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...Continued from previous post: In truth, there's not a whole lot in the way of entertainment in the small town of Seaford, Delaware. Even the closest movie theater is half an hour away in Salisbury, Maryland. But what the town lacks in other diversions it makes up for in eating establishments, which one can find aplenty in Seaford, especially those of the cozy comfort food diner variety, .the kind with the refrigerated cases at the entrance filled with mesmerizing desserts.    It was at a couple of these diners that we took most of our nourishment over our Christmas vacation, as my mother at 98 years old is still a big fan of eating out, 
 ...a homey place with a friendly ambience owned and run by the nicest family.  On Saturday night we had dinner at the Stargate, where we were welcomed by the staff, who know my mother well, she being a frequent customer. The food was, as always, good and plentiful, one of my favorites being the Maryland Cream of Crab Soup.  I also had my other favorite, the Eggplant Parmesan over angel hair pasta with the best garlic toast.  The others had among them, Chicken Scampi,  ...Chicken Parmesan, 
 As it turns out, the Stargate now includes a free dessert with dinner, among the free options being:
 ...rice pudding, 
 Or one can outside the free box by ordering one of the other desserts, such as the delish pecan pie,  ...or by ordering a side of ice cream, as I did to go with my bread pudding.  The following morning, Sunday morning, we were back at the Stargate for breakfast, where I discovered to my wonder and delight that one could get two eggs, pancakes, and a pile of home fries for $2.99,  ...which was to become my go-to Stargate breakfast from then on.  The others ordered various combinations of standard breakfast fare,       ..except for Tom, who opted for the slightly more exotic creamed chip beef over a biscuit with sides of sausage and scrapple, a traditionally Philadelphia breakfast meat-esque product, though exactly what it's made of nobody is quite sure. However Tom thought it was good.  After breakfast my mom and I ventured to Walmart for a shopping trip. And so, it appeared, did everyone else in Seaford.  We spent the rest of the day at various occupations.  ...until dinner time rolled around, at which time my mom proposed that we try the Golden Eagle Diner,  ...which had been recently rebuilt, renovated,  ...and re-menued,  ...so that in both ambience and food offerings the Golden Eagle now so closely resembles the Stargate, directly across the street from which it is located,  ...that I thought the two restaurants must be owned by the same family. But no, it turns out that the Golden Eagle is owned by a different family, a Turkish family, also very nice, one of whose members likewise came over and greeted my mother, as my mother often patronizes this place as well.  We met here at the Golden Eagle up with my daughter Claire and her hubby Miguel after they drove in from their disappointing day in Washington D.C. where they'd hoped to visit the national monuments and get their National Parks and Monuments Passport books stamped, but which were closed because of Donald Trump's shut down (see post from 12/26/2018).  The food at the the Golden Eagle, much like the food at the Stargate, was good. I went with the salad bar, 
     Like its counterpart across the street, the Golden Eagle also offered a free dessert with dinner, the choices being rice pudding, bread pudding, chocolate pudding or ice cream.
 Now, it so happened that there were among us several bread pudding aficionados, and we got to discussing the merits of this bread pudding versus the other great bread puddings we'd had in the past. I then put myself on the line by claiming that I made the best pudding of them all, and was immediately given the challenge of putting my money where my mouth was, so to speak. I took up the challenge and promised to prove myself by making a Christmas Eve bread pudding the following night, wondering even as I spoke if I should have just swallowed all my big bread pudding talk. We started off Christmas Eve morning back at the Stargate,     ...after which I was obligated to make a quick trip to the grocery store to buy my bread pudding ingredients, and also for the ingredients for the apple crisp that Tom and I decided to make for dessert along with the bread pudding for Christmas Eve dinner,  ...we all having decided that it would be nice to have a big Christmas Eve dinner at home.
 ...relaxing, 
 ...until it was time for all hands to report to the kitchen galley for dinner duty.    
