The Checkered Tablecloth

Mothers Day Tribute

2011-06-01T11:37:00.000-06:00

As posted on USA Today Website

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/cooking-recipes/story/2011/05/Honoring-Mom-on-Mothers-Day-Winners-of-USA-TODAYs-recipe-contest/46770912/1

Jan A. Adamczyk, of Pepperell, Mass., regaled us with her tale of her football-loving mother, who always made chili for the game:

To say my mother, Neola Younker, loved football would be an understatement. From August through January, football was my mother's passion. We would awaken to shouts of "Nail him!" from the kitchen below our bedroom, at 7 on Sunday morning.

We lived in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, and in the 1970s football was live, from wherever they were playing, which meant it started really early in the morning in Hawaii. New Year's Day was the best football day of all. Games all day. My dad would get all the TVs in the family room and have all the games on. My mom would make chili and everyone could stop by and eat, just don't bother mom.

The chili was on the stove, the rice in the rice cooker, and that was what we ate all day. Nothing fancy, but it was good chili and my sister and I always put it over rice, because in Hawaii, there was always rice and it went with everything. Mom passed away in 2001, but I honor her and the tradition and make chili and rice every New Year's Day.

Bonus recipe:

Hawaiian New Year's Chili

(Kim O'Donnel's testing notes appear in italics)

Ingredients

•1 pound ground beef (KOD note: Ground turkey or pork make nice alternatives)

•1 pound Italian sausage, hot or mild, casings removed

•2 Tbs. olive oil

•1 medium onion, chopped

•1 medium shallot, chopped

•2 tablespoons minced garlic (KOD note: About 3 cloves' worth)

•2 bell peppers, whatever color you have, chopped

•1 package sliced mushrooms, leave out if you don't like them or dice them up to hide them (KOD: due to an allergy, I omitted)

•2 Tbs. chili powder (KOD note: I am a big fan of the salt-free Chili Powder blend from The Spice Hunter)

•1/2 tsp. sage (KOD note: None on hand, so I omitted)

•1 tsp. cumin

•1 tsp. dried thyme (KOD note: I was out of thyme and substituted oregano)

•1 tsp. kosher salt

•1 tsp. black pepper

•1/2 tsp. paprika (KOD note: I substituted smoked paprika)

•1 cup red wine

•2 cans diced tomatoes, juice and all (KOD note: I used 1 28-ounce can of tomato puree)

•1 can white beans (cannellini or great northern), drained and rinsed (KOD note: I used 1 cup dried cannellini beans, cooked separately and added)

•1 can tomato paste (KOD note: I omitted)

•2 tsp. chopped parsley (fresh or dried)

•1 Tbs. sugar, or more if needed (KOD note: I omitted)

•Cooked short grain rice for serving

Directions:

Brown ground meat and sausage in a large pot until thoroughly cooked. Remove from pan and drain off fat (if using crock pot, drain and put in there).

Add olive oil to pan. add onion and shallot. Cook 3-5 minutes until translucent. Add garlic, peppers and mushrooms. Cook an additional 3-5 minutes until mushrooms begin to shrink and soften. Stir in spices until the vegetables are coated. Deglaze pan with wine and allow to reduce for a few minutes.

(If using crock pot, transfer mixture now, plus remaining ingredients.)

Add tomatoes, beans and tomato paste and meat to pot. Add water if needed, just enough to stir mixture if too thick.

Simmer 2-4 hours, stirring occasionally, or 8-12 hours on low in crock pot.

Check seasoning, and adjust to taste. Add parsley just before serving. Stir, taste and add sugar as you see fit to counteract acid.

Even better when made the day before.

Serve over steamed rice.

Cheesy Orzo with Scallops and Tomatoes

2010-10-07T15:49:00.000-06:00

2 cups Orzo pasta
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
8-10 Sea scallops diced or 1 pound bay Scallops
6 slices prosciutto diced
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup grape tomatoes quartered
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup fresh mozzarella diced
8 basil leaves torn into small bits

bring stock to a boil. Add orzo, cook, stirring occasionally until pasta has absorbed water.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, cook prosciutto in a dry skillet until crispy, about 5 minutes, do not burn. Remove from pan to papertowel lined plate.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in pan. Season scallops with salt and pepper and add to pan. allow to brown on one side before stirring. Cook scallops through, 3-4 minutes depending on size. Deglaze pan with wine.

