My Most Favorite Book When I Was In The Fifth Grade (age 10)

What was yours?

ally bean







Maura











Martha










Tara







Donna






Harriet

Tea

Unless the water boiling be,
vain the attempt to make the tea.
-unknown

Good tea. Nice house.
-Worf, trying to be diplomatic in a Star Trek episode

Every morning I make tea. Sometimes I make a cup of tea and other times I make a pot of tea. This morning as I was drinking my tea I thought about tea-well, more about what I've been told about tea.


What I've Been Told About Tea

1. It comes from China or India.
2. The patriots dumped it into Boston harbor before the American Revolution.
3. The English drink more of it than we do.
4. Tea bags are supposedly bad.
5. You should not heat tea water in the microwave.
6. If you put milk in your tea, you should pour it into the cup before you pour in the tea.
7. Over boiling the water causes it to lose oxygen.
8. You should not re-boil the water left in the tea kettle and use it to make another cup of tea.
9. You should bring the teapot to the teakettle and not the other way around.
10. You should heat the teapot before you pour the water in it.


What I Don't Understand About What I've Been Told About Tea

1. Do the English really drink more tea than Americans?
2. Why are teabags supposedly bad?
3. Why shouldn't you heat the water in the microwave?
4. Why should you pour the milk in the cup first?
5. How does water "lose" oxygen and still remain water?
6. Why shouldn't you re-boil the water? Is it because the water has "lost" its oxygen?
7. What difference does it make if you bring the teakettle to the teapot and not the other way around?

Any tea drinkers out there who could answer any of these questions? Non-tea drinkers with answers are welcome too.

Advice To My Seven-Year-Old-Self

1. Never eat a really big spoonful of ice cream no matter how tempting it may seem.

2. Don't fall for that "There are starving kids in China who would love to eat that" ploy grown-ups use to try to get you to eat your broccoli. It is a scam and, truthfully, there are no kids anywhere that will eat broccoli.

3. Boys who want to race you to the top of the jungle gym only want to do it so their friends can look up your dress.

4. There really is more than one way to skin a cat but they are all disgusting so don't try any of them.

5. Look at the stars and moon as often as you can. You will forget to do this for awhile when you get older.

6. Although there really are no monsters in your closet at night it is still not a bad idea to make sure the closet door is closed, you can never be too sure.

7. You are right, Clutch Cargo is as creepy as you think it is.

8. And Amelia Earhart is just as cool as you think she is so never stop listening to yourself.

9. There are no bed bugs in your bed so you really can "sleep tight."

10. Remember you are loved.

Bed Saga

We got our new mattress last night....I slept on the couch.

This all began when my husband started waking-up with back pain a few weeks ago. Since he has back problems this was not good so he tried a couple of things to see if he could cure it. First he tried sleeping with a pillow between his legs and that helped some. Next he tried a new pillow for his head and that helped some too but did not keep him from waking-up feeling achy each morning. We knew the next step was a different mattress.

We drove to Denver and went to the Denver Mattress Co. where we had bought our current bed to test a Tempur-Pedic Visco Memory Foam type bed. That kind of mattress reacts to temperature and at first felt too firm for me but after 15 minutes was very comfortable. My husband really found it comfortable and supportive so we decided to buy it.

Last night we got our new mattress home and later when I crawled into our new bed I was surprised to find out it felt as hard as a brick and very cold. What I had forgotten is that the bed is temperature sensitive. Denver Mattress makes their beds when you order them and our mattress had been sitting in a unheated warehouse since Tuesday. It then was put on the back of a friend's flatbed truck for the drive to our house. Which is why I ended up on the couch.

This morning I felt the bed and it is a bit softer but still cold. I noticed that the side of the bed my husband slept on was softer that my unslept on side so I aimed a small heater at that side of the bed hoping that this will warm it up quicker. My husband also reminded me that it takes about a week to get used to a new bed.

