I have so many potential posts running around in my head, I am opting to combine them all in a long post.
Coffeereview: Bread and Basket French Roast
So I made a new brand of coffee this morning, Bread and Basket French Roast from ShopRite. It was the same price as the Folger’s Black Silk I bought at Target. Wonderful aroma and while it looked like it brewed extra strong and my cream didn’t really lighten it, it tasted just right.
Weight and stress relief
I have started counting calories again, using Fooducate this time and not My Fitness Pal. My Fitness Pal has more information such nutritional tracking and macros and connects more seamlessly with iHealth. Fooducate focuses on the quality of calories you eat, and since my stress foods are processed and refined carbohydrates I find that the best step in my process right now.
I had lost a solid two pounds this week but last night’s binge of Doritos and horseradish dip, sour patch kids and two alcoholic beverages reacquainted me with half a pound AND gave me nightmares.
Kittens
I haven’t even had a change to truly introduce the Norse Pride Kittens I am pet sitting for Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab. They don’t have a permanent foster placement yet so we may keep them as they are friendly, jolly and fluffy two-pound kittens. See them on YouTube here: Norse Pride.
Hermes of the Greek Pride is doing well but scratched his nose. Stopping to see Zeus and Apollo today. They are at Chaar in Forks Township. Chaar’s web site
And finally my look of the day:
**Since I wrote this post, it has been brought to my attention I called the Shoprite brand Bread and Basket instead of Bowl and Basket. Oops! Can’t blame me for that— I managed to get my waist into the leg hole of my panties today.
I decided to bake a cake and a Bundt cake at that. Got those Duncan Hines mid-20th Century vibes going on with a boxed carrot cake.
And some pecan coconut icing I bought on a whim. It sounded good or gross. Not sure which.
It’s cooling now.
It was almost a relaxing day. It should have been relaxing completely but I had lots of chores to do and a doctor’s appointment.
But the morning included a visit from my friend Buddy and a nice walk with him, Jan and Sobaka.
Buddy
I got my first pedicure since the pandemic started. Nala has been chewing my toe nails and eating the dead skin.
And speaking of Nala, she didn’t react well to the bass drum that ended up in my living room.
Now to ice my cake… I swapped some of the eggs for organic apricot applesauce… the cake has a lovely texture and amazing flavor but I flipped it too soon. So you’ll have to stop by for a bowl of cake.
The last few days have been emotional, challenging and at times full of mirth… so as expected, it is the full moon.
I attended a few trainings and meetings and will be (or was) on the county council meeting agenda to serve on the drug andalcohol task force. I also sat in on a meeting of the YWCA of Bethlehem’s Empowerment and Justice Committee.
Today was the first Friends of Pete mixer since the pandemic started!
But let me not get ahead of myself.
I did two loads of laundry, tended some pets, had coffee with a neighbor, vacuumed my room, tried to get information on my unemployment claim (tried two different agencies and could get through to neither), went for a walk with another neighbor… and learned some high school physics.
And then Sarah, my lead intern in the communications department at ASPIRE to Autonomy visited! It was our first in person meeting despite working virtually practically side by side since June.
She knows the delightful crazy in my house— the naughty cockatoo, the sibling grey cats, the visiting dogs, the foster kittens, marching band, teenagers 1 & 2, the blind poet friend, etc. She’s seen & heard a lot of silly and strange things via video chat.
And now she drove 90 miles to see the real thing. Maybe a should start my own reality television show… and then run for President.
Teenager #1 proclaimed that Sarah was “even prettier in real life.”
She tried to make friends with Nala, met lots of cats, and then I went to take her on a tour of my neighborhood.
And there was construction blocking on end of the street and no lie a MUFFLER and TAILPIPE at the other. To get out of my street, we had to move part of an exhaust system. To which Sarah merely said, “I am not even surprised.”
View from my garage
I drive her to the teenagers school, show her Easton Area High School (the size of which blew her mind), and (don’t judge) visited two Dunkin’ Donuts out of the six within 2.5 miles of my house. We only got drinks at one. Note: Sarah uses almond milk.
We drop the car off and take a walk around the neighborhood which she enjoys because she can’t go anywhere on foot at her house. And she asked a lot of good questions discovering the history of the Dixie cup along the way.
We return to the house because I told Sarah we were going to light a few candles. Apparently I had never mention to Sarah that I was an animist pagan (or in practical terms a witch).
Oops.
Luckily, she has a history as a Catholic and Catholics light as many candles, burn as much incense and if you consider a prayer a spell, then do as magic as witches do.