When Orzo is done, add both cheeses and stir. add tomatoes, scallops with wine, reserved prosciutto and basil and stir to combine. Adjust seasoning and serve immediately.

It's been too long between postings!

2010-03-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

So here is a yummy recipe to hold you over.

Grilled Prosciutto Wrapped Scallops - Serves 8
2-3 pounds medium sized scallops (about 32, I got a big bag at Costco for $20!)
16 thinly sliced pieces of prosciutto (I buy them at Costco too)
Salt and pepper
16 Bamboo Skewers (12" or so, more if you have smaller)
Olive Oil

Soak bamboo skewers in water for about an hour. They will still burn, but not as badly.

Thaw scallops if frozen, drain water. Season with salt and pepper.

Cut each piece of prosciutto in half and wrap around a scallop, overlapping at the end. Put 2 skewers through each scallop (this really helps when you try to turn them over). Repeat until all scallops are wrapped. Drizzle olive oil over skewered scallops.

Heat grill to medium high (400 degrees or so) or heat a grill pan on the stove over high heat. Reduce heat to medium.

Oil or spray grill or grill pan. Place skewers on grill. Cook about 4 minutes on each side until scallops are done. Serve over risotto or some other yummy creamy grain.

Enjoy.

The Third Annual Centennial Soup Swap - A huge success!

2010-02-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to say it was a great year for soup! We had 18 Swappers and 19 Soups. Lentils made a huge appearance this year, there were at least 6 lentil soups. I know there are at least 3 in my freezer waiting to be eaten! We also collected 315 food items for the Friends of St. Andrews food bank so it was a huge success.

The Soup Nazi was bribed and cajoled, but in the end it was Vanessa's green chili soup that made his cold better that took home the ladle. Kyle is going to try harder next year since she was fighting mad about not winning this year!

We had all sorts of drama and intrigue during The Telling of The Soup. There were tales of unrequited lust, viagra and penicillin. Stories of Chinese meatballs, leftover Christmas hams and horse heads in your bed made the rounds, who will tell the best tale of all? The Soup Nazi said it was Jean, it might be because of the viagra, but I think it was the Italian threat...you decide...

Here is the winning Soup Story, a poem by Jean Grech

Amici Soup
Here is my soup - it's the best
Reason why?
Try to digest

Made with such tender care
Each little morsel of flavor to share

Never spicy - Never bland
A perfect taste
To beat the band

Sicily is the place it's from
Makes you feel so very young

I'll make you a deal you can't refuse
Try the soup...
What's to loose?

If you're not happy
Well that's too bad
A horses head
Will be in your bed

Throw Viagra out the door
That's what this soup is for!
Mangia!

Third Annual Centennial Soup Swap

2010-01-08T12:31:00.005-07:00

It's that time again. Time to swap some soup!

I love the concept put together by blogger Knox Gardner at http://www.soupswap.com/news/.

1. Make some soup, or buy it and repackage it as your own, we don't care!
2. Freeze in quart size containers.
3. Gather fellow soup makers.
4. Swap some soup.
5. Go home with a bunch of different kinds of soup.
6. Have a great time.

In Centennial we like to have lots of soups. For the past 2 years we have had 17 kinds of soups at our swaps. We only do 4 quarts instead of 6 because frankly most peoples stock pots make 4 quarts easily. We don't want it to be hard, we want it to be fun. Our swap is famous for having a lot of still warm soups on the table!

We also have fun prizes. We award the best tale of the soup, the makers of the first soup gone and the poor last soup left on the table, and the Soup Nazi (Ron) awards his favorite swapper for whatever he feels like they have done to make the soup swap memorable (he is open to all types of bribery and sucking up!)

This year we are going to take on the challenge thrown down by Indianapolis and taken up by Knox's hometown of Seattle and try to collect the most food for a local food bank. We are not competitive or anything (yeah right!).

I hope you all can start a swap in your neighborhood. It's a lot of fun, a great way to meet the neighbors and you get some really great soup out of it.