The Little Things You Do Together

-from Stephen Sondheim's musical comedy Company

JOANNE:
It's the little things you do together,
Do together,
Do together,
That make perfect relationships.
The hobbies you pursue together,
Savings you accrue together,
Looks you misconstrue together,
That make marriage a joy.
M-hm...

It's the little things you share together,
Swear together,
Wear together,
That make perfect relationships.
The concerts you enjoy together,
Neighbors you annoy together,
Children you destroy together,
That keep marriage intact.

It's not so hard to be married
When two maneuver as one.
It's not so hard to be married,
And, Jesus Christ, is it fun!

It's sharing little winks together,
Drinks together,
Kinks together,
That make marriage a joy.
The bargains that you shop together,
Cigarettes you stop together,
Clothing that you swap together,
That make perfect relationships.
Uh-huh...
M-hm...

FRIENDS:
It's not talk of God and the decade ahead that
Allows you to get through the worst.
It's "I do" and "you don't" and "nobody said that"
And "who brought the subject up first?"
It's the little things,
The little things, the little things, the little things.

The little ways you try together,
Cry together,
Lie together,
That make perfect relationships.
Becoming a cliche together,
Growing old and grey together,

JOANNE:
Withering away together,

FRIENDS:
That make marriage a joy.
It's not so hard to be married,
It's much the simplest of crimes.
It's not so hard to be married--

JOANNE:
I've done it three or four times.

FRIENDS:
It's the people that you hate together,
Bait together,
Date together,
That make marriage a joy.
It's things like using force together,
Shouting till you're hoarse together,

JOANNE:
Getting a divorce together,

FRIENDS:
That make perfect relationships.
Uh-huh...
Kiss-kiss...
M-hm...


We, are buying a new mattress.

Science Fiction, Double Feature

I am slowly building a DVD collection and the other day I watched one episode of the TV series Dragnet (1953) followed by an episode from the TV series Decoy (1957). Both are in black and white, both are from the 1950's, and both are cops shows. They just seemed to go together. That got me thinking. What movies would be perfect "at home" double features? The first two I thought of were both science fiction movies from the nineteen-fifties. When I reached 16 pairs I stopped but could have gone on.

The list and the reason why I put the two movies I picked together.


1. Them (1954) and The Thing From Another World (1951)

It's the early nineteen-fifties and Americans are worried about...???
The Atomic bomb and invasion by the Russians. But we don't want to talk about it so instead we scare the heck out of ourselves by making great little movies like these two.


2. Bird (1988) and Ray (2004)

Drugs are bad, MMMMMKAY? But you can make beautiful music when you're on them.


3. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The Bonnie Parker Story (1958)

Movie Tagline for Bonnie and Clyde:
They're young, they're in love, and they kill people
Movie Tagline for The Bonnie Parker Story:
Cigar Smoking Hellcat of the Roaring Thirties!
Uh, excuse me, but it was the Roaring Twenties, not the Roaring Thirties.

The Bonnie Parker Story is Bonnie and Clyde produced on a very tiny budget. It's B-movie all the way. The good news is it is only 79 minutes long and Dorothy Provine is great as Bonnie.


4. Paths Of Glory (1957) and The Execution of Private Slovik (1974)

Plot of Paths of Glory from IMDb: When soldiers in WWI refuse to continue with an impossible attack, their superiors decide to make an example of them.

Plot of The Execution of Private Slovik: A WWII soldier is executed for desertion as an example to other soldiers.

Two great anti-war movies. Execution is based on the real story of Private Eddie Slovik; the only American soldier executed for desertion during WWII and the only American soldier executed since the Civil War.



5. Dr. Strangelove: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964) and Fail-Safe (1964)

Worries about "The Bomb" continue and in 1964 two movies address that fear. One makes fun of it and the other makes that fear very real.



6. Fail-Safe (1964) and Fail-Safe (2000)

In 2000 George Clooney produced a live television performance of Fail-Safe. How different is it from the original movie production? Watch and find out.


