A little bit of grrrrr, and a blast from the past (also one from old man winter)
First, if anyone is here because they are wondering what the heck happened to the Houghton Lake webcam, yes, it is down. We had a little problem about the webcam last weekend and, in the process of fixing it, I had to change a certain password and that in turn made it so that the software attached to the webcam couldn’t log in to post photos. That’s the short story. You do not want to know the long story. At any rate, the webcam *may* be down until somebody who actually knows what they are doing can get to the Houghton Lake Group Home again. That would be the GG and he is antsy enough about the whole thing that he almost wants to drive up there tonight and fix it. Since we are in the middle of a big ugly snow/ice storm and he has a nasty cold virus, I do *not* want him to go. Even though this is the only thing that has made him want to go anywhere farther outside than the faaarrrrwood pile all day. The moral of this loverly little story is something like, “I love y’all but pleeeeease, pleeeease, pretty please with poisonous snakes on top, do not mess with the Houghton Lake webcam”. Because this is the second Sunday in a row that KW has had to muck around with the dern thing and she is not a particularly happy camper. Grrrrrr-umph.
There is batter-coated pork cooking in corn oil on my battered old stove. I am making sweet and sour pork (SSP), which is an old family favorite from my teenage days. Actually, I don’t think that Grandroobly probably liked it very well but that’s almost beside the point. You basically cut up pork tenderloin and batter it up and fry it in oil. You make a sweet and sour sauce and cook that up with pineapple chunks (I use fresh pineapple these days) and green pepper and tomatoes. Serve with rice. I almost never fry things, I mostly saute them in a little olive oil or occasionally butter. I think The Commander originally clipped the recipe out of the newspaper or somewhere. I think it is still clipped to her otherwise rather un-cluttered refrigerator. No, it is not particularly Asian.
The Beach Urchins loved SSP when they were young. Well, that is, they liked the fried up battered pork and sometimes the pineapple chunks (or sometimes not) and Elizilla loved to cut up the tomatoes for me, sitting over at the end of the counter where she would draw or read or cut up veggies in front of Star Trek re-runs or Clarissa Explains It All or whatever was on the little TV I used to have in the Landfill Chitchen. She used a sharp knife just like her grandma taught her to use. At the age of three. Yes, really.
I haven’t made sweet and sour pork in a long time. The Beach Urchins actually eat greeeeen stuff as adults. In fact, they eat less meat and more green stuff than I do nowadays. So SSP usually isn’t on the menu. The other day, I found myself randomly thinking about SSP and then, wouldn’t you know, Mouse actually mentioned SSP yesterday. This was a perfect storm, so to speak. And so that’s what we’re having tonight.
We have snow again. And when Mouse and I walked to the Plum Market tonight (to buy beer and bunch of veggies, don’tcha know), we both felt the pelting of ice. So maybe the weather forecasters are actually right this time. It’s looking like I’ll be working from Tangelo Row tomorrow, at last for part of day. Sigh. I love the moment when I click the front door locked with my work laptop bag hanging off my shoulder and shove everything into my car and head over to my fave parking spot and my loverly, dog-poopy cube. And the GG is off tomorrow for President’s Day, so he’ll be home all day too. Blerg… Well, we’ll see what I’ll end up doing.