25 simple ways to saveConsumer Reports; Oct 2008, Vol. 73 Issue 10, p20-23
1. Clean the coils behind or underneath your refrigerator with a tapered appliance brush to keep it running efciently. 2. Skip prerinsing dishes. Our tests have found that it’s unnecessary, and you’ll save up to 6,500 gallons of water per year. 3. Opt for the cold-water wash cycle and save about $60 a year. 4. Put your PC to sleep. Save $75 or more by using the system standby or hibernating feature. 5. Plug electronics into a power strip so that you can turn them all of at once. 6. Don’t overload the dryer. Clothes will take longer to dry, and they’ll come out wrinkled. When the weather is warm, line dry. 7. Open blinds and shades on cold days. Solar heat gain can raise interior temperature signifcantly. But close them at night to minimize heat loss. 8. Dust off the slow cooker. You’ll use a lot less energy than cooking a meal across several burners and in the oven. 9. Keep car tires properly inflated. In our tests of a Toyota Camry, fuel efciency dropped 1.3 mpg when the tires were defated by 10 psi. 10. See whether your utility company ofers rebates to customers who replace old appliances with energy-efcient models. Some states hold periodic “tax holidays” for purchases of energy-efcient appliances. 11. Lower the temperature a degree or two before guests arrive. A house full of people generates a lot of body heat. 12. Clean or replace furnace filters monthly during the heating season. Clogged flters force the blower to work longer, raising your electric bills. 13. String LED lights this holiday season. They last longer. Our tests have shown that they can save up to $11 per season. 14. Insulate and seal cracks and gaps in your ducts. That can help reduce energy costs by 30 percent. 15. Lower water-heater temperature to 120 degrees from 130 and insulate hot-water pipes to knock up to 5 percent of your energy bills. 16. Weather-strip old windows and doors. It’s the surest way to close the gaps around openings, reducing heating and cooling costs by 15 to 30 percent. 17. Control outdoor lights with sensors or timers so that fixtures stay of during the day. 18. Install a high-efciency showerhead. It will reduce hot water use by up to 50 percent. 19. Upgrade to a low-fow toilet and save 4,000 gallons per year. 20. Drain a bucket’s worth of water from your water heater a few times a year to remove sediment, which can decrease efciency. 21. Move the thermostat to an inside wall away from windows and doors so that drafts don’t cause the heating system to cycle on unnecessarily. 22. Add insulation. An estimated 80 percent of older homes are underinsulated. Properly insulating and sealing your home can cut your heating and cooling bills by 10 percent. 23. Plant a deciduous shade tree on the west and southwest sides of a house to save energy. 24. Zone heat smartly. A portable heater in a room saves money only if you’re willing to keep the rest of the house chilly. Wood-burning freplaces can suck more heat from your home than they put back in. 25. Call a professional energy auditor. They use a blower door or infrared photography to pinpoint where your home is leaking energy. Some utilities provide free audits; you can also fnd certifed professionals in your area through www.resnet.us.
I want a Dream Lover
so I don't have to dream alone
Please don't make me dream alone
I beg you don't make me dream alone
No, I don't wanna dream alone
 |
| Genealogy: Duke |
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It's Bob Dylan Week here at the Vault as we're featuring some newly released material from him as well as concerts from performers with various connections to him. On Tuesday, we featured the 2/14/74 afternoon show from Bob Dylan and the Band ... This weekend, we bring you the evening show from the same day ..., which is the last concert of the tour and features a nice tribute to Bill Graham. These are historic shows with superb sound quality and top-notch performances from all involved.Here's the lineup:
We're also putting up an entire show from the Rolling Thunder Revue, a benefit concert for Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter recorded at Madison Square Garden in 1976. The end of Set 1 features Dylan fronting the ensemble, while Set 2 features a mini-set from Dylan & Joan Baez before the entire cast eventually joins together on stage again.
For a wonderful tribute to Dylan, check out performances by The Roots, My Morning Jacket, Yo La Tengo, Calexico, and many more from the 2007 I'm Not There Concert, given in support of the movie of the same name (go rent it if you haven't seen it!). Or, head back in time to hear sets from two of his biggest influences -- folk legends Ramblin' Jack Elliott and "Spider" John Koerner. Both sets are available for download.
