Darienne

Ed (whose Mom actually was French Canadian) makes an excellent Tourtière. I think we need one for this Christmas. Ed got the recipe from his French teacher when we lived in Quebec.

Our daughter is here this weekend and I pressed her into taking some photos on my behalf. Mug on the left bears a photo of the drive shed, Ed's lair...which is strictly enter at own risk, preferably wearing sturdy boots with steel-capped toes. Ed's sister gave the mug to Ed as a Christmas present one year. Mug on the right is a Rottie of course, a mainstay of our lives for almost forty years now, and only one of many Rottie mugs and stuffies and plaques and t-shirts and nighties and you name it (and Hummingbird things also) we have been given by the wonderful friends from the States and Ontario and Quebec who attended 20 years of Annual Dog Weekends (and I use the term loosely...from Thursday to Tuesday for the Delaware folks) at the farm. What incredible memories of those times. The mug on the left says Moab, our home away from home and it's been 8 years since we last were there. 1985-2017. I still miss it and when I see Facebook short reel videos of the area, my heart clenches sometimes. The graphic is of course Kokopelli. Kokopelli and southwest lizards were our late son Steve's favorites. In fact, one of our upstairs bedroom is the Kokopelli Room (yes, our bedrooms have names...we are nothing if not pretentious) filled with Kokopelli bits and bobs we brought back over the years for him. We did take Steve with us to Moab one year. The blue glass mug is just that, blue glass, one of my favorites. The first years on the farm I bought a complete set of blue glass plates and glasses and bowls and mugs. They're almost all gone now, except for some mugs and two large serving bowls, but I still have and use the blue handled cutlery ...which Ed hated...said they were too light and small. So I use it and everyone else has a heavier, more conventional set to use. It's hard to believe but we've been on the farm 35 years. Of course it's hard to believe that we are in our mid-80s and have been together since I was 15 and he was 16. Sorry, I'm old and I tend to ramble...

Pistachios are back on Canadian governmental recalls this morning. So I finally went to Mr. Google for more in-depth reporting on the endless announcements of salmonella carrying pistachios. And it is indeed a continuing item on the news. "As of early December 2025, 155 people have been reported sick with Salmonella linked to an outbreak involving pistachios and pistachio products in Canada, with 24 hospitalizations but no deaths, primarily affecting Ontario and Quebec, though the actual number is likely higher as not everyone seeks testing. The outbreak involves various brands from Iran and has led to multiple recalls, with people falling ill from March to November 2025. " What I don't understand is why this continues on and on and on. Why can't all pistachio items from Iran be pulled off the shelves?

I'm reading Real Food, Fake Food by Larry Olmsted. But seeing as I'm also reading three other books, I haven't gotten all that far. One of the other books is Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life which I am really enjoying.

Dark chocolate is it for me. I eat some every day but I do not overindulge. Well, once in a while... I make a gluten-free chocolate cake with a dark chocolate ganache topping every week and we eat small pieces once a day. (We finally came to the conclusion that Ed does not have a gluten intolerance, but I really like the recipe.)

Hard to believe that I started this topic with an article from my Smithsonian daily download and here I am back again with yet another Smithsonian download from today: Gas Stoves Are Poisoning Americans by Releasing Toxic Fumes Associated With Asthma and Lung Cancer

I LOVE bean soup and yours sounds delicious!!! The smoked sausage and Rotel tomatoes...yummm. Can you name all 15 kinds of beans?

Pistachios are back on the Canadian food recall list again today. Is there no end to the contaminated pistachios? Why don't they just haul them all away? I don't understand.

Placed a hold on it at the local city library immediately.

Christmas dishes!!!! I love the gnome decorated plates that our daughter gave us many years ago. They are up at the Drive Shed, somewhere only Ed knows where. I'll get him to bring them to the house today.

We have a number of favorite mugs but my camera does not do close-ups. If our daughter comes this weekend, I'll get her to take the photos.

I believe I might kill for that counter.

Wonderful, as usual. I am so taken by what you are doing!! And I just happen to have a green cabbage on hand.

Interesting point. As a Canadian I thought I'd look up my country's rules. According to Mr. Google: In Canada, "feta" can refer to authentic Greek feta with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label or cheese from Canadian producers that can be called feta if they started using the name before October 2013. New Canadian feta-style products must use terms like "feta-style," "feta-type," or "imitation feta" and cannot include images that evoke Greece

I'm with Smithy.