SOME MUSIC FOR COOKING

Don't be a cold fish . . . get yourself some Hot Tuna!

Thanksgiving Day

THE MENU

Judy and I have been invited to the BRD's and Beau Jack's home for a "non-traditional" Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

After teasing me for several days Gayle has finally released the menu.

Phyllo Brie & Cranberry bites & Shrimp

Caesar Salad

Slow Cooked Braised Short Ribs

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Asparagus

Chocolate and Plain Cream Puff Pastries

Yes, there is no roast turkey and stuffing but doesn't that menu sound delicious?

I can't wait.

(Doesn't really look like I need it, does it?)

VISITORS

The bird bath just outside my window gets a wide variety of visitors.

The other day SWMBO said she watched a woodpecker cling to the tree next to it and lean over to drink.

But more often it's house finches and the likes of these.

This one was perched on the edge while his or her mate patrolled the grounds below for edible bugs.

My apologies for the quality of the photos above.

Part of it is spots and smears left on the glass by Blackwell's explorations.

Speaking of which, take a look at this beauty.

That's a big fluffy visitor I call Old Yellow.

She stands on the blue cat's back to reach the water and sometimes drinks long and longer

When she gets down, if I tap on the window, she turns and stares at me.

The other day I decided to see if she'd run if I stepped outside.

In fact she stayed, let me pet her and rolled and rolled, exposing her furry white belly for a tentative scratch.

She is definitely a domesticated cat.

If I get another chance I'll have to take my camera with me.

A NEW CREATION

SWMBO got creative in the kitchen yesterday.

Never mind that Thanksgiving is only a few days away.

She had scored some Meyer lemons and decided to invent a new way to bake sweet potatoes.

So she diced up a couple of the potatoes and an equal amount of fresh pineapple and sliced several of the lemons and some tangerines and studded the slices with whole cloves.

She made a sauce of brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, the juice of a couple of the lemons and a dash of water.

This she cooked until it caramelized and then combined it with the sweet potatoes and pineapple, spread them out in a baking dish and topped them with the clove-studded fruits.

It looked like this before going into the oven to be baked for a couple of hours.

When it was done she served it with some of our favorite Mandarin Orange Chicken from Trader Joe's.

There was a mix of quinoa and brown rice to balance the sweetness.

When I tasted this dinner I was One Happy Camper!

NOW STARRING . . .

As I was scanning through the Prescott Daily Courier recently I saw a link to a photo from this year's Tuxedos and Tool Belts gala.

I remembered that the BRD and her Beau Jack had been to a number of them and checked the photo.

And lo and behold, there they were!

I cropped the photo to give you a better view of the glorious couple.

The BRD is looking particularly beautiful these days with her new bangs, which a number of people have complimented her on, saying they make her look much younger.

She was concerned about her posture in the photo above until she realized her jacket was draped over the chair back behind her and she was indeed sitting up straight.

Update: Gayle says Jack bid on a trip to Greece at the gala and won it!  They have to go sometime within the next year.  After their trip to Costa Rica next month!

Patterns

Sharon has some interesting photographs on one of her blogs today and it made me think of this photograph I took in our front yard a couple of days ago.

Apparently it is uninteresting, though, as evidenced by SWMBO's shrug reaction to it when I showed it to her.

Perhaps this picture, taken instead of pointing the camera down but up, is more interesting.

I wanted to photograph the gray, cloudy sky and was luck enough to have a couple of big black ravens fly over as I clicked the shutter.

I cropped the picture down later to better show the birds.

Quite obviously they don't flap their wings in a coordinated manner even though they were flying side by side.

The first picture fills one's spirit with a sense of impending gloom or doom against that slate grey sky, though.

(Today it's blue with lots of sunshine.)