Robin's Friday Five

Robin is at it again.  If you want to play, copy and paste the questions to your journal and answer them for yourself.  Then leave the link to that entry at Robin's blog.

This weeks theme is...potatoes. I don't know why...I am just thinking about them.

 

1.  When was the last time you had mashed potatoes?  Were they regular mashed potatoes or some kind of fancy version?

I fixed mashed potatoes for our Christmas dinner, regular mashed potatoes with lots of cream or half-and-half, and butter.  And I'll be mashing potatoes this weekend to go with the roast I'm planning to cook.  Mashed potatoes is one of my husband's favorite dishes, so if we have a big dinner, we have mashed potatoes; otherwise he'd probably cry.

 

2.  Do you grow your own veggies? Have a garden? If so are potatoes one of the things you grow?

I've had many a garden, and lots of those gardens did include potatoes.  Potatoes are fun to harvest because you get such a huge amount for your efforts.  My garden days are behind me, except for a few tomatoes.

 

3. French fried potatoes...do you like natural cut fries, with skin still on or the McDonald's kind? 

I'm not as big on French fries as most people, but I'd say my favorite are Burger King fries; they're similar to McDonalds.

 

4.  How about potato salad?  Do you like it? Have a family recipe you have used for  years?

I make potato salad when we barbecue.  I like it just fine.  It's one food for which I don't use a recipe.  I just add a little more of this and that until it tastes right to me.

5.  Did you have a Mr. Potato head as a kid?  Ever purchased one for someone else's kid? 

Yes, I had one; but I broke the little spike things off trying to use a real potato.  Never bought one for anyone else.

 

Bonus question just cause I think potatoes are cool...did you ever put a potato in a glass jar with water and watch the roots grow in school. Like a science experiment?  No; but I recall doing an experiment where you put drops of iodine on a cut potato, and the potato turns colors.   And does anyone know what the purpose of that experiment is?  Don't know the purpose of Robin's OR mine.

Oh, and a note about my previous entry:  Yes, I realize I can find egg  beaters on Ebay.  It's just hard for me to imagine paying $15 or more (including shipping) for an egg beater.  (Remember, I don't have a job now; that makes a difference.)  However, I may end up doing it, if I don't find one elsewhere.

I want an egg-beater!

                      

Yeah, like that.  I can't find them at Walmart.  I think I bought my last one at Price-chopper, a grocery store, hanging in an aisle with other such kitchen tools.

What happened to that one?  They just don't make them like they used to, and I get about two years' use out of an egg beater before it wears out... and that's pushing it, using it long after it needs to be tossed.

Most people ask why I'd want one, when I have a perfectly good KitchenAid mixer.

                                                

Here's the thing:  If I want to beat a couple of eggs and then mix them with milk for my home-made rolls, for instance, who wants to dirty up a beater and a big ole bowl like that?  I can use my egg beater and mix them in the measuring cup that's already been used to measure the milk.  (Have I mentioned I don't have a dishwasher?)

The other question I'm often asked is this:  Why don't you just use a whisk?

                                                                        

Whisks are fine to mix up scrambled eggs, or get lumps out of something you're cooking on top of the stove.  But when a recipe calls for "well-beaten eggs", you aren't going to get the job done with a whisk.

Anybody know where I can find an egg beater?

just checking something

Found this on a message board:  No matter who looks at it, it'll give them information about their own system.  Like looking in a mirror.

One happy dog

Mandy can sleep well tonight, knowing her best friend, Buddy, is back... in fact, I'm sure he is out at the barn, waiting for me to put her to bed for the night.  Resting up for their romp in the morning.  (I'm really glad I got Mandy spayed.)

this was going to be a sad story...

Yesterday morning when I went to turn Mandy loose, the neighbor's dog, Buddy, wasn't there to greet me.  Usually he hears me, comes stretching and yawning out of the barn, and waits for Mandy to be freed from her pen.  Then the two "kids" run and romp together, celebrating Mandy's freedom.  I didn't think much about his absence until I realized, after noon, that I still hadn't seen Buddy.  His owners must have taken him to their temporary home, in town.

And Mandy got depressed.  She really didn't want in the house; she preferred to lie in the littered area of my yard where she and Buddy wreak destruction on various kids' toys, baskets, bones and styrofoam pieces.  I guess she was waiting for her friend.

The only time I saw her act happy yesterday was when I went for a walk in the pasture, and she accompanied me.  With birds and squirrels to chase, she was her old self.

This morning, again, she was alert and animated on our walk... especially when she saw a fox to pursue!  When she returned to the house after her chase, though, she was sad again.

I hunted up the old frisby I bought when she was a puppy; I'd hoped she'd learn to do tricks with it.  She never took a lot of interest in it, so I put it away months ago.  But today I got it out, thinking my dog needed some playtime.

She did go get it a few times, and appeared to be enjoying herself.  Then she picked up an old chewie, laid down and started to work it over.  If Buddy is around, he keeps after Mandy until he manages to take her chewie away, and she loves that game.  So I played Buddy's part, taking it away from her and tossing it.  Then we did the same with an old bone.  I was trying my best to take Buddy's place.

In the middle of snapping pictures of my unhappy dog, I saw Buddy's owner's pickup go past; they have to come out twice a day to feed the horses.  I waved, and went on with the games... when suddenly a streak of white came running around the house.  It was Buddy!  They brought him back. 

Mandy's happy again, and so am I.  Roxanna said she was going to leave Buddy out here; he'd get in trouble in town.

Life is back to normal.

A reminder of how quickly a person is forgotten

Because it's the area where my mother was born, and some of my uncles and aunts lived out all, or parts, of their lives, I sometimes go to the website of a small Missouri town:  Eagleville.com.  I attended school there for around three years, and sometimes I'll see a familiar name mentioned.

The lady who maintains the website asks for old pictures from her readers, which she posts on the website and challenges folks to figure out who the picture is.  I enjoy seeing the photos, and once in awhile I'll see someone I used to know as a child.  For instance, Eagleville had two grocery and dry-goods stores, and I saw a picture of the two proprietors of both, together, in their younger days.

I recently submitted a school picture of second-and-third grade kids that included me; someone my age quickly answered that quiz and named every single kid in the picture!  I only knew first names of three or four of them.

Then I decided to send a picture of my grandma, taken before 1960.

Grandma was well-known by everyone, back then.  She quilted constantly, and charged a ridiculously small sum for the quilts she sold... so of course she sold many.  I remember how many people greeted her, and stopped to chat, on the sidewalks and in the stores of Eagleville. 

When she died, the attendence at her funeral was huge!

But now, some forty years after her death, nobody remembers her.  Some people even printed off the picture and took it to meetings with them, trying to figure it out.

Finally, after a hint that included her Church affiliation and her youngest son's first name, someone guessed her last name.

How quickly we are forgotten.  It reminds me of a Bible verse I recently read:

"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.  The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away."  I Peter 1:24

Followed by this statement, in verse 25:

"But the word of the Lord endureth forever."

Diet Report

Well folks, it's slow going for me on the weight loss:  I lost one pound.  Cliff, however, lost four pounds.  Go Cliff!

And the great news is, after checking three times to make sure, Cliff's blood pressure is 130/73.  I don't know when he ever had numbers that low! 

My blood pressure is fine, but it's never been a problem, except that the numbers are so low you would think I'm half-dead.  When I take my temperature, that's always low, too; sometimes as low as 97.  Maybe I AM half-dead.

Anyway, we're progressing and dieting and walking almost every day.