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
4 to 6 tablespoons of a combination of ground cayenne pepper (red pepper, dried chile peppers, or red pepper flakes) and paprika
1 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon ginger, fresh (peeled and grated) or dried (ground) use dried ground ginger if making dry berberé
2 tablespoons finely chopped onions or shallots, omit if making dry berberé (optional)
1 teaspoon minced garlic, omit or use dried garlic if making dry berberé (optional)
1/4 cup oil, water, or red wine (omit if making dry berberé)
I received two messages today alerting me to new pictures on Picasa. One set was posted by Gabriel, who went camping with Peter and another friend. He posted a few photographs from Vermont that are very good -- he concentrated very much on composition, on color, on form. I also received an e-mail from Jody, who posted some shots of Minnesota that give a strong sense of place, and a strong sense of Coco, too. (How Jody found so many places without snow is a mystery to me.)
The notices showed up in my mailbox informing me that the photographs were available because I linked to their Picasa sites as a friend. To do this, you designate a person as a favorite in the right panel, triggering an e-mail to you whenever more pictures are posted. I find it a good way to keep tabs on what people are doing that I care about, and the person who posts them doesn't have to send out notices whenever something new is up.
I've linked to those I know who are posting on Picasa or who have designated me a favorite, but I am not aware of everyone who might be doing this. If you add me as a favorite, you will show up as a fan of mine, in which case it is easy to follow through and designate you as a favorite. Or drop me a line and I'll add you. Those currently on my list include:
From what I read Lea & Perrins made a wine based Worcestershire however it is now sold as a Marinade for Chicken, it still has the Green Label. I think it may be the product that is wrapped in paper.Someone had the question of "Where can I find the Worcestershire sauce with the green label" The quest is on...
My mother went to the source ("please relay to Janet") and called Heinz, the parent company for Lee & Perrins. They confirm that their white wine chicken marinade (with the green label) is what she is now using in Duke Dip. They are bottling it now as a marinade for wider use.
Why she didn't tell any of her children of her variation in the recipe is a mystery to me. Maybe she wants to stay ahead of us in the innovation game? I can only imagine, however, how crushed everyone will be to see traditional Worcestershire sauce out of the recipe. I'm guessing she will have few followers.
Jonathan and the Speckled Bird are featured in a recent interview in Richmond's Style Weekly magazine. Through the magic of the Internet, you can read it online. Do you see all that bamboo in the background? If they stood in place another three minutes, it would have engulfed them. Welcome to the cabin.
You can also hear a preview of one of their songs, "Match Made in Heaven," from their upcoming EP, due out in October. It should be good! (That eerie sound you hear is what Jonathan in the interview calls Antonia's mock saw.)
Someone asked me for advice on caring for a personal collection of books. On my library's Website, we have several useful links for books and other materials. The Library of Congress has a page for the non-librarian that offers useful advice for storing and protecting your books, audiovisual, and other documents. It also offers tips for how to salvage your treasures in the event of a disaster, such as water damage or fire.
Both the Alaska Historical Library and Indiana University have put their book repair manuals online. Although the manuals are used by professionals, they offer useful guidance for everyone on how to deal with such tragedies as ripped pages, removing tape, fixing loose hinges, and much more. If you have truly valuable pieces (either monetary or sentimental), it might be a good idea to consult a professional conservator -- but they don't come cheap.
And for anyone with documents or pictures relating to our family, I am more than happy to take them off your hands -- the older the better. One day soon I hope to get back to Casimir's Dream.
As most of you know, I sometimes play around with genealogy. The program I use to record my findings is called Family Tree Maker. It is Windows-based only. There are many features that make it easy for you to trace and record family members, as well as to produce charts, media displays, and books. The latest edition is on sale for $20 plus shipping. If this is something you think you might be interested in, this is an inexpensive way to test the waters. To make it really fun, you would need to subscribe to some databases (I think at about $140 per year), which will give you access to such resources as census records, newspapers, military records, marriage and death records, and more. That, however, is not absolutely necessary. There are plenty of free resources to keep you busy for quite a while. I also think you may have trial access to the databases I use if you buy the program.
