Experimenting in the kitchen

  If anybody saw a movie "Confessions of a Shopoholic" then you'll remember how the manikins were talking to the main character in the movie ("Buy this! Buy this! Just look how at this, not only good, but quality product. Besides, it looks great too"). Exactly the same way these potatoes talk to me when I am passing them by in a grocery store

I was lucky to be a daughter of a woman that loved all that had to do with kitchenware. My mom had a big collection of dishes, pots and other stuff that you would ever need or use in the kitchen, and that was during the times where nothing was available for purchase in the stores. If you ever got anything, that was because you had relations with store personnel or you waited in a two mile long line.

Me and my sister always had a favorite cup or a dish. And God have mercy if we liked the same thing that was available in a quantity of only one.
That is why everything that was ever purchased for our use, was bought in double quantities. Even the birthday presents were bought in the quantity of 2, to make sure that none were "discriminated". It didn't really matter whose birthday it was.

Even now in my adult life I have a favorite cup and a soup bowl that I like to eat from. Somehow the food is more enjoyable when it's consumed from the favorite dish or a cup.

So, where am I going with this... Oh, that's right...
Every time we ordered a cappuccino in a restaurant they would bring it in this special cappuccino cup, with the steamed milk, the foam of which always seemed to want to escape the cup, but never did. I didn't have these kinds of cups at home though. I am not sure if we rarely made cappuccino because we didn't have cups, or we didn't have cups because we rarely made cappuccino at home.
Well that cycle ended when I saw these cups in a store. I bought them. It didn't take me long to decide wether I wanted them or not. Now I am going to drink cappuccino not only because it tastes delicious, but because I have the cups that have the ability to make anything taste delicious, once poured into them.

For a version of this post in Russian go to CrazyAppetite

I even let my daughter play outside (on a balcony) for a little ;)

With the fact that I am a stay at home mom, I am usually "confined" to a closed space called my home)) Well may be not confined, but I do spend a great deal of time indoors and pretty much don't get out of the house unless I absolutely have to. So, keeping that in mind  you'll understand my thirst for making pictures of something beautiful :)

It's been a while since I posted or left any "foot prints" on anybody's blog around here.

It's been pretty crazy around the house, since everybody had to go through a round of the stomach virus and Vanessa had it the longest. She went through a two week cycle of the virus.

But we're all fine at last. Vanessa's back to normal and after loosing a couple of pounds I'm having a feeling that she's going to pile them back on very fast.
Before she got sick, she was not very fond of solid foods (yeah, I know she's 15 months already)) but now she's munching down on everything like never before :)

Me and everybody else around me are looking at Vanessa and we can't quite figure it out. Who's she picking after her "tallness" genes? At 15 months she's already 33 inches tall. When she was 6 months old, she was as tall as another boy from our church that was a year old. Yesterday at a party she measured the same height as other children that were twice her age.
When I had my 6 month ultra sound (pregnancy), the nurse measured her leg bones and asked me if my husband was tall, to which I replied that he's average (5"11).
"That's interesting, because she seems like she's going to be a pretty tall girl" - the nurse said. I didn't make much of it, but now I can see what she meant.

Can you see the lemon suspended in the air? :)

 A week or so ago, I invited a couple of our friends to visit us. They brought us a beautiful pot of flowers.
Since I've bought my macro lens more then a year  ago, other then just my rings, I have not taken any macro pictures with it. This is my first attempt to work with it.
I know, I know not even one is the way a macro picture should look like (out of focus and so on), but I did not have more time to play with it, so I am posting them "as is".

Any constructive critique is greatly appreciated.

Chocolate Macaroons by Pierre Herme

Makes 24 - 30 sandwich cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups (5 ounces; 140 grams) finely ground almond powder

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar

1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder, plus more for dusting

1/2 (100 grams) cup egg whites

Preparation:

1. Line two large insulated baking sheets with parchment paper, or line two regular baking sheets and put each one on top of another baking sheet. Fit a large pastry bag with a plain 3/8 inch or 1/2 inch tip. Set these aside for the moment.

