Stephanie says

  Panna Cotta Recipe Ingredients You only need 7 basic ingredients! 3 Tbsp cold water 4 tsp (12 g) gelatin 3 cups heavy cream 1 cup whole milk 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar Pinch salt 2 tsp vanilla extract Bloom gelatin: Pour water into a bowl, add gelatin all at once and mix right away. Let rest at least 5 minutes. Prepare ice bath: Fill a large bowl with a few cups of ice and enough cold water to come about halfway up the bowl. Simmer dairy, sugar and salt: Meanwhile in a large saucepan bring heavy cream, milk, sugar and salt to a simmer stirring frequently to dissolve sugar, remove from heat. Melt gelatin, pour into dairy mixture: Immediately following heat gelatin mixture in the microwave for 10 seconds to melt mixture to liquid form and then right away pour into cream mixture and whisk for 30 seconds. Cool in ice bath: Set saucepan over ice bath and stir with a spoon until it’s cool to the touch. Stir in vanilla. P...

 Mexican restaurants were a long time coming to Oregon.  Taco Bell opened in Portland circa 1965 - I was totally hooked on tostadas: the crunch of the corn tortilla, creamy refried beans, crisp lettuce, grated cheese and hot sauce. However tame is seems now, it was Yum. My taste for Mexican food broadened during the 80s when I was introduced to Green Chile Pork by a friend who learned to make it growing up in Colorado. Anaheim Chile was the primary green, along with onions and garlic.  It was delicious.  We'd cook up huge batches for parties and it was always a hit.  The recipe morphed into a soup with the addition of cooked beans.  Delicious. Then came 2021 and a weekly CSA share, (community-supported agriculture,) from Gathering Together Farm, an organic farm-stand a couple miles from my house.  Using the various seasonal veggies takes planning.   There were tomatillos, poblano chiles, jalapeños, onions, garlic, and cilantro last week.  The...

One of those moments you can’t erase:  Me meeting Michael at his Honolulu apartment, we had dinner plans. So I knock, knock, he eventually answers, oddly enough armed with his Hawaiian sling, (rubber band version of a spear gun.)  He’d spear fished earlier in the day and bagged himself a big ole Moray eel. Took it home. Put it in the sink.  He realized that eels breathe air, they’re not just any fish, at precisely the moment this large, powerful  creature, with scarily sharp teeth, jumped out of the sink and dove under the refrigerator.  Stage entrance Stephanie. Thank you Michael. I recall barefoot Michael perched on a counter, rocking the refrigerator with one hand, a spear in the other, trying to flush out the Moray. I was barefoot, standing on a chair. Laughing uproariously when not shrieking, at my brother's attempt to contain this powerful creature without losing any fingers or toes . Michael eventually moved the refrigerator and speared the eel. Back ...

I had four hours to wait at Puerto Vallarta airport, 6000 pesos in my pocket, and some very nice leather goods shops to browse.  So I shopped for a purse. I ended up with this beautiful specimen to add to my collection.  For a whopping $400. Partly because foreign money doesn't seem quite real.  And also because I really, really wanted to avoid going through the currency exchange.

YONCALLA — As soon as the van pulled in the driveway, people would come outside to greet Erin Helgren and Kelly Campbell.  Helgren, site liaison for Children’s Institute Early Works, and Campbell, student services coordinator for Yoncalla School District, have been making deliveries to families in the Yoncalla School District since the official start of the summer. The deliveries include food, books and family activities. When schools closed in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, Yoncalla was one of many school districts that came to students’ homes to deliver daily meals. However, it also became clear that the school district wouldn’t be able to continue that throughout the summer due to budget constraints. The school district received several grants and donations that allowed it to continue to provide meals to families with children from birth to 18 years old twice a week. It partnered with a local nursery and Head Start program to get in contact with the younges...

As part of Yoncalla summer reading program, the Yoncalla Public Library is assembling a weekly activity package for about 50 families.   Tuesday’s delivery contained directions and supplies to construct a marble track.   From a paper sack of supplies to a leap of imagination! From a paper sack of supplies to a leap of imagination! The library partnered with Yoncalla Schools for delivery.  Student meals are delivered twice weekly, with ingredients for breakfast and lunch.  Erin Helgren of Childrens Institute took on the complex task of figuring out USDA guidelines with regard to protein needs, etc. by age group for about 150 students, then converting that into a grocery list of nutritious ingredients; followed by purchasing the groceries; hiring staff to pack boxes then deliver those food boxes.    A huge undertaking that's getting smoother by the week!

It’s been a remarkable day.   Tyler called with a 1910 Craftsman house in Corvallis, my absolute favorite house style, well until Frank Lloyd Wright.   Erin stopped by and said she wanted to be clear, she wants to buy this house. Jeanne pitched the idea of me writing a screenplay from her friend’s story that I recently read. Then there’s my recurring dream.    A recurring moving dream I’ve had for months recently.   I’ve out, the house is vacant. I take a last walk-through, reliving fond memories. I spot my mother’s blond-dyed mahogany piano standing proud in an otherwise empty room.  Argggh. Is that a weird dream?