WNDF: Cloverdale tangy summer sausage

This is the second WNDF feature (Weird North Dakota Food) and it showcases a Mandan favorite: Cloverdale tangy summer sausage, made by Cloverdale Foods.

This little gem is great as a quick snack with crackers and cheese. It’ll be my sandwich tomorrow with some mustard and canned jalapeños. yes. it’s really good.

Now I realize that I touted Cloverdale in the last issue, about fleischkuekle. I promise that I’ll try and move on to a different company for the next feature.

Look! Cloverdale has a webpage! www.cloverdalefoods.com

WNDF: fleischkuekle

This is the first of many Weird North Dakota Food (W.N.D.F.) entries. Is North Dakota food weird? Sometimes. Like this for example: fleischkuekle. What in the world is that, you ask?

According to Wikipedia (yes, it’s in Wikipedia, so it must be real): Fleischkuekle is a type of meat pie made with flat bread, similar to a Cornish pasty, or Russian vareniki. The dish is traditional German Russian recipe, and through immigration became an addition to the Cuisine of North Dakota.

Here’s a close-up of the ready-to-eat felischkuekle:


My aunt Kristen (photo above with my uncle Bob) really likes it and was kind enough to help us make it last week. We eat it with ketchup. It’s definitely no diet meal, but it’s pretty tasty. If you live in the Bismarck-Mandan area, you can usually get pre-made, ready to fry fleischkuekle at the Cloverdale Foods Country Store.

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Moved from the old (and broken) blog to the new blog - here.

WNDF returns with peanut candy corn

WDNF is back!

On my old blog, I had a feature called WNDF - Weird North Dakota Food. 

What does that mean? Is North Dakota food weird? Yes. Sometimes. 

In the past, some of the featured food included: fleischkuekle, creamed pheasant, and scotcharoo bars. I'll move those posts over here this weekend, but to hold you over, here's a new one.

This may be more of a Weird University of Mary Food (of those there are many ... oy). My coworker, Jerry brought this in to work today. It's a really simple thing - it's just a 50/50 mix of salted peanuts and candy corn. 

I should mention that prior to today, I hated candy corn. I avoided them like the plague. But when they are combined with salted peanuts, something magical happens.

Don't they look irresistible?

Have no fear, I've been told candy corn are available all year!

Knit 1, Purl 2

I still don't know how to "purl" ... I suppose I'll stumble across a YouTube video on it soon and then I'll know. For now, I'm perfectly content with my basic knitting stitch. Plus the "yarn over" stitch-adding trick.

Here are the photos I promised yesterday.

My latest project, a diagonal stitched, striped baby blanket. I'd make it larger than baby size but I only have three balls of this type of yarn (pink, grey and white). Pattern.

This is my ball of quilt fabric garbage. It will be a rug someday. I need to do more quilting to produce more scraps.

The most exciting thing I did today: I finally got to go to the Bismarck yarn store. It's called "ce designs and Yarn Shop," the address is 417 East Broadway, downtown Bismarck. I had a bit of a bad attitude about it before my visit today - but that's another story - one about parking and lack thereof. But after my visit today, I have to say - the store is wonderful. They have all sorts of yarn and every single one of them beats the quality of the "big box store" yarn by leaps and bounds. I expected the prices to be high ... which some were ... but she also carries yarn that is quite reasonable. Yeah, it costs more than the "bog box" yarn, but it's so worth it. It's 100 percent cotton. It's real wool - not an acrylic blend. It feels so soft (yes, you can feel the difference).

When it comes to yarn quality, my belief is exactly that of the quality of my quilt fabric: if I'm going to spend hours and hours (and hours and hours) making something, I want it to last and I want it to be nice. 

I once made a quilt with fabric from the infamous "Joann's quilt fabric wall" ... after a few washes the color bled and dramatically faded and to make matters worse, little holes formed in the fabric. Joann's offered to give me my money back ... but really, I was just bummed out. I didn't care about the cost, I cared that I spent so much time and put so much love into something that would soon fall apart. I should mention that I still buy fabric at Joann's but now I make sure that the fabric I buy is good quality. I thoroughly check the color and feel before buying it. So far, I've had good luck with this method, but it's tricky. There are some sneaky fabrics out there.