One of the advantages you would have if you do decide to do this is that I would give you all the work I have done so far, which includes information on about 1,000 names. (Unfortunately, most of these are not on the Duke side, but oh well.) Even better, you would have me as a consultant to help you learn the software and how to research the databases effectively. I would gain a research partner to make my work easier. Everyone is a winner.
Give it a try if you think this might be something you are interested in. The most you can lose is twenty-five bucks. Don't dawdle, though, since the price is going to go up after it is published later this month.
I've made a few changes to the layout of the blog. Check out the right panel:
If you want to add these or other gadgets to your own Blogger blog, look at Page Elements in the Layout tab. Use Add a Gadget to browse through what is available. Play around a bit and see what you like. You can change the order and position of gadgets just by dragging and dropping. If you use WordPress or another platform for your blog, there are probably similar tools available. I'm just not familiar with them. Why don't you let us know how to do it with a blog post of your own?
You can now spend more time than ever on Google, trying to get the perfect search.
This post is especially for Janet, who is an honorary family member. I had dinner with her and Nancy in Long Beach (with Nancy's grandson, the spitting image of Ronnie) and the question of backing up computers was raised. I told Janet I would post something here for everyone. There is lots of advice out there on backing up, and I know some of you are using external hard drives to keep things safe. That is an excellent approach, but there is one other thing you can do to keep yourself safe, and that is to use online networked backup.
Online networked backup means your computer is backed up to some remote server on the Internet. This is an added measure of insurance. If you are using just an attached hard drive in your home, an electrical surge through your house can wipe out both your computer's hard drive and your attached hard drive. I lost a computer this way, and it looks like the same thing has happened to Gabriel recently, so this is not a far-fetched scare scenario.
The remote storage I like right now is Mozy. You get 2G of online storage for no charge. You configure Mozy to make backups on a periodic schedule, such as once a week. The backup happens in the background, so you don't have to do anything after you set it up. 2G is not enough to back up all your music files, but it is enough in most cases to deal with your most important documents, homework, budget spreadsheets, particularly treasured photographs, etc. You can tell Mozy what type of documents to back up, or which folders to backup. I use a version that I pay $5.00 a month for, so I get unlimited backup, but I used the free version for quite a while before switching.
If you do end up trying Mozy, you should post something here to let everyone know. You will receive a code, so if someone else joins on your recommendation using your code, you will receive extra memory (probably 512N) and so will the person signing up. Everyone's a winner.
Unfortunately, Mozy only works for PCs and Macs right now. I've asked that a version for Linux be developed, and you should too if you use Linux.
I've been using the new Firefox 3.5. It is very fast -- twice as fast as the previous version, and five times as fast as pokey IE 8, though still slower than Safari or Chrome. It has lots of nice new features. My favorite so far is what happens when you create a new tab: you see graphic images of your most visited pages, along with links to your recent bookmarks and your recently closed tabs. Nice.
One word of warning: many of the extensions have not been updated to 3.5 yet. If you use a lot of extensions, or you are dependent upon a few, be patient and wait for them to catch up. Right now, I am missing my mouse gestures, Delicious icons, and the weather toolbar. But if you can do without those, give it a whirl.
Darien talked about Pandora to listen to music on her Icelandic blog. It is worth reading if you are not currently a Pandora user. We listen to Pandora all the time, and are even paid subscribers so we don't get the ads and we can listen to it and all our digitized music through our big stereo system with our Squeezebox -- another highly recommended toy!
If you are using iGoogle (and if not, why not?), then check out the results of the Google photography contest. You can add any of the results of the top contestants to your iGoogle page for a change of pace in your theme. You can even try a theme out on your page to see how it looks, then revert to your former page if you don't care for it. What do you have to lose?
(photo by Gabe Duke)
6.22
last night Chris put down electric guitar, banjo and mandolin. a display of solid chops. especially considering that he just got back from a road trip to Nova Scotia.
iced tea cooled us down until it got nice enough outside to open the windows.
with the opening of the cabin came night noises, frogs and owls, that worked their way into the songs.
the record is beginning to take form, and there is discussion about recording the playback in the main cabin living room to create a reverb chamber that is true to the shape of the space.
at the end of the evening, during the recording of the slide guitar on Saint Josephina, the rain began. hopefully we’ll be able to keep it in the track. if so, we’ll have captured sound both inside the and outside that conveys the cabin’s form.
tonight Chris will put finishing touches on his work.
