself as an Amazon alternative; jet.com. The bag was cheaper than I anticipated finding it in the store for this size. So, I bought it. I have since found out that Jet.com is owned by Wal*Mart so I'm in a quandary. I refuse to overtly give the Waltons any of my money because I know how much they pay their workers; how a friend of mine had to apply for foodstamps because a supervisor who didn't like her, cut her pay in an attempt to get her to quit. (It was a very nasty story. That supervisor was, eventually, fired from Wal*Mart because she picked on not just my friend, but also others. Yet the corporate culture is such that employees can be subject to the whims of a supervisor who simply doesn't like them, with little recourse unless others speak up.) I will have to consider the use of this service versus the use of Amazon which I'm not fond of because of its world domination perception.

Anyway, the M&Ms came to my door in a padded mailer. Inside was the bag of M&Ms and this.

I should mention the mailer with the M&Ms arrived while I was at work. I suspected, when I saw the "Expected delivery date" on the shipping form, it would arrive when I was not at home. I had a bit of worry I'd pull out a mass of liquified chocolate mixed with caramel. That wasn't the case. It was still cool on the inside of the mailer.

Ta Da.

Although the graphic on the front would suggest the caramel was liquid, that is not so. It is chewy. I found it a delightful soft chew. I feel, if it were the more liquid caramel of, say the Milky Way, there would be little of the caramel taste. It would disappear from your tongue before you had a chance to actively combine chocolate and caramel. They didn't put hard caramel centers because you couldn't eat them one after another, if they were the hard caramels. I'm actually impressed that thought and probably not a little testing went into this design.

I give these two decided thumbs up. If you like M&Ms, I recommend you seek out a package and give them a try. "Sharing Size"? I think not. Get your own.

Beverage:  Earl Grey Tea

Deb

So You Don't Have to, But It's Not Bad

Ah cravings. I'm pretty good at not giving in to cravings. While I can justify eating a whole bag of cookies or half a pie, unless the object of the craving is in the house or easily accessible, I'm not going out of my way or making a special trip to get it. Today, I forgot lunch. I thought about it when I was getting ready for work, but never made it up to come with me. As luck would have it, I had a Campbell's ready to heat soup and the last of the instant pudding in the desk drawer. (Must restock this weekend with a trip to the grocery.) Going out was not appealing so having soup and pudding in the desk drawer was very convenient. But what to make for supper.

It's one of those "I don't want to cook" weeks. I have gone through all my soup; all the instant flavored rice; all the freezer pasta I had left. I just did not feel like standing over the stove and swishing a spoon into something. I've finished off all the bread, cereal and peanut butter. I cleaned out the freezer on Wednesday, as I said I was going to do, and tossed stuff which just didn't look right. The grocery visit this weekend will be with an eye toward fresh and things which can be prepared quickly. Then the internal argument about needing to eat won't end with a shrug and a peanut butter sandwich.

At 2 pm, I considered my options. I had Wendy's salad on Wednesday; Panera on Tuesday and Subway on Thursday. My usual route home does not take me by anything. This is to my betterment, of course; both my waistline and my pocketbook. I have the grocery list prepared. I am ready to hit the ground running tomorrow, but it's 2 pm on a Friday afternoon, and it's not the best pickings in the freezer or cupboards at home. What's there needs some elements of preparation and I'm too tired for that.

Then I had a thought. I have not had Taco Bell in ages. No, it's not the best food on the planet. It's also slightly out of the way. It does, however, meet one criteria, it's inexpensive for what I get.

If I could have put voice to the internal conversation, you would have laughed. The tired Deb just wanted to go home. The rational Deb acknowledged the tiredness, but said food is important. The larder would be restocked on Saturday. Tonight, I could indulge. Besides, I couldn't tell me when the last time was I walked into a Taco Bell and got food.

I got my usual, which is 3 soft tacos and a drink. They have these balls of deep fried dough surrounding a custardy center and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Thank goodness I only got 2 of them. The flavor was of cinnamon sugar grease. Never buying that again. The tacos were their usual decent selves. It's not amazing food. It's steady and, like any other chain fast food restaurant, the same. Three soft tacos in Glen Ellyn are going to taste the same as three soft tacos in Warner Robins, Georgia. There are times when that is exactly what you want.

Recommending Taco Bell food is kind of like recommending Oreos. Yeah, the stuff is okay once in awhile, but not all the time. There is one thing they have which I will recommend.

It's a blue raspberry "freeze". I like these kinds of drinks anyway. Call them Slurpees or Slushies or Freezes, they are finely shredded ice into which flavoring has been added. As the ice melts, you get the liquid beverage. They usually come in a dispenser machine. Taco Bell supposedly has strawberry flavor reminiscent of Starbursts but they were out of that flavor. So, I "settled" for blue raspberry. You know, it's $2.50 for this size; $3.15 for the large size. This size is plenty. If you like the weird taste of blue raspberry, this is very good.

The thing with this is, now that I know I can get it via the drive-up, I don't have to go in and get food. I never had to but I don't like handing my debit card through the drive thru window where it's out of sight for a few minutes while they ring up the sale. I can cobble together $3.50 to have for this beverage. I won't get it regularly; it's not something I should be consuming regularly. But in the annals of comfort food, I've found a beverage which fits the bill.

Beverage:  Scottish Oat Stout (I finished the blue raspberry freeze)

Deb

Thanksgiving Lights

Last Thanksgiving was a milestone birthday for me. I don't talk my age except to say Play-Doh and I share a birth year, although it was "born" in April and I was born in November. For this occasion, I went to Virginia to spent the holiday with Carole and Larry. I returned the day after her November 28th birthday. It had been several years since we'd celebrated together.

