Ready? Set! GO!!!!!

You can bet I was shocked and surprised to see these at my neighborhood supermarket......

                       
                                    Outdoor Xmas decorations!

                    

                                Assorted lights.....

                                              Light up candy canes.....

                                             Do they realise it is still September???

So in a nutshell: I could buy flip flops, Halloween candies and Xmas decorations at the same time!

                                           Imagine my incredulous face when I received this in the mail
                                           the next day.

                                           
                                           Way too early for Xmas themed magazines! Man!

                                          For the time being, I'll stick to seasonnal Fall decor!

                                          Have a great Saturday!

Halloween Past....taffy

Well I wante dto share a special picture of me and my BFF Stepanie 32 years ago on the last Halloween I dressed up and passed door to door for some treats...

But of course I can't find my old photo album (sad face).

So instead I will tell you about my fave Halloween candy! I loooove Halloween kisses or taffy depending on where you live.

A bit of background...Back in the 70's only really well off people would give chocolate bars on Halloween. My mother had a definite idea on what to give and that is what represents my idea of Halloween.

She would buy a big bag of peanuts with shells on, a big bag of Halloween kisses, a bag of 101 lollypops, a bag of inidividually wrapped bubble gums (the round ones) and a bag of Rockets. F.Y.I Rockets are called Smarties in the U.S.

She would fill a big stainless steel bowl with the mix and put the leftovers in a plastic bucket.

I still smell that mix of candy.

We don't have kid coming over on Halloween because we're near the water and it's too damn dark!

So I don't really buy candy anymore...Maybe a small bag of mini KitKats or Coffee Crisps but that's it.

But lately I've been craving Halloween kisses (or taffy or klandinkes- no I didn't mispell on that one...)

So I was really surprised to find these last week!

Actually these are a double blast from the past!

On the right you have Belanger kisses and on the left Allens kisses. The Allens kisses were originally made in Ontario until the company decided to modernize a couple of years ago, but fortunately the recipe was bought by Original and are now made in Québec (cool).

The Bélanger kisses were originally made in Québec but now are made by Allens in Ontario (go figure), They kept that recipe.

I prefer the Allens and Dan the Bélanger kisses. But what really matters is that we were able to find these classic candies!

Now my Halloween is complete! Well not really....I won't be a ble to watch my classic Haloween movie Hocus Pocus because our DVD crapped out on us....

Remember when a refrigirator lasted 20 or 30 year? and a VCR at least 10? Well not anymore!

Well at lest I'm watching Sleepy Hollow and I hope I can locate my photo album!

Sleep tight and don't let the neighbors bite! Unless you want to that is!

 

Remember this cutie?

First things first!

This is you last chance to comment for my super duper Clamato giveaway, click HERE for a chance to win.

Now please be honest....Do you remember this?

That cutie is part of a set of 4 that were rescued from the trash in Lachine last year. Yes they are made of teak and worth a pretty penny (Why someone would want to throw them out, it leaves me speechless, which doesn't happen very often let me tell you!)

Also in the trash was the dinning room table minus legs (Go figure!). So the plan was to re-upholster the chairs and have some legs made.

These things are easier said than done! lol

Here at Casa de Vonlipi we definitely have problems with follow through. We had to figure out what we wanted to re-upholster the chairs with....originaly it was black vinyl....But I suggested we reuse some dark blue leather we had, so we bought some dye....2 months ago.

The chairs got done last weekend! I so thrilled I can't believe my eyes everytime I look at them! hihihi

Isn't she SWEET? OMG I can't believe we now have genuine mid-century teak dinning room chairs!
 It cost less than 30$  for the dye and the padding so that is 7.50$ per chair which is pretty trifty in my book!

Now here are some pics of Canada Day Pyrex in action!

As an appetizer I made crab cakes....with a special tartar sauce. I haven't written down the recipe yet, but they were delicious!

A Pyrex dredging station (can you tell I watch a lot of cooking shows?)