New Years Chili

2009-12-30T09:02:00.004-07:00

New Years Chili is a tradition that my mom started when we lived in Hawaii. to say my mom LOVED football would be an understatement! She loved all of her California teams for sure, Joe Montana of the 49ers was one of her favorites, but she didn't care if it was college, pro, pre or post season, she just enjoyed watching the game.

In Hawaii, in the 70's, there was no tape delay, and no cable. We got football on Sunday's starting at 7 am, which would have been fine, except my mom watched while she cooked in the kitchen, directly below my sister and my room. Imagine if you will, being a teenager, waking up to your mother yelling "NAIL 'EM!" before 9 in the morning. Not that much fun I can assure you.

Anyway, Mom liked her football, and New Years Day used to be the holy grail of football days. Games all day, lots of pageantry and pomp. It was a great day to just stay home and watch some football. Dad would put 2 or more TV's in the Family Room, Mom always had one on in the kitchen and there might even have been one on the radio, who knows. It was all about the football so Mom made a big pot of Chili and since there was always a pot of rice because us kids ate rice with everything, and was in heaven watching football, while we dished up chili and rice throughout the day.

When we moved to the mainland when my sister was in college, the chili tradition remained, and we insisted that there be rice because that's what we were used to, and friends and neighbors started getting invited to come by for a bowl.

Now we have made it our New Years Day tradition. This year we extended the invitation to friends and neighbors and had a party. Over 60 people came to enjoy chili at our house. It was a great way to bring in the new year.

I'd love to give you the recipe here, but I can't, it's one of those things that mom taught me to do where you just toss the stuff in a pot till it tastes right. I will give away a couple of my secret ingredients though. I use equal amounts of ground beef and Italian sausage, and I add canned mushrooms.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade to all!

Thanksgiving Traditions

2009-11-30T09:21:00.004-07:00

We have our own tradition at Thanksgiving, and that is to never serve a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We do this mostly because the three of us don' t like turkey very much and hate having it left over for three days more than anything.

This year I came up with Beef Wellington, and to appease those turkey loving guests that were invited, I found a recipe for Turkey Wellington on BBC Good Food. I think that's BBC's version of the Food Network, so I went with it. Here's the link.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1083/roast-turkey-and-cranberry-wellington

The first thing I had to do was translate some of the ingredients and the measurements. I mean really, what is a "knob of butter" and what the heck is "gas mark 6"? The second thing was to find a turkey breast. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to find just a breast of turkey at Thanksgiving, but it was. Finally I saw them on sale at Albertsons, but of course I went to my local store twice to find they were sold out. Finally I was able to get one at the Albertsons near my office, so I was ready to Wellington!

I opened up my thawed breast of turkey and found them still attached to the bone. Ok, got two large breasts off, and trimmed the rest for the stuffing, and continued on.

What I learned was that you need a really big skillet (read use your roasting pan) to brown this beast. Tie him up tight and brown well.

Next thing I found was that chestnut puree is not an American thing, but if you stick some roasted chestnuts (World Market! My favorite place to find odd ingredients comes through again!) in the food processor and drizzle in some oil, you get a nice puree.

The stuffing on this was a bit odd since only the onions were precooked. It was a mushy gooey mess that got spread on the bacon. (Hint on the bacon here, once you have it rolled out, lay it out on some plastic wrap so you can roll the whole thing up, thats a tip from most Beef Wellington recipes.) Great thing about Wellington is you can do ahead up to the point where you wrap in the puff pastry, do that right before baking for best results. Wrapped in plastic wrap, the meat can hang in the fridge for most of the day, overnight or even get wrapped in foil and frozen.

The Wellington did nicely at 400 in a convection for an hour and 15 minutes. I egg washed twice as suggested and it was beautifully browned. The sauce you will want to start about 1/2 hour before you get the wellington out of the oven. Regardless of the instruction, the reducing by half takes a while, but the sauce is very good (worked really well on the beef too).

This was a great meal. The Beef Wellington recipe was from Tyler Florence and the only thing I changed was to use a grainy mustard to rub on the meat rather than a dijon, mostly because Ron hates mustard and the grainy has a less mustardy taste. (I used a 7 oz jar and it was yummy!) The mushroom hating children at the table never suspected they were eating mushrooms either!
here's the link to that recipe. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/the-ultimate-beef-wellington-recipe2/index.html

I hope you all create your own holiday traditions. enjoy.