2. If you've got almond powder, just sift it with the confectioners sugar and cocoa. If you're starting with almonds, place the almonds, sugar, and cocoa in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade and process until the mixture is as fine as flour, or at least 3 minutes. Although the almonds may look as though they're pulverized after a minute or so, they won't be: The nuts really need 3 to 5 minutes to be ground to a powder or flour. When the almonds are ground, using a wooden spoon, press the mixture through medium strainer.

3. For this recipe to succeed, you need 1/2 cup of egg whites, which means using 3 large egg whites plus part of a fourth white. Once the eggs are measured, they need to be brought to room temperature so they can be beaten to their fullest volume. To keep the eggs warm, run the mixer bowl under hot water. Dry the bowl well, pour the whites into the bowl and fit the mixer with the whisk attachment.

4. Beat the egg whites at low to medium speed until they are white and foamy. Turn the speed up to high and whip them just until they are firm but still glossy and supple - when you lift the whisk, the whites should form a peak that drops just a little. Leave the whites in the mixer bowl or transfer them to a large bowl and, working with a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients gently into the whites in three or four additions. Don't worry if the whites deflate and the batter looks a little runny - that's just what's supposed to happen. When all the dry ingredients are incorporated, the mixture will look like a cake batter; if you lift a little with your finger, it should form a gentle, quickly falling peak.

5. Spoon the batter into the pastry bag and pipe it out onto the prepared baking sheets. Pipe the batter into rounds about 1 inch in diameter, leaving about an inch between each round. When you've piped out all the macaroons, lift each baking sheet with both hands and then bang it down on the counter. Don't be afraid - you need to get the air out of the batter. Set the baking sheets aside at room temperature for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven.

6. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425F.

7. You should bake these one pan at a time, so dust the tops of the macaroons on one pan with cocoa powder and slide one of the sheets into the oven. As soon as the baking sheet is in the oven, turn the temperature down to 350F and insert the handle of a wooden spoon into the oven to keep the door slightly ajar. Bake the macaroons for 10-12 minutes, or until they are smooth and just firm to the touch. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and turn the oven heat back up to 425F.

To remove the macaroons from the parchment - they should be removed as soon as they come from the oven - you will need to create moisture under the cookies. Carefully loosen the parchment at the four corners and lifting the paper at one corner, pour a little hot water under the paper onto the baking sheet. The water may bubble and steam, so make sure your face and hands are out of the way. Move the parchment around or tilt the baking sheet so that the parchment is evenly dampened. Allow the macaroons remain on the parchment, soaking up the moisture, for about 15 seconds, then peel the macaroons off the paper and place them on a cooling rack.

8. When the oven is at the right temperature, repeat with the second sheet of macaroons. Remove from the parchment as directed above and let cool.

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Since I wasn't exactly careful about reading the directions, instead of making the macaroons 1 inch in diameter, I made them 3 inches in diameter (since I took the 2.5 cm for 2.5 inches, and thought that 3 inches isn't that far from the 2.5 ))) So they're rather large, so to say)) But that did not affect the taste of them, and they were delicious! This was my first time trying macaroons and it's definitely not going to be my last.

It's a song of everything that a mom says during the day to her children, condensed into a 3 minute song.
It's hillarious.
YOu'll find the liyrics and the video link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6P2w5GkXmU

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepy head
Here's your clothes
And your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now
Get up and make your bed
Are you hot?
Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where's your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and your gloves and your scarf and hat
Don't forget you got to feed the cat
Eat your breakfast
The experts tell us it's the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at three today?
Don't forget your piano lesson is this afternoon

