Almostgotit.com

While this particular model that I own, by BonJour, seems no longer to be available,  there are dozens of other insulated French press pots now on the market.  And no wonder!   They are easy to use, easy to clean, and make to-die-for-coffee.  As a comes-from-Seattle-girl, I know.

Many coffee connoisseurs recommend press pots for the best coffee flavor, but the glass ones don’t keep coffee hot for more than a few minutes.  Problem solved with this insulated version,  which I can set right next to my computer, where it provides me with hours of refills! 

I’d buy this pot over and over again, too, except that the one we have will never wear out. We’ve used it daily for years now. 

I would like to add that not a single company or person is paying me to write about insulated French-Press Coffee Pots,  though I certainly think it is an excellent idea to send nice things to bloggers and ask them for endorsements (money is always a nice thing to send to bloggers, too.) 

After all.  If the Johnson & Johnson marketing people  learned anything from their recent Camp Baby experience, they may now realize they’d have been much better off showering their target mom bloggers with products (to keep and to use as blog give-aways) instead of paying their way to a conference where all the neuroscientists, nurses and marketing professionals who dominate the momosphere  were treated to scintillating sessions about hair-braiding.

I’m just saying.  And for the record, my contact information is right up there, at the top of this screen.

I’ve been tagged by Ann of Compensation Force  with a new blogging meme.

Les Rules:

1. Provide a list of the books you’re currently reading. 
2. Pick up the nearest book, and open it to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence, and post the next three sentences.
4. Tag 3-5 more people by posting comments on their blogs. 
5. Link back to the person who tagged you. (It’s nice to leave them a comment, too!)

Les Books:

1. One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus.
   “What if” fiction based on a true event, when a prominent Cheyenne chief asked the U.S. government for the gift of one thousand white women in order to help his doomed people assimilate.
2. Why Mars & Venus Collide by John Gray
   Which recently flew across the room, causing John Gray’s Martian head to collide with the wall.  And hey, here’s a bit of John Gray intrigue…
3. Sahara Special by Esmé Raji Codell.   
   My daughter and I just finished reading this one in our Mother-Daughter Book Club  (Esmé is a certified Readiologist.  Really.  Here is her very cute website. And here’s the quote, p. 123:

I could have cried from feeling scared, and I could have cried for being so terrible, for nearly making the meanest, most special boy in school explode.

But all I could think of was how it would be at least a week before I had a chance to snoop in his journal again.  And how Miss Pointy was right: poetry is not for punks.

Les Tags:

1. Rachel at Fog to Fire  (who uses the same wordpress theme I once did)
2. Florinda at  The 3 R’s (cause she’s cool)
3. Cyn at It’s All On the Table (cause she never reads MY blog, either)
4. Stephen at The Photoshop Journal   (won’t he be surprised)
5. Zita at the Savvy Networker (because I’m NETWORKING, of course)

The story, in brief:  Johnson & Johnson co. marketers decide to be hip, and so they invite 50 of the biggest names in mom-blogging to an all-expenses-paid “Camp Baby” event   in early April.   They handle the invitations very badly.  Then they start disinviting people.   J&J has received lots of blog time in the aftermath, all right!  Don’t miss Susan Getgood’s hilarious “Camp Baby” post mortem!

I’ve been tagged by Career Encourager.  Assignment: write a six word memoir.  Other rules: post your own memoir. Tag at least five more blogs. Link to them and leave comments. Acknowledge the blog that tagged YOU. Link to that blog as well. (Rules rewritten to fit my theme. You can also use original rules. Peggy’s better at rules than I!)

A terrific book inspired it all.  Not Quite What I Was Planning… Compilation from submissions to a contest.  My dad sent me a copy.  I have not thanked him yet.  You can buy one from here.   Good review in the New Yorker.   Entirely written in six word sentences.  Cleverly, they didn’t point this out. I’m not so clever, just slow.  

I liked their idea, so borrowed. 

The book is clever, funny, poignant.   Here’s a few of my favorites:

I’m my mother, and I’m fine.  
I was born. Some assembly required.
It was embarrassing, so don’t ask.
I think, therefore I am bald.

My, this is a daunting task. Tried to sum things up: failed.  Advisors say don’t think too much.  I wrote a few, can’t choose.

• How did all of this happen?
• More I live, less I know.
• Clearly I am not an earthling.
• Figured a few things out, eventually.

I choose to tag these blogs:

• Karen at Working Girl
• Paul at Original Faith
• TrueVyne at The True Vyne 
• Emily at The Rocky Road of Love and Other Great Recipes
• Ursula at Working Mother Blog

Come on now - YOU try one!

Ten honeymoons in ten days, hoo boy! I’ve just written and posted the last of them for The Rocky Road of Love blog.  While the honeymoons are pretend, every one of these places really exist and really would accept visitors (that was the “rule” I made for myself when researching them.)  Anyway, here are links to the final five. (You can revisit summaries of the first five honeymoons by clicking here.)

 Tree House: Turkish Wedding Soup with Spiced Sauce

A treehouse, a freehouse,
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.

A street house, a neat house,
Be sure and wipe your feet house,
Is not my kind of house at all –
Let’s go live in a tree house.

I was inspired by Shel Silverstein’s poem, then I found a real funky-looking treehouse hotel in Turkey and a romantic recipe to go with it.

Tropical Honeymoon in Aruba: Baked Bananas with Rum Sauce

Guilt drove me to give the couple a brief respite at a more typical honeymoon locale.

The “Baked Bananas with Rum Sauce” recipe seems to have been particularly popular, too.

