Much variety today: sun this morning, thunderstorms this afternoon, even a cold breeze in between before it got smothery again. Plus we have had experiments in cooking that went rather well.

This morning James was awakened early by a power failure, the perils of having a C-PAP unit, after my stupid alarm clock went off (forgot it was still on), so he cooked up some of the Nora Mill pioneer porridge, which is multigrain: cracked wheat, white and yellow corn, and rice. We always have a sample of what they cook when we go up to Helen for Atomicon, even if it's a hot day, because it's so good. He also did this in the little rice cooker that we bought at Fry's, so that investment has been a great one; he cooked it plain, and added the suggested sugar and butter afterwards, but we think next time we will follow the suggestions more, with at least four tablespoons of brown sugar and some butter. He also cooked up the rest of the Pine Street Market bacon which we get from the Marietta Farmer's Market. It's thick and delicious. James cooked them in the microwave this time, in our bacon plate so that we ingested as little bacon grease as possible, but this is great bacon, too; it barely has half the grease of supermarket bacon.

Today was our expedition to BJs; we also found Camping World up off Highway 92 and did check out the store and a few of the motor homes, but it was after noon, getting hot, and I didn't have my hat and my stomach was bothering me, so we left it for another time when we could get there when they opened and it would be cooler. We stocked up on needed supplies at BJs, including Chex mix and Kleenex, and on impulse I picked up a 2 1/2 pound pork loin. When we got home and after we had the refrigerables stored, I put a few tablespoons of brown sugar, teriyaki sauce, sweet soy sauce and black sauce into the crock pot, mixed in some water along with some garlic powder, and cooked it for the rest of the afternoon. In the meantime we drove to Publix to get a couple of bananas for my lunch, a newspaper, a baguette, and we also picked up a container of watermelon. The thunderstorm had come rolling in by then, big pillowy dark-grey clouds swollen with moisture, lightning in the distance, and it was still rumbling there as we briefly stopped by Kroger for James to get gasoline. It rumbled off and on all night and the power dropped off for a second at least once.

This afternoon while the pork was cooking we watched Wings, the very first Academy Award winning film, which was recently restored with loving care—a lot of work because in some cases they were working from a print of a print which had started to deteriorate from the use of nitrate in the film then. The plot is simple: it's 1917 and two small-town buddies, David, a rich boy, and Jack, a middle-class lad who dreams of flying, are vying for the attention of Sylvia, a city girl. Mary, the "girl next door," has always liked Jack and even names his new roadster "Shooting Star," but he can't see her for Sylvia's glamor. Then World War I breaks out. Dave and Jack become flyers—some humorous sequences in boot camp with a man of German extraction who has the flag tattooed on his arm to prove his patriotism—and are sent to France to "fight the Hun," while Mary, who knows how to drive from having custody of the Shooting Star, becomes an ambulance driver, and the film chronicles their adventures. The climax is rather Victorianly dramatic, but still raises a tear. The restoration is impressive: clear, sharp picture with a sepia tint, and when planes are shot down or machine guns fire, there is hand-coloring of the flame.

Dinner was great. The pork was done to a tender turn, James made an au jus out of the marinade, and we had cucumbers for a salad. I could "zoop" some of my baguette in the juice while he had some spicy leftover rice. The watermelon was a delightful dessert.

There was time to watch a How the States Got Their Shapes episode before Alaska, the Last Frontier came on. Later we'll watch the next episode of North America.

Labels: food, movies, shopping, television, weather

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:46:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment