eG Foodblog: Lori in PA - These ARE the Good Old Days

[snowangel]

More bun ideas. Local food shelf? Give them away? Party favors?

[MarketStEl]

Mayor Lori!  I had no idea you held such civic powers within your grasp.

Those muffins look divine.

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These are the sum of my vast civic powers:

1. I'm in charge of our two-man police department.

2. I break tie votes at borough council meetings.

3. I do ceremonial things like parades and have performed a few weddings.

4. I sign an awful lot of paperwork.

Me and Mr. Giuliani, ya know?

So you will form your exploratory committee for President in...?

Seriously, what borough?

You're in Adams County--that's south-central Pennsylvania. Gettysburg's the county seat. (I swear, the Web is wonderful!) There must be oodles of history close by as well! Will we get to see any of the battlefields?

Oh, and though I say it myself, those muffins were divine. 

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They sure looked it!

Congrats and belated best wishes for good fortune (I'm afraid the weather will remain lousy) to you, the third Pennsylvania blogger in as many months. (We're on a roll here--a potato roll, I hope!) I'll be following along during my downtimes.

[Lori in PA]

More bun ideas.  Local food shelf?  Give them away?  Party favors?

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Yeah, see, I think "give them away" is how we got them in the first place. We went back to Mom's and Dad's house after evening worship to help finish the clean-up and all these had been left by our kind brethren. Party favors is a great idea -- we could throw another party and use these as favors. I wonder how much it would cost us in groceries to do a third party? (We need a tongue-in-cheek icon.) Have any of you ever done something like that -- ended up spending a bunch of money on ingredients to make a particular dish you wouldn't have made in the first place except you were trying to use up extras of some actually inexpensive ingredient? Like a bunch of packs of 79-cent buns? I've done that.

[bleudauvergne]

I am savoring every word and photo in this blog, Lori. Thanks for doing this, it's beautiful so far.

[Lori in PA]

Mayor Lori!  I had no idea you held such civic powers within your grasp.

Those muffins look divine.

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These are the sum of my vast civic powers:

1. I'm in charge of our two-man police department.

2. I break tie votes at borough council meetings.

3. I do ceremonial things like parades and have performed a few weddings.

4. I sign an awful lot of paperwork.

Me and Mr. Giuliani, ya know?

So you will form your exploratory committee for President in...?

Seriously, what borough?

You're in Adams County--that's south-central Pennsylvania. Gettysburg's the county seat. (I swear, the Web is wonderful!) There must be oodles of history close by as well! Will we get to see any of the battlefields?

Congrats and belated best wishes for good fortune (I'm afraid the weather will remain lousy) to you, the third Pennsylvania blogger in as many months. (We're on a roll here--a potato roll, I hope!) I'll be following along during my downtimes.

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I live in Biglerville, which is a lot like Mayberry on our beloved Andy Griffith Show. We have about 1100 residents -- told you it was a Tiny Town -- and we are indeed surrounded by both historical areas and beautiful farms and orchards. If it stops raining, perhaps we'll have a little tour of our metropolis.

[mrbigjas]

excellent job so far, lori--i'll be reading this one especially closely since i'll be in your neck of the woods next weekend for a wedding in abbottstown..

Edited June 26, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[snowangel]

So, Peter was looking over my shoulder as I was looking at your buns. He suggested that since you have kids, food art! Specifically, he wanted to know if you can use buns for paper mache or if you could paste pictures from catalogues in the recycling bins to them and do decoupage. I must add that all of this was accompanied by the same guffaws of laughter as when I talk about smoking butts. Little boys will be little boys, after all.

And, in advance, Lori, thanks for blogging. And thanks to your kids as well. Trust me, by the end of your week, they'll be glad it's done, as will you, but you will be glad you did it! And be sure and let us know at what point your kids say to you "oh, mom. Another picture?"

Do you garden?

[Swisskaese]

Sounds like an interesting blog.

I love cherries, but they are very expensive here. Someday, I am going to have a cherry tree.  You could make a cherry claflouti . Can you tell I just got back from France or you could make crepes with a cherry sauce or cherry filling.

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We have a cherry tree, but it is ornamental, so we must buy our cherries. I paid $3.75 for a quart of sweet cherries this morning -- not too bad.

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Our cherries are $8.00USD for a quart.

[Susan in FL]

Not only did we have Alyssa's grad party Saturday night, we had an all-afternoon potluck/baby shower yesterday at my folks' house for a family in our congregation.  Everyone was asked to bring crockpots of sloppy joes and buns and so on.  I brought extra pulled pork, buns, barbecue sauces, and coleslaw.  Somehow, The Husband came home with this:

We didn't bring take that many to begin with!  Anybody have some ideas how I can use several dozen slightly squashed hamburger and hot dog buns?  .......

