Black Bean soup - Brazilian Feijoada

Dear Friend,
Just time for a short note - want to tell you that we tried another recipe from our new magazine Cusine At Home. It was just delightful or as my husband would say "This is a company dish." By the way I don't know who publishes that magazine nor do I get any kind of payment from them, or from anyone for that matter, to talk about it in my letter to you. I just like to write about the things that I enjoy - that entertain and enlighten me. This soup is a one dish meal with rice, tomatoes, sausage, bacon, and of all things collard greens. No I don't like greens, but a little in this soup blends with the chili seasoning, sausage flavor and well, is just wonderful. I do love to eat. More later.
I am grateful for good food, the ability to enjoy it, and for good friends. I remember making homemade ice cream at least once a summer for many, many years. Cinnamon, vanilla, peach and strawberry ice creams. What a great memory.

Don't rush off.

Take care,

Maggiegladyoucame

Wellness vacations

Dear Friend,
Glad you came.
Wellness vacations are finally being enjoyed by enough travelers, often enough, that they are recognized as wellness vacations. By wellness vacations I mean vacations with wellness as a primary focus. People have gone on vacations built around a spa and stress relief, or skiing, biking, or hiking for years. But I don't remember anyone calling them by a category name like wellness vacations until recently. Of course, they were wellness vacations because they centered around physical activities which are such an important part of most wellness programs. It seems to me that more of us are consciously taking an active role in maintaining and improving our health, not just dealing with illnesses.

I am going to a spa for several days soon and am already getting health benefits. I don't want to be exhausted from taking long walks at the spa so am pushing myself here at home to be in good shape when I get there. Being prepared for the trip has already helped me stay the course with my exercise. Motivation to exercise takes some doing for me. The spa I'm going to isn't simply a place where you go to get "pampered" nor is it a 1980's fat farm. Those are probably good places to go too, but I am going to a spa that promotes wellness with exercise classes of many kinds, nutrition classes, acreage and trails for walks, life sports like golf and swimming, and some mind-body connection type classes like journaling and meditation, plus massages and other "pampering" activities. I have been to two spas before this. One in West Virginia is a family spa where the whole family can go. The other in Virginia is a ski resort that has spa services. Both are in beautiful locations and I went to both during summer time, when I could walk as well as take advantage of exercise classes and services - massages, facials etc. which were very good. But neither of those spas offered the wide variety of classes in the mind-body category nor the extensive services and opportunities to observe nature that this one does. Nor did I stay for long at either of the other two. I will be at this one 5 nights - and almost 5 full days. I'll let you know in a month or so how it was.

Websites about spas and active vacations are plentiful. Here are a few that look good to me. I haven't traveled with these groups, nor followed the advice on them, but the sites look good to me and I hope to use some of their information in the future. Let me know if you have used any of these sites. Some are about trail guides and other free services - some about wallking tour groups.

http://www.walkingconnection.com/
http://www.vbt.com/
http://www.adventureguidesvt.com/adventure_vacation_packages.htm
http://www.spafinder.com/spaguide/features/index.jsp
http://www.dot.state.ny.us/reg/r8/bikes/

The VBT site used to have walking trips also and many years ago I went on a 5 day walking trip with them. They offered beautiful sites for walking, personable and knowledgeable guides, and good places to stay. But it was many years ago. Now they have bicycling trips only.

I am so grateful for the time I got to spend with my friend Sue today. I am also grateful for people who volunteer their time to others. That is one thing that sets the United States apart from many other countries. What would we be like if people didn't take the time to volunteer at the hospitals and schools, with hospices and senior services, for Meals on Wheels and Habitat for Humanity. There are so many other groups - can't begin to name them all. I am thankful.

Please come back,

Maggiegladyoucame

A fire in the fireplace

Dear Friend,
Glad you came.
Today I am grateful for a fire in the fireplace and the time to enjoy it. It is warm and smells good . Today is Saturday and I didn't have a great deal to accomplish - the ever constant need to walk or exercise, a few dishes to wash and a few things to put away, and then a trip to the grocery store. There is more that needs doings but it's Saturday and that's enough stuff for today. I spent some time having a very pleasant lunch with friends and learned to download music from itunes and burned a CD with 11 favorites that I can - yes, walk to. The music is by Marvin Gae, Chicago, and a couple of Creedance Clearwater Revival tunes.

