So our power was out last night, through most of the night, but it came back on just before 6:00am and stayed on.  This was fortunate, as there was a lot of cooking planned for today. The snow on the trees did look pretty in the sunlight this morning (click to enlarge): It appeared that … Read more

We’ve had a bit of a snowstorm come through today – the first snow to stick this season.  Here’s how things looked when we were starting to shovel: Things were otherwise fine until I was defrosting some soup for dinner (to feed us and guests who were about to arrive to stay a few days), … Read more

On Thursday of my visit to London, I headed up to the Tower of London.  Before entering the place, I went looking for some food, and got a mediocre partial English breakfast at a pub.  The person who served me did not seem to be experienced at serving breakfast, as she had to consult with … Read more

On my fourth day in Iceland, I checked out of Héradsskolínn to head back to Reykjavik.  There was finally good sunlight shining on the town of Laugarvatn, so I took some last pictures of the hostel: and of the nearby mountain: and some other buildings in the town: This is the Laugarvatn Fontana, where I … Read more

September 2 was my first full day in Iceland, and as detailed in my last post, it began with picking up a rented bicycle.  Once I rode back to the apartment I’d stayed overnight in, I packed up my things, including trying to compensate for the broken zippers on my luggage.  I loaded the panniers … Read more

As I promised last night, here are pictures of our Thanksgiving meal, some in-progress shots, and some of the finished dishes. We first worked on the pies.  I don’t like making pie crust, but my partner is good at it and likes it.  The situation is the opposite with the filling, so while she was … Read more

So, I’ve been planning our Thanksgiving meal the last few days, and was working this evening on the cooking schedule.  During this process, I realized that a lot of the meal is composed of very locally produced foods. To wit, here’s what will be having, with the local connections: Popovers, made with eggs from a … Read more

(Note: I’m writing this post while sitting in the airport.  I’m about to fly to Las Vegas – more about the trip in subsequent posts.) Last weekend I drove down to West Springfield to drop some people off at the Big E fairgrounds, and to pick up a birthday cake from a bakery there (not … Read more

The other night I was cutting up several leeks to make soup.  When I sliced one of them open, I found that there was some waviness inside: I’m not sure what could have caused this.  It seems like something was pushing down on the middle of the plant, forcing those center layers to buckle.  Maybe … Read more

We’ve collected a number of recipes that use chestnuts, some of which we didn’t end up liking.  The one that has been the best was chestnut flour pancakes.  This is the recipe that we started with, and I converted the metric measurements to English (and the weights to volumes).  I further changed the proportion of … Read more