Savory Kale Pie

 This is a tightly packed combination of:

• Sauteed Sweet Italian Sausage
• Olive Oil
• Onion
• Kale
• Portobello Mushrooms
• Savory Dried Dressing
• Colby-Jack cheese

After you cook the meat in a skillet, add a little olive oil and caramelize the onion, then add the chopped mushrooms, cover and let the mushrooms simmer their juices out on low.  Add the shredded Kale and cover and allow the juices to steam the greens.  Pour everything into a generous mixing bowl and add the stuffing mixing thoroughly and covering to allow the stuffing to absorb the moister.  When it's cool mix in the cheese (shredded) and fill the pie shell pressing the ingredients down.  

and...

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• fresh ground black pepper

Mix all of these in a blender and pour over the stuffed pie shell.

Baked @ 325˚ for about an hour.

Random Quote #167

A Crime Was Committed...

Dear Friends,

It pains me severely to report on this otherwise festive occasion of Thanksgiving the news of a crime. Yes, a crime most heinous. At approximately 11 AM on this very day, I set two rolls of paper towels out on the stairs to later transport to the kitchen. At 11:45, I noticed they were both missing....

The first image is of the crime scene. All suspicion quickly fell upon the "owner" of the rug.

Unable to obtain a useable mugshot of the accused owing to his immediate full confession and utter humility and sorrow, a verdict was siftly rendered while said guilty party stood before this magistrate in a state of abject contrition (captured in the second photo).

The culprit has been sentenced to a "Walk in the Park" to commence immediately and to last for a time period of not less that 30 minutes and not more than 60 minutes. I can report that the accused has accepted his fate with much grace and is eager to begin serving his time.

I must say that a spotless, if not extraordinary record of the highest turpitude and integrity for the first 577 days of his co-habitation in our domicile won the young man much favor in the eyes and heart of the court predisposing all judgments to a trajectory of mercy and understanding.

In the end, nothing went to waste...

More Wisdom In The Park

Latest offering from the Friends of Sligo Creek.

Pride Birthdays and Memorials for the Week ~ November 30th to December 6th

T-Day Dog Walk In The Park

Thanksgiving Day for One

Tilapia au Gratin, Broccoli and Pumpkin pie.  The pilgrim ate fish at their first feast, too, right?

Salad As Dinner

Sometimes a salad is the just the perfect meal all by itself.

This is one of my favorite salads to make.  It's a loose homage to the French Salad Nicoise.

Romaine Lettuce
Asparagus
Artichoke Hearts
Broccoli
Creamy Caesar Dressing
Hard Boiled Eggs
Ripe Black Olives
Freshly ground Black Pepper

Aussie Fabric Sea-Creatures-Themed Holiday Ornaments

Finished the Starfish.

Have the basic work done for the fish.

My Pics for The BEST Classic SIngers from the Era of the Great American Songbook

So I've been thinking about the Classic American Songbook. And the singers that I love from that era. I'm gonna make a mix-CD for my Commute, and I decided to pick my favorite song from 21 of them--arbitrary, completely. This is what my playlist will look like.

Looking For A Boy - Ernestine Anderson

The Way You Look Tonight - Fred Astaire

My Funny Valentine - Chet Baker

Sway - Rosemary Clooney

L-O-V-E - Nat King Cole

They All Laughed - Bing Crosby

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - Doris Day

They Can't Take Away From Me - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

You Go To My Head - Judy Garland

Our Love Is Here to Stay - Billy Holiday

A Fine Romance - Lena Horn

Angelitos Negros - Eartha Kitt

But Not For Me - Julie London

On The Street Where You Live - Dean Martin

Five Months, Two Weeks, Two Days - Louie Prima with Sam Butera & The Witnesses

You Make Me Feel So Young - Frank Sanatra

Someone To Watch Over Me - Dinah Shore

Swinging on the Moon - Mel Tormé

The Best Is Yet To Come - Sarah Vaughn

Unforgettable - Dinah Washington

I'm Beginning To See The Light - Joe Williams & Count Basie

Sunday In The Park With Roméo

Random Quote #166

Today's Sermon

I Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke as a child.

I even had a child's disease.  I ran

From the Doberman like all children

On my street, but old men called me

Special.  The Doberman caught up,

Chewed my right knee.  Limp now

In two places, I carried a child's Bible

Like a football under the arm that didn't

Ache.  I was never alone.  I owned

My brother's shame of me.  I loved

The words thou and thee.  Both meant

My tongue in front of my teeth.

Both meant a someone speaking to me.

