A blossom by any other name...

... would taste as sweet?

On the advice of a friend, and because we planted pumpkins this year, I plucked some pumpkin blossoms and fried them last night.

They were very good. Now let me disclaim at this point that they were bathed in milk and eggs and dredged in crackers and fried in butter, so I suppose it was inevitable that I'd like them.

So I guess fried pumpkin blossoms do indeed have my endorsement, another mild culinary surprise for me. A darned tasty one, to be sure.

well and truly hurled

I have recently begun playing vintage baseball. This is a league that plays baseball by the rules established inteh 19th century (1858 for our league to be exact). the picture above is an amalgam from a set of pictures taken by my friend Kyle who came to the last game. Click on the photo for the larger version.

Fun stuff, and more pictures and links will follow.

'tis the prettiest little parlour...

Today I took a vacation day and we all went down to the Museum of Science and Industry. It is a fabulous, and huge museum. I grew up in the DC area, so I know fabulous, huge museums when I see them. The main exhibits right now are Leonardo Da Vinci, and Frogs. We missed Leonardo but we caught the frogs. Oh boy are they a treat. There were big ones (the guy above is the American Bull Frog -- click the picture for a full-screen view of his pretty face; and the African Bull Frog which was even bigger and looked exactly, exactly, exactly like Jabba the Hutt. IN fact I invite you to go here and then you too can believe that George Lucus had inspiration), little ones (tiny yellow guys the size of your fingernails), bright ones, camouflaged ones that look exactly like moss, and one that was a pretty pale yellow which is considered the most poisonous creature in the world -- touching its skin can kill a person.

I will hopefully get one or two more usable pictures to post.

We saw an amazing model of Seattle and Chicago and the rail system in between, the coal mine (complete with a train ride into the belly of a mine), the fairy house, the idea factory for kids, the old-time main street (and old-fashioned ice cream parlour (because I am a good father my son knew to ask if this was the same kind of parlour from Mary Howitt's The Spider and the Fly (as in, "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the Spider to the Fly?"). I assured him that it was not.)), the outside of u-505 the submarine the US captured in WWII, the Deere Tractor and Combine, and other and sundry exhibits, all of which were great.

A super day.

cricket

It's been years, but after cleaning the basement a bit and finding the board, I'm back and loving it! Awaiting the next get-together with Sally, so we can hang one up and re-live the old times.

Give me that old time religion

The religion of baseball of course. I have joined the Elk Grove Bucks of the Vintage Baseball League. The rules are those of the year 1858, no gloves, you can catch the ball on a bounce for an out, and you wear long, woolen uniforms in deepest summer. I believe I will be a scout (outfielder) for the team.