The Lisa Life

Just in Case You Were Wondering

Tonight: Drizzle likely. Mostly cloudy, with a steady temperature around 41. North northwest wind between 10 and 16 mph. Wednesday: Rain likely before noon, then rain and snow likely between noon and 3pm, then snow likely after 3pm. Cloudy, with a high around 41. Breezy, with a northeast wind between 18 and 23 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. Wednesday Night: Snow likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 27. Blustery, with a north northwest wind between 13 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Thanksgiving Day: A 30 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 34. Northwest wind between 11 and 17 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 23. West southwest wind between 8 and 11 mph. Friday: A chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 36. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Friday Night: A chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 30. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Saturday: A chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 39. Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy and breezy, with a low around 28. Sunday: Partly cloudy and breezy, with a high near 39. Sunday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 31. Monday: A chance of rain and snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 40. Monday Night: A chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 27. Tuesday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 38.

What We Had With Dinner

I used to be such a wine snob.  I got over that though.  Now I am all about the "value wines". 

You can find decent wine that doesn't mean your kids are going to be begging for book money in college.

Australia has so many wonder imports now.  They are the new France in wine.  We had this bottle of Shiraz with our spaghetti dinner tonight and it was really nice.  Granted, for a shiraz, it could have been a bit more berry-ish but it was good.  And under ten dollars. 

Okay so the way I am holding this bottle of wine looks somewhat pornographic.  Don't go getting ideas and all.

Blogs I Like

I have some blogs that I read regularly linked here.  I like them for various reasons and all are worth a read.

Detroit Blog

I don't live in Detroit, I live in the far northwest suburbs, in the fastest growing county in the state.  NOTE: Also known as Yuppie Hell.  The Detroit Blog is very cool because Detroit has some wonderful architecture and sadly, many of these beautiful buildings are abandoned.  The Detroit Blog is a reminder that Detroit used to be a vibrant diverse important city. 

Domestic Princess

Holly is my homegirl.  We live in the same town and both of us are bloggin fools.  In this small world, I went to high school with her husband.  Someday, Holly and I are going to go have a drink together.  Probably out of a brown paper bag on the historic Howell Courthouse lawn.

Faggoty Ass Faggots

Found him from recently updated weblogs and he's hilarious and bitchy and I love it.

Observations of a Misfit

Found Loretta's wonderfully written astute site through the Court TV forums.  She has since become a personal friend and I hope she gets a book deal. 

Receptionista

Receptionista is linked on a few different blogs I read and she's very witty, very artsy and someone I would love to hang out with.  Her artistic pieces are fabulous and I can't wait until I'm not pinching pennies so I can commisson her to make a dishtowel for me that says Death Hag.

Rock Star Mommy

Rock Star's site seems to be down right now, but normally I read her faithfully everyday.  She's just twisted in the right way and is very open and self-aware.  I don't even know how I got to her site, but she the personification of the reason to blog in the first place.

Saint Christopher

I came across Chris' site from the typepad update list.  I read some entries and love his style.  He's a former Michgan boy. He's a chef and a great writer and very funny.  We have many things in common, including wine.   He is my new blog boyfriend.  We're meeting in January for a glass of wine and I can't wait.  We'll make each other laugh. 

Stacy

I met Stacy in the adoption.com forums and she is a former Michigan girl.  She's funny and sarcastic and has an adorable daughter and I'd love to hang with Stacy sometime over a great glass (NOTE: Bottle)  of wine.  I was her introduction to blogging and what a wonderful compliment.   And by the way, Stacy, I totally lifted this from you so thanks hon!

Opening Day

Hunting in Michigan is a Very Big Deal.  Especially deer hunting.  Opening Day of gun season is something of a holiday here. 

Driving to work on Monday, I was a bit confused by the lack of traffic through town.  I knew it was a week day since the buses  were at the school near my house, but there was really not much traffic at all.  Then I remembered.

It was Opening Day.

I have no issues with  hunting.  My dad was a big hunter/fisher.  He raised champion coon hounds and I grew up around the whole hunting thing.  I enjoyed duck hunting and I must admit, I like to shoot. 

Surprisingly, since I work in the building trades, we only were missing 3 people at work.  Boss the Son, however, went hunting, which I never would have guessed.  He hasn't been hunting in years and the biggest surprise of all, he got a deer.  Which he immediately tried to give to me.  Uh, no thanks.  Not fond of venison other than jerky and sausage.  I then suggested he donate it to Gleaner's Food Bank, which he thought was a wonderful idea.

Deer hunting is so popular here in Michigan, opening day may as well be declared a holiday and just be done with it.   I had a heck of a time scheduling inspections with the Health Department because big surprise, most of the inspectors were off for Opening Day.