So you must play
Don't shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside
Don't play rough
Would you just play fair?
Be polite
Make a friend
Don't forget to share
Work it out
Wait your turn
Never take a dare
Get along
Don't make me come down there
Clean your room
Fold your clothes
Put your stuff away
Make your bed
Do it now
Do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn?
Would you like some hay
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone
Get Off the phone
Don't sit so close
Turn it down
No texting at the table
No more computer time tonight
Your iPod's my iPod if you don't listen up

Where you going and with whom and what time do you think you're coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me
Makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You'll appreciate my wisdom
Someday when you're older and you're grown
Can't wait 'til you have a couple little children of your own
You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now
I thank you NOT to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew
Would appreciate
Take a bite
Maybe two
Of the stuff you hate
Use your fork
Do not you burp
Or I'll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, Get the door
Don't get smart with me
Get a Grip
Get in here I'll count to 3
Get a job
Get a life
Get a PhD
Get a dose of...
I don't care who started it
You're grounded until your 36
Get your story straight
And tell the truth for once for heaven's sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff
Would you jump too?

If I've said it once, I've said at least a thousand times before that
You're too old to act this way
It must be your father's DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straight when you walk
A place for everything
And everything must be in place
Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth
Wash your face
Get your PJs on
Get in bed
Get a hug
Say a prayer with Mom
Don't forget
I love you
**KISS**
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom's work never ends
You don't need the reason why
Because
Because
Because
Because
I said so
I said so
I said so
I said so
I'm the Mom
The mom
The mom
The mom
The mom
Ta-da

Words by Anita Renfroe Copyright 2007 Bluebonnet Hills Music/BMI

Boxed Chocolates

Pork Sirloin with Creamy Onion Sauce

Hazelnut & Plum Butter Sandy Cookies

Ingredients:

Yields: 30-35  2.5x2.5 square sandwiched cookies

Dough:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup of sugar
• 100 grams. of sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda + 1 tablespoon vinegar (mix them together before adding to the rest of the ingredients)
• 1 stick of Butter (114 grams) soft/room temperature
• 1 pack of Crisco Shortening - Butter Flavor or (20 oz)
• 3-4 cups of flour

Filling:

• 8 oz. heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 pack of cream cheese softened
• 1 stick of butter (114 gr.) room temperature
  
• Plum Butter
• Chopped Hazelnuts

Preparation:

1. Preheat your oven to 400F.
2. Mix the ingredients for the dough with an electric mixer at a lowest speed. All fat ingredients must be room temperatures in order for them to spread out through the dough.
3. When it starts to come together, take it out of the bowl and  "pull" it together with your hands into a round ball.
4. Cover the dough with food wrap and place it in refrigerator for 40-60 minutes.
5. Take out the dough from the refrigerator, cut off 1/3 off of it and put the rest back in the refrigerator.
6. Roll out the dough right on your cookie sheet (best to use non stick cookie sheets) with a rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thickness.
7. Using any kind of cookie cutter (I used 2.5in X 2.5 in square) you like cut out the cookies, leaving about 1/2 an inch between them.
8. Take a knife with a dull end (like the one you use for spreading butter),  go around each cookie and collect the excess, leaving your cookies untouched, as it will alter the shape of it.
9. Bake the cookies for about 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven. They should not be brown, they should still have their light color.
10. Meanwhile take another 1/3 of the dough from the refrigerator plus the excess from the first batch and prepare another cookie sheet to go into the oven when the first batch comes out.
11. Let the baked cookies rest on a cookie sheet until cold and crispy to the touch.
12. To prepare the whip cream filling, put the heavy whipping cream and cream cheese into a bowl of an electric mixer and whisk with a whisk attachment, starting from low speeds and going up (so that your liquid whip cream isn't splashing out of the bowl) to the highest speed.
    Take care not to over whip, as if you do this, the whip cream will separate into butter and liquid. About 3-4 minutes into the whisking, add the softened butter and let the mixer whisk it for another minute or so, until butter is incorporated. Again, take care not to over whip.
13. After the cookies have cooled carefully take them off the cookie sheet. To do this, you will need to twist each cookie, being careful not to break them as they're extremely fragile.
14. Three should be about 60-70 cookies. Divide them into two halfs of 30-35 pieces each.
15. Spread some whip cream filling on the bottom side of each cookie from one pile and lay it top side down.
16. Spread plum butter on the bottom side of each cookie from another pile and stick it together with a cookie from another pile, that already have whip cream filling on them.
17. Chop Hazelnuts.
18. Rub the sides of the sandwiched cookies into the chopped hazelnuts, so that they stick to the whip cream and plumb butter from the inside.
19. Decorate them any way you want with melted chocolate.

