Say My Name

We have a tradition of giving voice to the names of those murdered by hatred, a voice to those who were robbed of it by violence and ignorance. Each year on Yom HaShoah we gather together to speak the names of those massacred in the Holocaust. There is no possible way to say all 6,000,000+ names in 24 hours, but uttering a fraction of those sacrificed is our way of acknowledging their humanity. They will not be ignored, forgotten, rewritten, or erased.

And so, while the rest of the country seems content to focus on the monster, I refuse to give more time to the end of their lives than the lives themselves. 

Rose Mallinger's welcoming hug holds a community together.
Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz is a friend and healer.
Cecil & David Rosenthal epitomize brotherly love.
Bernice & Syl Simon made their marriage last a lifetime.
Daniel Stein is a proud grandfather.
Melvin Wax can be counted on for the perfect joke.
Joyce Fienberg is a mother, grandmother, and community volunteer.
Dr. Richard Gottfried believes dental care is necessary, no matter the ability to pay.
Faith and family are Irving Younger's greatest passions.

Please pray for those still suffering from the bullets that tore through their flesh and their souls. May this deadly bloodbath take no more lives.

Amen.

Get BIG BEN - but not until Thursday

He'll teach her how to play, but can she handle the game?

When Jillian Welch learns that golf courses have become the new singles scene, she convinces her editor to let her research the phenomenon for her Dating Diva column -- never mentioning what she really wants to do is fan an old flame.

There's something wildly enchanting about the columnist who arrives at Ben Cannon's golf resort. Ben's felt this magnetic pull only once before, for a bespectacled brunette who was nothing like this platinum blonde from New York. Confident, poised . . . and hitting on him like crazy--is she really interested in him, or merely after clickbait for her sexy column?


DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! It will be FREE during #Shameless18, and it'll piss you off to pay for a book only to see it FREE on Thursday! #KU friends, download away! #budgetbooks https://amzn.to/2CMDo1X 

Step Up To The Plate : Plated, round 3

You know what sounded fun? An Iron Chef style competition where the boy and I each made a meal and everyone got to choose the best one at dinner. You know what's not fun? Rancid pineapple, Chinese broccoli, and losing.

Blue Apron's Orange Shrimp and Broccoli soundly stomped Plated's Sticky Pineapple Chicken that was not in fact sticky. The fresh pineapple they sent had taken a turn, so I replaced it with some from the pantry. The chicken was cooked, and then sliced, which seemed so odd for a stir-fry type dish and tasted even stranger. The sauce was more of a seasoning than anything. Turns out we all dislike Chinese broccoli, even though we love broccoli and broccolini. Total dinner fail. Thank goodness we had the yummy orange shrimp to console ourselves with.



We ordered the Hoisin Duck Buns because duck and Chinese buns. The buns and duck patties were a hit. The carrot fires? A mushy miss. I loved the ginger slaw, the kids did not. They did however love the buns themselves. Luckily the recipe leaves a few leftover for straight up munching.

Baked Calamari with Garlic Breadcrumbs and Papas Bravas. Now that is one long recipe title! I tend to think of calamari as an Italian dish. Our whole family can clear two plates of the stuff in under five minutes. But making it at home felt daunting and I loathe to fry just about anything. But this was baked, and while I remained skeptical, worth a shot.

This was AMAZING. Like whoa, we must recreate this amazing. Creamy fingerling potatoes are roasted until golden, calamari is tossed with breadcrumbs and baked, spinach wilts over the hot potatoes, and a creamy-smoky sauce is drizzled over with lemon and parsley and OH MY WOW. If you see it on Plated, you have to order it.

This is the issue with Plated. Some dishes are garbage-worthy, others knock your socks off. When the ingredients are on, they're fantastic. And other times your pineapple is rotten and stuff is growing on the garlic.

*This post has three recipes because I got my stuff mixed up on week one. Not that it matters, really. I paid for this experiment myself. Plated doesn't know me and neither does Blue Apron. They should, I'm a delight.

For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

We Tried Plated : Round Two

Our first meal kit delivery from Plated covered all the bases - delicious, meh, and toss that in the garbage right now! Full of hope and memories of curried lamb tacos, we tried again. This time with Honey Soy Pork with noodles and Lamb Kofta with tzatziki. Both sounded fantastic, and were things I didn't think my family would try if it didn't come from a service.

