Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary--Day 5

Hubby Tony and I are learning a little bit about each of the States, and enjoying food from them as a way to celebrate the USA's 250th anniversary

Today Tony's states were:

• Colorado The state's mountainous region, part of the vast Rocky Mountains, is six times the size of Switzerland, featuring 9,600 miles of fishing streams, 2,850 lakes, and over 1,000 peaks.
• Delaware Due to its highly corporate-friendly laws, there are actually more registered corporate entities in Delaware than there are human residents. Nearly 68% of the Fortune 500 call the state their legal home.
• Connecticut The state is credited with a number of American firsts: the Fundamental Orders (1639) was a precursor to the Declaration of Independence, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States (1764), the world's first telephone directory (1878), the first speed limit-12 miles per hour (1901), the first permanent license plates (1937), the first colored television (1948), and the first nuclear submarine (1954).
• Nebraska The only state in the U.S. whose legislature is unicameral (just one chamber) and nonpartisan (no party affiliations).
• South Dakota The state has approximately four cows for every person.

In honor of Connecticut, Tony chose to make New England style baked beans. He served the dish with corn on the cob and sauteed zucchini. Originally corn bread was part of the menu, but we only have one oven and the hot baking temperature for corn bread didn't jive with the 'low and slow' bean baking temperature, so Tony substituted slices of wheat baguette.

We always have several different kinds of beans in the freezer, which made putting together the main dish easy. New England beans get their flavor and color from molasses, but Tony also added brown sugar and mustard. In lieu of the traditional salt pork Tony used smoked sausage, which he pan fried before adding to the pot. Since he only made two servings of everything there were no leftovers. Five years ago: Just A Teenage Scavenger Trying To Eat In Peace

Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary-Day 4

Hubby Tony and I are learning a little bit about each of the States, and enjoying food from them as a way to celebrate the USA's 250th anniversary 

The project was back to me today. This is what I learned about my set of states:

• Nevada The state is known as "The Silver State" because of a silver rush in 1859, but today it is the largest gold-producing state (with approximately 64% of total U.S. output).
• New Mexico The state capital, Santa Fe, is 7,000 feet (approximately about 1.33 miles or 2.13 kilometers) above sea level, the highest in the nation.
• Maine Geographically, the state is bigger than the other five New England states combined, and 90 percent of it is covered in forests
• New Jersey The first organized baseball game took place in Hoboken on June 19, 1846 between the New York Base Ball Club and the Knickerbockers.
• Virginia The state flag is the only U.S. state flag to depict nudity. The state seal features Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue, standing triumphantly over a defeated tyrant.

After coming up with my facts it was time to think about a food item. Although I adore anything covered in New Mexican red or green chile (or both, called Christmas style), after seeing what was in my freezer and pantry I decided to do a riff on Brunswick stew, a tomato-based dish simmered with meat, vegetables, and potatoes most likely created in Brunswick County, Virginia around 1828.

The original dish relied on whatever meat the cook could procure, usually small game like squirrel or rabbit. Today chicken is the most common protein, but I didn't have any chicken in the house. However, there was some sloppy joes in the freezer, left over from Tony's poker event a couple of weeks ago. I decided to 'procure' that and use it as the base for my dish.

Although I chose an unconventional meat, the rest of the dish used more conventional ingredients... chopped onion, tomatoes, corn, lima beans, and potatoes. Because the meat was already cooked and seasoned all I had to do was saute an onion and chop a potato, then add it to the pot with some broth, tomato puree, tomato paste, frozen corn, and limas. When the potatoes were cooked I added the thawed sloppy joe meat and some sweet and tangy barbecue sauce, then simmered to meld the flavors.

I served the stew with cole slaw and bread. A Brunswick Stew purist would probably balk at sampling mine, but Tony and I thought it was pretty darn good.

Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary-Day 3

Hubby Tony and I are learning a little bit about each of the States, and enjoying food from them as a way to celebrate the USA's 250th anniversary

Today it was Tony's turn to research again. He came up with these interesting state facts:

• Missouri You can thank the state for the ice cream cone. In 1904, St. Louis hosted the World’s Fair. A Syrian gentleman named Ernest A. Hamwi had a concession at this fair, selling “crisp, waffle-like” pastries. In the neighboring booth an ice cream vendor was doing his thing. It was so popular the vendor’s dishes were fully depleted. Hamwi rolled his pastries into cones… and the rest is history.
• Maryland Mary Pickersgill designed the flag that flew over Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” after seeing the flag still waving during a battle in 1814.
• California Has the highest and lowest points in the contiguous U.S., more national parks than any other state, and an economy so massive it frequently ranks among the top ten largest globally.
• Ohio Officially became the 17th state of the United States on March 1, 1803. Interestingly, while President Thomas Jefferson signed the act enabling Ohio's statehood on February 19, 1803, Congress had technically forgotten to officially ratify the state constitution. This administrative oversight wasn't officially fixed until 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower retroactively signed a resolution recognizing March 1, 1803, as the official date of statehood.
• Wisconsin During the summer, the population of Door County reaches ten times the number of year-round residents (28,000 vs. 250,000).