7. La Femme Nikita (1990) and Point of No Return (1993)

Hollywood loves to remake foreign films and water them down for American consumption. La Femme is a perfect example of this. In the original Nikita deliberately kills someone and is picked for a secret government assassin group. In Point Of No Return the killing is accidental and done while Nikita is high on drugs. By the time this movie was made into a TV series, again called La Femme Nikita (1997), Nikita stumbles on a dead body and is falsely accused of murder. The movie also loses its visual style in its tumble down the Hollywood rabbit hole.


8. The Big Heat (1953) and Experiment In Terror (1962)

The only two movies with Glen Ford that I like and it's not because of him. It's because of the stories.


9. The Lady Eve (1941) and Ball Of Fire (1941)

Nineteen-forty-one was a great year for Barbara Stanwyck. These are two of her best movies. And it's not just because of the stories. It's mostly because of her.


10. All The President's Men (1976) and Dick (1999)

Got to see the first one to understand and really enjoy the humor in the second one.



11. In Cold Blood (1967) and Capote (2005)

I'm not sure in which order to watch these two movies. Do I watch the movie In Cold Blood which is based on the book In Cold Blood first? Or do I watch the movie that shows the author of the book researching the true story that the book is based on before it was made into the movie? Decisions, decisions.


12. The Apartment (1960) and Glengarry Glen Ross (AKA 'Death of a
F'ing Salesman') (1992)

See what would have happened to 'Bud' Baxter 30 years later if he hadn't found Fran Kubelik.


13. The Haunting (1963) and The Others (2001)

Proof that you do not have to be shown anything to be scared out of your wits.


14. Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Cry Baby (1990)

Well it's a one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready now go cat go and don't cha,
Step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but stay off of my blue suede shoes.


15. Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980)

The best of John Belushi. Sadly, two years after the making of Blues Brothers Belushi was dead from a drug overdose at the age of thirty-three.


16. Frida (2002) and Lust For Life (1956)

Two wonderfully visual movies about two passionate artist. The colors are so rich they almost drip off the screen.

Small Town Life

A small town by any other name is still a small town.

This and this , in the Denver Post, are about the town of Bennett, Colorado's fight with the devil. A few weeks ago a music teacher, Tresa Waggoner, at the Bennett Elementary School showed her students a video tape she found in the school music room called "Who's afraid of Opera?: Introduction to the joys of opera for children with Joan Sutherland." Who's afraid? Well, evidently some of the parents of the first, second and third-graders in Ms. Waggoner's classes. They want Ms Waggoner fired because she has proven herself to be a devil worshipper* by showing her students a scene from the opera Faust.

One parent, Korrie Babi** is quoted as saying that her daughter came home from school and asked, "What is abortion? What is suicide?"
Really, her daughter asked about abortion? Interesting, since Faust does not mention abortion. The book 100 Great Operas and their stories by Henry W. Simon describes Faust so:

The legend of Dr. Faustus seems to be the perfect story to attract both dramatists and composers. Marlowe and Goethe wrote great plays on the subject-not to mention some thirty lesser dramatists who wrote lesser plays. Beethoven once composed a Faust Overture. Liszt did a cantata. And Berlioz, Boito, and Goundod all wrote very find Faust operas. Spohr and Busoni wrote less successful ones: and there is even a Faust opera by that "rara avis", a female opera composer- Louise Bertin. Gounod's setting is easily the most popular of all of them- and in many ways the best. It is based, more closely than most critics have been will to admit, on Part I of Goethe's drama and its theme is, of course, that of the old German scientist-philosopher who sells his soul in return for youth.

Another parent, Casey Goodwin, said the video was a "satanic video," and that she thought,"it glorifies Satan in some way, yes."
And this parent, Talena Mullarkey,(Is that really her last name?) very angrily said this about her daughter,"She doesn't know what Satan is...She does now thanks to her music class." (Yeah, I guess that really is her last name.)

