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I consider myself a pretty good cook, my family and friends think I am too.....you may all want to reconsider after tonight. It seems there was a run in between me, a half dozen eggs and a microwave. I've been cooking well over 40 years and I think I have pretty good common sense. Atleast I thought I had common sense. Not so. We decided to have a pre-4th-of-July BBQ tonight and I thought it would be nice to whip up some deviled eggs. I know they are probably very bad for you but between me and the boss I like the white part and he eats the yellow. I guess that's how you stay married for 38 years. On the other hand the offspring is a little bit me and a little bit him....She likes the whole egg. So I used my Ina fool proof method of cooking hard boiled eggs. Put them in a pot and cover with water, bring to a boil, remove from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes.....the perfect cooked egg.. Not tonight. I have no idea what went wrong. I peeled the eggs not thinking a thing abo...

What do these three things have in common......dumb people. Found out this weekend that the crazy women over at the local W. S. has been passing herself off as the store manager.....better put...."the person in charge"......for years now. Always very self-important , she will actually tell you what your buying is no good and you should buy what she tells you to buy. After all, her husband is not only a lawyer but a master bread baker. How many times have we heard this story.... I would love to meet this guy to see who would marry this nut....Well, it turns out that she's just a plain old employee. Not even an assistant or maybe a supervisor over small appliances.......it's the kind of case where you would love to go in and say to her..."I knew it"......And to think I almost accepted her job offer back in November....The second dumb person was in front of me at the drive thru line at McDonalds this morning. Making a $3. purchase she paid with a $100. bill.......

Tonight was officially the end of t.v. as we know it. I tuned into the new "Celebrity Family Feud" hosted by Al Roker. It was the Joan River family versus the Ice-T family....odd combination but I was intrigued. When T's wife the infamous CoCo got up to the podium poor Al got all giddy. It's like he had never seen a pair of boobs before. He actually became speechless. I was going to post a picture of CoCo for those of you who have no idea who she is but I thought better of it. Also on T's panel of people was Ice-T Jr. or better known as Little Ice.....how cute.....Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse the next family to come out and try to beat the Rivers......The Wayne Newtons....

Marietta is a large heavily populated city on the outskirts of Atlanta...Located in popular Cobb County we are often in the National news. Most recently for the "Barbie Bandits" that tried to rob a bank inside a local Kroger store...Well, today takes the cake. While driving to a birthday brunch with Miss D. the next door neighbor, she informed me that earlier today a Black Bear from the mountains of North Georgia had been hit by a car at one of our largest intersections and had to be shot....Not just any intersection but the one right down the street from the house...My first reaction was to ask " if it walked all the way down from the mountains why was this the first time somebody spotted it"... How did it manage to travel pretty far from home and no one noticed?? Thinking she was, well....nuts....the minute I got home I checked the local news on the Internet....I really have to start taking the "local stories" she tells me more seriously. At 7:15 this mo...

Tonight on the menu we had one of my new favorite things to whip up. It's easy, it's delicious and we actually call it "Chicken Cordon Boo"....after the dog, of course. It starts with simple chicken breasts dipped in egg and Italian bread crumbs and lightly fried in a combo of butter and extra virgin olive oil.... As it's cooking spritz some lemon juice on the chicken. When it's completely cooked remove it to a large baking pan, one you would bake cookies on, and season it with kosher salt. Spread some Dijon mustard onto each cutlet. Fold a thinly sliced piece of ham, I prefer Boars Head tavern ham which is like a mild baked ham, onto the chicken. On top of the ham place a piece of Provolone cheese. Pop under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese....I always serve this with Uncle Ben's chicken and wild rice and it's extremely tasty. On the schedule for the upcoming week will be Hungarian "Boo"-lash and for breakfast one morning hus...

Thanks to Mary Jane at the King Arthur Flour Company my cinnamon raisin bread came perfect. Using cold tap water really was the trick....Husband seemed happy with the results, so much so that we are on our way out to the W.S. where they have on sale the 2 3/4 qt. round LeCrueset baker that he has offered to buy me....I never pass up anything from the W.S.

The other night we really were noshing on hot corned beef sandwichs on rye at midnight....I have been in the mood for corned beef hash after seeing an episode of "Diners, Drive Ins and Dives" and you first have to cook the corned beef before you can make the hash. So I started at 8:00p.m. and by 12:00 it was ready. Today was hash day. It's probably been two years or more since I've eaten hash, since the last time I bought it the stuff tasted like dog food..... No, I really don't know what dog food tastes like but I've smelled the stuff and I was sure this was mislabeled. I didn't even have the nerve to give it to the husband... I have made it in the past but never got the consistency right. Always staring me in the face, sitting right on the counter, has been my big red food processor. On occasion I'm a bit slow on the upstart......Miss "D" next door can attest to this since she hasn't let me forget the time I told her I had donated bags ...