I could go into the jokes regarding hunting widows and deer camp, but they've all been overworked already.

The World's Best Meatloaf

I make the world's best meatloaf. 

As a kid, whenever I heard my mom was making meatloaf, I groaned.  She did not make good meatloaf.  It was pretty much baked hamburger meat.

I, however, being the queen of comfort food cooking, make excellent meatloaf.  Since I am such a generous wonderful person, I'm going to share the recipe with you.

I originally found this recipe in the Great American Favorite Brand Name Cookbook and of course, being the total recipe whore that I am, I completely bastardized it. 

Lisa's Meatloaf

1 pound lean ground beef, the best cut you can afford

1 small can tomato paste, Italian seasoned

1 egg

1 cup bread crumbs

4 slices American cheese

Heat oven to 350.  Combine everything except the cheese with spices.  I like using fresh ground black pepper, garlic powder, McCormick's Season All, some oregano, onion powder.  Put half the meat mixture in a loaf pan.  Layer the cheese over it.  Put the remaining meat on top and seal around the edges.  Sprinkle some oregano on top.  Bake for about an hour.

Great with baked mashed potatoes (see recipe in other Food & Drink entry) or mac and cheese or even a side of fettucini alfredo. 

Instead of using just ground beef, you can also use a combination of ground pork and beef or even ground venison and beef.

The Pet Expo

Martin and I took Mia to the Pet Expo at the Novi Expo Center.  Mia had a lot of fun, she loves animals.  She got to pet her first cat today.

Lots of very cute dogs.  Lots of very big dogs.  BIG DOGS.  Irish Wolfhounds, oh my.  You could put a saddle on those things.  When Martin was a kid in jolly old England, his Auntie Mary had an Irish Wolfhound that used to scare the bejesus out of him since the dog was taller than he was.

The most freakish thing I saw today: West Highland White Terriers dressed in kilts.  There is just something sinister and wrong with putting a dog in a skirt of any sort.

Then again, I did buy a new "collar" for my coonhound China, who loves to dress up.  She is quite proud of herself and thinks she is very pretty.  You can't really tell in the picture (oh and the date is STILL wrong on the digital) but her collar has little roses on the end of the lacy things.

The Vineyard Restaurant

I went to college at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.  I lived there for a while after college as well. But for a broken romance, I would probably still be there.  I love the area, I'd love to move back sometime. 

One of my many part-time jobs was working as a hostess at a restaurant called The Vineyard on Fiot Street in the old Fountain Hill section of Bethlehem.  NOTE:  I was a hostess because I am far too lazy and bitchy to be a waitress. 

On Wednesday nights, The Vineyard used to do a traditional 12 course Italian meal.  They did two seatings, 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.,  for a fixed price.  The menu varied from week to week but it was always fabulous.  They served small, European size portions so you didn't gorge on the first two courses. 

The last time Martin and I were in PA, we went to the Vineyard and although it had changed hands, it was still essentially the same inside with a very similar menu.  Nothing fancy inside but cozy, homey and still terrific food.

The peppers stuffed with walnut stuffing is to die for.

The Vineyard

605 Fiot Street

Bethlehem, PA

Thanksgiving

Since both of my parents are gone and I no longer interact with the cousins I grew up with, it's generally just Martin and his folks for Thanksgiving.  Since they are British, this is not a big holiday to them.  Sort of a really great meal day, but no special occasion.

I really don't like turkey.  I never have.  It's a major pain in the ass to cook for something I really don't care to eat.  I've done the turkey thing a couple times when I got the free bird from work, but I would never go buy a turkey to cook just because I don't really like them.

A turkey sandwich is one thing.  A whole damn carcass is a whole different story.  NOTE:  My coonhound once pulled the carcass of a 14 pound turkey out of the trash and ate every scrap of it in about 8 seconds without so much as a belch or a smear of grease on the floor.

This year, I am making  a beef tenderloin encrusted with pecans.  My latest Food & Wine magazine came and the cover had this beautiful tenderloin with the title ROAST AND BOAST.  And that's exactly what I intend to do.  Of course, being Lisa the Crazed Cook, I plan on totally bastardizing the receipe and marinating it in a nice herb and garlic marinade overnight, then doing the rest of it with my added touches.  Garlic comes to mind, being the nice Italian girl I am.  Rosemary as well. It even has au jus.  My father- in -law is very fond of au jus.  He'd drink it if I could bottle it.

I also have this incredibly simple cheese spread receipe that is wonderful that I'm going to make along with my version of rumaki.  Since neither my husband nor my mother-in-law will eat shellfish, I wrap water chestnuts in bacon and cook them in the slow cooker with Oy Vey Very Teriyaki for about three hours.  YUM.  And so healthy as well, you know!

