Lorena makes me a big salad (in the spirit of the Big Salad from Seinfeld) every night we eat at home. Lorena makes an olive oil and vinegar dressing for it that is fabulous. I LOVE my big salads. Two days ago, we ran out of the olive oil Lorena buys from Costco, but she found a gift package of several different oils and vinegars Kelly had purchased as a gift for someone, but forgot about so we stole it, tried it, and it changed my entire perspective on big salads! The first one we tried was absolutely fabulous so we are going through them to figure out what we like best. We LOVE them. Hope Kelly does not remember.
Grandma Conchita, Lorena, and Tío Lauro visited a restaurant owned by Conchita’s first cousin in Allende, Nuevo Leon, not to far from Lauro’s atelier. The whole family has been there before. I showed the picture to Christian and he remembered the food really well. We are going to visit there a gain on our next trip.
Lorena returned from her visit with Christian in Boston today and life is profoundly better now that she is here. It is just not as nice when she is not where she loves to be in her house. I had fallen off the wagon on my diet and exercise program, but she has me up and going again–Salmon, salad, and asparagus for dinner tonight–high protein, low calorie, filling, and extremely tasty. I am in the middle of a bunch of heavy stuff at work so having her here is a huge help. She has to go to the doctor tomorrow, but that does not get in the way of managing her house and managing me for which both the house and I are very grateful. I think I might be working all weekend this weekend because of pressing requirements at my day job. It is not a problem at all when Lorena is here to keep things under control.
Lorena and I cooked a turkey on New Year’s Day because we had one in the freezer that we bought over a year ago. We were a little worried about how it would turn out, but boy howdy, it turned out great. It was about a 15 pound turkey, smaller by a lot than the one we cooked for Thanksgiving. We are amazed at how much better the smaller turkey cooked. We have been eating on it now for a couple days and we still have not gotten it out of our heads that this might be the best we have ever done. The added benefit is the tryptophan for the excellent post-turkey nap.
We returned home yesterday from all our graduation and holiday travels after getting up at 3 AM to catch a plane from Washington (DCA) to Texas (DFW). We had Christmas dinner at Jack-in-the-Box because that was the only place we could find open on the way home. Then we sat around and did literally nothing–well, not entirely true because Lorena is incapable of leaving stuff unpacked, but for the most part all we did was sit around and recover with some comfort food thrown in (VERY cheesy mac and cheese). While I was writing this blog post, Lorena sent me an image of what we ate for Christmas dinner. It truly was spectacular. Kelly did the bulk of the cooking over Christmas and Lorena did the bulk of the shopping and organizing. It was all just amazing. We had a prime rib, bone-in roast with new potatoes, mushrooms and a superlative, Kelly-invented gravy. This morning, Lorena and I ran the last two diplomas down to Michael’s for framing after an Egg McMuffin breakfast with hash browns and a pie at McDonald’s. Of course not much of the above is on my approved diet plan, but I promised myself I would not wreck everyone else’s time during the holidays due to strict adherence to my diet. Now, I am kind of afraid to get back on the scale and get going again. Lorena bought two “L” steaks (t-bone, I think) at the Mexican grocery store in Godley, so that is my drop-dead last diet deviation with a minor exception for New Year’s Eve.
Well, I did not do as well as I wanted over the Thanksgiving holiday in terms of weight gain, but I suppose I could have done a lot worse. I was up around five pounds. I absolutely think it was worth it. The time with family was just amazing, but the food, drink, and camaraderie facilitated by cooking, eating, and cleaning up together were priceless. I am planning to do the same thing for Christmas, but maybe on a smaller scale. We are going to be with the kids for Christmas, but the kids are going to go off and do their own thing for New Year. Lorena and I have a ton of big travel coming up this winter so we decide to just stay home and cook a small turkey–principally so Lorena can make turkey enchiladas with the left overs.
I got up early this morning to get everything done in a somewhat relaxed manner before I got our 25 lb. turkey into the oven. I really enjoy the whole process a lot. I am even getting pretty good at carving the turkey. I get to do one more this year at Christmas time, but next year, I would like to start roasting some chickens. The problem is that it is almost as cheap to buy them already roasted at the grocery store as to do the roasting at home. Still, it would be fun to do some experimenting.
I got up at about six this morning to read my Bible, drink some coffee and enjoy the morning before all the bustle and noise associated with a Thanksgiving celebration for a dozen people gets started. I get to cook the turkey again this year, but it is a lot bigger one than I have ever cooked before–25 lbs. I think we (and when I say we, I mean I) probably made a mistake by getting one so big. We really did not need one that big and my gut feel is one that big might not be as tender as the 14-15 lb. turkey we usually get. Still, it is going to be fun. In addition to our own kids, Grandma Conchita, and our great Atlanta friends, Lorena’s brother, Rigo and his wife and three kids will be up for the evening, too. We have WAY too much food and there is really no way for most of them to take any of it along with them when they leave because they are either flying home or driving a long way to some place other than home. All that good food definitely is going to be a temptation. I have already put my weight-loss program on hiatus until everyone leaves.
There is a new restaurant in San Pedro Lorena claims is the best one yet. It is just down the hill from our places and the believe it is better than our previous which is, honestly, very hard to imagine. The name of the place is Tacos Atarantados. That, I am sure, will be my first stop the next time I am in town. The last think I need right now for my current nutrition plan is another place that makes tacos I cannot resist.