So I've been enjoying making bread every other day and it's wonderful not having to go to Publix for a loaf you pay $5.00 for that goes stale on the drive home....but I ran into a few snags...The first loaf was perfection. I even went online and bought the highly acclaimed "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day"...thinking I was going to start selling this stuff to the neighbors...not really. Anyhoo, the bread has been going downhill since that first loaf and I haven't been able to figure out why. So this morning I put a call through to the King Arthur Baking Hotline....similar to the famous Butterball Hotline. Who would no better then these people and the nice lady on the phone seems to think my water is too hot....It seems that this time of year with this particular recipe, where it's a slow rise, if you use water over 80 degrees it will cause the dough to rise too fast. She suggested I try regular cold water out of the tap, not to be over the 80 degrees..She ...

I was watching the Food Network Challenge today and someone was making a pineapple upside down cake for a Luau challenge in Hawaii. My ears perked up as this was my first foray into the world of competitive baking back in 1968. It was my senior year in high school and it was announced that there would be a baking contest for the senior home economic students. I was the first to sign up......see I was a bit of an ass kisser to Miss Takacs... the home ec teacher who I loved... as it was my only chance of ever getting an "A" in my entire academic career. For my senior project I wowed her by making homemade grape jam from Grandma Macaluso's grapes from her backyard vineyard, and then further impressed by making gingham curtains for my sewing project. But this didn't get me the A......it was the cake. The day of the contest I woke up early to bake it fresh. It was a piece of art on a serving platter. I was so excited. Then the news came...........along with my entry ther...

Who knew when we had the satellite installed that it would have the ability to forecast the weather. The other night while watching the news we heard that a storm was brewing over in Alabama. Within moments the dish lost it's signal letting us know that it was headed our way. Who needs Janice Dean and her weather machine.....It came back on once the storm had blown out over the Atlantic, but not to worry with 200 "quality" channels to choose from all we missed was 199 repeats and the Spanish version of the Home Shopping Network.........

No, not their work force or their locations or their delivery cars.......they have actually downsized their pizza....We have been ordering Domino's for years since down here in the South you really can't find good N.Y. style pizza. You can never get away with spending less then a 20 dollar bill so when coupons appear in your mailbox you get excited. Which brings me to tonight when I suggested to the big guy that we go pick up their coupon "special".....this would be a large pie with one topping for only $5.99....pick up only. How can you go wrong...Getting a Domino's for under $20.00...unheard of! That should have been our first clue. When I picked up the box from the counter person I noticed that it had absolutely no weight to it, none. It felt like the box was empty. Upon further inspection what was inside that box was a disgrace. I have never seen such a small pizza, it was one small step up from a "personal pan".....I know what your thinking....what ...

I finally found a way to keep the dog in line....send him away to the kennel for a very long time, well actually 3 weeks did the trick. When we were summoned to Jersey to babysit Miss Kitty we had no other choice but to put the Boopster at the Sleepy Hollow Kennel down in Smyrna. A wonderful home away from home and as their sign out front says......"a country club for canines"......I feel very comfortable leaving the Prince there as the owners, The Ropers, are terrific. They even refer to the Boo as "Son"......and I think Boo knows they're sincere.....see previous dog post. Boo has been boarded there many many times but it seems that 3 weeks is the key to him getting in line....Since he's been home I not once have had to raise my voice, to the delight of the husband, to get the dog in the house. I now open the back door.....offer him 3 cookies.....and in he comes. It's all too easy. Why hasn't the past 9 1/2 years been this easy. Who knew an extended...

There are some kinks to be worked out..........everytime the phone rings we lose the satellite connection....On a happier front, they promised more channels and more channels we got....We now have Horse Racing from Belmont, some sort of "Cattle Auction" and I saved the best for last....... "The New Jim Bakker Show"...I didn't even know he was out of jail?

When we returned from Jersey in the mail was a letter from BellSouth informing us that as of July 1st. cable service would no longer be available....At&T would be offering the "Dish Network" at a deal you couldn't refuse.......according to them. We have been very happy with the cable service, except every night at 7:00 it goes out, and we really weren't ready to get a dish. They assured me that my bill would not be going up, they would give me free installation and I would get a $75.00 rebate....Plus I would now get BBC America so we could watch Gordon Ramsey anytime we wanted... Given no other choice, since no one else services our area, the dish it was.....Scheduled for today between 1:00 and 5:00 they showed up promptly at 9:00a.m. The husband showed them around the house and the last time I saw them they were discussing installing the dish behind the house...I went about bread baking, my newest favorite thing to do, and didn't think another thing about it....