kochleffel

The Junior Cat is starting to remind me of posts often seen on CC: "The service is terrible, the food isn't good, either, and the portions are so small!"

Well, after all the angst, the Hanukkah dinner and concert were a huge success. The dire predictions that the main course would be inedible (that came from one of the cooks) and that the head cook, after tasting it, would throw it out (from the rabbi's wife), were proved wrong; we did not run out of food; and people who sat right down at tables instead of going out to the front lawn to light the big outdoor hanukkiah (menorah) did not eat all the salad and rolls before those who did go out came to their tables (that was my prediction, but I guess the cohort that used to do that has died out). Here's the big giant menorah from the front lawn. A factor in people's satisfaction was probably that it was the first sit-down dinner in the synagogue since 2019. We had the same reaction at our annual meeting in June, but that was a picnic, with seating in a tent. The meal suggestion would be OK with me, and I will be cooking chicken, because I bought a package of thawed but uncooked kosher chicken (we had 8 packages that weren't used, having ordered by the case), but probably not with that recipe since I don't have the other ingredients. I would pass on the cocktail even though banana and rum, or banana and orange, are good together. I haven't been to Brazil.

I was going to say that cookies should definitely be baked, but yesterday I saw an article about recipes for unbaked cookies. All of them seemed to involve peanut butter or almond butter, iow, they were all rather similar. One of my favorite types of cookie, bourbon balls or rum balls, is unbaked, but made with crumbs of vanilla wafers or graham crackers, which have already been baked. Twins run in my family but not in my direct line. Former Sen. Jeff Flake said once that everyone in his hometown (Snowflake, Ariz.) was a Flake--they were all related--but he was in college before he learned that it sounded odd to say that. Air-fryer meatballs don't sound quite right to me. I'd prefer the sirloin from Roy's alternative menu. Dinner tonight will actually be chicken baked in a sauce, potato latkes with applesauce, roasted carrots, and green salad, with sufganiot (Israeli-style jelly doughnuts, the filling inserted through the top so that a dot of color shows) after the concert. My only role in the cooking was to transfer the dinner rolls from the freezer to pans in the refrigerator so that they can be baked this morning. Fox Run Vineyards is in my region, but I've never visited there. The postal address is Penn Yan, which is the home of Birkett Mills, the largest packer of buckwheat in the U.S., in business since 1797. Buckwheat is a traditional New York crop, introduced by Dutch settlers.

I was once a guest in Cagney's of a Platinum passenger who took the unopened bottle with him at disembarkation, to give to a brother whom he was about to visit. My own first cruise as Platinum is in six weeks, and since I will have a beverage package, I might bring it home. Question: does it count against the U.S. customs exemption?

A fair share of the maple syrup in supermarkets is from Canada. Here we also see New York maple syrup, but never any from Vermont. At the street fair two weeks ago, we sold a lot of ugly Hanukkah sweaters for $10 each; we bought them back when K-Mart was closing stores for 95 cents each. Either of the meal suggestions would be OK with me. I haven't been to Guam. A college friend of mine taught there for a year and came back having learned something useful: how to solder a leaking radiator, which she said her car there required about once a week. I have the romantic, if crazy, idea of traveling from Honolulu to Guam on the Micronesia Island Hopper, a flight originally run by Continental Air Micronesia ("Air Mike") and now by United, that stops at five islands along the way. These include Kwajalein, where passengers without military clearance aren't allowed to leave the plane and sometimes have to keep window shades down. At some of the other islands most passengers leave the plane, if only to get a passport stamp or buy snacks. I don't actually enjoy flying all that much and the plane is a 738--that's the crazy part.

Third reason: women have experienced having doctors minimize or ignore what they report. I'm male, but I once saw a doctor write down "hypochondria" as the diagnosis, and for a long time after that I was reluctant to mention anything that wasn't glaringly obvious. My current doctor has a nurse practitioner speak with all patients, even when he's then going to see them himself, because patients seem to be more forthcoming with a nurse practitioner, even a male NP.

Citizens of the US and Canada, the UK, EU countries, and many other countries can enter Cape Verde without a visa. Will you be traveling on a Canadian passport?

That's what I usually do. On embarkation night, the MDR is sometimes slammed, not only because few people choose specialty dining that night, but also because the embarkation sequence puts everyone on the same schedule and most haven't yet planned any activities that would alter it.

I've booked it! The deciding factor had nothing to do with the actual cruise. I had already intended to stay overnight in Manhattan the night before embarkation--I'll leave my car at the Weehawken ferry terminal--instead of in New Jersey as I've done before. While there is no Met performance that night, I found that tickets are available for Leopoldstadt, for which I'd considered making a trip to New York last month. I've chosen a hotel in the theater district, very near the Longacre Theatre and, if the weather is decent, within walking distance of Pier 88 with rolling luggage.

One thing to consider is that there may be a roll call for a two- or more-segment cruise that includes your segment plus the one before, which may start in an earlier month. Cruise Critic recommends against that, but on some cruise lines, passengers can book a multi-segment cruise as a single itinerary. I have that now with a TATL on Holland America, Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale, where there is a much more active roll call for an itinerary that includes the previous cruise, Athens to Ford Lauderdale. This will make it difficult to plan activities for the consecutive sea days on the TATL portion.

I've visited the UK several times during the winter. Once the agent at border control in Gatwick Airport asked me why I would visit the UK at that time of the year, "with all the terrible weather." I replied that the weather back home was much worse. It is not the only time that I thought UK border control were trying to persuade me not to stay.

