I love it, the air is clean again, that smoke we have had hanging around the last few weeks has been awful. The leaves are beautiful, with lots of color. I know it is depressing when it gets dark so early, but it gives me an excuse to read and prepare lots of soups and braises, real comfort food. Personally, I enjoy the change of seasons, each has its own beauty and is far more interesting than living in an area that is always the same old thing day after day. When we lived it Florida, I thought it was boring, you knew what the weather would be, even to the point in the summer you knew it would rain about 3 PM each day. Even when a storm was coming you had days of constant reminders that the storm was closer by X number of miles.
Traveling Neighbors
Carole and Cheri are both back from their vacations. Sounds like they had a good times.
Trip Reports
Early this October my 2 sisters and their husbands and I spent 16 days on a tour of Italy. It was a glorious vacation! It was a whirlwind tour and included Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Sorrento, Montecasino, Rome, Orvieto, Assisi, Siena, Tuscany, Florence, San Gimignano and Venice. My favorites included the beauty of the Amalfi Coast, Michelangelo’s statue of David, the quaintness of the town of Orvieto, and of course the FOOD!!! Ate spaghetti carbonara 4 times, the best I’ve ever eaten! Ready to do it again!
Submitted by Carole
Edy is back from her working trip to the UK. On this trip she was lucky enough to get a chance to experience one of England’s culinary delights, “sticky toffee pudding.” She was so impressed she chased down a recipe so we can all have a chance to do the same.
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/3396-individual-sticky-toffee-pudding-cakes
Submitted by Edy
Donna went to Hawaii to get some warm sunshine; she gave a short expose of her trip.
I was lucky enough to spend 10 days on Maui the beginning of October. My first trip back since 2018 and happy to report it’s still a paradise. My son was along for the trip, and we visited all our favorite places including the amazing Maui Ocean Center – a beautiful aquarium and learning center, and Surfing Goat Dairy up-county where the weather is cool, the goats are cute, and the chèvre delicious. We visited our favorite restaurants, galleries, enjoyed the sun, a little bit of rain, and the rainbow that followed.
Aloha! Donna
I went to the other side of our country.
I visited Charleston and Savannah. Lots of sunshine, fantastic food. We took a carriage ride, a nice way to get a bit of history. A walking food tour was interesting and lots and lots of walking. Charleston is a beautiful city; the architecture of the homes is outstanding. Both my niece and I liked Charleston over Savannah. They were lucky to have hurricane Ian miss them, a bit of refuse, tree fronds and limbs, still waiting to be picked up but minimal flooding or other damage. Traveling these days comes with its challenges, on our way out of Sea-Tac we sat in the airplane for 2 hours while a problem with the balancing of baggage was taken care of, on the way back we were an hour in the plane, never did figure out what the problem was there.
Rainbow Row Charleston
George Slept Here
Red Barn Carriage Co.
Submitted by Doris
Luis and CJ are here from Madrid for a couple of months. We are looking forward to welcoming them back.
Bev is trying out being a “snowbird”. She is in the Tucson area for a couple of months, hope she enjoys the sunshine.
Restaurant Review
Rise and Shine Bakery/Deli
Location: 23030 Highway 99
Edmonds, WA 206-574-8330
www.riseandshineedmonds.com
Hours 11:00 AM-6:00 PM
Venita and Chuck have raved about this place, we haven’t tried it yet but is on our list of new restaurants. It is a Vietnamese bakery and diner. It looks interesting for a tasty lunch. Venita suggests you try the spring roll, says they are exceptional.
Submitted by Venita H.
The book club meeting at Bev’s went well. It was an interesting conversation about the “Daughters of Yalta”. The November meeting will be at Carole’s (304) on Nov. 14th. We will review “The Great Circle” by Maggie Shipstead. An interesting story about a female pilot. Let Carole know if you plan to come or not.
Annual Christmas Party
Hope you all put Dec. 4th on your calendars so you can attend the annual Christmas party. Again, it will be held in the Book Nook starting about 5:00PM and going to whenever. Bring something to share, appetizer and a desert. We will get a sign-up sheet out soon so you can note what you are going to contribute. It has always been a fun way to kick off the holiday season. So, hope to see you there.
Tale of Two Chairs
Jerry and I have recently had a couple of wing back chairs recovered. We found a shop, the result of a bit of research, named Gabel’s. They are located at 344 NW 85th, Seattle WA 98117. www.gabeirefinishing.com, 206-784-2305. We started the process in 11/21. We went to the shop to pick out the fabric to recover the chairs. Dave was very helpful; we were able to bring home samples to determine what we liked. After a couple of visits, we decided as to which fabric we wanted, we put down a deposit and started the waiting process. Dave told us it would be several months; we didn’t realize it would take almost a year. He finally called and we took the chairs over to the shop, within about 10 days they were finished and ready for us to bring home. They did a fantastic job; we are very happy. We would recommend Gabel’s for any upholstery jobs you might have; all you need is lots of patience and $$$. They also refinish furniture.
Before
After
Fall Cleanup
It is a good time to clean decks before it’s too cold to be outside. Also, a good time to sweep/vacuum parking spaces. Kaare has made available a very nice shop vac in the HOA storage room for owners use.
Submitted by Bob T
Maintenance Tip
Another reminder would be to change batteries in smoke detectors and CO monitors. To aid memory some folks do this on clock changing (daylight saving) times.