Just when I think people can not act more narrow minded and stupid the "good Christians" of Bennett, Colorado prove me wrong. Oh, and the reason Ms. Waggoner showed the tape to her students? Opera Colorado was coming to town with their production of Island of Tulipatan and she wanted to expose her students to the different singing roles before they saw the performance. The town of Bennett has now cancelled that production.



*In an interview on one Denver television station Ms Waggoner said that people were calling her house to ask her if she was the one everyone was calling a devil worshipper.

**Her husband is a member of the Bennett school board.

What's Going On With What's My Line?

(I decided my husband should tell this story himself so he is my guest blogger today.)


We're fans of the old ('50's-'60's) game shows. I record them late at night to watch the next day. The recent What's My Line? had a veterinarian from Akron, Colorado which is on the eastern plains. The interesting thing (at the time) was that this vet was a woman. The show was aired in 1962 and we wondered if she was still around. I found several names matching her last name using an internet phone directory (Anywho). I called and I got ahold of her niece. She was really glad that to hear that I had recorded her aunt and very much wanted a tape copy of the show. She told me her aunt was still practicing in Denver and gave me her number. When I called she was stunned to hear that I saw a re-airing of this show, much less had a copy to mail to her. She was quite grateful since the only thing she had from that show was an old 45 record of the audio portion. The best part is that I've been looking for an experienced vet in Denver since we're there with our dogs from time to time. Now I've got one! You just never know where things will lead.

I Am About To Take My Last Voyage,

a great leap in the dark.
-Thomas Hobbes

I did not want the week to get by me without noting the passing of the great character actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez. Mr Gonzalez died this week at the age of eighty.

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?

This in the New York Times is frightening. A Wippet returning home after participating in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show was lost at Kennedy Airport by Delta Airlines. This is not a surprise to me since I worked as a Aircraft Dispatcher for Pioneer Airways out at the old Stapleton Airport in Denver.

One time a ramp agent at one of our outlying towns put six puppies in the nose cone of one of our aircraft on a flight to Denver. The puppies froze to death. I would sometimes work out of our ramp office and I know of several instances where dogs escaped from the cargo area and ran out onto one of the runways. One time a dog was loaded onto a flight heading the opposite direction of its owner because the "baggage smasher" misread the destination ticket.

Under the The Safe Air Travel For Animals Act:

Airlines are required to report to the Secretary of Transportation any incident involving an animal who is injured, lost, or killed during airline transport. The secretary must then make the information available to the public in the Department of Transportation's monthly publication, Air Travel Consumer Report.
-The Humane Society of the United States

Between May of 2005 and December of 2005 there have been 22 deaths, 17 injuries and 4 losses reported to the Department of Transportation. Here is a breakdown by airline:

Alaska Airlines: one death, three injuries, and one animal lost
American Airlines: five deaths
Comair: one injury
Continental Airlines: seven deaths and five animals injured
Delta AirLines: one death and one animal lost
Frontier Airlines: one animal injured
Hawaiian Airlines: three animals injured
Horizon Airlines: two deaths and one animal injured
Midwest Airlines: one death
Northwest Airlines: two injuries and one animal lost
SkyWest Airlines: one death
United Airlines: three deaths
US Airways: one death, one injury, and one animal lost

The fact that Continental Airlines has killed seven animals is not that surprising to me since it was Continental Cargo that handled our baggage and animals in transit are considered baggage in the airline industry. Think about this the next time you see a baggage cart sitting next to your aircraft on a hot, hot or cold, cold day. If you are traveling with a pet- your baby will be sitting on that cart.

I don't plan on putting my dogs on any commercial airline in the near future.

This makes Cheney the Second VP In American History To Shoot A Man*

Lots of jokes being made this week about vice-president Cheney shotgunning one of his hunting companions this weekend. Today the man Cheney shot suffered a heart attack when one of the pellets migrated to his heart. Some people are careful to point out that Cheney is an experienced hunter which, as my husband pointed out, only makes the shooting worse. He says Rule One when hunting is to not shoot any of the other people hunting with you.