Tony had a jam-packed schedule today, including dinner out with a friend, so we agreed that he would prepare his food item for lunch. That item ended up being a frozen pizza from Imo's, the original St. Louis style pizza, which opened their first restaurant in 1964. The frozen pizzas were rolled out in 2022.

St Louis style pizza has a cracker crust and is topped with Provel cheese (a processed blend of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone). In the restaurants the pizza is cut into squares. Today Tony chose to cut his freshly-baked pizza into the more traditional wedges and serve it with a green salad.

Five years ago today: Another Sign Of Normalcy

Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary-Day 2

Hubby Tony and I are learning a little bit about each of the States, and enjoying food from them as a way to celebrate the USA's 250th anniversary

This was my first set of states. I found out that by doing an internet search for "fun facts about [State Name] there were multiple websites with information I could choose from.

• Indiana One of the state's nicknames is “Mother of Vice Presidents” because six of them came from there: Schuyler Colfax (1869 to 1873), Thomas A. Hendricks (1885–1885), Charles W. Fairbanks (1905 to 1909), Thomas Marshall (1913–1921), Dan Quayle (1989–1993) and Mike Pence (2017–2021).
• WyomingThe 10th largest state by area, but the least populated in the United States
• South Carolina Morgan Island, off the coast of Beaufort, is also known as Monkey Island. There is a free-range colony of over 3,000 rhesus monkeys, which are used for public health research.
• Michigan Is the only state that’s split into two pieces-the Upper Peninsula in the north and the Lower Peninsula (referred to as “the mitten”) in the south. The two pieces are connected by the five-mile Mackinac Bridge.
• Washington The nation's largest overall producer of sweet cherries.

Fresh cherry season is short and I try to eat as many as I can while they're available, so when I learned that fact I knew cherries would be my food item. Coincidentally, right after that I got an email from a local grocery story that cherries were on sale and then a recipe for Cherry and Fresh Herb Salad with Coconut Chipsshowed up in my feedreader. Just like that I had a plan!

I had to make some last minute adjustments to the recipe, which called for pitted cherries and sliced celery on a bed of chopped herbs, mixed with a lemony vinaigrette and topped with toasted coconut strips. When I was assembling the dish I realized I didn't have enough fresh herbs so I supplemented with some spinach/arugula salad mix.

I served the salad with a simple soup and Italian bread. There were no leftovers.

Five years ago: You Never Know What You're Going To See At The Mall

Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary - Day 1

Hubby Tony and I are learning a little bit about each of the States, and enjoying food from them as a way to celebrate the USA's 250th anniversary

Today Tony kicked off our project with the first five states. He came up with multiple facts for each, but his favorites were:

• Kentucky has the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States
• Pennsylvania For one season in 1943, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers merged to form the “Steagles” due to the loss of many players during WWII.
• Mississippi Still have your first teddy bear? Thank Theodore Roosevelt. On a hunting expedition in 1902 in Sharkey County, President Roosevelt refused to shoot a captured bear, an act which resulted in the creation of the teddy bear.
• Florida has the longest coastline (1,197 statute miles) in the contiguous United States, with 825 miles of accessible beaches to enjoy.
• Arkansas It is illegal to pronounce the name of the state wrong!

Tony made a complete dinner featuring fried pickles, first served in 1963 at The Duchess restaurant in Atkins, Arkansas. He paired the tasty cornmeal-coated dills with ranch dressing and a tasty chickpea salad with lots of vegetables and chopped herbs.

Ready to eat

Although the 'rules' for our project only specified one food item, Tony also came up with an Arkansas-inspired dessert. He bought a packaged Belgian Liege waffle as a substitute for a biscuit, which he covered with blackberries (native to the state) and 'chocolate gravy' (AKA heated ganache).

Tasty!

Commemorating The Nation's Anniversary In Our Own Way

Hubby Tony and I were talking about how the country is celebrating the semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th and decided we should observe it in some way.

