Figured I would get caught up all at once, or almost
For those that have been on the river cruises, I have about thousand questions as we are really interested in doing this in Europe
We did a Rhine River cruise 2 years ago, kind of a fluke - wasn't something we had on our radar, but the opportunity fell in our lap and we went. Loved it. Loved it...actually ended up going w/ my folks who had done the Grand European 2 week trip a year earlier with some friends. My father joked he though they were among some of the younger folks on the ship at that time( they were in mid to late 60's)! ha ha - we ended up being - at 46, the youngest people on our trip besides someones 20 year old grandson. It was also the first cruise we had ever been on. There were about 150 people on the ship. No kids under 18 allowed, none of the fluff associated with large cruise ships which was right up our way of travel. Food was great, bar tenders and crew were wonderful. The excursions were awesome, although not what I would call overly strenuous due to the older nature of most of their passengers. It seemed many of them were repeat clients - we met a woman who had done many of the trips. Walking was difficult for her, although she was ambulatory, so she mostly stayed on the ship admiring the scenery and socializing. I'll tell you what, those old duffers will drink you under the table....
It was fabulous, and we've been trying to get back ever since. We had some other big travel plans in the works, so we put off booking until 2020, and well - you know what happened there! We were going to go on the Russia cruise, as was Merriweather. We still have that on our short list, as well as a few others. Anyway - we loved it and we aren't cruisers. We've no interest in a large cruise ship experience.
I know its considered sacrilege in some parts, but I never warmed to this movie. It just never appealed to me.
I am trying to adopt another dog. It may take a small miracle to get her here
Oh! Good luck. I hope it all works out - sometimes those transport trains can be hard to organize (if that is the problem). Sending good vibes.
QOTD Tues August 11-- Do you all cook/bake from scratch, or from recipes , or do you take the easy way out most of the time? If you have favorite old time family recipes, could you share one of them with the rest of us?
Some things I make from scratch, depending on the holiday. For instance, I always make cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies and apple pies with homemade crust at Thanksgiving. Why? Because my grandmother did and she taught me how to make the crust. Result? I don't know - I don't care for either apple or pumpkin pie
. Nor do I like cranberry sauce! They get eaten, but in all honesty I doubt anyone cares if the crust is store bought or home made. Usually I use the pre-made rolled crusts if needed or any other occasion. There are certain dishes I just make with no recipe - been doing them so long and I'm not sure I ever had a"proper" recipe for them - sausage gravy, crab soup/dip/crabcakes, turtle soup,various stews, chicken soup. I'm sure there are others. One thing I'm rabid about is homemade stuffing, I always make that.
The ability to make gravy has always eluded me, I just can't get it. If it's a major holiday I pass that off on my Mother or SIL, if it's not then I'm cracking a jar of store bought!
We do butcher about half of the meat we consume ourselves. That has been a learning curve - it is mostly my husbands talent though and I stand in as assistant and head wrapper/sanitizer. I tried making black pudding once, didn't go so well. Gross... We order that along with our scrapple.
Weirdly overcast here today, and the morning started out foggy. Not really rainy though. Hot, humid. Looks like rain later this week - we are not having a dry August, which is nice because my lawn is not brown and scraggly. I have no idea what we are going to do for dinner. I have a pizza crust in the bread drawer, so that may be it this evening!
Sometimes the kids cook a meal, like Sunday DS and his girlfriend made us breakfast. We don’t do a lot of baking because we try not to eat a lot of desserts, but we usually make a banana bread to use up bananas or a Bundt cake or cupcakes to satisfy a sweet tooth now and then. We use a mix (as do most commercial bakeries), but icing or frosting is home made.
He says that $120 for 4 place settings is silly, and that I would end up wanting the other sets not yet out....and that we'd end up with dishware for 20 and it's only the three of us at home......