 A couple of the kitchen workers pilfered some of my bread pudding whipped cream to fix fancy apéritifs,  ..but I won't say who.  Then the food was ready, the table spread, grace said, and the Christmas Eve feasting began. 
 ...green beans almondine, shrimp, tortillas, 
 ...avocado.   Then it was time to serve dessert: apple crisp,  ...and my bread pudding, which I feared that I had perhaps injudiciously bragged about.  
 Everyone said it was the best bread pudding ever. Miguel said it was a magnificent bread pudding that could only be improved by a topping of praline pecan sauce. Alas, the only toppings I had to offer were ice cream and whipped cream.  But I plan on learning to make praline pecan sauce for my next batch of bread pudding. Mayhaps everyone was just being polite about my bread pudding being the best. In any case, here's the recipe for my bread pudding (this amount is good for an 8"x8" pan. Double the recipe if using a 9"x13" pan): Patti's Bread Pudding 2 eggs 2 cups milk 2/3 cup sugar A shake of cinnamon 4 cups bread, cubed 1/4 cup raisins 1/2 an apple, peeled and cut into small, thin slices 1/4 cup almonds (or more if you like almonds) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8"x8" pan. Put the bread cubes into the pan. Beat the eggs, mix in the milk, sugar and cinnamon. Pour liquid over the bread, let stand until soaked. Stir in the raisins and apple. Top with almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the bread pudding is firm. Serve hot or cold. After dinner everyone sat around for a bit, ...then we sang Christmas Carols. 
  In the afternoon the kids got a game of poker going,   That evening we had Christmas dinner, our final dinner together, at the Golden Eagle.    This time I opted for the rice pudding for dessert.  And, while it was quite good, I would match my own rice pudding against this and any other rice pudding. This time I didn't say anything about it, though. And the following morning, December 26, we said our good-byes. However, after my mother left for her daily Mass, the rest of us headed over to the Stargate for a final farewell breakfast before we went our separate ways, my daughter and son-in-law heading to D.C. to catch their flight to Chicago,  ...and the rest of us heading back to Columbus.
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On December 21 Tom, our son Tommy and I drove 505 miles from Columbus to Seaford, Delaware to spend Christmas with my 98-year-old mother.  Another of my daughters and her husband would fly in to Washington D.C. on Sunday, December 23. They had planned to spend the day visiting the national monuments and driving to Seaford that evening.
 …and so they arrived in Seaford earlier than expected, which wasn’t a bad thing for the rest of us. Anyway, those of us in the Columbus group set out on Friday morning in in a cold, windy rain. As we’d have to drive through the same part of West Virginia as Tom and I and some friends had passed through a couple of weeks previously on our way to Pittsburgh (see post from 12/19/2018, "Going To Pittsburgh"),  ...I suggested that we stop for lunch at the same West Virginia restaurant as we’d stopped at on our way to Pittsburgh, the Glassworks Grill in the Oglebay Park Lodge. And so we did.
   
 
 …with a lovely view of Oglebay Park.   The food was as good as we’d found it to be last time. Tom had the Grilled Chicken Salad, 
 …served with different sides and toppings. 
