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Menu Specialties include food, faith,
personal growth and all things DIY.
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Featured Articles | Food
Tabasco, the best known hot sauce in America, has regional competition.
Some Like It Hot
As my dining compadre and I sat congratulating ourselves on the admirably considerable spoils of our visit to Central Texan Barbecue (see Dining Review), we began to muse on the potency of peppers. There at our booth, charmed by the array of condiments and admittedly playing with our food, we concocted our own complement of sauce that managed to make our ears turn red as it blazed a scorching trail from the tips of our tongues on down to our stomach linings, at once enhancing the flavor of the meat and making our eyes water. Capsicum frutescens, we reasoned, is a force with which to be reckoned.
“Knowledge is power,” I gasped in a fiery breath, vowing to investigate. Only three ingredients comprise Tabasco sauce, perhaps the best-known pepper sauce that sits on refrigerator shelves and coffee shop counters across America: peppers, vinegar and salt…………
Monterey’s regional cuisine is defined by geographical blessings and cultural influences.
The Land, The People, The Food
Any area’s regional cuisine is defined as much by the temperament of its climate as its people. The Central Coast of California is a uniquely endowed part of the world, spilling over with year-round harvests from both land and sea and into cooking pots seasoned by time-tested traditions of many cultures, while continuously mixing with all that is new.
Here in Monterey County with our blend of incoming cultures, we are blessed with a stunning number of ethnic restaurants and influences out of all proportion to the size of our population. We have Indian, Philipino, Central and South American, French, German…the list goes on to span virtually the whole globe–not to mention good ol’ fashioned, down-home steakhouses. But if there’s any cuisine that we are truly known for, it’s a Sicilian-based style of cooking that’s been modified to capitalize on our rare abundance of fresh fish and produce……………………………………………………………………………………
Eighty-two-year-old Nancy Costello earns her title “The Food Lady” every day.
Feeding the Hungry
After all the excesses of these last many weeks of feast days, there’s nothing quite like January to clean the slate and point the way to redemption. But while many of us are nagged by the number of pounds we’d like to lose, haunted by the memory of our pre-holiday pants size, there’s a sad irony in the fact that the coming winter months present a different challenge to a frightening number of people: simply getting enough to eat……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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Featured Articles | The Divorcee’s Blog
Life As A House
It’s a heart wrenching, wonderfully cast movie starring Kevin Kline that never fails to bring out the Kleenex when I’m watching it (again), usually with my sister and my niece, who also happen to be my next-door neighbors. And now it’s my life, as I DIY the remodel of my old cabin cum farmhouse. Only it’s not George (Kevin Kline) that’s dying, as he endeavors to re-imagine his old falling down house, it’s my marriage that has fallen down, our joint venture a casualty of attrition, leaving a team now reduced by half.
Leaving the me-half hell-bent on figuring out how to Do It Myself. If my marriage couldn’t be saved, at least I’ll save this awesomely cool quirky lopsided-but-no-longer-falling-down (First Major Discovery) old house. Or keel over trying.
The to-do list is daunting.
Our very wet Indiana winter revealed a soffit that gushed water into the sunroom, since the metal roof didn’t quite reach the gutter on one side.
Fixed now, just in time to discover that copious spring rains are finding the way onto the kitchen floor, part of an unfinished addition made to the cabin who knows when. Not fixed yet. The big ticket item, the sagging second story foundation / kitchen ceiling IS fixed, praise God, but not finished. This was Uncle Bob’s piece de resistance. So far, anyway.
“Yep, looks like Uncle Bob’s been here,” the unholy, repeated pronouncement of the home inspector, as he made notes on his clipboard with me standing by, heart beating out of my chest. (Dear Lord, what am I getting myself into?”)
Uncle Bob is a mythical, but once very real character
…the architect/owner-builder of my wacky wonder. I surmise that a framing square was not his most-favored tool. Most likely a Depression-era iconoclast in the habit of fudging it and putting the scrap pile to use, he’s become the object of both my affection and contempt as I laugh and swear my way through finishing the job that he started.
This is my life as my house, a divorcee’s guide to figuring out a few of the mysteries of construction and demolition, love lost and and self, found.
OMG Who Would Paint 100-Year-Old Logs Pink?
I’m on my own.
Me and this house. It’s mine and I’m its.
A foreclosure, its right of redemption by its former owners have been extinguished. Hey! Just like my marriage! Now we’re a couple. Oh-My-God, a couple of what? A divorcee and seven rooms of Do-It-Myself floors/walls/windows/cabinets/paint and trim. I’m counting myself out of plumbing, electrical and foundation work, if I can help it. Some things are just better off un-googled! Outside of changing a tire I admittedly do not care to know how to fix my truck and pray I don’t ever have to learn. Likewise I hope the same holds true for the latter trifecta. (Update: It didn’t.)
I wander around from room to room. At 1342 square feet, it’s not an overwhelmingly large project. Yeah, right! Who am I kidding? Every room needs something…
Climbing Out of the Divorce Dumpster
…Strategies for Survival
The decision to seek counsel with a bunch of strangers isn’t easy.
But once I realized that my set of divorce woes had worn me out—along with my closest family and a few good girlfriends— I knew that I was ready to escape the jail cell I’d put myself in, and make the attempt to see what others were doing to dig their way out of the dump.
Working myself to exhaustion helped me sleep, but was no cure. Reaching for a glass of wine numbed the pain, but the novocaine it provided wore off too soon. I was ready to come up with a strategy and needed a source outside of my own confused thinking to help.
That’s where DivorceCare came in.
You don’t have to go through it alone
Most people will tell you that separation and divorce are the most painful and stressful experiences they’ve ever faced. It’s a confusing time when you feel isolated and have lots of questions about issues you’ve never faced before. DivorceCare groups meet weekly to help you face these challenges and move toward rebuilding your life.……………………………………………..
The Best Pimiento Cheese Like You Ain’t Never Had
Never ever is sugar added, like the sickeningly sweet grocery store deli kind.
(Some would say “Yankee”.)
Or So I Thought.
Pretty sure this version of the southern staple earns its name honest, ‘cause I just made it up! While I haven’t googled the blogosphere to see if there’s anything that smacks of a similar disposition, it’s the first time I’ve ever made this version, so it’s original to me, anyway you chop those chiles. In love, out-of-love, lost love, puppy love, fool-for-love….pimiento cheese is THE steadfast and unwavering go-to love interest of the edible variety, having served this divorcee oh-so well over, during and through two marriages. (BTW, I was a good wife both times, a truism that would, I think, be ratified if you caught each of the ex’s in a cheery, affable mood. Maybe after a coupla’ drinks. For sure they would at least affirm that I make a great P.C.)
The Original Pimiento Cheese recipe has been disseminated far and wide from the land of cotton where ol’ times there are not forgotten. A notable part of my family’s southern heritage, the simplest Dixie-style version is just a jar of chopped pimientos, some Hellman’s (east of the Mississipi) or Duke’s, and grated cheddar. BORING, but passable if that’s all you have to work with and you’re in bad shape, jonesing for some…………………………………………………………………..