The final meals tasted great, but there were some hiccups along the way. Before the ingredients were completely unboxed we had a rotten cucumber, moldy garlic (which I didn't know could be a thing), and putrid red cabbage. Fun times. There was also a bag of random pine nuts that didn't belong to either recipe.

I had garlic and cucumber on hand, so easily replaced those. I didn't have cabbage, so the red pepper slaw to accompany the kofta was just red peppers. Even with the challenges, both dinners were a hit. Doubly so for the kofta because my kids tried bulgur!

Honey Soy Pork with peanut noodles and bok choy. What's not to love about peanut noodles? These were easy and the hot sauce could be added to taste, which was perfect since our crew runs from no-spice to dare me to eat this spoon of wasabi. The honey in the marinade for the pork caused it to burn, so most of the pork wasn't edible.

Lamb Kofta with tzatziki, bulgar, and red pepper slaw. The slaw was missing the red cabbage, but I think I would prefer it this way. Dinner felt fresh and light and different. The kids dove into the fridge for pitas, but they tried the bulgur, so that was a win.

For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

Plated: What's For Dinner?

I'm going to be up front about it - Plated is our favorite. Which may seem strange because their meals are hit or miss. Sometimes the fresh produce isn't fresh, or even edible. Sometimes the recipe misses the mark. Others take for-freaking-ever to make. The redeeming factor is the variety and portions. We've tried dishes and ingredients I never would have attempted to sneak by the kids, or even the husband. And more often than not, the 4-portion meal feeds our family of 5.

Plated has twenty dinners to choose from each week, and available a month in advance. Plus two dessert options, which aren't offered by many other services. There are options for vegetarian, family-friendly, stovetop-only.. We opt to see everything they offer and go from there.

Pricing is straightforward - $9.95 per meal for our family plan dinner for four, twice a week. A smidge less than $80 a week. Some of the recipes aren't worth that $40 price tag (I'm looking at you tomato bisque) while others make up for it (i.e. Lamb Merguez).

We ordered an eclectic mix for our first box. Curried Lamb Tacos, Tomato Basic Shrimp & Grits, and Cuban Chicken Empanadas. We loved one, found the other odd, and the third was straight-up disgusting and went in the trash. Yes, that bad.

Curried Lamb Tacos. We love lamb curry. We love tacos. We weren't convinced the two had any business on the same plate until this delightful dish. If this had been a Pinterest recipe, none of the kids would have tried it. Because it came from this novel box meal kit, they were game. And loved it. All of us. This is how our love affair with Plated began, but the course of true love took a few turns...


Tomato Basil Shrimp & Grits. Shrimp is good. Grits can be good. Tomato and basil have a happy marriage. And yet, this didn't work. Maybe because it made enough grits to feed a neighborhood, but only enough flavor for a family. Bland as can be, when they had such promise. The shrimp and tomato mixture would have been better with pasta, or garlic bread, or both.

Cuban Chicken Empanadas. I do not know what was in the spice packet that came in this kit, but it tasted like dirt. Honestly. And these took forever to make. So I spent an hour making and baking only to have two trays of empanadas no one would eat. Good times. I emailed to say I thought something had gone bad in the spice mix, but never heard back.


For more of our Plated journey...

If you want to try Plated, here's a link to a free box...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

Well, Hello Fresh

Save $60 on Hello Fresh lives at the top of my inbox. Even now that I've subscribed, they're still paying Google to plop it on top of my real emails. That's advertising for you, preaching to the choir. 

The kids and I looked over the menu and made our selections. Once we'd made all the meals, we realized the flavor mash-ups weren't our thing. And that produce in Oregon is awesome! What they sent... was not. 

