Places to visit or maybe move

I have been watching the last season of Fixer Upper and grieving.  Reruns will do for a while but....The Gaines are just too darn busy for TV  I was mentally counting up.  Besides Magnolia Farm and the design and construction company. They revamped the Silos and opened a architectural salvage store.  They purchased a B&B and revamped a housekeepers house next to it for the managers. Jo has a huge truck garden at the farm.  They have all sorts of animals that eat their heads off.  I think Chip may donate one or two for charity rather than butcher them, especially the ones with names and they all have names.  They revamped the flower shop next to the Silo and turned it into a bakery.  And this week Chip talked Jo into a restaurant.  They took the old Elite that is the oldest place in Waco and spiffed it up into a breakfast joint.  It is a beautiful job and if I ever get to Waco, Texas, I will certainly see them all and especially have some biscuits and gravy. 

I have also been watching "Home Town".  The young couple live and work in Laurel, Mississippi and rebuild older homes for folks.  It is absolutely beautiful.  They do a tremendous job and the styles of house run from Southern Italianate to Farmhouse Victorian wrap around porches and swings, quite lovely.  I got curious and decided to Google the town and I was curious about the population.  I have only seen one black person filmed and I figured there had to be some black people there.  It took forever but the official site finally yielded up some statistics.  Of the population of 18,000 or so fifty percent  is white and 25 five percent is black and so on.  I did notice that there were 8 congregations of Baptist churches, Black. It would be interesting to see if the White Baptists sing as good as the Black Baptists. I would love to visit just for the front porch swings, sweet tea and fireflies.  Makes me all homesick and I ain't even from there y'all.

Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was writing a song, it was a New Orleans type blues song, very old style and to my mind it was a song that had been around for decades I was simply updating the lyrics.

Some handsome man (PLEASE let it be Harry Connick, Jr!) advised me that I could not rewrite that old classic.  Huh. I have never had a composing dream before. Wish I could remember the tune.  Maybe it was wonderful.

And sadly to dream that you are a composer signifies that you are creating or directing new found energies to some aspect of your life.  Well, I can only modestly blush and admit somewhat ruefully that my powers of sarcasm have been blooming lately. 

Rugby/Football versus March Madness

I spent part of the day AVOIDING March Madness.  There are three sports channels covering various games, CBS is all cluttered up with basketball jones and I stumbled across Rugby.  Here is what I observed.  France was dressed in Blue and Wales was dressed in Orange maybe?  It looked like there were a dozen or more beefy looking men scampering about in a HUGE field.  The Rugby ball is a very large melon shaped ball that gets tossed underhand quite a lot.  Or the ball bounces to a stop the players carefully avoid touching it until it bounces to a stop.  Every once in a while the official dressed in black and white summons both teams to a certain spot on the field.  France over there, Wales over there.  Line up, get in position. On my signal.....and SHOVE!!! Then there is a pile of men who are playing reverse tug of war and the idea is to shove so far in one or the other direction until somebody gets tired? from what I can tell all of these men are at least 200 lbs and beefy.  I did notice that if they were to all line up and salute the flag by putting the backs of open hands resting on eyebrows.  The big beefy hands cover up the hairline very well.  Not a lot of forehead left showing if any at all.  Now as for scoring points.  I noticed one play where someone tossed the ball, it rolled free, a player pounced on it and a point was made.  Huzzah!! I think.  I think France lost as the commentators were saying that they only needed a bit more of an aggressive game and a good solid eight men and their game would be much improved.  Huh, eight men. Well whatinhell are the other seven guys out there doing?  I should probable Google the Rules for Rugby. Is March Madness over yet?

State of Being, etc.

Yesterday I went to my quarterly appointment with my nice Internal Medicine lady doctor.  I managed to NOT gain any weight but I was wearing my skimpiest pants and shirt and was FREEZING.  My 18 hour daily fast seems to be maintaining, I am disappointed I was wishing to melt a bit off, but as an Uncle of mine once commented upon greeting me, "Looks like you wintered up pretty good". Thanks Uncle Tater. 

Lab results are good.  She has had me take two tiny pink pills daily instead of three (yay!!) and gave me a Tdap booster shot, so now I am safe from Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (Whooping Cough) and should not need another one.   Also I should ask about the newer spendier Shingles vaccination next time I visit the pharmacy...maybe.  She also did a quick looky loo and listen and said YOU HAVE WAX IN BOTH EARS!!!.  So I administered stool softener and cotton balls to both ears earlier this morning.  This apparently helps balance as well as hearing.  

We compared TV viewing habits, both admit to watching Korean drama.  Woot!  See me back in three months.  Wheeee!!

WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK

Grandma LaVann had books in her living room.  Some of venerable publication to be sure.  I spotted one entitled The White House cookbook.  It was printed in the 1920's and was probably a wedding gift when she and Hagemann were married. 

I browsed through it absolutely fascinated by turn of the century food preparation.  I remember seeing tips for cleaning a feather boa.  um good to know.  

About that time Uncle Tony gifted me with half a dozen duck eggs.  I had NO idea what to do with them and they were like super sized chicken eggs.  I looked through the cook book and found an actual recipe for custard that called for HALF A DOZEN DUCK EGGS!!!!! Well, I can read a sign from above and hastily scribbled down the pertinent information.  I ignored the instruction on using the wood stove.

The recipe was fairly simple, whipped eggs, a cup or so of milk, some nutmeg, a cup or so of sugar, whip, whip, whip, put in cups, bake in a water bath until slight jiggle in the custard, turn off oven, allow heat to finish the bake.  Well, it turned out very nice.  The eggs were as smooth as silk and I had not even strained the liquid.  It was a perfect bake.  Fortunately Charlie was young enough to be really enthusiastic regarding pudding. 

Years later I was in Seattle visiting Carla and we went to a book shop and I spied a White House Cook Book.  I snatched it up immediately.  Mine is a couple decades older, it was published in 1907.  There is no recipe in it for duck egg custard but there are several pointers for preserving eggs that will last from Winter to Spring.  Most methods involve blocking oxygen from the shell either with layers of lard, salt, sawdust etc.  No rating on which method worked best.  

There are other sections on how to equip a modern kitchen and advice on managing such.  Oh, bother.