OK -it’s soapbox time. Stand back it’s going to get ugly.

I know anyone who reads this blog is not guilty of this but I have to get my rant on somewhere. So… join me in a  “Hallelujah sister!” if you feel the same and ignore this if you don’t.

I have to get this off of my chest because I have had too many otherwise pleasant outings ruined by rude and overly-loud people vociferously expressing their opinions, comments and self-importance for everyone within a two mile radius to hear. Phew!

Take it down a notch- please! I don’t want to hear your political views or interpersonal problems (how your neighbors should have offered to wash your windows because they had some construction done on their home and you decided to wash your windows in the midst of it all and dust blew over and stuck to your newly washed windows…blah…blah…blah) I’m trying to have a nice meal with my sweetie over here!

Hello?!… we’re in a restaurant having a nice meal, ordered and prepared with care and hopefully consumed with satisfaction- I want to be able to hear the conversation of those with whom I’ve chosen to dine – not your complaints from two tables away.

Same and double ditto in the movie theatre- I paid to watch the movie not hear your comments- so Hush up! Just because you’re rude enough to talk through a movie at home doesn’t mean you have a right to behave that way in public.

And if it’s not a kid’s movie -don’t bring your babies please, please. They cry and then you miss the movie and I miss the movie and they have to pee or get restless or give away the plot at the crucial moment and then you argue with your partner about who should have to remove them because neither of you wants to miss the movie you’ve just paid megabucks to see… see?

And by the way if you open that cell phone to take a call, text or check your messages and pull my attention away from the movie  just one more time- there’s gonna be trouble -right here in River City… Just because you have the attention span of a gnat doesn’t mean you have the right to ruin my escapist cinema experience.

So remember this “Just because you want to -doesn’t mean you can, and just because you can -doesn’t mean you should!…”

Alright -I feel better now. Onwards and upwards. Sorry for the rant- you know it is not like me at all  but…today my cup runneth over with rude fools.

It wouldn’t be Valentine’s  day around here without some big soft heart-shaped and pink frosted sugar cookies! So I whipped some up a couple of days ago. Well- I had to take some to other people I love too, you see?

This morning we tried to go out to breakfast but even with the snowfall in SLC -the place was jammed. So we decided to stop a local bakery (I won’t mention the name) and get some pastry then go home for the traditional scrambled eggs, pastry, latte and a game of Upwords. I mention this because they were charging $2.00 a piece for cookies not this big or cute- (even if I do say so myself.) And then- I about fell over dead when I saw they were charging $58.00 for a 9″ red velvet cake. I mean this is Utah not San Francisco or New York. Whew! But- I digress…

Back to the day of love and these lovely cookies.

Pink Frosted Soft Sugar Cookies

• 3 Cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/4 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 cup butter or (1/2 butter -1/2 non-hydrogenated shortening)
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together and cut the butter into them, then mix in the eggs and extracts. Mix until a soft dought forms. Roll out on a lightly floured surface about 1/4 inch thick and cut with heart shaped cutters. Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 8 minutes for small hearts and about 11 minutes for large. Watch them and don’t over bake- remove when just set through. Remove to a rack to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

• 1/3 cup softened butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)
• 1 Tablespoon heavy cream
• a few drops red food coloring or a bit of powdered
• Pink sanding sugar (optional)

Mix all together in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle until smooth.  Add more powdered sugar or less to get a spreadable consistency. Add the coloring slowly just until you get a pretty pink – keep it pale. Sprinkle with the sanding sugar if desired.

I also, wanted to show you this spectacular Amaryllis (sadly, I don’t know the variety) that is currently blooming in my living room. It came up with three stems and the first that opened had FIVE blooms- amazing. There are four coming on the second stem and the third hasn’t opened yet. It was a forced bulb in a pot that was a Christmas present that my friends Clint and Jan bought at  one of my own favourite places to go- Cactus and Tropicals to give to me. Thanks very much- I’m loving it !!!

For Rick’s valentine I had to make him another card because he saw the one I made at our crafternoon- so I made him one with a daffodil to represent looking  forward to Spring.

I also went to the lovely and decadent V Chocolates and bought him a box of their luscious caramels and toffee. I went to their corporate headquarters store here in Salt Lake City, and I was treated so nicely Thanks!- I just love their candy. They have beautiful presentation, but what is most important is the quality and I think that is superb!

Rick, in turn, went to one of my favourite local stores Tabula Rasa and bought a book for me on one of my favourite artists Tamara Lempicka called “Lempicka The Artist The Woman The Legend.” Then we went to Moriarty’s Antiques for a look round. We’ve had a wonderful day. As we always say: “We’re so lucky we must have rabbit’s feet!”

