Dinner in a Bag

My husband handed me a flyer for a dinner business that provides meals for busy women to just pick up and serve the family.

The gourmand named business offered a range of dinner options for about $25.00 and I thought, well, dinner for three (it said up to six, but does anyone follow that?), for $25.00 isn’t so bad (recalling that I have a friend who can feed her family of five for $25.00 a week, or something like that). So I called, and ordered up a dinner that sounded exotic, why not?

Now in my head I thought that dinner meant the food was ready, prepared and the only work on my part was to slide the tray of food-like items (discreetly covered in foil) into the oven and turn it on. (I know that part now, the oven has to be turn on for the things in the oven to get hot).

When I arrived to pick up my dinner the lovely owner handed me a large zip lock bag filled with raw ingredients and a recipe tapped to the slippery surface. Raw food? I’m paying extra and driving out of my way, for raw food? And so close to Chili’s?

“It’s really easy.” She encouraged me gesturing with bag filled with something that looked like sauce. Really easy, if I had a dime for every time . . . never mind.

I must have looked suitably shocked, mostly because I avoid contact with raw food as much as possible.

“Just cook it up”. She persisted. For $25.00? For $25.00 I have to find a PAN and SAUTE something? (I believe they were onions) for that I could buy one of those onions at Safeway – for less and you know, do something with it.

I accepted the squishy bag, paid the nice woman, dragged it home and stored it in the squishy raw food section of the refrigerator. I was not happy. The raw food situation haunted my afternoon. I was almost unable to nap.

When my husband arrived on the scene, I handed over the bag of raw food and fled. He dumped the raw food into various pots and pans and declared, “This is really easy, I just cooked it up.”

And we had a convert. The dinner was delicious and served three. We had to add rice to the dish, so it wasn’t all that inclusive.

However tonight we’re eating at a real restaurant, where the food is cooked and served with a flourish. And the dishes cleaned by another person far out of view of the dining room. I like it better that way.

Wine country before it was wine country

I love to drive through Dry Creek Valley and think of what it must have been like to live there before the traffic and the hype.
My grandmother grew up here in the heart of the wine country well before it became the wine country.

The family was of German ancestry. To that end, Chester VonGraffen was unencumbered with superfluous emotions like affection and love.
Apparently the Von Griffin parents finally produced the desired boy child, but he was sickly (that word covered a multitude of situations at the turn of the last century) and the child died in infancy. His parents never recovered from the loss.  My aunt and grandmother were constantly reminded that it was too bad they lived and the boy died because they were just girls.

Chester VonGraffen, as did many farmers of that day, often increased his share of the land by tossing trash, like old cars, into Dry Creek to diverted the flow of the creek a foot or so around the object – a car in one case – and thus increasing the land mass. The theory was that metal would gradually deteriorate and disappear. No one thought anything of it. People had enough patience to wait out the disintegration of a vehicle into arable land.

My great aunt and grandmother stayed in the valley through the depression and Second World War. My grandmother escaped her parents through marriage and moved down the road.  By default then, my aunt had to care for the cranky German parents until their deaths.  My aunt then took over the farm, organized the hired hands was one of the largest producers of hops (to make beer) in the country during world war two. On her farm, my grandmother raised walnuts, prunes, three girls and a boy.

While my great aunt and grandmother did not waste much time communicating, my great aunt welcomed visits from her only nephew. My dad remembers riding his bike between his parent’s farm on Westside road and his aunt’s place.  The roads between the two farms would have been rather empty of traffic. Trees lined the road opening every hundred yards to long views of the Dry Creek Valley. Today every foot of the valley is planted in vineyards.

My dad and his sisters attended Felta School, which was a one-room schoolhouse, and is now a pre-school. When the creek flooded, they took a boat to get to class, floating with ease over what were fields and roads.  It probably happened once, but still, what a good moment, to sail to school.

The VonGraffen property is now in transition; at one time it was the site for the first winery of Gary Farrell.  The Bramkamp property is the home of Naomi Brilliant of Roshambo winery. Her grandfather bought it from my grandfather right after the war.

Real Estate quote of the Day

The prices of houses seem to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline.

Time Magazine, 1947

Real Estate Quote of the Day

Houses cost too much for the mass market. Today’s average price is out of reach for two-thirds of all buyers.

Science Digest, 1948

Everything is on sale!

You know how those high heel red velvet pumps look much better at 20% off? And if they are on clearance, they feel much better too!

That’s the housing market. I’m working with a buyer who can spend about $450,000. That amount used to buy a tract home, now it buys 2,900 square feet and a view. This is the time to find the right home, and find something affordable. If the shoe fits, buy it!

Death Revokes the Offer

From the novel Death Revokes the Offer –
This is what I do when I’m not selling real estate.
The book is available on Amazon
Chapter 1 – Part 27

Since salad is never enough, I was already hungry by the time I got home. I pulled out a carton of Phish Food and thought about the murder. Why? Why would anyone shoot Mr. Smith and then just walk away? Well, they walked away, so they wouldn’t be caught, I know that. But nothing had been taken or even disturbed, Hillary did more disturbing just in her brief search around the house. And what was she looking for?