-Jonathan
so far the guitar and scratch vocals are in the can
and we’re set for Chris to lay down mandolin,
banjo, and electric guitar this evening.
we haven’t quite captured the space yet, but with
the recordings combined we feel it’ll start to take shape soon enough.
other sounds captured to our endless amusement:
cackling birds on Nearer My Father’s Wounded Side
Bugle the dog on A Hole in the Ground
though it’s taken us awhile to end up here, recording
in the cabin is especially meaningful for Antonia and me.
antonia’s grandmother bought the property when it was condemned–earning its name “Condemnation Plantation,” and restored it back to health.
Antonia and i made the cabin our home for the first four and a half years of our marriage. it’s in this house that all of the songs were written, and my 2008 demo recordings were scraped together.
-Jonathan
Darien posted a very lovely tribute to her father today (actually only part one, with several more on the way). It got me thinking about my own father -- the things I remember, and more that are only dimly recalled or that have even slipped from my grasp altogether. There are things I have that remind me of him. They surround my daily life, usually in the background, but sometimes thrusting themselves forward and sending me into a reverie.
I have several such artifacts of my father, but I'll just mention just three. One is a brick from Uniontown. I picked it up during a marathon trip to Pennsylvania, driving up and back in less than twenty-four hours. Other than my father, I have a hazy recollection of who made that journey with us. Darien didn't come I'm certain, but a young Antonia did. Darien must have stayed back with one or two boys, too young to understand why we would pack into a station wagon that way and just drive. Maybe Jody, too? But not Skip? My mother must have been there, too. Would I had a digital camera back then.
We toured around Uniontown, Dad pointing out things he remembered, such as the house where he was born, the laundry where he worked, the Slovak club where his father spent a lot of time, talking and playing music. He also showed us the site of his elementary school. The original building had been razed, and a new one built in its place. A rubble of bricks was piled off to the side. Some of them had the name Uniontown chiseled into them, indicating the place of their manufacture. Probably in violation of some law, I took one as a memento of the trip. Whenever I look at it, I am not only reminded of the trip, but of my father growing up in that town that had such an influence on his life, and that hovered my own childhood far away in California, like a Grecian myth. The older I get, the more I think of histories that I never experienced, but that exert their own spell over me.
(It is irritating that when I went to write this, I could not find the brick. It is in the utility room, somewhere on the workbench, I think. I shall have to clean the room now. My father would never have let his workshop devolve into the state mine is in. There is a small glimmer of hope that Gabriel is using it as a perch for his dragons.)
Another artifact I have is a knife. It belonged to my father. It is a Craftsman knife -- nothing special, just utilitarian. He always bought Craftsman, so I always buy Craftsman. Whenever I use it, I remember him and how he loved tools and working with his hands and fixing things. He engraved his name on it. I think he gave it to me before he died, but I'm not sure. I wish I had written it down.
The last artifact is a pocket watch. I have it displayed in my front hallway. I see it every time I come down the stairs, or walk out the front door. Most of the time it is just there, invisible, part of the patchwork surrounding me. Other times it makes me pause -- time stops, so to speak. It was my father's; my mother gave it to me after he died. Darien found a stand for it. The watch makes me remember the pride he had in efficiency, in systems, in finding the shortest route to get from Point A to Point B. I have that in me, too. I use it now as an icon for myself on my blogs.
Places. Tools. Time. These and other artifacts of my father live in me still. They are the trivial detritus of life, never intended to carry the weight of the past with them, but that is what they do now. They make me muse upon what my own children will take from me.
We have been recycling in our house for almost twenty years. We haven't wanted to use a plastic bag to line the receptacle in the house, so we have just been using a brown paper grocery bag and then putting that in the collection bin for the every-other-week pick-up. Over the past several years we have been gradually switching to reusable eco-bags for our marketing. When our paper bags get low, we forgo the eco-bags and ask for paper at the market.
It suddenly occurred to one of us (the smart one) that we could just as easily use a stiff eco-bag in the house receptacle. That is what we are doing now for all of our house recycling. We just dump what we collect into the larger bins when the time comes, saving a little bit of paper each time. Wish we would have thought of that one sooner.
