Category Archives: Holidays

Mixed Nuts

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I love nuts. Good thing, considering where I work. Ha!

Nuts were always a Thanksgiving and Christmas treat. Something you put out in a big crystal bowl with a couple pairs of hinged nutcrackers. You would site out on the front porch or in the kitchen and crack the nuts and chit chat. It was a great way to keep your hands busy while your tongues wagged.

Now I buy them already out of their shells and vacuum sealed in a can with the Planter’s Peanut guy winking at you. I like the mixed assortment with less peanuts, but I do like peanuts, so it doesn’t really matter. I don’t think I can pick a favorite, it’s a 3 way tie for first place between cashews, almonds and pistachios.

Happy Birthday America!

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I love the Fourth of July. It’s a great time of year for a holiday and it is all about good things and fun celebrations.

We used to go to parades at the beach every year, swim the rest of the afternoon, picnic on the beach and then watch the fireworks get shot off the pier as soon as it was dark enough. It never did rain on us – the weather was always perfect. And it all was free.

We especially love to watch fireworks. The best shows last for at least 30 minutes and are a combination of displays up high, some loud bangs here and there, and a ground display of spinning and shooting sparks.

Happy Birthday America!

Taste of Chicago

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This year’s Taste is the 28th annual – how about that for a long successful run? It has changed a lot from when it started, but it is a great street festival and we are looking forwarding to going again this summer.

The cost is only $8 for a strip of 12 food and drink tickets. All of the vendors are required to offer a taste for just 1 ticket, and then they can offer anything else they want for as many tickets as they want to charge. Last year the average food item cost 4 tickets and we bought 3 extra strips for just two of us to fully enjoy and sample everything we wanted to try.

We really liked several of the different foods and made note of which restaurants had the best food so we could patronize them later in the year. I even tried fried goat cheese for the first time – but I found it rather strong and don’t think I would order that again. I found one vendor selling key lime pie and jumped at the chance to have some, but what they served was absolutely AWFUL and nothing like the real southern key lime pie recipes taste like. But the variety of ethnic tastes was fantastic and one of the things that I love about Chicago – the international influence on everything there, with a solid core of Americana.

Paris in the Summer

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My buddy in Dallas was talking about his summer plans. He decided that his daughter was old enough at 13 to appreciate Paris, so he’s taking her, his fiance and her 16 year old daughter this summer. He says that they did a “test run” last December when he took them all to New York for a weekend, and everyone had a great time.

One of the tips I wanted to share with him about travel in Europe is that a very cool company will pick you up at the airport and take you to your hotel, resort, or wherever you need to go in STYLE. You can have your choice of types of vehicles – anything and everything exotic is available to you, with a driver, so you don’t have to worry about reading maps and finding your way.

Missed the Indy 500

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With everything going on this weekend, I totally forgot about the Indianapolis 500 this weekend. I can’t believe no one in the family mentioned it or tried to catch any of the race. It used to be a really big deal in our family.

From the web clips and sports news coverage on TV, I see that Danica Patrick crashed toward the end of the race and had some drama associated with that. Apparently she was so angry with the driver that caused her crash that she jumped out of her car and stomped over toward the other driver in a threatening manner and the security guys had to pull her back from hurting the guy. That must have been one pissed off lady, and it’s a shame she didn’t get to finish the race. I like Danica and admire her resolve to do well in such a male dominated sport.