Fred's Minnesota Blog

This Tuesday, I tried an experiment. I bought a picnic ham and wanted to cook it while I was at work so I put it in my mother's "Silver Seal" pan and set the temperature of the oven for 200 degrees.

The "Silver Seal" pan, Walter gave it to me.

By the time I got home it was very well done.

The meat was falling off the bone and very tender. You could cut it with a fork.

Liz and I had ham, potato pancakes (Kate's homemade recipe), apple sauce, and Spinach. Next time I will try it at 175 degrees, the lowest temperature my oven will go. Next week we will use the left overs to make bean soup again.

# posted by Fred @ 2:08 PM 2 comments

Last August, I met a woman on the flight back from Poland. We discussed various things on the seven hour flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. She said that she would like to go to dinner the next time she visited the cities. Well, last Wednesday we went to McCormick & Schmick's Seafood in downtown Minneapolis and had an excellent time.

Kate, Gerardo, Kathy, and Fred

I am also updating my links, adding Kathy's Web Site and deleting some that are never updated.

# posted by Fred @ 4:18 PM 0 comments

In a long sad story, the check engine light came on in my Blazer. I took it to the dealer and for $68 they told me that the thermostat was defective and had to be replaced for $309 and that they would flush the cooling system at the same time for $149 for a grand total of $458 and change. I said, "You must be replacing the sensor along with the thermostat." They said, "Oh no the sensor checked out OK."

A short trip to AutoZone and $7 for the part, no gasket required, and it is fixed. It turns out that AutoZone will read the codes for free. The most pleasant surprise was that it really was the thermostat and it is fixed!

Other News

My friend, Liz had a 1995 Saturn with 230,000 miles that died suddenly. Last Tuesday (I cook dinner for us on Tuesday) Liz and I went to see a car at the dealer and it was perfect. The right color, low mileage, and the salesperson started dealing even before we asked. I said, "Liz, you can't buy the first car we see even if it is perfect." On Saturday we went car shopping again and we looked at two other cars and decided that the original car was the one but when we called it had already been sold. The blue one she is standing beside was also very nice but she didn't feel it was time to compromise. She is driving my Astro.

On the way home we stopped and visited with our friend Joanne.

We will see what I make for dinner this week, maybe crow.

# posted by Fred @ 3:48 PM 3 comments

Yes, thats right it is MINUS SEVENTEEN degrees this morning. Where is that Global Warming we keep hearing about? Send it this way.

# posted by Fred @ 6:42 AM 3 comments