Well my dears, I send you all my love and hope your days are just as wonderful and filled with all of the people you love!

xoxoxo

We had an old peach tree in our garden-I don’t know what variety-it must have been decades old. It had the most delicious free-stone peaches ever. I think the poor tree died from old age. It gave out gradually so that at the end only one small branch was producing. I admit it- I cried when it gave its last gasp. Rick was kind enough to make me a curving beautiful hand carved “wand” from its wood and some of the trunk remains in the garden- a sort of organic marker of times past.

In thinking what I wanted to plant in its place, I considered a pie cherry. You know of course what a fiend I am for tart pie cherries so it would be a good choice. But in the end I longed for a peach tree where it had always been- framed at the end of our pergola- bridal in springtime and gracing us with peaches for Rick’s favourite peach pie in late Summer.

Several years ago, Saturn (or donut)peaches began to appear in the gourmet market- at first they were luscious, sweet and juicy -the height of peachyness. Then commercial greed caught on and “The Market” took hold and now we notice that they are picked green. Hello?!- you can’t pick peaches green and expect them to taste good- they do not continue to convert sugar and ripen once they are picked. So you might get good looking large donut peaches this way but they are tasteless. So we’ve ceased to buy them- I pick them up at the grocery and smell- if a peach doesn’t smell like a peach in the market don’t buy it – you’re wasting your money.

We decide to plant a dwarf Stark Bros. Saturn Peach, the wee little tree had several half dollar sized peaches on it when we snagged it at the nursery. I didn’t want to lose them by planting the peach until they were harvested so we’ve waited until fall to plant and lately have been plucking little jewels of juicy peach goodness- literal treasure that grows on trees.  In a few weeks when it’s a bit cooler and the tree has recovered from harvest.  We’ll plant her and let her set her roots before Winter comes. Hopefully next year we’ll have a whole new crop and a lovely peach tree to hold court in our garden.

We should have known it was coming. We bought the Jenn-Air side by side in 2001, when we were remodeling our kitchen. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it has been a hate-hate relationship ever since it darkened our door. Rick has had murderous fantasies of fridge torture and dis-membership- which just shows how far a sweet, even tempered and all around good guy can be pushed by an appliance.  He would get excited every time one of the new LG ads showing people destroying their old appliances to make way for a new one would come on.  He even offered to pay the new fridge delivery guys if they would chain the Jenn-Air and drag it behind their truck-just so he could laugh madly and delight in the demise of the evil fridge.  Don’t say the words ”Jenn-Air” near us -or our heads start to spin and we begin to babble incoherently.

We had constant temperature  problems from the first- the crisper (in-affectionately referred to as “the rotter”) constantly froze the veggies and any thing placed next to the common wall between the freezer and the fridge had a similar fate.  The ice maker would jam if you tried to go back and forth between crushed and cubed ice. We had the repair guy out twice and before he would get to the end of our street the problem would return. We finally left it permanently on “crushed” to prevent having to disassemble the whole ice maker unit each time we wanted to dispense ice.

Then there was the lake er leak. The water line developed a leak so we shut off the water and did without ice or water in the door at all. Unfortunately then the fridge decided to “pee” on the floor on a regular basis. It was worse than house training a new puppy.  Rick is still checking the floor in front of the new fridge every time we come into the kitchen from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder type conditioning.

SO… okay enough  with the woe. We had to replace the fridge so we went out and bought a new GE Profile french door fridge. I hope it has better Mojo. We like it so far, although we are still getting over the sticker shock and the blow to our yearly budget.  The first fridge that was delivered had a door alignment problem so the  store we bought if from decided to deliver a new fridge a few days later instead of sending out a repair tech to adjust it.  So we’re hoping the third fridge in this space is the charm.

It makes me frustrated to think that fridges are basically made by only three manufacturers and that they intentionally don’t work out the engineering before placing the product on the market- preferring to save the research and development dollars and let the poor sucker of the consumer deal with the lemons in “an acceptable failure rate”.  Whatever happened to the idea of putting out a quality product? Greed ate it I guess.

In the end- after all the grief, we’re delighted to have a new fridge. This one seems to hold its temperatures so far and also is a bit more user friendly space wise.

We were mourning over the loss of our Red Beans and Rice so finally we looked at each other and said “let’s just make another batch -why not?”

It involved baking another ham:  

One ten pound bone in cured ham, bake two hours at 350F covered with foil. Remove foil, remove skin and most of fat from ham and then brush with 1/4 cup bourbon mixed with 1 Tablespoon dry mustard, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 Tablespoons honey and 1 Tablespoon molasses. Return to oven for another hour or until internal temperature reaches 160F. Baste often to prevent ham from drying out or glaze from burning.

…and also buying more Andouille- but I think it was worth it. We hope we’re back on track now. We have a nice container of deliciousness in the new fridge and so far everything is going well. The evil Jenn Air is on the porch waiting for the recycling guys to come get it on Friday

Anyone know a good voodoo fridge charm?