Friday Favorite Finds - Recipes

Please link up to a post containing your list of recipes to try -- do not link up individual recipes please, save those for other linkys.  Be sure to leave a link back here to Finding Joy in my Kitchen.

Lasagne di pollo e Funghi Misti


Source - The Spice Garden

Shrimp crunch buns

 

Source - The Kitchen Witch

English scones

Source - Anula's Kitchen

Pumpkin cranberry bread

Source - Better than Burgers

Meyer lemon curd

Source - Girlichef

Last minute chocolate cake with mocha icing and to think this uses coffee in the icing, one of my favourite flavours.

Source - Food for a Hungry Soul

Mini elephant ears - another recipe from one of my favourite bloggers and probably one of the original bloggers I found when first reading blogs.

Source - Food for a Hungry Soul

Unconscious Mutterings

I'm trying out Unconscious Mutterings this week.
Guidelines according to Luna Nina:

Free association is described as a "psychonanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content." Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this excercise, we're just hoping to have a little fun with the technique. Each week I'll post ten words to which you can respond to with the first thing that comes to mind.

"Rules are, there are no rules." There are no right or wrong answers. Don't limit yourself to one word responses; just say everything that pops into your head. AND you don't have to have your words up on Sunday. Take all week if you want! 

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Whispering :: Hills
2. Braided :: Hunger Games Katniss
3. Ruin :: rack
4. Parasite :: bugs
5. Mineral :: water
6. Engines :: cars
7. Buddy :: pals
8. Tic :: twitch
9. Small :: tiny
10. Tackled :: Football

Wondrous Words Wednesday

 

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading and is hosted by Bermuda Onion.

I haven't come across very new words lately so I thought I would share some old posts I wrote about the meaning of some words.

Steamie - a Quebec hot dog. All-dressed (Montreal Style) : This hotdog, nicknamed a 'steamé', is topped with mustard, chopped onion, and sauerkraut. Sometimes fresh coleslaw or chopped cabbage is used instead of sauerkraut. Relish is usually available, but in the oldest hot-doggeries, e.g., the Montreal Pool Room (now Le vieux Montreal Pool Room), "all-dressed" means without relish. All-dressed typically does not include ketchup, which must be requested specifically.
A must have when we visit Montreal!!

Steamie - where Glasgow women would wash their clothes in a public washhouse (steamie).
According to Allotment 2 Kitchen's blog where I first came across this expression it now refers to a "gossip room".  The Scotsman newspaper online has a blog called "The Steamie".
I took these photos when we were in Glasgow at the People's Palace and Winter Gardens.

Wordless Wednesday - Mouse Potato

I'm linking up over here. And over at Tina's Wordless Wednesday.

Me, texting while in Buffalo (to J)

K! In Birmingham hotel trying to buy our bus  tickets on line.

Me, aboard a cruise ship on the Yangtze in China.

Me, in Las Vegas

I think I can safely say that anyone who knows me would say I am a mouse potato! Urban Dictionary definition: Someone who spends all their time on the computer surfing the net. This includes blogging, digital scrapbooking etc.

Me, texting my friend J while in Hawaii

Verona Italy

May 2004 - Verona Italy


Setting up the chairs for an opera performance at the Arena in Verona Italy.

 This photo puts the size of these statues into perspective!!

All photography on this post at Junk Boat Travels are under copyright. If you would like to use any of my photographs please contact me first.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.
You might also like to check out my Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads.

Finished this week:

Synopsis over here.

So I persevered with this choice.  I was tempted to give up at one point especially when he goes on and on about physics and other scientific jargon. I stayed with it, albeit skimming certain sections and am glad I finished it. The parts I really enjoyed were the history of the French castles and then researching which castles still exist to add to my Bucket List along with Carcassonne  which I discovered when I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse several years ago.

I thought the characters were flat, I wasn't drawn to any of them.  Knights, castles, fighting and suspense should have drawn me in but alas...

Also finished this week:

Synopsis here.

This was my first JG Ballard book and I liked it. I do think a Nick Horby  book is much more fun to read on this type of topic.

I know Ballard's point is the shallowness of middle class society but I just couldn't get into any of the characters especially the film lecturer who despises Hollywood cinema so much she organizes the burning  down of the NFT.

I did enjoy the geographical references to London and could relate to all the places that the protests were held in.

Also finished this week:

From the book jacket:

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.


I realize I'm late jumping onto the band-wagon, I had bought this for my 17 year old nephew at Christmas and assumed it was a YA book. As well I am not usually a big fan of dystopian novels (see Timeline above). I bought it because Kobo where I buy my e-reader books had a special for the trilogy.
Boy, was I wrong. From the first page I couldn't put it down!!!
There were times I could have cried, there were I gasped as the plot turned and twisted. 
We will be going to see the movie very soon as I am curious to see how it is done. 


Started this week:

From the book jacket:
Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

I am still captivated!

Plan to start reading this week:

I'm not going to include the synopsis here as I don't want to know!!!

2012 books read:

The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani 
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury 
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin 
GB84 - David Peace 
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace

Faithful Place - Tana French

Dead Like You - Peter James

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo

The Leopard - Jo Nesbo

The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg

Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace

Timeline - Michael Crichton

Millennium People - JG Ballard

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins 

Macro Monday

Macro Monday is hosted by Lisa at Lisa's Chaos.
Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or any close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back to Lisa's blog and sign McLinky.
A winged lion atop San Marco Church in Venice, Italy.

The winged lion has long been a traditional symbol of Venice. It is the symbol of Mark the Evangelist (the apostle), who has been the is the city's patron saint ever since his remains were taken from a tomb in Alexandria, Egypt, and brought to Venice in 828 AD. 

Over the next few weeks I will post more lions from Italy.

Blue Monday

I'm linking up at Blue Monday today.

The Reed Flute Cave (Chinese: 芦笛岩; pinyin: Lúdí Yán) is a landmark and tourist attraction inGuilin, Guangxi, China. It is a natural limestone cave with multicolored lighting and has been one of Guilin’s most interesting attractions for over 1200 years. It is over 180 million years old. The cave got its name from the type of reed growing outside, which can be made into melodious flutes. Reed Flute Cave is filled with a large number of stalactites, stalagmites and rock formations in weird and wonderful shapes. Inside, there are more than 70 inscriptions written in ink, which can be dated back as far as 792 AD in the Tang Dynasty.

All photography on this post at Junk Boat Travels are under copyright. If you would like to use any of my photographs please contact me first.

Foto Finish

Cat Patches hosts this weekly meme. Her theme this week is FLOWERS!


From my garden last August -  big and showy and a delight when she appears in August!!
The hardy hibiscus grows the largest flowers, with blooms that can get to be 8 inches across. Although each flower lives only for one day, the plant generally produces hundreds in one season.

Scenic Sunday

Scenic Sunday is hosting this meme. 

Taken at Montezuma in Arizona when we were staying in Sedona one November.
Montezuma was our first encounter with the Sinagua Indian people and it blew me away!!!

Montezuma Castle is one of a number of well-preserved ancient dwellings in north central Arizona, including the Wupatki, Tonto, Walnut Canyon, andTuzigoot national monuments. It is probably the most spectacular; an imposing 20 room, 5-storey structure built into a recess in a white limestone cliff about 70 feet above the ground. When first (re)discovered the ruins were thought to be Aztec in origin, hence the name bestowed on them by early explorers, but they are now known to belong to the Sinagua Indian peoples who farmed the surrounding land between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, before abandoning the area. The good state of preservation of the ruins is due in part to their protected location, shielded from rain and sun, and also the relatively early designation of the site as a national monument (in 1906).