*Hamilton-Burr duel

Update:
This article's focus is the questions being asked by people at Harry Whittington's (the man VP Cheney shot) office in Austin, Texas about the shooting.

I'm Gettin' The Hell Out Of Dodge

At least for the weekend. Heading for the bright lights and big city. See you next week.

"And now, let's meet our award-winning 'What's My Line' panel..."

The Gameshow Network used to have a block of programming they called Black and White Overnight. In that time period they would televise episodes of four game shows from the 1950's and early 1960's. These shows are a fascinating look at people and events from the past. I have seen, what the program likes to call, " stars of stage and screen" (today it was Sir Michael Redgrave) and politicians like "Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts" on What's My Line. It is amazing the number of times that someone who is now famous will walk out on the stage and the panel and audience will have no idea of just who they are.

The other shows are just as interesting. Who knew that the The Supremes had been on To Tell The Truth? Or that the "manufacturers suggested retail price" for products on The Price Is Right would turn out to be an amusing bit of information in this day and age.

On I've Got A Secret a 95-year-old-man's secret was that at age five he was inside the Ford Theater when President Abraham Lincoln was shot. All he remembered about that night was seeing John Wilkes Booth jumping from the balcony to the stage. In his five-year-old mind he thought Booth had fallen out of the balcony and was upset that the man may have been hurt.

The Gameshow Network stopped broadcasting all of these shows except for What's My Line? and every week night we record it so we can watch it the next day. My husband is fascinated with the everyday people who are on the show and always wonders if they are still alive and, if so, what they are now doing. Last week one contestant was a man named Harvey Ellswood Jr. from Denver, Colorado. His line was making and selling balloons.

After the show I pulled out our Denver phonebook to see if his company was still in business and found Ellswood Balloon & Party Favors Inc listed in the Yellow Pages under Balloons-Whsle & Mfrs along with this ad:



That line "Since 1946" convinced me that it was the same company. I showed the ad to my husband and the next day when I came home from walking the dogs he told me he had called Ellswood Balloon & Party Favors Inc and learned some interesting things from the woman who answered the phone.

Ellswood Balloon was Mr. Harvey Ellswood's company and Mr Ellswood was the man who had been on What's My Line? Unfortunately, Mr. Ellswood had died in 1998. Since Mr. Ellswood had been an only child and never married he had no family. He had passed the business on to his best friend of forty years. His best friend happened to be the husband of the woman who answered the phone. Mr. Ellswood's best friend and the woman's husband died in 2001. She now ran the company by herself.

The woman also told my husband she had an audio tape of the show that Mr. Ellswood had been on, but had never seen the episode herself. My husband told her he would make a copy of the show and mail it to her the next day. She was very pleased and then asked him where he was calling from and my husband gave her the name of our little town. He was then flabbergasted when she said she knew of it because it was the town where her parents had gotten married. It turns out she grew up in eastern Colorado in a town about 50 miles away from us. We are going to stop in to see her the next time we are in Denver.

Small Town Life

The incident on Monday now enters its second phase. One of the boys involved is sitting in the county jail waiting for transport back to where the warrant for his arrest was issued and the other kid has skipped town. Big surprise. Last night I found out that illegal trapping is not handled by the police but by the Division of Wildlife when a game warden knocked on our door. He asked if my husband and I were willing to write out statements describing what happened down on the river and we both said yes.

We talked some about what had happened and I then remembered to tell him about a dead red fox I had seen lying next to the trail on Sunday. I had a feeling that those boys may have had something to do with its death. When I found the fox on Sunday he was lying on his left side looking like he was asleep. He did not have a mark on him. He was strikingly beautiful and I could not imagine why or how he had died. When I saw the body again on Monday I was shocked by the change in it. I realized I must have see him right after he was killed because he now looked like what he was- a corpse. His body had shrunk into itself and the fur was dull, dirty, and matted.

