With Whom Would You Like to Travel?

As the holidays loom closer each day I'm sure some of you have planned vacations or if not you have trips you wish you could take. Will your family be your travel companions? Wouldn't it be wonderful if for just this once you could take a trip with one of your favorite fictional characters? Who would you choose? I know I would probably want someone who loves adventure but doesn't want to go off the deep end. :)

Recently a travel site, Tripbase, contacted me because they have listed their Top 10 Fictional Travellers. There aren't many lists that contain both Waldo and James Bond. Since they asked me very nicely, please go over and check out the list. Leave me a comment about which Traveller you would choose. I think I'd probably go for James Bond, but I'm drawn to Alice. She was my favorite character for many years.:)

Maybe this holiday you don't have plans to travel. Some of the best trips I have ever taken have been in the comfort of my own home. So curl up with one of these books and take the vacation of your life without moving an inch out of your door. Most of these have 5 star reviews, though some are here because I like them. I wanted to find ten, but I only found seven. Still I think this is a pretty good variety:

1. On the Road, Jack Kerouac - I think this is probably the quintessential fictional travel book!

2. Until I Find You, John Irving - Get ready for trips to Europe.

3. Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift - Are you ready to encounter new civilizations?

4. Storybook Travels: From Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature - Life as a perpetual traveller in hotels.

5. Flame Tree: A Novel of Modern Burma, Keith Dahlberg - Immerse yourself in Burma and its culture.

6. Botticelli's Bed & Breakfast, Jan Pienkowski - A pop up book and a trip through the world of art.

7. Earth to Kat Vespucci, Ingrid Anders - A college girl travels abroad to find her roots.

This week on Thursday, December 23rd at 3PM Central, 4PM EST on Red River Writers Live Tales from the Pages my co-Host Cindie Miller and I are going to have a really great show. All of our guests are going to be reading an excerpt from either their own holiday story or their favorite holiday story. These are guests who have been on the show earlier this year or even last year. Afterward we will be having our usual discussion. So far my guests for the show will be:

Donald Hagelberg, Comedy Writer Mr. J, Jill Helene Fettner, Michelle McGriff, Penny Ehrenkranz,

Franny Armstrong, Janie Franz, and possibly Sally Drumm and the writers of Milspeak my guests for last year's Christmas show. Joining us for the discussion will be my friend and publisher of MuseItUp Publishing, Lea Schizas. There may be some more guests if we can fit them into the show.:)

Please join us for this unique and unusual show. Guests who listen in may call into the show and speak with our authors on the air. Or you may join the chat room if you are a member of Blog Talk Radio. Becoming a member is easy and allows you to become a radio host yourself.

Until the next time, thank you to all my new friends on Facebook and to any new readers. I haven't been concentrating because my husband is in the hospital once more for sarcoidosis. I've written about this on past blogs. If you are interested you can click on the link. He is better, but this is a slow process and I hope that he will be able to be out of the hospital for the holidays.

Happy Holidays to all of you!!!!

What is wrong with people?

Before I talk about what's wrong with people, because that is going to take way too long, I wanted to highlight another blog tonight. This one is about what I like a lot, cooking. Gabi Moskowitz has a blog called "Out of the Pantry". It's funny, because both of us made vegetable soup today.:) She used her whole pantry and I used most of my fresh vegetables. I hate calling them "veggies" which has become the standard way to refer to vegetables. 

So she uses whatever she finds in her pantry and gives the recipe for everything she cooks. In between she tells us about her life and her friends' lives while introducing us to some unusual dishes. Now tonight's soup was not exactly unusual, but it was a different way to make vegetable soup. Mine, which I will tell you about soon, is entirely different.

