Tasty Table Market & Catering is one of my favorite food gems. Located at 10 Leopard Rd, Berwyn, PA 19312 they are a delight to deal with and their food is amazing! They are breakfast, lunch, take home dinner, corporate events, private events, weddings, any kind of catering you can think of.
I stopped in to pick up lunch and discovered all sorts of new things on the menu, as well as a slightly new look inside. You can go and eat your breakfast and lunch. The seating is limited but it’s very socially distanced. Oh and they serve La Colombe coffee!
Today I am having one of their Vietnamese hoagies which is a really good sandwich. I also checked out something new on the menu which is a vegetarian broccoli rabe quesadilla. Some of that is coming home for heating up at another time along with their famous crab cakes which are absolutely delicious.
Anyway check out Tasty Table. You’ll be glad you did!
And I will note that I am not being compensated in any way, shape, or form for writing this post. I am a happy customer and paying it forward and supporting gladly a local business.
So yes, I saw this Huff Post Politics headline (see opening screenshot) go by on social media and giggled because I watched Little Orange (son of Big Orange) and his mansplaining video (because you know we will all always take our royal commentary from a Trump, right?)
Dayyyyummm. My bad. They quoted me. That’s pretty funny….. Thank you Huff Post Politics for reading my thoughts…which were kind of knee jerk because mansplaining on it’s own merits is bad enough, but from Baby Orange? Completely ridiculous.
In honor of International Women’s Day yesterday, the men in my house left not one but two sinks of dishes for ME to clean up last night that I did not see until this morning because I made the mistake of going upstairs earlier than normal .
I have tried leaving the dishes, I have tried not emptying the dishwasher, and all it does is cause more dirty dishes to pile up. And I hate the look of a messy kitchen.
I love my husband and stepson, but I do NOT love this. I have had a full COVID19 year of this, and I don’t ask for much around the house except basically things that are common courtesy or once in a while helping around the house. I would love to have these little things without having to nag about it.
Little things also include making your bed, which is something that my stepson finds particularly annoying. Essentially he treats me like housekeeping in a dorm. He finds most everything I do or say annoying.
If home, he literally stays holed up in his room either on his classes or his games. It’s a little sad because I remember the little boy who once upon a time wanted to know what I was cooking in the kitchen and who used to make me his go to childhood snack of peanut butter on apple slices.
I understand that a global pandemic has turned the world of the young completely upside down, but hello? I’m here too. This global pandemic has affected ALL of our worlds and I joke about being the maid and chatelaine, but I am kind of over it.
Some days I am very tempted to treat them like the messy girl who lived in a beach house with me and others one summer when I was much, much younger. She never wanted to do her dishes either, so we put a beach towel on her bed and piled her dirty dishes on them. After that she learn to do her dishes.
This is why a lot of the time I don’t feel I can leave the kitchen and go upstairs for the night to watch TV or read a book or whatever until the kitchen is completely cleaned up because if I don’t, I come down to this in the morning. To the male in the human species, this really doesn’t matter. But to most women I know, not leaving little dishes all piled up is a little thing that goes a very long way.
And I don’t necessarily think my husband should be stuck with these chores, either. He works hard every day. But my stepson, as much as I love him, has never really helped around the house. He lives here, and simply put, he is NOT a bad person, he is a love, but he is Captain Oblivious to everything that doesn’t immediately affect him, and sorry not sorry, I don’t expect him to be my man servant but it would be nice if he helped once in a while.
Is my life so hard? No it’s not. I have a really nice life. But there are little things in this world that make any woman feel appreciated in a household. And it’s pretty basic, little things like cleaning up the kitchen and not leaving two sinks full of dishes or even one sink full of dishes goes a long way.
File under rantings of a suburban housewife and have a nice day. #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021
So today I got a couple of calls from “Alex.” I learned her name when I called the number back. I was on the phone with my mother when they came in. In normal times, I don’t call unknown reasonably local numbers back, but this is life in the time of COVID19, and a call could be a vaccine appointment. I am registered for shot interest all over as a 1A so I have been calling some unknown numbers back. Like this one today which came in from Allentown 484-460-5990.
