Category: Food

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Animals Blogging Driving Food Holidays Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  My brother, his 4½-month pregnant wife, and their dog are driving well over 1,000 miles northeast this Friday from the northeastern suburbs of Dallas Texas to northwestern Ohio. They will be taking turns driving the Interstate highway system – perhaps in 4-hour shifts – until they reach their destination. They will spend a festive Christmas week hanging out with her side of the family. Please pray that their journey up and over to Ohio and then back home to Texas is safe from all harm.

2.  Last Thursday night within my ‘Mini Thoughts’ I announced ‘a major continental shift in the jet stream’ with ‘temperatures of 25 to 35 degrees colder than now’. Are ya ready my friends ?  It’s gonna happen – really ! – this weekend !  Some of the coldest air of the winter season is getting ready to dive deep into the southeastern U.S. and even into the subtropical Caribbean. On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we could actually struggle to reach the 70°F mark, and we probably won’t even make it. Look for highs mostly in the mid-60s on those three days with early-morning low temperatures possibly dropping all the way down into the lower-40s in and around the Homestead area (a bit milder at the beaches).

3.  With less than 10 days before Christmas I’ve got an updated score in the annual Christmas Card Derby – 22 to 10. Translation – I’ve sent out (either mailed or hand-delivered) 22 Christmas cards thus far, and I’ve received 10. Time is running out. I’ve got a few more to send out, and I’ve got a whole lot more to receive. As is always the case Christmas cards will be gladly accepted through the ‘Twelve Days Of Christmas’.

4.  Last Friday night me and my girlfriend ate Dinner at P.F. Chang’s up at The Falls in Kendall. It was my very first visit to that particular location. I’ve been to the one near my brother’s and sister’s-in-law house in Allen Texas. It was perhaps the most delicious Chinese Food meal that I’ve tasted in quite some time, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of great Chinese Food in my lifetime. I especially adored the banana spring rolls with strawberries and ice cream for dessert. I’m looking forward to future visits to Chang’s to experiment with some of their other delicious menu items.

5.  Staying on the subject of delicious food (clearly one of my favourite subjects) tomorrow for Lunch me and a coworker and our supervisour will be enjoying a relaxing extended meal at Los Ranchos up at The Falls. I’ve eaten there a bunch of times for Dinner, but not for Lunch. I never even knew that they were open for Lunch – or even had a special Lunch menu. Incidentally their official web site is at the domain name beststeakinmiami.com. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it is some good eatin’ !

Be sure to catch more thoughts o’ mine this Thursday night here on the blog.

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Blogging Commerce Driving Food Holidays Movies Music Shopping Sports Travel

Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– So just because it’s Thanksgiving does NOT mean I don’t have some thoughts.
– Today of all Thursdays I have a special assortment of ‘Mini Thoughts’.
– Most of them involve food.
– Did you expect anything different on this mother of all food days ?
– This morning we went to see “Old Dogs” at a local area movie theatre.
– All of the critics were right – this was one stinker of a movie.
– But I did laugh quite a bit all throughout the flick.
– It won’t win any Oscars, but it was still funny.
– Thanksgiving Dinner was served promptly at 3 PM Central Standard Time.
– It included Honey Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole …
– … Broccoli & Cheese Casserole, Spinach, Brussel Sprouts, Croissant Rolls …
– And last but definitely not least – Pumpkin Pie with Cool Whip.
– Our Thanksgiving meal certainly lived up to its reputation.
– I won’t be eating like this again anytime soon.
– Tomorrow is Black Friday – the wildest and craziest shopping day of the year.
– I bet that shoppers are already camped out in the Best Buy parking lot.
– Let the maniacal stampedes begin at 4 AM !
– I’ll be sleeping in as the mass chaos commences at the shopping meccas.
– Later on in the morning we may go for a round of miniature golf.
– I need to redeem myself from what happened last year.
– I just learned that Fuddruckers is on the agenda for Lunch tomorrow.
– I’m a P.C., and Fuddruckers was my idea !
– After Lunch I’ll be packing and getting ready for the return trip back home.
– I’ll begin my long road trip home bright and early on Saturday morning.
– I’ll make it as far as Marianna Florida after about 13½-hours of driving.
– On Sunday I’ll drive the remaining 9 hours or so back to Homestead.
– After that it’s back to work on Monday the 30TH of November.
– I have no further vacations planned until the middle of Feb. (my next cruise).
– ‘Saturday Night Retro’ will be presented on Sunday night after I return home.
– No new blog will be posted on Saturday night.
– Need your Disco fix for this week ?
– Well then stick around because I’ll have that for you tomorrow afternoon.
– Until then have a peaceful and quiet remainder to your Thanksgiving.