And why not let the children inherit? Why sell?  I mean Hillary wasn’t all that lovely and nice, but that’s no reason to cheat the kids from a considerable tax break.  Well, okay, maybe that was a good enough reason.

Mr. Smith had no other assets. Had he given it all away?  Had he been blackmailed over those paintings?  Had the blackmailer killed him when he couldn’t pay? No, that sounded like a badly plotted movie and blackmailers don’t kill; I know that from TV, they want the cash flow to continue.

The Ben and Jerry’s finished, I fixed some dinner.
Like you’ve never gone through a whole carton of Phish food in one sitting, or in my case, standing.

Kindle(ing) my love

I get nervous when the book inventory runs low, my son and I have made emergency trips to Borders because there was “nothing to read” in the house, which of course, is a relative perception. If I don’t have a good seven unread books floating around the house at any giving minute,  I’m convinced we have an impending drought.

Enter, my birthday gift, a Kindle. The Kindle is to  a bibliophile as crack cocaine is to an addict.  Really great. And you always need more.

I read a review on the Kindle and the author stated that the Kindle is good only for those people who buy more than 4 or 5 books a year.

A year?

Last Sunday I downloaded 30 books in about 40 minutes.  For free. (see crack cocaine metaphor above)

Kindle offers downloads of the classics at no charge.

So now I own copies  of Swan’s Way, Civil Disobedience and the Book of the Dead.  For no ore reason than they are there, and I’m suppose to know about them.

Kindle makes is easier, cheaper and far more convenient to have the Classics, and  ignore them with less guilt.

Short Sale still long

Really, just so buyers remember that short sale does not describe the length of the process, if you put in an offer, as a buyer, you will wait for months for a reply from the bank. Keep looking!

Death Revokes the Offer

From the novel Death Revokes the Offer –
This is what I do when I’m not selling real estate.
The book is available on Amazon
Chapter 1 – Part 26

The local newspaper had mentioned my name, just as the listing agent for the house, and unfortunately, that I discovered the body. The paper also revealed the man had been shot.  Shot.  I had five messages I needed to return. Apparently that old adage that if your name is spelled correctly – it’s all good – is correct.

“Work.”

“Maybe you’ll get another 4.5 million listing.”

That’s what I love about Carrie; she’s an optimist. Women as beautiful as she usually are.
Buoyed by my friend’s optimism and amnestied into a happier state by the fries I was ready to face my evening alone.

No, I do not live in a trailer park and my house is not filled with depressingly dark antiques or hand-me-downs.  I own a lovely home in the hills of River’s Bend. I bought low. 3,000 square feet to myself. No, I do not own a cat.

Carrie volunteers for Forgotten Felines and Abandon Kittens. Of course she volunteers to save kittens. One good look at Carrie and you would say, now there’s a girl who rescues cute little kittens. I myself am working on compiling a cookbook featuring recipes for baking, frying and skewering the endangered California Tiger Salamander. Mostly because saving the silly things has ballooned into a hugely annoying and suffocating project, development-wise. As you can see Carrie and I probably should belong to different and completely separate non-profit organizations.

I thought about Hillary stomping through her father’s house, complaining about the caliber of kitchen appliances. Should I have a sub zero refrigerator?  A Wolf range? Would those things make me happier? Since the only thing in my freezer are five cartons of Ben and Jerry’s, for emergency purposes only, and three cartons of Cooper’s ice cream – for guests, a sub zero freezer seems a bit like over kill.

Over kill.

Death Revokes the Offer

From the novel Death Revokes the Offer –
This is what I do when I’m not selling real estate.
The book is available on Amazon
Chapter 1 – Part 25

Here’s what I hate, tiny petite women who don’t eat. Here’s what my best friend is like, she’s a tiny petite woman who eats nothing.

We lunch together on a regular basis. In my life, it’s all about lunch, the one trait I did inherit from my mother.

“Order the fries.” I pursued the menu; maybe I’d have a salad like Carrie and my mother. A big salad. Ranch dressing. Extra bacon.

“Again?”
“Come on,” I purred. “Who loves you?”

Carrie sighed and dutifully ordered her salad. And a side of fries. The waiter was well trained enough so he didn’t make much of a face.  I demurely ordered a cob salad.

“So your customer is dead and you’re out a beautiful commission.” Carrie summed up.
“I’m doomed, I only have seven other listings, but they’re all in the ½ million range, I so could have used the hit from that Marin house.”

She nodded with sincere sympathy. Which is why I love her so much.

The salads arrived along with a gleaming, golden, crispy plate of perfectly cut and fried potatoes. Never underestimate the glory of fried food.  Carrie set the plate between us and began to pick at her salad.

I quickly demolished the fries to take the edge off my hunger then regarded the salad. I hate salads.
The waiter swooped by, took a look at the empty plate of fries, looked at Carrie who is about a size 4 soaking wet, raised his eye brow just a little and whisked off the empty plate.

“They think I’m some kind of freak.”  She whispered.
“At least with you they have to wonder, me, it’s pretty clear.” I whispered back.
“So what are you going to do?”