 In the lobby of the Oglebay Lodge there’s an awesome bakery, 
 …so we each procured one of the sprinkle-topped cream doughnuts, which were divine.  About five hours later we reached Baltimore, at which time we stopped at our usual dinner spot along the way, a Greek restaurant called Hellas,   …known for their yummy crab cakes, 
 …as were the Chicken Kabobs with tzatziki and pita.  It had been a year since I’d seen my mother and, as has been the case every time I’ve seen my mother again after a long separation, I was amazed at how good she still looked and how strong she was,  …how much she was still enjoying life,  …how nice her house still looked,      …and how her cat family continues to grow. My mom now has five cats, only two of which would hold still long enough for me to snap them.   As soon as we arrived my mother entreated us to have a snack, a drink, or to dig into the stock pile of cookies, cakes, candies, and Christmas goodies delivered by friends, neighbors, or members of her church, where she still goes to Mass every morning. We partook of some of the goodies, then relaxed for a while, 
 …giving us all – well, maybe not us all, but myself for one – that cheery holiday feeling , the thought came to me that I should invite some friends over to sing Christmas carols . After all, I have a piano, I have Christmas music, I have song sheets, and I have friends. So I invited a dozen of them over on Saturday, December 15 for carol singing and a pot luck. I spread the word that I’d provide hot roast beef au jus and hot chicken marsala sandwiches and I proposed that the others bring a side, dessert or some other edible addition of their choosing. My Hot Roast Beef Au Jus Recipe: A 3- or 4- pound chuck roast 2 1/2 cups of beef broth. (I make mine by dissolving 3 beef bullion cubes into 2 1/2 cups of boiling water.) 1 cup red wine Onion powder Lawry's Garlic Salt  In a large pot mix the beef broth and red wine. Season the roast with the garlic salt and onion powder. Place the seasoned beef in the broth and wine. Spoon some liquid over the beef. Bring liquid to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer on low heat for three hours, best not to lift the pot lid. Check the roast after three hours. If meat is fork-tender and falling apart it’s done. Remove the meat from the broth, slice, then refrigerate the meat while you wait for the broth to cool. Cool the broth, then refrigerate it until the fat has solidified on top of the broth. Remove the solidified fat from the broth, then pour the broth over the meat and re-heat the broth and meat.  My Chicken Marsala Recipe (Actually my friend J’s recipe, passed on to me): 12 chicken drum sticks 1 small onion, thinly sliced 3 cloves of garlic, chopped Fresh rosemary Fresh parsley, snipped Salt to taste 3 teaspoons olive oil 1 cup marsala Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the chicken wings in a baking dish. Spread the onion, garlic, rosemary, and parsley over the chicken. Salt to taste. Drizzle the olive oil over the chicken. Cover the chicken with aluminum foil. Bake for one hour covered, then remove the foil and bake for one hour uncovered, pouring the marsala over the chicken during the last fifteen minutes. For hot chicken marsala, remove the chicken from the bone and refrigerate while waiting for the broth from the pan to cool. Remove the broth from the pan, cool the broth, then refrigerate it until the fat has solidified on top of the broth. Remove the solidified fat from the broth, then pour the broth over the meat and re-heat the broth and meat in a pot over the stove or in a crock pot. If the meat needs more broth, add a cup (or more) of chicken broth. (I make mine by dissolving 1 heaping teaspoon of chicken bullion into 1 cup of boiling water.) As my daughter and son-in-law surprised Tom and I a few days earlier by Amazon priming us an apple peeler-corer-slicer like theirs (see post from 12/17/2018, "Thanksgiving 2.0"), which Tom used to whip up a couple of apple pies while we were visiting them in Los Angeles, we decided to make a big pan of apple crisp, with Tom peeler-corer-slicing the apples,  ...after he'd figured out how to work the machine,   …while I made the almond crisp topping.  By 6 pm, the appointed time, the house was ready,    
   ...and the table filling with yummy dishes and desserts,   
 After we ate we moved into the living room for the carol singing. 
 ...and everyone sang. 
 Then we sat around talking,   ...and/or eating some more.  Nothing like feasting and singing to put you in the holiday spirit. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Everyone!  ...Continued from yesterday: After the sun went down we again set out, this time walking west from our hotel,   ...to the Pittsburgh Christmas Market, 
 ...where visitors can come to stroll and shop among the booths, which sell traditional European Christmas ornaments and crafts,  
 ...a couple of which we shared.   We walked across Market Square,   ...to the PPG building to see this year's Gingerbread House Competition, where there were hundreds of enchanting gingerbread houses on display.          After we'd seen all the gingerbread houses we decided to seek out some dinner, and so we headed towards a restaurant we saw at the corner of the Market Place. 
