FRAUD ALERT! lol

True story--please grant me a few seconds to explain our pathetic issues. ;-> A famous gourmet chocolatier opened up it's first franchise in our area about a year ago. Perhaps you've heard of him? Jacques Torres, aka Mr. Chocolate.

Well, since we've had a chocolate "problem"* for many years we just had to try his stuff. We got quite fond of the 60% dark discs and started calling the store manager our "pusher," especially Michele.

Sadly and a long story later, they closed this store down mid summer. Now fast forward a couple of months.

Michele gets a voice mail from her credit card company. It is the fraud alert department and they ask her to call as soon as she can. She does and they explain the need to verify a charge.

Someone made a VERY LARGE order of chocolate from a store in New York City and it tipped off the fraud alert dept. Was this her? Even though they couldn't see her bowed head on the other end she answered sheepishly, ". . . yes . . . that was me." LOL They authorized the transx, of course, despite surprise!

As you can tell by the picture above, Michele is happy.

And, of course, my issues run almost as deep. Here is my horde from another one of our pushers, Jerry the owner of Chocosphere.

On a related yet hopefully less lame topic, we did have a GREAT breakfast at Frenchies this morning! Boy, does Chef know authentic French eggs!

May your addictions be far simpler yet just as satisfying!

Andy

*We're "functional chocoholics."

Grayling Area

A walk in the woods, a picnic, and a wonderful spouse . . .
all under a warm autumn sun. 

The time to live is . . . now . . . may you live it fully. 

Michele and Andy

Apple Fest in Charlevoix, MI

What do you do on an amazingly beautiful fall day? Well if you're in the area of Charlevoix, you take in the fun Apple Festival--it's their 32rd annual!

Stroll the higher end art show, peruse the thousands of apples on sale, and take in some great food. Single serving apple dumplings are my favorite from last year, so much so that I got three to go this year! No, I am not planning to eat them in one day. (At least . . . I'm not . . . "planning" on it. ;-> )

There is a randomized water fountain right on the boardwalk. We didn't expect to see kids running through it. In hindsight, we don't think their parents did either!

Hope your fall is as gorgeous and yummy as ours!

Andy & Michele

Manitou Sunset

The Manitou Islands are in the distance.

We never tire of the natural beauty around us. Not too long ago we walked for a few miles around downtown Suttons Bay. It was a slightly overcast night where there had been some rain off and on for a few days. We got in the car and thought, "We have a little more time---let's drive to Lake Michigan to see if the sunset would be visible." We knew what spot we had in mind and it was about 20 minutes Northwest of us.

Farm opposite the sunset with moon in the upper left.

We're very glad we did. Generally, I love sunsets with a little cloud cover---it allows for more interesting colors, textures and shadows. 

Andy

A Walk around Kehl Lake

It's looking a lot like fall out there---our favorite time of year!

Apples, cider, donuts, fall color--all great stuff.

Here's some shots of one the many nice hikes in our area.
Andy

Stir Fry

Autumn fresh vegetables, some Gyozo (pot stickers), and a wok. What more do you need for a great meal? Stir fries require three things: food prep, food cook time knowledge, and good sauces. Often a great sauce can make the others moot. 

This one includes: 1) carrots, 2) broccoli, 3) mushrooms, 4) leeks, and 5) red pepper. The item that takes the longest to cook is added first followed by the second item and so on. I added 1 and 2 together and then 3 and 4 with 5 as last. It's very engaging in that you have to stir the food at least half of the time. I am traditional in that the oil has to be peanut oil---great smell, great flavor and high flash point.

I bought the vegetarian pot stickers frozen. I did the vegetables first and then made the pot stickers using the cooking instructions on the package. 

So that the flavors had time to mingle and that it would be ready when the food was done, I made the sauce as the first step of this recipe. In this case the sauce has plenty of salt and other flavors so nothing else was added to the stir fried vegetables.

The sauce consists of simply mixing up the following and spooning it over a hot plate of food:

• 1/3 cup tamari
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 1 tsp minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Enjoy!
Andy

Orange

Since we don't have our pumpkins yet, these are some other representations of one of my favorite colors.

~Michele