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Foodblog: Lucylou95816


lucylou95816

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Happy to see the dogs. I'm glad you have your wine to help you with the Atkins deal. Like your husband, I lost more weight than my wife when we did Atkins. I must say, I lost weight, but I felt like crap. All meat and fat made me feel not well at all.

As a baker, I tried all the low carb baking methods, none of them tasted good to me. The THOUGHT of soy flour makes me sick to this day.

I know there are folks who thrive on it, but any long term Atkins diet is, I feel, not healthy.

Having said that, it does make the weight go away

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Thank you, and thank you for the gorgeous pet photos!

I think someone remarked on the prevalence of animal lovers in the eG foodblogs -- cat and/or dog shots are as ubiquitous as the obligatory fridge shot, which I note you have yet to provide *hmph*, and love of food and love of pets do seem to go together.

Your cats and your dogs are all precious!

Now I have to go back to checking on the mashed potatoes and getting the squash casserole ready.

Thank you. Yes, the fridge shot is coming. I was going to try and clean it up a bit, but have decided to just show it like it is. I am awaiting on the camera battery to recharge, and you shall see it all in it's present beauty.

Happy to see the dogs. I'm glad you have your wine to help you with the Atkins deal.  Like your husband, I lost more weight than my wife when we did Atkins.  I must say, I lost weight, but I felt like crap.  All meat and fat made me feel not well at all.

As a baker, I tried all the low carb baking methods, none of them tasted good to me. The THOUGHT of soy flour makes me sick to this day.

I know there are folks who thrive on it, but any long term Atkins diet is, I feel, not healthy.

Having said that, it does make the weight go away

Thanks for your message. I don't feel like crap usually, but I also don't seem to have this abundance of energy that everyone talks about. I can make it through the day without caffeine, so maybe that's saying something. Soy flour is interesting, I've tried making fried zucchini with it, and it wasn't the best. I think that when we get to our weightloss goals, we'll just be more cautious with the carbs that we eat.

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Hello, we are back from the Bay Area. We had a great Thanksgiving, hope you all did as well. Very soon, I'll post up all the pictures from the big feast and go into some details on some of the cooking that we did. However, first, we must wander over to the Raven and get a MUCH needed hair of the dog. Between the six of us, but more like really four of us, we consumed much too much red wine last night. I believe that I have some pictures of the numerous bottles that we drank. Seeing that we didn't have any breakfast today, as we were driving home, a billboard spoke to us: In and Out burger. I had a double double protein style, Mark had a double double with the poisonous bun. He figured that since his carbs yesterday were really low, he deserved it. I feel that since my carbs were really high, I am back on the strict horse again. It was the first step to helping this hangover. See you all soon.

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Hi Everyone, We're back after a much needed hair of the dog....why is that the key to getting a hangover to go away? Probably, because you start your next buzz and you forget? I don't know, anyway, currently uploading tons of pictures for your viewing pleasure. As a prelude to tonight's dinner, Mark (who seems to be doing most of the cooking on this blog) is going to make sausage and peppers and also a stock out of the carcass from last night's dinner, that we'll use at a future date, probably some chicken non-tortilla soup. Honest, I do cook, and you'll see that in this post as well as Sunday's post.

So I mentioned cooking for a homeless shelter. I am a member of the Junior League of Sacramento, and we had commited to making a Thanksgiving Dinner for St. John's Shelter for Women and Children. I signed up to make stuffing. After contemplating my week, I decided that I'll take some Stove Top stuffing and (please god don't strike me down) Sandra Lee it. (I don't condone that woman, personal opinion.) Any who, I started off with chopping some onions and celery:

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Then sauteed them in a little butter/olive oil

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Got the rest of my ingredients together:

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Got the broth going. Instead of water, I used the chicken broth, added the sauteed veggies a little thyme and sage

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After fluffing it with a fork, put it in a foil pan and delivered it

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It actually tasted quite good.

