Corned beef is salt-cured brisket of beef. But why is it called corned beef? Glad you asked. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large-grained rock salt, also called “corns” of salt. Ahh. You can rinse the salt off the meat before you cook it or leave it on. Slow cook your corned beef for several hours in your crock pot or oven with a Guinness or a dark stout beer, a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, bay leaves, then add your cabbage, potatoes, and carrots later. At our house, we roast our vegetables separately. The left overs, if you have any, can be used to make corned beef hash for breakfast on Sunday morning. Diced potatoes, onions, and corned beef. Make little spoon indentions in the hash, break your eggs, then cover until the eggs are cooked to your liking, add a piece of toast or biscuits, and you have a special one-dish meal. Way better than anything in a can. Or how about Reuben sandwiches with sauerkraut, rye bread, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing. I may have to cook two corned beefs so I can guarantee leftovers. Luck of the Irish!
I do not mean to brag, but I put together a puzzle in one day, and the box said 2-4 years.
English soccer club Forest Green Rovers will wear soccer shirts made of recycled coffee grounds. The tag on the shirts says 35% recycled coffee grounds, and 65% recycled polyester. I watched a video that said typically, three cups of bean waste and five plastic water bottles are used to make one shirt. The club has been recognized as the “world’s greenest football club.” Daylight Saving Time this weekend…spring forward.
Throughout COVID, Brazoria County waived certain vehicle title and registration requirements, but that will end April 14, 2021. So, if you are overdue, it is time to renew. I am long overdue. NASA launched a pickup truck-size satellite that will track global sea levels for the next 5-years. Harry’s introduced new sharper blades saying the eighth shave is just as smooth as the first. Americans are drinking 40% less milk now, than in 1975. Now, why is that? Because there is almond, rice, oat, hemp, soy, and coconut milk to choose from now. People lost $304 million dollars to romance scams in 2020. Some dating apps and social media con people out of so much money, especially when you are lonesome in a COVID world. Long-running soap drama, Days of Our Lives, is turning 55 this year. It debuted in 1965. My son and I sat down to watch the new Coming 2 America where Eddie Murphy discovers he fathered a son before he left America to go back to Zamunda. Tom & Jerry are returning to the screen in a new movie that has real people in it, on HBO Max. The duo was created in 1940.
If Godzilla existed in real life, he would not be able to stand up. He would weigh around 90,000tons and his skeleton could not possibly support his weight. His heart would have to be much bigger to pump blood all the way to his head. He would not have time to fight because he would be sunbathing to heat up his body. Such well-meaning information to be used in your everyday life.
The past couple of weeks, I have been going back and forth to Waco to help my mom move to a new retirement community. I came home late Friday night to find very few groceries left in the house. A review of the refrigerator found two bundles of asparagus that had been fresh at one time, three big parsnips, one single shriveled jalapeno, and a large onion. I cut everything up and roasted it on high heat with olive oil and lemon pepper. While that was in the oven, I whipped up some seasoned chicken broth, dumped all the roasted vegetables in the pot and attacked it with my emersion blender, adding just a little milk, and waa-lah, a delicious cream soup. I just enjoyed a bowl for lunch today. That goes to show that you can make something out of nothing. I don’t know about you, but I have become less wasteful since COVID.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Singer Kiki Dee is 74. TV personality John Stossel is 74. Singer-guitarist Mike Pender of The Searchers is 80. Actor Paula Prentiss is 83. The Stepford Wives. Movie director Adrian Lyne is 80. Fatal Attraction. Musician Emilio Estefan of the Miami Sound Machine is 68. Actor Catherine O’Hara is 67. Home Alone. Magician Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller is 66. Guitarist David Gilmour of Pink Floyd is 75. Guitarist Jimmie Fadden of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is 72. Actor Chuck Norris is 80.
Actress Juliette Binoche is 56.Chocolat,The English Patient. Singer Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean is 80. Actress Katharine Houghton is 78. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Guitarist Tom Scholz of Boston is 73. Actress Sharon Stone is 62. Magician Lance Burton is 60. TV journalist Sam Donaldson is 86. Singer Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge is 73. Singer Bobby McFerrin is 70. Country singer Jimmy Fortune of The Statler Brothers is 65. Actress Barbara Feldon is 87. Get Smart. Actress-singer Liza Minnelli is 74.
Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 72. Singer Bill Payne of Little Feat is 71. Actor Jon Provost is 70. Young Timmy in Lassie. Singer Marlon Jackson of The Jackson Five is 63. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 81. Actor William H. Macy is 70. Actress Dana Delaneyis 64. China Beach. Actor Michael Caine is 87. Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 87. Country singer Michael Martin Murphey is 75. Songwriter Carole Bayer Sager is 76.Actor-director Rob Reiner is 74. Meathead. Comedian Billy Crystal is 72.
Singer Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders is 78.Actor-Director Micky Dolenz of The Monkees is 75. (When I was 13, I planned to marry him.) Bassist Randy Meisner of The Eagles & Poco, is 74. Singer Peggy March is 72. I Will Follow Him. NBC News anchor Lester Holt is 61. Singer Lloyd Price is 87. Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Personality. Country singer Mickey Gilley is 84.Singer John Cale of The Velvet Underground is 78. TV anchor Charles Gibson is 77. Guitarist Robin Trower of Procol Harum is 75. A Whiter Shade of Pale. Actor Emmanuel Lewis is 49. Webster. Happy 90th Birthday to our customer, Judson Reed Gresham.