Thank you.

Several posts have mentioned Daniel's Madeira Taxis. If you've had a tour with them, could you say which tour it was? The list of those currently offered, other than custom tours, is at https://danielmadeirataxis.com/tours-excursions/.

The synagogue announced a little while ago that services tonight and tomorrow morning will be Zoom only. This surprises me, because the roads are completely passable. I'm trying to make up my mind about a 5-day cruise to Bermuda, from New York, at the beginning of February. It's in place of the New Orleans cruise that I cancelled, from which I have a credit for the deposit, and because otherwise I will likely retire with unused vacation. I tried to book it last night, but "something went wrong" on the website. This morning I'm having doubts: will it be a party cruise? (Probably not even though it's just five days, considering that young singles don't go to Bermuda--on my Bermuda Triangle cruise last year, the few young people were newlyweds.) I would be less hesitant if the Met Opera had a performance the night before embarkation.

The meal suggestion would be OK with me, and French-bread pizza is available in the supermarket, although not kosher, so I would make it myself from kosher ingredients (my practice allows cheese from North America, the UK and the EU). The alternative main course would not be OK for me. Funchal is on my itinerary for the Spanish Farewell next year. We've had only another half-inch of "that stuff" since last night. It's still coming down, but the temperature is above freezing and will get a bit higher. One of my adult students who is studying for conversion to Judaism was supposed to go to the beit din (rabbinic court) and mikveh (ritual bath) this morning, but the latter is 30 miles away and she has rescheduled it for Monday.

I just got a start. I wanted to see how much you-know-what had fallen since my shoveling this afternoon. It is hard to tell from upstairs, especially at night, so I went downstairs, turned on the outside lighting, and opened the front door. There was a deer right in front of the door.

Back in from shoveling the you-know-what. There's only about an inch of it and it's 34°, so it's melting at the pavement, making it slippery. When I stepped into the street to get the mail, I used the shovel as a walking stick. The UPS package was actually SurePost, so it was in the mailbox. The Fedex package isn't coming today; this morning it was still in Ohio. I woke up at 5:30 a.m., and before going outside I tried to have a nap with the Junior Cat, but she did all the sleeping.

Sorry not to have seen, and replied to, this earlier. IME, the tours that they list for each port can take individual bookings and they will match you with others for it. There is a risk that the tour you choose won't reach critical mass, and they handled it OK for me but from reports here, not always for others. The same tours can be booked as private tours, for which you would assemble your own group, or they can construct one to suit your interests. I toured with them in Barcelona on a cruise that interported between Barcelona and Rome, so for some passengers it was disembarkation day, for others it was embarkation day, and for those who embarked at Rome, it was an ordinary port call. They did fine with sorting out who needed to be picked up from a hotel and taken to the ship at the end, who needed to be picked up at the ship and taken to the airport at the end, and who was both coming from and returning to the ship.

That's unfortunate. I had booked with them for Palma in 2018 and the group didn't reach critical mass, but they moved me to another group with the same itinerary. They hadn't assigned me to it initially because it was a group of eight women traveling together, but I had a great time. I also used them in Barcelona and was pleased. They couldn't include the Jewish quarter in a tour because the streets are so narrow, but they recommended one that would end near it and gave me directions for visiting on foot. I will probably book with them again in 2023, for a few ports at the beginning of a transatlantic cruise, and for a tour to Toledo from Madrid, where I'm staying before embarking from Barcelona.

Indeed you can, and they'll ship next week. Insurance, including Medicare, will also cover them, but since they're not a pharmacy item, you might have to file the claim yourself.

I've discovered that when I ask in a store for superfine sugar (as the Domino package calls it), they often look at me like I was speaking some other language and then direct me to the natural-foods section. If there isn't any in the baking supplies, sometimes it can be found in the beverage section, as it's also used in bartending.

So far we have only a dusting of you-know-what, but all schools are closed and the public library is closing at noon. Neither of my deliveries has arrived. Later: it's starting to accumulate.

Regifting isn't big for me, because I receive very few gifts to begin with. The Junior Cat, whom I don't try to herd (not worth the effort), doesn't even give me dead mice. I like tea in the sense of an English "afternoon tea," but don't drink much tea otherwise. I don't know the wine, but Meritage is also produced here in the Finger Lakes. It's a trademark name that originated in California to denote a Bordeaux-style blend without infringing the Bordeaux appellation, chosen because most such blends can't be labeled as varietals, but growers trying to make, and charge for, fine wines didn't want to label them just "red" or "white." The Meritage Association gets a fee for every bottle, and specifies what grapes can be used. "A red Meritage must be made from a blend of at least two of the following varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, St. Macaire, Gros Verdot, or Carmenère, with no variety comprising more than 90 percent of the blend. A white Meritage must be made from a blend of at least two or more of the following varieties: Sauvignon blanc, Sémillon, or Muscadelle du Bordelais, with no variety comprising more than 90 percent of the blend." I have been to Saint John, a long time ago after visiting former colleagues in Sackville, NB, and in 2018 on the Norwegian Gem.It was raining and my photos aren't great, but here's one taken in the market: haggis-flavored crisps (chips).

Rich, what is the source for the maps?

The weather forecast has changed again. Now, s-n-o-w is expected to begin within an hour, with 4 inches falling today and 4 more overnight, but not much during the day on Friday. The Junior Cat likes to help me fold laundry even though cats are not good at that. I have no gifts to wrap: my shopping is done, and it's all gift cards and Frangos, which come wrapped.