For those of you that don't know, the Junior League raises money to help disadvantaged women and children. One of the ways we do that is to sell cookbooks. Here's a link if you'd like to buy a soon to be newly released cookbook as a Christmas gift. If that isn't appropriate to put here, please let me know. They should be shipped by Christmas.

Then after that was finished, I started my potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh my god, where these good. Here's the source where the recipe came from. They were worth every gram of carbs!

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Here are the ingredients

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I started by soaking the mushrooms in hot water. The recipe called for porcinis, but the store was out, so I used chanterrells.

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After that, I sauteed them in butter/olive oil until brown

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Since we were a few hours out from dinner, I put them in a storage container and put in the fridge.

Next, I whipped the marscapone cheese, whipping cream, parmesaen cheese, garlic and nutmeg together

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season with salt and pepper

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I also put this into a container and in the fridge. When we arrived at our destination, we sliced up the potatoes with a mandoline, and layered one layer of potatoes, one layer of mushrooms, one layer of potatoes, 1/2 of the cheese mixture, one layer of potatoes, more mushrooms, more potatoes, rest of cheese mix, potatoes and then sprinkled parmesaen cheese on top. Baked at 325 for about a hour and viola:

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They did NOT suck.

Before I get to the rest of the meal, I should introduce, a special guest star of this blog, Harley, who is my Dad's dog

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He is probably the most spoiled dog in all of the world, and I thought my dogs were spoiled.

Here is the beautiful table set by my Dad's girlfriend, Beth.

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We started off with some cheese and wine (1st of way too many bottles)

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The white cheese had some sort of dried cranberries in it. I never got the name of it, but it was pretty tasty. The other was a sort of cheddar with chive.

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A barbera from Lodi.

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This wine was from grapes that grew on my dad's girlfriend's daughter's property in Hopland, before they sold it. She (the daughter) is a CEO of a major favorite (not be named) kitchen type store.

Then we started with dinner:

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The obligatory pickles and olive tray

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The salad; a wedge of ice berg with blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing, which was very good, but some of the portions were way too big, and we couldn't eat it all

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The main event; the Turkey

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Stuffing, which was really good.

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Roasted smashed squash, again really good

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Creamed onions, really really good

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cranberry sauce, I didn't get a chance to try it, but it looked good.

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Gravy

and you saw the potatoes.

The first wine with dinner was

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Silver Oak. I have been purchasing the new release since the 1997 release. We haven't had a special enough occasion to try the latest, so we picked this one to do so. It was pretty good and I am sure over time it will mature nicely, so it will be fun to try it again in a few years. This is the last of the wine pictures of the individual bottles, since things just got dicey from there. We got a picture of the whole lot consumed, and there might have been a few more after that. Yes, it was alot.

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For dessert, as if we could eat anything else, was my pumpkin cheese cake that I made for the most part, low carb, with the exception of a small graham cracker crust. There was also an apple pie, which didn't get eaten.

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The leaves are covering a crack that happened in the cooling process.

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And that was Thanksgiving 07 for us. I hope yours was filled with good food, wine and time with family. Mark is busy in the kitchen with his stock and tonight's dinner. I see lots of flashes coming out of the kitchen, so I am sure we'll have tons of pictures of that for you later. See you soon.

Edited by lucylou95816 (log)
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Stephanie, how does wine get figured in to the total carb intake on your diet?

Michael, thanks for the message. As for how wine fits in, I think I may have touched on it earlier, but if we followed this diet to a T, we'd probably have better results. The wine will slow down the weight loss, and you should count the carbs (4 grams per 4 oz glass). It hasn't kicked me out of ketosis, in fact Thanksgiving dinner hasn't yet either. I don't plan on weighing myself again until next Friday, so I am sure that I have gone up a pound or so. After this weekend, I am going to really watch the wine intake, since it seems that we've been drinking a ton of it lately, and that may not be helping me. If you were to follow Atkins the right way, you move up these "rungs" and wine and alcohol are on there, either the third or fourth rung, and that is when it would be acceptable to drink it.

