~ Blonde Gator

Found at Hot Air.

Our Favorite Cookies

For years, my mom has told me of her adventures as the wife of an Army Air Corps cadet during the War years, following my father around the country as he learned to fly.  My mom worked for Wright Aeronautical (she was formally trained at Katherine Gibbs Secretarial College in New York City, so she never had a problem finding suitable employment as she camp-followed).  Although once she waited tables in San Antonio at the Chick Inn, for room and board!!!  But that’s a story for another day.

Another tale of the family folklore goes like this.  My grandmother’s father, a well-to-do man in the small New Jersey town of Glen Rock (he drove a Pierce Arrow!), owned several buildings in town, including one which he rented to the Post Office, where he and his second wife lived upstairs.  During WWII, he and his wife baked cookies….which became a local hit, because they shipped overseas so well without shattering into crumbs.  Mom calls them “sandies”.  The demand for my great-grandfather’s sandies became so great that he and his wife became almost full time bakers in their second floor apartment….in order to fulfill the demand for cookies “for the boys”.  My mother has very sharp memories of the smell of cookies baking, wafting down the stairs and out to the street when she’d go to visit Dad’s grandfather.

And lo and behold, I found a recipe in Grama’s little notebook…”Our Favorite Cookies”.

My good pal the Island Girl is an experienced baker (I’m a neophyte)….she’s been fascinated by both the tale and the “recipe” in Grama’s book, puzzling over it for hours.  Her opinion is that it’s a “short” recipe, as in shortbread, and the Island Girl has endlessly questioned my mom about the size, shape, thickness, etc., trying to winnow out the “how”.  And unlike the cookies we bake today, due to War rationing, the list of ingredients is rather simple.

So for Mother’s Day, the Island Girl surprised us, and baked up a batch (using her experience to make up for the lack of instructions) of Great Grandfather’s sandies.  They are sublimely simple, but delicious, and I can see why they were so popular due to their texture.

Our Favorite Cookies ~ Delicious!

My mom, however, says they are not quite right….so I think my grandmother left out a secret ingredient that only she knew!!!  The recipe does say “add nuts if desired”, but I think there may be something like cinnamon or vanilla (probably not that due to war time rationing)…..I suspect perhaps almond extract as my father was a fiend for butter letter, which has almond paste.  So the Island Girl and I are on a mission, to recreate these cookies exactly.  The Island Girl’s first attempt was rather spectacular.  I have to say, I kind of like them just the way they are, simple and pared down, but absolutely delicious.  And a bit historic.  Well, in my family, anyway.  Oddly, I don’t remember eating the sandies as a kid….but don’t get me started on my great aunt’s peanut butter cookies!

~ Blonde Gator

Island Girl’s Instructions.  I’ll update that link as we try to perfect the cookies that live in my mom’s memory.  I’m getting a twidge in the back of my head about cookies with chopped nuts and maybe some brown sugar on top???  Stay tuned.

Male Howler Monkey

This photo was taken from their lovely “tree house”, close to Paradiso, and our favorite place, Junquillal, Costa Rica (they rent it out, check out their website).

~ Blonde Gator

[Edit:  Just received a comment from Paul....they have a BOGO special for the "Rainy Season"....which I actually prefer.  It's beautiful in Guanacaste this time of year...if you're thinking of Costa Rica, now is a great time!  Check out the comments.]

Timmy at the Met ~ from the UK Daily Mail

Ooh la la!

~ Blonde Gator

h/t Wrathful Brunette

Just wanted to say thanks to all of my friends who supported me through the little “rip off” episode (which is NOT over yet, LOL).

~ Blonde Gator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkb1nOJnD4

If that doesn’t make you smile, you must be terminally pissed off, because it has cracked me off every time I’ve seen it over the last four years or so.  Enjoy!!!

~ Blonde Gator

He copied my (now infamous) Handy Reference Guide to Obama’s Gaffes & Goofs, and posted it as his own work, copying my entire post, word for word and link for link, without a link to my blog, nor a citation to me as an author, but left a track back on #115 (as numbered now, that may change as I add gaffes to the alphabetical list) “Waves Like Alfred E. Neuman”.

Sooooo….I wandered on over to this person’s blog and left a comment that I didn’t mind him using it, however I expected a link at the top of his entry to “Blonde Gator”.  After all, that is what bloggers do.  My Gaffe List has been picked up by many bloggers, including quite a few conservative aggregators, as well as Weasel Zippers and Neal Boortz, all with the appropriate link.  It’s all about the traffic, of course.  Even though I don’t have any ads, nor do I plan to, my hit count is what floats my boat.

Well, JerkOff got pissed.  He never let my comment out of his moderation queue, but he did take down his post, and using my links, kind of rewrote it using quotes from my linked citations.  Did he plagiarize that as well?  Dunno, if anyone cares to take the time to do some research, let me know in the comments.  JerkOff may well be that stupid!

h/t the Wrathful Brunette

So, I enlisted some help from my friends, to leave a couple of comments on this JerkOff’s “work”.