 ...but we were able to snag a table.  While we were waiting for our food I wished to head for the restroom, but though the Men's Room was right next to our table, I could not see a Ladies' Room anywhere.  I asked the bartender, a rather surly youth, where the Ladies' Room was, and he directed me to a hallway, which dead-ended in the kitchen. A helpful kitchen worker told me to go to go down the narrow hallway off to the right then around the corner. I followed his instructions, and found myself in the bar from Hell.  One could not cross the floor of this place without pushing someone at every step. Nor did I see a Ladies' Room anywhere. Still I pushed my way around a little, then asked a group of girls I'd pushed into if they knew if there was a Ladies' Room in this place. They directed me to the line, in which, I noticed, there were also some guys standing:  It occurred to me that in the Bar From Hell one would expect to find the Ladies' Room from Hell. (I pondered how long ago the last shred of TP in that single-seater room had expired.) And so I pushed my way back to the dining room. Now, here was the situation: the Ladies' Room had a line at least a dozen deep.
 Thus I asked Tom to ask the surly young bartender to buzz open the door of the Men's Room (see post from 2/6/2014, "The Men's Room Crashers"). Tom did so, but when I entered the Men's Room I saw to my dismay that this bathroom had two urinals but no commode. (Which I guess explained why there were guys in line at the Ladies' Room). As I was returning to my table the young bartender shouted at me, eyes shooting angry flaming daggers, "I told you, yours is in the other room! What's the matter, can't you hear?!" To which I shouted right back, "Yes, I can hear, you young whippersnapper! But there's a line 15 deep at the Ladies' Room and nobody in the Men's, so what the heck difference would it have made for me to use this bathroom if you'd have had the common decency to put a toilet in there out of consideration for all these paying customers? And further more, whoever owns this bar and restaurant should be ashamed of themselves for being too stingy to even put in enough bathrooms for all the people who crowd into this place and pour their money into it, and I wonder what the Health Inspector would think if I dropped them a line about all the people jammed into that bar without even acceptable facilities?!" That's exactly what I said to that kid. In my head. In reality I said nada. Instead I whipped out my camera and shot him.  Then I zipped over to the Five Guys I'd spotted on the other side of the Market Square.  When our food was delivered by our server, a middle-aged lady who, for all I know, could have been the owner - or not - I began snapping photos of our food, as I always do. Tom, in a feat quick thinking, said to the server, "My wife is a blogger. She travels around and writes about restaurants." The server, who'd surely heard my public bathroom-shaming along with the rest of the restaurant, got a look of horror on her face. "Oh my God," she cried, "I hope you're not gonna write something bad about us!" You think? Thought I. I will say, to her credit, that for the rest of the night you never saw such a solicitous server to our table in a such a crowded restaurant. As for the food? OMG, it was the best.
 ...the fries were hot and crisp, 
 And so I guess some, if not all, of the offense by one of the staff against myself was forgiven. Still, as I always told my children, it doesn't matter how smart you are or how good you are at what you do, there's never any excuse for being mean. Anyway, we did have a nice walk back to our hotel through the theater district.   The following morning we returned to the the Strip for another once-around-the markets.  I, for one, had a hankering to at least look at all the Italian pastries one more time.    We grabbed some lunch at a famous Italian sandwich place off the Strip called Primanti Brothers,   
  After lunch it was time to leave Pittsburgh, so we walked back to our cars, then drove home to Columbus. It was the best trip.   ...Continued from yesterday:
 ...which was directly across the street from the Heinz History Center.  The following morning, Saturday morning, our tour guide friend and her husband arrive at the hotel, and soon thereafter we set off on foot for our discovery of some of the good bits of Pittsburgh. Following our guide, we walked east from our hotel, 
 
 I never knew that Pittsburgh had such a mountainous geography.  Our destination was the Strip, the old historic factory district of downtown Pittsburgh which is now lined with markets of numerous ethnicities, shops, and eateries.      
       I, for one, was most captivated by the display of pastries outside an Italian market.   Tom and I, of course, partook of a few.