Submitted By Bob T
Car Repair Workshop
Last night I attended a self-directed Camry auto repair workshop that was very informative. Background: yesterday I went to a Toyota dealer on Airport Way to take advantage of advertised discount for an oil change (which we needed in our 2013 Camry). The mechanic did a needed maintenance inspection and came up with a list of five needed services with listed costs of over $510.00.
Since that would be a big budget hit, I didn’t schedule another appointment.
Last night curiosity pushed me to do a Google search on each of the items. What I discovered was that there are several repair videos for each item on my list available on You Tube. Each video explained the function of each part/system, where it is located on the engine, why the maintenance was necessary and step by step how to do it with tools and techniques required.
Now I know that having this work done is essential for insuring the optimal performance of this family vehicle. I also know that I don’t want to do these repairs myself. We also concluded that it would be a good idea to have a similar maintenance inspection done on our 2002 blue Camry. Necessary repairs will be a worthwhile investment since we tend to keep our vehicles for the long term.
I hope this note opens new opportunities for you to have similar learning experiences.
Submitted By John W.
Product Recommendation
Is your ceramic bathtub floor grown more slippery over the years?? This product treats the surface (it is not a coating) to make it less slippery.
It is not visible and has so far not affected by scrubbing with an abrasive cleanser.
Submitted by Kaare
ICE- Part l
So, if you were born 200 years ago, how would you preserve your leftovers? Up here in Minnesota and the Northern climes, or at higher altitude places, you can pretty much count on cold weather to preserve foods for 5 to 6 months of the year. Pioneers used to stick un-used parts of their deer, moose, or other type carcass in the snowbank, but they were susceptible to outside varmints to eat or haul away. Our little homestead cabin (I was a part owner) at 9,000 ft. altitude in Colorado had a cupboard to serve as a refrigerator, tacked on to the outside of the kitchen (but accessible from the kitchen), with screen covering top and bottom to keep out mice and rats. A Colorado deer hunter friend of mine used to hang his gauze-covered deer carcass in his garage for much of the winter. He said this “age-cured” venison was much preferable to that eaten right away. All these methods served a purpose, but the temperature wasn’t constant and was generally too cold to keep liquids. In the Northern Plains most of the old farms had “well houses” or “cool houses”. These were little cellars dug into the ground and covered with dirt and sod. The temperature is cooler than outside and constant…. but not exactly cold. (You could also use this as a storm cellar when the tornadoes came around, as in “The Wizard of Oz”.) Many people had a way to lower items they wanted to preserve down into their water well…which was perhaps a little cooler than the cellar. A cousin of mine had a deep hand-dug well at his old country home…I remember the water being very cold on hot summer days. He had dairy neighbors that would sink their milk cans into their well until the delivery truck came to collect them. In much, or most, of Louisiana cellars were impractical as they would soon have water in them.
In Southern climes, when you slaughtered the pig (or steer, or lamb, or…), it was common to share with others (and they would do the same with you) and to eat as much as possible of the better cuts in two- or three-days’ time. (Hence the saying, “Eating high off the hog.”) Leftovers had to be preserved or thrown away. Sausage, bacon, and hams were often cured in the smoke house, perhaps with a lot of salt. Some of the fattier parts were cured in brine…. actually, very little was thrown away, but, over time, you had to be a bit careful of what you ate if it got icky and rancid.
In Echo, Louisiana, the little rural town where my mom grew up, they had a butcher who would slaughter about once each week, and then load up his four-door car with steaks, chops, roasts, and other yummy steer parts. He drove around to all his customers so they could choose whatever cut they might want. If you happened to be slow in paying him, you would be last on his route and must take whatever remained.
It was also possible to preserve foods by canning, starting in the late 1800’s (?). It’s a little hard to stuff meat parts in quart jars, but I know of chicken that was saved that way…a labor-intensive operation. After raising the chickens (not too hard), you had to round them up, kill them, clean and de-feather them, dissect them, cook them on a wood stove, shove them in quart bottles, and “can” them in a pressure cooker…all bad jobs! (I have an indelible picture burned in my mind of my 65-year-old feeble grandmother, Florence Marchal Beauregard, bent over and luring chickens with a little feed, seizing two at the same time by their necks, and wringing the necks simultaneously, faster that I could blink!) How much easier to go to the grocery store and pick up a Styrofoam package.
Submitted by David R.
Part ll will be in the Dec. Blog.
Graham Nash Concert October 4th at Edmonds Center for the Arts
We were late to hear about singer, Graham Nash, formerly of the legendary Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young group, coming to perform locally. In order to get in we had to buy only remaining premium seats but it was really worth it, The now 80 year old Nash was accompanied by an exceptionally talented guitarist, who had performed with Sting and Bruce Springsteen, and a keyboardist who both sang as well.
Nash wrote one of my favorites, “Wind on the Water” which they did as well as “Our House”, a special song to us from the 1970’s. Hearing “Find the Cost of Freedom” was appropriate considering the war in Ukraine and they ended with a tribute to Graham’s early group, The Hollies. We may never hear a more fun and enjoyable musical evening than this one.
Submitted by Drake L.
Halloween
We were entertained by several young folks in various costumes, all were delightful and interesting. Friday evening, we had Bob’s two grandchildren, Madeline, and Zoe, along with Edy’s two, Freya and Phoebe and two young men from the UK, Isaac, and Felix. Last night we had Ansh and Mahima, they wanted to come and see their old neighbors.
I want to thank everyone for their contributions, it helps make the blog more interesting.
Happy Thanksgiving