I subscribe to a online newsletter from Wolfgang's Vault. It is a music site with a large catalog of vintage recorded concerts, most of which were never released commercially, from sources such as King Biscuit Flower Hour and Bill Graham's archive. Most concerts derive from the sixties and seventies, although there is a smattering of later years as well. You can also browse through the concert list and play on demand those you like, either the concert in its entirety or selected songs. There is also streaming radio, playlists, and more.
New concerts are added every week -- twenty this week alone. Several concerts are highlighted each week in the newsletter. It's fun to be surprised and just tune in to what is being offered. To give you a flavor, here is an excerpt from today's newsletter:
On the website this week, we've been celebrating the career of Eric Clapton, featuring concerts from Delaney & Bonnie and Derek and the Dominos. Today we're featuring a mini-set from Cream, recorded just over a month before their final concert. There's a terrific take on a Howlin' Wolf blues number followed by a pummeling workout on "I'm So Glad." Short and sweet, this is a quintessential representation of the first supergroup. For a more concise look at Slowhand's career, check out our featured Artist Archive Playlist highlighting his best performances in the Vault.Sign up for the newsletter and have some fun. Feed your ears.
Our new releases for the weekend include a mellow, intimate set from Judy Collins in 1979, after she had moved away from her folk roots and into more eclectic pop territory; a high energy set of Southern rock from the Henry Paul Band, including songs from Paul's solo career and from his time with the Outlaws; and exciting hard rock and theatrics from the underappreciated Shooting Star.
Last Sunday, singer/songwriter Kenny Rankin passed away from complications associated with lung cancer; he was 69. To help his memory live on through his music, we're adding a new set from Kenny, recorded in 1976. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.
If you use or view Picasa on the Web, there is now a very nice full screen mode that allows you to flip through a gallery very quickly. Essentially, it is the slide show with snappier navigation. When you have a single picture on the screen, look up in the left corner, right under where it says "My Photos" and click "Full screen." When the full screen comes up, you will see the navigation buttons at the bottom to flip through the gallery, but you can also use the right and left arrow keys to go even faster. You will be amazed at how quickly you can scan through the images. If you don't have your own Picasa Web albums, you can test drive it on one of mine. To really take advantage of your monitor's size and turn on the acceleration, press the F11 key -- at least on a PC. Let us know if that works on a Mac as well, or if there is some equivalent key.
I worked at the cabin yesterday, trying to push nature back. In an annual rite, I also played cat and mouse with poison ivy. Trying to identify it in the mass of green vines around the property is difficult for me. Antonia and Gabriel seem to have an internal radar detector; I seem to have an internal magnet. Whether you have to deal with it in your own yard or avoid it while out hiking, I found this video on About.com helpful in pointing out its distinct characteristics. With so many vines growing in Virginia, it is often hard to distinguish poison ivy from other plants.
Too bad I didn't watch it before working outside. We'll see how lucky I was later in the week.
One of the little known features of Firefox is the keyword. You use it in the search bar to quickly go to a site and enter a search term. Rather than entering a URL and enter key, then putting a search term in and pushing enter again, you do this all in one step once you define your keyword. For example, if I want to look up the definition of the word noxious in dictionary.com, I would just type in Firefox's search box d noxious. If I wanted to find an article for the same word in wikipedia, I would type wp noxious. And if I wanted to find books related to noxious in Amazon and WorldCat, I would use am noxious and wc noxious.
There are two ways to define keywords. The first is to use the search box in the upper right corner of Firefox. Click the menu and "Manage Search Engines," then "Edit Keyword ..." In the pop-box, just put in the term that you will use to query with. I like to keep my keywords very short, to make it faster to type them in.
If the search tool isn't listed there, the other way is to go to the site and add your keyword directly. This works in most cases, although screens with lots of boxes and search options can be confusing for Firefox. After you navigate to the site, right click on whatever the search box is on the screen and select "Add a keyword for this search ..." A dialog box will come up. For Name, copy and paste the URL for the screen you are on. For keyword, put in your abbreviation. For example, I have a keyword for WorldCat. In Name, I have http://www.worldcat.org/ and in Keyword I have wc. You can just leave Bookmarks Menu for Create In drop-down.