I've been using leftover hamburger rolls to make dessert panini. The idea came from tupac's eG foodblog, post # 77. I put ice cream on top rather than in them. Actually, I love just the sandwiches of banana and whatever chocolate I have, smashed/grilled, but ice cream and/or whipped cream is the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Banana Split Panini -- Took some pain au lait hamburger buns that tasted almost like brioche, cut them in half, hollowed out some of the insides, put sliced bananas in one side and a mixture of semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate on the other side, grilled on the Griddler for several minutes until the outside was crisp and the chocolate inside was gooey. Then fillled with vanilla ice cream, sliced in half, and ejoyed. Sort of a weird idea, perhaps, but it was really tasty. Kind of the at-home version of the gelato-filled brioche alla Otto in NYC.

Welcome to eG foodblogging, Mayor Lori!  We are looking forward to the coming week.  ...Cherries, mmm good.

And yes, about going out to dinner, do tell your husband that sometimes you gotta just take one for the team.

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Mayor Lori, indeed! Ahem, Susan, I'm slightly embarrassed to tell you the proper form of address is Your Honor. The only people who call me that are the kids, and they only do it when I get a borough-related phone call from a citizen or a reporter, as in, "It's for you, Your Honor." It's their signal that I need to put on my mayor hat. If you knew me well you'd know this whole mayor thing is strange for me -- I'm so UN-political and NON-competitive. It's just something I do to serve the community a bit, really.

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Well nevertheless, it's impressive! There aren't too many of us for whom the proper form of address is Your Honor! Cool.

Somebody tell me how to reply to several people in the same post.  I can't remember, if I ever knew!  (Did I mention I'm not a technical girl?)

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Hi, Lori! For the mutliple-post quoting thing, all you have to do is click the ADD "" button under each individual post that you want to respond to. Then, when you've got all those selected, click the ADD REPLY button all the way at the bottom of the whole page (not the "reply" buttons associated with individual posts). When the post-editing window comes up it will include all the posts you selected, which you can then edit and insert answers for as desired.

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Thanks, Ellen. I was about to write to Lori and explain, but you explained it way better than I do. Hope you don't mind, but that question has been asked by other eG bloggers and I would like to use your wording in the future!

[Pan]

I have fried eggs for breakfast all the time. Yesterday, my bf put truffle salt and smeared white truffle cream on the eggs and they were incredible...an inexpensive way to start your morning off with a bit of luxury. 

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For those of you who don't have truffle salt, white truffle cream, or truffle oil, you can do the trick I used to do when slapping up a quick breakfast in grad school: Use extra virgin olive oil to fry the eggs, and add enough sherry so that there is still a bit of alcohol taste when you put the eggs on top of your toast. I always did my best to have the whites be fully done but the yolks runny. Good, inexpensive quick breakfast with a little gourmet touch.

[CaliPoutine]

Sounds like an interesting blog.

I love cherries, but they are very expensive here. Someday, I am going to have a cherry tree.  You could make a cherry claflouti . Can you tell I just got back from France or you could make crepes with a cherry sauce or cherry filling.

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We have a cherry tree, but it is ornamental, so we must buy our cherries. I paid $3.75 for a quart of sweet cherries this morning -- not too bad.

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Our cherries are $8.00USD for a quart.

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Our cherries( actually, not ours, but imported from the US) are on sale this week for 1.99lb. I see a cherry crumb pie in my future. Anyone know the best way to pit cherries sans an actual pitter?

[Pam R]

Our cherries( actually, not ours, but imported from the US) are on sale this week for 1.99lb.  I see a cherry crumb pie in my future.  Anyone know the best way to pit cherries sans an actual pitter?

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Since we're comparing cherry prices. .. I'm paying $3.99/lb here. But I have to admit, they've been really good. I just make sure I eat them when I buy them - no waste allowed!

Lori: were cooking lessons included in the home-schooling? I'm always very intrigued when I find out somebody is doing home-schooling. I bet your children had better lunches than I did

[jeniac42]

So Lori, if I take a drive from Pittsburgh to Biglerville this weekend, will there still be cherries available for the buying?

Looking forward to reading the rest of your blog!

[Lori in PA]

Dinner is leftovers tonight. Ah, leftovers. Friend of the busy, the tired, the stressed. Here they are:

And here's my plate. I have leftover pulled pork with sweet/spicy sauce, coleslaw, and stuffing left from one of last week's cooking classes.

