Creme brulee with a hint of mint and profiteroles filled with ice cream!
Vive la France!
Tag Archives: food
Exercise for Dummies
“What are you doing?” He didn’t need to preface his sentence with “Now . .” It was implied by his tone.
“I’m shoving a magazine down my pants. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“No need to be sarcastic.”
“I’m using the magazine as padding to protect my spine from the hula hoop.” My new waist whittler had killer knobbly bits on the inside. To demonstrate, I gave the hoop a little spin.
“See? No pain. Whoops!” The fruit bowl took a hit and needed to be pushed back a bit. With the table cleared, myself carefully positioned between bed, window and wall, and Jimmy well out of the way, I could get my hooping exercise indoors instead of looking a fool outdoors.
I tried again. “If I put the magazine in my pants, keep my feet firmly planted, put my hips into it, concentrate and don’t let the hoop slow down, there’ll be no damage to me or the trailer.”
“That has to be one of the most stupid things you’ve ever done.”
“Thanks!” Who, after all, wants to be predictable?
“You’ve already injured yourself once.”
“That was my leg. I can’t hurt my leg. The table’s in the way.”
“I still think it’s stupid if you’re risking hurting your back.” He’s trying to insult me or frighten me into stopping. It isn’t working.
Exercise is an issue in our confined quarters. We walk when we can, I swim when there’s a pool on the campsite and we both do sit ups about every six months. Even with constant tweaks to our diet to reduce calories and improve nutrition, our waistlines are expanding.
I worry about the blood pressure and obesity implications of eating a big meal then taking one step to the couch to have dessert and vegetate in front of the telly for the rest of the evening.
With Jimmy away for two weeks I had contemplated our lifestyle and found it lacking. In the midst of doing what I wanted, when I wanted to (instead of falling into step with the tour director/camp commandant) I exercised frequently and cleaned up my diet between bouts of reading trashy magazines and watching trashy TV.
“Guess what I had for lunch today?” I had asked Jimmy during one of our international phone calls.
“Please don’t tell me.”
“Sautéed spinach with Parmesan cheese slivers on top.”
“Oh God help me.”
“It was yummy.”
“The thought of it makes me feel sick.”
“Tonight I’m having jumbo shrimp braised with garlic, onion, ginger, Jalapeños courgettes and spinach.”
“I won’t come home.”
“Tomorrow I’m having a crab cake.” Jimmy doesn’t like seafood, shellfish in particular, so I gave him all the details because there’s an unruly streak in me.
Back to the exercise matter, it is only four steps from our dining “room,” or living “room” or “bedroom” to our toilet. We joke about going upstairs to bed. It’s one step up. My pedometer registered just 151 steps from late afternoon to bedtime.
Where’s that hula hoop? And my magazine padding?
How do you include exercise in your daily routine?
Liebster Blog Award
Thank you Janet at Seize the Day RV Adventure – for honoring me with this award! “Seize the Day” is a great principle to adopt. Visit Janet and Kevin on their blog of travel, RVing, birding, Jeeping (I made up that word!), eating and more.
The Liebster Blog Award is described as; “ An award to spread blog love and draw attention to blogs with fewer followers”. Many thanks, Janet!
The criteria for accepting this award – numbers are flexible:
- Acknowledge the person who nominated you
- Answer a number of questions
- List some bloggers with fewer than 200 (or so) followers who you really feel deserve a little blogging love! (If I’ve got your numbers wrong, sorree! I have a few more than that as well.)
- Let all the bloggers know you have nominated them. You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you!
- Post questions for the blogger you have nominated to answerHere are some very tricky things I’ve been asked to tell about myself:
1. Favorite author?
I could not possibly name just one. I have a list and here are a few: Peter Mayle, Bill Bryson, Sebastian Faulks, John Steinbeck, Diane Ackerman, Joanne Harris, Clare Francis, Lauren Belfer, Sue Grafton. Look them up! Enjoy!
2. Why did you start blogging?
I had already written dozens of stories. I just wanted to put them “out there.” I hope when you read them you don’t think I’m “out there.”
3. What’s your favorite TV Show?
Doc Martin, about an unusual country doctor practicing in my favorite English county – Cornwall.
4. What is your favorite season of the year?
A prefect English summer -whenever that might happen.
5. If you have some spare time, what do you do?
Read or write! That’s predictable isn’t it?
6. What is your favorite type of music?
Not much of a music doyen, but I don’t like jazz and rap.
7. What do you do to keep fit?
Yoga, swimming and walking from one room to another and back again because I forget why I’m there.
8. Tea or Coffee?
If I really have to choose – tea. But I’ll have a cup of coffee when you’re not looking.
9.What is your favorite kind of animal? Dog? Cat? Fish? Deer? etc
Cat. But maybe dog if it’s a Labrador.
10. Favorite place you have traveled?
UNFAIR! Absolutely cannot answer this. Somewhere (or everywhere) in America or Europe.
Here are some blogs I would like to nominate for the Liebster Award. Read! Enjoy!
http://discoveringwithdaisy.com/
http://vanessaspostcards.wordpress.com/
http://beartracksblog.wordpress.com/
http://twotrailsoneroad.wordpress.com/
http://mosblissfulbouquets.com/
http://theprestemons.wordpress.com/
http://motormommy.wordpress.com/
http://midlifeonwheels.wordpress.com/
Should you decide to accept this award – and there is no pressure to accept – here are some questions for you to answer:
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What was (is) the favorite year of your life?
