Fantastic Food & All Day Church

Friday night, we went to dinner at The Winds. Every October, they have their amazing squash & pumpkin lasagna on the menu & we wanted to make sure not to miss that! We split spidini with bagna cauda for our appetizer. It was served with a couple of perfect tomato slices. I ordered the lasagna & J got their terrific chicken piccata, with a side of citrus green beans. My side was wonderfully crisp cold broccoli. For dessert, we split the white chocolate eclairs with raspberry sauce drizzled over them. They were good, but I was so curious about the sweet corn & black raspberry ice cream that I wish we'd ordered that instead. Our waiter, whose judgment I trust completely, said that the corn acts sort of like the addition of malt would, giving it a rich flavor that is detectable as corn, but doesn't have the "eeewwww" factor you might expect.

Saturday, we went to a UCC membership class from 9-2. It was interesting, but was an awfully long time for J to sit still. We went ahead & joined, although we are keeping our Presbyterian membership, as well. One foot in each church...very interesting. After the class, we poked around the mall & bookstore. I picked up some nutritional yeast so I can have good popcorn again. We found some books for the boys & I got three myself (Spong's book about rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism, Peter Gomes' The Good Book, and Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Aagin for the First Time...this progressive Christianity stuff is quite refreshing). We saw Evvi's car parked there, but couldn't find her in any of the surrounding stores. So, we had chips & something to drink at Friday's before heading to the 5:30 UCC service. After the service, we went back to the mall & got some snuggy cardigans for the cool weather we've been having. Then, we went to El Meson for dinner. I just love it there. We split a chorizo & serrano ham sampler and some Filipino lumpia for appetizers. Then, I had grilled mahi-mahi with lime & olive oil. J had carne asada. For dessert, we split the dulce de leche con moros. Mmm...it's the only place in the area that makes real dulce de leche.

Sunday morning, we attended the Presbyterian church. Brendan was gone on retreat, so we had a guest pastor who did a great sermon on stewardship. After coffee hour, and some time spent with my grands, we ran some errands. J made herself sick reading in the car, so I made her lie down while I did some cleaning & organizing in the basement. Then, we went to a rubber stamping party at the UCC. I thought it was going to be a stamping session to make cards for he card ministry, but it turned out to be one of those dreaded selling parties. It was fun to make a couple of cards, but I greatly dislike selling parties, whether Tupperware, Pampered Chef, or whatever. I felt especially growly when the woman doing the party kept telling us, "It's all about the creativity" when we had specific patterns for the cards & specific stamps & colors we were supposed to use. I would never have dragged J there had I known. But, she got to have some great snickerdoodles & she is now all fired up to make our Christmas cards ourselves. Love the idea, but not very happy with her idea to use the family picture for them. For one, I look like a cow. For another, it just seems cheesy to me. I hate studio portraits from places like Olan Mills. I mush prefer something more creative. Maybe we can make cards for her family using the photos. A compromise.

Sunday night, I made chicken carrot chowder. We fed Pie, who was the only boy who was hungry, before putting them to bed. Then, we had our soup with some multi-grain bread in front of the t.v.