Plum Butter, Pecans and Meringue Pie

Buttery Buns with Sesame Seeds

Teriyaki Chicken with Egg Angel Hair

This is as close as my chicken will ever come to being called a Chinese dish :)

  "СУШИ" В ШУБЕ

1 варёная средняя картофелина
1 варёная морковка
1 варёная свёкла
2 яйца вкрутую
2 филе слабосолёной сельди
1 небольшая луковица
3 ст.л. майонеза ( удобнее если в тюбике)
3-4 ст.л. уксуса

Обычную шубу мы делаем обычно воздушной, так? Трём овощи на тёрочки и не приминаем. С рулетом такой вариант не проходит, надо всё плотненько утрамбовать и много майонеза не класть. Делала в такой последовательности, выкладывая на плёнку:
тёртая свёкла ( потереть мелко и отжать её!)
немного густого майонеза
тёртая морковка
тёртая картошка
тёртые яйца
немного майонеза
тонко нашинкованный вымоченный и отжатый лук
(Лук следует нашинковать, уложить в мисочку и залить водой с уксусом, оставить на 10 минут, затем отжать)
Каждый слой хорошенько утрамбовать.
В серединку, полоской, как в суши, выложить мелко рубленную селёдку (можно тоненькие полосочки филе).
Рулет аккуратно туго свернуть с помощью плёнки,и, если есть, бамбукового коврика, убрать в холодильник часа на 2.
Затем развернуть и порезать на "суши".
Такие "суши" можно уложить и на ложки и подать в качестве finger food

Cheese Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce

Makes 12 crepes (6 servings)
______________________________________________
Margarine or butter, melted

Batter:
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs

Filling:
1 12 ounce container cottage cheese (1 1/2 cups)
1 2-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, with wire whisk, beat 2 tablespoons melted margarine or butter (1/4 stick) and remaining ingredients until smooth.
Cover and refrigerate batter at least 2 hours (to give flour time to absorb liquid, so that batter is thicker and easier to handle).
2.  With pastry brush, brush bottoms of  7-inch crepe pan and 10-inch skillet with melted margarine or butter.
3. over medium heat, heat both pans.
4.  Pour scant 1/4 cup batter onto crepe pan; tip pan to evenly coat bottom. Cook crepe 2 minutes or until top is set and underside slightly browned.
5.  Using metal spatula, work around crepe to loosen it from pan.
6.  Invert crepe into hot skillet. Cook other side about 30 seconds. Meanwhile start cooking another crepe in crepe pan.
7.  Slip cooked crepe onto waxed paper. Repeat until all batter is used, stacking crapes, with waxed paper between them. Use immediately or wrap in foil and refrigerate.
8.  About 30 minutes before serving, in small bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat cottage cheese, cream cheese sugar and vanilla extract until smooth.
9.  Spread about 1 tablespoon of cheese mixture on each crepe.
10. Fold one side and then its opposite side slightly toward center.
11. roll up crepe, jelly-roll fashion, in opposite direction.
______________________________________________
Filled crepes can be made up to 2 days in advanced and browned in melted butter over medium heat, right before serving. 

Serve with honey or any of your favorite fruit sauce.

********************************************************
НАЛИСНИКИ

Вот другой рецепт по которому я раньше всегда делала налисники.

