Weekend Wrap..

Probably not really riveting reading, but it is what it is (as "they" say)...

A lot of the weekend was spent in recovering (it always takes longer than you wish) from the cold that downed me the latter part of the week. A hoped for attendance at a Thursday night cooking class over in Leonardtown (at QualityStreet) fell victim to the symptoms. I was looking forward to it as it featured (among other things) a home made blue cheese dressing for iceberg wedge, a dish that I am increasingly fond of. The staff was kind enough to save me a plate of everything however, which served as a lunch on Saturday. Somehow, the recipe for the salad dressing didn’t make it into the notes, but that’s being worked. I’m a sucker for blue cheese dressing. You can have your dainty little vinaigrette, gimme the earthy creamy chunky blue cheese. I think it's particularly suited for that crunchy snappy iceberg. Kind of acts like a binder on the more delicate greens.

After spending most of Friday recuperating, the first social foray consisted of attending a fund raiser for the Hospital on Friday night. Although a nice selection of wines and appetizers were offered, the taste buds were still unable to discern any flavor of liquid or solid food. Sigh.

At last feeling more normal on Saturday, I spent some time on John Deere and with the weed whacker returning the digs to a more presentable condition. Then some couch time (a medical necessity) watching various college football games, suffering yet another national exposure of a bumbling Spartan team as they once again were too little too late. When does roundball start?

Rallied myself to go out Saturday night to that lecture at Calvert Marine Museum. It turned out to be not what I expected, and instead of speaking about historic sailing on the Chesapeake, it recounted a journey from Europe to the New World on the same route that the early colonists would have taken. Except this was on a luxury 5 masted sailing ship with gourmet meals. The presenter used some historic navigational equipment, which was generally able to match the GPS data from the ship. Entertaining, just not what I expected. A takeout from Ruddy Duck with a couple of pizzas finished the evening.

Yesterday we had some friends over for lunch, and I prepared a frittata served with thick sliced bacon. Only negative was that it was left under the broiler just a few seconds (time to go get a sip of beverage) too long, but still was edible. Given the early hour I figured that something bubbly would be appropriate and stumbled across a nice find. It was an ‘05 “Sparkling Rose” from Kluge Estate in Charlottesville in Virginia. It had a pleasing pale pink color with nice effervescence of tiny bubbles. Although the sniffer wasn’t still in it’s “A” game, I did detect some yeasty aromas. I thought it had (watch out) a nice mouth feel, sort of silky with a long finish. Whew! Enough wine speak…anyway it went well with the smoked gouda and MFO’s cheese crackers. It once again proved how nice a leisurely lunch with good friends and food can be.

Of course we eventually degraded to watching the “Skins” allowing Detroit to end their three year winless streak. I don’t know how the Nation’s Capital can have such inept pro teams (except the Caps – thank goodness). I also caught the end of the FedEx cup coverage. It was interesting to me how all season long, the networks had promo after promo about “the playoffs”, close ups of folks like Emmet Smith emoting about the importance of “the playoffs”, on and on. I think in every sport I know of if one wins the final “playoff”, that person is deemed the “Champion”. Makes sense. There must have been some fast thinking yesterday when Phil Mickelson beat Tiger by 3 strokes, and second place in “The Playoffs” takes the Fedex Cup. So immediately they started yapping about the Cup representing “consistency of play throughout the season”, and Lefty merely won “the tour championship”. I think they have a ways to go. Maybe they can talk to the BCS folks, they have it right…. Oh, wait…..

ADMIN NOTE: this coming Saturday, MFO and I are leaving Pax to attend our 50th High school class reunion. The Bottom Feeder will be on the road, but it will be a new experience in the blogosphere. In preparation for this odyssey, publication this week may be sporadic. But in no case should you not

DFD

Health of the Economy and the Feeder:

Are about the same. I think we’ve hit bottom and are beginning to move upward. Enough energy to pen a few pre-weekend this and that’s and events..

To Do’s (in no particular order):

County Fair: all weekend, always a unique event.

