Sixty What

I'm Caryn with a C, and I'm awesome.

Salad and then some

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We met the greatest-girl-on-earth last night for dinner.  Marissa and Jake drove more than an hour in rush hour traffic to meet Leslie and me at Souplantation.

Souplantation is all-you-can-eat salad and other stuff restaurant.  They often distribute coupons via email or the Sunday newspaper.  More than likely, you can find dinner for less than $15, including a beverage!

I have a bit of a routine when I go there.  Bypass all the prepared salads (wonton happiness is a favorite!) and plain greens choices because I want to be sure to make it home before I have to quickly visit the bathroom.  Salad + my stomach = not a good thing.

A lady in the Dunkin’ Donuts line asked if they had “anything light, like a small side salad,” and the person at the register said they could give her a bowl of munchkins.

I go for the plain veggies and plain pasta salad and use balsamic vinegar as my dressing.  You’re thinking:  “Sounds healthy!  Keep it going!”  No, because then I see the pasta salad with tuna and the pasta salad with seafood and I grab more of that mayo-soaked goodness.  I still haven’t fully loaded my plate, so I don’t feel too bad.  And then I visit the bread, pasta and soup (the chicken noodle is the best!) to fill up my tray with more calories, er, I mean food.

We all meet up at our table and Marissa’s tray has two large plates filled to the brim with salads.  All good stuff with little paper cups of dressing.  Plus mac ‘n cheese, plus more and more.  She had to bring the tray to the table and then go back for soup and drink and bread.

So, did we get our money’s worth?  I probably got $15 worth of food.  Marissa got $30 worth of salads and goodies, and I guess it all works out for the restaurant in the end, doesn’t it?

 

Junk and thankfulness

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This post started out one way, and ended up in a completely new direction.  Let me know what you think.

The number of magazines and catalogs we receive in our mailbox has steadily decreased over the last year or two.  I have a steady subscription to only three magazines.  Time and Entertainment Weekly arrive every Friday, and Real Simple comes once a month.  I can handle that.  I think Leslie receives one or two monthly magazines, and that’s it.  Less magazines equals less trash!

As for catalogs, most of the ones we get are unwanted and useless.  When they come in the house, we immediately rip off the address portion and add it to the shred pile.  Toss the catalog and repeatedly say “let’s get ourselves off this list,” until the next time we get the catalog and realize we forgot to get off the mailing list!

The ones that really stand out are the catalogs from companies we have never shopped at—and we know this because the catalog is addressed to the person we bought our condo from in 1992!  Yes, Nature’s Jewelry hasn’t reviewed their mailing list in over 25 years, and I’m going to continue letting the company waste their money.

There is another monthly magazine we receive jointly published by the Jewish synagogues in Orange County.  Each issue contains articles written by locals who now live in Israel, or parents raising their children in a Jewish minority area.  One consistent writer for the magazine was a woman who, at 50 years old, went through the bat mitzvah ceremony.  And at 75 years old, she fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a rabbi.  Rabbi Dann died last month after being ordained for just six months.

You would expect that friends and coworkers wrote lovely testimonials to the Rabbi.  One particular paragraph stood out:

Anyone who was blessed to know Florence knew her as a woman of substance.  When she walked into the room, you turned to look, and when she had something to say, you listened.  Not only did she bring a staggering amount of knowledge to the table, she was also just an amazing person and a great friend.  Always had a smile and laugh ready for you and a hug on stand-by.  She will truly be missed.  Say not in grief:  “She is no more but live in thankfulness that She was.”

How many of us can use this testimonial for ourselves?

What is normal?

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The end to a long stressful week.  For me, I’ve been waiting to hear back from some of my doctors to get my health care on track.  New doctor, maybe surgery, and I can start to feel normal again.

What is “normal”?  As an adjective, it means usual, standard, customary.  What we’re accustomed to.  As a noun, it means usual, average, typical.

What is normal for you on a daily basis?  The sound of your alarm and bouncing out of bed, or do you hit the snooze button several times?  Do you shower at night or in the morning?  Do you face the shower head or have your back to the shower?

What is “normal?” It seems as though the weirder you are, the more you fit in…so that means that weird is normal.  If weird is normal, then that means that if you are normal you are weird, so in order to be normal you must be weird, which makes you normal all over again.  Which is weird.  It is a perpetual cycle.  Yeah, she’s weird, but that’s normal.