I like to learn new things like how to download music or create this blog.

More recipes, travel talk, and of course book talk soon.

Take care,

Maggiegladyoucame

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Dear Friend,

After finishing The Kite Runner I needed something light to read. Fannie Flagg's Standing in the Rainbow was on the shelf and calling my name. I am about 1/2 way through the book and I don't think I've ever read such a vivid description of a time period. A large part of the book takes place in the 1940s and 1950s. The music they listened to and sang, the movies they watched, the furnishing of their homes and the routine of small town life come alive because of Flagg' joyful word pictures. In order to build suspense, she plants little or some times even large glimmers of the future in each chapter. As I become enamored with Neighbor Dorothy, Doc, Anna Lee and Bobby, and now Betty Rae I become sure that life is going to be real for them and that they, like us all, are going to have their heart aches as well as their joys.

Gorgeous sunshine in the Southwestern United States today. Just love it. This time of year I am so glad that there are pansies. I like to see them in clumps. They really standout when planted that way.


I'm really so glad you came - come again soon.

Maggiegladyoucame

Pork Chops Osso Buco

Dear Friend,
I'm glad you are going to spend a few minutes with me. I hope to make it worth your while. I promised you a recipe for our version of Pork Chops Osso Buco. By the way, "we" is my husband and I. He is a great cook. He is an adventurous cook and really enjoys his food. It makes cooking fun - and eating too. We hadn't cooked with Fennel often, but this recipe calls for Fennel and I think part of the gentle, slightly mysterious flavor is because of the fennel. I am including a link to the magazine - Cusine At Home which is where the original version of this recipe is. The version you see here is ours - quite different from the one in the magazine.
This recipe takes about 30 minutes to prepare and 1 hour to cook.
Much chopping can be done in advance.

I used a large, heavy deep pan (Dutch oven) to sear the pork chops in and then baked them in the oven in the same pan. Could use an oven proof skillet.

Season, dredge, and sear:
3 or 4 1 " thick, rib-end, bone-in pork chops
1/4 cup flour
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper
When chops are browned on each side, remove them and use the same pan to do the following.

Saute the following in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes
1 cup onions, diced
1/2 cup fennel bulb, cored and diced
1/2 cup carrots, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 anchovey fillets minced or 2 t. anchovey paste
2 strips orance peel
2 bay leaves
1/4 t. red pepper flakes
1/4 t. kosher or sea salt

Deglaze this with 1/3 cup dry white wine reducing the liquid by about half.

Stir in:
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup beef broth - we used a powdered broth mix - but a moist one, Tones
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 T. vinegar
Bring this to a simmer then

Put the pork chops back in, put cover on pan, and put the whole thing in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and then turn the pork chops over and put back in the oven for 30 minutes more. Total cooking time in the oven is 1 hour.

We reduced the amount of fennel and anchovey paste (or anchovies) from the original recipe, and we didn't make the Gremolata. We simplified. Perhaps not a true Ossa Buco - but absolutely wonderful anyway. The original recipe is in this month's magazine on-line.

Next week I will include a 4 ingredient recipe for a decadent hot cheese dip and a few words and pictures from a trip my husband and I took to Tennesse, Pennsylvania and Kansas. We drove from here to those states, sampling bar-b-q several places along the way, and attended a huge antique car show and sale in Hershey Pennsylvania. It was October and the leaves were gorgeous. If you enjoy beautiful cars, you would enjoy the American Car Club of America (AACA) meet in Hershey Pennsylvania in October. . It takes place when the leaves are at their peak or close to it.
http://www.cusineathome.com

I'm grateful for all the photographs I've taken through the years. I can remember Colorado, Vermont, and California better than I would if I didn't have the pictures to look at. Writing this blog brings back fond memories.

Take care,

Maggiegladyoucame

Great magazine program at our library

Dear Friend,
Glad you came today.
I've returned from our public library, where we have a great fund raiser that I enjoy immensely. Magazines are donated to the library and then the public can buy them for 10 cents each. I picked up a Traditional Home, 2 Sunsets, a U S News and World Report and a Ladies Home Journal for 50 cents total. Next week I will donate them to the library for someone else to buy for 10 cents again. My husband and I subscribe to several magazines and when we've finished with them we take them to the library also. The library has made a small, narrow room with slanted display shelves on both walls for display of these magazines. Volunteers straighten them often and put them in alphabetical order. The library makes several thousand dollars every year from magazine sales. Think about the paper saved too. Now what if 100 libraries did this? Don't you use the library? I spend about $400.00 on books a year on top of my library use. but there are lots of books that I just don't need to own. I haven't got the space to store them. I need to learn to use the library even more. We have a good one.

