Sunday Afternoon by the River

Nestled in between Anclote Park and the Anclote Marina, facing the Anclote River in Holiday, FL, is a most delightful little cafe (restaurant, grill??) I don't know what to call it, but it's name is Miss Vicki's on the River. You can sit outside under an umbrella, look at the water, boats and pelicans while you listen to whatever live music the day serves up. Today's entertainment was Scott Fallon (ScottFallonConnects.com). He sings country and contemporary as well as oldies that most of us in our party recognized.
Miss Vicki's serves up some of the best She Crab Soup in the world. Her Blackened Fish Sandwiches can't be beat, either. Of course there's common fare like bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, chili dogs, wings, and the like, served with potato chips.
Our party of 4 got there a little after the lunch hour and spent a most delightful couple of hours enjoying the breeze, the water, food and music. What could be a better way to spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon?

My Family

My husband Dale and I met in Dade City when I was a freshman and he was a junior in high school. After his graduation we went our separate ways until we re-met at his 40th (my 38th) high school reunion. After we married I moved to Kingsport, TN, where Dale had a job as Chemical Engineer with Tennessee Eastman. We lived there together for 10 years before moving b ack to Florida to retire. Tarpon Springs was a logical choice, as my son lived here and I had always loved this area.

We have a combined family of 4 grown children, 9 grandchildren and a great grandson. My oldest daughter, Holly, is a librarian at the army base of Ft. Knox, KY. Son Tom is a police sergeant in Tarpon Springs and youngest daughter Amy is a wife, mother and grandmother in Nashville, TN. Amy is married to Mike and their 3 sons are Andrew, who graduated from College of Charleston and works in a restaurant there; Oliver graduated from Belmont College and is beginning work on his Masters in film production; Ethan is a student at College of Charleston and is the new father of Atticus, who will be 1 year old in August. My son Tom is married to Sharon and they have 3 sons: Matthew, who works at Books A Million; Tim, who is finishing his last year at U of Fla in engineering; Jeff is a rising senior at Tarpon High.

Dale has a daughter, Diane, who is married to David and lives in Kingsport, TN. They have 2 beautiful daughters, Shelby Ray and Hannah. Shelby is a rising senior in high school and Hannah will begin high school as a freshman this year. Dale's two sons, Shelby and Raymond, passed away several years ago, two years apart, when they were 26 and 28 years old. Shelby Ray is named for both of her uncles. Shelby had 1 daughter, Elizabeth, who was just married this past October and is a pharmacist at Walgreens in Indiana.

Dale and I are both very proud of our family. We don't get to see them often enough, but we do get to visit together pretty often. I am posting here a collage that I made from photographs that have been taken in the past 3 years, so they are pretty current. Maybe you can figure out who everyone is from the descriptions that I've given here.

Be sure to click on the photo for a larger view.

A Book to Treasure

I have just finished reading a most wonderful book that I would like to share. My daughter, Amy, is a marvelous cook. We both have a love for cookbooks (I love to read them and she actually cooks), and she frequently gives me great books for my birthday. This year she gave me a jewel that I will always treasure - it's "The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister. It is the author's first novel, and is not an actual cookbook but a story about a cooking class, the teacher and the students. It is sheer poetry in novel form, and will make you smile and cry throughout the pages as you learn about the lives of the participants. Another author gave her own description of the book: "A delicate, meltingly lovely hymn to food and friendship. Lillian's kitchen is a place where the world works the way it should. You'll want to tuck yourself into one warm corner of it and stay all day." That pretty much says it all. You will never think about food in the same way again - life is too precious and short not to appreciate the little things - the smells, the feelings, the memories. When I finished the book, I had tears and joy and felt truly uplifted.

I hope you will read it and let me know how it affects you.

The Fun of Editing Photographs

For several years I edited my photos with a free program that I downloaded from the internet, called Picasa (http://www.picasa.com/). This program was a joy to use, and so much fun to learn. I consider it the best photo editing program out there, other than the more advanced programs like Photoshop and Lightroom.

I e-mailed one of my pictures to a friend one day and she wrote me back and asked why I didn't remove one of the elements of my picture, as she considered it distracting. I told her that I didn't have that capability, but it did start me thinking about buying a more advanced program, and I was ready for that. Looking into Photoshop, I found that it was far too expensive for me at that time, so I settled for the latest version of Photoshop Elements, which was #8. I ordered it from Cosco for around $83.

I want you to know that I have been having so much fun with this program. There is much to learn, but there's a wonderful new discovery every time I go into the book that I bought to help learn the program (Teach Yourself Visually Photoshop Elements 8).