Normality is a behavior that can be normal for an individual when it is consistent with the most common behavior for that person.  Normal is also used to describe individual behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in society.

So, if I read that right, if you’re someone who always walks down the street kicking your right foot forward, that’s normal.  For you.  But for the rest of the society, your style of walking is not normal.  If I’m walking across the street from you, and I see you kicking your right foot forward, I don’t know if it’s common behavior for you.  I only know that you walk like a weirdo.  What do you think?

The Urban Dictionary has a definition for “normal” that might have been written by a philosophy major.  “An idealistic state of being that remains as such.  Because the idea of such a state varies from being to being and any set standard is nonetheless someone else’s idea of what it is this condition warrants satisfactory confirmation of being amongst the confirmed members of such class, by the individual’s code.”

The Urban Dictionary also defines “normal” as an adjective used by boring people to make themselves feel better.

So what is normal?  I don’t like to eat cold leftover spaghetti, but does that make Leslie (who likes cold leftover spaghetti) normal or abnormal?  I drive barefoot, and most people don’t, so does that make me weird?

Normal is what you’ve been doing all along.  What works for you.  Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

 

 

 

 

As seen from the outside

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Do you believe the adage that everyone is carrying round baggage that no one is aware of?  Psychological struggles.  Phobias.  Migraines.  Depression.  Physical issues that aren’t seen from the outside.  For instance, you would notice if a friend is walking around with a nail stuck through his hand.  He likely would be complaining about the pain and is losing a lot of blood.  You’d know he was ill, or he could be bleeding everywhere.  Or he could have a surgical clip still lodged in his abdomen from a surgery performed 15 years ago.  A silent illness.

Image result for suffering inside meme

Yes, that’s me!  I had an ovarian cyst removed many years ago, and that solved a lot of my medical issues at the time.  When I read the results of the CAT scan done last month, I was surprised to learn that the surgical clip was still inside my body.

You live most of your life inside of your head.  Make sure it’s a nice place to be.

A quick Google search tells me it’s probably nothing.  The medical experts who respond to these online questions say it’s likely nothing to worry about.  The lawyers who responded say:  “It does sound like you may have a case. It is important that you contact a good medical malpractice attorney to find out.”

I’ve been dealing with medical issues over the years as I’ve gotten older.  Who hasn’t?  Yet I can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, the stubborn surgical clip is a cause for my anemia?  What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you Costco?

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I recently read an article about Costco sheet cakes and why they are so delicious, economical, and all-around-fun.

  1. They’re insanely cheap. It’ll set you back less than twenty bucks to order a half sheet cake from Costco.  Chances are, you couldn’t beat that price even if you made one yourself.  And it beats out the big-box and other store cakes by a few bucks.
  1. And it feeds so many people. You can serve 48 guests with just one of Costco’s half sheet cakes. That means when cuts are made and pieces are doled out, you’ve spent just 39-cents per person.
  1. One cake weighs more than a newborn. If you were to set your half sheet cake on a scale, the number would read about nine-and-a-half pounds.  According to Costco’s order form, two of those pounds are the cake’s mousse filling.
  1. There are only two flavors offered. You can either order what Costco refers to as a white (vanilla) cake or a chocolate cake.  The white cake is a vanilla sheet cake filled with vanilla cheesecake mousse that’s iced with white buttercream.  The latter is the chocolate version of that:  chocolate sheet cake, chocolate mousse filling, and chocolate buttercream icing.

Image result for costco cake order form 2018

  1. Customers used to have more options. Once upon a time, you could pick up a carrot cake sheet cake from Costco, which came with apricot mousse filling and cream cheese icing sprinkled with slivered almonds.  Internationally, there are even more offerings:  Costco Australia allows you to mix and match a raspberry filling with either chocolate or vanilla sponge cake.
  1. You can take one home on the spot. Costco keeps its bakery section full of ready-made sheet cakes, some plain, some with birthday messages, and — around the holidays — some with festive designs.
  1. Custom orders require advance planning. Give bakers a day or two days’ notice to craft something specific, like an intricate design or a special message.
  1. Bakers can decorate in more than two dozen ways. The sheet cake order form reveals nearly 30 designs to choose from.  There are the classic ways to frost a sheet cake — with balloons or roses — plus some more offbeat ones, like a pirate ship, a skateboard, or a party owl … whatever that means.
  1. The dinosaur design was part of a scandal. In 2015, The Inquisitr broke a story about a woman who complained the dinosaur on her kid’s birthday cake had only three legs, each looking like the number “6.”  She claimed bakers had hidden this demonic “666” message in the cake on purpose.  But upon some digging, the article was found to be written by the mother-in-question’s boyfriend, and the Costco location at the center of the story confirmed no complaints had ever been received.
  1. They’re the perfect blank slate. However you slice ‘em, Costco’s sheet cakes can look incredibly juvenile, so at-home bakers have taken to customizing them.  You can pick up a cake that’s only been frosted with a base layer, then trick it out at home.

