Summer has been a good pie time!

Apple Rhubarb

Blueberry

Peach Raspberry

Pineapple Blueberry

Raspberry

This is the second delivery of Anne's Christmas gift to Ack - champagne deliveries. This month we have the André Robert Blanc de Blancs Reserve NV, Charles Ellner Grande Reserve Brut NV and Brocard Pierre Blanc de Noirs. We will let you know which was the best - Anne is out of town on a bonspiel and Ack will wait for her return before sampling.

Happy Anniversary!

In New York this weekend, 

 we celebrated Mimi and Poppy's 65th wedding anniversary...

and Evelyn's 39th birthday.

Both parties were fun and delicious.

A November Friday with Mimi

 My mother is game for any adventure. 

On this sunny but cool day, Mimi and Anne putt-putted the pontoon over to Governor Nelson State Park for Donny Anderson to take and store it for the winter season.  This was after a few other steps first: shuttling a car over to the park (Poppy did that with me), clearing out the boat and drying the  hidden water in every compartment, finding that the battery was dead, and then recharging the battery.  The short ride on the lake was beautiful.

Then later in the afternoon, we went to the 60th annual lutefisk dinner at Lakeview Lutheran Church, down the road from our house.  Even though she wasn't hungry, and despite the fact that neither of us planned to eat the fish (the white stuff on the platter in the photo), we had a great time.  I ate the meatballs, mashed potatoes, rutabaga, cole slaw, lefse, cranberries and pie.  Mimi had a few tastes of the meatballs, taters and pie.  What's as delightful as any of the foods are the enthusiastic stories people tell about lutefisk: how they grew to like it, advice (to me) on how to eat it, their favorite way to prepare it, their favorite places to go for it, the church lutefisk suppers they've gone to this season already and will go to next. 

Through it all, Ack did great work at work and Daddy kept guard at the dining room table or napped in the guest room. 

Chemo #1 Day 5

Fresh Pizza!

Day 5 passed with nothing special. Steroid dosage was cut in half today, but I didn't feel any real difference. Wednesday I go back in for lab tests and over to cardiology to have a background scan of the heart. They do this as a reference, so later they can do it again and make sure drugs aren't messing with my heart.

I went into work for most of the day today and that went fine - mostly meetings. After work I went and did a little exercise. I've lost about 8 lbs, which is something my doctor has suggested each year during my physical. It is not weight loss from the cancer but rather due to good eating, no beer, no over-eating, cutting back on sweets, and lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. The photo is of a pizza I cooked tonight - eggplant, cheese, roasted garlic and roasted onion. Yum! Anne is now baking a fresh apple pie!

Fresh Apple Pie!

New Orleans, Lutefisk

The photo of the Mississippi is from Ack's room in New Orleans, where he got to visit with Alana. The other photo was taken prior to us visiting the Son's of Norway for a Lutefisk dinne. Ack had the 'lyefish' but Anne, the folklorist, skipped it.

Food

Food in Taiwan has been excellent. The photo here is a box lunch we got on the train ride back from sight seeing. All freshly made and for a couple of US dollars. Food is freshly made and there are lots of places to eat - and they have all been good, though sometimes odd.Odd food has been 'stinky tofu', which smell as good as lutefisk, except the smell is not only in the air, but in the food as well; a 'brat' where the bun was made of sticky rice; various kinds of seaweed; eggs hard boiled in tea (giving them the brown color in the photo); fresh mango with shaved ice that was almost as tasty and custard; chicken butt (yes the very end of the chicken - sort of the tail bone - cut off and grilled).

food!

We have been eating some good foods - including, chicken stomach, jelly fish, wabasi fries, odd purple looking fruit with green seeds, an interesting seaweed, Chinese black mushroom, passe fish. The photo here is from a restaurant view of dinner with faculty from the National Central University. Food with meetings are an important aspect of the visits here.