SESAME BEEF TACOS with quick pickled vegetables

Our favorite recipe of the box. I wasn't sure how the kids would react to radishes, but the quick pickling method was a winner. When I unpacked the bag my eldest was against the red cabbage, but it gets cooked up with the sesame beef. He actually like it - the tacos, he's still suspicious of red cabbage. This is one we'd make, or order, again. - loved

SWEET & SMOKY CHICKEN CUTLETS with green beans and pineapple rice

The produce on this one was a let down. The green beans were past their prime - tough and stringy. We all love green beans, but none of us finished these. The tub of fresh pineapple had gone rancid, so we made the rice with a pineapple fruit cup we had in the pantry. The chicken flavor was fine, but really dry. I wound up making grilled cheese sandwiches. This was a miss with us. -blerg

CHIPOTLE PULLED CHICKEN SANDWICHES with carrot-apple slaw

My son chose this one thinking it would be a spicy barbecue. The chicken would have been better as a taco. I loved the carrot-apple slaw, but the kids weren't fans and balked at putting it on their sandwich. My daughter... ate the bun. The apple they sent was mealy, so I used one from our fruit bowl. -meh

Hello Fresh... wasn't fresh. I had to replace much of the produce, and what I used wasn't great. The directions were a bit odd as well because our meals were for four servings and the recipe cards were for two. We figured it out, but I think it could have been an issue if my son had been cooking them alone. Having each meal packaged in a separate bag was a great help keeping things sorted in the fridge.

I hadn't ordered since that original underwhelming box. The website has a six-week lead time on menus, so I check every week. I couldn't find two meals I thought we'd like. For three months! Yes, the site makes it easy to skip weeks and change meals, but that's a long time. Yeah... fingers crossed Hot Honey Chicken & Pork Carnitas Tacos win us over. 

The $60 off code? GMAIL60  Let me know if you want a free week. I can send them out from my account. 

See what we thought of other meal kits.

Tied on a Blue Apron

Blue Apron is one of the more widely recognized meal kit delivery companies around. They recently inked a deal with Costco, which means their meal kit boxes are stocked in store. I picked one up on a whim. I'd been intrigued by the concept, but ut off by the idea of joing a subscription service for something I hadn't tried before.   

I had such a good time making the meal with my son, I wanted to keep doing it. I sold him on the idea of our search for the best meal kit service as cooking classes. I had an ulterior motive as well - he could take over dinner at least once a week if everything was provided for him in a kit. 

I liked the packaging on the Costco kits - everything contained in a recyclable container that could double as a trash bowl while cooking for easy clean-up. Home delivery came in bags, which is fine, but not as cute. Hey, cute matters.

What we tried:

SOUTHWEST CHICKEN TACOS 

The cheesy potato rounds were a hit with the kids. They would've eaten twice as many. The tacos were a bit clunky to eat. The kids weren't fans of slaw on tacos. - liked

GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN

My husband picked this up at Costco. I love a good stir-fry... but this wasn't. Could be the flavor combination - broccoli & pineapple. It might have been better if the broccoli weren't roasted first. The combination didn't work. We all tried it, but no one finished it. - meh

Ordering the meals instead of grabbing what Costco had on offer was fun. There were lots of options, so it was easy to select two meals I thought I could get past the kids. The foil-wrapped insulation kept things cool in the box, but I had hoped for the same efficient packaging as Costco. No dice. Things were individually packed, so I had to sort and toss the meals in their own bag in the fridge.

CHICKEN TACOS & CORN

Not going to front, I ordered this for the elote. I've always wanted to try corn that way, but our summer corn here in Oregon is divine, so I worried about messing it up. For this we made elote with what they sent, and corn from the farmer's market plain so we could dress it with butter or the mayo spread & cheese. 3/5 liked it, but we all had butter on our second ear.

The tacos were good, could have done without cooking the cherry tomatoes. - liked

BEEF UDON

The kids swore they'd never had udon before, so I had to get this one. We wanted there to be twice as many noodles! This is the first dish I might try to recreate, or order again. Where does one buy udon noodles, I wonder? I've never seen them, maybe if I hit up Uwijamaya? My favorite thing about this kit? The beef came in those super thin slices, so no cutting & worrying of pieces were thin enough! Usually noodles are a way to stretch the amount of meat in a meal. Not here - loved

The tiny portions of spices and condiments are adorable. Some will argue the packaging is wasteful, but in our house we too often toss mostly full bottles and jars of items we only used once or twice. The produce was okay, the chicken inconsistent in thickness, and flavors were good overall. Trust your kitchen instincts with this one - I knew better than to add roasted broccoli to a stir-fry!