So around 4:15, we did a candle burning ritual to coincide with the 5:05 full moon. I gave teenager 1 a white candle to draw the positive light to us and keep our intentions pure. I gave teenager 2 a purple candle as I want her to draw peace, calm, and safety into her life. I gave Sarah a blue candle as her friend had cancer surgery today and we wanted to pray for her healing. My candle was green. I need money, a job or some sort of resources.
After Sarah’s first ritual, we left for the Friends of Pete mixer— the Pandemic Breakout Networking event— in downtown Easton. I also showed her my old office at ProJeCt of Easton and then we drove by the new office for ASPIRE.
I reconnected with some old acquaintances— including Gil Bean of InFlow Advisory and PeteReinke. I met some new people and got to have drinks with my ASPIRE peers. And forgot to finish explaining to Amber, the co-founder of ASPIRE the difference between a Wiccan, a pagan and a witch.
I had a gin-elderberry-lime-berry cocktail and calamari at Ocean. I’d dined at all the other restaurants on the list so it was nice to finally try Ocean.
But let me back up and explain— Friends of Pete is a Lehigh Valley networking group that has a strong LinkedIn presence, a weekly Zoom check in and used to have monthly mixers.
It is how I met Darnell in August 2019.
And Sarah realized she’d been to Easton before— to visit The Crayola Factory. Which I had written the original press release when Binney & Smith first remodeled the old Orr’s store and launched that attraction more than 20 years ago.
She’ll be at the adoption fair at PetSmart this weekend. Speaking of cats, we have two new cats in our spare bedroom that may be staying with us for a while.
They are fosters in a way, belonging to someone who needs a little special support these days. I don’t have much, but I usually can find a way to help or share what I can.
But after being pushed out of my funk today, I offered to guide the teenagers in making chômeur pudding. Chômeur is the French word for unemployed person, and this dessert is a great super sweet dish that you can whip up when you are snowed in. Because it doesn’t require fancy ingredients!
I originally got the recipe from Post Punk Kitchen (a vegan site) but I couldn’t find a link so I used this old entry from my recipe blog: Chômeur Pudding. (I blogged every meal for about seven years!)
For the cake:
2 cups flour
3/4 c sugar
1 cup “milk” (soymilk if you’re vegan)
4 tablespoons melted “butter” (margarine if you’re vegan, gotta love Earth Balance)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
For the syrup:
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups water
1 teaspoon flour
In a large glass baking dish (or I used my Le Creuset skillet), place brown sugar and flour from the syrup ingredients in the bottom. Add the water.
Mix dry cake ingredients. Add melted butter and milk. Mix gently. Plop in about six lumps in water. Bake at 375 degrees, 30-40 minutes.
It’s not pretty but the sauce on the bottom turns into caramel and the cake just soaks it in.
A few weeks ago, when Nan and I went to Shoprite, I bought B&M Brown Bread (with raisins) in a can.
I love trying new food items and this appeared to be a rye bread made with molasses.
I heated it up today and served with cranberry almond chicken salad from Aldi. The molasses makes it more sweet than rye and gives in the texture of cake. I am quite fond of it.
My dear friend Bill Prystauk of CrashPalace Productions gave me a $100 gift card from GrubHub to thank me for editing the latest installment in his Kink Noir novel series, Debauchery, which came out earlier this week.
I love Bill. We both love food. It’s a pandemic. The gift card was a thoughtful gift.
Last week I ordered sushi from Tokyo Sushi in downtown Easton. I have never had their sushi and wanted to compare it to Sogo Fusion Cuisine. More importantly— much more importantly— I wanted bubble tea.
Now, I didn’t realize you could order food for pick up and I would have easily done that as the restaurant is less than two miles away. But why use GrubHub for such an order when you can call the restaurant directly?
When my meal came, the sushi was amazing but there was no bubble tea. So I called the restaurant and asked if I could come get it. They said they didn’t have the flavor I requested so they didn’t charge me. But… I already paid GrubHub. I contacted GrubHub and they put the $4.24 cents into my account.
Tonight I’m in some pain and discomfort from my back. I thought a nice meal might help. GrubHub had sent me a promo code for $10 off a $30 order.
I wanted to try Braai Hut in Bethlehem as I am a fan of most African cuisines and I can make a pretty badass peri-peri sauce. I noticed they have lamb strips in peri-peri and an African form of vegetarian baked beans.
I started ordering. Now, here comes the next thing about GrubHub that completely annoys me. I had $29 in my cart instead of $30. Instead of letting me add more food, it just deletes the promo code.
So I go back to my email and click the “redeem now” button again.
The meal arrives promptly. I am very exciting to be supporting a new, small, local and ethnic restaurant.
