An Ode to Crab Rangoon

I will begin this post on edibles by bemoaning the slow extinction of the crab rangoons that I've enjoyed for decades:

Look at them!  They were things of beauty.

     Every foray to a Chinese restaurant in my 20's, 30's, and 40's included an order of crab rangoon in the "traditional" four-cornered pocket form.  Always crispy and yummy, some fillings were better than others but overall, they never failed to please.

     I understood that these treats could be a regional expression when on a trip to Dallas in the 90's I couldn't find a Chinese restaurant that had ever heard of them.

     I moved to Florida in 2004 and for a time, the crab rangoon I knew prevailed until a few years ago when things began to change.

The first time I ordered crab rangoon and received an order of these, I was perplexed:

This flat soggy triangle is becoming the new norm.

Not only have I yet to bite into a crispy one, the filling tastes like cream cheese and sugar.

Did I miss something?!

It took a couple of reminders to get Mike to stop thoughtfully ordering them for me.  

Does anyone know where I can get the old standard in central Florida?

Closer to home (in my yard), edibles are thriving...

sometimes without me even knowing it.

One of my Trinidad friends dropped by and was excited to see a particular typed of weed covering the fence on one side of my yard.  I was on the verge of ripping it out by the roots (it always goes haywire at the end of the summer) but she informed me that it is a type of bitter melon and proceeded to pick every green seed pod she could find (once the pod turns bright orange, it is no longer edible).

I've always shied away from cooking with bitter melon, almost entirely because the name sounds unappetizing.  My neighbor instructed me in its preparation so I gave it a try.  The pods are small and by the time I cut the seeds out of each one, there wasn't much left to cook but I fried it up with oil and tasted it.  Intense flavor and not something I enjoyed however I could see it being used as a solid base note when cooked with other ingredients.  

The truly delicious part of this experiment is that, in exchange, she returned with a bag of fresh Trinidad-style fritters made with spinach, garlic and hot pepper.

Yum!!!

And finally...a PINEAPPLE!

It was years in the making but it tasted so good and I got 2 pups off of it (see the mini-pup at the base?) so in another 5 years, this fruit will be fruitful and beget 2 more pineapples.  I think production will be speeding up, though, since I've started planting them in the front yard:  they look much happier.

I've added my first varietal pineapple: the red pineapple.  

I got the start from a friend and the long welding gloves and saw were absolutely necessary in its procurement.  The leaves of this bromeliad are very long and heavily spined.  

While I was in their yard I picked up poop.

Tortoise poop, to be exact.

These nuggets of leftover tortoise edibles will make all my edibles grow faster and stronger and unlike the poop of many other animals, tortoise poop doesn't need to be composted; apply directly to plant, apply directly to plant, APPLY DIRECTLY TO PLANT.

Chicken poop is too strong to use directly from the bird so I'm still devising the perfect collection/compost system.

Btw, I named this young girl Lucy in honor of the recent film.  She's a forceful little bird.

I've caught other birds in my yard, namely mockingbirds and cardinals, eating the seeds of the southern magnolia by my deck.  

Who knew?

It was birds that planted my giant papaya tree.

I will have a bounty of fruit through the fall and winter!

Try as I might, I couldn't seem to grow another papaya from seed.

Finally, a merciful friend hooked me up:

She gifted me with a healthy, homegrown papaya plant and a pepper plant to boot.  

This papaya will go in the front yard.

I went farther afield to take advantage of the scallop season in Homosassa, Florida.

This yielded several delicious meals of scallops

and the silver lining to a golden day...

My new favorite SPF shirt!

It's from the Breathe Like a Fish company and it's super cool and comfortable AND protective.

The summer is winding down but for us Florida dwellers that just means the outdoor activities and lifestyle are ramping up.

Serenity NOW: Searching for the perfect printer

The title of today's post was inspired by this vehicle

tucked into a little parking space at the mall:

I don't know anything about this person's business but if you take a look at his logo (I'm assuming this truck is owned by a male and I'm fairly certain I'm right),

 he's channeling A LOT of different influences:

Man of Steel,

Firefly,

Seinfeld,

and Grave Digger

Find your serenity where you can.

(I'm picturing this whole mess on a t-shirt.  I call copyright!)

     I recently had to upgrade to a new phone and the technology learning curve is anything but serene  for me.  One of my main goals was to ensure that I could print directly from my phone, cutting out the annoying laptop middleman when copying recipes and knitting patterns.  

Should've been easy.

Since chickens always look mean and annoyed, I'm illustrating 

my experience with pictures of their angry little faces...

Printer #1: Cannon

   To be fair, the Cannon box only stated, "Print from your smartphone or tablet," but truth in advertising might require them to preface that blurb with, "If you think you're some kind of a tech genius..."  

      I wasted 2 hours struggling and cursing before I crammed it all back into the box and returned it to WalMart.  "No, there's nothing wrong with it," I told the clerk.  Thankfully, no other questions were asked and feeling a little embarrassed, I picked out a second printer.

Printer #2: Epson Envy

     The Epson box clearly stated, "Print EASILY from your smartphone or tablet."  I was already peeved as I opened the second printer because, dammit, I shouldn't have to be a computer programmer to get this thing to easily print from my SMARTphone and I sure as hell shouldn't feel embarrassed when a slickly designed product with a name like "Envy" doesn't come through on its promises.

So there!

     I only spent an hour trying to get this printer to work before I crammed it back into the box and returned it from whence it came.

