God Bless America

Kristie loves Martin Luther King. She has books and tapes and loves to hear him talk. Today our country honors him. As well it should.

I'm watching Barak Obama on CNN right now helping to paint a teen center. How great is our country?! Thank God we live in America. I wish we could have gone to Washington DC to watch this historic event. I'm DVRing it all day tomorrow since I have to take Kristie to get labs in the morning and won't be home until after 2 p.m. Then I have my Women's Group tomorrow evening.



God Blessed America with Barak Obama. I'm a Republican and a Democrat. I believe government should help people (especially the most vulnerable) and our leaders should work together to make that happen. I can't wait to see what the next 4 years will bring. My hope is he will unite our country.

So today, we left the house at 6:15 a.m. and arrived home at 2:15 p.m. Sigh. Kristie had her stint taken out of her bladder. Dr. Chapman also "tested" the link between her new kidney and her bladder to make sure it was not blocked; it wasn't. At least they didn't cut her open, they went thru her you know what. Good grief.

When Kristie comes out of anesthesia, she always asks me two things. First, she asks me if I'm mad at her. Next, she asks me if I still love her. She's done this 4 times in the last 6 months, after each procedure. It breaks my heart each time.

I forgot to mention that I'm taking a series of cooking classes at Culinary Communion. My first class was last Wednesday and even though Kristie was still in the hospital and I was dead tired, I still went. It's a 3 hour class and then we eat our food!

I LOVED IT!

There are 8 in my class - 5 men and 3 women. I'm the oldest (which suprises me because I expected older women to attend this class) and the most experienced cook and the only one that said "I love to cook" while introducing ourselves.

Our instructor chef is Tom Black who was the Executive Chef at the Barking Frog Restaurant; that restaurant is #2 is our state. Its exquisite food. Nigel and I ate there once (its rather spendy) and we would definitely go again.

So, like I said we cooked for 3 hours. There were 8 of us and 8 dishes. Here was the menu:

Salad with blue cheese and cranberries
Green Goddess Dressing
French Onion Soup
Pork Chops with Fresh Herb Sauce
Sauteed Wild Mushrooms
Spaetzle
Sauteed Green Beans with Bacon
Myer Lemon and Goat Cheese Tart

YUMMY! We were each assigned a dish and I chose the French Onion Soup.

We all started by learning to slice an onion correctly and holding our knife correctly. After each of us sliced our onion, I carmalized all of them in a huge pot (not saute pan) using only 1 T of butter. It was amazing. Took a while but an amazing result.

Our instructor poured us some wine and it was so fun just cooking, drinking wine, visiting with the other students.

Chef Tom said that my onions were carmalized perfectly and called the students over to look at them. Nice. Lots of roasty toasty flavor.

I learned that caramalizing onions doesn't depend on butter or the pan. It just takes time.

I learned not to peel garlic by smashing it. If you smash it, the juices stick to the peel which you throw away.

I learned to throw away my butcher block that holds my knives because bacteria grows in the slots. (Hmmm, I've had that butcher block for over 10 years.)

I learned to get my cook's knives professionally sharpened.

We're going to learn about roasting, steaming,sauteing, braising...I can't wait to learn how to properly braise.

And I can't wait to learn how to make homemade chicken stock.

The French Onion Soup was delicious (mainly because the homemade chicken stock was to die for.)

So much fun! I can't wait for Wednesday night's class!