Tag: Food

It’s May!

It’s IMPOSSIBLE to land on May 1 and not think of the song from Camelot – the Lusty Month of May (as evidenced by two blog posts in my history referencing the song!). So go ahead, take a minute and have Alexa play it for you or find it on YouTube…

Ok. So I’ll forever think of that and sing it often – in my head and aloud – throughout the month.

Since it’s May, that means it’s TIME FOR A WEDDING!  Last March (2016) Marissa got engaged and dreamed of a destination wedding – so here we go!  She and Adam are celebrating their marriage on Cinco de Mayo in Cancun! How fun. We are all looking forward to warm weather (upper 80s during the day! 70s at night!), family time (every Grimsrud child and grandchild will be there!), and fiestas galore!  I’m hoping I’m not a blubbering fool because it’s going to be a joyous day – so I will do my best not to blubber! I worry about finding words of wisdom or having an eloquent speech, but actually there is lots of life ahead to share wisdom, so I’ll try not to stress about that.

More about the wedding when we get back… it will be a memorable time!

Haven’t done a post in a while, so I’ll just blather on here a bit about what’s been making me happy in these last few months.  So much to be thankful for (always!).

  • We have been searching – first casually and then more seriously – for a new home. It all started with wanting a gas stove.  We tried to see if it would be possible to update the kitchen in our townhome. And then we started dreaming about aspects of our dream homes.  Me, I wanted big windows, lots of light, an open floor plan, not too big but big enough to be able to host gatherings. Chris wanted a fabulous bathroom with tile shower and a glass door and granite countertops. We both wanted that elusive gas stove.  Well, we found it. It’s just big enough for us but with that open floor plan that will make it fun and possible to host Christmas and Thanksgiving and singalongs and game nights and backyard BBQs.  But it’s small enough that we won’t have to spend all our free time taking care of it. It’s just perfect. More on that later, as well!  We will close in June, so this summer will be filled with changes!
  • Movies – not as many of those lately, but we did get to one movie during the International Film Festival. We saw a Romanian film called Two Lottery Tickets. It was a funny little film.  So glad the festival is here in Rochester and so glad that I got to at least one movie.
  • Books – I’m on a bit of a reading streak, so that is fun!  Book Club is meeting MONTHLY so that helps!  Recently we read “The Light Between Oceans,” “Euphoria,”  “Big Little Lies” and “Thirty Rooms to Hide In.”  Next is “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat.” I’m also reading “When Breath Becomes Air” for a book club at work. Looking forward to beach book time in Mexico!
  • Food – We haven’t been going to as many restaurants because we are cooking at home! We have now tried Marley Spoon, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron in the past few months. We are going to stick with Marley Spoon, because all the meals were so very tasty, although the most challenging to make, and you have control over the meals you get (unlike Blue Apron) and have an option for 2 meals in a week rather than 3 (unlike either of the other two).  We find it hard to cook at home 3 days out of a week and most need to be eaten within that time frame. So we have had some really good food at home recently – today we had a spicy rigatoni with lemon ricotta.  Looking forward to cooking on our gas stove in the new house! I do love having the house smell like good food!
  • Wedding Wedding Wedding! – There have been showers, bachelorette parties, a USA wedding, too-many-to-count Mother of the Bride dresses tried on and returned, and the various ablutions that come with a fancy to-do. So that has taken up quite a bit of time recently!  The day-long mermaid themed bachelorette was an incredible time on a beautiful April day (April 1!). We had mimosas in the morning with a Beyonce drag show, failed an Escape Room in the afternoon, had a patio party at Betty Danger’s in the evening and then went clubbing into the wee hours. Oh my. So fun! Looking forward to more such shenanigans in Mexico!

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Be of love (a little) more careful than of anything.
— E. E. Cummings

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May you find many things to be happy about in this Lusty Month of May!

Our Musical Monday

Last Monday we had tickets to a unique concert experience.  A very cool musician was starting a Supper Club Tour – performing in people’s homes all across the United States with the concert-goers bringing the supper.  He is wrapping up the Midwest portion of his tour this weekend, I believe, and then starting the West Coast portion in Des Moines (Des Moines = West Coast? Who knew?) in October.  He asked for people to open their homes for the event.  I wanted to volunteer either my parent’s home or my brother’s home for a concert spot but decided that my life is chaotic enough – so we just made it our mission to get tickets.

Tickets obtained (the show was sold out!) so we needed to figure out what to bring for supper!  I finally thought of cheesy potatoes and Marissa agreed that was the perfect Midwestern potluck food.  Then that day I realized that the bow-tie wearing Jeremy also warranted a little bowtie pasta salad!  His handmade bow-ties were part of his merch, after all.

