Smoothie Disaster in Van Nuys

[PattyCakes]

Mary, I'm with Ang on all the above, except coming in from the east I'm a couple hours further. If you have not been to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, I hope you'll have the time to visit.

Patty

[niki]

see..everyone can do the cotton eye joe but me...that's it..the first night,that's what everyone's doing....dancing..don't worry...i'll pick it up fast.....all those years of aerobics..what was i doing?....dancing...niki 

[Gammamel]

Thanks to Niki for alerting me to this posting.  I had a similar disaster this weekend (my first week), also with a blender, though I think yours was worse.  Mine was simply the lesson that if the container gets stuck in the base, do not under any circumstances twist it.  My smoothie also ended up on my counter and all over the base of my blender, but at least it didn't splatter all over the cabinets and walls.  Just poured out the bottom.

But here's the true confession:  I scooped up as much of it as I could, into a cup,  and drank it anyway, before taking on the big cleanup job.  Hey, my counter was clean.  Well, clean enough. And I wasn't about to waste all that fruit. 

[joecaracappa]

I thought only us guys did things like that, goes along with eating over the sink. I like you.

Joe

[niki]

hey, that's nothing...i would do the same thing to salvage what trashed my kitchen before i had to clean it up.....i was 19 when i started working as an RN..we did all kinds of things without wearing gloves so i became used to that...when i see nurses that are so meticulous about what they touch and what they eat,i always think that they haven't been nurses as long as i have....and more often than not,they haven't...and yet they're inconsistent........if they weren't,they would NEVER eat in most restaurants....your stomach produces hcl which deals with a lot of bacteria that could hurt you...and the strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria are more likely to infect people with compromised immune systems........
  the exception to this is raw meat or raw chicken...with that I AM meticulous....this is something i have been meaning to mention because there are people here who have started puttering around in the kitchen as a result of their new ldl lifestyle.....everything that touches raw meat or chicken has to be cleaned thoroughly with soap and hot water....EVERY time you touch it,you have to wash your hands again,wash the counters and the sink down.......................so,i'm glad i had the chance to mention that..............niki   

[Queenie]

You're so right about that Niki.  I am a certified, card-carrying Food Service Manager.  I'm surprised I ever ate again after taking that course!!  I've had food poisoning twice in my life and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (techincally, I don't have ANY enemies, but you know what I mean)...!!

And the blender disasters.... haven't we all done something like that before? 

Years ago I got a Vita Mixer - yeah, big bucks - I think at the time they were about $450.00 - oh, but I loved it.  I've not seen it since I left my (now ex) husband three years ago.  Well, I'm thinking that nobody reading this will believe it, but I was in a thrift store the other day and spotted one from across the room.  I tested it and couldn't believe that it WORKED!!  Now get this - I paid $14.99 for it.  Yes, you read that correctly...  I couldn't believe it.

Little did I know the reason had yet to reveal itself for this coup... it wasn't a week later that I received Roger's book in the mail.  In my enthusiasm to make that first smoothie, I got everything in the container, flipped it on and realized why it was in the thrift store.  About a quarter of the seal was missing!  And of course, it was on the side that I was standing on - yep, I wore much of that smoothie!  But being the enterprising thing that I am, I made a makeshift seal out of some camping foam - one of those mats that you put under a sleeping bag.  It had never been used, so I felt ok about it.  I went on the Vita-Mix site and 3 seals and 2 clips (or maybe 2 seals and 3 clips) are only $8.00.  I'll be ordering them soon...

So Joe and Gammamel, you've got plenty of company!

Carolyn

[niki]

wow..that's some story...very ingenious of you to fix it...i have a waring blender with a stainless steel housing that my brother bought me which is really nice..............i don't think i'll ever get tired of the fruit itself,but if i ever do i will surely remember to cut the fruit in small pieces.......
   i keep trying to get my brother to go on this program....he teases me...he asked me if i was going to make a birthday cake out of beans......he's such a wise guy....but he's at least 6 ft and wears at least a 50 waist.......neither i nor my brother took after my father who ate an italian bread every night for dinner and has been thin all his life....it was HIS mother who looked like granny from the beverly hillbillies and ate like a truck driver...................alas.......................niki

[joecaracappa]

Well that's better than looking like a truck driver and eating like Granny. Possum anyone?

Joe

[TNangela]

JOe,
If you have any takers on the possum send them my way..last week our A/C wasnt working well and they repairman found a nest of possums had eaten through our ductwork and several dollars later it is repaired but the babies that escaped still keep showing up on our porch.
ANG

[niki]

hey,my granny(we called her yaya...that's greek for granny)didn't have a shotgun or a pail to pick up road kill......she DID have her own still during prohibition though..........oh gosh...what did granny have that she drank?......potion?...medicine?....tonic...that's it...granny had a jug of tonic handy...wasn't that it?..and she made it in a still................niki   

[joecaracappa]

We had a possum under the house last year (we could hear it scratching around the bathtub, drove the dogs nuts). After we called an exterminator and he told us he could find no sign of one, he then sealed the crawl space vents. Guess what.................Niki is going to love this...........after about ten days we began to notice a stench in the bathroom that permeated throughout the whole house. The possum had apparently gotten trapped and died.................it gets better, not only did he die down there but manage to crawl up into the walls before he did making it impossible to remove the carcass............thank God for Ozium.

