The Silver Screen Oasis

I'm with Anne. I remember that the very first thing we were taught to make in middle school Home Ec. was cinnamon toast; we shook up a jar filled with sugar and cinnamon, and topped buttered toast with it. Dee-lish. It's also a common additive to coffee cake toppings.

Time to expand your culinary horizons, Klonny -- actually, cinnamon & sugar seems a very ordinary and unexotic combo to me. Maybe it's just that Klonny is too deeply inculcated with the maple syrup mystique. And I can't see anything wrong with that, either.

I have committed to doing something this weekend that I rarely do any more. To wit: cook and bake. Hope I remember how.

hey guys, I think Klonnie was actually giving me a compliment.

because what's a li'l naughtiness now & then, but cinnamon in the sugar?

In other words, a little spice to life! Anne, I have an almost used up cinnamon container....it's getting filled with sugar tonight! YUM

Judith, good luck in the kitchen! My guys always said they knew when dinner was ready: the smoke alarm went off!!!!!!

Anne,

Cinnamon toast, yum! Just one of the "comfort foods" that my saintly grandma prepared for my brother and myself while we visited her. The others were homemade ice cream (in a crank freezer with peaches!), homemade vegetable soup, and banana pudding- a southern tradition

silent screen:

Is that banana pudding bowl lined with vanilla wafers, slice in bananas, then add the pudding, and top with whipped cream or (for dieters), cool whip? That's something my daughter taught my granddaughter just last week. I learned it from my Arkansas Mother in law.

Anne

5 degrees Sunday...(wind chilll 25 below) and now 55 degrees today. Oh well, that's Illinois for you. We saw everything Christmas day but lightning. The warm up was great but it was a little scary driving home in the fog tonight. Hope things are looking up for all of you around the country.

By the way, I used to love cinnamon sugar on toast, but prefer brown sugar now. Straight.

65 yesterday, then it dropped like a rock, by 8 last night we were in a tornado watch. At 4 this morning, wind came thru that I honestly thought was going to take the siding off the house. Rain today, and snow tonight. Birdy, we got the lightning and thunder you missed!

Uh, yeah, let me revise that. It showed up today. Thanks for sending it our way! Something hit the attic window and broke it and I did a temporary repair (from inside. Please do not visualize me dangling from the soffits.) All has fared well except the dogs are a muddy mess. Yuck. It is still relatively warm here but expected to drop like...a rock. B

Already have 4 to 6 inches of snow on the ground and for three days now it has been falling very lightly until last night, an explosion, this morning another 3 inches at least is there and it hasn't stopped.

My granddaughter has been hospitalized 5 times in 3 weeks and my sister has finally lost her fight with cancer and been sent home with hospice and I haven't been able to get to see either of them. I feel like a bear in hibernation. The main streets are okay, but if you have to go onto residential streets, you take your life in your hand, so many streets are not plowed. I haven't been out of my apartment in more than two weeks, and that was just for some grocery shopping.

Like a fool I didn't have time to get my flu shot so my daughter hates to take me to places that are crowded and though I agree, the cupboards are starting to run low.

I'm lucky that there are some teens who live in the building and I can ask them to run to the store for me. Gosh I hate to think of people who have nobody and can't afford electric and/or gas bills.

Put on a sweater and socks, don't raise the heat too high, it's too easy to start a fire in this dry cold.

Anne

Anne,
Not as much snow here a little south of you, but it is piling up and expected 6 below tonight. Yikes.

I'm glad you are indoors and warm and hopefully enjoying a movie and bowl of popcorn (or peanuts in your coke). I hope the weather will cooperate soon so you can get out and about.
B

It sounds like we're all going to be "hunkering down" for the Arctic Blast headed to the Midwest. It was 35 and fairly clear this morning (as I SPED along the highway) and now, at 1pm, it's 7 degrees above zero. Supposed to be -3 tonight. We are actually blessed here in KC, we're not supposed to get snow. I just need to be sure my taps are dripping and the cabinet doors under the sinks are open. BRRRRRRRRRRRR

Never fear. Doesn't the California weather pattern hit the midwest three days later? And we've been experiencing a beautiful "heat wave" for the past days with temperatures in the 70's. Everyone's taking evening strolls and leaving their windows yawning wide. So there must be a winter respite coming your way.

All our local radio and TV people are yapping about the frigid cold and the Arctic air here in NYC as we experience a dreaded Alberta Clipper.

However, although it is cold, I'm not finding it as really cold as the media would have us believe. I've been in much colder weather than this here. It's snowing now, but it isn't all that windy, and it hasn't been particularly windy all week. It's the wind that carries the real bite in terms of cold here in NYC. It's in the 20s now, and it just feels like Winter, not like the End of the World As We Know It.

However, temperatures are expected to "plummet" tonight and tomorrow (that's broadcast weather report code for "temperatures may go down"). I generally judge the lessening of temperatures by the increase in joint stiffness and creaking. So far, I'm just hearing my knees snap once in a while, but I'm expecting to need the old oil can this evening.

We're setting records here in D.C.-By-The-Lake. Most snow for a January; most consecutive days with measurable snowfall; and, most consecutive days since 1996 with sub-zero temperatures. Shovelling three times a day is starting to aggravate my sciatica.

Despite the reported -26 windchill, it's not that bad as long as you walk north, south or east. Walk west and...YIKES!

Another beautiful, balmy pre-spring day here in spectacular
Oakland! Sorry.
Here's a shot of the Bay Bridge taken from a tour boat on
a day just like today. That's the SF skyline beyond the bridge...
[youtube][/youtube]

To our California friends - I always check out the weather in California on the instant weather. It's nice to know someone can live life without staging a 3 act play to go out the door and into the abyss.
Act I - prepare and assemble all necessary supplies near the back door
Act II - wrap up in everything you own that's not nailed down - don't forget to leave your bag on the counter because you won't be able to bend all the way to the floor once you're zipped up
Act III - Go out the door in a bolt and hang on tight so the door doesn't blow off the hinges.

Sequel to follow - getting down the sidewalk and into the car.