AI Tech, Shopping, The King and I, Supper, Charity Support,

This is the technology which allowed them to read burned scrolls from a 1,700-year-old En-Gedi Scroll which was burned down. The scroll itself looked like a lump of charcoal.



Friday afternoon we did some shopping including going to the Victoria St. Market and once again I came out with the things I went in for, I'm getting good at that.

Friday evening we watched the newest stage production, on TV, of The King and I. It was very well done. There were a couple of songs I was unfamiliar with which we enjoyed. I was really impressed with Lady Thiang, she was excellent and Matt was enthused over the voice of the girl playing Tuptim. The King was very good too but I had a little trouble understanding him a few times. At the beginning I couldn't stop thinking of Yul Brynner whom I loved in the part. Anna was also very good, in fact, I thought the whole cast was good, particularly the little children. It kept us up til midnight which is very unusual for Matt. I then went and studied Spanish, am I nuts or what? Which, of course, explains why I didn't have a Saturday blog.

Then, of course, I couldn't get to sleep with the result that Saturday I was like a zombie. I dragged myself out of bed and did the laundry, then after lunch I died for an hour or two. For supper I just defrosted some Spiced Beef in Red Wine - saved work. However, we did have a dessert from Victoria St. Market which was all chocolate and chocolate mousse as well as a plain mousse - yummy.

Sunday night I defrosted stuffed peppers so saved myself some work there too.

I should mention Hilary Melton's Blog about Invisible Women in which she mentioned Damyanti's book, You Beneath Your Skin which will be supporting charities written about by Hilary. I bought the book and started reading it yesterday. It is a quite a story and very different. I highly recommend it even though I haven't finished it yet, apart from it's charity support which is so important. Do read Hilary's Blog.

For Friday's supper, I did a kind of  mash up of my Scallop Parisienne recipe.


Scallops Parisiennes

Scallops Parisienne

1 glass dry white wine
¼ cup  water
pinch of salt
1 sprig parsley
Bayleaf
6 peppercorns
few slices of carrot and celery
1 lb scallops
1 1/2 oz butter
1 green onion
1/4 lb mushrooms
1 oz flour
¼ cup milk
1 Tbs browned breadcrumbs
a little melted butter

1. Put first 7 ingredients (wine - carrot & celery) into a pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain and return liquor to the pan. Bring to the boil, add scallops and poach for two mins. Remove scallops and reserve the liquor.

2. Melt butter in a pan and add the green onion, finely sliced and the mushrooms cut into quarters. Cover and cook for about 5 mins. Draw aside and add the flour and the strained liquor from the scallops. Stir until boiling, simmer a few mins. add the milk by degrees, then reduce to a creamy consistency. Stir in the scallops.

3. Fill cocottes. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little melted butter and brown quickly under the broiler. It is recommended that real butter be used.

4. Serves 2 as a main course, 6 as hors d'oeuvres.

I didn't do the court bouillon but sautéed the scallops in butter and garlic and then made a sauce in another pan with cream and stock instead and put the cooked scallops in the sauce then served it over spaghetti which I had cooked in the Instant Pot. It was accompanied by some of my frozen asparagus and was quite delicious.

Have a great day
 

The Day, Boxing Day,

So I cooked. What else does one do on Christmas Day? One thing I did make, which was different, was a Carrot Salad similar to the one Matt got from Meals and Wheels. Mine worked pretty well, I was quite pleased. I was told the ingredients, but not the quantities. Talking of Meals on Wheels, what was unexpected was that we got two frozen meals for the rest of this week!! I didn't expect them to deliver Christmas Day, of course, but thought they would on Thursday. One of the things he got was the Sticky Toffee Pudding. Doesn't look remotely like that. I will be interested to see what it tastes like when defrosted.