But why do sheet cakes taste so much better than regular cakes?

An executive chef answered this question quite humorously.  “Sheet cakes are too large for a home oven so you’re talking about commercial operators.  Have you ever had a Costco sheetcake?  They are delicious!  But the ingredient label on a Costco sheetcake?  OMG!  Next time you see one, cut off that label or photograph it before they throw the box out. It’s hysterical.  The label must have about 300 ingredients in it.  No, I’m not joking.  Most of the ingredients I cannot pronounce.”

Wait, what?  What are the 300 ingredients that make it terrific?  Chemicals?  Plants?  Leftover Costco rotisserie chicken?  

Usually, bakery-made cakes have about a dozen ingredients.  And they can all be pronounced.  The chef explains:  “There’s a dirty little secret we don’t want to talk about, acknowledge or own up to, but the fact of the matter is that boxed cake mixes tend to taste much better than cakes made from scratch.”  He relays the story of a French pastry chef who was asked to taste several cake slices and to grade which he thought were the best tasting.  In every case—and on television—he chose the boxed mix over the scratch cake.  Understandably, he was shocked, appalled and embarrassed when his choices were revealed to him and the television audience.

Food scientists are pretty smart and they have access to ingredients that we’ve never heard of.  But what we do know for sure:  those sheetcakes you buy in grocery stores or big box stores?  They were all made with boxed mixes!

One of the ingredients that makes those cakes taste so good is hydrogenated shortening.  It makes for an awesome cake but as a home baker you can’t get it anymore.  Commercial food processors can get it, but it’s sold in quantities far beyond the reach of home bakers.  The shortening really does makes a difference, but it’s also bad for you.  If you’re eating healthy, chances are you’re gonna pass on cake anyway, right?  Cooking at home, from scratch, and using fresh ingredients is always best.  But cake?  Sometimes the commercial processors do it better.  That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

 

Would you like coffee with that?

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August is National Coffee Month and I don’t know how or why I didn’t find out about it until the 5th. Five days wasted not celebrating this tasty and aromatic experience.

Don’t let the name fool you.  National Coffee Month has no formal congressional recognition–yet!  Instead, some people decided the popular beverage needed to be celebrated.  I agree!

There’s a time and a place for decaf coffee.  Never and in the trash.

Many organizations use the month as a platform for awareness, hoping to increase the visibility of fair trade coffees and the work conditions of coffee growers.  Local coffee shops and grocery stores are bound to be handing out free samples, hoping to attract new customers.

I make coffee disappear.  What’s your superpower?

We’ve recently learned that, when consumed in moderation, coffee can positively impact your health.  Experts have found that coffee drinkers are less likely to have Parkinson’s disease and dementia.  Coffee has also been said to lower the risks of stroke and heart attacks as well.  A moderate amount of coffee may boost your mood as well.

After coffee arrived in the United States in the 1600s, it was not long before it surpassed beer as a breakfast favorite.  (Say what?!)  It ultimately locked itself down as an American favorite after the Boston Tea Party, when anti-tea sentiment ran especially high.  Now, 62 percent of all Americans drink coffee daily, according to a recent study by the National Coffee Association.  (Of course, there could be no other result, right?)

Wednesday coffee - Google Search

Coffee is also a great addition to cooking, for anyone who’s a bit adventurous in the kitchen.  More than 850 flavor compounds can be found in a roasted coffee bean (considering that wine only has 200).  Depending on the roast, coffee can be paired with everything from avocado to zucchini.  From baked goods to homemade pasta, it’s your next secret ingredient.  Who is inviting me over for homemade pasta with a side of coffee beans?

Want to know the ways to win my heart?  (1) buy me coffee; (2) make me coffee; (3) be coffee. 

I say this to my mother often.(^.^) Thanks, Pinterest Pinners, for stopping by, viewing, re-pinning, & following my boards. Have a beautiful day! and “Feel free to share on Pinterest..^..^ #coffee