The pictures that I have posted above are some examples of the kinds of things that you can do with Photoshop. The most fun for me is taking some of the elements from 2 or 3 photographs and creating a whole new picture. The bottom picture I call "Heron at Sunrise". This was taken in St. Petersburg on the water at sunrise. The Heron was taken from one photo and added to the sunrise picture. The 3 parrots are actually 1 green parrot that I've duplicated and changed the colors. The bird on the limb (top) is made from 3 photographs: the sky was in Arizona and I took that one from my car window. The tree around the edges, forming a frame, was from my back yard in Tarpon Springs, and the red bird I found in Wall Springs park on a photowalk there one morning recently. If you are interested, you can check out more of my photos at http://www.trishgreg.com/

A New Cookbook

I have found a new cookbook that I really like and wanted to share it with you. When I was in Louisiana at the Avery Island Tabasco Factory, I found a book in the gift shop called "Rice Cooker Meals" by Neal Bertrand. The caption at the top of the book read "Fast Home Cooking for Busy People", and that appealed to me right away, as I am a busy person.

I had bought a rice cooker several years ago while I was in Louisiana, but had not used it very much. It was sitting in a cabinet, pretty much forgotten. This book intrigued me with its easy, spicy, wonderful sounding recipes, and the new (to me) idea of cooking something besides rice in it. I bought it right away and proceeded to read it through a couple of times. I couldn't wait to get home to try it.

The day after arriving home I made the Red Beans and Rice dish. It involved getting a package of sausages out of my freezer and taking a can of red beans and a can of chili beans out of the pantry. I did have to go to the market and buy a bell pepper, onion and some green onions, but this dish was so easy to put together and mix in the rice cooker, I couldn't believe it. My husband and I both loved the dish, needless to say, and the next day I made another one for a weekly neighborhood gathering. I put the dish together and took the whole thing to our clubhouse, plugged it in, and went about my business until it finished cooking. Everyone loved it and it made a great addition to our combined meal.

As a photographer who spends a lot of time on the computer, I have to admit that in spite of an overabundance of cookbooks in my house, for the past six months or so my husband has been subjected to a series of frozen dinners and frozen pizzas. Now these are great for emergencies, but do not qualify as good home cooked meals. Since I found my wonderful "Rice Cooker Meals" cookbook, there has been a good meal on the table every night. I just chop the ingredients when I have time, store them in the refrigerator, then when it's time for dinner I put everything in the rice cooker, plug it in and fix a salad. What could be easier?

The book can be found on Amazon.com for under $10 -- buy a couple more books and it ships free. You can also check out Neal's website at http://www.ricecookermeals.com/

Photos for Louisiana trip

On my last blog about my Louisiana trip, I wasn't able to post my photos for some reason, so I'll try again. I'm new at this and still learning how this site works. On the left above is is a view of Lake Martin near St. Martinsville, at the beginning of our swamp tour. When I was taking this photo, I stepped in a bed of black ants and still have the angry red marks on my right foot. On the right is a view of the interior of the swamp, cool and dark and quiet, a peaceful retreat. I was able to get a shot of a Blue Heron in flight and a beautiful Lotus Blossom being visited by a Dragonfly.

I think that's all I'll try for right now. I think this is enough for a beginning. Thanks for reading my Blog.
I have just posted a Photoshow of photos from our trip. If you would like to view it, go to www.trishgreg.com and click on the Video page.

Recent Adventure in Louisiana

Last week was my birthday, and I decided that I wanted to go back to New Iberia, LA, to show my friends Dick and Gay where one of our favorite Authors, James Lee Burke, lives and writes his wonderful, descriptive mysteries. For my birthday treat, I wanted to go on a Louisiana Swamp Tour in a flat bottom boat, so I selected a tour out of Breaux Bridge owned by Bryan Champagne. It began in Lake Martin (close to St. Martinsville) and we drifted through Cypress trees that had to be hundreds of years old, with Spanish moss hanging like beards from the limbs. We saw a nesting family of Night Herons, Egrets, Herons and a Bald Eagle taking flight from a tall tree. My disappointment was that we only saw one small gator in the water, and no Nutrias. But the two hour tour was well worthwhile, peaceful, and our whole group of 4 enjoyed it tremendously.

We also toured the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island and an historic home in New Iberia that is on the National Registry - it's called "Shadows on the Teche", and is located in the heart of town, right on the Teche River. We ate dinner at Mulates in Breaux Bridge, which is supposed to be the original Cajun restaurant. They feature Zydeco music, and it's a treat to listen to the music and watch the dancers (who obviously come there a lot - the dance reminds me of the Texas Two Step.

My birthday dinner on Friday evening after our swamp tour was at Clementines in New Iberia.

I am posting some of the pictures from our trip, and I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed taking them and experiencing the fun.