What I like about this blog is her total disregard for whether or not something is going to taste good. She just drops in ingredients and hopes it will work. I think some of the recipes are a little more planned, but I like the spontaneity and I think you will enjoy reading this blog. The post before this one used food to describe a romantic situation. And then she described how though apples and oranges don't work in dating, it might be the opposite in cooking. She then gave a recipe for Pizza Dough Papusas where she substituted pizza dough for masa harina which is the traditional dough for the papusas. She didn't have any and made them anyway. See the recipe on "Out of the Pantry" and you can subscribe there too. I think you will enjoy this one very much. I like the layout too. It's a good color and easy on the eyes. 
So it was funny that we both made vegetable soup and here is a virtual bowl for all of you, but especially for Paula  of "Paula's Soul"  

I tried to give it to you, but my computer is not cooperating. I may have to post it in a separate note or email. I will post it on my Facebook page for everyone. Anyway, I've tried and can't do it. It was pretty awesome. My husband said it was delicious.:)

Anyway, will play around with it and see if I can't get it to you.

I've frittered away the time trying to post that picture, but instead I will give you the recipe:

Barbara’s Tomato Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:
½ large Vidalia onion chopped
3 stalks celery - chopped
3 small carrots – chopped (not baby carrots, don't scrape them)
4 cloves garlic – chopped
3 cans San Marzano tomatoes squished
dried thyme – about a tbsp
garlic powder – about 2 tbsp
dried basil – about a tbsp
dried cayenne pepper – about a tbsp
dried oregano – about a tbsp
1 pkg frozen peas
1 pkg frozen corn singles or half a pkg of frozen corn ( 8 oz)
broccoli crowns
French green beans kitchen cut in thirds
½ bunch parsley chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp unsalted butter
sea salt
ground fresh black pepper

In large soup pot, sauté the mirepoux (carrots, onions, and celery) until celery is bright green and onions are translucent in the oil and butter. Add garlic and mix together. Cook a few minutes. Add juice of tomatoes from all 3 cans and mix together. Then squish all tomatoes and add to pot. Mix together and add 3 cans of water. Fill each separate can so all the tomato goodness is there. Add salt and pepper and cook until it comes to a boil. Add dried seasonings except oregano. Add broccoli and green beans, peas, corn. Let mixture come to a boil and then add garlic powder, thyme and basil and chopped fresh parsley. When the mixture has been boiling for about an hour add the oregano and continue letting mixture boil for another hour covered. Serve with grated parmesan cheese and croutons.

Hope you enjoy it.

Now, what is wrong with people? I'm talking especially about Republicans. They seem to want our president to fail. People like Rush Limbaugh and some Republican Congressmen refuse to get with the program. When Democrats were in the minority they had to take whatever was handed to them. I remember people who were as esteemed as John Conyers had to hold hearings in the basement, because Republicans refused to open a real committee room for them. Are Democrats that way? No. President Obama went out of his way to try to listen to Republicans and even brought them to the White House and bent over backwards to try to compromise. Yet even then, a bill that will benefit every single person in the country could not get a Republican backing. No Republicans voted for the Stimulus bill. What is wrong with those people? Do they not represent people who need money and jobs? Or are they so stubborn and bent on destroying our government that they refuse to vote for a bill that will help their constituents? It's shameful!!

The other thing is the horrible murder suicide of that family out West. The parents didn't have a job, but why did they have to kill their children? What happened to the spirit of let's try and make the best of things? No, they had to kill themselves and their children and so helping population control, but snuffing out the lives of innocent young people. What is wrong with them? Didn't they want their children to live on and have lives? Or were they just too selfish to think about that?

It makes me sad to think of the waste of life. Let me know what you think. Also, try the recipe and tell me if you like it. You have to use San Marzano tomatoes, because they give it such a great flavor. If you don't use them you'll have to add chicken broth to give it more flavor. Also you can add any of your own vegetables, if they're raw, start them early. Good luck.

One more thing. Tonight we had a crescent moon. It looked like a smile in the sky. In fact, it tickled me so much I wrote a poem called "Cheshire Moon". I was reminded of my favorite book when I was a girl, Alice in Wonderland and Alice's encounter with the Cheshire Cat who kept disappearing leaving only it's smile. But in my poem I thought of President Obama as the Jaberwocky. Kind of bizarre, but he did smite the Republicans with his mighty pen.:)