I recorded the phone call. One of the phone calls because I called back to see if they would give me a website address:
When I called back at first they said “Philly House Buyers”. Couldn’t find a website so I called again. This time “Alex” said “Home Buyers Incorporated” and gave the website of www.homebuyersincorporated.com . That gives a company in Nebraska (“NE”) , registered in Nebraska but I can’t find a registration in Pennsylvania (“PA”). BUT if you look up “Philly House Buyers” on the Pennsylvania Corporations Database, there is a company registered since 2009 with a Chadds Ford address. So are either of these companies the company behind the calls or are they both behind the calls? Here is what I found on state websites in PA and NE:
“Dan” is so helpful on his pre-recorded message, yet I am still waiting for the first two notices he supposedly sent. Here is what you get when you call him up:
The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about these types of calls (not the postcards) in 2019 and the pandemic has caused (in my opinion) an uptick in these calls and things like ads for online betting. They are opportunistic because a lot of folks are struggling.
So we are living La Vida Loca scam style. And yes I did file reports today with the FCC and PA Attorney General’s office. Not that I am convicted they consistently act on these things, but I took the time to do it.
Anyway, be aware. Also note these people prey successfully on our most vulnerable like senior citizens.
6 ounces chopped Velveeta cheese (the kind that comes in a block)
14 ounce can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
12 ounce can of vitamin D evaporated milk
1 – 1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 lb ground beef
1 small red onion, chopped small
1 pound bag of Gemelli pasta
Salt and pepper to taste
I have never written this down, so bear with me.
First I sauté the pound of ground beef in a nonstick pan with the red onion. Salt and pepper to taste. Because I am using a nonstick pan I don’t grease it. Remove from heat.
In another pan I make my cheese sauce. It starts with a roux which is butter and flour. I just eyeball the flower and I use Wondra which is a great flower to use for things like this and gravies because it’s very fine. So I say a few tablespoons, it’s either that or a few dashes.
After the flour and butter have kind of cooked together, I had a dash of nutmeg and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce. Then I add the buttermilk.
I incorporate everything together whisking constantly and then I add the can of milk. Next I add the Swiss and Gruyere mix, whisking constantly until it’s incorporated. After that I add the cheddar and then I stir in the Velveeta chunks. As everything comes together you may have to add a little more milk. It just depends.
After it’s creamy and smooth I add the can of tomatoes which I do not drain. I then let the cheese sauce kind of meld together and I keep on stirring it. When I think it’s the proper consistency I turn it off and put a lid on it.
In a big Dutch oven I cook the pasta as per the package instructions and then drain. First I put the pasta back into the Dutch oven. Then I stir in the ground beef mixture. Then I slowly incorporate the cheese sauce until everything‘s together.
I always make a little more sauce than I am expecting but you just let your pasta sit for a few minutes with the lid on in the Dutch oven and the heat off on the stove and a lot of the moisture from the cheese sauce will be absorbed.
We went into Center City Philadelphia to see my parents this weekend. I have not been in Philadelphia since before the riots this summer.
I didn’t have a camera with me so I captured a couple of photos on my phone but it really doesn’t do what looking at the city looks like now justice.
The city of Philadelphia after a year of COVID19 and riots and protests is not good in my opinion. So many boarded up store fronts. And these weird outside pods for bars on the sidewalk which are mostly on the street making them more narrow.
The streets themselves are in horrible condition, holes and potholes and trenches everywhere. Broken pavement everywhere waiting to literally trip you. Coming up 16th St. going home we also passed this generator that was almost a city block long that was running.
The streets are mostly empty. The people you see the most of are homeless. It’s back to Filthadelphia.
Philadelphia looks grey and grimy , depressed, and sad. And it wasn’t just a grey day making me feel that. I used to love the city. It felt alive and vibrant. Now it feels to be barely hanging on.
