Saturday, October 24, 2009

Wisconsin Travelers' Delights

Last weekend we drove through Wisconsin to get to Minneapolis. We were out of honey and made plans to stop near Janesville to pick up a new supply at Orlovsky Apiaries. When we called ahead to place our order, we were told that the bees had not had a good year, so we were going to be limited to 3 gallons. Rats.

I did some research on the Wisconsin Honey Producers Assn. site to see who was close to the Interstate AND had an e-mail address. The first one to get back to me was a guy in Tomah, home of the Warrens Cranberry Fest each September, who has hives in the cranberry bogs around there, so - cranberry honey! It's very thick and a little darker than other honeys. He told us it's as sweet as any other honey, but has a slight "tang" (I can't tell, so far). A third of our new supply is gone now, as we gave away some to relatives. My mother wants some, too, but she'll have to be content with a 2 oz sample that will pass airline security.

In Tomah, we got an additional 20 lbs. of the cranberry honey, 2 cheap bags of fresh cranberries, and a big pumpkin for Halloween carving. Lastly, we stopped at our all-time favorite Wisconsin eatery, Norske Nook, where the pies are huge and the crusts taste like homemade. We have been stopping there for years, and this time we got a banana cream (no refrigeration needed in October!) and a peach praline to go with a stuffed shells dinner with family in Coon Rapids that night. Excellent!

We always buy the pies in the metal pie pans which require a $7 deposit. With an accumulation of a stamp on their business card for each pie you buy, you get a freebie with 7 stamps. Two pie pans to return, plus the 7 stamps, means we got 2 more pies for practically nothing - yay!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

How to Peel a Banana

I have always peeled bananas by pulling off the "handle" at the stem end. Imagine my surprise when I found out there's a better way! I was idly browsing through Xtreme English when I came across the odd link, Hilarious, on her 10/20/09 post. I don't know what Xtreme English found that was hilarious there, but I did find a YouTube of the correct way to peel a banana (monkey style). When I checked back there today, I couldn't find it again, but it's easy to find stuff on YouTube, luckily.

I happened to have some bananas at home and found out that this actually works very well - IF the bananas are not too soft. After that, the end doesn't squish so readily. I did a quick survey of the people at work the next day and found out that hardly anyone knows how to do it this way. Who knew? Thanks, Xtreme English and Belgian Waffle!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

I Am Introduced to J.A. Jance

J.A. Jance, prolific mystery writer, is coming to my library in December. She's been writing mysteries for more than 20 years, but I haven't read any of them yet. Starting with a series about J.P. Beaumont, a recovering alcoholic and retired Seattle detective, she then went on to write another series about Joanna Brady, single mother and rural Arizona sheriff. My office partner is one of her fans and was excited to find out that Jance has combined these two series by putting Brady and Beaumont in the same book. And she has started a third series about Ali Reynolds, an over-the-hill tv newscaster with a marriage on the rocks who goes back to her small Arizona hometown to figure out what to do next, blogging all the way.

I've set myself a project to read at least the first book in each series before that author shows up here. Only the first book for the Ali Reynolds' series was available at the time, so I'm starting with that one. Now that I've spent a little time in urban Arizona, it will be fun to read about the rural part.