Your Thanksgiving dinner looked to die for....

I have a Harley dog too.

I also made some doctored up stove top for the Seniors on Canadian Thanksgiving.  They loved it!!

Thanks for the message. Those dogs are pretty popular, my dad was usually a Lab kind of guy, but this little guy has him wrapped around his paw.

The doctored up stove top was great, especially using chicken stock instead of water.

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Hi Everyone,

Hope your Saturday is finding you well. I have pictures of dinner from last night, but first, I should probably get the kitchen/fridge stuff in, since I know you have been waiting for this. Here is my kitchen

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That is pretty much what sold me on this house was the size of the kitchen and the counter space.

Here's looking at the stove:

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Here's our recipe book/wine storage (one of several) and big serving bowl area:

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The big black binder is full of recipes from magazines/newspapers.

Ok, here is our spice pantry

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We have two cupboards below that is also pantry type stuff.

Here is the freezer. As you can see tons of meat, there's some chicken, I think that the two bags on top may be chili that Mark made this week. Ice, since the ice maker isn't hooked up. There is also a bottle of homemade limoncello.

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Here's the freezer door. Frozen bottles of water, that I will take to work with me when it's hot, since I am in the car all day, and around 3pm, they'll be melted enough to drink. Some coconut ice cream that we had from a dinner party a few weeks ago. Some pine nuts and other random things like galanga for thai cooking, some curry stuff.

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Here is the fridge door:

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The usual stuff, ketchup, Lea and Perrins, Butter, different types of hot sauce, some bacon that was cooked up in the ziplock bag, Mark's pace picante sauce. Some Dove Sugar Free Chocolates, so when I have to have a sweet treat, they are fairly low in carbs.

Here's the top shelf

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Sour cream, mayo, the orange container is the leftovers from last night. Some pickles that we canned over the summer, heavy cream, bunch of different mustards, cream cheese, marscapone cheese, leftover cauliflower from the other night. Ranch dressing, some leftover chili for Mark.

Here's the bottom shelf:

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A couple of beers, the nasty costco cheese sticks, Buttermilk, Maple Syrup, Miracle Whip (Mark's, I don't like it), bacon that he's cooking right now. Vegetables in varying stages of life..we won't go into great detail there.

Here's picture of the whole thing, including the middle shelf that just has eggs, some leftover steak, 1/2 of an avocado, leftover cheesecake from Thanksgiving. The drawer is filled with all kinds of cheese, probably needs to be inventoried to see what's in there.

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Ok, I think that covers the kitchen and the fridge. On to last night's dinner. Sausage and Peppers.

Here are the ingredients

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Only stuff not pictured are the butter, wine that went into it and the parm cheese.

Veggies ready to go

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After the sausage is cooked up, add the veggies in:

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Then add some wine

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We used Sam's Whitemore Wine Company Barbera. It got the Peabody two paws up

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All ingredients mixed together with some chopped basil

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Simmers away for a bit

Add some butter to the pan

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Serve it up with a little parm. cheese

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Here you go

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Good over pasta, but we didn't have any of that. This was some really awesome kick ass sausage and peppers. He did a great job on it. After dinner, I decided to have a small piece of cheesecake:

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And then I was very tired, much like these two after their trip to Grandpa's and Cousin Harley's house.

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Mark also made stock out of the turkey carcass. Here's what he did

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Basic stuff, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, rosemary, turkey bones, peppercorns, covered in water and simmer for as long as possible

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He's restarted simmering it this morning. Then we'll strain it, get any fat off and probably freeze for soup at some point.

A few other things I thought that I would show you. Here is some of our wine storage area. It's kind of all over the place, so we have to get creative.

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This house has a built in hutch in the dining room, so we use a couple of the drawers to house some wine:

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gallery_45680_5396_50756.jpg I forgot some of the stuff that we had in there.

