Some fun online research tells me that April 26 is National Pretzel Day, the holiday in April, Pretzel month. Pretzels are my favorite salty snack, yes, even a step above popcorn. I’ll start my Friday Fragments this week with some pretzel talk!
Hosted by Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time
** I think the pretzel love started when I was a kid in Southgate, MI. When we’d occasionally go to the Southland Mall with Mom, we’d get hot soft pretzels with mustard as a treat. I liked the crunchy ones too. I could get a box of the thin pretzel sticks for a dime the same place I got penny candy and baseball cards. Yeah, the olden days when I could get a pack of baseball cards, a coke, a box of pretzels and still have some leftover for penny candy with 50 cents. Whoever would have believed then that statement would one day make me sound do old? When we complained because the 15 cent Hershey’s bars went up to 20 cents, Mom laughed and told us about 5 cent candy bars. I paid 60 cents for those outrageously expensive 20 cent candy bars when I bought them for Rina and Tori. Lucky is she who can buy a candy bar for under $1.25 now!
Today I replaced cereal at breakfast with a soft pretzel to accompany my coffee, yogurt and banana. Maybe I’ll have one with mustard alter. When I have crunchy pretzels, especially if I can get them in Pennsylvania, I have specific pretzel and mustard combinations. I have four different kinds of mustard n my fridge, so I always have the appropriate mustard on hand. I like honey wheat pretzels with honey mustard and pumpernickel or sourdough with spicy brown mustard. Regular pretzels are perfect with standard yellow mustard, but really those are great with whatever mustard strikes my fancy at the time. YUM; what a great excuse for a holiday!
** I punched in for an MS teleconference Tuesday that I didn’t end up staying on the line for. The topic was in-home health care and what the different types of visiting assistance you can get. I really felt like it was more of an advertisement for the guest speakers from their own in-home healthcare company. In the first 5 minutes they touted the benefits of in-home care and that most people responded better to in-home care than a hospital or assisted living and would rather stay home. I found that to be a really strange statement personally. After visiting many facilities for care for both my great-grandmother and grandmother there are some wonderful facilities that offer different levels of assistance and care.
Mums was in an assisted living apartment before she became too ill to care for herself. She’d been living with my parents and me prior to that and the stress level was incredible. When she moved into her apartment she regained a lot of independence and the stress was drastically reduced all around. She was always the same self she’d been when she was living alone at her house, with all the privacy she’d had, but with medical help or even just a “can you reach something for me?” a click of button away. I can’t understand how anyone that can afford it would choose to stay in their house rather than assisted living. If I had the choice to make for myself between retaining my privacy but having the safety and community of an apartment setting, while still having as much independence and freedom to bus wherever I wanted or living alone in a house with burners too high for a wheelchair, steps to tumble down and a lawn I have to pay someone to maintain, I’d go the apartment in a heartbeat! I always told my great-grandmother that I wanted to move to an assisted living complex when I retired because that’s the type of comfort and safety people deserve.
Anyway, I disconnected the call. There are a lot of better alternatives to someone coming into my home and judging me a few times a week.
** If you read my book reviews, which I’m doing this year as part of my reading goal, you know I was less than pleased with the last book I finished. Rare Traits was a hard book to follow and I went a few days without reading to be fair to the next book, but it really was not a book I enjoyed at all. Death By Chocolate, however was a great read! I haven’t posted a review yet because I just, I mean JUST, finished it before I started writing this blog entry. It was a good crime story and the main character owns a breakfast and lunch bistro called Death By Chocolate. Can’t go wrong with that. At the end of the book are recipes for the incredible chocolate delights she made during the story. A great book with a little bonus heaven! That review will probably be my next entry; I can tell you it will get five stars!
6 comments:
Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan came to mind when you mentioned pretzels. They are ok but I would rather have popcorn.
Penny candy - wow back when a penny was actually worth keeping in your pocket.
Hmm, I wonder if you could write "Death by pretzels and mustard".
I still like getting a pretzel at the mall. Is it sacrelige that I sometimes like the cinnamon ones?
Love the title of that book, "Death by Chocolate." We had a cake called that in the dessert auction I went to last Sunday. I'm posting all about it tomorrow.
You were very fortunate to find so many good facilities. I've worked in quite a few of them and would not want to have to live in any of them. I agree the assisted living was much better than a nursing home, but it had so many bad features. The kitchen was very unsanitary. Most of the help did not speak English and therefore neglected to answer calls for help. There was no license required, and therefore a lot of the female clients were being taken care of by strange men off the street (with no medical background). At the nursing homes I found a lot of neglect. Even from the nurses.
No thank you, I would rather stay at home. At least my surroundings are familiar, and most of the home health caregivers are much better than the workers at the assisted living and the nursing home.
I will say though, that my daughter has been living in a facility for all but eleven months of her life (she is 48). Her facility is one of the best in the country and they take wonderful care of her. So I know that there are good places out there. They are just so far and few.
Without good, round the clock care at home, then sometimes a facility is the only answer.
I say "to each his own". Nani, you have a wonderful day. Hugs, Edna B.
Yours was the second FF post to mention National Pretzel Day. I was ignorant aforehand.
We DO sell soft pretzels in the coffee shop at the library - - - plain, with cheese, AND several varieties of stuffed.
Doing a low carb diet I haven't had a pretzel in over a year but I do love them. I still buy them from time to time. Besides the thick Snyder's pretzels we have always enjoyed thin stick pretzels with softened cream cheese. The honey wheat are awesome with cream cheese dip too! I always have the frozen soft pretzels in the freezers. (frozen/soft doesn't sound quite right does it?) I am thinking that my dad, who turns 90 in June, should maybe start looking into assisted living. Have a nice weekend......
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