UPDATE - Lunch and supper today. As of now, no taste alterations. I am blessed.

UPDATE: Slept a bit better last night until 1:45 a.m. when I had a cramp in my left foot and inner right thigh--those cramps that make you think, OK, just cut off my foot, cut off my leg--the pain's excruciating and the muscles become rigid out the wazoo. I did what my little Mama always said worked for her, I licked the salt from a restaurant-size-packet off the palm of my hand. The cramps left and I decided to sleep in the recliner for a while, instead of the bed.

Still no nausea to speak of--hooray! I haven't had to take any meds for that since Sunday.

Still dealing with peripheral neuropathy, which continues to wax and wane. I talked with the oncology pharmacist about it today. She gave me an option stronger than Tylenol in case it gets so bad that I cannot sleep. Here's hoping that doesn't happen.

Thank you for your continued prayers, love and concern. They mean the world to me, y'all.



This is lunch. I decided that I wanted to try to make an egg, veggie, chicken, and cheese scramble, then put it into a flour tortilla. Yummy, so doggone yummy. Cool that I had enough for two! I love having leftovers because it makes being versatile like this easy. I drank water from my 28-ounce mug.



This is supper. More leftovers--the baked chicken, the baked sweet potato, and the steamed broccoli. I added the fresh green grapes and cherries. Believe it or not, the flavors melded in a most pleasing manner. Naturally, I drank some water with my supper.



I'm happy and full and ready to watch some more NYPD Blue episodes on Amazon Prime Instant Video. I am totally blessed. I took this photo of my TV this morning, to share with someone at work--I knew that he'd be thrilled for me to have this beauty in my apartment.

Vegetables and fruit from the Portland Farmers Market at Portland State University, in the South Park Blocks, downtown Portland

I rode the 12 bus to the farmers market--we had a detour due to street and bridge closures in preparation for the Grand Floral Parade which was scheduled to begin an hour and a half after I had arrived at the farmers market.



I bought zucchini from that bin at the back. Yummy.



I bought potatoes from the front yellow bin. Yummy.



I bought Hood strawberries. Yummy.



I bought Brooks cherries. Yummy.



I bought raspberries and blackberries. Yummy.

Locally grown fruit and produce purchased earlier today at the Hollywood Farmers Market

Hood and Albion strawberries. Washed, drained, in the frig now. I ate some of the Hoods already--the young lady I bought them from said she believed them to be the sweeter of the two, that the Albions would keep a bit longer, a factor that I took into consideration as I enjoyed those juicy bits of red. I bought two pints of Albions, one pint of Hood.

I took these photos in the kitchen with a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent bulbs. Not the best quality, but I had no where to go to get better light.



Yellow zucchini. Green zucchini. I love squash. These are stacked on the revolving shelf that slides out of a piece of office furniture that I bought years ago at a thrift store over on SE Hawthorne Blvd. I believe it started out as a storage cabinet/work surface piece in either a doctor's or a dentist's office. It's metal, on casters, has one drawer and a door that opens to reveal a storage space split into two areas by a horizontal shelf. The brown lamintate-covered revolving shelf may be raised up and locked in place at the same height as the top of the cabinet, not that I do that because I like it just the way it is. I use this daily and repetively. When Mama died and my brother came up from Jackson, Mississippi, to help move me, he wondered why I even had it, much less why I wanted to move it--it's pretty heavy. I knew how important it would be in my new kitchen which included absolutely no counter space and not one drawer. My good sense prevailed.





The new potatoes. I cannot wait to eat some of these beauties because I know just how they're going to taste, smooth and buttery. I've decided to cook some of them with some of the zucchini, along with a bit of onion that I already have, saute the onion first, then saute the potatoes for a while, followed by the zucchini, all in the same skillet.



Turnips, chard, lettuce. I believe I'll add some turnip to my saute skillet. You can see the green front of the cabinet drawer, my smaller skillets hanging over my electric stove, and the right edge of my frig. The tray holding the three pints of strawberries sits on the top of the cabinet which is covered with the same brown laminate as the revolving shelf.



I ate some of that lettuce at lunch, washed and shook and rolled up in my fingers, straight to my mouth. So fresh, so good. Thanks to all of the farmers who work so hard!



Carrots, kale, spinach, asparagus. I believe some of this will end up in the saute skillet, too. Notice the small metal rod towards the right of the photo, beside the towel hanging on the cabinet's towel bar? That's what you turn to loosen the shelf where it's attached to the rod so that you are able to raise it up to even with the top of the cabinet. Once it's loose, you push on that thumb-shaped lever at the top of the rod and pull upward on the shelf for all you're worth. I suppose if I were to decide to move it up often that I would spay WD40 on the rod so that it would slide easily. I really don't like the smell of WD40.



