Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Too late!:D

[jpalbny]

I deferred #3000 to you originals. Wouldn't want to usurp that as I just jumped on... :)

 

Do you win a prize for 3000 posts? Or is it just a nice round number?

 

Congrats!

Edited December 13, 2014 by jpalbny

[lincslady]

As far as I know just a nice round number, and I should have left it for Jeff, but was not sure if he was around!! Apologies Jeff. He is the main man around here.

 

Feeling very guilty about our dinner tonight - just a readymade duck in plum sauce from Gressingham - quite tasty but hardly qualifies as gourmet home cooking. However, the excuse is that I have spent most of today doing the Christmas cards, most of them on behalf of my DH. Do any men do their own Christmas cards, I wonder?

 

LL

[jpalbny]

Jeff is too busy in the kitchen to write out Christmas cards... :D

 

Chris and I are addressing some right now, in fact. We are trying to get the ones that are going overseas out today. Still only noon here, so looking promising. She has done more than I have, but I will take credit for handling a few of them by myself.

[UKCruiseJeff]

:D

It was delightful that LL posted the 3000th post. I noticed the couple earlier and waited to 3001!

 

I guess we should celebrate somehow .....

 

:)

[spinnaker2]

3006

[spinnaker2]

outside.

Of course that means that the garage needs to be tidied up....grrrrr.

Congrats ll, now on to the 4k.

[TLCOhio]

Chris and I are addressing some right now, in fact. We are trying to get the ones that are going overseas out today. Still only noon here, so looking promising. She has done more than I have, but I will take credit for handling a few of them by myself.

 

spinnaker2: I was putting up Christmas lights. outside. Of course that means that the garage needs to be tidied up....grrrrr. Congrats ll' date=' now on to the 4k. [/quote']

 

Congrats to Jeff and the other co-stars for hitting the 3,000+ achievement marker.

 

Below is a visual, just from my cell phone, as we were attending the Ohio State University basketball game this afternoon. The Buckeyes are now 8-1 and ranked 12th in the nation.

 

Got done doing a bunch of leaf blowing and driveway cleaning. It's fall on a wooded, ravine lot in the middle of the city. Many, many big oak trees produce lots of leafs.

 

Need to work on finishing the outdoor Christmas lights. At one time, we peaked at having around 20,000 lights, but now my aging body and wallet are more realistic on the numbers that I can physically get put up and taken down each year. Will try to post a visual of the finished product, including the lights on the top roofline.

 

AND, yes, we need to have finished this weekend a bunch of Christmas card prep work for updating addresses, etc. Have a custom card that has been printed and is being delivered Monday that features pictures of us with our two grandsons, etc. It's titled "BLESSED"!! True.

 

Below are a few holiday examples from our visit to New York City in 2006. They do it super well there in NYC.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 165,954 views. Appreciate the interest and follow-up questions/comments!!

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

 

 

Had very good seats for this afternoon's Ohio State college basketball game vs. the Morehead State team from Kentucky. OSU won 87-71. This quick shot was from my iPhone. Not as good of quality as if I had my Nikon D7100 along. But, you get the idea for what was happening!:

 

 

 

At Rockefeller Center in New York City, here are three of my photo shots from our 2006 visit there of the great decorations in and around this famed site with its great Christmas tree. Few cruise ships can match these visuals for the holidays.:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art, they have great, historic decorations on this tree in the Medieval Court area to capture the traditions of the season. Enjoy!!:

 

[PS Caledonia]

It is worrying. Hope she posts soon.

 

Hope you don't mind me butting in, but my good friend is alive and well. Her move smoothly and she is happily ensconced in Chester. Sadly, BT have yet to fix the Internet, hence her silence. She asked me to send her best wishes to you all and will return once she has been connected...

 

PSC

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hope you don't mind me butting in, but my good friend is alive and well. Her move smoothly and she is happily ensconced in Chester. Sadly, BT have yet to fix the Internet, hence her silence. She asked me to send her best wishes to you all and will return once she has been connected...

 

PSC

 

Thank you so muchly.

 

Many of us have befriended her and by varying degrees have fretted.

 

Please send her best wishes.

 

:)

[spinnaker2]

we have been worried about S, now we can relax.

[lincslady]

we have been worried about S, now we can relax.

 

Thanks so much- somehow one feels like a friend, even just on a CC board! As a Cheshire girl myself, I reckon it is the rather slow movement of Cheshire folk keeping her off the internet at present. :)

[jpalbny]

Busy weekend at home but tonight we rewarded ourselves with homemade pizza for dinner. It's too cold out to heat up the stone on the outdoor grill so had to use the oven. They came out OK though.

 

First one was made with cherry tomatoes, arugula, and fresh basil:

 

 

The second had pepperoni and baby bella mushrooms, finished with a grating of Pecorino Romano after it finished cooking:

 

 

We had a local wine to go with it, this from a vineyard in the Finger Lakes region of Central New York called Ventosa. They concentrate on Italian-style wines and this red was very tasty (as evidenced by the empty bottle):

 

 

Jeff - I have an interesting problem and wondering if this happens to you with your new super hot oven. When I cook pizza in my regular oven at 500 degrees F, every time I open the door the fire alarm goes off. Even if there's no smoke, the sudden surge of hot air is enough to trigger the annoying thing. It's really an incentive to cook outside... Does your 900 degree oven cause you the same problems?