Thanksgiving dinner was at Larry's parents' house. In the full tradition of American largess, the sideboards groaned with food. Baked turkey, deep-fried turkey, Virginia ham, mashed and scalloped potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, creamed and whole kernel corn, cornbread, rolls, applesauce, pickled beans, beets, stuffing and dressing, items I'm forgetting and macaroni and cheese. Mac and cheese is a southern Thanksgiving tradition, I learned. We don't serve that 'up nort'. There were two birthdays to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day in addition to my birthday on Saturday and Carole's the following Monday. I forget how many different desserts there were. We came home with so many leftovers, we didn't cook the whole time I was there.

The next day, we played board games and decorated the house for Christmas. It was 72 degrees out. I had to remind myself this would not last once the sun went down and that was truth. We watched my Hawkeyes beat the snot out of Nebraska in football and then went to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for their annual light show. Carole and Larry have annual passes to this place because they have become a Pokemon hot spot and Larry loves Pokemon. They figured out they only have to go to 2.5 Pokemon events to pay for an annual pass and the Ginter holds more than that, plus all their other events, per year.

We met friends, Jon and Becky. A cold front had moved through during the football game, dropping the temperature 20 degrees and triggering drizzle. Still, we figured, if we got there 30-45 minutes before closing, most people would be leaving. The timing was perfect.

The theme was "Living Color". The first section you walked into was green.

It's a couple mile walk to go everywhere. There was a section for kids with a rainbow maze and tents of multicolored lights.

My little camera didn't do very well with photographs in the dark. I needed a tripod. Some things, like this tree, where I could place the camera on a post, came out fine. But a lot of the photos were blurry.

I love this photo, however.

There was a fence and I could sit the camera on the fence and depress the shutter. Enough light from the decorations meant the shutter speed was fast enough to capture the view.

In the middle of the park is a lake. Across the lake from the kids area was a large pavilion where tropical plants were. This was the view from the path up to a watch tower.

Inside the pavilion was warm and humid, prompting our glasses to steam over. As if the lights around the gardens weren't enough of an attraction, there was this tree in one of the back rooms.

That's Jon and Becky. It was an amazing creation, assembled in the same place every year specifically for photographs. 

These last two photos were taken with a cell phone camera. For my Disney trip in October, I need a better camera. I like the portability of my palm-sized one, but I need something better to capture the moments. 

In spite of the nip and drizzle in the air and the few times we had to contend with obnoxious, undisciplined children and the adults who didn't care, it was a magical event. There are Christmas light events around me which I've talked about attending and never have. I need to go. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I Did...a...Thing!

One of the things I keep telling myself is that I need to eat better. One of the purposes of rummaging in the big box of recipes is an attempt to eat something more than Cheerios, straight from the box, on a Wednesday night because I'm too tired to make anything. We all know there are a whole host of complications which derive from not eating well. But when the amount of energy I have is inversely proportional to the amount of energy needed to feed myself, well, myself gets the short end. I love peanut butter so I have been known to subsist on peanut butter sandwiches for a whole week of meals, just because I have found the best tasting 12 grain bread and a peanut butter sandwich his ridiculously easy to make.

I have stuff frozen, but it's reached the point where some of it is just not appealing. This Wednesday, the day before garbage day, I'm going through the freezer with an eye towards whether I will ever cook and eat whatever this is. It's a waste of money, to be sure, to chuck something you bought, but a freezer burned slice of roast just isn't going to be eaten, no matter how much tomato sauce I smother it with. My goal is to have foods in the freezer which are good for me, reasonably easy to prepare or are part of an upcoming recipe I'm going to try. I found a recipe for salmon and I do like salmon. It's a quick meal to prepare.

I found, in the bottom section of freezer, a package of parmesan crusted chicken breasts. I remembered buying them several months ago. Would they still be okay? There were 2 of them. When thawed, I put them in a dish and baked them for 45 minutes, the last 15 minutes without foil over the top of the dish. For having been frozen for several months, they were very good. I bought a package of instant mashed potatoes and made peas and carrots. I always have frozen vegetables. That seems to be something I'm never out of.

The resulting meal made enough for lunch the next day. I added some garlic powder to the potatoes. I'm not one for mashed potatoes because of all the work in making them from scratch. The instant ones are quick, maybe a bit high in sodium, but were creamy and tasted very good.

So, I did...a...thing. I cooked for myself. It didn't take that long to make a decent meal and I had enough for the next day. In fact, there was more than enough mashed potatoes to add to the left over pasta in meat sauce I had the day after this one.

What I'm trying to do is reorder my thinking on meals. My friend, Emily, spends one weekend day every other week making crock pot meals and freezing them. In the morning, she grabs a meal, tosses it in the crock pot, and it happily cooks all day. At most, she makes rice to go with whatever she's cooked. That's a noble idea and I applaud her for that, but it's not something I will do.

The other component of this is I get paid once a month. I have a tendency to think in month swaths and that mind set is hard to break. Sit down, make a meal plan for a whole month. That sounds great. You only shop once a month. Except what sounds good on the 26th of February may sound horrible on the 26th of March. Plus, if I'm going to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, which is sadly lacking in them, I don't know of any peppers who last a month in the crisper drawer, or, as I like to call it, the "in-house composting drawer". It would be much better for me to think in terms of weekly or bi-weekly shopping trips where produce is purchased.

I'm such a slow learner. It's going to take some work, on my part, to get this ingrained, but I'd like to have more energy and keep my RA meds where they currently are. That's going to need my dedication to mashed potatoes and chicken breasts.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

Patt Saves the Day

I'm pretty sure I never blogged about this. I had every intention of doing so, but things got hectic and the photo was misplaced.

