Summer Breeze

My Great Aunt Gladys owned and ruled (with an iron fist) a family restaurant called the K&W in Minden. I lived up north with her the summers I was fourteen then fifteen and worked for her in the restaurant. It's all a little hazy now, but I seldom worked afternoons. That was for my cousin (Ila) and her nephew (Alex). We got up at five, piece of toast, cup of tea and drove into town for 05:30. She opened at six. I would make coffee, butter toast, pour ice water, bus tables and do dishes until about eight. Then it was to the dirt floor basement to peel and chip potatoes. Millions of them! About eleven, she would call me upstairs, feed me something massive, then back on dishes until the lunch rush was over. We'd leave at two. When not working, I had the run of her idled farm. Hundreds of acres. A couple of barns. Bicycles, a horse, a pony, BB guns, knapsacks, ponds ... room to roam. My cousin Alex and I were inseparable, when we weren't peeling potatoes! My sister worked there for the following two summers. It is certainly one of the contributing factors in my interest in the economics of food and cooking in general. She served nothing fancy, just standard diner fare, everything was good. The restaurant is still there. On the west side of the main drag near the Dominion Hotel. It's probably still good, stamped into the DNA of the foundation is my guess. If you are going through and hungry, I would order the hot hamburger or fish and chips. Aunt Gladys made the greatest coleslaw on earth. I asked my sister about it a few months ago and somehow, she had the recipe.

1 large cabbage (shredded)

2 large onions, halved & thinly sliced

1 pepper (pick a colour) finely chopped

2 carrots grated

1 hot pepper very finely chopped (I added that)

Toss the above ingredients with 1/2 cup of sugar and rest for 30

While it's resting, put a small pot on the stove. Bring to a boil:

1 cup of vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, dry mustard & celery seed

Pour that mixture over the slaw and refrigerate for up to two weeks. I currently halve the wet ingredients and add an large tub of store-bought coleslaw. Do not get the creamy slop! Selection Traditional Coleslaw from Food Basics is vinegar based and works well. It's the ultimate diet food and brings back great "Blowin through the jasmine of my mind" ... memories.

Our Optimum Week

Pretty quiet on the flyer front but I see they are dangling a new stamp program in front of us. Same company but this time it's the porcelain covered cast iron cookware. I may be tempted to grab a piece or two. Flyer was meh but in advance of the weekly offers, I did get an Email for 30K in points if you spending $100 at PC Express. It's free for me (Insiders Card), but even if you had to pay the full $8, that is still $22 for letting them do some of the shopping for you? We are closing in on all the continuity offers we have been carrying on the bottom of the chart. The planets align for us on the last few days of the month, so I am going to be selfish and tailor the chart for my spend (in purple) this time around. Usually, I try and be more generic but this should work for you as well. The savings this week are going to be epic! Bonus Redemption at Shoppers. Here is my list:

I Am Reading

Mitch Fountain’s review of The Man in the High Castle

4/5: Sometimes, it just does not seem fair to review a book written 50 years ago. I was going to give this a three simply because I watched the TV series before reading this book. How the screenwriter got four seasons of television out of Dicks’ original idea just amazes me. The original idea is what we are reviewing here, and I can only imagine what the reading public thought about this book back in the day? Alternate timeline concepts, nuanced characters and a feeling of anticipation as we slowly realize what secret the author is trying to share with us. It would have been amazing ... if I had…

GoodreadsPhilip K. Dick

Mitch Fountain’s review of Starhawk (The Academy, #7)

4/5: OK, in the last book, she is semi-retired and has lost her husband. In this book, she is out for her certification flight and is young again. Did McDevitt find an old storyline in a drawer? Wanted to buy a new house? Get audited by the IRS? For whatever reason, this is one of the4 better Academy novels. The characters do nothing that would disqualify them from purchasing a bicycle and, in fact, he comes up with an interesting plot twist to create a reluctant terrorist. Hard choices need to be made in this tale about the launch of interstellar travel and Hutch’s career. Wonderful stuff.

GoodreadsJack McDevitt

We Are Watching

Alien: Earth on Paramount. - Finished this and the director stopped with the flash bang crap I complained about in the pilot. I thought it was quite good, and boy, they spent some money on special effects! Sidney Chandler has that "Bond girl" vibe, and Sam Blenkin is perfect as the twisted child prodigy.

Lynley on Britbox - Seems like a lot of effort for just four episodes, but they are ninety minutes each? If the goal was to leave us wanting more ... it worked.

Slow Horses on Apple TV - Third best show on television. Season Five does not disappoint.

Formula One - As a steady consumer of Formula One content, I was a little concerned when Apple has announced that they have locked down the rights to all F1 content for the next five years. I am used to getting that bundled with my cable content (Tech Savvy) and it comes in from ESPN through TSN. As this industry continues to splinter, those of us with limited income will have to make some tough choices. I can't see purchasing ten different, $25 dollar per month subscriptions on top of our current spend for digital access. I'll dig into this next week.

... and finally

I struggle with pronouns when writing this blog. Using I all the time sounds pretentious, so I (see what I did there) try to use it only where it makes sense. Usually, when you read we, I am speaking about Maddie and I. This content happens in the wee hours of the morning. SWMBO is in the Land Of Nod. Maddie is at my feet. Horizontal Supervision I call it. That's my heel on the left.

The only steady exception is the "We Are Watching" section. Maddie doesn't care about television but she does have a new behavior that I wanted to share. Not because it is exceptional, but because it is weird, and ordinary. Like most people, shortly after I get up, nature calls. Not the call we old men get at 11, 12:30, 2 and 4? The big call. The daily call. I sit there thinking great thoughts. Mostly about the colour of the grout around the bathtub. I wonder if there is a tool or a chemical that can return it to its pristine whiteness. I do nothing about it, but I think about it. For about ten minutes ... every morning. Lately, either by doing that cat thing around my legs, or sitting on my feet, or scratching my knees or barking loud enough to wake you know who, she insists I pick her up. After that, she doesn't want to play, be petted, or receive any attention. She sits on my knee and stares at the bathtub with me. I am not sure if she is trying to figure out what I am looking at ... or if she too ... is concerned about the deteriorating state of my grout. After a few minutes, she wants down and leaves me to it. Mission accomplished, I guess.

Mitch & Maddie