Category — Linda

I am writing this from a hospital bed on Sunday evening. What happened, you ask?

Yeah, um, I kinda fell, about 20 feet off an extension ladder while putting up Christmas lights… no big deal.

OK, it is a bit of a big deal. I fractured my pelvic bone in two places. Do you wanna hear the whole sordid story? Sure you do! We all know how much people love to tell their accident stories to anyone within earshot. Of course, I do too, so here goes.

Let me begin by acknowledging that we all have our fears and phobias. I, for instance, am deathly afraid of fire. Strange for someone who uses fire in the form of a gas range every day, but I’m not afraid of that sort of controlled fire.

I’m afraid of fire in fireplaces, or campfires, the sort of fires that can easily and quickly get out of control and rapidly spread. In fact, thirteen years ago when we moved into the home we now live in, I insisted, against a lot of opposition from Dave and the kids, that we switch from a real Christmas tree to an artificial tree because the house is a 2-story and I couldn’t even think of the kids sleeping upstairs with a real (and eventually dry, crispy, fire-hazard) tree downstairs.

That said, let me quickly assure you that I am not in the hospital due to a fire. I mention the whole fear and phobia thing to let you know that my husband, Dave, is afraid of heights.

Because of that, every Christmas when we put up the lights on our house, he puts up all the lights except for the ones on the two high gables. I climb the extension ladder and put those portions up. He deals with extending the huge ladder and securing it and I climb it and put up those lights. He also holds the ladder while I climb up and while I’m up there… holding it the entire time until I descend. Above is a 2008 photo of the side gable, which I did first this year and, as usual for the last 12 years, all went well and without incident.

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Four years ago today Barb, Kim, and I were at Rancho la Puerta in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico celebrating the Day of the Dead.

Well, we were actually there because Barb was teaching cooking classes and Kim and I went along to Deborah Szekely’s luxury spa to “assist” Barb with the classes. In all honesty, it was more work for Barb and mostly a getaway week-long retreat for Kim and me that happened to coincide with Day of the Dead.

Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. Gatherings of family and friends come together to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.

It is specifically celebrated in Mexico, where it is a national holiday. The celebration takes place on November 1, in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

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I’m having a bit of a birthday hangover today… not from too much alcohol… rather from just Too Much!

Dave went way overboard when it came to gifts this year. The flower arrangement arrived on Friday. Aren’t they beautiful?

On Saturday morning, he and Connor left the house to “run some errands” which I knew meant they were off to wrap presents at Dave’s office.

I was busy making the soup, that I promise to post tomorrow when they arrived home and made about a half dozen trips from the car to the breakfast table with stack upon stacks of wrapped boxes. It looked like Christmas, just without the tree! There were 22 gifts! What? That is crazy!

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2009

I had planned on putting up the soup recipe using THIS chicken stock today, but to be completely honest, I’m still working on it.  So instead, I shall do what I have done the last three October 27ths of this blog…

2010

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At the July Sweet Salvage Occasional Sale, I bought one of those things you see on the roof of that building above.  Now you may be asking yourself, “Why on earth would she buy a wind turbine?”

Or maybe you’re not asking yourself that. Not if you recall this photo I posted from when Dave, Marissa, and I went to the Alameda Point Antiques Faire in July 2011.  Yes, it took me a year to find one and then another couple of months to make it into my new Wind Turbine Hanging Light!

Before I show you mine, check out these three hanging as pendants in this business.

Via
(check out the link for more cool lights made from a birdcage, baskets, Mason jars, mixing bowls, and more!)

And now for the reveal…

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What a lovely sentiment about having a lovely day. Seems like a nice way to begin today’s post.

On to the matters at hand…

Aside from when we’ve been out of town and I haven’t had a kitchen to cook in, I am in the middle of the longest span of time that I have not cooked a meal.

Four of the last 8 days we were dining out and the other 4 days, we were eating leftovers. Quite honestly, I have not felt like cooking. Yes, it happens to me too.

One of those “nights out” was Sunday night when Connor, my dad, Dave, and I went to Noca for the sold-out “Fried Chicken Throw Down” between Noca and FnB.

Boy, did we enjoy some amazing fried chicken! At the time we did not know which chicken was cooked by which chef.