Coconut Curry Mahi-Mahi with Couscous

2009-11-11T10:09:00.003-07:00

I made this up last night and it was really yummy. Ron and Samantha raved. Samantha wanted the sauce over chicken (she is a big fan of gravy for some reason and thought this would be good).

Coconut Curry Mahi-Mahi with Couscous
(serves 4)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 Mahi-Mahi Filets (4-6 oz each)
1 teaspoon Jalapeno Garlic Salt (or just salt and pepper if you don't have my concoction)

1 14 oz can coconut milk (be careful not to shake)
2 cups couscous
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 shallot, diced (about 1/4 cup, or 1/4 cup diced onion)
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red curry paste (or more to your taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Season Mahi Mahi with Jalapeno Garlic Salt on both sides.

Heat skillet large enough to hold all fillets to medium.

Add 1 tablespoon oil and place fillets in pan. Cook fillets until opaque all the way through, turning once to lightly brown both sides. Do not overcook. Set aside. 5-8 minutes total.

Meanwhile carefully open can of coconut milk without shaking. Scoop cream into small bowl, (you will get about 3/4-1 cup), reserve. Pour watery milk into liquid measuring cup, add water to equal 2 cups. Put coconut water mixture into small sauce pan, heat to a boil, add couscous and stir. Cover, remove from heat and set aside 5 minutes for couscous to absorb water. Fluff with fork.

When mahi-mahi fillets are cooked, add remaining oil to skillet. Add shallot, ginger, garlic and curry paste. Cook stirring constantly until shallot is softened, 1-2 minutes. Add coconut cream, stir and lower heat to keep from boiling. Season with salt and pepper. When mixture comes together, add mahi-mahi back to pan and spoon mixture over fillets. Heat for a minute or two just to bring flavors together.

Scoop couscous onto plates, put a mahi fillet on top, spoon some sauce over and enjoy.

Tuna Sandwich - no mayo?

2009-10-14T10:24:00.003-06:00

I love a good tuna sandwich but I have noticed that tuna is a love hate type of sandwich. I was having this discussion with my mother in law and sister in law the other day and it seems as though the mayo is the culprit here. Tuna, no mayo, sacrilege! But then I got to thinking about it and saw a blog from Healthy Eats about substituting yogurt for the mayo.

Today I had some Greek yogurt in the fridge, and I was thinking tuna for my lunchbox (with the last of the garden tomatoes, yum!). Not having a recipe, I dug through the condiments to see what I might like to add and here is what I came up with.

Tuna Salad - no mayo (makes 2 sandwiches)

1 can chunk light or white tuna in water - your preference
2 tablespoons Greek yogurt (a little more or less depending on your preference)
1 teaspoon capers
2 teaspoons sweet relish
1-2 teaspoons chopped banana peppers or pepperomcini
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Mix everything together, taste, adjust to your taste, little more sweet, little more spice, whatever. You get enough salt from the capers and peppers so you shouldn't need to add more.

Spread on sourdough bread (toasted or not) add sliced tomato and lettuce, enjoy.

I'm having it for lunch today, I can hardly wait.

The first day of fall in Colorado

2009-09-22T14:16:00.006-06:00

Guess I forgot to post this one, oh well, here it is.

Well here we are, September 22, 2009, the first official day of fall. It actually arrived yesterday when the high temperature was 48 and there was a trace of snow during the day. Tonight promises to get down to 33 or 34 degrees. Brrrrr.

All this is leading up to the fact that this marks the end of gardening season in Colorado. Boo Hoo. On Sunday I harvested all the basil. Turns out I had 5 kinds. That was a lot of plucking leaves and washing. Here is what I did with all that yummy stuff.

Thai basil - washed well, dried with paper towel, stuck in a freezer bag and squeezed out all the air, then into the freezer it went.

Cinnamon Basil - after washing. spread out on a paper towel lined jelly roll pan with a cooling rack inside and stuck it in the oven. Turned the oven light on and in about 24 hours, you have nicely dried basil!

Purple Basil - Saw a good recipe in cooking light for Purple Basil Parmesan biscuits, so I made two batches and froze them. Now we can have yummy remnants of summer in about 20 minutes whenever we need it.