Joe

[niki]

niki is going to love this?....to smell a dead animal in your house is gross...and the poor animal died stuck in the wall...sometimes i hate when we can't coexist with these little animals....it's not like they're vicious....but i do know that they can be vicious and they can really damage our homes ..we have racoons around my house...in queens,my father and brother have rats(of course,not in the house..outside at night) ..the back of the house is on the long island expressway and the rats make homes under the overpass...their houses there are connected and they get mice too....my father woke up and there was a mouse on his pillow.....i told him if that didn't give him a heart attack,nothing would...that was a couple of years ago....... after that happened they got those little sonic things or traps and they haven't seen any mice in their house for quite some time....................niki   

[joecaracappa]

Niki:

What I meant was you might be thinking "only this could happen to Joe" kind of thing. I'm sure you realize there was no intention to hurt the possum, we even went through the trouble of hiring someone to crawl down there to see if it was clear. We felt terrible! Would never hurt forrest creature.

Case in point:

One evening while my mother was visting us from Jersey, I happened to step out into the backyard and noticed a young dead possum in the grass. Now the dogs (Scout & Ollie) on occasion will kill rats back there so a dead animal is not unusual.

I picked up a flat edge shovel and gently picked up the animal and as I carried it to the trash can I could not help from wondering if the little beastie was trying to fake me out.  I dropped it into the can and put it out for collection the next day.

The next morning Mom hears the garbage truck coming, grabs the kitchen trash and runs out to the curb to put it into the can. She raised the lid and the possum STOOD UP! Mom dumped the trash bag on top of the animal, slammed the lid closed and ran screaming into the house.

To this day I cannot convince her it was not a giant rat! Last I heard the possum was residing at the Sunshine landfill, getting fat and raising more possums.

Joe

[niki]

hi joe....i was afraid that you thought i was warped for laughing so hard at your kitchen misfortune(i really did laugh at the dancing fruit as much as at your misfortune).........
  no,i understood that you were trying not to hurt the poor little animal(i think we have possums here too....i think that's what i've seen a couple of times at night)
  and that is really hysterical what happened to your mother...just like my father,your mother will never die of a heart attack...that's scary to find an animal like that(in a place you don't expect to find a living one)....i found a dead animal that died in the garbage can because it crawled in and there was so much water from a bad rain that it drowned.....that was gross... and scary too.......
  i wonder what possum stew tastes like?.....do people really eat that?......niki             

[TNangela]

Niki,
I am afraid to admit some people here do eat things such as possum stew.  I am proud to say not my relatives!! In some of the rural parts of my county they eat rattlesnake, beaver, woodchuck, squirrel, and whatever else they find for roadkill.....I know a lady who claims covered in gravy it all tastes mild and tender.  I have difficulty eating venison, but thats as wild as I have ever gotten  :-)
ANG

[niki]

i tried to eat venison once...i don't think i would ever do it again.....i DID eat lamb a couple of times this year...but,i feel sorry for the lamb too...i'm eating less and less meat these days......definitely,if i had to kill them myself or watch them killed,i would have a problem with that...and so would anyone else after i gave the animals names...niki   

[joecaracappa]

I guess the truth is most of us would prefer our meat delivered like Mary says "like meat" as opposed to looking like Porkey, Elsie or Bambi........................I think I'll have Henrietta for lunch today, baked of course.

A few years ago we were having dinner with friends in the country, I asked our hostess what she was preparing for the main course and she said "Hop-a-long"........was a bovine with a limp from her father's ranch.

Joe

[rhernan216]

we slaughtered a steer a couple of years ago we raised for F.F.A. ( Future Farmers of America)...his name was " Snickers" we had two freezers of meat ..he yielded about 500 lbs of meat. It was the best steaks, burgers, ribs etc, etc. The kids had no problem eating it as when we started the project we explained that steers are raised for market and with out them there would be No McDonald's etc etc. we loaded him up took him to the processor and said our good byes. Two days later we picked him up only he was all gift wrapped and ready for the freezer. It was an experience but one of learning. We have raised three more since then but have sold them at auction.

[niki]

FIRST he wants to eat the dancing fruit........NOW he wants to eat henrietta.........................WHERE will this all end?...when we're on our let's do lunch ranch,you're not going to be allowed anywhere near henrietta or ANY of her friends.........................niki