You can refine your keywords for better searches. For example, my keyword for amazon.com is just am. But I also use amb to limit the search to just books in Amazon. I did this by first navigating to the screen for just the book search (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=) and then right clicked the Amazon search box and defined the keyword amb (for Amazon Books).
You can also use the keyword to just get to the site quickly. Enter your keyword only, with no search term, in Firefox's search box.
You can read more about keywords by reading what Mozilla has to say about Smart Keywords and the section on keywords in the Search Bar article. Here are some of my frequently used keywords. Are there other keywords you find useful? I'd love to know!
Darien gave me a book for Christmas, Voyeurs by Dennis Bartel, a signed copy via Jenny. Some of you will recognize the name from KUSC, the classical station in L.A. where Dennis DJs. He also grew up in Norwalk and attended Norwalk High with other Dukes and Sanchezes. I remember listening to Dennis on the radio when I lived in L.A. He eventually left for the east coast, but returned a few years ago and is again hosting a program at KUSC. I still am a fan through the magic of the Internet, KUSC being one of the stations I often listen to. (I love hearing about rush hour and smog alerts.)
I was surprised at how good Voyeurs is. It is a collection of short stories. They are well-crafted, literate, interesting, amusing. The reason I am bringing it up here is that one of the fun things about the book is how Norwalk and Southern California in general form a subtle background to many of the stories. You will read about someone driving down the 605, or growing up around dairy farms. Some of the references are subtle and will likely be missed by those who didn't grow up there.
I would recommend you pick up a copy at the library, but unfortunately it has not been widely collected. You will have better luck buying it online at Amazon or a similar site. Used copies can be had cheaply. When you are finished reading it, pass it on to another Norwalkian.
One of the really powerful things about Firefox is the many community members who write extensions that add lots of functionality and gee-whiz features to the browser. Not everything is in the add-ons, however. The generic browser itself has some pretty neat feature if you spend a little time customizing it.
One feature is not completely obvious from the options menu. (For PC's start with Tools / Options. For Linux and Mac, start with Edit / Preferences.) Navigate to the Advanced section and look under the General tab. You will see some Accessibility options. One of these is for "Search for text when I start typing." It comes unchecked as its default, so go ahead and check it. Close the options/preferences window.
Now you are ready to try it. Start typing the word options. You will see Firefox start to highlight its first occurrence on the page. Press the F3 key and Firefox will jump to the next occurrence. Try it several times, then use shift-F3 to go back the other way. Also note that Firefox has opened up a small window in the bottom left of your browser screen. The word you are searching for appears there. You will also see icons to help you go forward or backward, as well as to highlight all instances of the word (or words) you are searching. This same menu can be pulled up using the Edit / Find menu. Similarly, you can cycle through your searches using the ctrl-G and shift-ctrl-g key combinations. Firefox is rarely content with giving you only a single way of doing something.
Not only can you use the F3 and other keys to cycle through a page to look for your term, but when you navigate to another page you can do the same thing without re-entering your search.
You can use find features in other browsers, but I don't know any among the standard ones that offer as much power and as many options as in Firefox. If you haven't been using Firefox, try it and find out why it has the reputation for being so much faster, more secure, and more powerful than IE/Internet Explorer.
Sometimes it is tough scheduling events for a large family, or for lots of friends. Coordinating everyone's schedule usually involves a lot of back-and-forth until you finally find a time slot that works for everyone. Here is where Doodle can help you.
Doodle does two things for you. First, it allows you to easily poll everyone and find out their opinion on something -- for example, do you prefer potato chips or tortilla chips with your Duke Dip? Second, you can create a schedule of options for when you want to do something, such as take a vacation, have a picnic, come paint my bedroom.
Once you create the poll (which is all menu driven and very easy to do), you just give a URL to everyone who you want to participate. They click it, put in their response, and away you go. You have to have an account to create a poll, but not to just vote.
It takes longer to explain it than to just do it, so I created a couple of samples for you. Normally, I would e-mail the link to you, but for the sample below you can just click and go.
There are various options in creating a poll. For example, I didn't select specific times of day to ask when you wanted to vacation, since I am really just interested in the days. I configured mine so everyone can see the results, but you could mask this from the participants if you wanted, for example, to let everyone vote without being influenced by others. You can also elect to be notified when someone votes if you use a news reader (RSS type feed).
