Suzanne Calling

Oops. I was so hungry, I was halfway through my dinner before I even thought to take a picture of it, so I'll raid the web for a reasonable substitute. This is one of my all time favorite sandwiches. If we had to live our lives eating food from only one cuisine, my choice would probably be Greek, and of that give me Gyro first. I even eat fish when seasoned their way. How about you? If you had to choose one cuisine, which would it be?

Hire a maid, that is. Two weeks of back spasms and the other daily issues that aren't going away made me decide last week to hire someone to do the scrubbing that would either a. drive me to painkillers (that I've actually should have been using for the #@!$#%#$% spasms) or b. require a visit to the doctor after pushing too far and doing too much. See, I'm learning! Calculate the cost of the doctor's visit, the physical therapy that he'd send me to and the possible prescription for more when I used up the bottle that's always there 'just in case', and a maid is a bargain. She does good work, too: You'd never know a flour-happy cook used that kitchen and a powder happy man used that bathroom! And with that, the only thing left to finish in that house is the last few things in the garage. Voy a beber cervezas manana para celebrar. I'll still come out ahead from what the doctor and assorted items would run!

A friend mentioned on FB yesterday how this time of year made her pull out the Jesus Christ Superstar Sundtrack and listen to it over and over. Another friend added that for her, the show of choice is Godspell. This sent me off on the search of YouTube for one particular song. In college, attending all ten nights of the theatre department's production of Jesus Christ Superstar actually was the catalyst for my return to theatre as a course of study. I'd been a communications major at that point. I have the soundtrack and know it intimately, some of the songs are so tied to the actors in that production. For instance, it'd be hard to beat Josh Mostel's " King Herod's Song ", but the actor who did it in that production was phenomenal. Another musical of religious theme from that era has music that always caught my attention, but until last year, I didn't own it, the movie was purchased at rock bottom price during Circuit City's demise. As a huge ...

Rather, YouTube is. Despite writing a blog post and clicking 'share' over there, the item still hasn't posted 45 minutes later. Nor have the other three attempts to get a video over here. It's happened before. What will happen is that there will be four posts at 3am. I don't feel like retyping it all, since I should get back to the moving of stuff...

Growing up, i always looled forward to visiting with my Nana and Papa. We didn't get to see them very often , but when we did, we could count on having a piece of Nana's delicious coffee cake. When Nana passed away, my Mom discovered that the recipe Nana had been pleasung us with for years was actually one that she'd won a state home ec prize for creating. The difference was that Mom's recipe featured cocoa, while Nana took it out and doubled the cinnamon sugar and nuts. I was tickled when Mom wrote the recipe down for me, knowing how much i loved that from scratch treat. I found the recipe tucked in a box of kitchen doodads today. I think it is time to share the love with the boys, now that they are old enough to understand...

I like to consider myself a grammarian, one who respects the importance of using proper language rules in speech and writing. Yes, there are many out there who can point out my numerous flaws, but I'm always striving to write well. It began with the passion for reading. Later, my Dad encouraged my enjoyment of language arts by purchasing books like "The Joy of Lex", "The Elements of Style" and other books geared towards becoming a better writer. I think he was telling me something 25 years before I became a blogger! Back when I started writing the blog, the typical blogger could have easily worked in as a professional writer if they didn't already work in the field. Perhaps that was part of what intimidated me from starting up-I am not on their level. Still, there are daily reminders that most people haven't read "Eats Shoots and Leaves" or had excellent English teachers and professors. There are people just don't care that they'v...

One of the shows I occasionally watch on Food Network is Chopped. Honestly, though, I see the commercials for it more than I actually view the show. The premise is this: Four chefs, four ingredients, create a dish while the clock counts down. The worst of the four dishes gets 'chopped'. Then the next round is three chefs, four ingredients and then a final round, with the lone chef who has not been 'chopped' getting a $10,000 paycheck. The four ingredients can be far reaching and might not work well together. The panel of judges rates the chefs on appearance and taste and how they incorporate the four ingredients into their dish. For instance, on one episode, a chef made a phenomenal beef with berry and parsnip dish, but used the pretzels as a garnish. Tonight, we saw another commercial and Ted Allen's voiceover states "Chefs, your ingredients" and my mind immediately came up with four things that might be difficult to make into a cohesive meal: anch...