Morning all:

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for—in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” — Ellen Goodman

Then today must be abnormal – I am not going to work, I am wearing a pair of old shorts and deck shoes, will soon have breakfast, coffee is already in the mug, and shortly will head off to do some sailing. I guess the house being vacant part is what is normal—at least for Shang that has to be the case.

So far the news from Florida is “no news”. This coming week is Kirstin’s actual due date so we’ll see. I don’t know about the adults but young Derek can’t wait to be the Big Brother. I should point out to both Vince and Kirstin that Erma Bombeck once wrote: “It goes without saying that you should never have more children than your car has windows.” Wait a minute Kirstin, when you include the window covering the dashboard gauges doesn’t your Honda Odyssey have 9 windows?

This evening I am planning to head into Kentucky to Covington’s Mainstrasse Village area for their “original” Goettafest and River Raid Renaissance Festival. Not so much for the music and the festival piece but mainly to eat some Goetta. “So what is Goetta?” is bound to be your question. Goetta is a regional specialty food immigrants from Germany brought over more than 100 years ago and is made up from steel cut pinhead oats mixed with a little beef and pork sausage and spices, and then formed into a sliceable-to-be-fried small loaf of bread shape.

Goetta is one of those “peasant” foods that became main stream; both for comfort and taste, and they are some of my favorite foods. Into this category fall spectacular dishes such as the Dutch “boerenkool stampot” and “hachee”. When traveling in Brazil their traditional Saturday feast of “feijoada” is something I can still taste.

A hundred miles from Cincinnati Goetta is an unknown, yet the main Goetta producer “Glier’s” produces over 1,000,000 pounds of the stuff of which about 99% is eaten within the greater Cincinnati area.

This morning it is wonderfully cool, but the daytime temperature of 90 degrees will drain energy quickly. It also means that sailing will probably be a bit of a “float” since the air on inland lakes is normally very light when the temperature gets up there. I will see if I last in the heat since between sailing and the festival I also have plans to ‘tour’ The Home Depot. I need some Romex 12.3 and 12.2 cabling for a project I have going in the basement and the cool of an early Sunday morning will be an ideal time to get started.

Make it a great week everyone; try to eat something just because it delights.
Enjoy Father’s Day weekend.

Cheers,
Dirk