My friend, Patt, gave me this when I went to visit her over Memorial Day 2015. I had no idea something like this existed. She had retired from her administrative position and was cleaning out cupboards. "Maybe you could use this?" she asked. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know what it was until she explained it.

It has saved my pocketbook and my work time. I found another one on a clearance shelf at Target. You see I have chicken noodle soup in this. But once I discovered Chef Boy-ar-dee still made Spaghetti O's, I started taking a can's worth in this one. So the one I got at Target is used for soup. You know, try as you might, tomato stains don't always come out of Tupperware after it's been microwaved.

This has made lunches so much better. I dump a can of soup or Sketti O's into the container and take it to work. Add a bowl of Jell-O or sliced fruit or vegetables and I have a full meal. I don't absent-mindedly hop in the car and head to Wendy's or Subway; the two closest restaurants; for lunch. It saves me money and I can work through lunch. There are days when you just need to get out because you need the break, but my finances are much better for not going out a lot.

I have the best friends.

Beverage:  Cranberry Tea

Deb

Beverage Challenge

"We consume too much sugar."

I think, if there is one health sentence to take away from last year, it would be this. We all have known high-fructose corn syrup has altered the way we consume foods. It's in everything. I was standing by the condensed soups and a woman pointed out Campbell's Health Request tomato soup had high fructose corn syrup in it. There was an outcry when bread was found with it. I have to confess that I find myself looking at labels way more closely now. I keep a bottle of Karo, which is high fructose corn syrup, on the shelf because it's needed in some desserts. Otherwise I like to steer clear of the stuff.

Back in May, some of my RA blood work came back pre-diabetic. I'm not the best eater when I'm at home. I can buy salads and sandwiches and scrutinize menus down to their 6 point type, looking for things I don't want to eat when I'm out. But at home, my diet is a mess. In April, we were really busy and rather than fix myself a good breakfast, it was way easier to stop by Dunkin or Panera and pick up tea and pastries. Ease is not always good for one's glucose or waistline.

Armed with this knowledge, I took a look at my diet. I limit myself to Dunkin' once every 10 days. If I have to be out the door early on consecutive days, I cut myself some slack. It is easier to grab Dunkin when I know I'll be on my feet for 4 hours. Panera is easier to limit because it's not on the way to the office. I have to make a special trip to get there.

The next thing to investigate was the groceries in the house. I rarely bake anymore and I just don't have sweets in the house. But there was one thing I was consuming a lot of; soda. Every trip to the grocery resulted in a fridge pack or bottles or a case of Dr Pepper coming home with me. If anything is more corn syrup-laden than regular soda, I'd like to know what it is, aside from pecan pie but that's not something I'd eat every day.

I realized I like the fizz. I could do without the taste. How could I get the fizz with none of the sugar.

LaCroix is, by far, the largest producer of seltzer. They positioned themselves as the alternative to soda. I've tried almost all their flavors. I won't drink the grapefruit one. Can't stand grapefruit. I keep coming back to berry flavor.

This is $5 for a dozen. I can get Dr Pepper on sale, which is pretty much 80% of the year, for $3.99. When you are pinching pennies, the temptation to buy soda because it's cheaper than water is real.

Last year, I replaced soda from Memorial Day to Labor Day with LaCroix. The ONLY time I allowed myself soda was when I was working in the field and needed to get lunch. If I bought my lunch during the day and brought it back to the office, I drank tea or bottled water. I wound up losing 10 pounds over the summer. Most importantly, I went out of the pre-diabetic range on blood glucose.

Now, I've tried to be better about eating fresh fruits and veggies. It can be really hard to motivate myself to cook when I come home from work. I just want to sit. Friends have said, "Use the weekend to make meals in bags and freeze them." That's all very nice and I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't want to spend a weekend cooking, even with the knowledge I'll have a grab'n'cook meal in the upcoming week. I buy with an eye toward needing, at most, 30 minutes to prepare something. If I cook some large item, like a pasta dish, I make sure there's extra and it's all sorted so all I have to do is grab a container and nuke the contents. I buy a lot of frozen meals for work; after reading the ingredient list, of course. But I'm sorry to say the vegetable drawers in the new fridge are just as effective at composting vegetables and fruits as the drawers in the old fridge were. I am just not realistic about what looks good on a Saturday morning versus what I will actually prepare and eat.

Still, this is a huge step in a good direction. Over the holidays, I did bring more soda into the house than at any other time prior to May 1st. Canada Dry supposedly makes some very good flavored seltzers, but I've not seen them around these parts. I'd like to try them. When I went to Carole and Larry's over Thanksgiving, they usually get Dr Pepper for me. I asked them to get LaCroix instead. You'll still see Dr Pepper come up as the beverage I'm consuming as I write because I will get it when I go to Subway. It's cheaper to get the meal deal than just chips and a sandwich, at least around here. But, when the last of what I have in the fridge is gone. I'm not buying more, no matter how enticing the prices for soda are with the Stupor Bowl upcoming.

Beverage:  Oh look! LaCroix Berry Seltzer

Deb

Dawwwwwww

While I'm on a cat theme here, I should show you what my niece gave me for Christmas in 2015. I didn't make it back to Iowa so the box sat at my mom's for several months. It was a bit too big to ship.

Well, UPS probably would have salivated at shipping it. It wasn't very heavy, but can't burden mom with schlepping this all over to find a store and then paying through the nose for shipping. I went back for mom's birthday, the first weekend of April last year, and picked up the box. My niece, Christina, was at the University of Iowa hospitals with secondary problems caused by falling and breaking her left leg while pregnant. We grabbed the box and headed to the hospital to see her.

Side note: U of Iowa Hospital's cafeteria was amazing.

Hospital food is always the butt of jokes, but I could not believe a) the selection and b) the quality. The salad bar was huge. I think that's cheese topped crispy fish to the left there. I don't remember. I do remember thinking I should be glad I didn't work there because this is where I would eat all the time. Forget packing anything when I can get salads this good.

Anyway, in Christina's hospital room, I opened the box because she was so excited to see me open it.

It was a lap blanket. It was rolled pretty tightly into the box and mom had to grab the other end so I could pull it out.

Dawwwwww. It's rather big for just a lap blanket. It's probably more twin bed size. I put it on my bed in the summer in lieu of other blankets and it was the perfect warmth for those occasional cool nights when the windows are still open. Plus, the cats love it. It's incredibly soft. Ironically, it's sort of Hamlet-ish, long before Hamlet came into my life.

When I've had this in the living room, I instantly get two cats. It's time to change the blanket on the back of the recliner. Wonder if it will make a good three cat trap. We'll find out.

Beverage:  LaCroix Berry Seltzer

Deb

A New Goal

Next year, my little guild in World of Warcraft turns 10 years old. Lasting that long in a video game is notable. We need to do something as a guild, something big and splashy. So I put this to the guild's Facebook page. Things were suggested but what stuck was a Walt Disney World vacation.

I started talking with a guild member, Liz, who goes to Disney 3-4 times a year. The more we talked about the things we wanted to do, the more we explored resort properties, the more confusing the options became. It seems, with Disney, why have 5 options when you can have 45. Liz suggested we should look into Disney travel agent. Enter Hollie. She is paid by Disney so even if we don't have a huge number of people coming along or, if it was just me, she would still be paid to help with a trip. She helped me price out a vacation and, at the July meet-up, I gave a presentation.

The one thing we needed to decide was when did we want to go. The cheap time is January, the week after New Year's through the end of February. But, if we want to spend a bit more, we could go in March, when the Flower and Garden Festival is, or go in October, when the Food and Wine Festival AND Halloween run concurrently. Well, when presented with these options, it became a decision about how fast you could save the money and we decided October of 2017 was the best time.

The big attraction is the two festivals going on at the same time. You know that Disney will do Halloween fantastic. When I went to BlizzCon last year, Halloween was only at the Haunted Mansion. Christmas hadn't quite wandered in but Halloween had wandered out. We will be going at the height of the holiday. It's going to be exciting to see the decorations.  We're going to do Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Rides. Trick or Treat. A special parade and fireworks and the Magic Kingdom all to ourselves and anyone else who buys a ticket to the party.

And then there is the Food and Wine Festival.

Located at Epcot World Showcases, this is a celebration of food. The World Showcase part of Epcot is my favorite place at Disney World. Even with a lot of people in that section of the park, it is peaceful. I love to wander through all the countries and see what they have to offer.

During the festival, each country has food carts and special food indicative of their culture.

Having been to Disney World 4 times, one of the things I've wanted to do is "Eat Around the World", stop at each country and eat something at each country. With the festival going on in October, I can do this just by eating at the food carts stationed around the lagoon.

It took the summer to figure everything out on what I thought I would want. Hollie and I met in mid-September to go over possibilities, and, after looking at everything, she gave me a price and I put down a deposit. Now comes the saving.

I have to say I'm excited. A year ago, I was excited to go to BlizzCon. I spent a whole summer and most of a fall, saving for that trip, which included 2 days at Disneyland. This is going to be a whole week. I'm going with guild members; people I respect and whose company I relish. I'm going to be sharing a room with Liz. I admire and respect her and her company will make this that much more fun.

We will be going for a week in the middle of October. We looked at going as a group, but the group discounts didn't amount to much and Hollie said there are usually always discounts on things which we wouldn't be able to take advantage of if we're a group. So, we picked the days and then let everyone decide where they wanted to stay and what kinds of additions to their vacation they wanted.

In case you are wondering, WDW shut down this month for only the 7th time since opening, due to Hurricane Matthew. People who couldn't use tickets for events slated for Thursday night through Saturday morning, received compensation and/or had their tickets rescheduled for other days. The price of the resorts in October is one step above the base rate and two steps down from "We're going tomorrow and it's Christmas" rate. We were told this is primarily because October still has the potential for hurricanes raining, literally, on your parade. I told guild members Hurricane Matthew is a good example of why trip insurance is a very good idea.

Liz and I are going to stay at the Port of Orleans, French Quarter resort.

It's a moderately priced resort and the theme is New Orleans French Quarter area; heavy on the jazz. I can't wait. They serve beignets at the cafe in the main building.

They won't be the Mickey beignets that the restaurant in the French Quarter of the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland had, but, beignets!

I've needed to make some decisions with regards to what we're going to do so people can plan. I'm arriving on a Saturday, so I've decided my "Eat Around the World" at World Showcase can start then. Liz assures me there will be ample credits from the middle priced food plan and I will be scrambling on the last day to use them up. I remain unconvinced, but, several of us are going to Epcot and will take turns buying snack items to share. I'm planning for needing cash for meals.

We're going to the Halloween party on Sunday evening, to give people a chance to get to WDW. A Halloween party ticket acts like park admission so we can go to the Magic Kingdom as early as 4 pm and get in. Costumes are encouraged, within reason, so we'll have to see what we can do about that. Eighty percent of the rides are open so I expect to cross most of my "must ride" off the list then.

I want a Character Breakfast and a final meal. Those were things I felt were important to me. What people did with the guild wasn't as important as those two things, such as going to the same parks or eating at the same restaurant. But people were coming in and leaving on different days so trying to schedule within those constraints was hard. I finally decided, as guild leader, I could pick the dates we'll go, as a guild, to breakfast and dinner and then hope that people can fit those things into their schedule. I also made the decision on where we're going to eat breakfast. Guild members decided they really wanted Goofy at our breakfast so I've settled on the Tusker House in Animal Kingdom on Monday. Look! Goofy!

Dinner is going to be a majority vote decision. Liz and I have looked at a wide variety of places. We're going to pick 4 and offer them to the group, with plusses and minuses for each place. Then, we'll let the group decide and that's where we'll go. We're going to do that on Friday night. I leave a week after arriving.

Also in my sights are a foot and leg massage, a Steam Train Tour, a fireworks cruise and game night on Wednesday night, where everyone will come to the French Quarter, if they aren't already staying there, and we'll play games. My feeling is that it's their money and outside of a few suggested things, they should spend it however they want. They don't have to come to anything I arrange. I hope they do, but it's not required. I feel requiring things takes all the fun out a special vacation like this. Ben and Natalie are engaged and may use this as their honeymoon. If they do, we have plans, oh boy. Wendy is going to rent a scooter as she has an issue walking a lot and you will walk, a lot. We've already decided to trick out her scooter.

So, that's the current savings goal. It's been kind of an expensive year so I'm very glad we decided to do this in October of next year. It's going to be such a fun time.

Beverage:  Cookies and Cream hot cocoa

Deb

Oh Heck No

I was nearly out of cereal so a saunter down that aisle of the grocery was in order. I tend to buy what's on sale although not all the time. Cheerios seems to be perennially on the sale list in a variety of sizes but, as much as I like Cheerios, I'm not interested in eating only little oat circles. I'll look for one box of something interesting and buy a couple of boxes of sale stuff.

It's fall. When did that happen? Man, I could have thought we'd just gotten through July and here it is, the first week of October. Trying to make the memories and time last seems to speed it up. But fall brings apples and, horrifically, pumpkin. In addition to the large squashes placed strategically by the entry to the grocery, pumpkin-flavored this and that is in almost every aisle, even in cereal. Have you see these?

Now, you know I will eat things just so you don't have to, but, folks, I'm drawing the line, right here, right now. Nope. No way. I like both Special K and Mini-Wheats, but there is just no way I'm buying either of those in a pumpkin flavor to try them. You do know neither of these is flavored with real pumpkin, right? These are chemically created pumpkin flavors. There's no health benefit from real pumpkin here. It's another way to part you from your hard earned greenbacks. Be strong. Don't succumb. 

That being said, I might, if it goes on sale, try the apple cinnamon Special K. I'm old enough to remember when Post put out cereals in square boxes. Designed, they said, to fit better into a cupboard, they had freeze dried fruit in them. I remember apples and strawberries for sure. I can't find when they came out or what were some of the names of the cereal but I remember them in our pantry. It was situated under the stairs to the second floor and the shelves were not very wide. The square boxes were a boon to us and we could have a variety of cereals and not have them take up as much space. Alas, consumers thought the change to the shape equalled a change in the amount contained in a box and these disappeared after 3-4 years. Freeze dried fruit bits have never really gone away so I expect the apple cinnamon's fruit will be the same kind of thing. 

I read an article last month which said manufacturers introduce dozens of new cereals every year. You might think your grocery has all of them, but quite a few are for specific regions of the country and you won't see them. Cereal is a very cutthroat business and manufacturers don't make a lot of money on a box. This is why many cereal producers snapped up beverages, pastas sauces and crackers. With food trends heading toward non-GMO's and protein, you can expect to see more, not less, specialty cereals vying for space on the shelves. 

If only they'd bring back Kaboom. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

So You Don't Have To

In the great quest to eat things with odd flavors and report back to you, I have consumed two items within the last couple of months. First off, there is a new Pop Tart flavor. Now, I don't go out of my way to eat Pop Tarts. I was actually looking at cereal or breakfast bars to keep in my desk drawer at work. The breakfast toaster pastries are in the same location. Colorful graphics on the box drew my eye, as it's supposed to do.

I like watermelon. I regularly buy it at the store, but, seriously, in a toaster pastry, warmed? Reddish-pink with green swirls of icing. This should be "interesting".

Visually, it looks like these were sat upon before going into the bag. I think we can figure out how Pop Tarts are made. They lay down the bottom crust. The next machine lays down the filling and another machine applies the top crust. They are squished together, probably just like your mom does to the edges of a fruit pie. Perhaps there is some cooking here to make the toaster part of this food simply a warm-up. After the sandwiching of the tart, another machine applies a layer of frosting and, if necessary, yet another machine gets to apply a squiggly something or other. The whole thing is dried and then shoved into bags, sealed and shoved into boxes. Human hands do not meet this pastry until you open the bag and move the tart to the toaster or, in the case of some of them, eat them without toasting. (I'm looking at you, plain blueberry or strawberry flavored.) I'd be interested to know exactly how many Pop Tarts can come off a conveyor per hour.

But how do these taste? I can say, unequivocally, blah. There was a watermelon sense about them, but that was completely lost in the bland flavor of the pastry itself. I was disappointed. I expected these to be weird in a "Whoa. Watermelon" sort of way and they were weird simply because they weren't watermelon. If you have young kids, these might be amusing, but don't expect any watermelon enthusiast to enjoy them.

Next on the "Oh look at that" is a new flavor from Oreos.

Honestly, I'm not going out of my way to look for things. If those things happen to cross paths with me when I'm looking for something else, well then, it's my duty to try them. Otherwise, I'm not in the cookie aisle. For the record, none of the breakfast bars I saw was remotely appealing. I have to pass through the cookie section of the store to get to oyster crackers so that's how I happened to spy these. Perhaps this isn't a "new" flavor, in that it was released this month, but it's new to me.

Peel back the top of the package and there are dark and white layers. There was a slight aroma of s'mores, but if you were blindfolded and had this under your nose when the top was opened, you'd have a moment of, "I know that smell, but I can't place it". It was the same with opening the Pop Tarts. Seriously, if you are going to incorporate some flavor we are not expecting, make it obvious when I open the package. This limp attempt at a scent doesn't entice me to want to try the cookies.

In true Oreos fashion, I had to pull them apart.

They are constructed as all Oreos are, excepting there are two layers of filling. You can, if you like, peel the filling layers apart, but it doesn't always separate easily. The fillings remove easily from the cookie so if you like to completely separate your Oreos, you can do that.

Taste. Bland with a side of bland. Oreos chocolate cookies have a good chocolate flavor. When they step out of that box and make vanilla cookies it's akin to vanilla-flavored cardboard. The cookies were mealy and crumbly and just didn't hold up to being dunked in milk, something Oreos takes great pride in trumpeting. The chocolate filling was grainy and the marshmallow filling was barely marshmallow flavored. You'd do better to toast a marshmallow and stick it on the filling. I think the cookies were supposed to be graham cracker flavor but that was nowhere in evidence. I wasn't disappointed, per se. I bought these expecting them to live down to low expectations and they certainly did. If you have access to a microwave, you can make close to campfire s'mores. Stay with that and save your dollars.

So, there you have another installment of "So You Don't Have To". I haven't bought anything strange lately. I'm changing my diet around so the Oreos and the Pop Tarts were kind of a last hurrah for awhile. But, you never know. I'm out of the bags of sugar snap pea pods I've been taking to work for lunch and eating while playing WOW. Plus, I'm out of dish soap. I have to go get more which means walking into the store. You never know what will hop off the shelf and into the cart totally unaided. I swear. I had nothing to do with the 2 boxes of Triscuits in the cart.

Beverage:  LaCroix Berry flavored seltzer

Deb

Down With the Ash

Way back in October, I mentioned I was going to have the dead ash tree, located off the northwest corner of the house, taken down. I had sort of ignored it for a couple years, but it was reaching a point where I could see it becoming a danger to the house and the neighbor's drive and yard. I got a wonderful price from Evergreen Tree Service in nearby Warrenville. They were to call me the day before they took the tree down as I kind of wanted to see it go.

Well, that didn't happen. I came home at the end of October, on a cloudy Friday, and the sky in the backyard was noticeably different. There seemed to be much more light than usual.

The ash was gone. I was a bit miffed. We had agreed that I'd be called, but I had not given them a number beyond my home number and they had a cancellation on that day. I can't fault the guy for bumping this project up to keep a crew busy. This is what remained.

The trash trees around the tree area were removed. The stump was left that height on purpose. I bought this table/ground feeder from Duncraft.

It sits very nicely on the top of the stump.

The idea is I will put squirrel food in here and begin feeding birds off the deck. The key was going to be anchoring the feeder to the top of the stump. At Ace Hardware, their idea was to take off the roof of the feeder, drill two holes through the plastic in the bottom and use two anchor bolts which would be drilled into the top of the feeder. Since the feeder is not flush with the top of the stump, I wouldn't have a worry about food getting moldy, although with the squirrels in my yard, that would never be a problem. My original idea was to get a couple of locks and a small length of chain and use anchor bolts to lock the chain to the side of the stump. The feeder couldn't "walk away", if you will, nor could it be blown off the stump by high winds or if some squirrels had a wrestling match for supremacy of the peanuts.

The more I thought about this, the more I didn't like either idea. While mulling over what I could do, I found some rather stale sunflower bits and deposited those on top of the stump.

I figured if the squirrels didn't like these the raccoons would so there was no danger of these just rotting on top of the stump. Indeed, the mess was gone in 3 days.

Meanwhile, I was adding peanuts to the ground feeder which sat on a table on the deck. It's proven to be a big hit.

Off and on all winter, I added a bag of unshelled and unsalted peanuts, purchased from the grocery, to the feeder. It's incredibly comical to sit in the office and watch several squirrels climb up into the feeder, grab a peanut, and sprint away. In this photo, I added some stale dried cranberries found in the back of the cupboard. They ate those, too, although a possum got into the feeder to clean out what hadn't been eaten and then got stuck trying to turn around. I heard this awful crash that night, on the deck and when I shined a light out there, the animal figured out how to free itself and sprinted, well, ambled fast, off the deck.

I have ordered bird food before from Duncraft so I looked through what they had to offer in terms of "wildlife" goodies. They have these blocks of food. I bought one to see how it would go over.

It sits on top of the stump, ready and waiting for critters to feast. I shouldn't have worried about whether this would be well received.

I think it takes about 2 hours for them to realize a new block has been placed. At the lower left of the stump is the tail of a black squirrel. I'm thrilled to see that in the yard, in addition to the red and gray ones. I'm pretty sure raccoons and probably possums gnaw on the block as I'll come out in the morning and find it knocked off the stump.

It takes, roughly, three days to reduce a block to remnants on the ground.

In another day, not even this is left. Unfortunately, the location of the stump is not in a sight line to sit somewhere, other than the deck, to watch the feasting. I am currently without a food block. I am debating joining their food club. I'd get 10% off any food I purchase. I could, if I so desire, schedule food deliveries. Would the 10% off cover shipping and tax? I don't know. I'll have to crunch numbers to see if the budget would allow something like this. I have three other feeders, one new and two dormant, which I want to put around the house. Depending upon how fast they are emptied and what kind of food I decide to go with, a food club might pay for itself.

Since October, we've had some days of very, very high winds; 50 mph sustained with gusts up to 65 mph. I just know had the ash still been standing, I'd be looking at a large home repair due to a branch coming down. As much as I know I had different bird species using the tree for food, since it would have been full of insects, I'm so glad I removed it. I think, given what I've done with the stump, the squirrels are glad, too.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

So You Don't Have To

I'm late with this food review. However, it's important to post my thoughts so, when they come around again, you have an idea of how I felt about these.

These were out around Valentine's Day. I'd heard about them from members of my World of Warcraft guild. I didn't get out much in February, so trying to find them took a back seat to just existing. Then, I had to go to Target for something and they were on an end cap. I won't eat coconut or mint M&Ms and I've heard a rumor of chili-spiced which is just...no. But something like this, I'll try.

As advertised on the package, they were pink, white and ivory. Taste? Well, they weren't bad. I've railed in this space about how I think M&M's needs to stay with what they do best: peanut, milk, and peanut butter M&M's. I'd allow the crispy ones. Those aren't bad either. The almond ones are blah. I know people who adore the coconut and mint ones so those can be on the shelf, too. But all the different flavors seem to me to be diluting what they do best. At Target right now are red, white and blue M&Ms. I can get behind changing the colors on the brands. That's a clever way to make them relevant to the upcoming holiday, but multiple flavors? I bought a bag of strawberry shortcake M&Ms. They were not horrible like the candy corn or pumpkin ones were, but they aren't anything I can't live without. There was a hint of strawberry but the overwhelming flavor was artificial white cake. Strawberry shortcake is an amalgam. It shouldn't be mostly about the cake. These were more bland than exciting.

So, my recommendation is, if you like M&Ms and want something of a novelty AND they are on sale, buy a bag. Otherwise, save your pennies or support the original flavors. Sometimes I get concerned that they will be so busy trying for new flavors that they will forget to make M&M's with peanuts.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

So You Don't Have To - Oreos Edition

On purpose, I've been avoiding the cookie aisle at the grocery. I just don't need that kind of food in the house. It's a path of least resistance, when it comes to meals. I may not be very hungry and there's a box of cookies over yonder and, well, that becomes supper. Not a good choice.

But I found myself craving cookies when friends and my news feed announced it was Girl Scout Cookie time. It's almost impossible to resist the allure of cookies during that time of year. Because I don't know any Girl Scouts, the grocery basket turned, on its own, I swear, down the cookie aisle at Mariano's. Over the course of two months, I tried three different Oreo flavors.

First up was Red Velvet.

Because this is not a part of my family heritage, I'm not completely sure of the attraction of this flavor. Perhaps, because I've not had the real thing, I don't know of the red velvet flavor I've seen in all sorts of products is correct. Steak 'n Shake had a red velvet shake I liked, but I've been little unimpressed with any other red velvet infused offerings.

I pulled open the package and, well, they are red.

The cookie part was bland. I don't know know whether that is intentional. The creme filling was not the usual Oreo flavor. It was more "creamy" tasting, not as sugary. These were okay, but unless you are trying anything with red velvet flavor on the package front, not worth the money. 

Also not worth the money was this flavor. 

I wasn't sure what to expect from this flavor. 

Is there anything to visually recommend this flavor? No. Remove the logo stamped on the cookie and I've seen this kind of thing for decades in the cookie aisle. It's a cinnamon cookie. Wow. With Oreo creme in the middle. Meh. The creme filling was a bit different in flavor, more akin to the glaze on a cinnamon roll. You could do the same thing, perhaps improve the cookie, by make sandwich cookies out of snickerdoodles and vanilla frosting. Save your money.

Finally, I tried the pumpkin filling Oreos. I thought I'd taken a photo of the bag and the cookies but all I have is this.

The cookie part was lightly gingerbread flavored. The filling had a distinct pumpkin taste but with a creamy texture. It was okay; more appealing from an Oreo standpoint than the previous two bags I'd tried. The thing I found most humorous was how the creme filling separated to look like a mouth when I'd take the cookie apart to eat it.

Here's the thing with these "exotic" flavors. The whole point of a bag of Oreos is to dunk the cookies in milk. Either you dunk the whole thing or you take it apart and just dunk the cookie. I can't, for the life of me, fathom dunking any of these cookies in milk. I wouldn't. I realize there is a growing market for "niche" flavors; those unique pairings only available for a limited time. But, as I've pointed out with M&Ms, not every flavor available needs to be in your product, even for a limited time.

Out of all of these, the pumpkin version was, to my surprise, the least offensive. I still wouldn't bother spending your money on any of these versions. Buy the regular Oreos. Get a glass of ice cold milk. Now that spring has arrived in the northern hemisphere, take your milk and a stack of Oreos onto the deck and watch winter leave. Consider all the calcium and Vitamin D you're getting. Yup, I can help you justify those 10 cookies.

Beverage:  water

Deb

A Discerning Choice

Everyone has a comfort food. For some, it's as simple as a hot mug of tea. For others, it's steak and potatoes. There is something we reach for when the going has been akin to walking uphill through molasses in January in Helsinki.

For me, comfort food is situation determinate. Hot cocoa. Macaroni and cheese. Chocolate. They all fit the bill. It can simply be a matter of what's on hand or what I can have access to with the least amount of preparation. Let's face it. If you're stressed and want comfort food, you don't want to have to spend 90 minutes preparing it. It needs to be ready.

Viola. Comfort food at the ready.

The egg nog ice cream is only available from Thanksgiving through the second week of January. Oh my. It's so good.

Egg nog is such a diet buster. I have never liked rum so the pairing of egg nog and rum has never appealed to me. That's where something like this ice cream comes in handy. I drenched my bowls of it with warmed chocolate sauce and sprinkled chopped walnuts or'top.

The chocolate peanut butter is a silky semi-sweet chocolate with ribbons of creamy peanut butter. It didn't need any ornamentation, although I chopped more walnuts than I wanted for the egg nog so there is no harm in adding them to the chocolate peanut butter.

Given the stress of moving the office and all the travel and inspections I've had to do, either of these were a fantastic way to wind down. And yes, it was supper on more than one occasion. Both are gone now, but there will be a New Year's Day delivery. I adore their banana chocolate walnut but felt three quarts was too much for the freezer. I may need to move some things around or, what a novel concept, cook some of the frozen stuff I have in there. Then there's room for three quarts of ice cream.

Beverage:  water

Deb

California Food - Part the First

Particularly when I'm traveling, I like to document my food. You can have very good food and very bad food while on a vacation. The November trip to California and BlizzCon/Disneyland was a case in point.

My gastronomical journey began on November 3rd at O'Hare. I had to get up early to get to the airport in plenty of time to check in so breakfast wasn't going to be an option. Plus, I didn't like the idea of leaving dirty dishes in the sink for 6 days.

Breakfast was two muffins, a banana and hot tea from Great American Bagel, which was right across from my gate.

My first airplane flight was in April of 1982. Back then, you still got free food with your seat purchase. As you know, that's no longer the case. I didn't eat the blueberry muffin before boarding so free tea and the muffin were food about 2/3rds of the way through the flight west.

Upon arriving in California, there was little time to eat. I grabbed my luggage and found the Super Shuttle to my hotel. The trip to the hotel took an hour. Once checked in, I surveyed my surroundings. Liz wasn't to get in until 6:45. We had talked of meeting up with Sparrow and her hubby for a later dinner. It was now 2 and I hadn't eaten anything since about 10:45.

As the shuttle drove down Katela, I noticed a little-seen restaurant in Chicagoland, IHOP. They have, for the most part, shuttered IHOPs in my area. It's sad but I know the one in Wheaton just could not keep servers. It's one of my favorite places to go and I miss it. So seeing one 4 blocks from the hotel was wonderful. I needed food. IHOP it was.

Pumpkin french toast with caramel sauce, sliced bananas and whipped cream. I was in heaven. There were other fall flavors which I thought about coming back to try, but the sheer number of places to eat in the area made a repeat visit impossible. I didn't realize how hungry I was. This is a half order. I had them bring out the rest of the order, it was so good.

Liz's plane was delayed so adding that extra plate of french toast wound up being a godsend. The next day, Thursday, November 4th, we wandered up to Disneyland. Our first stop there was a Starbucks; one of the largest I'd ever seen; for a quick breakfast. We had reservations for lunch, at 1, and the parks didn't open until 10, so there was some time to kill.

I had standard fare of 2 blueberry scones (Delivered in separate bags. Talk about waste.) and hot tea. Liz and I walked around California Adventure the rest of the morning and headed over to Disneyland in the afternoon. We had reservations at Cafe Orleans. There are food carts everywhere including many which sold these.

Leave it to Disney to turn spun sugar into something reasonably attractive.

We went to Cafe Orleans for three things. #1 was the parmesan fries, in the basket at back.

#2 is that Monte Cristo sandwich in the foreground. Liz and I split one sandwich. It was huge! It's served with the most amazing berry sauce. I don't remember the sauce the fries came with but I wound up just eating the fries "naked", they were so good.

The main reason to stop was beignets.

Incredible powdered sugar dusted puffs of air-inflated buttered dough. That's custard sauce at top and the mixed berry jam at the bottom. Oh my heaven. So...so wonderful. Even having a 6 block walk back to the hotel didn't leave us unfull.

Too bad Cafe Orleans is inside the park. I'd consider eating there just because. I had not had a Monte Cristo in a very long time. In case you are unfamiliar with this sandwich, it is cheese, usually swiss, with ham or turkey, sometimes both, dipped in egg batter and fried. Some places will grill the sandwich but the best ones are encased in a thick tempura-type batter. A guild member told me to go get one while I was out there, to which Liz replied, "I made reservations. She WILL have one." The whole meal was stellar.

Ashley arrived in the late afternoon and we went to get our convention badges. That evening, we met up with a guild member and her husband. I was still feeling full from lunch. We debated where to go for dinner and wound up back at Downtown Disney, the location of the Starbucks, for dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Now, I can take or leave Rainforest. There's one north of me, but we just couldn't think of a place in the area to go to with a wide menu and which wouldn't be crawling with BlizzCon people. We wanted to talk. We'd never met Amy and her husband so this was to be a special event. Fortunately, they have a decent a la carte menu.

A bowl of creamy tomato soup, topped with gruyere, and served with spiced cornbread. With hot tea, it was all I needed.

Friday started BlizzCon. In order to be alert and on the ready, we went to Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast. Oh come now. If given a choice, wouldn't you trade a free hotel breakfast for this?

That's their special peanut butter and jelly pizza. (I have the recipe.) The Mickey Mouse mini-waffle at the upper left was not very good; hard and flavorless. Liz said, in all the years she's been coming to this buffet, this was the first thing that was a disappointment. Fruit was in abundance. I'll always go for the fresh fruit.

Fluffy, fluffy scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. Tea and orange juice in abundance.  When we walked in and had our photos taken with Goofy, we were asked if we were celebrating anything. We said, "First visit" and then pointed at Ashley. "Her birthday is Saturday," we said. Liz and Ashley looked at me. "Well, your birthday is close." "Not really. It's Thanksgiving Day. That's not close." The employee shrugged. "Two birthdays! That works!"

Mid-way through breakfast, this arrived, along with wait staff to sing to us.

They set fire to my dessert and sang about it.

I got a "First Visit" and "Birthday" button. I put my World of Warcraft name on the button. On Sunday, when we came back to the parks, I did not wear my birthday button. It was the day after Ashley's birthday and I wanted her to have all the good wishes. Maybe some day I'll go back.

Beverage:  Hot cocoa

Deb