Getting ready to go to a big wedding. I can't believe how stressful it has become and I'm just the Auntie. I know it will be very nice and I'm really excited. Her comes the bride....
This will be added to the Wedding book I'd like to write. Got any comments of best or worst parts of your wedding or weddings you have gone to?

Thus ends my future career as a chef before it even begins. I'm finished reading Heat and have a better understanding of the rich and famous badboy chef, Mario Batali and life in a professional kitchen. Way too hot and stressful for me. And I don't have the knowledge or know how. Besides, I may have red hair, but I'm not a celb or a want-to-be. Buford gives a sweat by sweat description of each of the kitchen stations and the people who operate them. He worked in Mario's famous New York restaurant, Babbo.

The author then goes on a quest to understand Italian food and it's people and history. He makes the adventure come alive by working with the people in Italy who have not become rich and famous, but are the sixth generation who have butchered, or made pasta, or created foods from the regions traditions and ingredients.

At one point, Buford is on a mission to find out about making pasta, specifically putting egg in pasta. As he said, no one understood his urgency to find the answer to the question. I can relate because when I have a question about foods or ingredients I research and research until I find an acceptable answer. Buford used many old accounts that have recently been translated to help understand the cooking traditions of Italy, one reference dated back to 1351.
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So finding out about pasta and all kinds of Italian meats and methods of preparing was very interesting and inspiring. One enlightening idea was the use of all kinds of meat: lamb, rabbit, duck, pork, beef, wild game, etc, and all parts of the animal. In fact, the cooked meats turn into a brown mush. Raveoli is stuffed with any and all meat parts. I thought that this idea might be disgusting to the general population who have no idea what they eat. The menu at Babbo includes all kinds of things that Americans are not supposed to like- headcheese, octopus, beef cheeks, lamb's tongue, and calf brains.

Now, I was raised on a farm and my dad was a trapper, so I understand what these items are and how they are made. I vowed that, as an adult, I would never eat many of these foods because I had no choice as a kid. Looking at the list my mom cooked lamb, pork, beef, goat, chicken, turkey, goose, duck, rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, beaver, and venison. Pretty impressive. We did draw the line at headcheese, brain, and kidney pie. However, I have eaten these foods. I do know the idea of using what you have, in season, and making it by hand which is a theme in this book.

So, even though I love watching Mario B. on Iron Chef and looking at his new line of cooking items, after reading this book, I feel a real kinship to Bill Buford especially when he cut up the side of pork on his kitchen counter in his New York apartment. I wish I could remember all of the names of foods that Bill learned about. And I appreciate the recognition brought to the not so famous people in Italy who don't give a @@@ about business, but consider themselves artists.

If I go to New York, I would still like to go to Babbo. I will really have to look over the menu though.

Birthday Celebration at the Blue Tractor.

We, five friends, celebrated my friend's major birthday at the newest, hopping place in town, the Blue Tractor. It was a surprise party.

The Blue Tractor use to be Dill's Olde Towne Saloon, which was an Olde Towne fixture. Now, the building is updated with a mod whitewashed brick exterior and a farm machinery and tractor theme. The lights over the booth are galvanized pails hanging upside down. The lights over the mirrors (tin ceiling tiles with mirror glass), in the bathroom, have galvanized piping as the part that holds the light itself. Lots of gears, picture frames that look like the tread of an old threshing machine, and close-ups of farm implements . Definitely one-of-a kind decor. Bar in the middle of the room surrounded by high tables and chairs, and booths around the outside edge. A new look that's appropriate for our area.

The lunch menu was fairly extensive, including macaroni and cheese(woooopeee), and reasonable. We started out with an order of cheese and bacon french fries. We shared a Loaded Wedgie which is a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing, bacon bits, and candied pecans. Yummy. Two friends shared a Farmer's Market salad. When the salads came, we ask if they had been halved and the waiter said it looked bad, so they were larger than the amount halved. This is the way to go because, even sharing, there was a large amount of food. We also shared an order of grilled chicken wings to dip in cherry chipotle (one of the dips). To finish off the birthday lunch, we ordered the banana split. This was three large scoops of Moomer's ice cream (chocolate cherry, vanilla, and strawberry) . The split had the traditional whipped cream, a maraschino cherry, and at least two split bananas along the side. This was served with five spoons. Thank goodness, the salad and wings were our version of the South Beach diet so we could splurge on dessert. :)

The downside was that a group of about two dozen Red Hat ladies were also having lunch at tables across from us. The restaurant has never been known for its good acoustics and we found that it hadn't changed with the new decor. It was loud!

But, we had a great time. Happy Birthday to my dear, dear friend CT.

Faster than a speeding grater. Safe on the knuckles. I'm endorsing the Microplane rotary cheese grater. Very nice.

This cheese grater comes in black, has two metal wheels that can shred the cheese really thick or one that does the cheese really fine. It is easy to use. Just put in a small amount of cheese, face the opening toward your food, and turn the handle. Yummy ground cheese on your pasta . And what a breeze to clean up. The handle opens and drops out the grater wheel. It is made of heavy plastic, durable and yet attractive ( if you can say that about a cheese grater).

Big Fred got this contraption for Christmas. We use it when we have pasta or tacos. I got it at Crystal Crate and Cargo which is the ultimate kitchen store. I think it cost about $20 which was very reasonable. And the cheese tastes better when it comes in a chunk.

Don't wait until you need a cheese grater. Go to a kitchen store, browse, and just putts. It' s more fun than window shopping or going to the mall. In my case, I don't think it would be cheaper.

I'm tooling down the road past my house, sun beating down, wind in my hair, waving to the folks out getting their mail. No, not in my Subaru, in a bright yellow VW Bug convertible. I know it would be just the car for me.

Go crazy. Live a little. Convertibles are so much fun. Once Frannie and I conned a friend into letting us take his little black Miata for the day. We got up early, got the top down, wrapped our neck with a scarf (Pia Isadora style) and cruised to a nearby town, stalling once or twice but were confident as the day progressed. On our return home, we cruised down Front Street to see if we could be noticed by anyone we knew. We went down the strip once more since we had no one to show off to. I mean, come one, half the fun is showing off to anyone who might notice. That was the day we changed our names to use on special occasions. We were rich girls driving our little sports car, nose in the air, cool sunglasses ( a must when one is being cool), and scarf blowing in the wind hoping to avoid being choked to death by the scarf wrapping around a tire. A fantasy played out. It was glorious!

So, I've been talking about sports cars for days. Pointing out neat cars everywhere we have gone. Oh, is that a Spitfire, an MG Midget, a Corvette? (like I know anything about cars). Oh, but did I mention that we have a sports car. We have a Jeep with a soft top and windows that can come out. It's Big Fred's work car. Anyway, Big Fred took out the windows and folded the top down and I had my convertible.

Let me tell you, I loved it. Sun beating down on my head, wind blowing in my hair, and lots of blue sky, white puffy clouds, and smells. The blue was intense. The clouds had flat bottoms and were close overhead. They were combining wheat and that has a warm musty straw smell that anyone from farm country would recognize right off. We say seven Sandhill cranes standing in the field. Of course, when we came to town, there was car exhaust, loud gear shifting from the big trucks loaded with cherries sloshing in their water containers. And, when it got cold, we put the heater on and warmed our legs.

All in all, it was a great day for enjoying the open air. I still would like a VW bug, but don't have to wait if Big Fred takes to using his sports car.