Today, I am grateful for another sunny, cool day; a friend who called; and the Oprah show (most of the time). I was at a nursery today that is still taking down Christmas. There was a flocked Christmas tree (artificial) that reminded me of when my Mom used Ivory Snow flakes and a little water to flock our tree. It was a lovely tree. My son married recently and he and his bride are still getting gifts. People can be so kind.

The following is a link to a website where you can answer some questions if you choose to, and then find out how big a footprint on this earth you leave as a consumer. Guess that came to mind because of the library program that saves paper and makes money for the library.

http://www.mec.ca/Apps/ecoCalc/ecoCalc.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=619029&bmUID=1105643255039

Take care,
Maggie GladYouCame

The Kite Runner - I won't forget this one!

Dear Friends,
I hope this finds you with a few minutes to read this letter. I'm glad you came.

I finished The Kite Runner yesterday evening. While my reading group had read it in November, I didn't and didn't go for the discussion. I had read the reviews and knew I wanted to read it. This book, like Gaines' book A Lesson Before Dying, and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, will live on in my mind for a long time. The absolutely, impossible to understand seems to stay with me. How these folks coped with the depravations and the cruelty they lived with is beyond my understanding. I know The Kite Runner is fiction, but is written by a man who was born in and lived in Afganistan and supposedly portrays the social conditions there accurately. After 9-11, I remember a picture of a man in Afganistan who was living in a hole - not a cave but just a hole in the dirt. It was winter. I don't think I realized that so terribly many were living as poorly as that man. But they were. I think maybe I understood with my intellect, but don't think I understood it emotionally until I read this book.
The only part of The Kite Runner that I found out of character with the rest of the book was the fight between Assef and Amir. I felt like Assef would not have made the deal with Amir to let him go if he lost the fight. I don't think even if he made that deal, that he would stick to it. I know that it was implied that Assef's people were watching Amir at least when he first went into the hospital after the fight. But they didn't kill him which I think in life would have been what would have happened. I also wondered why Amir didn't seek psychological counseling for his newphew. I suppose it had to do with his culture. I am glad I read this book.
I need to go walk my 2 - 3 miles today and it's warm enough that I can put on a coat and do it outside instead of at the Y. So better go do it.

My Mom's birthday was in January. She made the best brownies. What a great memory. I am grateful for a warm house and warm clothes. I am grateful to be an American - my Dad was an immigrant and I think the realization that I could have been born in Russia has colored the thinking for all of us in our family.

Take care,

Maggie GladYouCame

New Mexico/Arizona travel continued

Dear Friends,
Glad you came!
In my first two blogs I’ve tried to write about several facets of my life so that you could decide whether or not this blog would be of interest to you without you having to spend too much time in the decision making stage. I feel scattered. I feel like I am hopping from subject to subject without any depth, and it doesn’t exactly feel right. I think this will correct itself if I just keep writing. You will probably let me know what you like and don’t like – but you have to be civil about it.
Anyway I promised you more information on those travels and so I added those links to the Acoma site and to Settler’s Crossing and the picture of one of the houses from Settler’s Crossing.
Now I’d like to tell you why my reading group went to New Mexico and Arizona and a little of what we found. We were interested in the New Mexico/Arizona sites because we had all just read one of Tony Hillerman’s mysteries which take place in Arizona not far from the Acoma Pueblo and because his mysteries are peopled with Indians. Many of us had read several and had learned a little about the Indian culture of that area quite painlessly by reading fiction. We flew to Albuquerque and then rented a van. The Acoma site is actually so much more interesting than it looks from the pictures. It is small pueblo (village) on top of a mesa that rises straight up from the Earth about 370 ft. The view from the highway approaching it was amazing. We took a bus to the top of the mesa. The pueblo is inhabited and some of the people were there. The view from the top is also more than interesting. The Acoma pueblo is actually called The Acoma Pueblo National Monument. The Canyon de Chelly site is



http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/canyon_de_chelly/national_monument.html
There are other websites, but this one seems to have the best pictures. We stayed in a motel run by the park services which was adobe, at least in appearance. It was clean, and interesting. I love to travel. It was a hoot!
I know on day one of this blog I promised my husband’s recipe for pork chop ossa buco. I will get back to that in less than a week. The meat was so tender and the sauce was just a very subtly seasoned tomato sauce with fennel.