Ok, I'll step off my soap box now ...

Back to knitting.

I have a new scarf.

My first knitting project - a pink scarf with a white stripe - is finished. I started with about 17 stitches and finished when it reached 70 inches. I've been wearing it the last few days and it keeps me toasty warm. We're supposed to get another storm this week and some very cold temps (highs of zero) so this will come in handy. 

I had some extra pink and white yarn (and an extra ball of gray - an impulse purchase) so I'm tackling a small knitted blanket using this pattern. This pattern is actually what motivated me to learn to knit in the first place. I'm fascinated by the diagonalness of the stitches. To start knitting it, you start with a corner and sew your way across the quilt. I'm about three inches in from the corner and already it has "that look." I'm going make it striped with the white, gray and pink. So neat! I'll post a photo tomorrow.

I guess I'm getting pretty hooked on knitting. I went though my quilt room (all fabric) garbage can and recused the long skinny pieces (about 1/4 to 1 inch by 5 inches or more) and sewed them together and I'm going to make a knitted rug. I'm excited about this because these are all pieces that were literally in the garbage and now they'll be made into something useable. I still need to collect lots more but I already have a little ball made of the fabric strips. 

We're big fans.

Corey's brother, Andrew is in college and regularly participates in local plays. I am embarrassed to say this, but before this weekend, we hadn't made it to Valley City, ND, to see him perform.

This weekend we made a trip to see him act in "The Death of a Salesman." He played Happy, the younger brother (and did a marvelous job). 

We left work early on Friday and headed out of town to Valley City. Traveling in North Dakota in the winter is kind of like driving in the San Francisco Bay Area. You just have no idea how long it will take you to get somewhere. But here, the problem is not traffic, it's the road conditions. Keeping with this analogy, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. We received a few inches of fresh snow Friday, which combined with strong winds to seriously limit the visibility. I would have taken a photo but it would have looked like a white piece of paper. Adding to the low visibility, there was lots of ice, and snow drifts on the Interstate. Thanks to my excellent driver (and husband), Corey, we made it to Valley City safe and sound and with enough time to have dinner before the play.

Corey joked that he was going to "wine and dine" me and took me to Pizza Corner. I was already familiar with Pizza Corner Pizza - they can be purchased frozen at all the local grocery stores and are frequently sold as fundraisers. I think the pizza is well above-average for frozen pizza. Anyhoo, so we went to Pizza Corner for dinner. It was delicious and I can't wait for another trip through Valley City to eat there again. To top it off, each guest gets a free "ice cream treat" when the have pizza at the restaurant. Awesome!

After dinner we headed over to the college to find the auditorium. With the fresh snow in town, it was quite a trek to find it but we got there and found our seats. 

The play was wonderful and it was amazing seeing Andrew perform. He definitely has a gift.  

After the play, we greeted Andrew (see photo above of Corey and Andrew) and then headed out to the car. Because of the all the snow on top of the ice in the parking lot, I wiped out and fell flat on my butt. I'd like to add that this is the first time this year that I've fallen in the snow (it's usually more). It didn't hurt but I was covered in snow and cold.

We looked at the time (after 10 pm), and the roads (nasty), and quickly decided that it was going to be too treacherous and dangerous to make the trip back to Bismarck, so we found a hotel. We had thought ahead a tiny bit, and packed a few toiletries "just in case." But, me being me, I thought "what are the chances?!" and (stupidly) only packed face wash and a toothbrush - no makeup, no hairbrush, no clean clothes ...

So we settled in with our minimal baggage. And got bored. So we went out for a few drinks since it was still relatively early, we were snowed-in, and we had nowhere to be - what a great feeling. More of Corey's "wine and dining" - we walked in the freezing cold, to a very "dive" bar ... and had a great time. Andrew even joined us for a beer. This morning we drove back home, and the roads were clear - it was definitely a good decision to stay the night.

What was planned as a quick one-evening trip to Valley City turned out to be a nice little mini-vacation. I like little life surprises like that. 

So now we're back at home and it strangely feels like we were away for much longer than the less than 24-hour trip we took. A great feeling.

Also a great feeling - since I knitted all the way to Valley City and all the way home, my scarf is almost done!