1 стакан молока
3-4 яичка
1 стакан муки
2 ст. л. топленого масла (половину палочки масла)
1/4 л. соли
Хорошо все перемешать в миксере и выпекать на специальной сковородке для налисников только с одной стороны.


Начинка какая хочешь.
Я обычно беру в ровных пропорциях крем чиз, и cottage cheese + 1 яичко, ето потом Если будем запекать в духовке. Если запекаем в духовке, то между слоями надо потереть чуть чуть сливочного масла.
Если делать с мясом, то можно их заворачивать не трубочкой, а более как конвертик, и тогда жарить их на сковородке. Мне нравиться когда у них есть хрустящая корочка.

Ingredients:
1 gallon of milk
500 ml of yogurt or buttermilk

Utensils:
Heavy bottom pan
Cheesecloth
Food thermometer

_________________________________________________________________

To make fresh, store-bought milk curdle, you'll need about 500 ml of yogurt or buttermilk  for each gallon of milk.

• Take the milk and pour it in a heavy bottom pot big enough to fit the gallon of milk.

• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. As soon as it reaches the 350 mark, turn it off. Do not open the oven.

• Put the pot with milk on the stove and heat the milk  to 100F.

• After you turn off the heat, add the yogurt to the heated milk and mix it with a whisk until thoroughly incorporated and you can not see any chunks of yogurt in the milk. 

• Put the pot in the oven, turn on the oven light.

• Leave the pot in the oven overnight or better yet  24-36 hours

• After 24 hours, you should have a very thick curdled milk. It's going to be so thick, that you will be able to cut it with a spoon.
• Take he pot out of the oven.

• Cut the buttermilk into squares with a long  knife.

This is what it would look if you tilt the pot. This picture shows the texture of the buttermilk pretty well.

• Put it on the stove and heat it to 140F over very low heat, so that the heat travels through the thick buttermilk slowly but thoroughly. Heating the buttermilk to this temperature will give you a very smooth, cream-cheese like curd cheese (but you will still be able to cut it with a knife). If you want the curds to be thicker and more "chew like" then you can heat the milk to 160F, or more depending on how thick you want the curds to be.

This is what it's going to look when it's heated to 110 F.

• You can take a ladle and give it one stir, to mix the hot buttermilk in the middle with the rest of the buttermilk that's closer to the sides.

This is what it's going to look when it's heated to almost 130F.

• Cover the pot and let your heated buttermilk rest until it reaches room temperature.

• Put your cheesecloth over another pot that could hold your gallon of milk and wrap+tie the ends of the cheesecloth over the handles of the pot (2 ends of the cheesecloth around one handle and other 2 over the other) to prevent the cheesecloth ends slipping into the pot.

• Carefully/slowly pour your buttermilk in the middle of the pot w/ the cheesecloth in it, trying to not splatter the buttermilk all over your kitchen.

Pick up the cheesecloth by two knots that were wrapped around the pot handles and let the excess liquid drain for about 2-3 minutes.

Then hang your cheesecloth w/ cheese over cupboard handles and let the excess liquid drip off over the course of about a day.

To minimize the splatter around your kitchen you can put the foil around the cheesecloth.

Let the excess liquid drip off for about 24 hours, or until it stops dripping. Sometimes when it's dripping very slowly (1 drop per minute or two) I put my cheese on a pad of layered paper towels and change the towels when they become moist. I keep the cheese w/ the paper towels in the refrigerator in the process.

  At the end, you should have about 2 lbs (1 kg) of curd cheese. The longer you let the excess liquid drip off, the less the weight of the cheese is going to be. The more times you change the paper towels, the more dense and dry the cheese will be.

The picture below show the texture of the cheese.

It's been over a month since my grandma passed away. I have been thinking about her a lot lately. It doesn't seem real to me still, that she's not with us anymore. I have not visited my grandma's place since the time she died, but I think it would feel very weird being there without her. The last time when we dropped grandpa at their place, I almost said "let's go in and say "Hi" to grandma" But then realized that she not there anymore.

