TheSnackHound

There are a few duck hunters in my family. I won’t eat duck. It’s too oily, but most of all, I am very fond of the little quackers and don’t wish to eat them. Every time I brought this up, I was educated on the points that my relatives ate everything they killed, the hunting groups helped pass legislation to preserve the wetlands so they had a place to live, and with few natural predators, it prevented the ducks from dying of starvation due to numbers. Of course, I was a bit of a smart aleck and I asked them if they also ate the bill.

I am not one for waterfowl, but I do eat fish. I particularly like shellfish and shrimp. Oh, yeah…that’s not really “fish.” At any rate, fish provides Omega 3 Fatty Acids and other brain food. When I was little, my grandfather used to keep a minnow net and catch them to use for bait.  Of course, on more than one occasion, my cousins and I took a few home and “raised” them in our aquarium and then let them go back out into the lake when they were big and healthy.

That minnow net made me wonder sometimes. If they were catching the fish that helped them catch the fish that easily, why not catch the fish you wanted to catch that easily. Afterall, sometimes we would find Rock Bass fry and then would let them go.

I was surprised that you could actual buy Texas Hunter Product fish feeders. Basically, you set it up at the side of your lake, canal, dock, or other similar location. The fish food would be released on a timer. The fish would learn where the food was, and you could fish all you wanted right there. You could have a relaxing day at the cottage without having to spend all day on the boat.    You could enjoy a mediterranen style diet of sea food, wine, and vegetables and come home pounds lighter.  People would be amazed that you got so healthy by laying a hammock.

Something like that will set you back about $769, but when you divide it up per meal even in a year and maybe that’s not so bad.  In fact, its down right economical considering all the family that came to the cottage, plus freezing catches for the winter.   Afterall, wild caught is healthier, despite what people say, than fish farm raised in China or Thailand (read the labels if you don’t believe me where your American and Canadian-sounding fish are coming from.)

Of course, the five year old me would have decided that I owned the world’s largest aquarium and would forbid anyone to fish there.   I would sit there parked along with my jar of fish flies that I was “raising” up and teaching them all they needed to know in their 24 hour life span.   The older me knows that food doesn’t magically just appear in the fridge.   You can’t protest catching fish and then sit and slug back a few fish sticks. However, a 5 year old just doesn’t see the irony in that.

There are several restaurants in Orlando that we had been wanting to try while we were there.  It is safe to say that some of the dining establishments cannot really be referred to as dining “choices,” as there is not much choice about them.  Once you are within particular parks, you are a captive audience.   Even though you have an all day pass with unlimited entry, anything that would be something you actually “chose” would be so far back out on the interstate that you might as well forfeit the rest of your day.   Maybe it would be worth it, as you wouldn’t be getting rained on, nor would a child of a stranger be screaming in your ear.   I hate to be discriminatory against children, but you have to admit that the area has more family resorts, than, say things like the Metropolitan museum of art.

We have had two culinary adventures in Orlando. There seems to be so many things to do in Orlando, you wondered why we would go there just to eat.  The first time, we had almost went to the Boston Lobster Feast.  We were not sure if we should have high hopes over the promise of New England food, or we should have trepidation over that New England food being in the middle of Florida.   We were gluttons for punishment, I guess.  Apparently, the individual who answered the phone at said establishment told us to turn off at the wrong International Drive Exit, and to go in the opposite direction from Sea World that we were suppsed to go.  We ended up going around on I-Drive an entire hour amid ever changing scenary before a kindhearted local made us wise to the errors of that receptionist’s ways.  Apparently, the individual who answered the phone was only working in Orlando for a short time and had no clue what we were talking about, direction-wise.   How did that qualify them for the direction giver position?   Was the atitude “we have so many people here that if we lose a few, oh well, its a numbers game?”

Anyway, our second trip found us meeting up with a relative who was staying at one of the resorts.  Did you know how impossible it is to find your way out of the maze?   We saw the giant, several story cup at least four times as we were driving around.    Any second, we thought we would enter the Twilight Zone.

So that was two half stories about how we tried to grab a bite to eat in Orlando and did not succeed.  At a later date, I may actually have a restaurant review.   However, you have to actually arrive at the restaurant.  It is no fair writing a critique when the closest you get to a restaurant is seeing a glimpse of it in the distance, and not seeing how you could possibly get to it.

I think that the situation would have called for a GPS system that we did not have. I just found out that trusted tours is running a contest where the winner will receive a GPS system. They are the folks that have a bunch of different online travel guides. All you have to do is sign up for their newsletter. The winner will be chosen from the list of subscribers.

Our new friend over at Mom Most Traveled is giving away a ruffled vintage inspired cupcake apron by Carolyn’s Kitchen. Who would have thought full length, frilly, girlie aprons would come back in style, considering how unisex things are these days. Actually, I take that back. It really has never gone out of style, and women are demanding it.

