G.R.O.O.V.E.

7 of us were able to attend the Cooking class at the North Market on Sunday June 26th.  Sherry the hostess made Chicken Strudel, Garden green beans and strawberry pie.  Although we bounced around from dish todish to dish all made sense.  We started with the pie crust because it had to bake, then prepared the strawberry filling.  It was in 2 parts, the strawberry gel and the whole strawberries.

Then we moved on to the strudel.  It had chicken, muenster cheese and spinich.  The most time consuming part of this recipe is the wrap. Phyllo of Fillo dough comes in thin sheets like paper.  Each one is layered with unsalted butter and bread crumbs. This gives you that fluffy crunchy delicious flaver on the wrap.  The chicken was prepared beforehand. This recipe would be great for left overs too.  The funny thing about spinach is how much it cooks down. She had it MOUNDED on top of the stove and within a few minutes it was barely seen in the pan from our angle. al the ingrediants are place on the half the dough then srapped like a Chipotlet burrito!  Big and FAT! 

While that cooked she started on the beans.  She blanch them (quick hot bath) and then mixed them with other herbs and celery.  These were served even too crunchy for my taste but the rosemary tasted really good with the beans and celery. 

My favorite part was EATING the pie.  It was delicious. The key to it was the zest!  fresh orange zest sets this recipe far above any pie I have EVER eaten.  All this was washed down with a wonderful white wine. Wish I would have gotten the name of it.  It was not too sweet and very refreshing for a summer!

There are several classes tought throughout the year I highly recommend everyone try it out.

thanks again to Ken the master of ceremonies! We had a great time!

Great discussion last night about a GREAT book. cant wait to start reading the next one.  I am not sure what was the best part of the evening....the dragon tattoos Mo brought for everyone or the waffle dessert Terri prepared.  Of course Don's swedish meatballs were terrific too. Oh, and we talked about the book too. I jest.  Actually the discussion was wonderful as well.  I had printed off 17 questions from the internet and Chris acted as narrorator.  I had to admit to everyone that I was quite sure WHAT the protagonist was let alone who.  But 9th grade English came back quite quickly.  lol.

What a GREAT and COOL day we had.  We started about 3:15 with an introduction from JJ Reichart. She has a communications degree but from a dream she created Goldyfish Purses. Now she is exqanding to earing and other accessories. 

We started from a small kit including: fabric swatches, pattern, snaps and fusible interfacing.  We each pinned our pattern to the fabric and cut out the shape of the purse. Then we added the fusible lining. I have never used this product before becuase of the fear of the unkown. WHAT WAS I SCARED about??? This stuff is awesome. We applied it to the purse and the strap.   After cutting and fusing we hit the machines.  We started off pretty easy with stiching around 3 sides of the purse, added the strap and the lining.  We even had really cool magnet snaps that we added. Very professional looking! And we did it all by 6:pm. That was fast.  JJ is an incredible teacher. Her assistant Joy (her mom) was equally FANTASTIC.  Everyone had fun munching out on delicious food and drinks. This is at the top of my list of favorite GROOVE functions. I really learned alot and enjoyed the time with the GROOVEY girls!

Oh What a Night!  Sheri sure knows how to host a party!  So professional. Our teachers, John and Kelly, were OUTstanding and their assistants were the BOMB. I think everyone had a blast.  Oh and let's not forget Don at the Poker table.  It was a little rowdy over there. Congrats to all who earned a little dough!

So next year for the banquet I am voting we head south to one of those gambling boats for a ROCKIN good time!

Oh What A Night!  Thanks to all the GROOVEy girls who came out to the Thirsty Scholar last night. I had a ROCKIN' good time,  I am soooooo proud of all the girls who particpated: Terri, Maureen, Sue, Patty, Becky, Wendy and Nanette sang for their charm....ok me and Tammy did too but WE dont have the fear of performing in front of a live crowd.  soo maybe we will do something a little more challenging to earn that badge...any suggestions??? To the girls that earned their charm: you can order those at the end of the year for pick up at the 3rd Annual GROOVE banquet.  details TBA.

Patrick, the kick a$$ Kareoke DJ, was right on top of everything. The sound was great and he moved the music/singers along so smoothly.  FYI, he is for hire for other parties and quite reasonable I might add!!!  Thanks Patrick!

To the MOG's that showed up - I hope you enjoyed yourself. We certainly liked having you along.  My hubby says he hates Kareoke but he seemed to enjoy himself ALOT!  Happy Birthday Mark...Sue was using her noggin in choosing an appropriate song for her husband!

I have to say I am a little dissappointed in my sis Mo.....she never "found a song" to sing.  EVEN though I made plenty of great suggestions....maybe next time?????

Please feel free to add your  own thoughts on the evening!

Wild and Wacky Women take on the Big Apple!  We left on the bus at 8pm chatty and full of excitement.  After about 2 hours we finally settled down for the drive.  Sleeping was only an option.  Only those who brought a little help from a bottle I think truly slept. I, however, just fidgeted and dozed off here and there.  We landed at Rockefeller Plaza EARLY Saturday morning only to find out the TODAY show was not airing!  Nanettes beautiful sign will only be shown in our pictures.  THANKS NANETTE it was a great sign!  After a group photo in the dark of morning, we all set off on different paths.  A few girls did the City Pass and saw all the GREAT sites of NYC, Amy and Barb headed out to meet my neice Allison and my group started to head toward Chelsea District to check out the old buildings, the Market and the new High Line elevated park.  The old hotel was AWESOME as well as the Market which was a renovated meat packing plant.  Unusual art work that made you stop and think - huh? who would have thought of that.  Along the Hudson we traveled the High Line where we spotted Julianne Marguilles filming a Loreal commercial. She is just as beautiful in real life as she is on the camera. 