Student Recital – Today 3pm at SMCM Auerbach Aud in St. Mary’s hall. French horn and either piano or flute

Bass Sitar – Today Classical Indian musician, Ustad Imrat Kahn, lecture at 5 in Anne Arundel hall, concert 8:15

Chesapeake Explorers – Tomorrow 7pm – Calvert Marine Museum. A talk by Kent Mountford relating to his travels on the Chesapeake bay in a rigged ship following Capt. John Smith’s route. I think free.

Living History – Tomorrow Christ Church La Plata – 6pm. A docent from Dr. Sam Mudd house will portray Bridget, a servant there. Also a 5pm candelight tour of the church, and then a pre-civil war Dinner. 25 bucks. Not sure what that menu would be, but interesting.

Riverfest ’09 – Sunday, noon to six. Free. Historic St. Mary’s City , sponsored by the St. Mary’s Watershed Association. Lots of things to do.
Too bad nothing to do in St. Mary’s County

Feeder Feel Good

Sometimes I think I am being too severe in my “gripes” about servers, restaurants, etc. October Gourmet, pg 34, first annual “Golden Egg” awards. “The Six Words we’d Prefer to Never Hear from the Waitstaff Again”: 1st Place: “Are you still working on that?”; Runner up: “I’ll be your waiter this evening”. Hah. we're not so dumb!

Sports Bite:

Feeling cruddy on the couch yesterday, with no desire for anything else to do, I watched the first round of the Finale of the FedEx cup at Eastlake in Atlanta. Depite 500 year floods, the course was in great shape by the way. Anyway, it was interesting to see the networks vainly trying to put drama in this thing. If I hear the phrase “their destiny is in their hands” again, I’ll throw up. Excuse me, Tiger is in the field. Then, as coverage continued the silly woman commentator kept flashing up things like (remember, this is the first of four rounds): “(he) can win the cup if: Tiger finishes in a 5 way tie for 8th, (Furyk) places no higher that 17th, and Slocum is DQ’d. To his credit, Faldo pooh poohed all of this. And, to their credit, the players maintained all they wanted to do was shoot a good round and didn’t pay attention to the points. Faldo allowed as how the 11 Million was a drop in the bucket to tiger anyway. Oh, and the same silly woman started the coverage with a shot of aircraft overflying the course with “we’re having a flyover of F-5’s courtesy of NAS Key West”. They were dots before I could see what they were really.

have a fun weekend and
DFD

The Score is....

Cold/coughing/sneezing: 1; Bottom Feeder: 0.

A sniffy nose on tuesday matured into a healthy cough during the day yesterday and last night. No report today - pass the Kleenex.

Aren't you on the edge of your seat? The last tourney for the FedEx cup starts today. talk about made up events..

atchoo, and i won't be

DFD

Not quite lite Wednesday

A short list that grew a little…

So. Md. Culture at its best:

A couple of people sent me a link to a story in one of our “on-line” newspapers that showed a grizzly skull of (sic) "a horse" in a pot behind one of our local Mexican markets. It allegedly was used to “make tacos”. Well, in today’s Enterprise, there’s a top of front page story with that (ugly) picture and it goes on to explain it was all just a misunderstanding, see. Silly us, it’s really only a cows head. What’s all the fuss about? Article goes to pains to point out a county official says it’s “an acceptable culinary practice”. I certainly feel better now. I’ll have a salad please.

As locals know, there is always a chaser going across the bottom of the screen during “local on the 8’s” on the Weather Channel. Old people watch the WC for hours, you know. Anyway the chaser usually advertises some local business. Today there was one about a luncheon special which read” “Clarke’s Landing Restaurant announces there famous crab cake….”. Hey, it passed the spell checker..

The (culinary) rejuvenation of “the Park” continues…Sake has opened in the old McDonald’s/Chicken Shack (did that ever actually open?) spot on Great Mills road. I think it’s a steak house and might have AYCE Sushi. That’s classy. The Lexington Park Pub is coming, the new McDonalds debuts in St. Mary’s Square which also contains a store front Pizza Hut. I also think something else is under construction: “coming soon”. Sometime I gotta count the number of eateries around here. Big number (and growing) I think.