After the dishes were done by my offspring/slaves and I was awoken from a snooze by a borough call (long story), we were persuaded out to the front porch for a sort-of tradition by Samuel, the 11-year-old. A few years ago, I happened to get home from Sandoe's with a quart of the summer's first cherries just as a thunderstorm hit. The kids and I ended up sitting on the porch eating cherries and spitting the seeds into the perennial border as we watched the storm. Now each time we get cherries, Samuel hopes for a thunderstorm so we can repeat what apparently was a very memorable experience for him. It isn't storming now -- just raining -- but it was close enough. Here they are getting ready to let fly:

In the midst of the spit:

And the after effect:

We're weird -- we know it. Now they're going to teach me to play Texas Hold 'Em -- without actual money changing hands, though.

[monavano]

Ah, pit spitting. Good times, good times

[C. sapidus]

Your honor: I’m enjoying your food blog very much. Thanks for sharing a slice of your life. It looks like you have a wonderful run of counter space in your kitchen. For the extra buns, my vote is for bread pudding.

So, who is the champion pit-spitter? Your daughter looked like she had the best follow-through. Have any of the cherry seeds germinated?

We are near-neighbors of yours, about 40 miles away on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line. We go to Gettysburg pretty regularly, but haven’t explored north yet. Do you have any recommendations for casual places to eat? Also, are you the same person that I used to see posting on the Rose forums?

[snowangel]

Question. Noticing your placemat. Do you vary where you put your plate based on what you are eating? I'm noting pulled pork on the southeast.

Poker with kids. You are right about no money. When my kids taught me to play some poker game, I said we'd do it for chores. I won big, and they haven't wanted to play with me again! I think that cleaning out the screen thingie for the hood over the stove did them in!

And, yes, spitting. Good fun. Bet they do it with their kids.

[Lori in PA]

Our cherries( actually, not ours, but imported from the US) are on sale this week for 1.99lb.  I see a cherry crumb pie in my future.  Anyone know the best way to pit cherries sans an actual pitter?

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I got a little hand cherry pitter a few years ago, but before that I used to cut a slit in the side and sort of pinch that baby out. Really, it is my considered opinion that canned cherries taste the same as fresh in pies, cobblers, etc. I usually just buy fresh cherries for eating raw and let our dear Knouse Foods canning factory do my cherries for me when I want a pie. That's right folks -- I live within walking distance of the company who processes Lucky Leaf, Musselmans, and a few other labels of applesauce, juice, vinegar, pie fillings, and more.

Lori: were cooking lessons included in the home-schooling?  I'm always very intrigued when I find out somebody is doing home-schooling.  I bet your children had better lunches than I did 

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My kids are the main reason I teach the 4H cooking classes. It's the only way I make sure I do teach them cooking. We do cook together at other times, but this is more systematic. They laughed when I read the comment you made about lunches -- lunch around here is every man for himself, so it's tuna salad, pb&j, deli meat/cheese if we have some, leftovers, whatever.

So Lori, if I take a drive from Pittsburgh to Biglerville this weekend, will there still be cherries available for the buying?

I believe there'll still be sweet cherries, but I didn't see sour ones at the market this morning, so they may be done.

[Lori in PA]

Hmm, somehow my new-found quoting ability didn't work out too well above. Hope it makes sense anyway.

Edited June 27, 2006 by Lori in PA (log)

[Lori in PA]

Your honor: I’m enjoying your food blog very much. Thanks for sharing a slice of your life. It looks like you have a wonderful run of counter space in your kitchen. For the extra buns, my vote is for bread pudding.

So, who is the champion pit-spitter? Your daughter looked like she had the best follow-through. Have any of the cherry seeds germinated?

We are near-neighbors of yours, about 40 miles away on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line. We go to Gettysburg pretty regularly, but haven’t explored north yet. Do you have any recommendations for casual places to eat? Also, are you the same person that I used to see posting on the Rose forums?

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The championship of pit-spitting is in dispute. Alyssa and Jonathan (13 1/2) are both claiming victory. I was too busy laughing and doing my own pitiful version of spitting to judge. Everyone agrees Samuel inherited his pit-spitting genes from me.

Re G-burg restaurants: it's a tourist town, so what can I say? There isn't much worth going back to a second time. We really liked Herr Tavern just west of town when we were there a couple of summers ago. Even further back before that it was a trap, imo, but whoever had it two years ago was doing a lovely job and I think it is still the same. There is a little Mexican place in a strip mall on West Street that is nice. We like a little place south of town between G-burg and Littlestown on Rt. 97 called Olivia's.

Question.  Noticing your placemat.  Do you vary where you put your plate based on what you are eating?  I'm noting pulled pork on the southeast.

Poker with kids.  You are right about no money.  When my kids taught me to play some poker game, I said we'd do it for chores.  I won big, and they haven't wanted to play with me again!  I think that cleaning out the screen thingie for the hood over the stove did them in!

And, yes, spitting.  Good fun.  Bet they do it with their kids.

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It isn't a placemat -- it's our "tablecloth." Years ago I had the idea to lay a big map on the table and cover it with heavy duty clear plastic from the fabric store. Sometimes we have a US map, sometimes a world map, and sometimes other things under the plastic. It's amazing how much geography we've learned over the bowls of cereal. For awhile we had a diagram of the human eye at The Husband's spot (as I remember it), but he felt like he was being watched...

[Lori in PA]

Also, are you the same person that I used to see posting on the Rose forums?

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Whoa, I just noticed this -- do you mean Gardenweb? It was probably me. I haven't spent as much time there as I did before I discovered here. See my Heritage rose just beyond the spitters? The one begging to be dead-headed? She was glorious a month ago. To keep this post on-topic: roses grow hips, which can be eaten, though mine can't, because I spray, though mine could this year, because I haven't sprayed yet.

[mizducky]

Somebody tell me how to reply to several people in the same post.  I can't remember, if I ever knew!  (Did I mention I'm not a technical girl?)

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Hi, Lori! For the mutliple-post quoting thing, all you have to do is click the ADD "" button under each individual post that you want to respond to. Then, when you've got all those selected, click the ADD REPLY button all the way at the bottom of the whole page (not the "reply" buttons associated with individual posts). When the post-editing window comes up it will include all the posts you selected, which you can then edit and insert answers for as desired.

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Thanks, Ellen. I was about to write to Lori and explain, but you explained it way better than I do. Hope you don't mind, but that question has been asked by other eG bloggers and I would like to use your wording in the future!

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Cool! Only I think I need to add to it to make the instructions a little more effective (see below...)

Hmm, somehow my new-found quoting ability didn't work out too well above.  Hope it makes sense anyway.

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Oh yeah--when editing the quoted posts, you have to be very careful when working around the open-quote and close-quote command-lines (the bits in the square brackets at the beginning and end of each quote). The open-quote and close-quote commands work like parentheses: you need both to make a quote format properly, and you need to remove both when you remove a quote, or else the remaining unmatched command can screw up the whole post's formatting. If you accidentally delete even a single character from one of these command-bits, the software can't figure it out anymore and things go wonky. And especially when dealing with nested quotes, it's fiendishly easy to get confused about which open-quote and close-quote goes with which quote. I find it helpful to preview any post that has quoted text in it, and if the formatting's gone feral, I try manually typing in a bare-bones open-quote or close-quote command at the spot in the text where it looks like things have gotten off-track (they look like {quote} and {/quote} respectively, only substituting square brackets for the curly brackets) to see if I can get things back on track.

/mizducky, geek to the gourmets

[Lori in PA]

I'm an early-up, early-to-bed person, so this is goodnight. My snack:

Fage's Total Yogurt, with honey

I think it is called Total because it is totally wonderful and totally fantabulous. I really, really like this yogurt. I like it so much that even though I have to drive long distances to get it, I do it. I got this latest batch (two cases) at a NJ Trader Joe's on my way home from NYC a few weeks ago.

[Lori in PA]

Oh yeah--when editing the quoted posts, you have to be very careful when working around the open-quote and close-quote command-lines (the bits in the square brackets at the beginning and end of each quote). The open-quote and close-quote commands work like parentheses: you need both to make a quote format properly, and you need to remove both when you remove a quote, or else the remaining unmatched command can screw up the whole post's formatting. If you accidentally delete even a single character from one of these command-bits, the software can't figure it out anymore and things go wonky. And especially when dealing with nested quotes, it's fiendishly easy to get confused about which open-quote and close-quote goes with which quote. I find it helpful to preview any post that has quoted text in it, and if the formatting's gone feral, I try manually typing in a bare-bones open-quote or close-quote command at the spot in the text where it looks like things have gotten off-track (they look like {quote} and {/quote} respectively, only substituting square brackets for the curly brackets) to see if I can get things back on track.

/mizducky, geek to the gourmets

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Your explanation is why people like me need people like you. I have copied and pasted your instructions to save. Thank you.

[Lori in PA]

One last thing: this morning Alyssa was teaching me how to add photos to my posts (my admiration for all of you who post pictures regularly has increased ten-fold!), and she kept saying, "Mom, you don't have a signature!" "Mom, you don't have a quote!" "Mom, you don't have an avatar!" An avatar??? I didn't know how deprived I was! So, in case you haven't noticed, as of today I'm the proud owner of my own signature, a favorite quote, and, of all things, an avatar, which is one of my daughter's food photos. Thank you, Alyssa.