We meandered our way through Greenwich, walked though Washington Square and landed on the other side at Pomme Frits, not open.  No problem - get a beer!  McSorleys opened in 1854 and is the oldest continuing running saloon.  They only started letting women in 1972!!  At McSorleys you get 2 choices of beer - light or dark.  I decided to try dark this time - yummy.  We did finally get our French Fries.  Pomme Frits owned by Suzanne Levison is a great place to get TRUE belgium Fries.  They are twice fried, 2 different oils at 2 different tempuratures.  Over 2 dozen sauces to choose from!  I got the original Frit sauce - Mayo!

5 of us had tix to ROCK OF AGES. We started up town around 1pm.  the line was long waiting for the doors to open so we stopped in the The Mean Fiddler.  A nice pub, but the beer was more expensive than McSorleys.  I left my hubby there while we enjoyed the show.  ROCK OF AGES is a show with a stroy built around great songs from the 80's. Melinda knew one of the cast members: Regina was her character name and she was cute and spunky.  We loved the show and sang along through out. highly recommend if you like 80s music.  Josephine Rose Roberts (Regina) met us afterwards where we got autographs and pictures with her and other cast memebers. Joey Taranto (Drew) was so cute and sooo sweet! 

We walked through Times Square, hitting M&M and Hershey stores before heading to our dinner meeting place. We met at Lucy's Royal Cantina. The BEST Macho Nachos ever!  the cheese was fresh and not overly heated, the beef had a smoked flavor to it and the salsa: ¡Ay, caramba! it was delicioso!  Although I am totally exhausted and ready to go home we trek over to MACY's for one last shopping trip. 

We boarded back on the bus at 10pm and zonked out the whole way home.  thanks again to TRACYS TRIPS. If you are considering visiting the GREATEST city EVER.  I would highly recommend TRACYS TRIPS!  Only $99 for the weekend of a lifetime!

Saturday was an experiance that most people will never have. For me thats what it was all about: bragging rights at Monday Morning's meeting! "What did YOU do this weekend?"  Most people had never heard of fire walking. I had, many years ago working for Sofa Express. My friend Rhea traveled to Florida for the experiance. but the GROOVE girls had IT come to Us (thanks Sheri, awesome planning)

Fire Walking is a 4000 year old practice, practiced on all continents except Antartica of course!

We picked up Kim our fire Guru at the airport and got to Sheri's around 11:00.  We searched for the perfect spot for the fire, Bob mowed it down, then mowed it some more.  Once the area was established Don and Bob cleared the land.  Kim stacked the Pine wood creating a 3 x 4 x 4.5 tall mound.  We then relaxed by the pool. 

The GROOVE girls started arriving around 5:00, we had some social time before Kim was introduced and we got down to business.  I had spent too much time in the sun and my feet and ankles were sunburned. I had trouble focusing on Fire Walking as I was already Burnt! how ironic?  After a brief history of Kim and Fire walking we starting searching ourselves for WHY WE WANTED to fire walk.  some said for Serenity, others for Peace, MOsaid JUST DO IT. I am with her.....we went out and each played a part of lighting the fire, tossing in cedar chips with or prayers (mine was for all my prego friends: may you have healthy babies!).  We went back in where we each had a famous quotation we read out loud, then learned a chant. Easy sing-song chant, very uplifting.  FINALLY the time had come to walk on fire. Karen Prenger was the first BRAVE GROOVE member to walk across the fire. It didnt take long for everyone else to follow.  We were out there walking almost dancing to our chant as we walked over the coals. I felt an extra HOT one on the pad of my foot but no burns. 

It was a great experiance. I loved the commorodity of my fellow GROOVE sisters as well as having Mo and Amy to share it with (thanks sis's).

I am sorry I cant seem to down load the pics onto this web sight. I have tried many times and keep getting errors. feel free to check out the GROOVE FB page.  Lots of ladies brought a camera and posted them there.

thanks again to our lovely GROOVE members who were able to make it!  couldnt have done it with out you!

Well I have not made it to the last 2 events. and I just cancelled POKER.  Sorry ladies. Work schedule conflicts!

I hope you had fun. I was hoping someone took pictures and might put on this web site.  We also have this blog page where anyone can put their thoughts. 

I could not make it to the Beeading Class at Cindy Sartains house.  I am hoping someone will blog a bit for me?!?!?!?!?!?

I SURVIVED!  I thought for sure I would be in a lot of pain today from stoopiing and crouching for 3 hours last night.  Thanks to the members of The Columbus Curling Club they made our experiance GREAT!  We learned all about the sport.  From how to through the rock (granite ball with handle), to Sweeping.  the scoring is much like bacci. I was impressed how we quickly learned and became comfortable playing. At first we could not throw the rock half way down the feild. by the second game it was NO problem.

the best part of the evening was meeting Jan Smith.  Jan and her husband was working/teaching my group of Curlers.  by the end of the evening we SIGNED HER UP as a new member of GROOVE.  she wont be able to join us next week for Wine Appreciation because her and Stephen are on their way to Vancouver to see Curling LIVE. Have fun and be safe.  thanks again to everyone one at the Columbus Curling Club.  It was a great experiance! I highly recommmend to everyone!