In this photo you see the metal support for the revolving shelf and the lever you push which releases the grip on the shelf so that you are able to raise it up; you can also see the vacant space where the revolving shelf disappears when not pulled out for use. That pink, white and black bag on the floor is what I brought most of the bounty home in--the top zips shut. That white cabinet is an Ikea one that I had at the other apartment, our first Ikea piece. The photograph in the brown frame is a favorite of mine. I sat at the bar at 3 Doors Down Cafe on a visit to Portland prior to our move. At the time, both Lamont and Leland cooked at what I consider to be the best neighborhood restaurant in the city. The plate was set in front of me with a steak knife. "What's this?" I asked, surprised to learn that it was a scallop, something I'd never even thought about trying. Atop brandade potatoes, sauteed to a satisfying sweetness, meaty enough to require that steak knife, my first ever scallop, a memorable delicacy that I thoroughly enjoyed. I framed this photo and kept it on my desk while working as librarian at an alternative middle school in Jackson. I titled the photo "The Zen Scallop" because all I had to do was look at it and a calmness came over me at the memory of each perfect bite. There's a Cafe du Monde coffee can on top of the Ikea cabinet--my dearly departed husband LeRoy loved that coffee. I don't drink coffee.



My strawberries wait to be washed, sitting beside the best-ever-Goodwill-find for a fan like me. I adore my Portland Trail Blazers and, most mornings, I enjoy this mug filled with hot Twinings English Breakfast Tea. I sweeten it with sugar cubes which are in that blue and tan box in the background. My kitchen's just the right size for me, comfortable and efficient, when I'm not lazy.

A Tale of Two (More) Chicken Breasts

You know something that I've discovered? A real big surprise to me? The difference between taste and texture of never-been-frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and purchased-frozen chicken tenders. It's a delightful difference, let me tell you. Of course, those of you who already know this may be chuckling in a mannerly fashion at my naivete. That's OK.

Earlier in March I bought my first ever fresh chicken breasts, two of them, from the meat counter at Freddie's. I figured I could do something nice with them. That day I also bought some carrots, potatoes, onion, zucchini, yellow crook neck squash and chard. You can see what I did with all of that, here in this photo. Much like what I had on the blog on Monday, I baked the chicken breasts first, sprinkled with sea salt and pepper, drizzled with an olive oil, canola oil mixture. I forgot to say that on Monday, about the oil mixture. In a big pot, I cooked the potatoes in chunks, the carrots in disks, after I had sauteed the onion in bits and pieces, in that same olive oil/canola oil mixture. I added a little bit of water, too.

After the chicken was done, I called Lamont and asked him, "Can't I put my chicken breasts in pieces into my pot with the carrots and potatoes and onion, then add the squash and later on the chard?" "You sure can," he replied.

So I got the chicken out of the oven, let it rest a couple of minutes, then cut it into chunks. Once the potatoes and carrots began to get tender, I poured the chicken chunks and liquid into the pot, added a little bit of water, and turned up the heat for a few minutes. Then I poured in the disks of both squash and stirred in the chard which I had cut in the manner of chiffonade, as in finely cut. Well, finely cut as well as I could do it, not teensy but narrow. Anyway, it all cooked for a while on lower heat and smelled great. Right before I turned off the heat, I stirred in some leftover Green Giant Steamer Shoe Peg Corn. Oh, and as I added each new ingredient, I sprinkled some sea salt here and there in the pot.

Needless to say, I had me some more great leftovers. In fact, Lamont came over one night that week and ate a bowl of it, proclaiming it "chicken stew." He liked it! I hope that I can cook this again and have it turn out just as tasty.

You say Aga, I say Frigidaire, and we're not calling anything off!

In honor of Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt’s Aga I feature our Frigidaire. Please forgive my pitiful paraphrase of Fred Astaire's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."

Not that I'm a jump-up-and-down fan of an electric stove, but it came with the apartment. And we put it to the best use we can.

Here's our dinner from last Thursday night. Corn on the cob, steamed broccoli, sauteed Walla Walla sweet onions and yellow squash and zucchini, and browned already-fully-cooked boneless smoked pork chops.

Look closely and you can see the steam coming from the Dutch oven and the boiler which I had removed from the eye of the stove--I didn't want the broccoli to get mushy.


I should have paid similar attention to the sauteed veggies--I over-salted them. I have to take responsibility for that, but I did have a new box of sea salt which for a novice sea-salt-user like me takes some practice. Since I ruined it, it seems fitting that I didn't get it in focus in this photo.

See Mama's cute little had in the upper left of the photo? She's digging in, ready to enjoy it all--then she tasted the veggies. I've learned my lesson.

Finally, I want to encourage the curious and the creative--that would be all of y'all--to click on the link to Mrs. Nesbitt's blog so that you can read about the Aga. Then, for all of you pet lovers out there, look on the right side of the blog for the photo of the German shepherd on the beach--it's the link to Wilma's blog. Wilma is the German shepherd, Mrs. Nesbitt is her mummy.

Now, I'm off to NASCAR where the Hanna-delayed race is about to begin in Richmond, Virginia. Go Junior!