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I'm happy to report that I finally got my blog and photos back and in working order. 

Technical difficulties

My blog is experiencing technical difficulties right now. 

It's completely my fault. 

oops.

Hope to be back, up and running at full speed soon.

Monday roundup

This weekend, Corey and I were driving in town and it was snowing. It wasn't coming down hard, but the flakes were huge, and clumped together. I said that had this been in the late fall or early winter, I would have really enjoyed it. I would have marveled at the beauty of the fluffy snow. I would have made Corey drive me home to get my camera for photos. But at this point in the year (it's the middle of February for pete's sake!) I'm not in the mood for snow anymore. I said "ho hum, look at the snow." 

Fast forward to today. I opened the garage door to head out to work and wow! Everything within my sight was covered with frost. It was beautiful. I ran back inside and grabbed my camera so I could document the beautiful February frost. I got back in the car, camera in hand and had to laugh at myself. Wasn't I just venting yesterday about how tired I am of the winter weather? Wasn't I just saying that it wasn't worth taking photos of anymore? 

The weather showed me who's boss. 

And it's not me.

Here are a few photos I took on the way to work (and a few on campus, at work). 

In our yard ...

At work ...

Last photo before going in to work. A random car in the parking lot.

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My adventure in knitting is off to a roaring start! Look at all the progress I've made since Saturday. I think I'm addicted already.

Adventures in knitting

I taught myself to knit last night. So far, I love it. I'm thankful for the excellent tutorials from Amazing Trips on youtube. I think I'm making a scarf. So far anyway. We'll see how that works out. Depending on how adventurous I'm feeling, I may even try to make a striped scarf. Ooh. Yes. That will look nice.

Thanks to my Grandma Katy for her phone consulting to get me though it. It was nice to talk knitting with her.

Yes, I used pink in honor of Valentine's Day. Hope everyone is having a great lovey-dovey day! I used to hate this holiday. Not any more :)

Let's take a jaunt around the world

This is Corey and my shot glass collection. We might not have hundreds of them, but they each have their own story.

Let's start with the left and work our way right.

The first one is from Hawaii. No surprise there – it's got a sea turtle hanging off it. Corey and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Ooh lala. Corey lost his wedding right right before we took this photo at Hanauma Bay.

The next one is from Corey's trip to San Diego, CA. He and a friend (Eric) went to surprise another friend (Dawn) for her wedding. This was just months before Corey and I met, late summer of 2006.

The third one is from Sturgis, SD. My old roommate, Lori and I drove down to Sturgis the summer of 2006, for the motorcycle rally. It was a spur-of-the-moment, unplanned trip. We made the decision to go, Friday night and we left Saturday morning. We drove my car (an SUV) and parked it in a campground (where, conveniently, Alice Cooper was playing that night) and slept in my car. Definitely not the most resting night of sleep, but the trip was totally worth it – and I don't even like motorcycles. I have lots of funny/crazy tales if anyone ever wants to hear them...

The fourth shot glass is from Amsterdam. My parents, sister and I went there the the summer of 2006. Wow 2006 was a big year for our shot glass collection. Amsterdam was awesome. I wish we would have spent more time there. I took this photo – it's one of my most favorite photos I've taken. Ever.

The fifth one is actually my sister's. She bought it in Prague, in the Czech Republic. It's from the same Europe trip, but I had to fly home to get back to work. In the meantime, Caitlyn and my parents went to Prague. The shot glass is funny - it says "Czech me out." Get it?! Ha.

The fifth crystal shot glass was given to me by my boss and his wife on one of their trips. I think it's also from the Czech Republic. It's definitely our prettiest shot glass. 

The last one. I don't know about that one. It doesn't have a city printed on it but it's rather funny. It says "warning obnoxious drunk in progress." How true that can be. 

Well that concludes the shot glass collection and tour. 

I feel that I should mention that just because I own shot glasses, I'm no drunk. I just like them. To look at. Right. Yep. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

If I was going to drink out of one of these lovely shot glasses, I'd have to be sipping Sambuca. 

Photo of the Day

Everyday, the Bismarck Tribune (the local newspaper) selects a photo of the day from reader-submissions. Back in January, I sent in one of my sun dog photos. Today it made page 6A! Right smack in the middle of the celebrity news. Does anyone read that stuff?