And when I checked his blog this a.m., look what I found!  Not only a thief, but a thief and a vulgar liar, to boot.  Someone so jealous that instead of merely doing the right thing (removing his plagiaristic post or linking mine)….he went postal and left this lovely little diatribe and threat (apologies from me for the vulgarity):

This is not the BLONDE BITCHES LIST ASSHOLE…It is a list of Random QUOTES…Do you think this BITCH is the only person who compiled a list of them? STOP SPAMMING MY BLOG YOU STUPID ASS HOLE, I will just DELETE. Then I will report your IP address for spamming. So FUCK off. Nobody gives a shit about some stupid cunt who travels around the world and acts like a CRYBABY, whining, irrelevant and spoiled Martha Stewart wannabe. I am keeping track of all your IP addresses and posting them for the world see (or use). GET OVER YOURSELF, you’re not that important.

Well, well, well.  Isn’t that special?  But I’m betting I have a lot more traffic than he does, and obviously my winning “Martha Stewart wannabe” personality is much more likeable than his.  Oh yeah, I also have his IP address, so what.  Although his blog says he belongs to some association of bloggers, who I am sure would be interested to see him ripping off another blogger.

I have to laugh, though.  I have been using my Gaffe List as my tagline on Newsbusters for almost a year….yet old JerkOff thinks my list isn’t well known.  LOL, as I was doing some more research on who had picked up my blog (with cite) last night, I found a link to The List in a comment.  To which another person replied….”yeah, Blonde Gator’s on my bookmarks, I read it pretty frequently, have you seen the orchids she grows?”.  And that, my friends, really floated my boat, as these were two S/N’s I’d never seen before.

So….we’ll see if the JerkOff deigns to comment over here, big brave (micro-dicked) man that he is.

The saga will be updated as warranted.

~ Blonde Gator

[Edit 1]:  The coward has closed the comments on his blog.

[Edit 2]:  Now I’m pissed.  Micro-Dick’s continuing to “add” to the list, using my links.  I’m going to rake through every single one that he puts up.  Notice he keeps changing the name of his post, to try to deflect.  It was first named “Obamas [sic] Gaff [sic] List – Can You Think Find [sic] Any More” after he took down my ripped-off version.   Micro-Dick is not a brilliant author, nor very well educated, is he folks?  More to follow.

[Edit 3]:  Now Micro-Dick is up to 72 “Gaffs”…..does the idiot not understand the difference between a Gaffe and a Gaff?

9 Aftco Gaffs

[Edit 4]:  The moron is now Tweeting “his” blog.  He goes by “@feedmybulldog”.  FeedmyIdiotEgo is more like it.

[Edit 5]:  Now he’s taken the vulgar comment down!  Hee hee.  He apparently has hidden all of my gaffes in amongst his non-gaffs, so that his list is longer than mine.  I, however, know the difference between a gaffe and a gaff, as well as a gaffe and stupidity.  That’s what an education and living outside of mommy’s basement will do for a person.

[Edit 6]:  Jerk-Off is apparently keeping tabs on me, because he has now updated his pathetically titled blog and corrected the spelling of GAFFE!  I do so hope the little man is getting a good education here.  He should have merely complied with my very polite original request and linked my work, but NOOOOO! 

[Edit 7]:  He’s still plagiarizing.  Check out his #112, lifted straight out of Wiki (see the footnote?) without a cite.  Also, he’s trying to hide his use of my links by using a tiny.url.   It’s now Thursday at noon, let’s see how long it takes for him to “update” his errors, as he attends the Blonde Gator School.  Oh, he’s also blocked “us” from “his” Twitter thread, where he tries to shag his pathetic blog.  ROTFL.  BTW, JerkOff, I have cached your pages.

Moonrise

We headed over to the beach about a half hour before sunset.  Beautiful!

And perusing the UK Daily Mail today, I found this….which made my heart sing!  There are some amazing photos of the Super Moon there.  Enjoy!

Century Tower, University of Florida

~ Blonde Gator

Delicious Home Made Breakfast Sausage

Those (Alton Brown’s Breakfast Sausage Recipe) are ready for the freezer.  I’ll add some links/recipes/photos later, of the stuff I’ve made thus far with this spectacular machine.

From Chef Heaven,

~ Blonde Gator

[Edit:  Here are photos and commentary on the sausage making process.  Contrary to the old saying, you really do want to know how sausage is made.  It's really easy, and well worth the time and savings.  Plus it is tres delicioso!]

BLC Krull's Lemonade

Tuesday afternoon, the monster box arrived, Iguana Man bought me a KitchenAid, a machine I’d been lusting after in my heart for years.

And then, another box arrived….smaller, and much lighter.  I opened it, and there was a huge, newspaper wrapped thing inside.  As I peeled the onion like layers away, I found yet more layers of shredded newspaper.

And then I found a beautiful cattleya seedling.  Not sure what to make of this, I looked around….and found a gift card on the floor.  Which totally blew me away…..from Reba.  My mini-me, who never fails to crack me up.  Or shock me!!!

Here is how it will look when it blooms….which I would guess will be by the end of the year.  It is a beautifully grown plant, healthy, and now happy in its new home.  Pretty spectacular, don’t you think?

Thanks, Reba….you got me!

~ Blonde Gator