With the leftover pecan encrusted tenderloin, I plan on making a nice stew.  Nuts in stew sounds bizarre so I'll take the nuts off.

I'll be  serving it with a nice Chianti and some fava beans with the next census taker that comes around.

Oh?  We're not in a census year?  Damn.  Who was that then?

The Sex Life of Finches

We are animal lovers.  You can not be a couple with formerly four and currently three dogs, all rescue dogs, without being an animal lover.

That said, my husband was cruising the pet store a few months back and they had a pair of finches complete with cage on sale for twenty bucks.  Apparently someone had purchased the whole set up but wasn't able to keep them.  So kind hearted Martin bought them.

They're really cute birds.  Tiny.  Only about 3 inches long.  We got a male and a female.  The male, of course, is much more colorful than the female (bastard) but they mate for life and ours are definately in love.

They really don't do much of anything.  They like to take baths.  They eat.  The eating is annoying because their cage in on a set of glass shelves behind our loveseat, where I like to snooze.  When they eat, they chuck the shells of the seeds wherever.  If I am napping on the loveseat, that would be on me.  It's rather disconcerting to wake up covered with teeny bird seed shells.

They are messy.

Not knowing much about finches, I did a bit of research on them.  Seems they can reproduce like tiny winged rabbits.  They will only do this, however, if they are happy and have nesting material.  Fair enough, since I don't intend to become a bird breeder, they have no  nesting material.

Then we found two eggs in the bottom of the cage the other night. 

So, after a bit more reserch on the sex life of finches, we found out that the female will lay eggs, they just will be useless eggs.   If you don't want your finches to become parents, you just remove the eggs and not provide them with a nest and all is well in Finchy Love Land.

Imagine my delight when today my husband informed me he bought a finch nest for the damn birds.   

I assume finches have sex.  I guess my bird biology is a bit shaky.  But I wonder, do male birds have penises?   Martin thought the male fertilized the egg after it was laid, like fish do.  After I pointed out that the shell would be broken, we decided that finches must indeed have sex. 

Sneaky little birds.  We've certainly never seen anything like them between them.

Jerry's Kid

If any of you, faithful readers, have read my section on Fifty Things About Me, you will be aware that I vigorously defend myself against being a Deadhead.

That's only partly true.

I enjoy the Grateful Dead tremendously.  I saw them 18 times.  Why, you ask, did I do that if I am not a Deadhead?

It's goes like this.

I was very much into punk and new wave.  Then I went to college in eastern PA, a very preppy college.  I met a girl named Suzy and became very good friends with her.  She was from central NJ and her sister Tracey was a big time Deadhead.  Tracey was such a Deadhead that she bought an RV and followed the Dead.  She supported herself by baking these awesome huge chocolate chip  macadamia nut cookies that she sold at shows for 2 bucks a piece.  When you've got the munchies, there is nothing quite like a chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie.

So one summer, she asked Suzy and I to meet up with her when we could. So we did.  All over the East Coast.  I liked the Dead okay,  was lukewarm on them at that time, but the after going to all those shows, they grew on me because it was just such a freak show.  And so much fun. 

I could blog for months on some of the things I saw but here is my favorite memory:

The parking lot before a Dead show is a vendor paradise.  Everyone is selling something.  Patchouli oil, PETA approved stuff, drugs of all sorts, primarily weed and trips, tie dye clothing, jewelry.  The list is endless. 

I never tripped much.  It made me too flaky and I'm flaky enough au naturel.  But this particular time, we were tripping.  Suzy and I were wandering the parking lot, no doubt looking for cute Deadhead boys (read hippie boys who had showered in the past 24 hours).  Food vendors were like locusts during a plague (that muchie thing, you know) and they always shouted out whatever they were selling.

VEGGIE BURRITOES!

TACOS!

CHICKEN WINGS!

EGG ROLL!

BEN & JERRY'S!

Well, we saw this guy, probably 40ish, long dreadlocks, tie dye shirt, cut offs, birkie sandals.  The typical Deadhead guy.  He was yelling:

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY ON WONDER BREAD!

That still cracks me up to this day.

Trivia:

Favorite Dead song:  Box of Rain. Great to cook by.

Sellout album: Touch of Grey, which scored their only Top 40 hit

Where was I when I heard Jerry died:  At work at the evil car dealership.  My ex husband called me and I had to run into the bathroom because I was going to cry and my co-workers already thought I was goofy.  It wasn't so much that I felt this kinship with Jerry Garcia, because I didn't.  I just had very happy memories of going to see the Dead.