Lastly, here's the latest member of the family. He's only food related, since he picks up all the crumbs that get left behind:

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His name is Persuval, The Roomba. These things rock! I highly recommend them. Ok, Mark is going to make us some breakfast I think, and we may go up to Amador to pick up some wine futures that are ready and we're going out to dinner tonight with Kara and her husband. I will be back in a bit, with some other cooking related things.

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Thanks for the message. Those dogs are pretty popular, my dad was usually a Lab kind of guy, but this little guy has him wrapped around his paw

My Harley is a wire-hair dachshund!!

Dachshunds love food. Does Riley?

Riley is funny. Whenever you offer him anything (which is rare, I don't feed them a lot of people food), he has to sniff it to see if it's something he'd like. Lucy doesn't care at all, she'll eat anything. I give them both a flax seed capsule with their meals, since Lucy had some bad skin allergies. She'll eat the capsule no problem. Riley will leave it in his bowl, so I generally have to puncture it, squeeze it out into his food and then even moisten his food slightly, since sometimes it seems too hard for him.

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Since I have some time, I thought that I would post about our dinner club that we are in. About a year and half ago, Mark and I decided to start a club up with people who were perfect strangers. We were interested in making new friends and expanding our culinary experiences. I put some notices on Craig's List and on the Cooking Light message board and got about 12 people interested. There are still about 5 original people not including us that are still involved. Over time, I have put up more notices and have gained some new members. We meet once a month, rotating homes of the members. The host picks the theme and does the main course. Everyone signs up to bring the other courses/wine. It's been great. We have a website that I post the pictures of the food, and then the recipes if people send them to me. That way, someone could go back and recreate something that they've had at one of the parties. Our last dinner was a week ago today, so I thought that I would share what we had. It was an appetizer party, to get everyone in the mood for holiday entertaining. Here are some of the things that we had.

I made Meatball Slider sandwiches. They turned out pretty good. I had the rolls specially made for me by a bakery that is actually a cupcake bakery. She said that she could make them, and they turned out great.

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I do have step by step pictures that I can put up if anyone is interested. I'll eventually have them on my recipe site that is at the bottom of my posts.

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These are yankee doodles that my friend made. I think they are a midwest thing. Basically rye toasts with seasoned ground meat that is then topped with durkee sauce and broiled until cooked through. They were a big hit.

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These are rib eye steak tacos with an onion jam and horseradish cream sauce.

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These are aspargus wrapped in parmesan cheese and prosciutto and phyllo

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These are ahi tuna with two types of sauce, a mango habanero and an avocado

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Some chocolate cheesecake brownies

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This was very interesting. A special type of gouda with milk chocolate and honey. If you try the cheese first, then go with the cheese and honey, then try the cheese honey and chocolate, you got three completely different flavors. It was really good.

Next Saturday, we are hosting a Christmas party here for our friends. Right now nearly 40 people are going to be coming.... :blink: We are making carnitas with salsa and guacamole and cupcakes. Other people will bring some appetizers to go along with it. So if this is not really a dinner, more like a stand up eat type of thing, how many pounds of pork should I get? That is my dilemma right now. If anyone has any ideas, that would be great. This will be the cocktail of the evening, along with probably some beer, wine and a few bottles of random boozy type things. This is going to my 8th annual holiday party and every year, I also ask people to bring toys or diapers that get donated to a local charity.

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Stephanie - I don't know anyone at the Raven. It's probably been 25 years since I've been in there and any memories of bartenders/owners have been dissolved in alcohol mists. Sounds like it's still a fun place and we'll have to check it out. I'm interested in the new Junior League cookbook, I'll have to try it. I have the one from about 20 years ago and it was great.

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Stephanie - I don't know anyone at the Raven.  It's probably been 25 years since I've been in there and any memories of bartenders/owners have been dissolved in alcohol mists.  Sounds like it's still a fun place and we'll have to check it out.  I'm interested in the new Junior League cookbook, I'll have to try it.  I have the one from about 20 years ago and it was great.

