Category: entertainment

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what are you baking right now?

Holidays are for cooking and baking!
Holidays are for cooking and baking & sharing!

Well, nothing brings our family together faster than talk about what’s to make, bake and cook! I think there is something in the untold common family experience that centers around the fire and sharing and consuming a good meal. You really learn about people when you work with them over the fire in a barbecue or in a kitchen.

This holiday season we have a lot planned some are events with themes for fun:

our GREEK NIGHT

the wines (whites & reds and a sweet):

(special note: Greek  wines — other than Retsina — are tough to find, allow me to recommend wine.com)

Boutari 2007 Santorini ( before the meal)
Boutari 2007 Moschofilero
Boutari 2006 Naoussa
Archaia Clauss Mavrodaphne

the food:

Tiropetes (Greek Cheese filled philo)

Dolmades ( delicious grape vines stuffed with rice and meat)

Moussaka ( a sort of Greek Lasagna with layers of thinly slices and cooked eggplant and custard topping)

Baklava ( nothing else will do)

Honey Pie ( a secret recipe — a favorite from one of the Greek Islands)

Karla wants something to do with a Rabbit this season and everyone wants Turducken, a wide assortment of pies and even a Baked Alaska is also on the list. I am always amazed at how so much can be prepared and then it’s gone! We are planning some fun with Kristin, Karen and some friends with my sweet and spicy ribs and Mom’s favorite Chinese sweet & sour pork.

lots to do and lots of fun!

Roger

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what is up with UP?

Disney's 'UP' is fun for everyone... even me!
'UP' is fun for everyone... even me!

I think Pixar did a remarkable thing, it made a movie named ‘UP’ that I really enjoyed. I was actually surprised.

Let me not spoil it for you, but my daughters would have said I would love it because of what they call all the ‘Inner Light’ moments in the film. ( ‘Inner Light’ was a hopelessly sentimental episode of Star Trek NG) I almost don’t want to post anything about it so I can lure my daughters into watching it!

I had no idea of the significance of the bottle cap pin when it came with my Blu-Ray dvd … but it has a very sentimental part in the movie.

Buy it and enjoy it…

Roger Freberg

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it is all about books

find fun books.... is just fun!
finding and searching for books.... is just fun!

Abebooks.com is one of my favorite on-line sites for… yes… books!  Recently I found two books that were amusing. The first book is a look into how and why alcoholic beverages developed around the world and the importance of various berries and grains as well as honey. The author, Patrick McGovern travels the world to see exactly how various civilizations produced beers and wines… “Uncorking the Past” is an excellent buy for those interested in how things all began.

My second book is a simple cookbook from 1908 the Rumford Complete Cookbook by Lily Maxworth Wallace who went on to write through the 1940’s on cookery and etiquette.  Rumford — as many know — makes baking powder including the ‘Clabber Girl” brand familiar to those here in California.  One can already see the trend towards recipe simplification, cost  reduction and minimization of preparation time. However, the book is fun in that it covers a wide variety of subjects not addressed in many cookbooks today… for example, how to properly bone a fowl.

see you on the internet!
see you on the internet!

Roger Freberg

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it is baking season

"TURGOOSEN" --a chicken within a duck within a goose within a turkey
“TURGOOSEN” –a chicken within a duck within a goose within a turkey

For those who bake, you already know this, but we are in the throes of what is commercially referred to as ‘Baking Season.” Although commercial food product companies gear up and market this time of year, it is actually a proper reflection of what people do between September and January… we bake!

During this ‘season’, families are together more and people prepare those special occasion dishes that are reserved for only the best of times. A Thanksgiving Turkey, a Christmas Ham and a New Year’s Champagne brunch are so ingrained in some families that a lot of things will be dropped from the social calendar before any of these gatherings. I celebrate Japanese New Year with sushi, sashimi and other yummy things. I joke that sushi is my life… and homemade and fresh is best.

What I am starting to gather together are a few things I need for this season’s projects. Our daughters will be arriving in December and have requested a ‘Greek Night’… Dolmades, Tiropetes, Baklava, Honey Pie and Moussaka. Yes, there will be music and then we dance! Laura loves to bake her mushroom cookies and I will enjoy putting together this year’s Turgoosen! Jenny Craig will just have to be a little understanding.

Oh, I will be making and baking an assortment of other family favorites from  Corned Beef Pie ( the beef is ‘corning’ away as I write this) to General Washington’s great contribution to Western Civilization…. his incomparable ‘Egg Nog’. I also search and acquire cookbooks from times gone by and not always expensive ones… this time I found a 1908 cookbook by  Rumford (Clabber Girl).  You don’t have to buy an original ( I have one), but you can buy a nice copy that’ll work just nicely.

So, celebrate this season by making something wonderful for those you love!

Roger

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you’ve been invited to speak

welcome to our meeting!
welcome to our meeting!

My family has done a lot of  interesting things… Kristin has come back from a year in Iraq and everyone wants her unclassified stories, Laura has written another book and  a fun blog, and Karen has had one globe trotter of a year, herself. So it doesn’t surprise me that groups ask them to speak.

Many of the groups they talk about sound familiar: Rotary, Lions, Soroptimists, Kiwanis, Elks among many others…. however, a few invitations raise an eyebrow or two for being unfamiliar or unknown. Can’t helping it,  I do ask the proverbial question: “what do you know about this group?” ….. and I usually get the typical ‘oh, dad!’ answer.

Hard to stop being a dad.

Roger Freberg