Fourth anniversary of our kitchen fire in Lakeside

What I wrote 4 years ago, May 25, 2019.

"If we're on your prayer list, thanks. It never hurts to be preemptive. We're OK. The fire has been put out, and we had some clean up. The cottage odor is a combination of Febreze, scented candles and burned butter. We had a wonderful meal at Sortino's (Sandusky, OH) on Thursday evening and came home with 5 carry out bags + bread. However, the 20" stove in our summer home wouldn't quite hold everything when we tried to warm up dinner the next evening and (we're blaming Bob) some fettuccini alfredo over flowed, dripping butter, which then caught on fire. The four of us in the tiny kitchen (think Keystone Cops) were a hoot, with Phoebe rescuing our dinner from the flames and Mark squelching the fire. It is cleaning week-end so we then had fine soot over our freshly washed cabinets, counters, and floors. BUT. No one was hurt and there's no permanent damage. Supper was delicious once we all settled down, and I think there's enough for tonight's dinner. I do plan to buy a new stove, though."

We’re all safe.

If we're on your prayer list, thanks. It never hurts to be preemptive. We're OK. The fire has been put out, and we had some clean up. The cottage odor is a combination of Febreze, scented candles and burned butter. We had a wonderful meal at Sortino's (Sandusky, OH) on Thursday evening and came home with 5 carry out bags + bread. However, the 20" stove in our summer home wouldn't quite hold everything when we tried to warm up dinner the next evening and (we're blaming Bob) some fettuccini alfredo over flowed, dripping butter, which then caught on fire. The four of us in the tiny kitchen (think Keystone Cops) were a hoot, with Phoebe rescuing our dinner from the flames and Mark squelching the fire. It is cleaning week-end so we then had fine soot over our freshly washed cabinets, counters, and floors. BUT. No one was hurt and there's no permanent damage. Supper was delicious once we all settled down, and I think there's enough for tonight's dinner. I do plan to buy a new stove, though.

Recipes I've never tried

Have been found while I was cleaning my kitchen shelves, rearranging things to find just the right spot for the new TV.


They include

The Saturday Evening Post Family Cookbook, c1984--supposed to be healthy stuff, bran raisin bread, carrot muffins, barley soup, which is probably why I bought it (library sale, $2.00

Joyce's Amaretto Peach/Blueberry pie with a note from her, 2005

Florida Key Lime Pie, on a post card purchased in Florida

"Fun food for football," real easy munchies from Columbus Parent Magazine; includes Mexican Chili dip and those meatballs made with grape jelly--plus a few I've used before--super easy

Chocolate chip ice cream pie, creamed chicken and biscuits and others on some fancy cards that must belong to someone else's set. "Grandma's Kitchen" www.grandmaskitchenreceipes.com

Hillary Rodham Clinton's chicken and rice deluxe clipped from the Columbus Dispatch.

Poached Salmon--hand written recipe, with note, "Norma--call me" but I don't remember who wrote it.

Blueberry muffins using Splenda

Sausage cheese balls using Bisquik.

Slow-cooker lasagna from the Dispatch

Corn stuffing--I think I might have made this a few Thanksgiving days ago.

Soup recipes from our Germany river tour in 2005, on MS Switzerland. They were fabulous on board as I recall. Probably not quite the same from my stovetop.

I think they'll all fit inside the Sat. Evening Post book, so I'll keep them.

3830

Another dusty day

I'm in my work clothes waiting for the carpenter. We're having a new stove top installed today and it needs a slightly larger opening than the old one, which I think was installed in 1990, if I've got the ownership correct.

Old stove top, one eager burner, two half-hearted, and one out to lunch--and breakfast and dinner.
So I've moved everything out of the kitchen that I could and covered the table, chairs and bookshelves.

2037 Bits of metal and plastic in my life

My life has been falling apart. A few days before Christmas one of the kitchen cabinet doors swung open 90 degrees--all by itself, and wouldn't close. We don't know if the house settled after 30 years, or what happened. To keep it closed, I tied a piece of dental floss around the knob and tied it to the coffee carafe thermos which I pushed under the cabinet next to the wall. The weight of the carafe would hold the door shut, but if I would forget and open the door quickly, the carafe would go swinging into the air and smack me, or knock something on the floor. So I attached a bright orange sticky to the dental floss so I could see it. Would you believe that you can get used to dental floss and orange paper dangling from your cabinets and not even notice them after awhile?

Then on Christmas Eve, one of my molars broke in half during my nice family dinner and I apparently swallowed it. The old filling held. Of course, it was a 3 day holiday, so it was Dec. 30 before I got into the dentist's chair, got the old filling removed, and a temporary to cover it until I got the "real temporary" crown today. And of course, I had to start all over on my dental deductible because now it is 2006. Some of my fillings are older than my dentist, so I think we'll be having this conversation often.

Then Friday night about 9 p.m. my glasses fell in my lap. A part had fallen off. I found my 2003 glasses (by feeling) which will work in a pinch and hoped the optometrist's office was open on Saturday.

As of this moment, we have fixed the cabinet door by putting a stick-on magnet on the trim piece and building up the screw on the back side of the handle with a small washer so it will connect with the magnet; today I got a very shiny, bright temporary crown and will get the porcelain crown in two weeks--but the sun is shining (as it will do 37% of the days in Ohio) and I'll blind you if I smile; and Saturday morning the optometrist's staff was able to fix my glasses in about two minutes.

For now, we are pasted and patched back together.