[UKCruiseJeff]

Jeff - I have an interesting problem and wondering if this happens to you with your new super hot oven. When I cook pizza in my regular oven at 500 degrees F, every time I open the door the fire alarm goes off. Even if there's no smoke, the sudden surge of hot air is enough to trigger the annoying thing. It's really an incentive to cook outside... Does your 900 degree oven cause you the same problems?

 

Good morning Coolies,

 

Hi JP, those pizza look lovely!

 

No we have no smoke problems at all. Obviously at nearly a 1000 deg then it is keeping itself clean. I just use a natural bristle shower back brush to brush it out every time it cools down. There's never any smoke.

 

I think what is happening with your oven is not any smoke produced from the pizza as such, but presumably you use that high temperature infrequently and what it is doing is probably going into "oven clean" mode. However hard you try there is always going to be grease and other remnants left in an oven and the high temperature is cleaning anything it finds off since it's last high temperature self clean. There may not be smoke, but there's still stuff being burnt off.

 

I'd try every month or so to switch the oven on to full and let it run at full with the oven door shut for say an hour or so. This allows all surfaces to get very hot and that might clean everything and hopefully then you'll not have the problem for a while. At the moment because you aren't letting it completely clean there's always something left over in the oven.

 

Does that make sense?

 

Jeff

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Morning Coolies,

 

We made it down to Seaside and discovered that the cause of our security system and cameras going awol was a power something or other had tripped the system and the whole of the house had fused. A lovely time throwing out a load of foul smelling rotten food from the freezer whilst holding my breath. This of course Spin, has meant no peas with anything. The smell. Ughhhhh. Still on the bright side, the central heating is working unlike JeffTowers here so we're warm and one of the local Indian restaurants is delivering a decent Butter Chicken with rice every night! And I've reset the Slingboxes so we now have Slingbox backup of three units for our next extended to Singapore! That isn't to say that all of them won't refuse to play ball is it! :rolleyes:

 

I've heard from our mate Sofa Gal, and she has apologised and explained that the reason for her incommunicados was that BT had let her down in her new place and she had had no broadband and hadn't been able to contact her mates. She sounds completely well and upbeat and She apologises and threatens to return with her war stories and details of her new stately esconcement.

 

The view from The Balcony at Seaside has improved somewhat since our last visit, because they have cut down a large tree, in fact the only large tree in front of us. So our sea view from The Balcony will now be completely unimpeded and nothing will now escape our nosiness between here and the Maldivas.

 

Have a great day all .... the news that one of u s coolies is well and kicking has brightened the day.

 

:)

[spinnaker2]

Waiting for a photo of the new view. Too bad about the loss of food and the odiferous job of emptying out the mess. Been there done that, and it's nasty.

Chilly here in south Florida still at night and in the morning, but by afternoon it warms up.

Glad to learn that S is ok.

Was worried about the move and its toll, hope we learn that the proximity to her children is a good thing.

Must get motivated to do some stuff today. My lists get longer and longer...

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi Spin,

 

She sounds happy, and I'll let her fill in the detail.

 

A picture of the new rather wintery panorama has just been taken from The Balcony and is (hopefully) enclosed using tappawalla.

 

[spinnaker2]

It's so green...and lovely.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks Spin!

 

I have just seen on the new that Jeb is going to run! Is there unfettered excitement in the homeland? Gosh .... a third Bush!

 

I once received two emails in a simgle day from Jeb. Not may Brits can say that!

 

:D

 

Jeff

[spinnaker2]

Sorry. I had to go tho up.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Sorry. I had to go tho up.

 

I hope you sent it!:D

[spinnaker2]

i tried whilst making it, or the scrumptious pulled pork in rum barbecue sauce that I made for Christmas Eve, gotta freeze it now. So coulda been all those foods that disagreed with me and my ethical and moral compass.

The panettone is rising Jeff, you would be proud of me.

Needs yet another rise.

Tomorrow I will make sea salt caramel sauce, turtles and bittersweet chocolate sauce.

Then I need to make the Christmas cookies and decorate same. I still have the cookie cutters from when I was little.

They may have lead in them?😷🎄

Hope Jeb seeks counsel from you.

[jpalbny]

Jeff - that makes sense to me. I suppose I could run the actual cleaning cycle if we were ever home long enough to do so... :rolleyes:

 

Enjoy your time at the Seaside - only 8 days until we leave for Paris! Looking forward to the nice Air France lounge in JFK. Much better wine selection than the Delta lounge!

 

spinnaker2, I made some pulled pork shoulder last night too. It was tasty, and we have some leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Thinking of the sea salt caramel sauce is making me hungry.

 

Pulled out another local wine to go with dinner tonight - from Castel Grich in the Finger Lakes, a traminette. Now if the chicken would ever roast, we could eat.

[spinnaker2]

Jp

I think Jeff is sleeping.

is the wine you had similar to a gewurtz?

[jpalbny]

It is - Traminette is a hybrid of Gewürztraminer and something else that was developed at Cornell's experimental program, and it's become popular here in Central New York. It can be mellow but some years and plantings are almost as spicy as a full-blooded Gewürztraminer. It does well up here in the cold weather. The one we had tonight was quite nice.

 

 

Castel Grich grows a bunch of interesting German varietals but they just changed ownership. Hope things don't change too much...

 

Jeff should be awake in a few hours, though.