So what if I itched.  So what if I couldn't

Breathe.  I climbed the cyclone fence

Like children on my street and went

First when old men asked for a boy

To pray or to read.  Some had it worse--

Nobody whipped me with a water hose

Or a phone cord or a leash.  Old men

Said I'd grow into my face, and I did.

~ Jericho Brown

What The What The?

When good chili goes bad--something exquisite is born.  Cleaning out the fridge today and I was stunned by this beautiful creature...the intricacy of its interwoven tendrils, the little orbs at the end of them like little flowers.  Amazing.

A Walk In The Park

$1.32 A Gallon--Wow!

This is a great one! I filled the tank in my truck today--an experi- ence that routinely topped $60.00 in the past year. But today? $22.31 cents!--Woop!! I paid $1.32 cents per gallon at my local Shell station. I haven't paid that low in what? 20 years? Felt good, too!

Get Healthy

At school we have a monthly staff meeting and to boost morale we are sponsoring a raffle for a gift basket. Teams within the school create the basket. The first basket was created by our 9 kindergarten teachers (we are a large school--the largest in our system). Their theme was "Spa World", and the winner--absolutely randomly chosen--was a staff member who's mother had just died the week before! It was such a wonderful moment.

I am part of the Administrative Team and our theme is "Get Healthy!" So this is my contribution to the basket. I got a new hardcover copy of it. It really looks wonderful--enticing, informative, and not preachy.

Pride Birthdays and Memorials for the Week ~ November 23rd to November 29th

Art Worth Seeing

My friend and Artist Douglas Witmer had an opening this week at a gallery in Houston.  Pure awesome sauce.

What I'm Reading #72

Been a good while since a poem made me cry.  It's a connecting of dots, an understanding of things that need to be understood, a book that is a mirror and window at the same time.  Buy this book.  Dammit, buy this one.

"The New Testament" by Jericho Brown, just do it.

Simple Easy Dinner

Dinner tonight was another pull it out of my arse--what do I have around?--meal.

I cooked some Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage in little 'lumps' from the roll. Then tossed in a big package of fresh sliced mushrooms. Next, I cut an onion into wedges and placed them on top and then covered the whole and reduced the heat. I cooked some Rotini pasta in one pan and boiled water to blanch some petit green beans in another--then blanched them about 4 minutes before everything else was done. I added a tub of Butoni Alfredo sauce to the meat/mushroom/onion mixture and then the pasta when it was done and drained. In serving them, I sprinkled the main dish with some grated parmesan cheese. Very simple--very yummy, too.

What Is Wrong With SCOTUS

The Supreme Court of the United States--i.e. SCOTUS was envisioned as a co-equal branch of a government designed to create road blocks of actions so that every move in the governance of the people was thoroughly vetted.  I love this.  I really do.

The unspoken caveat was that each branch was representative of the people.  This is the problem with the supreme court--it never has.  And today, as the United States becomes more and more embracing of its demographic reality--the court falls short in the one area where it should be the least partisan: Religion.  SCOTUS is a religiously conflicted and FLAWED body.

What would make the court more representative of the United States?

RACE:

Drop a white judge for either an Asian or Mult-racial judge.  Best choice?  A judge with a Filippino father and a Domincan mother. (who is female)

GENDER:

Drop two male judges for female judges.  Both should be white men--you're safe justice Thomas!

RELIGION:

Drop two Jews and four Catholics.  Period.  Tata.  Bye bye.  Sionara.  23-skiddoe.

Replace them with two non-religious judges, and four protestants.

It's as Simple as that.

The End of a Series

I have for some years--decades? made fabric ornaments each holiday season. For the past 5 I have made them on the theme of sea creatures. This year the motif is Crabs!

The entire exercise started with a passage from "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote--a short story that I used to read aloud to assembled guests after lulling them into submission with a simply sumptuous advent dinner and then the promise of a killer desert, if they sit still and listen nicely! It always seemed to work.

The sea creature series as been made in duplicates so that I keep one and send one off into the universe to friends and acquantences. Some probably have--or will have--all 5 of them, others only a one or a couple. It's all very ad hoc, and in the spirit of a random act of kindness--my favorite kind of kindness.

To bring this chapter to a close, I bought some new fabrics with designs inspired by Australian Aboriginal art.  I have a friend in Victoria who is always tempting me to come visit NSW for the holidays.  It's not something I can easily aford, but I do so appreciate his insistence.  To honor that, I am  going to use the new fabric to create a complete pair in the series and send one set to him.

The Star Fish is my first use of the fabric to recreate one of the sea creature ornaments with it.

Other patterns include: Fish, Seahorses, and Sea Turtles.