Weekend "Seens"

Twas a full day yesterday.  Much of it involved food.

We already had plans to go to the Inland Forest Management annual party at Trinity, and I was planning to bake rolls for Thanksgiving.

Then, Bill, who was finishing up a forestry work project, called to report on the annual craft sale at the Mennonite School north of Bonners Ferry. 

Until yesterday morning, I had completely forgotten that the popular sale is always the weekend before Thanksgiving.  One year Debbie and I attended and were blown away with all the baked goods and crafts.

Another year I went to the sale alone and must have been late cuz items were pretty picked over. 

In yesterday's phone conversation, Bill assured me that there was still plenty to check out at the sale, which benefits the Mennonite School.  

He also told me he had purchased a pecan apple pie with caramel drizzle and that the organizers would start serving all-you-can-eat ribs at 10:30.

I knew with that revelation exactly why Bill was planning to hang out at the sale for a while.  

He likes his ribs. 

After his call, I decided to bag my roll-baking plans, called my sisters and we drove to the school where the parking lot was full but not the tables inside. 

As we walked into the school, it became immediately obvious that we had arrived too late for the baked goods.  

While waiting for us, Bill had purchased a small block of Swiss cheese, which prompted me to head to the cheese table.  

Only two blocks were left, so I purchased the larger one for $3.25. 

Then, we all spent a few minutes strolling around the big open display area admiring  samples of hand-crafted furniture and lamenting that we should have come earlier.

We also met an adorable young Red Heeler pup and her owner who trains dogs. 

Later, when I paid for my cheese and once again expressed disappointment with our arrival time, the cashier told me that people were lined up at the door long before 8 a.m. 

When the doors opened, they grabbed boxes and began their shopping.

"Was it like Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving night?" I asked.

"No, nobody got trampled," she said, adding, however, that  shopping activity had been brisk. 

Even though most of the baked goods were gone inside the school, we had arrived soon enough to watch outside where the final moments of processing a whole lot of pints of apple butter were unfolding. 

The scene offered a fascinating example of pinpoint organization and precision teamwork of these industrious people. 

Bill had mentioned seeing a Border Collie where an extensive herd of sheep live a mile or so up the road, so we said good bye to him and headed on our way.  

Turns out the  Border Collie was a bit too far away for us to take pictures, but we did chuckle at the rather enthusiastic black and white cat which seemed to be keeping the Border Collie in tow.

Then, it was off to the Bread Basket Bakery for a fresh-made sandwich and cookies.  The bakery was pretty quiet yesterday because many staff members were probably helping out at the craft sale. 

In spite of the fact that we didn't spend much money picking up items at the sale, we thoroughly enjoyed the brief getaway and the always beautiful scenery along the way.  

On our drive home, there was talk of turkeys---we're having two gobblers for Thanksgiving:  one deep-fried, the other prepared traditionally.  And, we finalized all the plans for who's bringing what for the holiday dinner.  

The only problem we're having as we look forward to Thanksgiving is that the ZAGS play that night in the most prestigious and largest NCAA tournament ever----at 9 p.m.

The concern:  after eating all that turkey will we be able to stay awake.  We agreed that going for a walk in the brisk night air may even accentuate the drowsiness. 

But, we'll get that figured out.  We always do when there's a ZAGS game. 

Last night's sumptuous company dinner topped off a day of thinking about food.

And, now those tasty thoughts are beginning anew.  First thing I'll do when I go downstairs is to mix up that batch of bread dough for the Thanksgiving rolls.  I saw a recipe earlier this week for a honey glaze so I'm gonna give that a try.  

Yum. Yum.

Happy Sunday.