YUM! A recipe for beef

I don't often eat beef - 3 or 4 times a year at most. Until recently, I didn't eat beef at all and hadn't for over 20 years. So when I DO eat beef, I eat the best I can find/afford.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were watching an episode of America's Test Kitchen on our local PBS station. (a show I highly recommend) One of the recipes on this episode was for something called Steak Diane. I had never heard of it before that show, but evidently it's an old, old recipe that doesn't get made very often. Turns out the original recipe called for a sauce that took 3 days to make. In a culture that finds it difficult to make a whole meal in 30 minutes, taking 3 days just to make a sauce is impossible.

That's where the America's Test Kitchen show comes in. They found a way to make a reasonable substitute for the sauce that takes 20 minutes of preparation time and 1 hour of cooking time. Then you put it over a steak of your choice (though they recommend a NY strip). We tried the recipe last night and had BS and his husband DK over for dinner. It was unbelievably good. If I even think of the steak, my mouth starts watering.

So if you have a special occasion and you eat beef, I highly recommend Steak Diane. You can get the recipe at the www.americastestkitchen.com website. The site is free, but you have to sign up for a user ID and password.

Enjoy!

A Practical Joke I've Never Played

Ohio has lots of lotteries - instant lotteries and the kind that you have to wait until 7 PM every evening to see if you won. Included in the latter are Pick 3 and Pick 4 - lotteries where you pick 3 (or 4) digits and can win as much as $500 on a $1 bet. Numbers - just the mafia used to run - but I digress.

Every night when they pick the numbers, they always do it in the same order: Pick 3 then Pick 4. One night I'm sitting there watching it (actually waiting for Two and a Half Men reruns to come on), when it occured to me: the Pick 3 and Pick 4 numbers look like a phone number when you put them together.

That's when the Mr. Hyde part of my personality came out.

I think it would be hysterical to call the phone number that the Pick 3 and Pick 4 number generates and ask "Is this 123-4567? It is? Well you'd be really rich right now if you had played your phone number." And then hang up.

Mr. Hyde is not, needless to say, MATURE.

And I'll write about some of the practical jokes I HAVE played at some point in the future. I don't do it often, but when I think of a really good one, it's hard to resist.

You Better Be Good to me!

TINA! TINA!

Yesterday Cher and Tina Turner were on the Oprah show. The gay union sent a blast email telling everyone about the show, so naturally I watched it. Time to punch another notch in the gay union card.

A prisoner of your love
Entangled in your web

The show was worth watching - I still have it on my DVR to share with friends tomorrow night after dinner. But the BEST thing, was when Tina Turner announced she was going to go on tour again starting on October 1st! WOO HOO!!

Hot whispers in the night
Im captured by your spell


See the last time Tina toured (which was supposed to be her last tour, but I'm NOT complaining), I didn't get to see her. I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket. It was a real regret of mine that I had never seen her in concert, when I'm such a big fan of hers. And I try to live my life so that I have no regrets.

Oh yes Im touched by this show of emotion
Should I be fractured by your lack of devotion
Should I? Should I?

Tickets don't go on sale until Monday, May 12th, but the Oprah show's website had details on how to order tickets early. So I immediately went upstairs, got on the computer and ordered 2 tickets for her show in Chicago on 10/3/08. No shows in Columbus. I then left a voicemail for my friend BS saying "I hope you can get time off on your new job, because you and I are going to see Tina Turner in concert in Chicago in October. Call me." (See? I'm blunt in real life too, not just online). BS grew up in Chicago and still has friends there. And I know how much he loves music generally - although I wasn't sure of his opinion of Tina. But I HAD DECIDED. (G)

You better be good to me
Thats how its gotta be now

A little later I was talking with one of my brothers-in-law, FE. FE said to me, "Why didn't you ask your husband?" It wasn't until that point that I consciously thought about it, but I KNEW that he wouldn't want to go. He doesn't care for vocal music and he HATES large crowds. Traveling to to Chicago to go to a Tina Turner concert? Not likely. Just to be sure, I asked him about it later. He looked at me like I had grown a second (extremely UGLY) head on my shoulders and said "No. I don't want to go." He didn't SAY "Are you nuts?" but he didn't need to. Facial expressions can be very clear.

Cause I dont have no use
For what you loosely call the truth

So BS and I are going to the concert on Friday and will stay in Chicago until Sunday. I've decided that this weekend getaway will be the tail-end of my 50th birthday celebration. Unless I can get afford to go to Vegas and see Cher in concert. THEN ALL BETS ARE OFF!

You better be good to me

I decided to put the first verse and chorus of "You Better Be Good to Me" in this posting so that you could know what I've been like all day. That song has been running through my head since I ordered tickets yesterday!

I'm back!

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been under the weather. As I've written before, I get migraine headaches that can be triggered by a number of things. I had a migraine a week ago that lasted for about 8 hours. Although the migraine went away, I still had a regular headache for another 3 days. Finally on Tuesday, I'm sitting at work with my elbows on my desk and my face in my hands thinking "My face hurts so much!" (don't go there!)

Then, all of a sudden, it occured to me: I have a sinus infection. All of my headache pain started in the sinuses - and I had other symptoms that are just too gross to explain (but if you've ever had a sinus infection, I'm sure you know what I mean). So I contacted my doctor and he wrote a script for antibiotics. Doctors don't normally do this, but I've had sinus infections for years and had sinus surgery. I know when I'm infected and know how important it is not take antibiotics more than absolutely necessary.

So, I've take the pills, slept a LOT and am feeling a lot more myself. Now my face only hurts me when I look in the mirror! (it's okay when I do it) I have a few things on my mind, so I'll be posting a lot over the weekend.

Front Garden

This is a close up of a flowering shrub in our front garden. It's called a Korean lilac bush, or so I'm told. It's kind of like a lilac bush if Jackson Pollack had designed it. Right now it has these splotches of lilaccy purple buds all over the place. Last year that's all we got - buds. Since this is a bush I'm not familiar with, I'm not sure if that's what's supposed to happen or not.

You see, early last spring we had VERY warm weather - promptly followed by 6 inches of snow. This on our then brand-new garden. So, I'm still learning things about the plants in our garden because last year was kind of a bust, garden wise. So, I decided to take a picture of the lilac bush now, because even if these buds don't bloom it's still really beautiful. I love this bush. (and yes I just mixed politics with gardening). If the buds actually bloom, I'll be sure to take another picture of it in bloom and I'll post that too.

The Japanese maple tree are both doing really well, as are the climbing hyrdrangeas. Two of the boxwoods are dying as is one of the lavendar bushes. But c'est le vie. I didn't care for the boxwoods anyway and now I know that growing lavendar is an iffy thing at best in Ohio. Not sure why.

Does anyone know of a variety of lavendar that grows well in Ohio? I'm not terribly concerned about the scent (which I know some are), I'm more concerned about it being winter hardy so I don't have to replant some every year. Happy gardening!

Question for Wii users!

I bought a Wii console and a couple of games a few months ago and haven't used it as much as I thought I would when I bought it. I'm thinking that may be because most of the games (with the exception of Wii Sports) are single player games. I think I'd use the console more, I think, if both my husband and I could use it. He gets bored watching me play, and I feel like I'm hogging the television when I play single player games.

So, my question for Wii users is: what multiplayer Wii games have you played and recommend? See? This time I'm asking for a recommendation rather than giving one.

Neither of us like shoot'em ups, but other than that any games are fine. Thanks for the help!

Election

How glad must the Obama campaign be that April is over? Let's hope that May is the first month of a 6 months of good things for Obama and his candidacy.

GOBAMA!