Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

[jpalbny]

Lois, that sounds great! You will enjoy it.

 

M, we are working all of Christmas week...again. Trying not to be too grumpy about it. We put up a tree the weekend before last; here it is after the lights and before the ornaments. Looks nice on the new floor. The towels are down to protect the floor from the stepladders that we used while decorating. It's not my usual decor...

 

 

Not so many food pix lately so here are a few.

 

Some burgers, made on the stove instead of the grill, when it was beastly cold out a week or so ago. I used to grill in any weather but I these days I have become soft, lazy, smart, whatever. The one good part about burgers on a grill pan is that the cheese dripping off the edge gets crispy as it fries on the pan, and you can scoop it up and put it back on top of the burger. Yum!

 

 

Here is a simple but traditional Ukrainian meal. We went to the Eastern European market here in town and picked up some Ukrainian sausage (Kobasa). Simply made with boiled potatoes and horseradish sauce. So easy to make but so tasty and satisfying. When my sister was here last weekend she ate the rest of the sausage so now we have to go get more. She's coming back this weekend for more!

 

 

An old favorite meal that we made tonight. Pork chop pounded thin and breaded, served with tomatoes, herbs, and vinaigrette over arugula. We had the original version years ago in a restaurant, with a veal chop.

 

 

Here I am with my pipsqueak of a niece Lily, the night before Thanksgiving at my brother's place in Ithaca. I bought the kids some Halloween candy when we were in Virginia last month, and I brought it to them on Thanksgiving when we visited. I have a candy eyeball stuck in my eye and Lily has some candy teeth. Chris says that I look like Mad-eye Moody in this picture. I have to agree.

 

 

And one more meal from a few nights ago. Veal meatballs in a mustard-cream sauce (I substituted Greek yogurt to cut the fat). Served over Spaetzle. We had leftovers for lunch today and it was just as good. If not better!

 

 

Sipping a Gin and Tonic before bed. The last week on call was pretty brutal but I have a few weeks off before Christmas to recover. And he big trip is only about 4 weeks from now, so lots to look forward to!

[mysty]

JP...your meals look delish!  Love your tree!  your home is beautiful!  No decorating happening here.  Just Myster and me rumbling around and neither of us is into expending the energy.  We're concentrating on ticking things off our to-do list at this point.  Hope your lead up to Christmas is relatively calm!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny for dog lovers.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[Lois R]

Good morning, JP, the food looks delicious and I have made my burgers on the stove top for many years. I love a good burger

 

No decorations here for me either.  Mysty, some of those are VERY funny......the silent fart? LOL

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good afternoon all from a rainy, grey and politically challenged UK today .....

 

Lovely food as usual JP!  I have been exceptionally lazy with just some oysters and some rustic baguettes andmsome sauvignon.

 

 

 

 

[mysty]

Looks awesome J!  Political challenges are frustrating.  It's like cats in a bag!  😞

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny....a snippet on the winter dance of Mysty and Myster.....

 

Have a great day all!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny .......

 

 

Is this your tree now JP?  🙂

 

Have a great day all!

[jpalbny]

Haha, the one cat who we have left doesn't climb trees, thankfully. Or if she does, she only does it when we're not home. She really does like to lie under it, though. And she will eat tinsel now and then.

 

One of our cats climbed the tree years ago and knocked stuff off. That made it a challenge to have a tree in the foyer (with marble flooring). 

 

They are funny critters!

[mysty]

Your remaining cat may have a contract with a clean-up service JP!  🙂

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Evening all ...... 

 

Very quiet here!  Not really much going on here .... preping for our trip.  Ordered a DJI Osmo Pocket to try and take less shakey video.  Bought wifey a shiney new phone as her current one was dire.  Was missing Vienna for Christmas markets although we were only there in September, and we were close to booking a last minute trip because there there is a once in a lifetime Bruegel exhibition in Vienna ... but the tickets were a challenge so I bought the book instead.  A wonderful book for any Bruegel fan. 

 

https://www.bruegel2018.at/?L=1

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/3836556898/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

And today was kebabs and tonight was our daily bread ...

 

 

 

[Lois R]

Hi Jeff, I always love your food photos!

 

Well, the company I work for had a BIG HACK...…..we have branches in 9 states and our HQ is here where I live.

We had no computers today at all......nothing, nada, zilch, zip.. I. T. could not fix it and so from what we have been told, they are bringing in a specialist.  Hopefully Monday we will be running again...……(we can only hope). It affected the entire company!

 

Hope all of you have a good weekend.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Again J....your meal looks yummy.  The new purchases sound great as well!

 

Lois...hope your IT department gets things straightened out.  So much nasty in the world.

 

Today's funny offers a solution for dealing with one form of nasty and comes courtesy of Miss S.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[MissSophia]

Hi All....

 

M...l liked that funny!

 

JP...your festive trimmings look lovely...hope they don’t work you too hard pre Christmas!

Jeffers....I’m looking into doing a Christmas Market next year as my cruise schedule is being altered to accommodate one’s DD 40th Birthday celebrations in November.....Vienna is top of my list as I’ve never been there.

 

Lois....hope your network is back up soon...enyoy the break in the meantime!

 

Have more or less finished the house Xmas decorations so can now concentrate on the food goodies...daughter and l have been out today leisurely browsing and enjoying the local choirs and brass bands performing in the stores.....always brings a tear to my eyes to see them all.....