The Costco meal kits for four were $25, almost half of what it would be online ($44). Costco also sells $100 Blue Apron gift cards for $80. If you're curious about meal kits, grab one at Costco to try out. If you like it, go back for the gift cards.

The website is easy to navigate, and weekly menus go up a month in advance. They have 2-serving and 4-serving options. Unfortunately, I don't often find two meals we'd like. Weeks are easy to skip using the manage delivery option. Next month we're trying Orange Beef with wonton noodles & Seared Chicken with pesto orzo. I'll report back...

See what we thought of other meal kits...

We Tried: Meal Delivery Kits

Dinner Delivered! Well, kind of. All the ingredients are in a box and easy to follow recipes are included - but you're doing the cooking. Fine in theory, but I wasn't sure how it worked out in real life. Sure, there were a bajillion blog articles about them, but the ones I found were sponsored posts. You know, where the company gifts the blogger a box in exchange for an 'honest' review. Here's the thing, if you don't like something and tell the world why, you're honest but not likely to get more opportunities for 'honest' reviews. It's a business, y'all.

Since I couldn't get the straight goss online, I asked the Facebook hive-mind.I guess I don't hang with a dinner boxer crowd because I only got a few 'we tried it' and a couple 'the kids didn't like it'. The overwhelming response was 'no, but we've been thinking about trying it'. Hmmm. Now I was curious.

A new meal kit company ad shows up on my Facebook feed on the regular. I decided to take advantage of all the '$$ off your first box' offers and try a few. To be fair, I tried more than one box from each company. It made the experiment more expensive, but any business can have an off week. I know I do. 

I love to cook, but I hated making dinner. 

I didn't think meal delivery kits would stand a chance with my picky bunch, so I never bothered to try until a Blue Apron box showed up on the shelves at Costco. No commitment, no pressure for everyone to like it. The novelty of it had my fifteen-year-old interested enough to offer to do it with me. That right there reeled me in. It's hard to find things to do with teenagers. Plus, when they were younger they were much more l likely to try new foods if they'd helped in the kitchen. 

For me the step-by-step directions seemed tedious, but they were perfect for my son. By the time we plated our dinner that night I knew he'd be able to prepare any dinner kit. Meal delivery kits had never been so attractive...

The first dinner was rather meh, but I had such fun preparing it with my son  that when Hello Fresh popped up on Facebook, I signed up. Plated? Sure. Home Chef? Let's give it a try. Marley Spoon? Well, if Martha thinks so...

I thought it would be fun to try them out, and my family was along for the ride. I'll share our real-life experiences, and since I paid for this little experiment, all opinions will be ours alone. Not that we're big on sugar coating anything but doughnuts. Mmm, doughnuts. 

BLUE APRON

HELLO FRESH

PLATED

HOME CHEF

MARLEY SPOON

FRED MEYER/KROGER

Suds in the Bucket

Are bucket lists supposed to be full or empty? 

Buckets used to be for chicken (good) or mopping (no thanks). Now it seems people have them for everything. There's the travel bucket, career bucket, a bucket for every season - summer buckets of sandcastles, picnics and BBQs anyone? - and according to entertainment lately, a sexy bucket. No, not a bucket with lace panties, like... never have I ever, but I want to. That kind of thing. 

I guess we want to see and do so many things one bucket isn't enough. And these buckets can never empty. Pinterest is all about the buckets. I mean boards. Are boards the new buckets? 

Or are buckets the new New Year's resolutions? I mean, they're like goals without deadlines, right? I'm in! Bucket lists are a daydreamers, well, dream!

