You heard right – Andy and I are not afraid to try a new restaurant!

So, on our way off I-43 and onto Capitol Drive in Milwaukee yesterday we pulled into the drive-thru of POPEYE’S Louisiana Kitchen.  There are none of these fast-food chain places in Sheboygan.  So we went out on a limb, took the chance, went for broke and tried it out.

It is a chicken place – no burgers here.  And it had items we were not familiar with on the drive-thru menu poster.  So the girl’s voice  crackling through the dented speaker started taking our order and then said “Wait,” while she barked orders to someone in the kitchen. She came back and I ordered the two piece which came with a leg, thigh, biscuit, soda, and a side (I chose red beans and rice.)  Andy had the chicken nugget meal deal.

The drive up window had a carousel type bullet proof window where you place your cash under a metal clip, she spins the thing around, takes your cash, gives it a spin and gives you your drinks and change.  An Inner City/Urban safety device for the workers I guess.  We then had to pull over after we paid because they were short of nuggets.  We both were asked if we wanted the Louisiana hot or mild style.  Being first timers we realized we could not jump right in to the serious stuff so we chose the “mild.”

When we arrived at the Covenant District meeting with our fast food we heard, “No fair bringing hot food,” and “That chicken smells good.”

The meat was good, not dried out and flavorful and not greasy.   Biscuits were flaky good.  And when can you get red beans and rice as a side outside of Bourbon Street?  I closed my eyes, lifted a forkful to my mouth and heard jazz playing.  Then I realized that I should have chosen the spicier Louisiana flavored chicken.

By the way, the restaurant was named after Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) in the movie, “The French Connection.“   I really liked that film and I really liked my Popeye meal.

I tweeted this afternoon, asking what would be good for supper on a foggy, dreary day.  Linda H. tweeted back at me and recommended, “Soup is good.”  That set off a light bulb in my little, culinary brain.  So at 5PM I put this soup together:

Supper for a Foggy Fall Day: Cream of Butternut Squash Soup

1. Roast in the oven a good sized salted and oiled butternut squash until its tender. Remove from oven and cool.

2. Saute half an onion in butter until tender.

3. Add 1/4 teaspoons each cinnamon and cloves and 1/8 tsp. red pepper. Heat onion and spiced together until very fragrant!

4. Peel and cut up squash into chunks and place in pot with onion and spices.

5. Add one can of Chicken Stock or Broth. (Low Sodium) plus 2 tablespoons Cream Cheese. Bring to a simmer.

6. Puree ingredients in a blender and pour back into pot.

7. Add 1/2 cup half and half.  Salt and pepper to taste.

8. Serve and enjoy a creamy, orange bowl of soup that will clear the fog from your mind.

Thanks Linda for inspiring my kitchen skills today.  Kathy thanks you even more!

I haven’t shared a recipe with you lately.  Here is what I made for myself when Kathy was gone for the weekend.  If you like sausage and sauerkraut this will work for you. There was plenty of leftovers. And it is low fat, low sodium.

1 Hillshire Farm Lite Polska Kielbasa

1 can Frank’s Sweet Bavarian Style Sauerkraut. 

1 can Swanson reduced sodium Chicken Broth

1 onion diced

1 apple cut in wedges.

Fry the onion in olive oil. Dump in the can of kraut and can of broth.  Top with sausage cut into four pieces and the sliced apple.  Get boiling and then cover an simmer for an hour.  Enjoy!

There were 13 entries in the Campground’s “Chili Challenge.”  I always loved Kathy’s recipe and so I decided to enter it.

Lots of campers came to taste and then vote their favorite.  Unfortunately, the crowd did not vote me in to any of the top three places.  But there was some good news – after the crowd stopped tasting my crock-pot was almost empty!  So I must have been up there in the running, seeing that other pots were half full.  At least that is my rationalization or wishful thinking. Whatever.  I still think Kathy’s chili is the cat’s meow.

I think next time I will make a bratwurst chili and cheer for Sheboygan flavor.  Do you think that would work? How could I do it – take the skin off the brat before frying?   I’m going to keep trying as long as I have a spot up here in the campground.

Do any of you have an award winning chili recipe you could share with me and our faithful blog readers?  Don’t be shy – put it out there.  After all, chilly weather is coming and just right for a good hot bowl of the red stuff.

What are they to blame for?  Let me tell you a story.

The Narvesons used to live next door to us.  Avid gardeners, landscapers and Co.Fair prize winning bakers, they picked up stakes and moved to The Cities.  But they left behind a blessing by natural selection.

They had a marvelous patch of raspberries which went into Kim’s jams and jellies.  Heaven in a jar, baby!  But a few birds stole a few berries.  They flew over to our garage and then dropped their raspberry infused bird do-do on the west side of the garage.  Years have gone by and now we have the biggest crop of red raspberries ever!

Kathy makes pies and desserts and we freeze many for the making of a pie in winter.  Nothing better than a taste of summer in January!  I just picked  2 quarts after lunch today.  Kathy likes to do it but she is in the Cities.  She is spending some time with Karin after the Chippewa Bridal Shower.  So I had a raspberry Birdal Shower in memory of our good old neighbors, the Narvesons and their transplating birds.

Each time July and August come around we thank God for the fruit so berry tasty. The we blame it on the Narvesons.

Who do you blame for good fortune?

