Today our youngest son came over for the day for a short visit. He brought his girlfriend with him, and we had a nice visit. My wife actually went to pick them up at his apartment; he lives about an hour away from our house. On the way home they stopped in town and went to the 34th annual Spring Festival in Old Town. Although we’ve lived in this area for over five years now, we’ve never gone to any of the street festivals that have been held up until now. My wife has always asked me to go with her to some of the festivals, but I’ve always resisted going, so it was good that she got our son and his girlfriend to agree to go with her to the festival this year.
When they arrived home from the festival, my wife was excited to show me that she had purchased some hickory syrup from a vendor at the festival. Neither one of us had ever even heard of hickory syrup before, and she said that the booth caught her eye. Having lived in New England for much of our lives, she was familiar with maple syrup – but what was this hickory syrup stuff like? The vendor was giving out free sample tastes, and all three of them had a sample. They all agreed that it was quite tasty, and bought a small bottle of it to bring home to share with the rest of the family. They told me that there was live music, and a lot of vendors and free food samples. And lots of funnel cake booths! Back in New England we called them “Doughboys” and they are so tasty! I guess that the next time my wife extends invitations to go to a festival I should accept it and go along.
After the festival they stopped at a grocery store to pick up the fixings for lasagna for dinner, and when they arrived home they prepared a really nice lasagna and served it with garlic and cheese bread. We created our own dessert by combining lemon cookies and vanilla creme cookies – the combination of the two cookies was much tastier than either cookie by itself. We talked about putting some vanilla frosting in between the cookies to make them stick together, but decided against it for today. Maybe next time!
My favorite sweet tea is the sweet tea from McDonald’s. I love the fact that I can get a large sweet tea from McDonald’s for only one dollar. The thing that bothers me about it though, is the thought of exactly how many calories are IN that large sweet tea? I just found out that there are 280 calories in a large McDonald’s sweet tea. There are 15 calories in a teaspoon of sugar. So that means that there are almost 19 teaspoonfuls of sugar in a large sweet tea!
When I go to any other place that sells sweet tea, it is not nearly as sweet. In fact a lot of the times I order a sweet tea and I would have to say that the tea that I get had no sweetener in it at all. So I end up dumping three or four sweetener packets into the tea.
I wish that McDonald’s would sell a sweet tea that had a sugar substitute in it. I like the Truvia and the Splenda sweeteners, and if they would use those sweeteners in their sweet tea I would not be so worried about the calorie count in it. Now that I know how many spoonfuls of sugar there are in their sweet tea I might start ordering the tea unsweetened and just add my own Truvia or Splenda. I gotta watch my weight!
Guest post by Chandra Yearling
Going to the Lost Dog Cafe with Sue and Jarod today was interesting. I’ve heard about the Lost Dog Cafe before, and have wanted to go there for the past few months, so I was really glad when they suggested that we go there today. We split a large Polynesian pizza, which was really good. It has been several years since I’ve had a Polynesian pizza that had bacon on it; most of the pizza places just puts ham and pineapple on it. This one had ham, pineapple, bacon, and shrimp on it. I asked for ginger ale to drink and was given a brand of ginger ale I’d never had before – I think it was called Dominion ginger ale. It was sweetened with honey, or maybe raw cane sugar – I can’t remember which, but it was very good.
After the pizza, we drove Jarod back to his apartment, and he invited us to come in and check out his new digs. I’ve been there before a couple of times, but Sue never had been there before, so we went in for the nickle tour. While Jarod was showing Sue around, I asked if I could use the bathroom, and Jarod told me to go ahead and use the one that was in the hallway outside of his room.
I was rather surprised to see that there was a new vessel sink in the bathroom; it looked a little bit out of place in the house. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the look of vessel sinks! The house is an old brick cape cod style that was built probably in the 1940′s in an older neighborhood. Seeing the clear vessel sink and an oriental-inspired faucet that looked like a stick of bamboo just seemed a little bit out of place in that house. I know that I’m not an interior decorator, but I would have expected a more traditional pedestal sink in a house like that. I wondered what prompted the building owner to choose that style of sink.
My wife bought some Porterhouse steaks a few days ago at Food Lion. She had gone into the store planning to only buy a couple of gallons of milk and some bananas, so I was quite surprised when she came out with three beautiful Porterhouse steaks for us to cook up on the grill. She told me that the steaks were half-price so she just couldn’t resist. We usually eat mostly chicken, because we know that red meat is not healthy for you. She said that she was hoping that I’d cook the steaks on the grill.
This was the first use of the grill this year, and I have to say that these steaks were the most delicious steaks that I’ve tasted in a very long time! Usually I use some A-1 sauce on my steaks, but this time the steak did not need any seasoning at all. Chicken just can’t hold a candle to a perfectly cooked Porterhouse steak.
Celebrations are steeped in tradition, depending upon the occasion. I like the ones that involve a toast, like at a wedding reception. The last time I had a Champagne toast was at my parent’s anniversary party. It is always good to toast a happy couple, whether they are starting out on their life together or celebrating 40 years of marriage.
Food, Fun, General life, Relationships, Shopping, Sports and outdoor fun | Dean | 
May 19, 2012 10:06 pm | 
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