I miss her so much. Coming to church I still look for her in the pews she used to sit. Each time, I do find the place where she sat, but now there's only grandpa, sitting there all alone.

I will never see her warm smile. I can not believe that she's gone. Gone forever. At least in this life.

Looking at the picture above, I look at her tan skin and remember how much she liked to lay under the sun. She babysat her grandchildren and anytime the sun was out, she would take all the grandchildren to the backyard and let them run around in the sun, while she enjoyed the sun herself. She has never taken a vacation, but for as long as I can remember she had a beautiful sun-tan during the summer.

It is so unfortunate that my daughter did not get to grow up knowing her great grandma. Just like me, she lost her great granny when she was just a year old.

The above picture was taken 2 years ago, when we threw her a surprise birthday party. I think this is the picture that portrays her best. At least that is how she's instilled in my mind. With a slight smile, a beautiful tan and gorgeous silver hair.

In her life she has brought up 9 children, that have all gotten married and all together had 31 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

One of the things that I remember her asking me all the time, when I was growing up, was "Did you pray this morning? If you do this every day, you will see that your day will go better, because God will be with you all day". I think she has told me this each time she saw me. She was a Godly woman indeed. 

The first year that me and my husband got married, we took a couple of weird trips to places that were farther then "close" to our home)) One of these was a trip to Seattle that we took one of the days after work. It was a Tuesday night and I was coming home from (8:30 p.m.) work when my husband called me and asked me what I was planning to do tomorrow. After I answered "I dunno" he offered to go down to Seattle area tonight so that we can go and check out downtown Seattle tomorrow. So we came home packed out bags, I got my pillow and set out for our 3 hour drive to Seattle. At first I went online to see what hotels that have so that we can crash there for the night. After reviewing some choices we decided that it would be best to just go there and find something on the spot. Because the hotels in the center of the city were pretty expensive we decided to drive a couple miles passed the downtown area and get a hotel there.

By the time we got to Seattle it was around 1-2 am. So we pass the downtown area and are on the lookout for a sign with a "lodging" writing on it :D We go one mile passed the downtown and there's not one exit that says there's lodging off of it. So we go 2 miles past, but guess what? there no sign there either. So we drive 3 miles and to our surprise there's - nothing there as well. All in all we drove at least 15 miles past the downtown and lo and behold there's a sigh with a "lodging" on it, so we get off. We just drive straight ahead, as there's no other sign to say that we should turn left. We drove about 5 miles and noticed that we're just getting into some kind of subdivisions with housing there, but not hotels. The decision to turn in the direction of the city was made, so we're driving west now to see if there's anything but private houses there. After driving about 3 miles we actually got to some kind of a busy street/intersection that was likely to have a hotel there. We drove another mile without any hotels, then we found some very old and small hotel. Under usual circumstances you would not get me into that kind of hotel, but because of a couple minor problems, like the fact that it was 3 am already, I was tired as heck after work, we drove 25+ miles past where we wanted to be I willingly agreed to staying there for the night. After all it's just a couple of hours before we'll get up and get out. Right?
We paid for the hotel, got our bags out of the car and went to the second floor where our room was. When we got in, the smell inside the room was so strong that it seemed that it could kill any living thing in it if it stayed there for too long. Me and my husband looked at each other and closed the door behind us.

Usually, the first thing we would do after a long trip, we would take a shower. Not this time. I was afraid to even touch the knob for the water in the shower. Everything was very old, rusty and almost "fall-apart". When going to brush my teeth I was very tempted to go and find some kind of bottled water to rinse my teeth with, but being it 3+ am, I didn't want to walk another couple of miles before finding it, so I just tried to not use too much tap water for rinsing. After all, if anything, extra toothpaste that was left in my mouth would kill most of the germs that the water might've had.

