Oh my goodness, what can I say that would allow you to picture where we went this weekend. These precious friends invited us to their cabin at Doyle Springs up in the Sequoia Natl Forest for 3 days and what a 3 days it was. We feasted on food that caused a slight (well 3 lbs to be exact) gain in weight. Not only were we able to sleep at night with windows open, listening to the waterfalls under their cabin at night, but we were introduced to the most amazing pancakes we have ever had. They are called Heavenly Hots and trust me on this, they are heavenly…the lightest and most tasty morsel topped wtih blackberries, raspberries and butter AND………..Dee made homemade maple syrup..Randy has now told me that he will expect this every Saturday morning. You can probably guess my reply to Randy. But…..we snacked on cheese toast that consisted of mayo, parmesan cheese and broiled to perfection on crustless bread.
We dined on Flank steak, zucchini topped with onions, tomatoes and cheese, cheesy twice baked potatoes and more. We ate homemade breakfast tacos that were simply scrumptious. Just when I thought I couldn’t take another bite, Dee would sit another taco in front of us. We would always find a little room for more. Some of their granchildren were up there and surprised us with homemade blackberry cobbler, that the girls had gone out and picked themselves. Plus they brought over a jar of elderberry jam that they had gathered the berries and made. This family makes Martha Stewart look bad. On the way home, they took us to one of their favorite places to eat dinner where I even tasted, are you ready for this, “pickled tongue”,and it actually still looks like a tongue; It made me glad I talk alot and fast, that way no one can catch my tongue to pickle it. oh my, I am just not ready for that, so went on to other foods, such as Veal smothered in cream gravy. We stopped at their favorite stop in Bakersville, which was Dewar’s Ice cream and got a pink & white…strawberry ice cream with strawberries and vanilla with hot fudge..we had just left the restuarant saying that we were so full and couldn’t eat another bite, when Jeff says, “let’s make one more stop for ice cream” which Randy quickly responds, “we just got through saying we couldn’t eat another bite, but here we sit eatting not only one plain dip, but two dips with toppings” Well, it just goes to show you that “there is always room for more” as long as it’s either mexican food or ice cream. As soon as I ask Dee if she minds me sharing the Heavenly Hots recipe, will post that on the site. They were the winner for “best food for the weekend” as far as I am concerned, well, maybe it was the flank steak, or no, maybe the breakfast tacos..hum…..it seems like all the food she prepared was the winner. Thanks Dee and Jeff for your hospitatlity and a most memorable weekend.

Well, our stories just keep getting better and better. Let me begin at the start. Randy rented us a truck from Uhaul today to continue our clean out of the storage and we had ordered a chair and buffet from Pier 1 for the kitchen, so I would have more space to store “goodies”. We thought as long as we had the rental truck we could pick up our order and clean out more stuff we didn’t have room for that we had brought from Texas. So we take our Halloween masks with us, knowing that we would be wearing them to haul the new items upstairs. To insure that the neighbors don’t recognize us, we stopped and bought Randy a wife beater shirt to wear with his Richard Nixon mask while unloading the truck here at the house. We don our masks and drop off unwanted furniture at the Thrift store and head to Pier 1 to pick up the new furniture. The back in of the Uhaul is loaded with more things to bring upstairs so we push that towards the front of the van and arrive at Pier 1. The nice young men help us load the 400 lb buffet in the back of the van and I am signing the papers when all of a sudden we hear a huge “crash”. We turn around and a sweet little ole lady has stepped on the gas instead of the brake and t-boned another car, swirled it around and she then crashes into us. Now she is trapped between the Uhaul and the other man’s car, so we are trapped there on the street at Pier 1 waiting for the police. After we check to be sure everyone is ok and they are, I immediately remember that I have no make up on, my hair is flat to my head and people are staring at us. We both look like we haven’t had a shower in days. The police come and we finally leave with the new furniture headed to our house. We arrive now, not only in a Uhaul van that has in huge orange writing all over the side “Rent Me for $19.95/day” but the whole side is totally smashed and makes the most awful sound, as the wheel is about to fall off. We quickly put on our mask and unload the old stuff into the trunk of my car. We are NOT going to bring any of this stuff in until after dark. Now we are trying to unload this huge buffet up the back steps (17 steps in all) and in the back door. It is so heavy that we have to stop with each step just so I can catch my breath. We make it finally up to the back door where it is still sitting until we can get the energy to move it where it will be permantely placed in the kitchen once I unload the piece of furniture that is where it will go. So tomorrow, we will have clean out day for two other pieces of furniture to make way for the two new pieces. We headed back to Uhaul, having to drive about 20 mph in case the wheel fell off, which it didn’t. It took a little over an hour to fill out the paper work and thank goodness Randy had taken out insurance on the van. So we turn it in and get back into our car and head home. We will be busy tonight unloading bags and boxes that are in the back of my car. But we’re not worried, we have already washed his wife beater shirt after a long day of loading and unloading. He is ready for dark to when we will empty out my car and make room for next Saturday….we found 3 thrift stores today that we haven’t had the chance to explore…….Hope they get the van ready before too long, sometime tells me we will be needing it in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday, WordPress informed me that my next post, which is this one, would be my 500th post and the blog has received 14,290 views over the past two years. I decided that instead of posting a recipe for the 500th post, that I would give you a little history of why I began this blog. Back in 2009, Randy and I went to see Julia Julia and during the movie he leaned over to me and said, “you should be doing that and if you don’t, shame on you”…..so walking out of the theater, I decided then and there that the recipes that were continually being requested or when phone calls came asking me for ideas of what to cook; these items should be on the blog. So the very next day I began to blog. My son, Jason, had mentioned a year before this that I should be putting all my recipes on a blog so they would be in one place, but being the lazy, undisciplined person that I am, I put it off. But now, well, I was determined and felt that God had spoken to me through Randy, so hence, the blog. As I began to post recipes, stories began to come to mind that I just felt I wanted to share, and as I began to write, ideas just kept coming. Cooking is one of my passions, but people are even more so, and as Randy and I had many opportunities to open up our home, I began to realize that it really wasn’t the cooking that was my passion, but serving and cooking for others. Because of that, each and every time we have had people into our home, we have been so blessed to share with others a sweet time of fellowship around the table. That is one of my greatest joys. Sitting around the table, eatting and sharing our hearts and thoughts, laughter and sometimes tears……but each of these occassions has given me the desire to try and capture how much we both enjoy sharing food with friends and people that we hoped would be new friends.
Thank each of you for reading this site and for all the encouraging comments….To God be the Glory….for His faithfulness, for His inspiration and for His goodness to our family. Chocolate Castles has been not only fun to write, but has been a joy to my heart to share so many special times in our lives with you. Hope to hear from you from time to time, and again, thank you for your friendship and encouragement! Please feel free to share the blog with your friends and family!