This afternoon we went with the warden back down to the river so I could show him where the trap was and to see if anymore were around. We only found the one that caught Duke. When we first got there I took the warden to the body of the fox and he examined it and took pictures. He could not figure out what had killed it until he turned the body over and found the two bullet holes in its right side. He also found blood in its ear and after running his hands over the body discovered that its back had been broken. It also had long scrap mark on one leg that the game warden said may have come from a snare line. The violence that had been done to this poor animal was sickening.

Yesterday when I told my sister about what had happened on the river she exploded, "You've got to get out of that redneck town!"

Tonight I feel the same way.

BTW, I forgot to mention my own short visit to Stupidville. Remember when I wrote that I thought nuts may cause my migraines? Sunday I forgot that peanut butter is made out of peanuts and had a snack of peanut butter filled celery. Halfway through it I developed a migraine aura that quickly slid into a migraine attack. The good news is that I now definitely know nuts are a trigger.

Small Town Life

Yesterday afternoon I took the dogs down to the river for a walk. Kate stayed close while Duke ran off to sniff at anything he could find. About a third-of-a-mile into the walk I heard Duke yipping, yelping, and thrashing around in the underbrush somewhere to my left. I started running toward the sound thinking that Duke had been attacked by a badger or some other animal. When I got closer to the riverbank I saw him leap and twist in the air and then slam back down to the ground like something had grabbed a hold of him. I was now afraid that the animal he was fighting with was a snake. I got closer and saw it wasn't an animal that he was fighting but some kind of fence wire that he had stepped into and now had wrapped around his body.

When I reached him I began unwrapping the wire that was around his head and across his mouth. When I got the loop of wire out of his mouth I realized that the section of wire I had in my hand was attached to another wire. That section of wire was thicker and made of braided cable. With a growing sense of horror I realized it was snare used to trap small game and that it was cinched tightly around Duke's neck. There was a piece of round slightly bent metal that the cable threaded through. That piece of metal was on there to keep the cable from unlocking once the snare was pulled tight.

I tried to get my fingers under the cable to pull it loose but I could not. I reached for the round piece of metal trying to figure out a way to make it come loose. Duke just stood there and as my fingers ineffectively tried to find a way to loosen the cable a feeling of dread came over me. I knew in a few minutes I was going to watch Duke suffocate to death and that there was nothing that I could do about it. I wished I had a pair of wire cutters but at the same time I knew they wouldn't be strong enough to cut though the braided cable in my hands. Then suddenly my fingers managed to do something right and the cable slipped enough so that I could get my fingers under the loop and pull.

I pulled the loop of cable over Duke's head. I ran my hands around his neck searching for blood and found none. I was worried that maybe his throat would swell shut and I picked him up and started running back to where my truck was parked. Duke is normally a wiggle worm when you pick him up but as I ran he didn't move a muscle. I wondered if the bait that was in the trap was poison and ran faster. Finally I couldn't run anymore and I had to put him down. The second I did he took off running. Ok, he seemed to be fine. I jogged the rest of the way to the truck with the dogs following me. When we got there I loaded them up and quickly drove home.

I told my husband what had happened and he said he didn't think the bait in the trap was poison but that he wanted to go back and look at the trap. When we got back to the river I lead him to where I thought the trap had been. When we got to the spot two teenage boys came walking around one of the trees. The second I saw them I knew they were the ones who set the trap. I asked one them if that was their trap and he said yes. I quietly told him that he had almost killed my dog and he got a shocked look on his face. What happened next shocked me. My husband got right in the boy's face and started yelling and swearing at him for what he had done. I have never in all the time I have know my husband seen or heard him react like this. I don't know how much of it was acting or how much of it was real anger but he scared the hell out of those kids.