After some discussions of what our observance could look like we came up with a 10-day project. Because of scheduling issues we will skip a couple of days, so it won't be complete until a couple of days after July 4th.

We divided the 50 states into random groups of five and decided to alternate back and forth. The person who is in charge will come up with one new to them fact about each state and one food or drink item associated with any of that group of states and share both.

The project starts tomorrow and Tony said he would take the first group. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Goodbye And Good Luck

Monday morning an unexpected name popped up on my phone. The associate priest at the church I used to cook for sent me a text letting me know I was invited to a luncheon on Wednesday for staff and former staff to honor the pastor, who has been reassigned to another church.

The text ended with "Let me know if you'll be attending for food prep." I took that to mean he needed a head count, not that he was counting on me to come and put the meal together 🤣.

Because the class I usually take at the gym on Wednesday had been cancelled my entire morning was free. I walked at the mall before the stores opened, then came home. Since I didn't know how long the event would last I did some dinner preparation before changing my clothes and walking out the door.

The luncheon was scheduled for 12:30, which is when I used to serve the Wednesday meal when I worked there. It was held in the basement of the parish office, and I had fun seeing the office staff I used to work with and introducing myself to a couple of new people.

Source

The associate priest made his deep dish pizza, one of the pastor's favorite meals. There was also salad and fruit salad. One of the new staff members brought in a beautiful cake his wife had made.

I needn't have worried about how long the event would take. Right at 1:30 the current employees hour-long lunch break ended and they all left to go back to work. Shortly after that I said one last goodbye to the people who were left and headed out myself.

Five years ago: I Told You So

Here Comes Summer

The 2026 summer solstice in St. Louis officially arrived this morning at 3:34 AM. The sun rose at 5:31 am and won't set until 8:29 pm, which means there will be almost 15 hours of daylight.

Of course, if you're not a fan of extended daylight, after the longest day of the year it will start getting incrementally shorter every day. The poem "Here Comes" by Shel Silverstein speaks to me abut how fast time seems to fly by.

Five years ago: Humidity Hair

Why Did The Geese Cross The Road?

The other night Hubby Tony and I were headed east on Manchester (a major, five-lane arterial road) when I noticed that the traffic going the other way was completely stopped. We soon saw the reason; a large parade of Canadian geese was meandering across the road.

The group kept coming and coming. They were in no hurry.

Once on the other side, some of the geese stopped to see if there was anything interesting in the grass. Others hung out on the concrete. Tony was very patient with the procession, but when a couple of them showed an interest in perhaps stepping back onto the road to head to the other side again he slowly and cautiously started moving. That deterred them long enough for us to get past.

Five years ago: Cool!

Chocolate Is Always A Good Idea

Last night Hubby Tony and I went to a Chocolate Making class at Kakao Chocolate, a local shop where everything is produced from scratch and made in small batches.

When the class started Brian Pelletier, the owner and chocolatier, started the evening with an explanation about tempering chocolate (which the process of melting, cooling, and reheating to stabilize the cocoa butter fats) and why it's so important (it stabilizes the cocoa butter fats and gives the finished result a glossy finish). Next we watched the tempering procedure in action.

There was already a batch of melted dark chocolate in a tempering machine on the counter. The machine's agitator automatically stirred the contents. When the machine beeped that the contents had come up to temperature a chunk of chocolate called a 'seed' was added, which cooled the contents down. The machine beeped again when it was time to take the leftover seed out, and the machine continued to agitate throughout the rest of the evening.

There were three activity stations. Each couple made, and took home:

• Chocolate bark. Each person got a layer of tempered chocolate on a small paper plate, then sprinkled it with a variety of toppings.

• Four pre-made caramels dipped in tempered chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt. To dip, a caramel was placed on a dipping fork, immersed into the agitating chocolate until covered, then removed. The excess chocolate was wiped off by scraping the bottom across a spatula, then the candy was placed on a parchment sheet. The dipping system was designed for a right-handed person, agitating clockwise. I am left handed, so the process was cumbersome for me, but my results still tasted pretty good.

• A small recipe of Ganache (enough to fill a 20-ounce plastic cup), which is a mixture of chocolate, heavy cream, and butter. Each couple got to choose two add-ins from a variety of liquids and solids. Tony and I chose Calamansi Balsam (a citrus with notes of lemon, lime and orange) and ground ginger. At the end of the night everyone sampled each of the mixtures.

During the course of the night I had enough samples to feel satisfied. Tonight, after a healthy dinner Tony and I heated up some of the ganache and ate it with a selection of fruit.

Five years ago: Peaches, No Cream