After unfolding the blanket, I decided that it was not necessary to undress, since the bedding hasn't been changed for a while anyway. The shoes I took off because it would've been too uncomfortable to sty with them on. While trying to fall asleep on a queen, hard as a rock bed, I was thinking of my King, luxury soft bed for $2000, with white as snow sheets, smelling of a laundry softener and a soft as a feather comforter. Oh, and also "WHY THE HECK DID WE HAVE TO LEAVE AT NIGHT AND SLEEP IN HERE, WHEN INSTEAD I COULD"VE BEEN SLEEPING AT HOME FOR FREE!!!" Well, it was time to get some rest, so we fell asleep.

This is the Space Needle when the sun just started to go down.

This is the ship we took the tour in around the bay area.

These are  the views from that ship.

The thing with the gates around the big ship is the fixing area for the ships. There's actually 2 gates if you noticed. The one to the right has the boat that's already partially submerged into water. The one to the left is all the way up, out of the water. How it works is, the walls to the right and left of the ship go all the way down, the boat gets into the space between them and then once the ship is in the right position, the walls come up with the ship so that it can be fixed. Once they're done fixing it, it again, submerges into water to let the ship out of those walls.

I am not sure what the thing with pigs is in Seattle, but we found quite a few of them around us. Here's one of them.

This interesting fish, called a Monk Fish, was found at the flee market in downtown Seattle.  The tail of the fish is tied with a rope. When somebody comes pretty close to the fish to look at it, somebody pulls on the rope from the other end and it almost jumps at you LOL. Also the guys that sell the fish at this place sing different kind of songs, like the ones that sailors sing on their battleships.

Then we found a very interesting place there :) The place's name was "Piroshky, Piroshky". Why we found it interesting was because "piroshky" is actually a Russian word written with English letters, that means something like - doughnuts or fritters, or just another type of confection :)

Here  you can see my husband getting his piece our of the box.

This is the poster that posted on the window, I guess it explains what the story behind this place and the name of it is.

To the left of my husband (consuming his "pirozhok"), you'll find their display of different kinds of things they sell. 

It was a good one :D

When you go down the flee market, each tile on the floor is imprinted with names. I was very curious to find out whose name those were, but unfortunately I had no way of doing that.

On our way home, coming through downtown streets there was this monumental umbrella if you will :)

This is the helicopter from the News station.

To finish our wonderful day of wandering around, we decided to have dinner at the SkyCity Restaurant atop the Space Needle. It was around 7-8 p.m. and the sun was going down. The picture below was my attempt to capture the beauty of the sunset from the "Golden" elevator that took us up to the restaurant.

Special thing about this restaurant is the fact that you get the view of the whole city right from your table, as well as the fact that the floor of the restaurant is revolving a full 360 degrees around it's center. So basically once you get in, to the time that you get you get out you'll be able to see the whole area around the space needle without getting up :) Pretty neat, huh?

Whenever we go to a restaurant, I am the one ordering chicken and my husband's the one ordering steak or some other type of beef. This time, for some reason it was the other way around :) I ordered the beef steak, with some baked potato wrapped with bacon.

While my husband ordered rosemary chicken with mashed potatoes :) Both of the dishes were very delicious. 

I might edit this post later one, to add some more details... For now I got to go :D

Quote

Talking about The Jokes

Rose Buds and hanging Baskets.

A teenage granddaughter comes downstairs for her date with this SEE THROUGH BLOUSE on and NO BRA. Her grandma just pitched a fit, telling her NOT TO DARE GO OUT LIKE THAT!  The teenager tells her "LOOSEN UP GRANDMS. There modern times you gotta let your rose buds show" and out she goes.

The next day the teenger comes down stairs,and the grand ma is sitting there with NO TOP ON. The teenager want to die, she explains to her grandmother that she has friends coming over and that it is just not appropriate. The grandma SAYS"LOOSEN UP SWEETE if you can show off your ROSE BUDS, thenI can display my HANGING  BASKETS.