Jackie,

Thanks for the message. The current owners have had the Raven for about 37 years now. I understand about the alcohol mists. The cookbook should be great, I can't wait to get mine.

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Now that I'm catching up from our Thanksgiving runaround, I have a few comments and questions.

First, THANK YOU for showing the source of your potato mushroom recipe. That does look to die for, and I'll be looking around to see if I can get that magazine and/or the recipe. Perhaps it's on Bon Appetit's web site.

Second, I want to congratulate you on being able to type at all, much less post so coherently and with such lovely photos. If I'd helped polish off that many bottles of wine, I'd have a hangover the size of Tennessee 2 days later. It sure looked like fun, though, and the table setting was gorgeous.

You keep talking about ketosis and wanting to stay in it. This is something I've read before about Atkins, and it puzzles me. Back in my first-responder days, ketosis (there may have been a modifying term that I've forgotten) was a clue that somebody's body chemistry was way out of whack - like they were going into shock, or pushing the envelope of a diabetic problem, or - I've forgotten what it meant except that it was really very NOT good. And I could smell it on the victim's breath. Yet ketosis seems to be what you're shooting for with Atkins. How are the two phenomena different? Do you know?

We're toying with the idea of adding a kitchen island for the sake of counter space. Yours looks great. My question is whether I'll be sorry to forever have something I have to go around; right now we have an open floor. You noted that you love the counter space. What's your take on the island vs. floor space tradeoff?

Fridge shots and animal shots - oh, my! What a happy lot you seem to have around! And I'm glad you didn't try to clean out the fridge first. Those shots give me an inferiority complex.

Finally: was that a bottle of Davis Bynum wine I saw peeking out in one of the drawers? I love their stuff.

Edited to add: The recipe IS on Epicurious.com!

Edited by Smithy (log)

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Now that I'm catching up from our Thanksgiving runaround, I have a few comments and questions.

First, THANK YOU for showing the source of your potato mushroom recipe.  That does look to die for, and I'll be looking around to see if I can get that magazine and/or the recipe.  Perhaps it's on Bon Appetit's web site. 

Second, I want to congratulate you on being able to type at all, much less post so coherently and with such lovely photos.  If I'd helped polish off that many bottles of wine, I'd have a hangover the size of Tennessee 2 days later.  It sure looked like fun, though, and the table setting was gorgeous. 

You keep talking about ketosis and wanting to stay in it.  This is something I've read before about Atkins, and it puzzles me.  Back in my first-responder days, ketosis (there may have been a modifying term that I've forgotten) was a clue that somebody's body chemistry was way out of whack - like they were going into shock, or pushing the envelope of a diabetic problem, or - I've forgotten what it meant except that it was really very NOT good.  And I could smell it on the victim's breath.  Yet ketosis seems to be what you're shooting for with Atkins.  How are the two phenomena different?  Do you know?

We're toying with the idea of adding a kitchen island for the sake of counter space.  Yours looks great.  My question is whether I'll be sorry to forever have something I have to go around; right now we have an open floor.  You noted that you love the counter space.  What's your take on the island vs. floor space tradeoff?

Fridge shots and animal shots - oh, my!  What a happy lot you seem to have around!  And I'm glad you didn't try to clean out the fridge first.  Those shots give me an inferiority complex.

Finally: was that bottle of Davis Bynum wine I saw peeking out in one of the drawers?  I love their stuff.

Thanks for the message and the kind words. Yes, yesterday was a little rough going, but after having a few cocktails, the world was once again a happy place.

Ketosis--I do know that it can be associated with diabetics, in fact some of the strips that we've had monitor both ketones and glucose. In which case, I don't think it is good for someone that is diabetic to go into ketosis. I'm not much of a science person. I think that wiki will give you the best source of info on ketosis. You'll see on there that ketoacidosis is different than what Ketosis is and that is the dangerous one to worry about. You do get ketosis breath, I feel more like its dry mouth than anything. We also tend to not keep consistent body temperatures, especially at bed time. You may get really cold, and then really hot. Hope that helps.