Just because I'm in a good mood today, here's a quilt I finished a few years ago. I unearthed a photo of it today and realized that it never had its moment in the Bison Girl spotlight. It was given by me to two of my great friends, Kristan and Josh, as a wedding gift on October 7, 2006.

The pattern is from the book "Stack a New Deck" and is called Saturn.

Calorie overload.

I stumbled upon a site called This is Why You're Fat ... I dislike the name but decided to overlook that because I'm fascinated at all the nasty food they have pictured. yuck. Corn dog pizza?! Seriously?! How about a seven-pound breakfast burrito or a sixty-pound rice krispy treat. This is crazy stuff. 

On the note of crazy and fun websites. Check out Lovely Listing. It never ceases to amaze me how moronic some folks are when trying to sell a house. This site features real estate ad photo bloopers. 

I'm out of creative titles.

It's still winter. 

Still snowing. 

Still cold. 

Still windy. 

Matthew and Maria (my bonus brother and sister) had ANOTHER snow day today.

Even my slippers are ready for spring.

I'm sick of writing about the weather. I should be thankful that our weather, although cold and blustery, is not as bad as it could be. I just saw that Okalhoma had a tornado! How's that for crazy? A tornado in February.

Locally, the Interstate is closed from Mandan, ND (immediately west of Bismarck), west 100 miles because of all the ice and snow on the road. I'm happy to report that Corey and I are both home, safe and sound for the evening.

As promised, here's a project photo:

An embroidered dish towel. The pattern is from the one and only, Sublime Stitching. This is my first project using Sublime Stitching's iron-on designs. I really like the designs and the style but I do have to say that the lines on the iron-on turned out a bit too wide for my liking. I embroider with three strands of thread, so maybe if I used all six they'd be covered better? 

Well that's all the time I have for today, I've got to get back to watching the weather.

Random ramblin'

Weather. Aack. Gag. 

It rained last night and most of today. It was only about 34°F so we still have snow, it's just much soggier now. The forecast says that water on the roads will freeze tonight and the rain will turn to snow tomorrow morning. So we'll have ice with snow on top. Not good for driving but what's a girl to do?

Sewing.

I finished an embroidered dish towel that's currently in the washing machine. I'll post a photo tomorrow. One of these days, I'll sew more squares for this quilt.

Bismarck, ND, Restaurant reviews a la Erica

I visited two new Bismarck restaurants lately and also one that is not new to Bismarck, but new to me. 

First, there is a new bakery in downtown Bismarck (118 N 4th Street, Bismarck, ND 58501). I can't remember the name, so if you know it, let me know. It's located where Mr. Delicious used to be, across the street from Pirogue. I can only officially review their lunch special, which is very tasty. For only $5.50, they'll serve up a sandwich on either a bagel or croissant, a cup of soup (I have the lumberjack stew - yum) and a vinaigrette salad. I'll definitely be having that again. They box it up "to go" so it'd be a great quick lunch if you're short on time. 

The next review is Bruno's Pizza, at 910 East Front Ave, Bismarck. After hearing the "buy one get one half-off" special, Corey and I tried two small pizzas - a combo on hand-tossed crust and a Philly cheesesteak on thin crust. We both favored the cheesesteak pizza on thin crust (by the way, I though I'd hate this one). Definitely get the thin crust, the hand tossed is way too think. We'll probably visit Bruno's again, although I wouldn't go out of my way to. 

The final review is of a restaurant I'm kind of embarrassed to say I had never eaten at. Jack's Steakhouse ... look, they even have a website. I'm a bit ashamed to say that I ordered chicken strips at a steak restaurant, but I'm happy to report that they were delicious. I hear the steak was great as well. The best part was the secret dipping sauce - looks and tastes like some sort of mix of Catalina dressing, mayo and thousand island maybe. Anyway, it's great and it reminds me of the sauce Speedway Restaurant had (they closed a few years ago and I've been missing their sauce ever since). Anyhoo, Corey and I will definitely be back to Jack's. An added bonus - it's the closest restaurant to our house! Fabulous!