Before I close for now, I want to tell you how grateful I am for the opportunity to visit with you this way and for the time I have to do this. Retirement is good. I am also thankful for our golden lab (Jodi was ½ golden retriever and ½ yellow lab.) that we had for years but is no longer with us. What a pleasant memory she is. I spend just a few minutes daily with a pleasant memory as well as focusing on what I've enjoyed that day - what I am thankful for.

You take care,

MaggieGladYouCame

Fredricksburg, Texas and reading group list

Dear Friend,
Another time we went to Fredericksburg, Texas to stay at the most charming bed and breakfast I’ve ever stayed at and to see the Texas bluebonnets and paintbrushes (wildflowers) in April. The bed and breakfast is Settle's Crossing. (See ink at bottom of page -Travel and Leisure magazine calls Settler's Crossing one of the top 10 country getaways in the USA.) This bed and breakfast is 7 charming houses on 35 acres on the country road to Luckenbach, Texas of Willie Nelson fame. The B and B is 3 1/2 miles outside of Fredericksburg, Texas. Each house is from a different era or place. Each is beautifully furnished in the furniture from the same period that the house was built in. Just a lovely, peaceful place to stay. There is a two story log cabin that was taken apart in Kentucky, I think it was, and each log numbered so that it could be reconstructed at Settler's Crossing correctly. That has been the owner's weekend home. And nearby Fredricksburg is what they would call in England, a "market town." Shopping is plentiful and fun. My favorite shop is a silver shop that sells holloware and flatware that is vintage or antique. Above this paragraph there's a picture of one of the houses at Settle's Crossing. to the right is one I took one morning on the porch of that house.

But back to the real purpose of this particular leterr, our reading group. Once a year we vote on a list of books recommended by members. We select 11 or so books at once and so the members can read ahead if they want to. We like to read the Pulitzer prize winner for the past year if we haven’t read it yet. We also like to include an older book of note, nonfiction as well as fiction. Older books of note have included ones authored by Willa Cather, E, M. Forster, and Wilkie Collins who wrote the first mystery – The Moonstone – back in 1871.

Here’s the list that we have begun reading from in October 2005:

Eventide by Kent Haruf
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Lone Star Nation by H. W. Brands
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
1776 by David MCullough
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
That’s only 11 because in December we meet for cookies, cheese, and wine or tea.


Take care,
MaggieGladYouCame

Link to Bed and Breakfast at Fredricksburg, Texas

www.settlerscrossing.com/

A Few Things I enjoy

Dear Friends,
Glad you came.
When I am having friends over and everyone runs late, I imagine, for just a second, that no one is coming. Well, this is my first day to keep an online journal or blog and I am imagining no one is coming to read this. So why am I doing this? In hopes . . . . . .
and I love to write. And, this is important, I think I have something to say for those who enjoy eating, traveling in the USA and England, and reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction. I read with my eyes and my ears ( books on CD) and sometimes a book is best enjoyed as a movie.
I enjoy many things, but traveling and eating are right up there at the top of my list. Reading - be it books or blogs, is one of my favorite things and it creeps into my letters too. I like to travel to enjoy nature, to enjoy specific activities like walking or dining, and to learn about something - love American and English history. I will always write about places I've really been - whether it's a town, a restaurant, a resort, a quilt show, a garden, a spa, or a shop. And usually they will be places in the USA that I will have experienced myself. If I haven't been there, I will tell you that. Most of my posts will be about what works, what was fun, what was good. I don't care to spend time on what didn't work or was a dissappointment. I will write about recipes I use and books I've read; not what I've read about. You can count on me like you would a friend.

Today I am grateful for so many things. The sunrise, my health, my silky, blue-eyed cat curled up on my desk, my geen eyed husband who makes me laugh. He made Pork Chop Osso Buco for supper tonight with a little chopping, prep work, cleanup help from me. It was marvelous! Recipe to follow another day.

Take care,
MaggiegGladYouCame