Some of the dishes resting after a hard evening's work!

This is oe of those morning after shots....I still had the tablecloth on the table and the Pink Pyrex fridgie set just wanted to come out and play!

Look how the pink from the tablecloth is really close to the color of the Pyrex? F-R-E-A-K-Y!

Well that's it for tonight....As much as my heart wants to thrift, my mind says  I should take care of the house and the yard.....sniff.....I try to do a little bit every night after work.....

Have a restful night my friends!

TGIF!

OMG what a crazy week! I feel like I ran around like a chicken without a head all week long! I know some of you are a lot busier than I am, but by my standards..whew! BUSY!

I had the basic chores around the house, preserved,dried,froze,vaccum sealed garden bounty, tried to prepare for a vacation and tried to apply for a job.

By trying to apply here's what I mean: One of my dear,dear friends, whom I've had the great honor to work with sent me an email for a job posting at the new company she works for. Being 2010 everything is ONLINE...!"/$%?&*( !!!

So I'm filling out all the fields and I press save and I get an error message that I didn't filed the Sources field....funny I'm sure I did! So I fill it again and save and same message! So on the first day I must've filled that online application 10 times (no exageration). Nest day same thing, I contact the online support...something about my cookies, I fix it, same story....I re-contact them, they say they've fixed it, same story....Ok you get the gist!

So tomorrow I have to find an internet café and try to fill it from another computer.

And admist of all that chaos...the doorbell rings and I see the friendly postman's face and he gives me a box. I wasn't expecting anyhthing.

   I open the box and I find these goodies sent by Linda from A La Carte . All for my B-Day! Two darling au gratin dishes from FireKing, a Betty Crocker cookbook, a sweet card and ...and....and....a Pyrex Autumn Harvest gravy boat! You can't go wrong with Pyrex!

I'm very touched by her gesture and couldn't have arrived at a better time!

Thank you Linda you're a sweetheart!

Now this is what I've been working on in the veggie garden...

I kidd you not this collard is about 5 feet across! I actually sowed it last summer and it didn't amount to much. This spring much to my surprise it showed up again! So I'm not a southern girl and I know nothing about collard greens, ok except the bacon/pork thing and cook it a really long time. So I'm blanching some so I can freeze it and enjoy it this winter. I don't have time to process it all so I hope the plants are sturdy enough to last until I come back.

I was lucky enough to spot this Blue Heron on wednesday while running errands. I'm always in awe whenever I spot them. It's like I see a great treasure, a miracle, which it is by the way.

It's friday night, time for Supernatural (season premiere) and then Triple D (Diner's,Drive-ins and Dives).

Have a great night! :)

  

 

Pyrexlicious Weekend!

Saturday was the perfect day to go to Chinatown and enjoy a nice dim sum with Dad, Josée,Nathalie,Dan and of course Henry! Josée and Nathalie are my cousins. We always have fun when we meet! It was Henry's first time at a dim sum....

 

Here he is enjoying some HarGow (shrimp dumplings).

After a bit of grocery shopping (seaweeds,soya sauce,hoisin sauce,jasmin tea) we headed back to my Dad's place where he surprised me with the gift of Pyrex....

From left to right: Woodlands 401 and 403, Autumn Harvest 402 and a green Primary 403.

Here's a closer look at the green bowl....

 

On the left is my mom's green 403 and on the right the one dad gave me. Notice the color difference. The right one is much older that the left one. It is also thicker. The bottom markings don't include the bowl size, a sure sing of it's age. Primary bowls were introduced in 1947, so this one is probably from that period!