My funny mom

My parents are visiting Honolulu, HI, and are staying in the same hotel as many of the Pro Bowl NFL players. Well, Saturday morning, my mom got on the elevator and, according to my mom, a very "football player-looking guy" got on. So my mom asked him, "are you someone I should be asking for an autograph from?" Only my mom could get away with a question like that. To make a long story short, it was Randall McDaniel, formerly of the Minnesota Vikings (North Dakota's adopted NFL team). He signed an autograph for my mom and she said he was very nice. The next day (Sunday) he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Neat.

My vicarious trip to Hawaii

My dad is required to travel to Hawaii for work. A lot. Like monthly. He's got a bazillion frequent filer miles to prove it. Anyway ... my mom likes to tag along. Who wouldn't, right?! So they happen to be in Hawaii this week and my mom took some amazing photos.

It's still winter here in North Dakota, with another snow storm forecasted for this weekend. So what do ya' say ... want to join me on a vicarious trip to Molokai, Hawaii?

Come, lets go.

Ahhh. Feel the sand between your toes.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I may even have this one framed.

What?! Where did the beaches go? um. mom? what's this all about? 

Apparently these are little tee-pee houses with a rooster tied up to each one. There are lots of roosters and chickens in Hawaii. I know, I don't understand it either. 

Moving on ...

Apparently there is a leper colony below the cliffs. A small town called Kalaupapa. Originally it was a refuge for suffers of Hansen's Disease (leprosy). There are no active cases of it today, but the current residents are descendent families of those affected by Hansns's Disease. Interesting. Another framer possibly?

My mom said that with a sunset like this, she was on the lookout for pirates. Good call, mom. Let me know when you find 'em.

Look at the beautiful turquoise colors. Quilt idea maybe?

According to my mom, this is the biggest town around. Kinda reminds me of Linton, ND, except with huge mountains, a tropical climate, and a beach, of course.

Yet another breathtaking sunset.

My mom calls this one "little town in the fog." I like the literalness. My mom's cool like that. We get along very well.

My parent's and this road didn't get along very well. They almost bottomed-out the rental car and almost got stuck a few times. But, according to my mom, the road took them to a cool beach. Bonus!

Hope you enjoyed the trip. 

Don't forget, to see a photo larger, just click on it, and it will open in Flickr. Then click on "all sizes."

Sometimes the most simple of things seem the most difficult

I've been humming and hawing over making an electric heating pad cover for the past few months. The one that came with the heating pad is a butt-ugly blue color and it's scratchy. So, I decided to make one. 

That's where things got tricky. I googled and googled but couldn't find a good pattern or instructions. I almost gave up and resigned to the fact that I'd have to use the wretched blue one. Forever.

Tonight, after one last unsuccessful google search, I got a wild hair. I "winged it." I made my own, without any help, pattern, or sample. I totally overestimated the difficulty. It was a piece of cake. Actually, it's quite possibly the easiest thing I've ever made. I used some extra quilt fabric and a piece of red rick rack. No lining, just 100% cotton fabric. It came together in about 10 minutes. I can't wait to wear it out so I can make another one. Ha.

Here's a shout-out (is that what the cool kids say these days? All of a sudden I'm feeling old) to my bonus sister, Maria! Happy 16th birthday!!!

Back in business

It's a good day. The paper white bulb flower is blooming. My computer is updated (and working!). And the weather will be above freezing tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. 

In case you don't have experience with them, paper white flowers stink. I mean really stink. So, although I'm happy to see flowers in the dead of winter – the smell is a bit yucky. But, the view outweighs the smell, so here they will stay.

As for the new computer software ... I'm a lifetime Apple computer user. Yep. I'm a nerd.

This is my dad and I ... way back in 1983 'ish. I was about one year old. Not much has changed! I still get very excited when I get new software for my computer. This time it was Mac OS X Leopard and the new iLife and iWork '09. Awesome stuff. Thanks dad :)

Since this was a big update and I ran into a small e-mail snag, my computer was out of commission for a few days ... I was so preoccupied with my new "toys," I didn't have a chance to update my blog. Good news – I'm back in business and with new tools!

In my never-ending quest to use up my frozen raspberries, I made raspberry muffins Sunday. They are very good. Since they are pink, they are perfect for Valentine's day! Get the recipe here.