General

And, despite many mailings of “no thank you” and “do not renew”, guess what came in yesterday afternoon’s mail?



You can't win, but you can
DFD

Renew Now!, and etc.

Has this ever happened to you? You subscribe to a magazine of some sort, and one day in the mail you get a letter saying “time to renew your subscription at special rates”, or maybe: “renew now and save”. Well, of course you can’t find the magazine, or the little label has peeled off, or the publisher cleverly puts the label on a clear plastic sleeve you have to destroy to get to the publication. And, you can’t really remember when you “upped” or how long it was. So, you go to the website to the “customer service” tab (if you can find the almost grayed out 2 point font link), to find a screen that says “please enter your 16 digit account code” with a little diagram showing you where that is—on the upper right on that label you don't have in the first place!! If I knew where the damn label was, I MIGHT be able find when my subscription expires. So, you go back in your financial records and find that you wrote a check last year for a three year extension. Whew. Into the trash. A month later: “time is running out! We haven’t heard from you”. Trash. Another few weeks: “William! This is your last chance at special rates!!”. You’re helpless.

Or, say that you give gift subscriptions for Christmas presents (which I do). Along about May or June they start coming! “Only six months till your gifts run out! Renew now!” along with a little form for checking “renew this gift” or “Don’t renew”. This year, I decided that I would not renew a couple, so just ignored the notice. Bad idea. A week later: “Tell us what to do about (Name)!!. Okay, I’ll spend 42 cents and check the “do not” box. Mail that. Uh uh. Next comes an envelope with “URGENT” highlighted on the front, with a little open window with your former recipient’s name. “Don’t disappoint (name)!. You can’t win.

And, although the magazines are bad enough, the kings of this practice are the non-profits, like the National Wildlife Organization or Save the Bay, things like that. Same scam. An envelope arrives with a “renewal” notice. They often even send a plastic “members” card. Think there’s an expiration date on it? Ha ha. Maybe a membership number, but going to their website gets you nothing. Send an inquiry to “customer service”? get real.

One has to wonder how many people blindly believe the publishers are ethical, and keep writing checks, resulting in subscriptions that expire beyond their reasonable life expectation. Ridiculous? I am sorry to admit that last year I had a membership in the Audubon society until 2015.

Time Marches On

Nothing is forever.. our (almost) nightly ritual of cocktails entails doing work or chores until about 7, sometimes watching evening news while constructing a dry Manhattan, on the rocks, with a twist, and a Bombay Gin Gimlet with fresh squeezed lime juice. Then perhaps some cheese (or Waffle Snax), chex mix, cheetos, cheeze its, (note orange theme) or lately MFO has found some breadsticks that are fairly tasty (see below). Then, depending on weather or season, we either settle on the porch or stay in the living room, switch over to channel five and enjoy re-runs of “Seinfeld”. Somehow no matter how many times you see it, it remains fresh and funny. Sort of like Mr. Silberschlag observed the other day, the more familiar you are with it, the more you appreciate the nuances. When you know a line is coming, the anticipation builds and the more you enjoy the delivery. Anyway (finally the nothing part…), Fox has decided that we would rather see syndications of “The Office” instead of the tried and true Jerry/George/Kramer/Elaine show. Sigh….

Oh, the breadsticks. We have found some fairly tasty ones available at Shoppers, shown below with a serving suggestion.



A word of warning however, if you enjoy them on the porch it might be wise to bring them inside because the overnight humidity is not kind to their structure. For evidence, here’s one we didn’t finish the previous evening..



At this point, the clever editor could insert slightly off color references to certain widely advertised products as seen on television mainly during manly events like pro football games that feature bath tubs. But, knowing the high intelligence of the loyal readers, it is, as they say, left to the reader.

DF?

Errata: it just might be that the august gentlement in feathered hats pictured in yesterdays Chapel just might be Knights of Columbus. Not brought up Catholic.....