Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

When I started this blog lo these many years ago, the intention was to cook New York Times recipes AS WRITTEN, utilizing ALL the ingredients identified, and then blog about the results. Well, hmm.  That didn't exactly happen. Before retiring, I saved a stash of NYT recipes and actually cooked some of them, however seldom did I follow the recipe as written, for the following reasons. 1. I didn't have that much time to cook dinner.  My commute home was 45 minutes on a good day--let's not talk what traffic was like when it snowed, shall we?  Though I like to cook, by the time I hit the garage door, what was cooked was me as opposed to the food.  So I used the recipes more like guidelines as opposed to be followed to the letter instructions. I love this. 2. Often the ingredients specified in the NYT recipes, or so it seemed to me, were either a bit arcane or more readily available if you actually lived in New York and there was a neighborhood bodega or Asian market on th...

It's a stunningly beautiful day here in the upper Midwest.  Please don't blame the Mothers' Day temperatures in the 70's on global warming.  That would take away all hope that the chance of frost has come and is now gone until at least next September. I've been writing this blog post in my head for at least a couple weeks.  In fact, I had a couple false starts while we were still in Florida.  I think I'm finally ready to get it onto the computer screen (remember when we used to say we were ready to get it onto paper?) In Florida, we rented in a townhome complex in Indian Rocks Beach.  My youngest sister lives there, which is how we found the place.  That factored into our decision to rent there.  We've been there a couple times and had a sense of what the community was like, where stores and restaurants were located.  We both liked that it was a little more laid back Florida beach town, less touristy than other nearby places.  Plus being ...

It's the morning you've been dreaming of ever since you announced your retirement. Your co-workers have gazed longingly on that date marked, probably in red, on your calendar.  LAST DAY OF WORK. The alarm does not go off. You don't have to haul yourself out of bed when you awaken. Now what? Here are a few things (that I can recall) those who were already retired shared with me about retirement: It's great. You'll never look back. You'll be so busy, you'll wonder how you ever worked. You can do whatever you want. Keep a list of all the things you say you want to do. Travel.  Travel.  Travel. It takes a while to get used to it.  About a year. You'll get to spend a lot of time with your grandchildren. You'll get into some sort of routine. Friends and co-workers asked me what I was going to do when I retired.  I sensed an undercurrent of, "You're not just going to be  retired , are you?" which I took to mean there wa...

Remember how I said I was going to follow the New York Times recipes to the letter ? Um, not so much.  At least not today, St. Patrick's Day of all days, for a traditional Irish meal. This morning when I opened the NY Times Cooking app on my phone, there was a lovely looking recipe for Guinness Pie .  My oldest daughter had invited herself to dinner (in fairness, we usually have dinner at their house on Friday nights); I thought I'd invite my son and his family, too.  All this on account of us watching the 3 Grandsons at our house because Friday is not only Flip Flop Friday (cf: my Facebook page), it's also Grandpa Dan-o Child Care Day.  So that recipe was calling to me. During the day, I recalled our trip to Ireland almost 13 years ago.   The first meal I had was a very yummy Guinness stew.  Actually, it was about the best meal I had the entire week we were in Ireland.  The Irish are know for their whiskey and beer, not their food.  S...

I offered to try out one of the New York Times recipes and bring it to my youngest daughter's for dinner tonight.   https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1650-italian-pot-roast-stracotto She politely tells me that she's not a fan of pot roast. So we're going out for drinks and dinner instead. Such a retirement thing to do, right? ps--I already purchased a pot roast and will still cook this recipe in the near future.

All this week, the Dan-o and I are on child care patrol for our 3 grandsons, whose wonderful child care provider is on vacation in Mexico.  Jackson is 4, his brother, Beau is 22 months and their cousin Ethan is 2 1/2.  Fun times.  To our good fortune, all three still nap for at least an hour, often more, which gives the grandparents a brief respite mid-day. Not that I don't love being Grandma and Grandpa Child Care, but you know the saying that child rearing is best done by folks under 65?  So true. Today is also my only son's 37th birthday.  How he came to be 37 is way beyond me, but you know, life happens. Consequently I invited him for dinner tonight, hence the subject of this post.  I am feeling quite proud of myself that in the middle of the lovely mayhem that is three little boys ripping the house apart, I managed to cook Stuffed Shells. This is a handed down recipe from Florence Compobasso, my brother-in-law's mother.  She was loud, bras...