AMERICAN VERSION OF TOP GEAR PREMIERE......

James May

 Jeremy Clarkson

Richard Hammond

...On the HISTORY channel for crying out loud!  11-22-10 first show. I stumbled across it this past weekend and decided to watch.  It was MIND NUMBING.  The original hosts for the BBC version are pictured above.  The chemistry between these three men is wonderfully funny.

The American hosts are so forgettable I didn't even bother to get their names but they could easily be replaced by Jay Leno (Who didn't want the job), Drew Cary and Jack Black.  The three amigos raced Lambo's and they went very fast.  Unless you are actually IN the car, there is not much of a thrill watching unless you are expecting a crash.  The British hosts have completely done away with stiff upper lips and chortle, bellow, scream all while going 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds.  I didn't even know what flappy paddle gears were until I watched THE ORIGINAL.  Hey History Channel...you need to do some thinking about this show.  I VASTLY prefer ENDLESS RERUNS of the ORIGINAL TOP GEAR.  Rule Britannia!

BLACK FRIDAY AND...SUSHI

We puttered around Friday morning and did not even leave the house until well after noon.   We headed for Freddy's.  The parking lot was fullish but inside the store, the only semi-mob we saw shopping was in electronics.  We picked up a few items, went to the grocery section and got a few more items.  I was low on spices, pepper, cinnamon and celery seed.  Half OFF!  I was vastly pleased. We escaped Freddy's with a minimum of fuss.  The lady at the check out stand looked at my four cans of sweetened condensed milk and asked if I was sure those were what I wanted  as she gets exchanges all the time for the evaporated milk. I said yes and told her I was going to put them in my crock pot and make cajeta.     She wanted to know more details so I told her. I thin more cajeta will be made soon. 





Also, since we were in town, we decided to check out the Japanese restaurant I had mentioned on a previous trip.  It is located across highway 101 from the Mill Casino.  Welcome to Momiji's!!

They do indeed serve a very nice variety of sushi including salmon and fresh local product.  Husband and I are not very adventurous so we ordered green tea, Teriyaki bento box and Teriyaki chicken.  Both very good.  They do have fried eel on their menu and I might try that next time.  Husband rated the bathroom at a 6, points off for skimpy paper products. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Busy week, we received our turkey certificates on Monday so I didn't actually start thawing the bird until after 4 pm.  Alton Brown knows of which he speaks when he recommended the cold water thawing method, cover bird, change cold water every 4 hours, should thaw at a rate of 1 pound every six hours?  If I remember correctly.  Anyway nice thawing had set in by Tuesday, evening so I rinsed off the bird and package, plopped it on a plate and left it in the fridge.  Tuesday evening I made pumpkin pie, Wednesday evening I made cranberry relish jello salad.  Thursday, I got out the frozen rolls, oiled them put two each in the muffin tin and allowed them to double in size before baking (4 hours or so).  I made fairly standard dressing except for the grilled Brussels sprouts and layer of spuds.  I baked the butter nut squash same time as the dressing.

When that came out I prepared the turkey and it cooked in 2 1/2 hours.  While the turkey rested the rolls went in.  I noticed that there were no drippings from  the turkey so we went without gravy.

Dinner is served!  Yummy.

As I deboned the remainder of the turkey more and more juice gathered in the bottom of the pan,  by the time I was done there was a nice collection of drippings so I made creamy gravy and poured it over the boned turkey that went in the fridge disguised as left overs.

It was all over by 4 pm, nothing left but turkey bones in the stock pot busily simmering away.  Oh boy good left overs for lunch bucket.

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY THAT MEANS ITS MRI DAY.

Here is where the MRI van is parking now.  That sucker takes up all of the doctor's parking, who have all moved six spaces to the right and so on.  At least it a shorter trip for the patients.

This is where the MRI van used to park, you should have seen the driver winkle that thing into this spot with very little clearance.

And since we are so close, lets take a peek around the corner to the very skinny access to the back of the hospital were Orange Hitachi man is loading trash into the dump truck. 

Weather remains below average temp for this time of year in this area, saw several snow sprinkles today.  Tonight I make cranberry, orange, walnut, celery, black cherry jello salad.  Yummy!

SNOW DAY!!

Today it snowed, it began about 6 am.  I looked up and the moon was gorgeous.

This is the first time it has snowed before Thanksgiving in over 25 years.  We love to break records.  The snow fell heavily, slowly, majestically.  Then the Orange Hitachi machine started moving piles of trash.

The rhodies just outside the north entrance accumulated about an inch of snow.  The snow cloud circulated around the valley several times, dropping snow hither and yon.  The hospital is at about 135 feet elevation.  One lady said her husband drove to the beach and took pictures of snow coming on the waves.   Weather man says the Arctic Express will move in tonight with temps in the teens, it will be icy in the morning.  I'm so thankful my driver is waiting to take me to work.  Tonight I made enough filling for three pumpkin pies but I only cooked one.  The rest of it are being made into pumpkincicles in the freezer for later. 

TODAY WAS MASSAGE A LITTLE DIRT DAY

The orange Hitachi used the bucket today to move some dirt via dump truck to improve the "logging road" between the clinic and the hospital. 

I showed this picture to April who promptly left to go move her car, not the blue one, the one in front of the blue one.

The weather has really socked in some winter rain, fog, wind.  At one point one of the loggers was in the gully sawing some trashy trees down, it was blowing fairly good, he had a spotter just in case.  What!?  "Help I've fallen and I can't reach my chainsaw!"

ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF....

Nominating Nadia G of Bitchin' Kitchen to be a judge on Iron Chef America, say "Yo, how you doin'.."

This is a cover of her cook book.  She started out with 5 minute webisodes on the net out of  Montreal and the brave souls at Cooking Channel picked up her shtick, although Italian chicks may not actually use the word "shtick".   I find it helpful to google her shorter episodes especially for the pronunciation ones for terms I ain't never heard way out here in the rural pretty much not Italian Southern Oregon Coast. Her show is an amazing combination of comedy and cooking, completely unique.  She gives acting tips on how to obtain forgiveness and I'm thinking they probably work! Did I mention clothes, Hoo boy!  Makes me wish I actually owned stiletto heels never mind actually wearing them.