It has since been revealed that the crunchy fried chicken on the far side of the plate with the “hot sides” of tomato gravy served with mashed potatoes, haricots vert, and a honey-butter biscuit, belonged to Noca.

On the near side is FnB’s crispy buttermilk-brined fried chicken with the “cold sides” of pickled corn on the cob niblet, kale slaw, and a baking powder biscuit ladled with creamy giblet gravy.

Both were exceptional, and next to the fried chicken itself, the best thing on the plate was that honey-butter biscuit!

Here is how Dave, my dad, and I voted.

The three of us preferred the chicken with cold sides (FnB).

Connor, on the other hand, voted for the chicken with hot sides (Noca). The winner was posted on Facebook on Monday and later that day, the event was written about on the Chow Bella blog. Read all about it HERE.

Believe it or not, Noca won by 1 (ONE!) vote.

Curse you, Connor, you made the difference in the end result. Solid proof that every vote counts!!  This seems like the perfect opportunity to remind you to vote, two weeks from today, on Tuesday, November 6th!!!

OK, let me get back on topic … the drought…

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Our trip to California last weekend wasn’t all that we expected it to be. Several of the vendors we hoped to see were not there, including “the boys” Dustin and Christian who own Uber Chic Home, and Martin and Trinidad of Atelier de Campagne. Turns out they were at the Three Speckled Hens Antiques Show in Paso Robles. In addition to that, it was HOT! You know how I hate to travel away from hot Arizona to where it should be cooler and end up still being HOT somewhere else!

Although the Rose Bowl Flea Market was a bit of a disappointment this time around, Sheila and I still came home with plenty of happy finds. Some were found at the Rose Bowl, others at various shops along Main Street in Ocean Beach. Where, by the way, you can also find this sketchy Hippy Hostel, just in case you are looking for lodging,

On to the Happy Finds… (plus a fun bonus at the end of the post)

Four seriously awesome antique English crocks. These things are all the rage and often very expensive. Mine was a steal. The vendor told me that he has a guy who digs them up out of the River Thames. Seriously, it’s common practice. Read THIS little blog post to learn more.

I purposely picked out the most aged and crackly ones he had.

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Today the plan was to post all about the fun things I found at the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday. Instead, I’m going to show you the super awesome things I bought at Sweet Salvage yesterday.  Yes, that’s right, I found more wonderful treasures right here in Phoenix than I found when we traveled 380 miles to California to treasure hunt. It just goes to show that you never know when and where the best stuff will be.

My #1 favorite find in all the time I’ve been shopping vintage?
The best thing ever?

By far, are these 10 sheets of vintage French ephemera!

I have been searching for such a thing for nearly two years, ever since I saw the same thing on Heather Bullard’s outstanding blog.

They are French receipts dating from 1909 to 1934.  I plan on framing several like THIS and creating an arrangement with framed vintage maps of France that I’ve been collecting.

So what are ephemera, you ask?

“Ephemera is any transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards,  bookmarks, catalogs, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, stock certificates, tickets and receipts.”

These are all of the small items I purchased at Sweet Salvage this month. Well, not the plate of cheese and crackers or the glass of red wine.

Following are close-ups of a few of my finds…

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Ten days ago today, was my 3rd Blogiversary and I put up my 1000th post. On that momentous day, I included this picture.

Yesterday, I found this picture of a painting by artist Sarah Ashley Longshore, on Facebook…

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We arrived home on Wednesday night and hit the ground running on Thursday. Dave and I have been singing THAT SONG for the last couple of days now.

I have enough photos and stories from our Alaskan adventures to fill days and days of blog posts – but of course, this IS a cooking/food blog, NOT a travel log – so this will be my last Alaskan entry. A pictorial really, which much to Dave’s dismay, is not necessarily in chronological order – I hope you enjoy it…

The photos above and below were taken in Ketchikan, and they just caught my fancy.

While in port in Ketchikan, Dave and I went on a “Cruise George Inlet and Crab Feast” excursion. I was one of the lucky two chosen to haul up a crab trap.

Here is Dave holding the largest Dungeness crab of the day.

And below is the pile of crab shells our table of four amassed at the feast! There was a competition between tables for the tallest tower.

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