Printer #3: Brother

     As you can see, the chicken as well as my anger is diminishing; resignation creeping in.

     On the advice of a client, I stepped my game up and went to Best Buy to purchase a Brother printer.  I stood alone in the aisle, facing down the display model, desperately wanting to ask a few questions about the statement on the box that read, "Print easily from your smartphone or tablet," but Best Buy sales people were as rare as, pardon me this, hen's teeth.

Fine!  What do I care?  

     I've got a whole new way of dealing with this problem so, armed with a receipt and a 14-day return policy, I headed home with my third printer.  The MFC-J475DW looks serious, almost military, and a bit old school: separate cartridges for each ink color AND a telephone line cord in case I start faxing my blog posts to Google. 

But it worked.

IT WORKED!

It easily printed from my smartphone and I didn't have to be smart to make that happen.

Serenity...at last!

A Craft Hell of My Own Making

The little one said he wanted some craft projects.

I made sure to cover my bases.

     Mike's 3 sons stayed with us for the last 2 weeks of their summer and while the teenagers are eerily content to stare at their laptops all day and night, the youngest boy wanted to make some art.  He's always churning out Minecraft implements composed of melted fuse beads but I threw a couple of new ideas into the mix.

     Hard to believe, but mixing Elmer's glue and liquid starch will create a serviceable home-made gak (softer than Silly Putty, firmer than good old-fashioned slime).  By sticking a straw into the gak and blowing, we created this creepy purple bladder.  Success!  The gak sat in a bowl on my counter for days, revisited and played with often by the child so it's definitely a cost-effective project.

     I admit, I scoffed at the idea of melting cheap plastic beads in the oven to make suncatchers but the finished product was surprisingly pretty.  Wear an aerator, though, because the fumes have a deadly reek.

     I was afraid I would regret the tie dye mess but it wasn't too bad.  The resulting t-shirts, tank tops, and bandanas made me want to embrace my inner hippie and he couldn't wait to hand them out as gifts.

     Reading the instructions for something we were putting together, I made note of the fact that the manufacturer felt it necessary to indicate that the screwdriver was not drawn to scale.  Wish I'd read that BEFORE I spent an hour scouring the box for a tiny 1" Phillips screwdriver.

     A project I did NOT show him was this Post-it note prank carried out on the car of a friend for his 50th birthday.  Something like 4000 Post-it notes were used.  Big clean-up but you could probably just remove the paper from the windows and mirrors and drive down the interstate at 80mph to take care of the rest.

I also worked on some of my crafts, turning this:

Into this:

A necklace a million years in the making.

Awww!

I've also been working on hand-knotted necklaces using silk or cotton bead cord.  

Every so often he looks at my fossils and beads but I do whatever I can to divert his attention.

He knows I would be very displeased if he started digging around in my beads.

Not to worry, he has plenty left to do next time he has a break from school.  There's still jars of glitter, paint pots, poster board, a face painting kit, etc, etc...

Safety in redundancy

     Growing up with parents 

who shared rural, Depression Era backgrounds 

meant my childhood was one box of magazines away from being on an episode of "Hoarders."

     There may be safety in redundancy but sometimes you gotta break down and get rid of some crap.

I've been in the mood this summer to thin out my belongings.  I took a load of books to trade in at the used book store.  Now that I've finally discovered reading for free on my phone's browser, I may never use up my book store credit.

     I bought this shoe box full of thread at a garage sale in Missouri over 15 years ago.  I debated thinning it out as surely the thread on the wooden spools would be weak and rotted with age but upon closer inspection, the thread is still in good shape, sleek and shiny and much better quality than the lower price thread available today.  I also enjoy knowing that no matter what little project I need to work on, I have the exact right color.

     I have a small stack of large "laundry" bags including a few from IKEA and this one that I purchased on a short trip to Venezuela in 1990.  I don't mind loading up the IKEA bags and handing them over to Goodwill but I'm not parting with my "puerto libre" tote.  I still stuff this thing with sleeping bags when I go camping and it hasn't shredded yet.

     I've been in a long process of deleting grass from my yard and the front yard is now fully landscaped with hardy plants that don't require irrigation.   This enabled my to give my lawn mower away but I still need some grass in the backyard for dogs and chickens and that grass grows to waist height if I don't manage it somehow, so I finally decided to ditch the gas-powered weed eater and go electric.  

Shoulda done it years ago!

     Electric weed eaters are cheap to buy and so easy to use.  Yes, I have to deal with a very long extension cord but that's nothing compared to the Herculean effort that was required to get my old weed eater started and keep it going.  So much less cussing with the electric version.

  

     There's a constant ebb and flow, no matter how hard I try to manage my stuff.

Like I'm going to say, "no," when offered these beautiful little pots!

     I even have to consider offers of free plants as my yard is small and rapidly filling up, but with everyone showing off their night-blooming cereus flowers on FaceBook lately, I gratefully accepted some starts from a friend.  I have the perfect swamp magnolia in the corner of my yard for this cactus to climb on.

A quick word of caution...

     This is NOT the best way to get your cast-offs to the thrift store.

     I had my 10 year old stepson in the truck with me when we witnessed this maiming in the making.  There were so many things wrong with this set-up, the safety talk continued the whole way home.  Hopefully next time the driver needs to move mattresses, he'll invest in a couple of tie-downs and move the human cargo to the front passenger seat.