Meals on Wheels Carrot Salad

Grated carrots - I did the best part of 2 large carrots.
Cranberry - Not too many, I used close to a handful. Too much
Raisins - as above
Orange juice - enough to cover fruit
Honey - loaded teaspoon
Cinnamon - good shake
Green onion - I used sweet onion.
Black Pepper - To taste
Olive Oil - about 1 Tbs, enough to mix with the orange juice.

Soak cranberry and raisins in orange juice. Mix all other ingredients together.

Today, Boxing Day, I have to go to my family doctor. Apparently I have to get two refills for the blister packs, I also have to discuss bloodwork I got done recently plus discuss my UTI. I have a new set of pills now so I need to show the doc. I really don't want to go haring around on Boxing Day, but needs must unfortunately. We set off early and got there at opening time. Not too many people in front of us, but we still had to wait for quite a long time. Apparently my bloodwork showed that my A1C (diabetes) was rather high, I explained the endocrinologist had taken me off Metformin. Also she discussed my kidney/bladder situation and once I mentioned Dr. Cybulski she was happy with that. She also told me that if my pharmacist writes a note on a fax request for renewal saying something like "have Doctor's permission" they can fax her. Told the pharmacist so she added to my file a note to write a note LOL.

Needed some cereal, forgot to order it, so ended up walking to the other end of the store, with a cane, not my walker, and I was too dumb to get a cart to lean on. By the time I got back my legs were screaming at me. In the afternoon, I didn't nap, I completely conked out in my lounger. This evening we finished off the stuffed turkey breast and the Christmas Pud. Tomorrow must cook the scallops I bought on Christmas Eve. Think I might try a recipe by Kevin Lynch, or one I found in my own files. From the date on the picture I haven't made this in a long time. When we lived in North Carolina we could buy a gallon of bay scallops for $8. Used to make a lot of scallop dishes then. However, by 2009 we were certainly back in Canada.

Scallops Parisiennes

1 glass dry white wine
¼ cup  water
pinch of salt
1 sprig parsley
Bayleaf
6 peppercorns
few slices of carrot and celery
1 lb scallops
1 1/2 oz butter
1 green onion
1/4 lb mushrooms
1 oz flour
¼ cup milk
1 Tbs browned breadcrumbs
a little melted butter

1. Put first 7 ingredients (wine - carrot and celery) into a pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain and return liquor to the pan. Bring to the boil, add scallops and poach for two mins. Remove scallops and reserve the liquor.

2. Melt butter in a pan and add the green onion, finely sliced and the mushrooms cut into quarters. Cover and cook for about 5 mins. Draw aside and add the flour and the strained liquor from the scallops. Stir until boiling, simmer a few mins. add the milk by degrees, then reduce to a creamy consistency. Stir in the scallops.

3. Fill cocottes. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little melted butter and brown quickly under the broiler. It is recommended that real butter be used.