I ordered:
Lamb strips with the beans and sweet potato fries
A chicken slaw burger with coleslaw
I received:
One order of chicken kebabs with sweet potato fries and roasted corn
A chicken bacon burger with coleslaw
Now, they probably ran out of beans and lamb and the screw up on the burger wasn’t the end of the earth.
But if restaurants don’t have what they have listed on GrubHub they need to have some way for the restaurant to connect with me the end user.
Because I so did not want chicken kebabs.
The corn was the best part of the meal but also the cheapest side on the menu.
I was disheartened, once again, that the whole reason I placed the order was not honored.
But now my next dilemma— to whom do I complain? I guess GrubHub.
But in their help menu they don’t have an option for “they gave me the wrong food.” I decided to click on “an item was missing.” Because my lamb was missing. And my beans.
They don’t offer a place to explain the problem, just let you click off the menu. So I clicked lamb. GrubHub refunded my meal.
Now I’m worried they are going to take that money away from the small business.
And I don’t want that.
For my final GrubHub order, I’m going to select a major chain. Then I won’t feel bad complaining if they screw it up.
But I think that will be my last GrubHub order. I’m more a #curbsidefirst girl.
First, let me say— hats off to the legendary Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who passed away yesterday at the age of 87. Her time on the Supreme Court, her legacy and the documentary film on her life, RBG, have touched millions of people— male and female—who may or may not know how her thoughts and actions have influenced their lives.
My posting lately has been inconsistent because I have been finishing some grants and the annual report for ASPIRE to Autonomy, Inc. The former I must give credit to my amazing interns Kayla and Sarah, and the latter is in the hands of my talented graphic designer (and partner in crime) Gayle.
Who else would take it in stride when I jokingly send photos like this (below) for the annual report and understand my hastily scrawled notes?
In the midst of it all, I’m still looking for a job, dealing with paperwork, adapting to hybrid school and ever present teenagers (who truly bring laughter and vibrancy into my life), socializing the foster kittens, developing a routine for the sassy cockatoo, battling the teen-and-pet laundry mountain, and collecting hospital bills. And poorly trying to find time and energy to improve my own health and return to weight training.
But this is a Saturday Silly Post!
So random sillies…
Yesterday Darnell popped over to finalize some projects for ASPIRE. He got hungry for a sandwich so I recommended my non-downtown spot. If you are in downtown Easton, the best spot for a sandwich is Josie’s New York Deli.
But when you’re not downtown, the place to go for a sandwich is Park Avenue Market. But they are slow. It takes them forever to make a hoagie. But they are pieces of art.
Darnell had his mind blown by their Dietz and Watson Bacon Lovers Turkey Breast and Bacon Lovers cheddar.
I tried the seafood salad with the dill havarti and shared it with the teenager. But the teenager was in a bit of an impatient frenzy because her Universal Yums box from Colombia came. So, Darnell was kind enough to film our unboxing video.
In addition, I got my Ipsy bag, which had a tiny Tarte mascara (the cutest mascara I’ve ever seen), some color correction crème, and a day-to-night eyeshadow palette very similar to my all time favorite but darker shades so I offered that to the teenager. Her skin tone is darker than mine and I thought it would suit her well.
I’m really tempted to upgrade to the Glam Bag Plus.
And finally, on Thursday, my creative friend Joan came over and asked Nan to join us, so when I went to get Nan we went to Dunkin Donuts since the weather has changed to brisk Autumn. And we got her opinion on the new stuffed bagel minis.
The past few days have been a roller coaster. A cliche I know but the simplest way to describe life.
Something spooked the budgies at 5 a.m. this morning, which in turn spooked the cockatoo. I had not caged the cockatoo as we had a rough day yesterday and she was mad at me. So I turned the light on to soothe everyone and Nala (my Goffin) flew into my bed with me.
This blog will be mostly a random list of nice things with pictures and a review of McDonald’s spicy nuggets.
So let’s handle the review first.
Angel’s Review of McDonald’s spicynuggets
I like them. Very much. Good with a side of ranch.
For more on our trip to McDonald’s for Buy One Get One nuggets — with TWO teenagers— see our video on YouTube: Taste Test: Spicy Nugs
Onward…
MY teenager had her first day of Zoom classes as part of her hybrid public high school yesterday. Her friend, who will affectionately be “the second teenager” in this space, joined us.
After class, we visited our friends at Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab to get a large crate for our Greek Pride Foster Kittens so we could segregate Hermes as he has ringworm.
I had to face my pandemic denial today— due to the stressful nature of my last professional position, I’ve been stress eating more than I’ve admitted the last few months.