 ...and when lunchtime rolled around our guide drove us to the lunch destination she'd chosen for us, a repurposed old church,   ...now a restaurant and brewery called The Church Brew Works.  The interior was magnificent,   ...and fairly filled with diners.  What used to be the altar was now part of the brewery.  
 That is to say, I couldn't raise my diet Coke because I took the picture, but I verbally joined the toast anyway. The food was outstanding.  
 ...the home-made chips that my friend got with her wrap were so over-the-top delicious that the next time I come to this place - there will be a next time! - I'm definitely ordering the chips. 
 ...then parked at the summit of a very steep neighborhood,  ...from where we walked to an overlook that offered some splendid views of the river and the city below.   
 ...a funicular that runs up and down the hill,  ...the ticket office of which is also an Incline museum.  After we'd finished seeing the sights at the top of the hill we walked back to our car then returned to our hotel, where the considerate staff had set out some nice snacks in the lobby. 
 On Friday, December 9, a couple of members of the Panera Posse - my girl group which meets at Panera every Wednesday morning on which the sun rises - and myself rounded up our hubbies and took a weekend trip to Pittsburgh to partake of that city's holiday festivities. As for me, I'd never been to Pittsburgh before, but one of the Posse members knows and loves that city so well that she often speaks of its charms and had more than once suggested that we take a group trip there with herself as our tour guide. Finally a couple of us took her up on the idea. The plan was that Tom, myself and another couple would travel together on Friday and our tour guide friend and her husband, both of whom had to work on Friday, would meet us at our hotel on Saturday morning and from there begin our official Pittsburgh tour. And this, in fact, is what came to pass. And so on Friday morning at 11 am Tom and I and our friends set out for Pittsburgh. Our tour guide friend had suggested that we stop along the way for lunch at the Oglebay Lodge in West Virginia, which we did.
  
  ...which offered a lovely view of the hills as well as great food.   
 ...my veggie burger.  After lunch we were back on the road again and about an hour later we exited the Fort Pitt Tunnel to be greeted by the famous panoramic view of downtown Pittsburgh that awaits all visitors on the other side of the tunnel.  We stayed downtown in the Hampton Inn on the Allegheny River.   We'd decided that our first venture would be a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum, as our friend had told us that the museum tickets were half price after 5 pm on Fridays. The museum was a 15-minute walk from our hotel and so we set out walking along the river, admiring the rows of bridges that span the water, 
 ...on the other side of which is the Andy Warhol Museum.  It turned out that the half-priced Friday night tickets were actually quarter-priced for Seniors,
 The museum is a vast space on seven floors full of Andy Warhol's work,
            The museum is also a repository for the thousands of objects that Warhol collected throughout his life.   We spent several hours wandering the museum - though we probably could have spent several more - .then we headed back across the river,   ...this time walking through the city,  ...back to our hotel.   ...Continued from previous post: The following day, Monday, November 26, was our last day in Los Angeles. As Tom and I had the day to ourselves, we opted to hang around the South Bay area for the day, starting with breakfast at our favorite Hawthorne neighborhood hole-in-the-wall, Mandy's, 
 ...and the food is oh, so yummy.
 ...my veggie scramble.   
 ...where the plaza was decked out for the holidays.   
   ...to the pier.    ...from which we savored the panoramic views.       