 

I see today is the anniversary of John Lennons demise....so sad as he wrote some amazing songs along with Sir Paul.....it reminds me of my teenage years when the Mersey Beat in Liverpool brought out some amazing talent which l was lucky enough to be part of.....IMAGINE the thrill of those heady days...☺️

 

Happy Weekend 😊

[Lois R]

Happy Saturday. Hi Sophia, nice to see you again.  No break really as there is always stuff to do in the office but it will certainly make things easier when the computers are working!  I am hoping Monday will be giving us some good news.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Evening All,  from a cold Hampshire where I'm waiting for the bread to finish baking.

 

Sophia ... sad indeed about Lennon although in the 60's Liverpool seemed so far away from London.  Coincidental to the Lennon memory, I was reading this week that Scott English a relatively unknown pop composer passed at the age of 81 a feww days ago.  He wrote many songs including "Mandy"  (originally Brandy) which was eventually performed by Manilow.  What interested me in the story of his life was reading that he wrote "Hi, Ho, Silver Lining".   I was intrigued by this because a good and close mate of mine in "The 60's" was Richard Shirman who had a group that was not famous called "The Attack".  I use to share many days drinking frothy coffee in the Giaconda in Denmark Street with him and beers in the evening in The Ship in Wardour Street,  and they recorded Hi Ho Silver Lining a week or two before Jeff Beck made his name  with it.  Richard always asserted that he composed the song and as this was before the internet and Google, I had no reason to disbelieve him.  Until now.  It transpires Scott wrote it and as Richard died in July 2017 I guess the secret stayed with him. 

 

It made me think about how much we can now learn and check and teach ourselves now we have Google.  

 

The smell of the bread beckons .....

 

Piccies added ... hope you can smell them .... 

Edited December 9, 2018 by UKCruiseJeff

[mysty]

Yes, the wonderful aroma of bread is wafting through the air.  Heavenly!

 

You have such interesting stories J!  Thanks for sharing them.  As regards our ability to learn and check and teach ourselves I read an interesting article this week about the "fact checkers" employed by news organizations, magazine and even book publishers.  It seems like a growing industry.  Maybe because of the spate of "fake news".  Critical thinking is required to navigate the mire.  Put your muck boots on.  🙂

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi M,

 

I suspect it is mostly a product of living in Central London in the 60’s which to us Londoners felt like it was the center of the world where many gravitated to.  It has also seemed somewhat weird to me how small the world really feels when the paths we tread are often along roads shared by virtual societies.  So it seems that for example anyone in the music industry in the 60’s and 70’s  seemed to know everyone and everyone knew them.  In an ironic way considering how geographically stumped we were in the 60’s before cheap travel and the routes of communication we now have it seemed that people seemed nevertheless to form small communities. I suspect it is still like that in some industries today. 

 

 

[mysty]

Calls to mind the song called In Crowd (1966) by The Mamas and The Papas (although obviously not the London crowd):

 

"I'm in with the in crowd
I'll go where the in crowd goes
I'm in with the in crowd
And I know what the in crowd knows"

 

🙂

[MBP&O2/O]

I would like to say that London in the 60’s was before my time .... but alas 😢

 

A spell at college (KE7) (on Salmon Road I believe?) and a semi-permanent pass for the Prospect Of Whitby.

 

A ‘lifeboat’ course at St Katharine Dock ... which when push came to shove was as much use as the proverbial chocolate fireguard 😀

 

Good time though ...

[UKCruiseJeff]

I don’t know how far you travelled, but I use to play records at the Lord Stanley at Plaistow on Tuesday and Thursday nights for a while.  Only a few miles from The Prosepct.  It was a grim place,  but needs must.  

[tgh]

Does/has the Queen biopic stirred any memories Jeff?

 

[UKCruiseJeff]

56 minutes ago, tgh said:

Does/has the Queen biopic stirred any memories Jeff?

 

 

Odd you should ask, but indirectly “Yes”.  The biopic was preceded by Freddie Mercury’s biography which I thought might be interesting.

 

I mentioned up-thread The Giaconda in Denmark Street.  This was a place that people hustled and were hustled and many gravitated there to share their  unused bits of day. Reg Dwight aka Elton John worked as a dog’s body in Dick James Music a few yards away and use to pop in for the office  sandwiches.  

 

In around 1966 or so, perhaps,a year or so earlier, it was the Giaconda that was where much of the cast of Hair was recruited.  Basically they were looking for musicians and singers in bulk and I knew many of the people that went on to be in the show.  I was asked but I was actually too young and thank g*d for that!  One of the best  was Peter Straker. He had a sublime voice and a really rich melodic very British speaking voice and he went on to be one of the stars. He is on the UK album of the show if you are interested.  

 

We stayed in touch for a while but I didn’t see him after the 60’s or early 70’s when our directions changed.  I sometimes saw his name crop up.  He had a few TV appearances, then a few months ago, in the biography it transpired that he was one of Freddy’s closest “friends”.  I found it interesting that every so often I wondered what he was doing and then bizarrely he turned up in the film? I haven’t seen the film ... perhaps his character was in it?

Edited December 10, 2018 by UKCruiseJeff

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

Have a great day all!