…did this part this summer, when most of you know I was not at my best. I knew I wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. And I wouldn’t turn it in until I had a chance to get my head right about it. Now the book will be what I wanted it to be.
So I’m happy. But this part of the work is going a shade more slowly, because I’m writing new material.
We got the two hemlocks planted on the side of the house. And we’ve discovered a method for untangling the yucca, about 10 plants that are deeply buried in grass. Dig ’em out, sod and all, put same in bucket of water, then de-grass them and replant. Jane’s idea. Getting grass out of yucca otherwise is not easy. These poor plants will not know what to do with water and good soil. They also have many root sections, so we are going to have more yucca before all is said and done.
Now we are exhausted again. Jane did most of the work: I’m having some sore joints-issues trying to swing the mattock, which is my weapon of choice. I made a store run, looking for raspberry salad dressing, but I’m fearing they’ve discontinued Jane’s favorite, Raspberry Salad Spritzer. If any of you know what chain is selling that flavor, let me know. I got several substitutes, including a huckleberry one, hoping to provide something she’ll like. My own taste runs to blue cheese or feta cheese Greek, and Jane considers those somewhat akin to atevi sauces. As you can see, her taste in salad dressing runs to the sweet side of the Force.
The Safeways over on this side of the mountains carried it the last time I checked, or at least I remember seeing Raspberry salad spritzers. Huckleberry sounds like it could be good too.
I loooove blue cheese dressing, my favorite of which is any blue cheese dressing by Litehouse. I’m disappointed that I can’t find their bacon blue cheese dressing anymore, but they’ve got a Gorgonzola dressing that I need to try.
Thanks! I’ll give Safeway a try. Saw a Litehouse Spinach Salad dressing, but I already had 2 raspberries and a huckleberry and thought that would be overkill. 😉
Our Foodland, a.k.a. Aldi’s, a.k.a. Sack N Save, carried them last I looked.
When it comes to salad dressing — I’m with Jane.
Hum… I spy something new on the web site. I wonder if I’ve seen anything like it before…
Announcements from other friendly sites…..my salad dressing of choice is fresh lemon juice. No oil, no vinegar, just the lemon juice. I get all of the tartness of the acid, with none of the slippery feeling of the oil. I don’t do creamy salad dressings because 1) they have mayonnaise in them, or some other ingredient I don’t touch, 2) too many calories, and 3) I believe they mask the flavor of the salad ingredients, rather than enhance them.
Lemon’s too strong for me, but I’ll use vinegar and oil. 😉
Apparently the choice of salad and dressing has a lot to do with how sensitive you are to the bitter compounds in foods. The more you can taste bitter compounds, the more you want to use salty/sour/sweet dressings, to help combat the bitterness.
And Jane might like the Basalmic Breeze Spritzer. It’s lightly sweet.
Jane tastes bitter incredibly strongly. Myself, I find straight granulated sugar can taste a little like a mouthful of flour, and to me my favorite cake (pineapple upside down cake) is not that sweet, though amply saturated with brown sugar. Jane gags on coffee, because of the bitterness. I can drink pure vinegar without reacting overmuch, well, except some of its physiological effects. As a pure brat child, I had a technique for stealing things to eat—you try to make it look natural. On one occasion we were on a picnic. Now, I love olives. I was just the shy side of six, but crafty—though inexperienced in olive packing. So mum and dad are fishing, and I’m back at the campsite, moderately within sight, but not so they can see what I’m up to. I get into the picnic supplies, locate the olives: new jar. I manage to get the lid off. (I was a strong little brat.) And I have some olives. But I didn’t figure on the precise packing: the olives started to float and disorganize.
Ooops. I decided to disguise the fact. I decided not to pour off the olive juice (vinegar) because the puddle would be too obvious. So I drank the excess.
Re-ooops. I overdrank. Now there are dry olives sitting there. I decided to eat more olives down to the liquid line.
Ooops a third time. I ate too many olives, found it out when I tipped the bottle back level. So I decided to drink a bit more.
The next round of this, it dawned on me that bottle was half empty and I didn’t know if I could persuade mum she’d brought an old bottle. But she could’ve forgotten to pack it. So I ate the rest of the olives, and hid the empty bottle in the bushes.
Come the hour of the picnic, mum is saying, “I could’ve sworn I packed some olives.”
And I’m just standing there looking sweet and innocent.
I really, really deserved to get dusted more often than I did. I was such a brat. I didn’t do mean things or destructive things. But I stole treats. Bakers chocolate. Olives. The peaks of meringue off just-baked pies. And cookies. And leftover bacon and sausage. If there was any left out, it was gone. It was a sore trial to my mum, because she had the same habit of nipping off bits of bacon left over from breakfast. I was way out of control in the food-theft department, but never stole anything else, nor was ever tempted to. I was always hungry.
I love both the Raspberry Salad Spritzer and the Balsamic Breeze. Wishbone is the brand around here and I get it at Reasors. However, Reasors is a regional chain based in Tahlequah so that’s not much good to you guys up in Spokane.
We have gotten our fave local grocery to special-order it for Jane. She will be so glad!
Well, apparently this is now moot, but if you can’t get it in the future, Brianna’s makes a Blush Wine Vinaigrette that’s quite sweet. (It says “good on strawberries” but I haven’t tried it that way. — It was the raspberries that made me think of it.)
The best dressing for strawberries is to dip them into champagne…strawberries should be just warm from the sun and champagne ice-cold….roll on summer