The Friday Friends: October 2017

Monday, October 30, 2017

Non-Fiction November - Week 1

I've mentioned this before--I think it was last year around this time-- but Nonfiction November is my favorite annual book blogging event.

I always learn about so many great books and subjects from all of you!

Today's (this week's actually) topic is--My year in Nonfiction.

What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? May I have a 4-way tie please?

What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? May I have a 4-way tie again please? I love, love, love Foodie books, and I love, love, love memoirs, and I love, love, love travel books and I love, love, love history books. So from this year I'd recommend "Eight Flavors", "Stingray Afternoons", "At Home in the World" and "Captured".

What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? As a rule, I wish I'd read more non-fiction than I do. But because I love foodie memoirs the most, I guess I can never read 'enough' of them.

What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November? My short answer is above--I always learn about so many great books and subjects from all of you who participate.

My list of nonfiction for this year is kind of short, but all were very good. I'll go for quality of quantity for now.

I really liked all of these.

I can't wait to see what everyone else is reading!

Here are our hosts for the month...many thanks to them!!

Katie at Doing Dewey Lory at Emerald City Book Review Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves Julz at Julz Reads Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness

http://www.sophisticateddorkiness.com/

Friday Friend Recipe #171 - Great Corn

I asked the Handyman, WHY is it that every time take a photo of something I've made from the Friday Friend Cookbook, and there is a pork steak (as there is a lot of times, because it's the easiest meat I can come up with for the HM. And he is a meat eater. He'll eat anything I make, but when I'm spending the day making recipes out of the cookbook, I'll usually have him grill a pork steak)... back to my point... why does it always look like Pac-Man? Pac-Man ready to gobble something up?

When I asked him this yesterday, he just looked at the photo and shrugged and said he didn't get what I was talking about. BUT, can you see it? The eye? The open mouth? Maybe it looks more like an iguana than Pac-Man. Yeah, I think so. It's an Iguana.

This tho, is about the corn.

My Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown #171!

(#willreallyfinishthissomeday)

Barb's Great Corn!

and you know all the whys and wherefores of this countdown, right? Homemade cookbook, friends contributed, Handyman said I couldn't/wouldn't do it, I'll show him, yadda yadda yadda....

...and the rest is cookbook history!

The Handyman is sprinkling some Tabasco sauce on the Great Corn (and the Pac-Man pork steak) (He likes a little spice in his life--that's why he has me. 😀)

Great Corn

Barbara Brown

Buckeye, AZ

My friend Barb.

Editor of the Friday Friend Cookbook.

Graciously giving of her many recipes. including another corn one on July 29th. (Swiss Corn Bake, #149 in the countdown), she has a sense of humor like no other--and she loves to laugh.

The Handyman and I had not seen Barb and Doug's children for many years, so when they invited us to join them in Lake Tahoe in September, she decided not to tell her kids and let 'us' be a surprise!

We showed up like this....

The Handyman is on the left.

And it was funny!

You should have seen their faces. We all had a good laugh--they had no clue who it was until we took our masks off.

I sent the pic of me and the Handyman to my kids. Just for fun.

Then we got caught up and ate and drank and visited.

And of course, had a little competition on some Minnesota Golf (that's what we call it, but I know that's not really the name)

played Cards against Humanity, did some interesting football pool betting (see previous posts about football leagues #166, #162 and #158)

And then of course decided that everyone needed the emoji photo taken.

It was a really nice weekend filled with lots of laughs.

When we pulled into town after the weekend--there was the strangest sight--- a girl in a horses head getting her picture taken under the Welcome to Winnemucca sign.

I had to let my son know we were home anyway so I sent this picture to him in a text. I didn't mention the picture--just said we were home.

HE DOESN'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE IT!

I said WEIRD and he sent this back to me:

Touché!

but kind of a smart-alec!!

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Cooking Club2 -- Lables! (back of box, can or carton)

The last cooking club saw us all having to make a dish from the back of a box, can or carton.

It was the label theme!

The Cooks/the characters!

Debbie E, Sally, Shelly, Me, Gina and April!

Co-starring Charlie, Paul, Mark, Doug and Lorin. Where is the Handyman, you ask? He was away for work. I went anyway.

(can't keep me away from a good book or a good meal!)

What can you say about meals taken together? Well, author Laurie Colwin in her book "Home Cooking" says:

The sharing of food is the basis of social life, and to many people it is the only kind of social life worth participating in.

One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.

That's how it is with the Cooking Club!

We eat with friends, we talk with friends, we laugh with friends.

And by the end of the night we are stuffed and happy and kind of drunk on friends and food. Just happy.

This time around I had appetizers, so I reached in my pantry for those boxes of crackers we all have on hand and proceeded to make a few decent appetizers. Yes, a few--I'm a bit of an over-achiever, only when it's something I'm interested in.

I used, the graham cracker, the soda cracker and a triscuit.

CHEESY MELTS!

SPICY TUNA MELTS

AND.... HUMMAS, CUCUMBERS TOMATOES AND FETA

There was a lovely salad recipe found on the back of some Olive Garden Croutons from Gina, a nice rice side dish from the back of a box of imported from Italy rice from April, and Debbie E brought a Peruvian potato salad, recipe found on the back of a jar of sauce/dressing bought at a Peruvian market.

(her daughter-in-law is from Peru)