Out of the Kitchen, Down to Florida and Home Again

Yes, Quinn, I did get out of the kitchen last week, although it was what filled my days for the first three days of the week!

Monday I canned (pasta sauce, peach jam); Tuesday I canned and cooked (canned beans, cooked beans and potatoes, made beet salad) and froze (corn); Wednesday I canned and then restocked our Ravenswood booth. Then Thursday, we headed out, Florida-bound! It was time to go see our youngest son and his new family.

Tommy was married in March, a simple ceremony and we were not able to be there, unfortunately. His new wife has a daughter who is ten, and we've been getting to know them online. We'd met Lorena before and loved her, laughing over our language differences (she is Spanish-speaking); this time we got to know her daughter. What a beautiful child she is! Lorena's English is great now, and we were able to communicate much more easily. While I know some Spanish words, I am by no means conversant in the language, and Larry, well...not so much.

We had a great time. We left a day early so we could take the slow way to Cincinnati for our flight, and enjoyed seeing parts of the Ohio River we'd never seen before. More about that in future posts, I promise.

 We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Friday and Tommy met us at the airport. That day was laid back, just enjoying being there and spending time with them. Saturday we ventured out to find Venezuelan food, the food of Lorena's home. All I can say about that is yum! we had arepas, I think they were called, and Lorena bought me some of the kind of flour used to make them so I can try it at home.

We came back to their place to celebrate Tommy's birthday with cake and ice cream. As a body builder, he rarely allows himself such treats, but for his birthday? Well, what's a birthday without it!

Saturday was another day of new food, for us--this time we went looking for Russian cuisine, and we found it. My goodness, it erased all the pre-conceived notions I had about Russian food! The choice was so wide I could not decide what to try, but we settled on a couple salad dishes, one a cucumber-cabbage salad and the other a beet salad--I am determined to find new ways to use beets. Both were delicious. I found recipes that look and sound like what we ate. I am definitely going to try to replicate them and will post here how they came out.

The food displays in the Russian places were gorgeous and inviting, and everything looked so fresh.

Our time went too quickly and all too soon we were back at the airport saying good-bye. We've been able to find low-cost airfare, a blessing, so we hope to continue to visit a couple times a year.

We took the slow road home from Cincinnati too, so it was late when we got in. Today is catch-up day--unpacking, laundry, and getting the exhaust on the van fixed as it decided to come apart on the way home. Then, time to prepare for this weekend's Inland Waterways Festival in Marietta, Ohio. And I have lots of ideas for new stories for that!

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