4. Serves 2 as a main course, 6 as hors d'oeuvres.

Have a great day
 

Surviving Grandmother, Last Night's Supper, OS and Fidgeting

A lovely story to come out of the Italian earthquake disaster, yesterday they found a 98 yr. old grandmother, calmly knitting while she waited to be rescued. What sang froid. A story on GMA this morning was about a woman suffering from OS, or objectum sexuals. She is in love with the Eiffel Tower, so much so that she had a commitment ceremony (a marriage in other words) with the tower and changed her last name to Eiffel. She was previously in love with a particular fighter plane and joined up to learn to fly. However, she was subsequently given a medical discharge. If you want to read the story click here where there is also a video. Apparently this is not totally unusual and there are others who literally fall in love with inanimate objects such as the Golden Gate Bridge. All the world's queer 'cept me and thee and I ain't so sure about thee. Another segment showed experiments with educating children and allowing them to fidget and bounce about; some are seated on exercise balls, others have trampolines in the classroom. Apparently such movement stimulates the brain cells and allows them to actually concentrate on their lessons much better. Again click here to read the article and see a short video. They showed pictures of the brain before and after exercise and there is not much doubt of the increased mental alertness. I had fun this morning talking to Marilyn (French Marilyn's Blog) on Skype, what a great programme I have spoken to Glenda (Tropic Temper) and Satima (Satima's Blogspot) plus friends and relations in other parts of the world. If you have a webcam you can see the person to whom you are talking although the picture tends to be a bit slow coming through - a few seconds delay. As you will remember, I was raving about David's Gourmet the other day. One thing we bought was a frozen packet of, what looked like, delicious scallops. Last night we decided to have some for supper and Matt made a dish he has been cooking off and on for maybe 40 years. He has no idea where he first found this recipe, but I can assure you its good. He also cooked a recipe he saw on TV the other day but doesn't remember which programme; we ate both so I am giving you both. As we had thought, the scallops were excellent. Having opened a bottle of Phillipe de Rothschild Sauvignon Blanc to make the sauce for the scallops, we drank the rest with the meal. Scallops Parisiennes 1 glass dry white wine 1/4 C water pinch of salt 1 sprig parsley Bayleaf 6 peppercorns few slices of carrot and celery 1 lb scallops (you can use shrimp although scallops are best) 1 1/2 oz butter 1 green onion 1/4 lb mushrooms 1 oz flour 1/4 C milk 1 Tbs browned breadcrumbs a little melted butter 1 Put first 7 ingredients (wine through carrot & celery) into a pan. Bring to a boil. Add scallops and poach for two mins. Remove scallops and reserve the liquor. 2 Melt butter in a pan and add the green onion, finely sliced and the mushrooms cut into quarters. Cover and cook for about 5 mins. Draw aside and add the flour and most of the strained liquor from the scallops. Stir until boiling, simmer a few mins. add the milk by degrees, then reduce to a creamy consistency. Stir in the scallops. 3 Fill 6 cocottes or 2 dishes. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little melted butter and brown quickly under the broiler. It is recommended that real butter be used. Serves 2 as a main course, 6 as hors d'oeuvres. Savoury Tomatoes TV - Unknown 1 slice Proscuitto per tomato 1 Tomato per person Seasoning flour egg Panko * 2 oz Butter Sauté the proscuitto and crumble it. Thick slice the tomato, season and dip the slices in flour. Then dip in beaten egg and finally dredge with Panko. Fry the slices in butter until the Panko is crisp. Serve the tomato slices sprinkled with the proscuitto. * Panko is known as Japanese breadcrumbs and can be widely obtained these days. Have a great day.

Strawberries and North Carolina

When we got to the store yesterday, they were selling local strawberries - they looked pretty good so I bought some. We ate them for supper last night. They needed sweetening, I added Splenda to mine and we opened a pot of Double Devon Cream. It is not quite as good as the clotted cream served in the south west of England, but it is a good substitute. We both thoroughly enjoyed our dessert making thorough pigs of ourselves. Delicious. To counter the cream I just ate plain broiled chicken for supper. Not too many points at all. What did I have as a vegetable? Asparagus of course!! I haven't yet turned green, but I might well before the end of the season.

I have often mentioned North Carolina in my blog, a place we have a soft spot for. We first 'discovered' NC in the 70s when we drove south with our travel trailer (caravan in England) and visited Plymouth, Mass and Maryland and then headed further south. We used to have a big book which listed all the camp sites and their facilities, big as a telephone directory for a city. We found a campsite which sounded good and was near the coast, called Pender Park. It was located between Jacksonville, NC and Morehead City, NC and our camp site was right next to the pool so we thought we were well situated. I was irritated that we had been travelling that day, it was my birthday. I must confess when we had our first quick look at Morehead City my reaction was "what a dump". But I wasn't at my best that day for health reasons too. Within a day or two we were very taken with the area and a friend we made on the campsite (he lived in a mobile home there) told us all kinds of places to go for swimming, fishing, eating and so on.