On Sunday after our dance lesson  we headed to Ste-Genevieve (near Pierrefonds) on the island of Montreal to the flea market. It is a small flea opened only on Sundays. It consists of an old house and further down in the parking lot a big 'barn' with more vendors in. The inside of the house is a big jumble bordering on an episode of Hoarders. In the big 'barn' different vendors sell everything from dishes,dolls,furniture,comic books...You want it they probably have it. My favorite booth (and always the last one I visit) is the Appaloosa Antiques & Collectables. At last someone selling my kind of stuff! And reasonnable too!Fireking,Pyrex,Glasbake,Federal...Casseroles,glasses,dishes,barware etc....And I'm sure I missed half the wonderful wares because I was hypnotized by this:

Yes it is...The 2qt Turquoise Snowflake Space Saver Casserole with metal lid! Originaly sold in a set : A 2qt with metal lid and a 1 1/4qt with a glass lid. The nmetal lid was designed to go in the freezer and you could put another casserole dish on top! Totally Fab! I had been looking for one for quite a while...Even the eBay Gods were frowning on me! I bet on more of those than I care to remember and they were always toooo expensive.

You are now looking at one happy camper!

VTT: Pyrex Butter Dishes

Merry VTT to everybody!

I decided to post earlier this week. Something about the early bird...You know!

So today it's about the Pyrex butterdishes. I was so sure I had 8 of them. I looked and looked and turns out I only have 7. They only made 7.

They all were manufactured in the late 60's- early 70's. The patterns are (from the first pic) clockwise left to right: Old Town Blue, Snowflake Blue, Spring Blossom Green, Woodland,
Autumn Harvest, Butterfly Gold, and the classic Butterprint.

Do you remember when I wrote that my interest in Pyrex keeps changing?

Well The butterdishes are the perfect example! I had no interest for them until I realised the bowls were taking over the house...So I needed to find smaller pieces...Hence the butterdishes!

I love having one on my kitchen counter filled with a stick of glorious butter goodness! YUM!

For more VTT fun please visit Suzanne at www.coloradolady.com

Re-arranging

I do have a lot of Pyrex....but never too much! And I realized that I don't really use it in sets ( Even if I make the bowl set rotation in the kitchen...like a set du jour, or more a set du mois-I try to change the bowl set every month-not always working!!!)

I realized that I use my bowls in sizes: I cut ingredients for a recipe, I pull out a lot of small 501 bowls, bigger recipe bigger bowls (you get the picture? I'm sure you do!) So I decided to re-arrange my big armoire to feature all the 501s together, all the little casseroles....So far I have done only one shelf, but so far so good! Not working outside the house is pretty exhausting! LOL

And let's face it boys and girls I will have to start looking for work pretty soon :(

But I digress....

And thank you for asking I do feel better! lol

And I have finished season 2 of Angel...On to season 3!!!

I promise not to stuff myself with mindless tv. I will watch it in small doses (Only one or 2 episodes daily!!!)

Actually I have no idea if I'll be able to manage that....chukles...Is there a TV anonymous???? Or an internet anonymous???

Don't you just love the color of Pyrex? It still makes my heart sing!

But the collection takes a lot of place....Why, oh why didn't I fall in love with stamps.....coins???? something light and small???

Probably because I am so visual and the Pyrex colors and the patterns.... A true JOY for my color starved eyes.....Spring oh spring were art thou?

Ok my shakesperian spelling leaves something to be desired! Like all of you are so perfect!!!

LOL kidding,kidding of course you know I'm kidding....

Well folks, be good ,eat your veggies and above all be kind to your neighbors
(You never know they might have some Pyrex.....lol)

Thrifting drought....

I was not able to go to the Salvation Army this week because of my ankle (boohoo). It is too long of a walk dixit the chiropractor...So instead I hit 2 church basements, that had no treasures, nothing, no Pyrex, no milkglass, no FireKing...NOTHING!

So instead I am entertaining you with a picture of last night supper...drumroll please....Salmon pie! Boy was it ever gooooood. All moist and potatoey...

And I had enough to put in the Autumn Harvest casserole to freeze for another supper! Yeah!

Guess what we are having for supper tonite???

I believe I will be going to the Salvation next week and I am actively visualizing to go the Value Village saturday...One never knows