Another Recipe Find

Ok, this one from Pure Simple Cooking (see sidebar) has 4 ingredients and probably takes 15 minutes, but it qualifies in my book of quick and easy. Now to see if it's good, as well! (If anyone tries this before me, be sure to let me know the results.)

Honey Mustard Salmon

1. 6 oz. salmon fillet
2. 1/2 T coarse mustard
3. 1/2 T honey
4. 1/2 t fresh chopped dill

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. For each fillet, mix together the appropriate amount of mustard, honey, and dill. Place the fillets skin side down on an oiled rimmed baking sheet. Spoon the mix over the fillets and bake for 12 min. Ta-da!

Clothesline Time is Coming

Even though it will be great clothes drying weather - warm and windy - on Saturday, my laundry day, I have to work! So I will wait for the next opportunity to get out my clothesline and turn off my dryer. In this neck of the woods, I'm the only one who is hanging out my clothes in the back yard, but today I found this Website, Laundry List, for reinforcement. It's hard to believe that it's against the law in some neighborhoods to hang your laundry outside!

FaceBook for me?

People in my family are divided as to the merits of FaceBook. I've been leery, but I don't really know a lot about it. Then I saw this article online. I'm one of those who thinks that joining FaceBook might open a can of worms that I won't be able to close. Let me know what you think about it!

Fargo Flood Page

Here's all the latest on the flooding in Fargo/Moorhead from NDSU. Read it and weep. Still haven't found out if any of the 3 homes our family had in Moorhead is affected.

Classic Westerns

I'm reading The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour, who was born in North Dakota and lived there as a young man - much during the same time as my mother-in-law. It turns out that L'Amour's real name was LaMoure. From what I know of pioneer North Dakotans, it surprises me that he would change his name to such a Frenchified version. Did a publisher or editor talk him into it? Doubtless it has lent him a certain cachet, but still...

It's kind of fun to read a classic Western where the men are strong, good and evil are in black and white, and it's all fairly predictable. I feel transported back to being 11 years old and finding my aunts' stash of girls books from the 20s and 30s. There's nothing like discovering Nancy Drew as a kid and whiling away whole summer days with her.



Another one of my favorites from those books was Nell Grayson's Ranching Days by May Hollis Barton, who was one of many pseudonyms for Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Harriet wrote many Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins books, and more! (Must look into this.) Nell is down in my basement bookshelf growing moldly along with the others, but I can't bear to part with her yet. Nell was a city girl from the East (dudette) who met her match in a strong young cowboy who took a liking to her. Nell had adventures with rattlesnakes, storms and "bad guys," but always was a match for them. Lovely simpler times.

Scary Book Yields a Promising Cleaning Tip

The first chapter of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning (see side bar) is not for the squeamish. The exhaustive and exhausting list of toxic chemicals in our cosmetics, cleaning products, carpets, furniture, paints, etc. is truly frightening. Nevertheless, I came across a very simple, but possibly valuable tip for cleaning oven spills - like when you thought you could get away with filling a casserole dish up to the top, or not putting anything under a loaded fruit pie. The secret is to pour a lot of salt - yeah, salt - on the spill when it is still hot. You are supposed to be able to just wipe the spill away later when the oven cools with no problem. I'm now awaiting an opportunity to try this out, but have had no energy to cook anything recently that needs more than a stovetop or microwave. Tune in later.....

The Saints

Speaking of theater, one of the top items on my someday to-do list is to join the Saints. I was reminded of them when I noticed that the two ushers at the play mentioned in my last post were wearing Saints name badges.

This is just such an excellent idea - my hat is off to the person that made it happen! For fifty bucks a year, you can sign up and get a training session to become a volunteer at performing arts events around Chicago. You look online to see what events, dates, and locations suit you, then sign up to do whatever they need - mainly ushering. Then you take a seat and enjoy the play, circus, concert, ballet, etc. you get back many times the amount you invested in your year's worth of volunteering!

The Saints say they may be the "first and only" organization serving the performing arts in a major city. Is this true? Hard to believe that no other city has any people wanting to find an easy way to enjoy the arts without having to pay much for it. Living in Chicago, one of the great theater cities of the world, means I have to take advantage of it!