My niece Rebecca, owner of Nature Delivered Farm in Brooksville, was recently notified that pork from her farm was selected by the Ritz-carlton culinary team to be served at The James Beard House, NYC. Pretty Cool!
Food-Alliance wrote: “Rebecca Krassnoski’s Nature Delivered Farms pork shoulder and belly has been selected by the Jack Dusty (Ritz Carlton-Sarasota)Culinary Team for their Dinner at the James Beard House in NYC on March 6th. Congrats Rebecca!”
And here’s some happy pigs to brighten up your Friday!
Maggie, best little dog ever is also the luckiest dog ever. Hey, not only is she doted on by me and T, she’s traveled the country! Quite often in first class!
Way back in 2004, Maggie flew to Denver for her first flight ever. Plans were to fly out of Tampa, catch a connecting flight in Houston, and smooth sailing into Denver where my mother-in-law would pick us up.
But things don’t always go as planned. Like we didn’t plan to end up at the Austin airport because of a storm where we had to refuel, get to Houston and miss our connecting flight, be threatened with a ticket by the meanest Houston cop ever because sweet little Maggie was out of her crate, and there were no potty places for dogs even outside of security! That would be crazy planning!
But we persevered and made it to Colorado and spent two lovely weeks away from the July heat and humidity of Florida. And Maggie has since made this trip a couple of more times–without incident. Flying with a pooch definitely gets easier with experience.
Here we are at the beginning of our journey.
Our first stop after Denver is always Longmont because Terry’s mom lived there. It’s a nice town with parks, trails, and dog parks.
Maggie and I both suffer a little from the change in elevation. We take lots of naps our first few days when we visit.We made a Christmas visit in 2007–Maggie’s first snow!Checking for new smells on a trail in the park.Here’s Maggie in the “Thinking Rock” in the park. She’s thinking as soon as she gets out of here she will bite me.
One of my favorite places in the entire country is Estes Park, a beautiful resort town in the Rocky Mountains. We seriously considered retiring here but that didn’t happen. (Probably for the best since I hate being cold.) Maggie loves to strutt down the street taking in all the new sights and smells. She is even welcome in a few stores and can dine on the outdoor patios in some of the restaurants. While we usually make it a day trip, on one occasion we stayed at Silver Moon Inn, a dog-friendly hotel in downtown Estes Park.
Estes parkLake EstesMaggie taking Terry for a walk at Silver Moon Inn.
While in Estes, we always drive into the Rocky Mountain National Park. Dogs have to stay on leash and cannot walk on the trails and that’s okay with me since we did see a bear there once. Maggie would make a wee bear snack.
Here we are at Trail Ridge, elevation — 11,796 feet!What a view!
Just looking at these pictures makes me miss Colorado. What a beautiful state!
Are you getting healthy this year!? I found yet another tidbit that helps me. ‘Popcorners’
Yes, the new crunchy diet snack d’jour are rice and popcorn based crisps or chips. I’ve been snacking on these for a few months now and thought I’d tell you about them. They make me feel like I’m eating real buttered popcorn. Even though all they have is sea salt on them. Now there’s the key word – REAL.
A few weeks ago there was a sale on the new Special K snacks that were potato crisps and popcorn chips. I like the Special K cereals so I picked them up for a taste test. I won’t be buying them again. I was disappointed in the super ‘fake’ taste of the stuff they sprayed on them. There was like 15 ingredients on the label and their popcorn chips were half the size of the ones I had been buying.
My favorite Popcorners chips are found in my Publix deli – I guess the company who makes them doesn’t have quite the market presence that The Big K has, so you may need to hunt them down. It’ll be worth it. They cost a little less, even at $3.00/bag, because the bag is bigger, and they’re all natural. They’re twice the size of the diet ones, making them big enough to top with a slice of cucumber and a dollop of dressing – or even a slice of cheese. Hmmm, they come with cheese flavor too….ooo, something new to try. And a what’s ‘serving size’?
Well, I was curious so I broke out the scale because you know how it goes, a serving is like 5 chips …wrong…this is 1oz of Popcorners. So, at 3g/fat per serving I could, conceivably, eat my way through an entire bag on a Playoff Weekend and not destroy my diet?? Really? I’m sooo there!
I’m giving the makers a ‘shout-out’ because I don’t want to see them disappear. I must not be the only one buying them because they disappear from the shelves at Whole Foods and Publix really fast!