1. Visit all the National Parks. 
2. Run a 5K. Not walk or walk/run. Just run. 
3. Sleep until I'm not tired. 
4. Eat a croissant in Paris
5. Draft a book in a week
6. Learn to take a cute selfie
7. See every country at Epcot
8. Write a New York Times bestseller
9. Have a book made into a movie
10. Swim with dolphins
11. Airboat through the Everglades
12. Helicopter over the Grand Canyon
13. See the Northern Lights
14. Live in another country
15. Have a conversation in another language
16. Get Plow back
17. Fly first class
18. Enjoy a cross country road trip
19. Write a novel in Anguilla
20. Visit every state park in Oregon
21. Watch a meteor shower
22. Win the lottery
23. Stomp grapes
24. Take a spontaneous trip
25. Watch lava flow
26. Visit all 50 states
27. Be debt free
28. Feel seen
29. Stay at a working ranch
30. Go to a rodeo
31. See an iceberg
32. Read every book on my Kindle
33. Read every book on my bookshelves
34. Make every recipe in a cookbook
35. Leave $100 tip
36. Identify the Big Dipper
37. Stay in a penthouse
38. Spend 48 hours in silence
39. Release a floating lantern
40. See the pyramids
41. Stonehenge
42. Drink from a pineapple
43. Paint balloon darts
44. Get my hygge on in Denmark
45. Stay in an overwater bungalow
46. Niagra Falls
47. Soak in the blue lagoon in Iceland
48. Bubble Run
49. Aerial yoga
50. Be an extra in a movie
51. See the tulips in Holland
52. Be part of a live studio audience
53. See Hamilton
54. Ride the Orient Express
55. Have a pint at a pub in Ireland
56. Afternoon tea at Empress Hotel
57. Take the Haiku stairs
58. Machu Picchu
59. Ride a cable car in San Francisco
60. Henna tattoo


While thinking through those I realized I've done some pretty cool things

Out of the bucket

1. Write a book
2. Publish a book
3. Be on the jumbotron in Times Square
4. See a Broadway play
5. USA Today Bestseller
6. Go to Europe
7. Zipline
8. Stand under a waterfall
9. Order room service
10. Snowshoeing
11. Smithsonian (most of them)
12. Spend the night in a treehouse
13. Take a ghost tour in New Orleans
14. Empire State Building
15. Space Needle
16. Drink from a coconut
17. Color Run
18. Get my fortune told
19. Find a 4-leaf clover

What's on your bucket list?

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Need more time Under the Caribbean Sun? The other books in the series are 99¢ this week. 

NEW RELEASE: Just One Spark

JUST ONE SPARK
Just One, 1
Entangled, Lovestruck

Amazon | BN | iBooks | Kobo | Entangled

He's hot enough to set off alarms...

Hannah Daniels reads steamy romance novels to forget her last trip on the love roller coaster shredded her heart and tossed it like confetti. Her instincts about men stink, but at work they’re on point. Only her busy schedule means she reads whenever she can make time. Like at the laundromat while sitting on top of a washing machine. Don’t judge.

Firefighter Mason McNally has searched his whole life for a woman who stirs his soul. When he finds her, she’s nose-deep in a racy paperback atop a vibrating washer. Her beauty, boldness, and raw sensuality ignite his interest. But there’s a problem. He’s forgotten he’s wearing a wedding ring.

No amount of hasty explanations that it’s for his brother’s psychology experiment convinces her to give him a chance. But he’s rushed into fiery situations before, and this woman is totally worth the risk. He’ll just have to prove to her that first impressions can be wrong and their spark of attraction is oh so right.

Warning: Watch out for psychobabble, big-brother posturing and creepy exes. An imaginative, eavesdropping writing group and a stalker with a Hallmark obsession. Plus, a firefighter who serves waffles the morning after.

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EXCERPTS

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Photo         Chocolate     First Kiss

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REVIEWS

• Just One Spark keeps you reading until the very end. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning finishing it. This book is a poignant, sweet romance, showing tenderness and love can rebuild trust. Along with some intensely hot sex scenes, it also has humor. Finding out what Hannah’s nickname is for her vibrator and what it means had me laughing aloud.  - Coffee Time Romance
• Just One Spark, a romantic sizzler which is packed with passionate love scenes, delicious humor and exhilarating romance! —Cataromance
• This book must have been great fun to write. The sex scenes are genuinely erotic and entertaining, yet they never seemed gratuitous, which is some feat.—Trashionista
• Ms. Bayley-Burke has turned the usual relationship dynamic on its head, giving the reader two characters whose strengths and weaknesses mirror our own, and who work together to complete each other. It’s a great book that will keep you turning pages as quickly as you can. —Romance Divas
• Interesting characters, an entertaining plot, and lots of steamy, sexy fun. —Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews