Mushrooms, Reading, Overgenerous Tipping, Cat Poop Coffee.

I said we hadn’t had Portobello mushrooms for a while, well we did on Saturday evening. Just gently sautéed in butter. They were delicious. We had a simple dinner of a fillet steak and the mushrooms together with a glass or two of wine. Can’t be easily beaten.

I also started Pock’s World over the weekend. It is by Dave Duncan who is one of my favourite authors. I see on Amazon.com they are promising to get it to you by Christmas if your order straight away. It is a very different story from anything I have read written by Dave Duncan before. I haven’t got very far into it, but it takes place on a planet which is about to be cauterized because of the possible existence of non human look alikes. That means the death of over 6 million people.

On Sunday morning I heard someone on GMA talking about tipping. She was giving advice on who should be tipped at this time of the year. Maybe she had a lot of money, but I certainly couldn’t afford, even when I was working, to hand out tips to all the people she recommended. Go to http://tinyurl.com/36w3wd2 although this is not the same source, these women have very big ideas on what and who and how much to tip. As a pensioner I certainly couldn’t all the tips they talk about. Absolute nonsense. They talk about economic problems, but these people obviously have NOT been affected by the current economy or they have more money than sense.

Talk about coincidences. Last night we watched The Bucket List what a fantastic movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, if you have never seen it, I can highly recommend it. Jack Nicholson, being a very rich man in the movie, was drinking Kopi Luwak which is the most expensive coffee in the world, however, Morgan Freeman who knew everything (he was a whiz at Jeopardy) convinced Jack that in fact the coffee berries are eaten by civet cats, excreted and then the natives roast them and make coffee. Jack Nicholson said "are you shitting me" and Morgan Freeman said "no the cats beat me to it". Damn me if an hour after the movie there was a segment on the news about Kopi Luwak - it costs about $25 a cup or $500 a pound. The picture shows the source of the pre-digested coffee beans. One cannot imagine how it came about that anyone tried this in the first place. Nor can I imagine why anyone would pay through the nose to drink it.

Bianna Golodryga is one of the hosts of the weekend edition of Good Morning America. All the programme hosts have been sharing recipes which they eat at Christmas and this was her contribution. I never look at chocolate pie recipes without thinking of Matt’s youngest when she came to visit us in Canada some 20 years ago. She went absolutely nuts on chocolate pie and we had to buy frozen pies by the dozen for her, every restaurant we went into, she ordered chocolate pie for dessert.

Bianna Golodryga's Favorite Chocolate Pie

Recipe Courtesy Bianna Golodryga

Servings: 6-8

Are you looking for a chocolate fix? Bianna's pie is just the right combination of rich chocolate, crispy crust and crunchy toasted nuts.

Ingredients

1 graham cracker pie crust 1 8oz package light Philadelphia cream cheese ¾ cup of sugar 1/8th teaspoon vanilla powder 4 tablespoons Hershey's cocoa 2 1/2 cartons (8 oz) Kraft light cool whip Toasted pecan, almond, or walnut chips

Directions

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and cocoa and mix with a hand mixer on medium speed until the mixture is smooth.

Add cool whip and continue mixing until all of cool whip is blended with the filling and the mixture becomes thick. Pour filling into the pie crust. Sprinkle with toasted nuts, if desired.

Have a great day