When he calmed down he told them he was taking them to the police because they were trapping illegally. They both meekly followed us back to the truck and climbed into the back. My husband told them if they did what he asked with out giving him any trouble he would not press charges. They agreed and we drove back to our house. When we got there the boys sat on our porch and waited as my husband called the police.

This should be the end of the story with Duke fine and the boys sent home with a warning but it was not. The boys were taken to the sheriff's office and something about them seemed suspicious to one of the officers. The police kept the boys there for five hours and finally got the truth out of them.

First, I thought they were about sixteen or seventeen-year-old boys but they weren't-they were both in their early twenties. Next, one of them gave us and the police a false name. This was because there was a warrant out for him under his real name. Finally, one of them was carrying a concealed weapon. Which means he had the gun on him when we met them down on the river.

I don't think we were in any danger down on the river. The fact that they meekly followed my husband's directions and then sat quietly on our porch waiting for the police leads me to that conclusion. My husband thinks they had the gun to shoot any animal they found in their trap that was still alive. As my sister said when I told her this story, the warrant could be for something as minor as a traffic violation. And twenty is still young enough to think you can lie your way out of trouble.

Still, I do think someone was watching out for us.

Isn't It Ironic...Don't You Think?

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's the free ride when you already paid
-Ironic by Alanis Morissette

On the same day Blue Witch started her Blogichef Cookbook Index: quick, cheap, and easy recipes I started a four day fast to prepare for a Kidney/Gallbladder Cleanse. I don't know which was harder the cleanse or reading and writing recipes. I noticed that the recipes I picked started out liquid and mushy but quickly headed to "BEEF! IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER!"

The whole thing wasn't that bad, except for the first day when I was going through caffeine withdrawal, and except for the time I threw-up, and except for the time I rushed into the BRAC (bananas, rice, applesauce, Cream of Wheat or Rice) diet a day too soon. Ginger tea helped with that. All in all, everything worked out fine.

Blogichef Recipe (3)

This one comes from The 5 In 10 Cookbook:5 Ingredients in 10 Minutes or Less. Wonderful little book.

Skillet Beef Stew In Red Wine

Frozen peas and pearl onions need only to be heated through. If you have any leftover cooked vegetables, such as carrots or potatoes, feel free to add them,too.

1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas and pearl onions
1 1/2 pounds boneless beef tenderloin tips
2 tablespoons oil (I use olive oil)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Run frozen vegetables under hot water or microwave on High for 1 to 2 minutes to thaw. Drain well.

2. Cut the beef into 1-inch cubes. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the beef cubes and cook over high heat, stirring, until the beef is browned on all sides, about 4 minutes.

3. Add the wine and thyme. Cook for 2 minutes. Then stir in the peas and pearl onions and continue cooking, stirring, occasionally, until the vegetables are heated through, about 2 minutes longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

4 Servings

More recipes at the Blogichef Cookbook Index.

It's Groundhog Day!

(Graphics by Elaine.)


Check here to see Punxsutawney Phil's weather prediction. May be a little slow- Phil's pretty busy today.

I shall, of course, spend the afternoon watching Groundhog Day.

Coretta Scott King

Gone but not forgotten.

Blogichef Recipe (2)

Black Beans and Yellow Rice

Ingredients

5 oz. saffron/yellow rice mix
15 oz. can of black beans
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp chile powder
1/2 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1/2 small yellow onion chopped into medium chunks

Cook rice mix according to package directions but substitute two tablespoons of olive oil for the two tablespoons of margarine.

Open can of beans and save two tablespoons of the liquid. Drain the rest. Put beans, liquid, lime juice, chile powder, and cumin in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until thoroughly heated. Stir in one tablespoon of cilantro. Serve beans over rice, put chopped onion over that and sprinkle with remaining cilantro. I also add a squirt of lime juice. You can also garnish with sour cream or green onions instead of the yellow onion if desired.

I serve this with a small green salad. It makes 2-3 servings depending on how hungry two people are at the time.

More recipes at the Blogichef Cookbook Index.