-
Who is your favorite person in history?
-
Can you do better than me and name just one favorite author?
-
With money as an object what is top of your bucket list?
-
If money were no object what would be top of your bucket list?
-
What one word best describes you?
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What is your favorite post on your blog? Please share the link.
- What five (endless supply of) foods would you have on a desert island?
- What is your favorite color?
- If you had to choose between traveling the world with endless funds but with no home OR having an extravagantly fabulous home anywhere – what would you do? Why?
If you can’t be bothered with all those questions, and I wouldn’t blame you, please just answer the last one. I really would like to hear what you have to say!!! Anyone reading this is welcome to jump in with an opinion. 😀
Feeling Right at Home!
Can you read the small print?
It says “Have a Nice Day” !?
You Wore What?@#*?
Oh how I wish I had taken my camera because mere words cannot possibly do this justice: A parade of government employees dressed as fruit and vegetables danced from the library to the market place to celebrate the grand opening of the farmer’s market in the local town shortly after we’d moved to America. These normally drab civil servants appeared as human sized Chiquita bananas, pineapples, ears of corn, pea pods, carrots, strawberries, slices of melon, a bunch of grapes (which made me feel faintly queasy – large purple orbs dangling off a pretty girl), tomatoes and a roundish, faded, three-foot in diameter green orb which could have been any number of foods.
Carmen Miranda was there with a banana impaled on her forehead and grapes rolling down the back of her head. She had aged since I saw her last and looked a little scrawny.
The procession was led by seven big green elves (who appeared to have had a skirmish over their costumes in the dressing room with all of them coming off rather badly) playing jungle rhythms on drums. A group of multi-sized ladies, with uninhibited senses of dress, performed to the drum beat but their swaying arms and legs showed little in the way of a gift for dance. Those who didn’t happen to have a piece of fruit apparel in their wardrobe simply wore anything outlandish or bright – shiny green St. Patrick’s Day hats, hula skirts, clown feet, last year’s Halloween mask, last year’s Mardi Gras beads.
We were invited to take part, but declined, preferring to scurry along beside the parade, pretending not to be associated with these deranged people. As we watched with morbid fascination, not quite believing that grown-ups could look and behave like that, we trampled the town hall gardens that lined the street, finishing up at the market.
The fruit and veg items on sale didn’t tempt us that day. Costumes are fun but fruit people are frightening. What would possess someone to want to do something like that? Google vegetable costumes. Go on. What do you think?
Pain and Pleasure is a Matter of Opinion
Disregarding difficulties with hitching up, puzzling over the microwave, burning my hand on the oven, setting off the gas alarm, fighting with the fitted sheets, draining the batteries, differences of opinion between the navigator and pilot, tolerating the roar of our blast-furnace central heating and getting the fridge to freeze, our first junket in the new trailer was a great success.
Unsure of my adaptability in a new kitchen, I took a tin of beef stew as a reserve meal. It had the look and smell of dog food when it erupted from the tin and plopped into the saucepan. Jimmy was gracious and soldiered through the meal without comment. But we had a great time. We really did.
Imagine our surprise and consternation every time we drove past a sign saying “Leaving tsunami hazard zone” not realizing we had entered it.
A scrap of paper taped to a shop door informed us it was “Closed till the 14th. On vacation. Gone elk hunting.” Lying on a tropical beach is a vacation. Can anyone really relax and unwind while elk hunting?
A sign to Dismal Nitch couldn’t be ignored. It was named by Lewis and Clark who were trapped there for several days in the winter of 1805 by ferocious Pacific storms after the arduous east to west leg of their exploration of the unknown wilderness west of the Mississippi River. The name seemed apt even without the storm so we hastened back to Cape Disappointment, so named by John Meares in 1788, an English fur trader. He was disappointed not to find the Columbia River. Can’t think why. It’s right there. Perhaps the scene was blurred if he arrived in the rainy season – which is most of the time.
We may have endured some pain, suffered some surprises and eaten dog food for dinner but we began to appreciate the luxury in which we were travelling.
Who Loves Trader Joe’s?
Sign at our favourite organic, slightly wacky grocery store, Trader Joe’s:
“High quality products,
Ridiculously low prices,
But talk is cheap,
Shop and compare.”
Message on their environmentally friendly brown paper bags:
“Join the shopping adventure and save with abandon!”
Each week TJ’s promote a different coffee and food product by giving out free samples. Always in the same corner of the store, it is of course my first stop before I shop. This week it was delicious German spice cookies, pfeffernusse, little mountains of delight – soft spiced cake on the inside, crisp on the outside and slathered with icing sugar – stocked only at Christmastime. Each bite into the cookie resulted in an eruption of sugar all over my face so that by the time I got to the till, Jimmy was giving me one of his looks. “You’re like a little kid,” he said shaking his head like a long-suffering parent and tapping his mouth where I needed to wipe. Moving to the till to pay and anxious to free up one hand of cookie or coffee, I stuffed the last of the cookie in and the checkout girl looked at me and tapped her chin, so I quickly wiped that.
‘Did I get it all?’ I asked her, and she shook her head no. Looking down I had an avalanche of icing sugar all down the front of my black coat.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” himself hissed. Exasperation oozed from him. In all my years I’ve never caused such despair.
Still, he loves Trader Joe’s too so we will go back. Separate carts next time? Or would different days be better?
Which Way Now 101 