We just came back from a fun ski vacation at Stratton Mountain in Vermont. The skiing went well, despite the fluctuating ski conditions (rain one night) and up and down weather. My daughter now eagerly skis a longish trail on the side of the mountain called Lower Tamarack.
On the food front, finding food for us to eat for 3½ days is a bit of a struggle. This year, I packed various homemade food over the past two months that I had frozen in advance for vacation. The potato latkes from Chanukah, for example, were OK since I had packed little applesauce cups as well, so they had a nice condiment to go with them. Spaghetti pie (recipe in Honest Pretzels by Mollie Katzen), however, normally one of my daughter’s favorite dishes did not freeze and defrost nicely into a tasty dish. Most of it got thrown out, unfortunately. The homemade mushroom barley soup was a hit, but the prepared Tabatchnick’s frozen mushroom barley soup not as much. My kids normally like macaroni and pizza slices, but how many of those can one eat? Ditto for Streit’s canned minestrone soup – all my kids like that soup, but not for every meal. My family eagerly consumed leftover chicken soup last night when we got home.
For myself, I made brown rice in the crockpot two nights in a row (1 part rice to two parts water). I bought scallions and parsley in a supermarket right before we got to Stratton. Scallions are an improvement over bringing an onion and a knife and then ignoring the onion for the duration of the trip. You can cut scallions with a plastic knife, if necessary. Also, one year I brought lettuce on our winter trip, only to find it had frozen and wilted on the journey. Parsley holds up better in the winter weather. I’ve also learned to bring a few bags of frozen vegetables – easy to store, easy to prepare.
If you bring your own food on vacation, what tips do you have for storing, preparing or serving the food?
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It’s cold out there! I took a walk through Johnson Park last week; I couldn’t find much other than these ducks. Then I headed over to the Native Plant Reserve to see brown remnants of last spring’s joyous perennials. You can see more if you click on each thumbnail above.
In the above photo are the ducks with the colorful reflections around them (the image in the thumbnail is a cropped version).
In other nature news, my daughter taught me that the New Jersey state bird is a goldfinch and the New Jersey state flower is a violet.
A Section of Route 18 with Graffiti in New Brunswick, New Jersey
Last week I had an opportunity to meander through the Native Plant Reserve in Highland Park. I went as far as the edge of the Raritan River, and that’s where I photographed this shot of graffiti on the New Brunswick side. It’s really the only color around at this time of year. You can see photos of the bridge over the Raritan River between New Brunswick and Highland Park on this post.
I saw this ball rolling on the street outside the library, and I snapped the photo, not knowing I would get a moment when it lifted off the ground. Seems like a slice-of-life moment, perfect for Straight-Out-Of-the-Camera.
Chanukah starts next week, and I wonder if I will have the energy to take new photos. I’ve taken so many Chanukah photos already. Any suggestions on a new twist? Which Chanukah photo is your favorite?
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This gallery is built with the NextGen gallery plugin for WordPress – I’ve been using this for a client, so I thought it would be fun to install the plugin on my own blog and show off some photos. It might make doing JPiX (Jewish Photo Blogger’s Carnival) a lot easier, too. Hm.
Just discovered one tiny technical problem with the NextGen Gallery – if I want to pin a photo (I just joined Pinterest), I have to put one directly into the post and not only use the gallery. So here’s one:
Update on July 2013: Having problems with the new version of NextGen Gallery. May go back to Reverted to the old version. Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted.
Update on August 9, 2013: updated to NextGen Gallery 2.0.7 – so far, it works.
Update in December 2014: Version 2.0.66.33 – still works.
sporting detailed sneakers with bright pink laces in the woods
This week’s Thursday Challenge is “SHOES” (Boots, Sandals, Dress Shoes, Wooden Shoes, Stiletto heals, Horse Shoes,…)
Next Week: LIGHT (Candle, Street, Business, Fireplace, Glitter, Sparkle,…)
And, yes, I did post these Twinkle Toes Skechers sneakers two weeks ago. Déjà vu. I have lots of candle photos from previous years – maybe I will do a Chanukah candle photo essay. We shall see.
red carnation blooms in a backyard
A red carnation: nice to have a warm fall photo to grace the top of my blog after this week’s upsetting local news (I just updated that post with a well-written letter by Mayor Steve Nolan – “All people who respect the rights of their neighbors will always be welcome in this town”). I won’t have much time on Monday to post (I will be busy with a work project), but I am planning to submit this pretty flower to Ruby Tuesday.
sporting detailed sneakers with bright pink laces in the woods
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving: happy Thanksgiving to all those that celebrate. A nice excuse to post some sneakers in the woods.
Thank you to everyone who reads and/or comments on this blog. You are so appreciated!
I have been enjoying working on a project for a client that is done with responsive web design. This means it will look good on your desktop, tablet or browser. This blog is responsive – if you move your browser to be small and then big again, you should see what I mean.
I would love to post more creative works on this blog: for example, maybe I could do something interesting with those sneakers? A few months ago I started a project with roofs – I never got back to that one. Lots of starting and stopping. One could easily blame it on outside influences (work, family, laundry, the weather), but the creative process seems to be one that invites “stuckness.”
If you are looking for a Thanksgiving recipe, you might want to check out the Stuffed Squash Workshop.
I am thinking of stuffing my turkey tomorrow with rice, dried cranberries, celery and onion (maybe one egg to stick it together). Do you think it will work? Any suggestion?
Are you cooking this week? What is in the plans, cooking or otherwise?
On Sunday we visited Washington Valley Park in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Our friend found the hike on the website njhiking.com; I had never heard of the park before. Pictured is the lovely reservoir at the bottom of the hiking area.
We decided in advance to follow the red trail – it wasn’t always easy to see these markings for the trail on the trees.
I saw a variety of plants growing – no idea what this striped little plant is called.
I recognized these red oval berries from my childhood – I looked up the bush (red berries with thorns is what I looked for in Google Images), and I learned this is called a barberry bush.
I rather liked this plant inside moss that I found on the trail.
There were various streams on our hike that led into the reservoir. The girls (my daughter and friend) had fun hopping over the rocks.
When we got to the top of the hill on the trail, we were rewarded with views of hawks flying overhead.
You could see quite a distance from the top – the fall colors have faded, but they are still varied, though muted.
My daughter and I went for a walk to the library today, and we enjoyed looking at the brightly colored trees. She was off from school because of some teacher enhancement enrichment something-or-another day.
The oak leaves are certainly multi-colored.
I really enjoyed the colors of my neighbor’s blueberry bush.
The local high school looked pretty with the adorning red maple in front.
Hard to believe a week ago we had snow on the ground – this has been a varied fall for foliage 2011.
