French Doors

We replaced the French doors from the dining room to the deck in 2019, and I'm surprised I didn't blog about it at the time.  We love having our windows open and getting a breeze through the house, and we tried a couple of different external screen options on the previous doors, but neither worked well or lasted very long.  I searched for quite some time until I found the Venting Patio Door you see below at Home Depot.  The bottom glass panel on each door can be raised, and the fixed screen behind it lets in the breeze and keeps out the bugs.  Unfortunately, Home Depot no longer carries this door, so I hope this lasts a long, long time.

Planter Selections

Gourmet Chef Elaine likes to try something different in her tall planters, and this year's selections resulted in the stunning splashes of color you see below.  The purple flowers are Aria Blue Angelonia, the orange flowers with green leaves are Glorious Orange Celosia, and at the small cluster at the bottom right are Golden Oregano.  It's tolerating the day-after-day scorching temperatures and occasional downpours this summer has brought.  

Chipped Ham and Egg

Our Pittsburgh family likes to bring us a pound of their local chipped ham (i.e., very thinly sliced) when they visit.  They mentioned how good it was grilled, so for lunch, I created the seared chipped ham, fried egg on toast sandwich you see below.  It was really good and a pleasant change from my normal routine of bologna sandwiches and leftovers.  

Peach Milkshake

When Gourmet Chef Elaine saw that Chick-fil-A had peach milkshakes on the menu, yours truly just had to go and drop $5.15 for the bundle of joyness you see below.  It's a combo of Chick-fil-A Icedream dessert, chunky peach puree, whipped cream, and a cherry.  It was so chunky that I had to replace the straw with one of my wider-diameter straws.  It's a limited-time summertime menu item, so don't wait to treat yourself.

https://www.chick-fil-a.com/menu/treats/peach-milkshake

Riley Green

We saw country music star Riley Green at the Fraze, and as you can see from the photos below, it was a sold-out, packed house.  Everyone stood for the entire concert and the energy was electric.  It was one of the nicest weather evenings we've had this summer, adding to the enjoyment.  Country music is alive!

https://fraze.com

Adding Debit Card to Apple Wallet

I appreciate the contactless feature on credit/debit cards, where you simply need to place the card on the reader, eliminating the need to figure out which way to slide it or locate the chip reader slot.  But our Universal 1 debit card doesn't have that feature, but you can go contactless by adding it to your Apple Wallet.  Now our shopping trips to Meijer can be done entirely with Gourmet Chef Elaine's iPhone.  While this feature is also available on Samsung Pay, Google Pay is not supported for payments, so I'm out of luck on my Pixel 7.  Drats.  

How to set up is at the link below.

https://www.u1cu.org/digital-wallet

Cook Mode

For those of you who use your iPad while cooking to display recipes, the Cook Mode feature found on some websites, such as Food and Wine, shown below, is a welcome addition.  It simply stops your screen from dimming or turning off while it's enabled.  You can achieve the same effect by going into your settings and turning the battery-saving feature off, but it's much easier to simply click the checkmark.  

Being the curious techie type, I wanted to know how Cook Mode works.  It's accomplished by using the Screen Wake Lock API (Application Programming Interface) that's available in relatively recent versions of all the major web browsers.  Not that any of you really care about that...

https://www.foodandwine.com/cook-mode-recipe-feature-8713147

The Food Dude

I wrote about The Food Dude last year on a blog with their lemonade, and this year they get another mention for their fully-loaded Smashburger.  Two patties topped with cheese, bacon, pickles, jalapenos, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce between a pretzel roll bun.  The potato chips were appreciated, but frankly, there was no room left in my tummy to eat more than a couple.  Check out their Facebook page at the link below to find when and where they will be making these beauties near you.

https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Food-Dude-Street-Eats-and-Catering-LLC/100091404420448

Pop First

For years, I've put the ice in the glass first, then poured the carbonated beverage on top, being careful to add it slowly enough so that the foam doesn't overflow.  Recently, I discovered it's better to perform that operation in reverse: pouring the soda (or pop) in first, then adding the ice last, a few cubes at a time at first.  Instead of all that warm soda hitting all the cold ice all at once, the soda is cooled down a little at a time.  Yet another example of things I've been doing backwards all my life.

Popsicle Riddle

A recent popsicle purchase resulted in a surprise riddle.  After I unwrapped the treat, I saw there was a question written on the bottom of the stick which read, "Who cleans up after sailors?"  I figured the answer must be hidden on the top of the stick, and sure enough, it was.  It's hard to see in the image below, but the answer is "Mermaids".  Yuk, yuk, yuk ....