This, That and a Recipe

It has been a fun and busy week. I finished another punch needle block and I think this one is my favorite so far...
and I started working on the border for my Drunkard's Path quilt! That has been a long time a-waiting.Last Sunday, Beth of Love, Laugh, Quilt, while on a visit to Israel, stopped off at the LQS, The Quilt Center, where I was teaching. It was so nice to actually meet a blogging friend.

DH went to the beach while I was teaching with the plan being that I would join him for the afternoon and then we'd pick up DD at the train station (Gotta love that Train to the Plane!-or in this case Plane to the Train.) The beach is just about ten minutes north of the shop but suddenly the weather completely changed...turning first cloudy and then by the time I got to the beach-drizzle. So what should we do until the train came in?? Hit the mall, what else!

Off we went to be dry and kill some time, window shopping. We thought we'd go to the movies but there were no shows until 5 pm-too late. But next door to the movies was an Arcade! Oh boy, did we have fun with that hockey game and the basketball game...two old geezers just having a jolly old time of it.

There are lots of benches in the main aisle of the mall, so Dan went off to sit and read the newspaper and I tailed along...and there right in front of his bench was a kiosk selling...

Now I have had curly hair all my life but as I got older it became much less curl and more frizz.
I am happy to say that with this wonderful gizmo my head is now a Frizz Free Zone. This is so fantastic...so easy to use and the results are fabulous. Much better and easier than using a blow dryer and a round brush. DD and I had fun giving her straight hair some curls too-after swimming in the Sea of Galilee in the morning, we had a home salon in the afternoon! :)

The next day, was Girls Day (DH was at bridge)...we went shopping for clothes for her (I got a sweater too) and then on a lark, we rented a motor boat for half an hour and had a wonderful time boating on the Sea of Galilee.

DS and DD's good friend since high school came up to help celebrate her birthday...I loved the timing of her work related trip to Istanbul-she could pop over to see us for a week before returning to NYC and was here for her birthday!

I made a huge dinner including her favorite chicken dish...absolutely the easiest chicken recipe ever-Plum Chicken. (You can just see our festive table with a bright yellow tablecloth and pink dishes!)

All you need:

1 chicken cut into eighths (quarters work too)

1/4 cup onion soup powder (1 packet Liptons onion soup)

1 can plums (16 oz./approx. 500 grams-and make sure its purple plums and not prunes)

Arrange the chicken pieces in a casserole and sprinkle on the onion soup powder.
Open the can of plums, pour the syrup over the chicken...
cut the plums in half and remove the pits (if it isn't canned pitted and halved) and arrange on the chicken pieces.
Cover and put it into a cold over. Turn the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C for 1/2 hour. Lower temperature to 350 F/175 C for 1 hour. Then take off the cover -it will look like this just barely browned...
return the chicken to the oven for another 1/2 hour to finish browning and for the sauce to reduce.
Mmmm!