As for the island, I like it, especially since we do a lot of entertaining and I can use it for a buffet, or a bar or whatever. I do have slightly limited space by the fridge area, and eventually I'd like to get a bigger fridge, since that one is so small, so that will be a consideration.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I did do a slight clean out of the fridge of some stuff that has been in there for a while. Oh well.

If you can't find that recipe for the potatoes, I will be putting the step by step pictures up on our recipe website that is noted by name when I have finished this blog.

Actually that wine is David Girard, who is a local winery up in El Dorado County. I've never tried the one you mentioned, I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

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If you can't find that recipe for the potatoes, I will be putting the step by step pictures up on our recipe website that is noted by name when I have finished this blog.

Thanks for your prompt and informative responses!

With regard to the potato gratin recipe, I found it while you were answering my questions. Here's a link to Potato Gratin with Porcini Mushrooms and Mascarpone Cheese, on Epicurious.com. Thanks again!

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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If you can't find that recipe for the potatoes, I will be putting the step by step pictures up on our recipe website that is noted by name when I have finished this blog.

Thanks for your prompt and informative responses!

With regard to the potato gratin recipe, I found it while you were answering my questions. Here's a link to Potato Gratin with Porcini Mushrooms and Mascarpone Cheese, on Epicurious.com. Thanks again!

Thanks for posting that link. It's really good. We decided that with all the running around we did this week, today it was in order for us to catch up on the tivo and stay at home, so we'll be fresh for dinner tonight. Right now I am having a snack of gruyere cheese.

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Loving your blog. I confess that Atkins ultimately did not agree with my system, but if it's working for you, more power to you. After all, everyone's system and situation is different and unique. My only suggestions would be to keep monitoring your general energy level, and make sure you keep up on the water/fluids requirement to keep all those ketones etc. flushing out of your system okay.

Your critters are adorable. Especially the shots of the kitties entwined.

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Loving your blog. I confess that Atkins ultimately did not agree with my system, but if it's working for you, more power to you. After all, everyone's system and situation is different and unique. My only suggestions would be to keep monitoring your general energy level, and make sure you keep up on the water/fluids requirement to keep all those ketones etc. flushing out of your system okay.

Your critters are adorable. Especially the shots of the kitties entwined.

Thank you. I agree, what works for some works for others. I have read your blogs and your success that you have had. I do agree with the water thing. You have to keep drinking it. Thanks for reading!

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This is so nice to catch up on late at night, after guests have departed and the dishwasher is the only sound in the house.

I'm not a wine person, but just the colors and shadows and the gleam of the bottles---lovely photos. And your Thanksgiving dinner!!! Everything from that gorgeous table (I AM a burgundy person, though not the bottled one) to the beautifully presented dinner itself---just wonderful.

I love your pets and their charming little personalities, especially Riley---he's quite a suave one---I'll bet he's a smooooth talker, too.

Oh, by the way---my ketchup says that your ketchup wants you to turn it rightside up---they live on their lids, you know. On the bottom shelf. It's the law. :raz:

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Hello, we just got back from dinner. Before I get into that, I'll give you a recap of the food we ate today. Mark got up and made us scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon.

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For some reason, I was only able to eat a few bites. Eggs haven't been sitting well with me lately. So later in the day, I had a couple of pieces of gruyere cheese, which tided me over until dinner. Mark made some tuna salad.

Tuna

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The stuff he put into it

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And the final plate. He wasn't as hungry as I was at dinner.

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For dinner, we went to 55 Degrees

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This place is located near the Captial. Dinner was good, not the BEST meal ever, but good none the less. I did have a small cheat, they had warm bread with really good butter. Warm bread, which seems like you don't see very often is hard to pass up. Just one piece though.The picture quality is not the best since I didn't want to use the flash.