Go ahead and start Doodling now. It is a good step toward becoming more organized.
One thing that is so interesting about family stories and traditions is how slippery they can be, as slippery as mayonnaise. What we assume is true and commonly known by our most intimate relations can morph as they are told from one person to the other, from one year to the next. Sometimes it is better to just confront things in the clear light of day, where we say, "I didn't know that" or "Is that really the way you remember it?"
Step 1: call Dad and have him remind me of the recipe
Workaround if he is once again ignoring my calls:
Ingredients: cream cheese, cottage cheese, mayo, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper.
Put cream cheese in a bowl, add scoops of cottage cheese & mayo until it tastes good. Dash with Worcestershire sauce and pepper. Serve with the ripple potato chips. Go to the gym afterward.
Hmm. Looking at this, I'm doubting the mayo. Is that for real? Cottage cheese, cream cheese, AND mayo? No wonder it tastes so good.
This is how I remember it:
Here's what was "told" to me:
Mix first 5 ingredients well. Add canned milk until dippable.
Note: Most measurements are approximations and the chef is encouraged to creatively adjust amounts and ingredients to suit their taste. Chopped chives and green onion tops made appearances in the dip for a few seasons.
Beat the softened cream cheese in a medium-sized mixing bowl with a fork and then stir in 1 ½ cups of cottage cheese. Add enough Worcestershire sauce to slightly color the dip. Stir in a couple of dashes of garlic salt. Taste. If any of the seasonings are too strong, add more cottage cheese. If the dip is too thick or not creamy, add a tbsp of mayonnaise or canned milk. Taste again. Why not taste yet again? You made it while everyone else lounged around and who is going to see you? Transfer to serving bowl and scrape any remaining dip out with a potato chip and taste one more time. Cover and chill while hamburgers are grilling. Stir before serving adding additional milk or mayonnaise if your tester chip breaks.
I am quite shocked at this request. Duke Dip, as true Dukes know, does not come from a recipe. Rather, the ability to make Duke Dip is genetic. A Duke may also magically transfer the birthright for this delicious concoction by marrying his or her true love, especially if the Duke Dip gene is recessed. As proof, I submit evidence that Duke Dip divined by Gladys is quite delicious and authentic. If you want the "recipe," I question whether you are, in fact, my brother. I will tell you my secrets, but please know this is quite difficult, as it would be challenging for me to explain how I breathe, digest food or some other innate ability. You may attribute my delayed response to two factors. First, I have been conflicted and suffered several sleepless nights since learning that we may not be related. I have decided that continuing to interact with your wife and children outweigh the fact that you probably come from a different bloodline and you should be disowned. Second, I needed to make Duke Dip MANY times in order to take some notes so that I may pass along these family secrets. As proof, I submit the 5-gallon tub of Duke Dip in my refrigerator. If Jeff has not yet responded, well it's because we're out of these ingredients:
Allow cream cheese to get to room temperature (to soften) then mash with a fork. Add about half as much mayo as cream cheese and mix until smooth. Stir in cottage cheese - about the same amount of cottage cheese as the cream cheese/mayo mixture. Season with garlic salt/powder and Worcestershire sauce. Thin with some milk to reach the right consistency. Use plenty of chips to sample and make sure it tastes just right.
Tips to Perfect Duke Dip: Let the Philadelphia cheese soften before mixing in other ingredients. Don't use too much garlic salt if you are feeding non-family in a public setting. Don't use so much Worcestershire that the dip becomes off-white in color. Remember to use upper case letters when you include "Worcestershire" and "Philadelphia" in the recipe. Enjoy on sandwiches and salads, too!
That's how I make it.
P.S. John, don't forget the Mayo!
I add a little more or less of the ingredients depending on how it tastes and it always tastes better the next day.
Mash up the softened cream cheese with a fork, adding mayonnaise and milk to help it along. Stir in cottage cheese, then other ingredients. Taste frequently with your finger until the taste and texture is right, then taste some more with your choice of chip. If there is any left, serve to the rest of the folk. Marvel at the goodness.
Your note on Duke Dip got me to thinking how and when I ever came across the recipe. No clue.
Best I can come up with. I forgot -- I add a heaping spoon of Mayo.
