...because I am still suffering with incredibly slow dial-up. Six days now, and we're a bit tired of it, but the tech guy came yesterday to work on it. Unfortunately, he can't figure out what's going on and is getting no signal from our dish, so he is coming back today with a helper-guy. And strangely, the satellite internet started working again for a few hours yesterday afternoon, but now it's dead again. I am wondering if it really is dish alignment, or if something on the dish was damaged by the windstorm, or if the satellite up in outer space spent too much time partying over the holidays and is having trouble functioning!
I was quite impressed that the tech guy would come at 9:30 on New Year's day. Since we fell asleep at 11:00 pm the night before, and weren't hung over, it was fine with us.
Anyway! There are much worse things in life than suffering through dial-up, but it IS frustrating.
Hope you all had a good NYE! Feel free to share your favourite food moment in the comments section. We stuffed ourselves full of cheese fondue and pear-mincemeat crumble. I have a sneaking suspicion I ate half a pound of cheese all by myself, never mind what Gordon ate. No wonder I felt like a bloated whale afterwards. Then yesterday Gordon saluted our Jewish friends (a belated Happy Chanukah to you all!) by frying up latkes. He made a recipe that allegedly served four people, but instead served two. (Urp!) Oh, served with sour cream and applesauce, of course.
My friend brought me some matzoh meal from Maryland (such alliteration!) last summer, so for the first time our latkes were properly made. My Catholic mother happened to love "potato pancakes" and got me hooked on them as a child. I think I was in my teens before I realized they were a staple of Jewish holiday cooking! My mother's recipe came with the blender she bought in the early 70s (yes, she made them in a blender so you can imagine the consistency!)
Today I think we'll take a bit of a breather on the gorging, despite the fact that we've got lots of chocolate, cookies, fruitcake (blech!) and mincemeat tarts on hand. Yesterday we took a walk in the frigid cold and discovered that our entire back pasture flooded in the brief thaw last week, when the river broke its banks. It has now hardened into a huge, perfect skating rink, and the ice is surprisingly smooth. We are thinking of taking our skates back there today. The dogs were gingerly running all over it, and none of us wiped out. If I get on skates, I WILL wipe out, because I am a really bad ice skater. My favourite method for stopping is to skate into a big snow bank and fall over. I took lessons when I was five, and it was all downhill from there.
Whatever you're up to today, I hope it's a good one. When my satellite is restored, I will post photos of the very yummy tourtière with cheese-pastry crust that I made for Christmas eve.
Actually I did make a New Year's Day dinner! ... Kinda lunchish... I've comepletely gotten into the habit of eating the main meal at around 2-3pm ... Anyway, I had some cooked chicken that'd been the fridge for about a week ... it smelled OK so I decided to use it. Then I made mashed potatoes, boiled some frozen vegs and made gravy from one of those envelopes (something that's just appeared in on groc store fairly recently).
ReplyDeleteI just heated the chicken up in a frying pan with some spices.
It was actually GOOD! The dogs all had servings too. They LOVED it!
Today I might wash all the pans and dishes from my dinner...hahhaha.
I'm so lame. ;)
You're not LAME!! You just earned a doctorate, for heaven's sake.
ReplyDeleteI think eating your big meal at that time is very healthy (as I sit here eating butter-pastry mince tarts!) I thought of you today. We had Mexican food for lunch and it wasn't chain crap. It's a small place in Ottawa run by actual Mexicans (well, Mexican-Canadians). They have a whole salsa bar that I love!! Lots of fresh cilantro, too.
I've noticed there are usually some Spanish-speaking clients eating there, so I figure that's a good sign.