 ...from which one can enjoy looking out at the the sea,  ...or at the houses along the Strand.     That evening we went out for a farewell dinner at Pancho's, a charming Manhattan Beach Mexican restaurant near the beach,  ...that was beautifully decked out for Christmas.         Then all of a sudden our visit was over, and the following morning we were in the Los Angeles airport,  ...and half a day and 2300 miles later, right back where we started from.  Don't stress the holidays! Give the gift of a good read. "Equal and Opposite Reactions" by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
Bless The Dogs, The Cats, The Bunnies And The Children ...Continued from previous post:
 ...also known as CARE.  CARE is a physical therapy center for dogs, 
 ...and even bunnies,  ...who've suffered injuries, muscle or joint pain or basically any of the same kinds of problems as humans can have that require physical therapy for the recovery of a good, active, pain-free life. CARE is a state-of-the-art facility where animals receive medically advanced treatment, including water therapy,   
  ...and acupuncture, 
  
 ...and about the Senior Pet Adoption Fair that PetSpace was holding on Saturday, November 24, the aim of which was to find homes for the older animals that were available for adoption from the center. There would be children's activities, free food, and lots of animals to see. And so we decided to go.  The interior of the PetSpace was pristine but colorful and welcoming, 
 ...children's activities,  ...free hot dog and pizza stations, 
  ...and their pets,  ...and senior animals in need of homes.        After a once-around-the-PetSpace,  ...and a lunch break,  
 ...who showed us all around the place, and how the animals are cared for.   
  ...the human-sized gerbil wheel,  ...and the big tube slide back to the first floor. 
References https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/from-paralyzed-to-walking-this-rescue-dogs-transformation_us_5a3c637ee4b0d86c803c708a https://www.calanimalrehab.com/news/latimes-pet-tlc-california-animal-rehabilitation-video.htm
Wondering About God At The La Brea Tar Pits ...Continued from yesterday: I'd of course heard of the La Brea Tar Pits, the famous ponds that are in fact not filled with tar, but with asphalt, formed millions of years ago and which have yielded a treasure trove of ancient animal fossils. I also knew that the La Brea Tar Pits were somewhere around Los Angeles. Turned out the Tar Pits were in the back yard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. So after lunch at the museum cafe,  ...where the food was surprisingly good,    
  ...to the La Brea Tar Pits.    It was here that we learned that the pits are not actually filled with tar, but with asphalt - which is essentially crude oil - that was forced up from an oil field located 1,000 feet below this part of Los Angeles.  We also learned that these asphalt pools were death traps for animals of the Pleistocene era who, thinking they were pools of water, were lured onto their sticky surface:   At one end of the biggest tar pit were statues of elephants enacting the plight of a female mastodon trapped in the asphalt while her mate and calf look on helplessly.  Thus the La Brea Tar pits are a 2 million-year-old bone yard from which paleontologists continue to dig up fossils which are pieces to the puzzle of how life on the planet has evolved over time. And yet seeing the graphic scenes and images of the terrible, drawn-out deaths that those animals suffered in the tar pits made wonder why God created these sticky, gooey death traps for His/Her animals, and why God allowed those animals to suffer so? Surely there are enough fossil repositories around the world that these tar pits weren't absolutely necessary for the enlightenment of humankind? Why, then, was the animals' suffering necessary? After all, animals are not like humans, who for the most part create each other's suffering. I do sometimes wonder what God is thinking. What was God thinking when He/She created oil and allowed it to bubble up to the surface to entrap animals? Not to mention, 2 million years later, humans? 
 ...Continued from yesterday: The following day, Friday, November 23, we visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a very open, Southern California-style structure designed with lots of outdoor spaces,    
  First the first exhibit among LACMA's vast holdings that we visited was a street lamp environment,   The next object of interest we came upon was a giant sculpture by Jeff Koons called "Balloon Monkey (Orange)"    Tom looking at the Balloon Monkey. 
 ...which is probably why there were a couple of guards around the monkey whose job it was to chase off the little kids who ran too close to the pond above which the monkey hovered.
 I figured monkey guard duty had to be the worst.  We then visited an intriguing exhibit of images that required the use of various kinds of 3D glasses.   
  ...and the Hollywood sign. 
 My painting. 
 
   Sometimes I wish I were an artist. I imagine it would be so serene and satisfying to have one's workspace set up, an easel and supplies, a space to which one could retreat and then get lost for hours in the creation of one's vision.
I suppose being an artist is somewhat related to being a writer. Still, I sometimes do wish I were an artist. But I guess you take what God gives you and do what you can with it. |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY 
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio 
Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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