(And if you read this blog, you know I’ve been fairly transparent about my ability to each an entire Dominos or Little Caesar’s pizza. So imagine the late night bags of chips and the multiple doughnuts I haven’t told you about.)
Today I hit a new body weight high. And none of my pants fit. So it was sobering.
And I know part of that is my good intentions gone wrong.
Yesterday the morning started with breakfast with my dad and the teenager. I had coffee, a broccoli feta omelette, home fries, dry rye toast and cranberry juice.
I was proud of my choice because I haven’t had vegetables enough recently and I could bring half of my meal home for today. It was too delicious. So I decided I would skip or have a light lunch.
But then I stress ate a doughnut.
Then my dad and step mom invited me to the pub for dinner. My step mom wanted pizza so I thought I’d have a beer and a slice. I think I ate the equivalent of a whole bar pizza.
This year has not been one of discipline
It’s 7:23 pm and I’m watching the marching band rehearse so my daughter can drive home… I’ll make7,000 steps today but not my goal of 10K.
PART TWO: WARLOCK CRAFT BEER REVIEW
At Three Mugs Pub yesterday, I ordered a salted caramel chocolate Saucony Creek, a craft beer label I typically enjoy. Chocolate stouts and porters tend to be my favorite beers.
They didn’t have it. So I ordered a Warlock instead.
Warlock is an imperial pumpkin stout brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company. It was smooth and not obnoxious in its seasonal flavor. And caused more of a buzz than I was expecting given all the food I ate.
PART THREE: CHICKEN BONE BROTH
Earlier— on Tuesday—while the teenager was still hanging out with my dad…
I finally turned off my crock pot that had been brewing the chicken bones of a whole young roaster I bought at Grocery Outlet on Saturday for $4. I made the chicken in the crock pot that day, returned the bones and skin to the crockpot and kept filling it with water until Tuesday noon.
I carefully poured it all out and squeezed all the goodness out of the now soft bones. I also started a pot of soup on the stove. The yield was nice.
PART FOUR: TRIGGERED
I started my day with coffee— fighting an unusual sluggishness and some unexpected difficulty with my menstrual cycle.
Last week, I had started thinking about my psychological triggers. I have long known that I have an obsessive attitude toward food. Not in the disordered eating way, but in a hoarding kind of way.
I don’t actually hoard food, but seeing a piece of fruit rot or having to throw out an out-of-date food product upsets me far more than it should.
It usually serves me well, but it backfires sometimes and missteps with food can make me unreasonably angry.
Let’s bring this back to that chicken— I didn’t need that chicken. I didn’t even want that chicken. But that was a huge roaster chicken for $4.
I made soup and froze it for the first cold day of the fall season. (I’m not even fond of chicken soup). I separated the white meat and the dark meat and froze that for future use. And I made bone broth.
That’s a lot of food for $4. Good, healthy protein. But… it’s not food I enjoy. So why?
But then this morning as I was drinking my coffee, I heard two people arguing. It was a loud verbal altercation. This is one of my triggers I forgot about— and it’s one I understand. My parents had a lot of verbal arguments and if I’m honest (forgive me for saying so Mom and Dad) if they had enough alcohol the fights could get violent and ugly. There weren’t that many over the years, but enough to create an even more terrifying environment than the mere alcoholism that existed in my childhood home.
So I surveyed my surroundings and couldn’t see anyone. My chest was tightening and my stomach dropping and that odd little internal tremble shook me.
These incidents were frequent when my previous neighbors screamed profanities at each other and threw objects and each other at the walls. It terrified me. They were literally on the other side of the wall, similar to my parents. When I didn’t stand there paralyzed and watch them.
I am not convinced what happened this morning, but I suspect my neighbor had some sort of television program playing in her car.
PART FIVE: THRIFT STORE
I promised the teenager a trip to our favorite thrift store. She bought supplies for her father’s birthday craft and two belts. I bought approximately three skirts, four pairs of business slacks, one pair jeans and one pair corduroys.
Since I can’t try things on, I got everything from size 7 to 10. Far cry from my normal 2 or 4, or my spare/ baggy sizes 6 to 8.
$43.50.
None of the professional pants fit. The red jeans (Old Navy low cut Rockstar 10) fit but are snug. The corduroys fit (size 8). One size 8 skirt fits, the other two did not. The medium skirt fit.
I’m sorry, guys. I also wanted to update you on Aspire to Autonomy, Lady Boss Entrepreneurs Club and some recent make-up unboxing from Dolls Kill and Target.com. But I’m wiped out and this is really long. Oh — and William Prystauk’s third novel appeared on Amazon.com today so now you can read the latest Kink Noir masterpiece and get your mystery/romance/crime/BDSM on.
Angel Ackerman 