Days go by

I've been a bit quiet on the blog, mainly not much of greatness to write about. We have been busy socially catching up with friends, running and recovering and me working odd hours. We continue to broaden our cultural experiences. We enjoyed dinner out with a good friend at a Cuban food restaurant. It was yummy. I ordered a mixed plate so to speak with pork, chicken and beef. Despite the protein overload, it was lovely food and I enjoy eating different things. While at the airport I spend a little time in the crew room with the aircraft ground crew while waiting for my plane to arrive. One young fella had some interesting homemade snacks and of course, I asked what it was. He was very sweet and explained it was ‘yuca’ with a sweet brown sugar topping. He gave me some to taste and they were pretty tasty. He said they are an El Salvadorean tradition. Yuca is like a root (similar to potato) and he mixes with cheese, crumbs it and grills it. He said that they eat it as a mid afternoon snack with ‘chilate’ which is like a hot chocolate but it’s not sweet. Well, that was an interesting lesson. I am definitely going to bring something in for this crew – maybe Anzac biscuits? Sausage rolls would be difficult here so I’ll think of something Aussie to return the favour. I do have some 4n20 pies in the freezer, maybe they’d like some of those.

We took a day trip to southern Maryland to visit a friend’s house by the lake. We took the dogs so they could meet/greet their dog as we are going to mind their dog next weekend. It was just a gorgeous day, a gorgeous house and a great day trip. They have a girl dog and she kinda took a fancy to Cricket. Lots of sniffing, licking and following so must keep an eye on them on the weekend.

I worked function at the Amb residence again and enjoyed fair dinkum real Aussie beef snags. OMG, I had literally gone to heaven. The chef’s dad in Australia is a butcher. When she went home recently, she brought back a few kilos of seasoning and had a good butcher here make the sausages from beef. I cannot say enough how awesome they tasted. There is  baker in Atlanta, Georgia that makes pies and sossy rolls and they also did a big order of those. So needless to say I ate quite bit that night but it was so good !! And of course there was pavlova and lamingtons to top it off.

The weather is completely dreadful, the humidity is heavy, thick, wet and suffocating. Running is very hard and wet work. Deb’s injury has healed and she is getting her fitness back. We are still running 15-20km each Saturday and I’m pretty shattered for the day.

We’ve been binge watching some TV shows. There was a great Australian drama called the Heart Guy (also known as Doctor Doctor in the UK I think). It’s based in a small country town (actually filmed in Mudgee, NSW) and has a great cast of Australian favourites. It was the first season and a second will be made. We also finished the latest Janet King series on ABC and Deb is working her way through Offspring which frustrates me most of the time. The movie Dunkirk is starting soon and we plan to go with friends to see this at the Smithsonian IMAX theatre. 

I have to say that my niece recently moved into her new little house. She built new and she has worked/saved hard to get herself in the market. I couldn’t be prouder of her and my facetime walk-though was very exciting to see it all complete. The joys of doing what you want in your own house are something she is now enjoying...and together with the mortgage club of course.

I finally met our neighbor last week. We knew his wife was not well and it never seemed the right time to pop over but we were wheeling our trash (wheelie) bins in and had a nice chat. He was lovely. His wife is in care so he lives alone now but has family around him. I had baked several banana cakes that day so I took some over to him as a treat. He was thrilled. On the weekend, he came over with two big loaves of bread he had bought fresh that morning. One was pumpernickel (a sourdough and rye type bread) and challah (a jewish sweet type of bread). He is a lovely man and I look forward to popping over more often to deliver treats and say hello.  Our other neighbours are moving overseas on posting so we are currently waiting to see who will rent their house. They are using the same real estate agent that rented to us and they said to her the wanted lovely people like the two Australians next door. How nice.

On the cooking front, I made a bunch of chocolate crackles for a lady at work as she mentioned she hadn’t eaten them in over 20 years. That was an easy thing to fix and I think she took them nearly all of them home. She only shared a few with her workmates. They must have been very precious to her. I also made a rum n raisin chocolate slice from a recipe I saw in the Better Homes And Gardens mag. It turned out nice but couldn’t taste the rum. That plate emptied pretty quick also.

And to finish, I have to say well done to the Maroons – once again, dominating the State of Origin. For my non-Aust readers, State of Origin is a rugby league battle between the best players from Queensland (Maroons) and NSW (Blues). As a Queenslander, it’s always good to stick it to NSW so well done boys, yet another series win leaving the Blues thinking about next year.