The address of the venue was emailed out on Sunday and ours was an art studio downtown Rochester – not a home but a cool space.

Fagan Studios for the Supper Club Tour

We arrived and found our names on the guest list (no tickets issued) and tried to find space for our food!  What an incredible amount of food! When lining up, it was hard to decide what to eat, as there were four full tables of deliciousness to choose from.

Supper: Table 1 of 4 = good stuff!

We got our yummy food and then Jeremy began playing.  He played for 90 minutes, which just flew by!

Singing one of his smart and quirky songs, I’m sure.

I asked about his writing process, because that always interests me.  I know I’m a writer-wanna-be.  He says he will just obsess about a lyric or a melody until he’s done with it or sick of it.  He finds deadlines to be helpful and wrote a beautiful song for his wife.  On Valentine’s Day.

Here’s the lyrics to one of his songs that I like:

Beautiful Children lyrics

Warm house, cold hand
I was standing outside,
Trying to find your doorbell
At 2 am
Ran all the way,
Hope that you weren’t sleeping

You rubbed your eyes
Gently with the palm of your left hand
We talked a while
And you told me how much you appreciate me
and I knew that it was time for me to stay or leave
So I started walking home,
Sawing teardrops in the snow
We’ll be friends forever
But i’m afraid that you’ll never love me

You met someone
At the show when you went home for the weekend
And he makes you laugh
Somehow I remind you little of him

Two perfect hands
A part time job that says that he loves children
I lost my tongue
Until now you never felt that you missed anyone
And even tough it’s early,
You think it could be love

Another heartsick lullaby
But i can’t seem to make you cry
We’ll be friends forever
But i’m afraid that you’ll never love me

Does he love you?
Does he love you?
I hope he loves you
If he doesn’t,
At least you’ll have beautiful children, beautiful children

He played a couple of new songs, including “Someday Someone” and “I Want to be Your One Night Stand.”  Very fun and clever. Afterwards we got our photo taken with him and bought some Merch (from him, not a Merch Girl – another of his songs).

Good times

We had such a great time.  And the cheesy potatoes were a HIT as the pan was empty when I picked it up!  Not many people can say that.

Looking forward to our next Musical Adventure – as soon as next Saturday!  Glen Hansard at First Ave…

Ah, life is good.

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Food and Healthy Eating

Last week I signed up for Seattle Sutton Healthy Eating program.  A few things were appealing to me:  there is no commitment required – you can order your plan week by week with no penalty for taking a break; you can also get the full 7 day week or you can get a 4 day or 3 day week.  Deliveries are on Monday and Thursday in Rochester or you can pick it up on those days, as well.  It is more money than I probably spend on groceries and eating out in a week so I’ll be weighing the pros and cons as I go, but here are my thoughts so far.

My refrigerator

I wondered what the packaging would be like.  I’m happy to say that the black containers are recyclable plastic.  They are bigger than I thought they’d be, so although they will fit in my lunch bag, I’m not sure two of them will.  In fact, tonight, I repacked breakfast and lunch for tomorrow because they could be packaged smaller.  They’re uniformly packaged, which is nice for refrigerator storage, but not so much for hauling it around.

(Note the Coke Zero in the back of the refrigerator- I think it’s been there for almost two years! Should I do an experiment with it?)

The variety…

I think I can safely say that what I like most about this program is the variety of food that I have eaten so far.  When I cook for myself, I NEVER make peas AND squash AND potatoes for one meal!  And today I had a nectarine for breakfast AND a kiwi for lunch.  This lunch today (seen above) was very tasty.  A cold bean salad with a turkey breast on that yummy toasted bagel with honey-mustard-yogurt.  Oh my!

Breakfast burrito

Yesterday was a chicken breast topped with salsa and some carrots.  I’ve had a breakfast burrito, tasty oatmeal, delicious spaghetti with a yummy celery and onion side dish, and turkey meatloaf with a twice-baked potato.  The only thing I haven’t found really tasty is a hazelnut spread for my English muffin one morning.  I really had a hard time with that.  And would you believe I’ve never had cooked spinach before?  I also had to choke that down.  Quite a variety of meals for this week!  And no leftovers!  Or pots and pans to wash!  

Cooking for one has been a challenge, and I’ve told many people lately that it has been one of the biggest challenges for me with my new crazy work schedule, not the sleeping.  I have been eating out a lot, eating unhealthy cafeteria food, eating dinner at 11:00pm, driving through fast-food on my way to or from work, among other bad habits.  So I’m going to try this a little bit, maybe off and on.  For next week, I only ordered 3 days worth of meals and I’ll not order any when I’m on vacation, of course.  It is expensive but eating healthy is expensive.

I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I continue to like it!

Have you ever tried anything like this?