29th Annual Arroyo Grande Strawberry Festival

Living in the middle of one of the best strawberry growing places in the world, naturally we have a Strawberry Festival to celebrate. There are at least 6 varieties of strawberries and many now grow year in our area. They are particular sweet this time of year. T and I bought our first baskets yesterday and they don't need sugar or anything! Delicious. T volunteered for the Police Department at the festival and walked around the village for 6 hours - boy did his hips hurt after that! Branch Street Deli gave all police officers and police volunteers free lunch. One of the other volunteers he worked with is a photographer and she put together a wonderful you-tube of their walk around town. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy82iz_Pl0M makes you want to reach in and eat some of those delicious treats!

Swedish meatballs

So what makes a Swedish meatball Swedish? Here is one answer I found: "It might be an american way of differentiating them from traditional italian meatballs. In america if you talk about just plain meatballs, we automatically think of meatballs with red tomato sauce (whether it be with spaghetti or as a sandwich). when you talk about swedish meatballs, we think of meatballs in a creamy sauce (usually with mushrooms) and egg noodles or rice. (i also think of lingonberries.) it was a very popular dish in the 70s, and is regaining 'fame' with the explosion of IKEA stores in the states. (hope that helps)" this is what it says in wikipedia..... "In Sweden köttbullar (meatballs) are made with ground beef or a mix of ground beef and pork, mixed with breadcrumbs soaked in milk and finely chopped onions. They are seasoned with white pepper or allspice and salt. Swedish meatballs are traditionally served with gravy, boiled potatoes, lingonberry jam, and sometimes fresh pickled cucumber. Swedish meatballs are served at the cafeteria at most IKEA locations around the world." So yesterday was senior luncheon day at the church and I put Swedish meatballs on the menu with noodles, fruit salad and apple pie. Why didn't I put hamburgers and hotdogs on the menu as it was Memorial day? Well, I didn't notice that when I put the menus together. Live and learn. Anyway, I did my research and came up with a recipe that was a mix of ground beef and ground pork mixed with breadcrumbs soaked in milk and eggs with finely chopped onions and seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and garlic. I made the gravy with some drippings from cooking the meatballs, flour, beef broth, red wine, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, parsley, half and half. 240 meatballs later and 8 lbs of egg noodles, plus some organic strawberry spread in lieu of lingonberry jam we had lift off. Only 2 1/2 servings left after the meal!

Believing the weather forecasters

After living here for 4 1/2 years I am amazed by how people here listen to the weather almost religiously and spout back what the weather is going to be. Now the more amazing thing is that the weather here is almost always the same - sunny (or sometimes foggy in the AM and sunny later) and also how often the weather forecasters can even get that wrong. The last few days the weather people have been beating the drum about high wind warnings. Now granted in the Santa Barbara area things got pretty windy with wind speeds up to 80 MPH but they forecasted that for the entire area and yes it did get somewhat breezy (30 to 40 MPH gusts) but it wasn't crazy windy by any means and by the way it was sunny. Oh well, if that's all we have to worry about, aren't we lucky!

Annular solar eclipse

Disclaimer first - I downloaded this picture from the internet. I couldn't get a good picture with the feeble photo equipment I have! Yesterday the annular solar eclipse was visible on the west coast of California and it was clear. We watched it close in through the pinhole on paper technique. Left a little to be desired. It was about 84% at its greatest coverage. Very cool. It was fun to watch the sky get dusk like. Interesting that at 84% there was still plenty of sunshine around.

Two funerals and jury duty

Last week two people I know died - one from early onset Alzheimer's on Monday and the other from pancreatic cancer on Friday. I was called for Jury duty a while back and they are pretty fussy about people asking to be excused. You can apply to postpone well in advance but you can't do it with a days notice. So I checked my jury status yesterday for my reporting time and was told my group was on standby and I was to check in again at 11:30 am on Monday. I went to the first funeral in the morning and checked in from the church parking lot at the designated time. I was told to check in again at 5:30 PM for the next day. So I just checked and I am to check again at 11:30 tomorrow morning. The next funeral is tomorrow at 1PM and I am scheduled to help with the reception.

Sharpening scissors

I obviously haven't had my scissors sharpened since moving out here. I'm working on a big sewing project for the pavilion and my fabric cutting scissors were dull. I started calling around for a place to take my scissors to be sharpened. I discovered that there are precious few places that do that in our town. Finally I found that the independent hardware store in town sends them out to be sharpened on a Thursday and they are returned the following Thursday. So last Thursday I took 3 pairs of scissors there and got them back today. Don't you just love a pair of freshly sharpened scissors? Feels so good for at least a short while.

May 2 already!!!

Yesterday was Senior Luncheon day at the church. This month we celebrated cinco de Mayo early with enchiladas, refried beans, rice, salad and dulce de leche cupcakes. It was a lot of work but when the seniors come into the kitchen to tell me how much they enjoyed themselves or better yet "those were the best enchiladas I've ever eaten!" and "I loved the cupcakes" and "thank you for the take home boxes" it makes it all worthwhile. Thank God for the internet for having great recipes and also input from friends. Great time was had by all :)