I was hoping Andy’s sermon about pride and humility would have an impact while people saw me with my arms in the sink washing cups and glasses during the coffee hour. One woman and her daughter helped me slice cake and stir punch after the benediction.  God bless them both for their kindness.

But only one person said near the end of the coffee hour seeing me in the kitchen, “You have to do dishes too? That isn’t right.”  But he walked away without volunteering to take my place over the sink. Golf game maybe.

No mind.  Kathy and I loved the day serving cake and punch and then doing dishes (we are going GREEN you know.)  We had to soak half the dishes while we went off to enjoy a quiet brunch in the exquisite Wisconsin Room and the American Club in Kohler. It was without complaint, in fact it was the best brunch in the Midwest!

We thanked our Jamaican born waiter, Winton,  for his excellent service and went back home to change into comfortable clothes.  Then we went back to church to clean up the rest of the dishes and bag the trash.  Only two bags of stuff instead of three because we washed cups and glasses.  That felt good for the planet and us (We are going GREEN you know.)

We collected the remaining pieces of cake and punch.  Kathy brought the two flower bouquets from the sanctuary and we were off to Aunt Frieda and Emmett’s.  One arrangement was for our home of course but we don’t need two.

Knocking on their Terraced Estates door we woke them from a Sunday afternoon nap.  Frieda smiled at the flowers and Kathy poured them a couple glasses of punch. “Tasty,” they said.

We had a delightful time conversing for about 45 minutes.  We are grateful to God that we have family right here in Sheboygan to love on.  Aunt Frieda has been a second Mom to Kathy after her her mother died.   Such a gracious Lady and selfless servant to her 89-year-old husband.

So, our 34th wedding anniversary fell this time on a Sunday.  So we served our wonderful church family cake and punch.  It won’t be on a Sunday in another seven years.  By that time we will be retired. No repeats. Sorry.

So, I hope those who were there enjoyed it as much as we did serving it.

Have a great week!

I grew up eating fish.  Fish fried, fish boiled, fish baked, fish I caught, fish smoked, fish cakes, fish in jars and fish in cans.  Does this sound fishy?  Not if your ancestry is half Norwegian and Half Swedish. Scandinavian without excuse.

It was not uncommon for my dad to open a small can of King Oscar Sardines and take out a box of Saltines and hand me a cracker and sardine while watching a ballgame on TV.  I grew up with it.  Or Sunday night for supper it was smoked chubs on rye bread with a cucumber and onion salad followed by a pudding called, Danish Dessert.

I thought God made sardines just for us.  However, we humans are just another species waiting in line to dine.  This amazing Video will show you that the sardines that get to the grocery store shelf made it through an army of predators from sea and sky.  Check out, “Sardine Run.”  God’s creation is so glorious!!!  What has nature taught you about the Lord?  Do you like to eat fish?  Any favorite?

7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

⁸ or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.

⁹ Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this? Job 12:7-9

This was what I craved on hot summer days back in the 70’s when I quit work on the golf course.  Eskimo pies.  How and why they were named after Eskimos I have no clue.  You would think an Eskimo pie would be whale blubber topped with whipped milk of seal.  At least this was a frozen treat on a stick  – and how convenient is that?  But I digress.

They were tricky to eat if the temp was above 80 and you were in the sun.  One bite and the chocolate would crack at the edges and then slowly start to slide down onto your fingers like a sled on a snowy hillside.  My first goal was to be able to then take a bite off the bottom without the ice cream kissing my nose.  My second goal was to try and have both the chocolate covering and ice cream come in each bite. Like eating chocolate paper covered with cream. Then again you had to keep rotating the thing as soon as you saw gravity at work.   My last goal was to be able to eat the thing without getting any part of it on my fingers, shirt or front seat of my dad’s car.  Did I say seat of the car?

Oh yea – try eating that while maneuvering a 1960 Plymouth Belvedere down the road with a girl hugging your right hip.  No easy task, I say.  But fun and real sweet after a hard, hot day cutting fairways on an un-air-conditioned Jacobsen 7-gang mower.

Ice cream sandwiches were easier to eat but you had to peel the paper back and hold that if you didn’t want to get your thumb and finger looking like cookie dough mush.

Please note the box – burnt orange and that avocado green color.  Oh so very 70’s.  I better stop writing because I’m starting to hear disco music playing in my head…

By the way – what is your fave summer treat? Can you eat it on a stick?

CHORUS
This lunch is your lunch, this lunch from God’s bunch
From the basement kitchen of Zion Church
From the baloney to the white bread sandwich
This lunch was made for you by me.

As I was shopping the aisles of Wal-Mart
I saw many goodies filling up my shopping cart
I saw below me future lunches made with love
This lunch was made for you by me.
CHORUS
I’ve roamed and rambled with folks out on the margins
From the shopping food coupons to discounts and bargains
And all around me a voice was sounding
This lunch was made for you by me.
CHORUS
The brigade comes smiling down in the church  hall
The sleeves rolled up and answering the mercy call
The hunger was lifting as a voice was chanting
This lunch was made for you by me.
CHORUS
From Fountain Park and the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
Is this lunch made by you for me.

CHORUS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Poem by Steven J. Pedersen for Friday May 29, 2009 and dedicated to the “Lunch Brigade” of Zion Covenant Church who makes and delivers bag lunches to Sheboygan’s special class of God’s children.

“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal. This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history,that word would be ‘Jerusalem.’”  — Teddy Kollek