Actually, it was quite funny the way we met Al, he came down in his car and parked by us. Said "how's the pool?", we said "great" he went and had a swim then came back and said "it's freezing", Matt replied "have a beer" and that was the beginning of a long friendship. We spent a few days there and then headed back north again stopping at various campsites on the way. This was in September and we were staggered to find that once the kids have gone back to school people start closing things down. We went on one campsite in Virginia which would have been gorgeous, but they hadn't cleaned the toilet/shower facilities and they had closed the pool because it was the end of the summer. The fact that the temps were in the high 80s had nothing to do with it. The scenery is pretty impressive in Virginia and we were camping in the hills.

When we got home, we wrote to Al but never heard back. Two years later we decided to go look him up again. We ended up on exactly the same site, next to the swimming pool (the connections were still loose) and when we knocked on his door, there he was. He had told us there was a mobile home for sale two years before and we had decided 'no', but this time we wanted to buy and buy we did. An old mobile which was right next door to Al's. We had to re-carpet and put in new curtains, beds, furniture, etc. but it was ours. Al did a lot of the work for us and we came down again in October and did all the buying of furniture and beds and so on. That all took place in 1980 and we continued to visit regularly for the next 8 years. We also used to lease the trailer to friends for their vacations. Al would mow the lot for us to keep the place clean and tidy. We had some really good times there and made some wonderful friends. With the result, when we decided to retire, early, we bought some land and a much bigger double wide mobile home to live in. They are called mobile homes, by the way, because they can be moved although it necessitates putting wheels back on them and a big truck to haul them around.

It was on the Pender Park campground that we were first introduced to a Carolina pig pickin' as a friend and neighbour across the road had a pig cooker and used to cook a pig quite often. Then once we lived down there for a while, Matt started doing pigs for himself. They have an annual tournament in nearby Newport for the best cooked pig, you can buy a plate of 'barbecue' once the judging is over. Unfortunately they shred the pork and we prefer to literally "pick" the pork off our pigs and eat chunks or slices of meat.

The first October we went back to the trailer, we found all kinds of joke signs, Furniture for Sale, Matt's Dog House, a big Sprite advertising clock (actually very useful as a yard light, we kept it for years) and lots of other stuff. The site owners took it all seriously and said we couldn't advertise on the site!!! Quite funny really.

We used to party hearty when we got down there and one time, we didn't get off the camp site for three or four days with people bringing stuff (we had already bought liquor and beer on the way in) and we didn't get any groceries to speak of. One day everyone brought a load of scallops and Matt made Scallops Parisiennes for a bunch of people. Bay Scallops were pretty inexpensive at the time. Later I used to buy a gallon for $8 which I would split into portion sizes and freeze. The picture is actually Coquilles St. Jacques, but it is very similar in final appearance.

Scallops Parisiennes

We have had this recipe for years, I have no idea what the source was.

Serves: 6

1 glass dry white wine
1/4 Pt water
pinch of salt
1 sprig parsley
Bayleaf
6 peppercorns
few slices of carrot and celery
1 lb scallops
1-1/2 oz butter
1 green onion
1/4 lb mushrooms
1 oz flour
1/4 pt milk
1 tbs browned breadcrumbs
a little melted butter

Put wine, 1/4 pt water, salt, parsley, bayleaf, peppercorns, carrots and celery into a pan. Bring to a boil. Add scallops and poach for two mins. Take out scallops. Reserve the liquor.

Melt butter in a pan, add the green onion, finely sliced, and the mushrooms cut into quarters. Cover and cook for about 5 mins. Draw aside and add the flour and the strained liquor from the scallops. Stir until boiling, simmer a few mins, add the milk by degrees, then reduce to a creamy consistency. Stir in the scallops.

Fill cocottes. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little melted butter and brown quickly under the broiler. It is recommended that real butter be used.

Serves 2 as a main course, 6 as hors d'oeuvres

Have a great day