The Moroccan landscape painted by Winston Churchill and owned by Angelina Jolie that I told you about a couple of weeks ago, sold at auction for $11.5 million. It was estimated before the sale to bring between $2 to $3 million. Quite a difference. It is a beautiful painting. A pair of velvet monogramed slippers with Churchill’s initials sold for over $55,000 and his initialed brandy glass sold for over $25,000.
Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural and religious celebration held on March 17th, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Each year, thousands of Irish Americans gather with their loved ones on St. Patrick’s Day to share a “traditional” meal of corned beef & cabbage. Though cabbage has long been an Irish food, corned beef only began to be associated with St. Patrick’s Day at the turn of the century. Irish immigrants living on New York City’s Lower East Side substituted corned beef for their traditional dish of Irish bacon to save money, learning of the cheaper alternative from their Jewish neighbors. Irish bacon is traditionally made from the back of the pig as opposed to the pork belly commonly used in American bacon, more like Canadian bacon. Both Canadian and Irish bacon are referred to as back bacon, but the Irish variety has more fat, and often cut into a round shape. More than likely the tradition of green beer started with the Irish tradition of dropping a clover in one’s drink, then drinking it all down for good luck.
MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist, and former wife of Jeff Bezos, married Seattle science& chemistry teacher Dan Jewett. He expressed gratitude saying, “…and now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know – and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others.” In 2020, Scott donated $5.7 billion.
I survived: spankings, lead paint, wooden playgrounds, second-hand smoke, toy guns, no seatbelts, nobike helmets, playing without supervision, riding in the back of a pickup, and metal slides in August. Thanks, brother. It got me thinking…remember Tang? Yes, we drank it and liked it. Candy cigarettes. Loved to pretend we were smoking. Spyder bikes with banana seats. I would have given anything to have one. Bonanza. No one would let me stay up past 8 to watch it. The popsicle man. He drove past my Granny’s house daily, always stopping to give popsicles to the neighbor’s two Saint Bernard dogs. Pond’s Cold Cream and Jergens Lotion. My grandma used both, but the ones today do not smell the same. Toni Home permanent waves. My mom always gave me a perm the day before school pictures. Camel cigarettes. My dad smoked when I was young and always had a pack stuffed next to his shirt pocket protector and slide rule. Big Red soda pop. Created in 1937 in Waco, Texas. Transistor radios. Mine was pale blue with skinny telescopic antenna. Mrs. Baird’s bread. Nothing better than white bread. Flintstones. I still have my Pebbles doll. Never got Bam-Bam. Princess phones. I wanted a blue one so bad. Woolworth’s. Perhaps this is why I love dollar stores. Jolly Green Giant. HOHOHO, Green Giant. Kool-Aid. Loads of white sugar. Got to stop now, but this was fun to think back a few moments to childhood. While moving my mom, we went back in time a bunch.
Years ago, this was printed in Newsweek. Bandleader Buddy Brock passed away in 2007, but I find this makes me laugh because I love composting. “In Houston, Texas, bandleader Buddy Brock is so fanatical about the quality of his compost that a neighbor once said, ‘I hope I’m never run over in front of Brock’s house. He’d throw me on the compost heap and then boast about what a good source of mineral I was.’” Now is a perfect time to start your compost heap. Your plants will love you for it. There is a lot of dead available right now because everything froze. I use Tractor Supply fire rings to contain my compost. Scraps, clippings, banana peels, eggshells, coffee grounds… you’ll have beautiful compost in no time.
There is nothing better than a good garage or yard sale. A small porcelain bowl purchased for $35 at a Connecticut yard sale turned out to be a rare, 15th century Chinese artifact worth between $300,000 and $500,000 that is about to go up for auction. It is a 6-inch white bowl with cobalt blue painting of flowers and designs. The piece is one of only seven such bowls known to exist in the world.
Trekkies: The original Star Trek TV series premiered September 8, 1966, therefore, will be 55 years old this year. Most people don’t realize that it ran for barely three seasons and was canceled due to low ratings. Two models of the U.S.S. Enterprise were used for exterior shots. One was 33 inches long and the other 11 feet long. Leonard Nimoy’sVulcan salute meaning “Live long and prosper,” was based on a Jewish hand gesture for the Hebrew letter Shin, representing the word Shaddai, a name for God.
General Motors will stop making gas-powered passenger cars, trucks, and SUV’s by 2035. “General Motors is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world,” CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “We encourage others to follow suit and make a significant impact on our industry and on the economy as a whole.” California, one of the largest vehicle markets in the U.S., announced plans to ban sales of gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035.
St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th, and I was reminded of this. Ever since my 21-year-old daughter was little bitty, she has loved spring clover patches. She would lay down and make clover angels (like snow angels but way more stains on your clothes.) When she looks down, she doesn’t find just one four-leaf clover, she finds several. It is weird. I can search with her and never see a single one. Today, as I walked out of the kitchen, I noticed several drying on top of the countertop.
I hate spoilers, but I would sure love to find out how 2021 ends. Thanks for hanging with us this week. If you have something to sell, please place an ad. It is only $5. Small businesses need your help. Lisa
