StephanieL

Do drinks books count? I just got a free copy of Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology.

Now that I know youth ice hockey starts in the fall, I'm not surprised that my nephew is starting fall baseball on Monday.

Fagioli alla Venezia, or Venetian sweet-and-sour beans, using RG Borlotti Lamons. It's usually a starter or side dish, but we turned it into a main dish with the addition of greens (spinach and lamb's quarters) cooked in the sweet-and-sour sauce and chicken Italian sausage from our butcher.

My condolences, @maison rustique.

John Lennon provided backing vocals on David Bowie's "Fame".

Went to Fenway years ago as part of an outing associated with my sister's graduation from Boston University. We were in the bleachers, it was so chilly that we were drinking hot chocolate, and I still managed to get badly burned on my face. The supreme irony is that it was Skin Cancer Awareness Day at the ballpark and they had given out packets of sunscreen to fans. At least the Sox lost to the Angels that day.

Reviewed in this week's New Yorker.

I love a good pasta salad.

Jumbo shrimp marinated in peri-peri sauce and grilled over gas. Yellow rice pilaf with spices and vegetables on the side.

Cheese grits with a poached egg on top.

It inspired me to watch the "Juke and Opal" playlet on YouTube.

The blurb in this week's Talk of the Town about the newspaper thieves reminded me of the time when I lived in Astoria and the New York Times deliveries regularly got stolen from my building's lobby (my own paper included). A number of fortuitous early-morning spottings, including the blue wrappers littered on the ground a block away (address labels intact), led me to discover that someone was taking the papers and selling them to at least one local bodega, where they were stashed in a cubby next to the newspaper shelves. The Times didn't seem too interested in my findings. I had to cancel my delivery and buy the paper at of all places a 7-Eleven that had just come into the neighborhood. I figured they probably wouldn't be trafficking in stolen newspapers.

I still don't know how I managed that first year in NYC without an AC, especially when the temps hit triple digits. And because the apartment was just above street level, in the front of the building, we couldn't really keep the windows open when we weren't home or when we were sleeping (no screens on the windows either).

We got the first fruits from our white nectarine and European plum trees. More to come next year, hopefully.

My mother has all of a sudden gotten quite sick. She still hasn't recovered from a bad case of poison ivy she got a couple of months back, and now she has edema with weight gain, is losing her hair, and is experiencing exacerbations of several longstanding conditions. Many of these I didn't know she had until just now--she keeps everything very close to the vest. So now she's undergoing a series of tests, and she and Dad had to cancel a river cruise they were going to take around Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. They've never had to cancel a vacation before. Not only do I feel like I'm replaying things my parents went through with their parents, but I'm seeing myself in about 25 years. For some of you, this will be like "cry me a river", but I'm not ready to be this middle-aged just yet.

Wise Sons do make excellent bialys. Sometimes As Kneaded Bakery in San Leandro has them (the owner is Jewish), but they're much larger than your average bialy.

No malasada? Gotta have the fried dough hit.

I have bad allergies and am very scent-sensitive, so I find that smell irritating.

At 88.

I was at a dinner in Oakland on Saturday and met a young woman who had lived in Astoria and had gone to Kabab Cafe on several occasions. What are the odds??

It was a great dinner, thanks, and we have plenty of leftovers. We did smell like smoke afterwards, though.

I got N a Weber portable fire pit for her birthday last year. It stayed in the box, unassembled, until today, when we finally made a good ol' California Santa Maria tri-tip. N being South African, she made a proper wood fire. Rest of the meal: RG's recipe for Santa Maria pinquito beans RG's fresh salsa, using heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market (they were so juicy I had to strain the salsa a couple of times) Homemade garlic bread Lagunitas IPA to drink S'mores for dessert

You must be in Hawaii if mac salad is part of your breakfast. 😃

Our garden yielded a zucchini large enough to stuff, so N made a ground lamb and pine nut filling, put some of it into the zucchini and baked it, and cooked down the rest to serve on the side. She also made hummus with RG chickpeas as a side, with lavash for dipping (bought locally). Pistachio baklava for dessert.

At 75. The video for "Jeopardy" used to creep me out.