Lemon Basil - Lemon basil is a very nice basil, until you start picking the leaves off of it. Then you discover that that lovely bushy basil plant is more bush than basil. I had big plans for a nice lemon basil pesto for fish, but by the time I had finished plucking, there wasn't enough basil to even make a batch. I'm tossing it in with the Genovese basil and calling it good.

Genovese Basil (the regular kind!) - Lots of this growing this year. I have made a couple batches of pesto and used a lot in marinara sauce, and still had enough left over for 2 cups of pesto (tossed those in 4 oz cups and froze) and a tray of basil cubes!

Love the basil cubes. Just put your basil in the food processor and chop, then add enough olive oil to get it to come together. Spoon into an ice cube tray and freeze. When frozen wrap in plastic wrap, then foil and store in a zip top bag. Toss a cube into red sauce, soup, stew, or make pesto anytime during the winter by adding garlic and parm to a couple of cubes.

Tonights agenda, get the tomatoes either out of the garden or cover well and hope for the best. It's supposed to get warm by Friday!

Summer In Colorado

2009-08-05T09:06:00.005-06:00

So the garden has taken off from all the rain we have had. I have an overgrown abundance of oregano, thyme, tarragon and chives. The 8 tomato plants are huge, yesterday I staked one of the tomato cages back up because the huge tomatoes were taking it down.

I have already had several tomatoes, red, yellow, cherry and roma, and a lot of peppers from the garden along with the lettuce that will not die! Spring lettuce is great, nice and fresh and tender, but by the end of June, I am tired of baby greens and want something more substantial like Romaine, but this year with all the rain, the lettuce will not die off. I should pull it out, but I hate to kill something that tastes good. Fortunately my friend Linda will keep taking it so I don't feel bad.

I have some multi-colored carrot seeds planted and they should be ready to start harvesting soon. I am looking forward to white, red and purple carrots.

I have a tomatillo plant this year. It flowered right along with the tomatoes, but seems to be a very slow growing fruit. Where the tomatoes are large and starting to ripen, the tomatillos are tiny, about pea size, still. I hope they are ready before the first frost, I was thinking about tomatillo salsa when I planted it. Yummy.

I also saw that the Hatch Chiles are in at Sunflower Market today. It must be time for some Green Chile if that is the case. I'll check it out and see how they look. Might have to do some roasting this weekend...

Breakfast Burritos as a fund raiser

2009-06-08T08:34:00.007-06:00

What I have discovered is that Breakfast Burritos are a great thing for fundraising. They are cheap to make and people will pay $3 or $4 for them. If you get your team together, it is a fast and easy way to make a buck for your group.

Best way to make the most money is to shop at Costco or Sams. We make about 90 at a time.

9 dozen eggs
8 32-ounce bags Ore-Ida potatoes O'Brien (or store brand)
2 32-ounce package breakfast sausage (bulk if you can find it, if not, strip off the casings)
1 5 lb bag shredded cheddar/jack cheese
green chile or salsa as you prefer (505 makes an excellent jarred chile if you don't do your own, Mild, Medium and Hot varieties)
90 tortillas
Foil sheets (they come in a pop up box at Sams & Costco)

Scramble up the eggs, and don't forget to season with Salt and Pepper. Set aside
Toss the Potatoes in the oven on a rimmed baking sheet at 375 for 20-30 minutes until browned (easier than frying, season them well, I like Costco's no-salt seasoning and salt or Lawrys season-all)
strip the casings off the sausage and fry, breaking into small bits as you go. Drain well, pat dry.
Remove Tortillas from packages, heat in microwave in batches as you go along.

Lay out your assembly line with bowls of egg, potato, sausage, cheese & chile down the center of your workspace. I like to use ice cream scoops to serve up the egg, potato & cheese, makes it all more even.

Line up foil sheets on both sides. Place a tortilla on each foil sheet. Assemble by placing each item, one on top of the next down the center of the tortilla. DO NOT OVERFILL as they will ooze all over if you do.

Fold the ends along the mixture into the center, fold of the opposite ends over mixture and pull to tighten. Roll. Using the same procedure, roll the foil over tortilla.

Place finished burritos in oven safe dish, or steam pan. These can be refrigerated overnight or even frozen. Mark them if you are using different meats, or heat of chile.