Gee, bananas. Who knew?

To the (Australian) Lighthouse: Lighthouse Cocktails

In researching this one, I fell in love with the Straviken lighthouse in Sweden, but still felt guilty. (My life.  Guilt.)  This time I worried about sending the lovers to someplace so cold in February.  So I found a lighthouse hotel for them in Australia, instead.

There followed a lively exchange (see post’s comments!) with the Straviken’s owner about whether or not there are polar bears in Scandanavia. 

N.B.: There aren’t.

Honey, let’s play (Spanish) Caveman: Quick Vegetarian Paella

I used my own experience staying in a Spanish cave hotel near the Alhambra in Grenada for this one.

And have been yearning for Flamenco music and sangria ever since.

I also finally figured out a way to cook paella that doesn’t call for a million weird ingredients and doesn’t take all day to cook, either.

(Unlike this post, which is giving me absolute fits, probably because of all the pictures.  Wordpress codemakers have some ’splaining to do!!)

Romance on (Ice Hotels) Ice: How to Make an Ice Bowl

Sam and Harry are due home later today, but I have one last honeymoon fantasy to spin for them. This time, it’s a hotel entirely made of ice.  I wanted to make a hotel entirely out of ice too, but decided to settle for making an ice bowl instead.  It took me a while to work out the directions, finally settling for a sort of “Ice Bowls for Dummies” approach (the kind I’d prefer myself) and was quite pleased with it. 

Here’s a link to summaries of my previous five “Honeymoons”, which I’ve just updated.  Don’t expect pictures, though, because I’m done messing with them!

——

Treehouse Image: Kadir’s Treehouses in Olympos, Turkey
Divi Tree Image: Manchebo Beach Resort & Spa, Aruba 
Lighthouse Image: Cape Otway Lightstation (original photo source unknown)
View of Alhambra from the Sacromonte: Photograph © John Willer and used with permission.
Ice Bowl: Creative Commons photo by EuphoriaLand

Over at the Rocky Road of Love blog, I’ve published five honeymoon-vacations-with-recipes in five days and will publish another five over the next week. I’ve found some amazing photos and the food is really good too. The problem is that the writing makes me so hungry!

The “Honeymoon Chronicles” thus far:

• Boat and Breakfast: Salmon Quiche A giant, floating resort in British Columbia’s Prince William Sound, accessible only by sea plane or boat.  A wonderful salmon quiche with a whole wheat crust.  What else could anyone want?
• A Castle in Scotland: Nova Scotia Oatcakes An overnight ride on the famous “Flying Scotsman” train. A castle near Edinburgh where Mary Queen of Scots once hung out.  One of Almostgotit’s favorite family recipes.  Heaven!
• Honeymoon in a Monastery: Cabbage Soup for a Crowd Just because monks are celibate doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t welcome honeymooners.  They’ll even serve them soup.
• South African Safari: Babotie Casserole There are no recipes for “Lion Steak:” I looked.  Babotie is a South African tradition: I won’t give it away, but it’s seasoned with almonds, spices and lemon.  Come see!
• Love in a Yurt: Chocolate Raspberry Napoleons with Raspberry Mascarpone Cream  Five star dining at 8,000 feet, where the food (and the chef) arrive by snowmobile.  Bonus: skiing burns lots of calories, so dig right in!

I’m guest blogging this week over at the Rocky Road of Love, where foodies Sam and Harry have finally married each other and are off on their honeymoon. I’ve been trying to guess where they are and what they might be eating. Today I’ve got them staying at a floating resort in Canada, accessible only by sea plane, feeding them a wonderful salmon quiche (recipe provided!) Come by for a visit!

Creative Commons Photo by estherase

Well, that was a strange little interlude.

It seems my predecessor wasn’t quite so eager to resign after all, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem except that the Board of Directors wasn’t quite sure they could do (ANYTHING) without her, either. So I decided they’d have to do without me instead, and here I am.

The “no succession plan” scenario is, unfortunately, far too common in the nonprofit world (most churches require retiring ministers to leave the congregation entirely, for this very reason). Perhaps this Board will do a better job next time; for my part, I suppose I’ll chalk it up to learning how to fail faster; I was just glad I saw the no-win situation for what it was as soon as I did, and got out before there were any actual murders.

My friend Emily has asked me to guest-host her “Rocky Road of Love” blog for the next week or so (starting Monday) while she is in PARIS doing some research (she’s a writer, and does that sort of thing.) I think she mainly wants to see me get off my dark-night-of-the-soul butt, but it’s very kind of her and I think it will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned!

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“What qualifies you for this job?”

It is a fair question. The reporter sounded like he’s all of twenty years old, and he knows my husband, which tells you two things at once: I must be getting old, and no matter how big a city, this is still a Small Town.

I thought of the paper this guy writes for… one of those thin weeklies (mostly advertisements) that inevitably appears at the end of your driveway on a day when it rains, so that you have to scrape up a sodden mass of multi-colored pulp when you go get the mail, vowing to boycott every single one of the advertisers (though their names are no longer legible) and wishing there were some sort of Law.

There were so many ways to answer his question, too. Possibilities ranged from simply repeating the info on the press release he’d already read to an astonished “Who says I’m qualified?”

I also could have held forth on the benefits of having had a liberal arts education, or else quoted the title of a book by Ann Crittenden: “If you’ve raised kids, you can manage anything.”

In the end, though, I had pity on the fellow, who just needed something short and straightforward, to fit a couple of column inches between the ads for rain gutters and exterminators. And decided it was time to get back to blogging!