Author: Mark Linton

Alton’s Flat is Beautiful episode of Good Eats was on today. That is the one where he makes Pizza Pizzas. It is mostly a dough show, but he uses the sauce from Pantry Raid III: Seeing Red. If you missed it the Good Eats Fan Page has a transcript… and if your interested in buying the house the episode was filmed in… it is for sale… on eBay.

Gretchen sent me this joke the other day. It’s an old one that I had seen before, but forgot what the punch line was. Actually, until I got to the end, I had forgotten that it was a joke.

Exercise for the slightly older…

This is for older people. Younger people try it at their own risk. This is working well for me. For those of us getting along in years, here is a little secret for building your arm and shoulder muscles. You might want to adopt this three days a week.

Begin by standing straight, with a 5-LB. potato sack in each hand. Extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can-try to reach a full minute.

Relax. After a few weeks, move up to 10-LB. potato sacks, and then 50-LB. potato sacks, and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-LB. potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight out for more than a full minute.

After you feel confident at that level, start putting a couple of potatoes in each of the sacks, but be careful not to overdo it.

Breakfast was more cherry pie and two cups of coffee.

Again, lunch was some Cape Cod Firecracker Barbecue Potato Chips and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

When the afternoon got too hot to work outside, we came in and had an apricot slush.

Dinner was grilled swordfish, grilled fennel (from the CSA), and a Greek inspired cucumber yogurt salad (garlic and cucumber from the CSA, dill from the garden, yogurt from the Penn State Creamery) with two glasses of Fontana Candida Pinot Grigio and a slice of cherry pie for dessert.

Breakfast was cherry pie and two cups of coffee.

Lunch was some Cape Cod Firecracker Barbecue Potato Chips and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

Dinner was chicken and snow peas — made with sugar snap peas from of our own garden and garlic and onions from the CSA — and three glasses of Fontana Candida Pinot Grigio.

Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal with banana slices, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee. I weighed 157 pounds.

I walked over to the HUB at lunch with some of the guys from the office — about three miles, round trip — and had Panda Express mandarin chicken and kung pao chicken with chow mein noodles and a fortune cookie.

You have a curious and a

mysterious nature.

Lucky Numbers 16, 17, 20, 26, 29, 38

We had breakfast for dinner: cheese omelette, and maple sausage links, plus two bottles of Saranac Pale Ale (which we wouldn’t normally have with breakfast). Afterwards, we walked over to the in-laws with a nice fresh cherry pie that Gretchen made with the first of the nice fresh cherries we picked the other day. Verne had a fire going on the deck and we sat around it and ate the wonderful pie and watched the fireflies dance about.

I am forever surprised to find that anybody reads my blog. I think of it as just being a daily journal so I can remember things that never make it from short term memory into long term memory, like what I ate, or what I weighed, or what my workout consisted of, or the answers to questions I did not know I had. As I journal these items I cannot help but think that nobody could possibly be interested. I rationalize it by saying to myself that they do not have to read it if they do not find it interesting, and yet based on my visitor logs it seems that people are interested, or at least want to know the answers to the same questions. For instance:

• Is lunch time a.m. or p.m.?
• How do you make Tuscan Tomato Soup?
• How do you cleanly core a cabbage?
• What can I make with what I have?
• What is the history of Silly Putty?
• What is the origin of the Hambuger?
• Where does butter come from?

I guess, in my own way, I am making a contribution. I hope it helps somebody.

I would like to thank Annie (?) over at Fresh Vegetables for adding me to her links to other food blogs.

I would like to thank Beth over at Switched At Birth for adding me to her list of Cooks Whose Writing I Love To Read. It is hard for me to imagine, but I appreciate the thought.

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee, and two slices of toasted Italian bread with strawberry jam. I weighed 156 pounds.

I took a few hours off of work this morning so that Gretchen and I could go pick cherries.

The trees were really loaded.

In just about an hour we picked sixteen quarts.

We paid by weight, but it worked out to about $2 per quart.

When I got to the office I had a cup of green tea.

Lunch was a Romaine salad with parmesan cheese and red wine vinegar and oil salad dressing and two slices of Italian bread.

After eating lunch I went for four mile walk around town. I had forgotten that today was the first day of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

Of course there were people everywhere.

Later in the afternoon I had a banana.

Dinner was a wedge of Turkey pie and two bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.

Tonight’s MBNA Fitness Center workout:

1. Incline Press: 12@30, 10@40, 8@50, 6@60, 12@50, 8@30
2. Lateral Raise: 12@40, 10@50, 8@60, 6@70, 12@60, 12@40
3. Compound Row: 12@70, 10@85, 8@105, 6@125, 12@105, 12@70
4. Triceps Extension: 12@25, 10@30, 8@35, 6@45, 12@35, 12@25
5. Biceps Curl: 12@20, 10@35, 8@50, 6@65, 12@50, 12@20

I need to look at substituting some other exercises, like the pec fly for the incline press. I also need to slow down a little on the repetitions themselves — quality, not quantity.