Last night, Lorena made me beef stir fry, but replaced the rice (or sometimes noodles) with sauteed cabbage and onions. It was nothing short of spectacular. We are planning to try something similar tonight, but this time with chicken. It makes great sense for my current nutrition goals, too, with not so many carbohydrates and a good bit of protein.
One of my favorite parts of Lorena’s trip to Cambridge to visit Christian was that they went down to a pumpkin patch and the liked it so much they went back again. Christian got a pumpkin and carved it up for Halloween. It came out great. We used to do this every year and we really ought to take it up again. The art of pumpkin carving is way underrated. But that was not all. When Lorena showed me the pictures I remembered how cool he has his apartment set up. It is pretty small, but also pretty amazing in terms of both style and utility. The best part was the end product.
Lorena and Christian are having too much fun in Boston. There is no way I want to miss the next trip.The first thing they did is went further north into New England to pick apples, eat fresh-made donuts, and view the leaves. Supposedly, Lorena went there to give Christian a hand while he prepares for a conference where a paper will be published at the end of October, but it surely looks like they are having too much fun for that. The last thing they sent me was this steak and potatoes picture that certainly did not help my diet very much. Well, the whole crew should be here for Thanksgiving, so at least I have that to look forward to.
We got the good news today that Christian and Kelly are coming home for an entire week for Thanksgiving! Grandma Conchita is planning to be here the whole time, too. In addition to that, several surprise visitors are making plans to try to fly in for just the long weekend part. God willing, it will all work out. Last year, Lorena’s brother Rigo and his family were with us. With Thanksgiving, the more the merrier is always better. This could be one for the record books if the surprise visitors are able to work it out to be here. And the good part is virtually everyone loves to cook. Hope I still get to cook and carve the turkey this year!
Not sure why, but last night I had a dream about Grandpa Milo. I have so many great memories of him, but it seems like everyone of them was when he was operating in one of two modes: 1) Working and organizing and 2) sitting in his BarcaLounger recliner reading his Bible, a novel, or a magazine. There was no other. Even when he came to visit us he worked on the lawn, organized and cooked dinners and parties, or worked on whatever creative project that would make our house better. Lorena loved to work with him. They would plan, shop, and then work together on whatever caught their fancy. It is amazing that Lorena is so much like him in character.
We received a package in our mailbox yesterday with this spectacular gift–a pie server. Our friend Harvey turned the handle on his lathe, put a nice finish on it, and put it in the mail. We LOVE it! Really, really nicely done. Lorena wanted to hang it on the wall as a piece of art. I wanted to use it with as much apple pie as possible. We are probably going to compromise and do both. It was an especially nice gift because it just came out of the blue with zero
A box with three bags of XXTRA Flamin’ Hot Crunchy Cheetos arrived from Christian today. We got some regular Flamin’ Hot Crunchy Cheetos when he was here over he holiday and we loved them. He told us the XXTRA ones were too hot to eat. We wanted to try them, but there were none on any of the shelves, so unbeknownst to us, Christian ordered us some. They were a lot hotter, but we really liked them anyway. Sadly, they are not exactly on our diet, so we need to make them last as long as we can. Lorena is rationing them out in a very miserly fashion.
I really do have the best wife. It is a joy to be sheltering in place with her. Maybe it is the isolation together that I has me reflecting on the gifts that derive from waiting on God. It is something at which I have never been particularly good, but for which I have always been grateful when things happen according to God’s timing. I have to admit that most of the time my waiting has been a function of having no other options, but I believe that is in God’s hands, too. It is nice, at this point in my life, to be reminded of what is good in my life. Lorena made shrimp fried rice today. That is what triggered my thinking about the great gifts I have received. And believe it or not, a wife who makes me shrimp fried rice because she knows I love it is not a small gift.
Everyone really needs a good Easter hat. Lorena found the one Tio Lauro gave to me as a gift and I think it works for the professorial look at which I am aiming. That is a hard look to accomplish for a farm/logger/mill-worker kid so I take anything I can get. We had a party of four for Easter dinner which was, of course, ham, deviled eggs and scalloped potatoes. Very nice. It would have been great to have the kids here with us, but it was not possible so we want to do something extra good next year.
Juquitita, our favorite restaurant in the area formerly had only one restaurant in Chehalis, but has added a second branch in downtown Centralia. When we came here, we were told by some that La Tarasca was authentic and good. In our opinion, La Tarasca is a mere shadow of the goodness and authenticity of Juquilita. Who ever had the idea that chips and salsa are not a real thing at restaurants in Mexico? We spent the last two weeks in Monterrey eating our free chips and salsa appetizers in a wide variety of restaurants in Nuevo Leon. When you get tacos at Juaquilita, make sure to get tortillas a mano (by hand) rather than de paquete. You will thank me later.
Lynn took Conchita, Lorena, and I to breakfast yesterday morning at a “working man’s” restaurant. We all had huevos divorciados. They are like huevos rancheros, but one egg has red salsa and the other egg has green salsa. We are taking our last evening here slowly and fairly quietly–as much as is possible for this family–really not that quiet. Tomorrow morning we have to get up at 4 AM in time to get to the airport in time to fly back to Washington so I can go to work on Thursday morning.
Our time here has been very good for me. I have had time to reflect without a ton of work. I have some hard decisions on what to do next. With only a little over two years until retirement I have a lot of options with not a whole lot of knowledge about where we should be nor what we should be doing. Some new options have opened up to us since we got here and I will be exploring them over the next few weeks.
