Old Shoes - New Trip

I can't believe it is week TEN already. Shannon picked this week, and it was a perfect selection for the beginning of apple season.

I love the recipes that don't call for making a custard base. It is so much easier. And except for the mess of straining out the apple peels, this was a breeze to make.

After boiling the apples in the sparkling cider (I chose to use the alcohol free since I was too lazy to go to the store), I allowed them to cool in the covered pan to room temperature.

Then I strained out the peels by pushing the apples through the holes of a spaghetti strainer. I chilled the mixture in the refrigerator overnight and then put it in my icecream freezer.

Today, we scooped it into a champagne glass and topped it with some of my homemade Pistachio Liqueur. It was very good. Pistachio and green apple are a nice combination.

After we tasted that, I had the brainstorm of making a Sparkling Cider Float.

I put a few scoops in a water goblet; filled it with Sparkling Cider; and then topped it with a generous splash of my homemade Rose Liqueur.

That was an amazing combination!!!!

Since I've committed to making all my PhotoHunt posts photos from our travels, this one was especially difficult. Although we aren't particularily lazy travellers, I do have a few photos of relaxing in beach chairs or at sidewalk cafes. But, there is nothing unusual about that.

For some reason, when we travel, I love to take pictures of dogs. So, I've got dozens of pictures of dogs sprawled out in different cities around the world. But, a lazy dog lying around soaking up the sun is a very common sight, isn't it? In fact, I'm betting that a great number of this weeks PhotoHunt posts will be pictures of dogs doing what dogs do so well.

So, in a search for inspiration, I went to the trusty old Webster's Dictionary to look up the definitions of the word LAZY.

There I find that one defination is "sluggish". And that gave me my photo for this hunt.

For our trip last summer to Spain and Portugal, I stole a little wind-up catepiller of the desk of one of my co-workers. I named him Bookworm and as we travelled, I created a photo journal called Bookworm's Excellent Adventure. Here we see Bookworm making friends with a slug on the patio of our farm stay at Casa Perfeuto Maria in Galicia.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year in St. Louis -- The Best of Missouri Market at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
I love browsing the 200 some-odd vendor booths to see what new tastes and smells Missouri based food artisans have come up with this year.

These are the things I came home with from the market. If any of it catches your interest, just post a comment and I'll add any info I can.

But what I really love about the Garden at this time of year is wandering through the gardens and finding just a few end of season splashes of color fighting to hang around for as long as possible.

For week nine of the Sunday Slow Scoopers, Sandy chose crepes and told us to make any ice cream we wanted to enjoy with them. I quickly settled on Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. But then got lazy and decided not to make the crepes. So technically, I guess you could say I didn't really participate this week.

Our PhotoHunt theme for today is SAD. Don't you think empty, unloved buildings are sad? All across the holiday playgrounds of the former Soviet Bloc are huge abandoned concrete resorts. Places where the party insiders went to be pampered and to take advantage of their "little more equal than most" status.
Hotel Fjord, on the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro is one of those places. The locals say that in its day it hosted Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and even Putin when he was a mid-level KGB operative.

Even in their hay-day, these hulking souless grey buildings were ugly. But now that they have no priviliged KGB and Politburo Bosses as guests, they seem to brood.

This view is from our apartment window across the bay. It gives you an idea of how enormous the place is. Someone told us that an Irish company purchased it in 2006 amid much fanfare. They promised to refurbish it and turn it into a 4 Star resort. But, they still haven't done anything.

In the meantime, it deteriorates rapidly. The paving stones on the huge patios are being pulled up and carted off by locals to use in their gardens and driveways.

The four outdoor dining areas serve nothing but weeds now. But, the tennis courts are still in pretty good shape, and the locals have opened a hole in the fence so they can crawl through and use them.

The swimming pool is empty and cracked, but the waterfront platform next to the bay is used by locals for free swimming. They carefully pick their way through the rubble and broken glass to get to the edge.

Parked around the building are a dozen old beat up Yugos. All black. They look like someone just lined them up and walked away. Strange.

Across the street is a small shanty town we were told was populated by "gypsy" immigrants who were squaters. The owner of the land doesn't need it so they are allowed to remain without harrassement.

Even in the most beautiful and idyllic settings sadness can be found.