Categories
Food Philosophy

The Fortune Cookie Message Of The Week Club

YESTERDAY (Wednesday) for Lunch me and my brother and my sister-in-law ate at their favourite workplace Chinese Restaurant in the neighbourhood – a nice joint in far north Dallas called ‘Great China’ (see reviews on Yahoo !).

The food was delicious, and the restaurant itself was quite a bit upscale compared to what I’m used to at my favourite Chinese Restaurant joints back home. The customer service was outstanding, but that seems to be my general experience at most Chinese Restaurants.

fortune-cookie

I nabbed all three of our great fortune cookie messages, so here they are:

– ‘Now is the time for peace in your life. Go along with other’s ideas.’

– ‘A new relationship is about to blossom. You will be blessed.’

– ‘Approach all areas of life with a bold enthusiasm this year.’

Categories
Blogging Commerce Food Holidays Shopping Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  This morning me and my brother visited a local area (Plano Texas) Walmart, and this particular Walmart was something special. It was brightly lit, sparkling clean, smelled good inside, had fully-stocked aisles of unopened merchandise, had extra wide aisles, and had cheerful and helpful employees working all around. Oh yeah – and the MASSIVE parking lot out front had no active crime scenes. So I guess that not every Walmart is just like the one that’s close to home that I pretty much avoid.

2.  Post Walmart me and my brother drove on over to Sonic, America’s Drive-In for an early Lunch. After a few years of watching the very low-budget yet very amusing commercials on television I finally got to experience the culinary delight (in my brother’s car) that is Sonic. They have an extensive menu (including Breakfast), but I selected something very basic – the Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster Combo (with fries and a Sprite). It’s was a rather delicious 1,045 calories (424 of them fat calories). I wish we had Sonic back home in America’s Riviera. Once upon a time (before Hurricane Andrew) we had two of them in the Homestead area alone. I ate there occasionally back in the day. Nowadays in order to eat at Sonic we (South Floridians) have to go north up to The Palm Beaches or north and west over to Naples. It’s just not right !

3.  39°, 40°, and 44° – Those have been the minimum early-morning temperatures thus far since I’ve been here (Sun., Mon., and Tue.). Right now at 2 PM the actual air temperature is 61°, but we’ve got gusty northwesterly winds so wind chills are way down in the low-50s. Next week when it gets much colder here in North Texas I’ll be back home in South Florida basking in 80° warmth and higher humidity again. Bring it on !

4.  I asked my brother (who is technologically savvy when it comes to modern cell phone devices) what is the difference between ‘3G’ and ‘4G’, and strangely enough he had no clue. This made me wonder if the average consumer knows what exactly a ‘G’ is. One thing is fairly certain though. My antiquated cell phone from the middle ages (2004) is ‘ZeroG’. But it does just what I want it to do – send and receive text and Twitter messages and the occasional call.

5.  This Thanksgiving my family is trying something new and different for our MASSIVE LuDinner meal. We’re going to The HoneyBaked Ham Company to grab a 3-pound boneless ham – sliced and glazed. This will be our first turkey-less Thanksgiving meal that I can ever remember, so perhaps it’ll be the start of a new tradition. My sister-in-law will be making all of the various side dishes that will go along with the tasty ham. I just hope that one of those side dishes is either spinach or collard greens or broccoli. YUM !

Those are my ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Be sure to check back here later this week for my spontaneous ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.