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Kara and I started off with the Belguim Endive Salad

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Kara's husband had the crab cake, which I also had as a second course. They were very good. More meat inside, with a slight dusting of corn meal that was a nice crunchy crust to it. The sauce beneath it was okay, but needed a little more spice.

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Mark had the sweetbreads. They were okay, too chewy for my taste. There is another place in town that makes them, and they are done very well.

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For main courses, Mark had the mussels (The 55 degree method on the menu) and they came with frites. The frites, which I had about 15 of were really good.

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Kara had the scallops, which were very good, just a puny portion.

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Her husband had the Mahi Mahi

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I had the steak, and asked to substitute the frites for sauteed spinach. The spinach needed some seasoning, but the steak was good.

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We enjoyed this wine from our "good" cellar area

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I actually don't mind paying a corkage, since it seems that wines are so overpriced. I also knew that they wouldn't have this on their list. Here's our good wine cellar storage

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So no dessert, but a good dinner with good friends.

I can't believe that tomorrow is the end of the blog, and the end of my extended weekend. :sad: But don't go away yet, we got more stuff coming up tomorrow. If I get motivated, I'll get up and go to the only decent farmers market and get some pictures of that for you. I already have a shopping list for tomorrow's dinner, that I will actually cook and I'll take you to another one of my favorite grocery stores, that I have gotten permission to take pictures of on the inside. I am hoping that they have Cardoni, which I guess is the stalk of the artichoke plant, that some people were talking about yesterday, and I'd like to try it.

So have a good night and we'll catch up with you tomorrow.

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This is so nice to catch up on late at night, after guests have departed and the dishwasher is the only sound in the house.

I'm not a wine person, but just the colors and shadows and the gleam of the bottles---lovely photos.    And your Thanksgiving dinner!!! Everything from that gorgeous table (I AM a burgundy person, though not the bottled one) to the beautifully presented dinner itself---just wonderful.

I love your pets and their charming little personalities, especially Riley---he's quite a suave one---I'll bet he's a smooooth talker, too.

Oh, by the way---my ketchup says that your ketchup wants you to turn it rightside up---they live on their lids, you know.  On the bottom shelf.  It's the law. :raz:

Rachel, thanks for the message. I am glad that you are enjoying the blog. Yes, Riley can be a smooth talker. He actually knows how to say I love you. He'll say something the effect of Aww Wuu Wuu. Sometimes is sounds really close. I'll fix that ketchup right away. :smile: Thanks again for reading!

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So I mentioned cooking for a homeless shelter. I am a member of the Junior League of Sacramento, and we had commited to making a Thanksgiving Dinner for St. John's Shelter for Women and Children. [...] For those of you that don't know, the Junior League raises money to help disadvantaged women and children.  One of the ways we do that is to sell cookbooks.  Here's a link if you'd like to buy a soon to be newly released cookbook as a Christmas gift.  If that isn't appropriate to put here, please let me know.  They should be shipped by Christmas.

Is there a Junior League anywhere in the country that does not produce a cookbook as a fundraiser for their charitable work? IMO, "Junior League Cookbook" should be trademarked like "Girl Scout Cookies."

I signed up to make stuffing.  After contemplating my week, I decided that I'll take some Stove Top stuffing and (please god don't strike me down) Sandra Lee it.  (I don't condone that woman, personal opinion.)

You have heard, haven't you, that Miss Semi-Homemade has a new autobiography out?

It's called Made From Scratch. :huh: The customers on Amazon.com give it decidedly mixed reviews.

I am really enjoying your blog! Umm..what's durkee sauce?

Here you go:

Durkee Famous Sauce - An American Cult Classic Since 1857!

It's great on roast beef, among other things.

Sandy Smith, Exile on Oxford Circle, Philadelphia

"95% of success in life is showing up." --Woody Allen

My foodblogs: 1 | 2 | 3

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