To heat refrigerated burritos, put pan in oven at 375 for about 25 minutes. Frozen will take a bit longer.

Put in a styrofoam or soft sided cooler to keep warm after heating.

Sell and enjoy.

Our First Recipe - Green Pea and Spinach Tortellini

2009-05-14T21:53:00.001-06:00

This is a really easy recipe and very fresh. It can be served with a creamy sauce like a Vodka sauce, or I like it with mushroom Marsala sauce and a bit of prosciutto.

Green Pea and Spinach Tortellini
1 1lb package frozen peas, thawed and cooked (I nuke them for 2-3 minutes)
1 15 oz container ricotta cheese (skim, whole, whatever you like)
1 cup fresh spinach leaves (if you have frozen, thaw and squeeze the water out)
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley
2 cloves garlic
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons lemon juice (1 lemon squeezed)
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 packages won ton wrappers (some have 48 some 64, this makes about 100)

For Filling: Drain all wet ingredients well and put everything except lemon juice, salt and pepper in food processor. Pulse until smooth like pesto, scraping down sides. Add lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pulse again to combine.

To prepare Tortellini: Remove won ton wrappers from package and lay 4-6 out on your board at a time, covering the rest so they don't dry out. Have ready a baking sheet and a towel to cover prepared tortellini. Get a small bowl of water.

Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop a small amount of filling into the center of each wrapper. Do not overfill them or they will fall apart in the water when you cook them.

Wet 2 sides of the won ton wrapper with water using your finger. Fold wrapper in half diagonally pressing air out from the center as you go. fold one corner toward center and wet other corner and fold over top. This makes a nice little tortellini package. Continue with remaining won ton wrappers, placing them on the baking sheet and covering as you go.

At this point, freezing these is very easy. Place on a baking sheet that fits into your freezer and leave uncovered for several hours until solid. Move to a zip top bag and keep up to 3 months.

To cook, either fresh or frozen: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt generously. Drop in tortellini to cover the bottom and wait until they float to the top. You might need to nudge some of them if you have some that won't come up. Remove with a slotted spoon sauce and serve.

Gardening in Colorado

2009-05-11T11:47:00.004-06:00

Finally, Mother's day has come and gone, now we can plant! That is the rule here in Colorado according to my friend Danyell (who I might add now lives in Panama and can garden year round, the bum!) For Mother's day, Ron is taking me plant shopping this week, I'll let you know what I come up with.

Of course most of us can't wait and buy inappropriate plants when they show up at Home Depot or the garden center and have killed off several rounds of basil or tomatoes by the time June rolls around, I know I usually do. In fact, I bought 2 tomato plants in April, planted them and the next 4 weeks had some snow (the first weekend brought 18"). But I covered them with buckets and they seem to be ok. 1 of them even has a little tomato on it already. They may survive yet. Of course it could also snow some more, so I'll keep those buckets handy.

On Sunday, I did pick some baby greens that I planted before our April snowstorm, they were on the menu last night and they were yummy. I also planted some asparagus and saw a stalk come up, but those pesky rabbits seem to have gotten it, but at least I had proof that it grew. Silly rabbits are also eating all the spinach. I'm looking for a hungry coyote to come and hang in the yard till June to eat the pesky bunnies!

Welcome to The Checkered Tablcloth

2009-05-06T22:47:00.005-06:00

What is the Checkered Tablecloth?

Well, this blog, like a checkered tablecloth is many things.

The tablecloth provides the foundation for the family dinner at the dining room table; it protects the kitchen table from glue, glitter, crayons and markers; it goes out into the garden for the baby to lie on; it goes to the park to cover the picnic table; it goes to the ball game and provides a place for the snacks; it goes to the pool and ends up as a towel. The threads of the tablecloth create the fabric of life.

This blog is about life. Here you may find out about cooking, gardening, fused glass, woodworking, dogs, kitchen design, hiking, camping, Architecture, construction, wine, beer, martinis, the state of the economy and how it is affecting us, the trials and tribulations of life, and whatever else might be going on here in Centennial Colorado.

I can't say that I'll stick to a topic at this point, because I just don't know. It will likely be a lot of what I think about in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. This seems like a better way to spend my time than tossing and turing.

I can only hope you enjoy the ride and join in the conversation.

Jan