Full length aprons are something I should start wearing again for two things. I tend to be the person who is very careful, though inherently accident prone, and I have a penchant for coincidentally wearing white jeans when I decide to have grape juice or chocolate syrup. You know…the one spot that never seems to come out? Also, there is more motivation to pull out some stick-to-it-iveness in putting the right clothes on for a job.

The apron comes with a set of matching gloves for the ubercoordinated. How do you win? It is very simple to enter, just go check out the blog and leave a comment. You must mention an apron style that you like that was not mentioned in the blog posting. And that’s it!

Contest ends July 6th at 9 PM CST.  In otherwords, that’s tomorrow, if the date stamp on this blog posting patches the day you are actually reading this entry.

The whole “tomorrow” thing wouldn’t apply if you are in Australia, as it is already tomorrow from where you are reading.  Therefore, it would be a little over 26 hours from whatever time/day/century it happens to be where you are.

I should have also stated the year….it is currently 2008 A.D (Anno Domini).    Yes, I still like to use the recently out of favor “Year of Our Lord” rather than this A.C.E. and B.C.E. crappola that all the sudden creeped up on us, that despite being a former “almost majored in classics in college” student, I didn’t get that memo.   (B.C.E: ‘before current era.”  Unless it really means “Before Christ’s {physical} Entrance” but I doubt it).

I won’t get into the whole Julian Calendar/Gregorian Calendar/How that Equates to Chinese New Year and how much time until the end of the contest if you are living somewhere on the Moon.

Translation: Go check it out, but hurry!

Ivory is the new color released by the Homer Laughlin Company for the popular Fiesta Ware line. Basics like the place setting (including coffee mugs), vegetable dishes, and disc pitchers are among the current offerings. Just in time for Christmas, there will be other pieces that have a fall release. I am curious to see what the offerings will be.

Since I have yet to see the new color in person, I am wondering how much of a yellow base it has. That thought did cross my mind. If the base is yellow rather than cream, I wonder how close it is to the original Ivory, introduced in 1936, which had a pale slightly “pastel side walk chalk” yellow with a cream tint to it. Vintage Ivory tends to photograph as white or off white if the aperture and flash are not just right, but in person it definitely is a nice, soft color.

Bealls and JCPenney are not yet offering the color for sale on their sites, so check live and in person in the store, or try one of the smaller shops on the web that seem to be getting the color in. Just FYI, right now, four piece placesettings at JCPenney in other colors are $26.99, while they are in the $40 range at other retailers.

There seems to be a split between themes for new Fiesta colors. There are many that are not even remotely similar to the original lineup and with others, such as turquoise, they are confusing to newer collectors. Of course, modern Fiesta pieces have much more “heft” to them, even if subtle to some, there are some that are more or less modern updates of classic hues.

We have been on two cruises in the past couple years.  Remember all of those commercials showing all of those 20-55 year old people that wear a size 4 dress?  We tried to look for those people there, and we were a little puzzled about where they all were.   A midweek cruise featured overtanned sixty year old women who complained that the cruise was too cheap and attracted “THOSE kind of people.”  My husband turned to ”Mrs. Twelve Pounds of Gold Jewelry Hide that the skin behind my sunglasses is 22 shades lighter than the rest of my face” and I could tell he was going to ask her if who “THOSE kind of people” are, and how does she disqualify herself?   The weekend cruises had a younger crowd of people who managed to get a long weekend from work.  That was to the Bahamas.   Next time, we might try Europe.There were many dining opportunities.   In fact, you could probably get a better assessment of listing times when and places where you COULD NOT dine.   With the midnight chocolate buffets and all day room service, one could potentially think Richard Simmons was getting ready to come “rescue them.”   On the contrary, my husband and I both lost weight on the cruise?

How?  We ate frequently, but ate small meals.  We ate a lot of fish, primarily salmon.   Along with that, we ate salad and other fruit and vegetables all the time also.   Our beverage of choice was water, with sometimes pineappele juice as a substitute.    So, while our dinner companions were missing as they could not handle the gluttony, we felt that we went away to the fat farm and came back healthy.

Tips for Cruising:
1) Eat frequent, small meals
2) Skip the pizza and hamburgers
3) The cruiseline usually brings food off the boat onto islands they own.  You can safely eat things that are normally a no-no at some destinations, such as citrus fruits, water, ice, and other produce.

Of course, luxurious destinations often feature restaurants and other amenties on shore that are perfectly safe to indulge at.   European and Australian destinations have many of the same health standards, even at the local haunts.  Still, be careful out there.  You might not be as likely to get Montezuma’s Revenge cruising down the Rhine on some fancy European river cruises, but watch out that no one tries to slip you haggis in the UK.   You won’t get sick due to the safety of ingredients, but your system may surely reject it!

(By the way, we were so incredibly healthy.  However, on the next cruise, we were not.  Some lady walked by and sneezed directly on me, and I caught a really nasty cold.  Actually, it was more of a flu with chills, etc.  I can’t believe she did that to me.  I was sitting and she was walking by and had to stand over me at an angle to do it!)