Well, unfortunately, I’m too late to enter this food blogging event (happens too often), but I really wanted to, so I’m posting this anyway.

Tasty Tools is a monthly food photography event hosted by Joelen’s Culinary Adventures. April’s theme was scoop - use any kind of kitchen scoop and photograph it. View the entries and winners.

Lately, I’ve been eating a lot of brownie-loaded chocolate ice cream (blame Dan - he brought home the first carton, and now I’m hooked). And last fall, while visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Oak Park, IL, near Chicago, we discovered this wonderful little shop called Olive and Well. It’s a specialty shop that carries mostly olive oils, balsamic vinegars and various gourmet condiments, breads and sauces.

They have lots of small casks of olive oils (probably hold a couple of gallons) with little paper cups for tasting. We tasted almost all of them and finally settled on one. Then I noticed the vinegars - and I’m a vinegar freak, just ask Dan - so I went over to see the flavors … and then I saw it - strawberry balsamic vinegar. I poured some into a little tasting cup and lifted it to my mouth - before I could even taste it, the aroma tingled my nose and my mouth watered instantly. I knew I was going to be buying this one So I did.

And what goes better with chocolate than strawberries? That’s right - strawberry balsamic vinegar. Scoop out some brownie-chocolate ice cream and drizzle it with strawberry balsamic vinegar - a dessert truly to die for.

Oh, about the scoop Years ago, when we first moved into the neighborhood and I was on the board of the Civic League, it seemed like every few months, someone was having a Pampered Chef party - I had one annually for a few years myself. This is one of the gadgets I got during those years. Works great - it has anti-freeze in the handle that flows down into the scoop when you use it, to help melt the ice cream so it scoops more easily. I love it.

Forgot to mention - after the boys went kayaking in Richmond on Sunday, we stopped at Legend Brewing, a microbrewery, for dinner. After their trip on the water, the guys needed some warming up, apparently, because they both ordered chili Spicy! I had a blackened tuna steak over linguine Alfredo - not bad, but the tuna was overdone. Still good. And they had live music! So that was fun.

Check this out: Eagle Cam

The Norfolk Botanical Garden has a camera on an eagle’s nest there, so you can check up on it at any time. They also have a blog where they keep people up to date with what’s going on in the nest: Eagle Cam Blog Pretty cool.

Last night, Dan, Barbara, Bill and I went to see the Governor’s School for the Arts performers in a production of “All Shook Up” at the Roper Performing Arts Center in downtown Norfolk. It was great! Toe-tapping music and a lot of cute jokes, as well as love mix-ups a la Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

The synopsis says: “A new musical using 24 Elvis Presley tunes - but not based on his life story. Instead, it’s the story of a small-town girl who dreams of hitting the open road, and the guitar-playing roustabout who brings romance, rebellion and rock ‘n’ roll into her life.”

We’ve seen the GSA before, and they’re wonderful. I think they’re about as good as any Broadway company I’ve seen come through here. Their dancing and singing are top-notch. Way to go, kids!

I’m renaming my blog - lewandowski.net was so bland …

Live (an active life) ::
Love (my friends and family) ::
Laugh (as much as possible) ::
Eat! (cook and eat delicious, mostly healthy food as often as possible, for and with family and friends)

Kinda sums it up It’s a broad focus, I know, but hey - I’m a Gemini, I’m interested in all kinds of things.

Hey, y’all After a lengthy hiatus, I’m back. First off, check out my new bike. Dan has been biking for quite a while, but I haven’t done much of it since my bike was stolen several years ago. But we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a new bike for me that Dan actually likes better than his own (except for the pink)

Mine has nice shocks on the front and back tires AND on the seat, so it’s a very comfortable ride. Last Sunday, we went to First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach for a bike ride that turned out to be about 7 miles! It wasn’t on purpose - we went the wrong way when we started and ended up going out of the park and onto a bike path that went past some very nice homes; when we came to a commercial area, we turned around and went back to the park. It was beautiful in there, and the weather was perfect 85 degrees and low humidity. Most of the bike path is shaded by huge pine and other types of trees, so it was very nice. We will definitely be back.

There doesn’t seem to be much more to say about the tragedy that took place at Virginia Tech earlier this week. It was a huge shock, but the way the students there have handled it, at least from what I’ve seen on TV, has been impressive and inspirational. I’m proud to be an honorary member of the Hokie Nation, even if only for a day. And I’m thankful that my second cousin, Michael White, a Tech student, was not on campus that day.

…here’s something fun

Someone on my Web design mailing list sent this:

Are you a Yankee or a Southerner? Try the http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html”>Yankee test.

Since I grew up in Michigan, but have lived in Virginia lo these many years, my score is about right, I think: 44% Dixie, bordering on Yankee.

What’s yours?

This month has been really crazy busy. This is the first weekend we’ve both been home with really nothing pressing to do. The first week (and two weekends), we were in Michigan, visiting family and friends. The second weekend, I took a trip to Colorado with a friend to visit another friend. And last weekend, our exchange student from two years ago and her family came to visit for several days.

I’m working on getting pix up of all this … soon, I promise

I’d heard about this before, on my Web design mailing list, but I was still a little surprised at how much comment spam I’ve been receiving through this blog. I just installed Akismet to block it, and in 10 minutes or so, it’s caught 175 spam messages and only missed three. Very cool

I’ve been finding dozens of spam messages advertising all kinds of crap every time I checked my email, to the point that I did not want to check email, so I’m glad to finally find this plug-in to help stop it.