When I started writing this blog some six years ago or so, my plan aligned with that of Jerry Seinfeld and his comedy show about nothing. I wanted to write a blog about nothing. I didn’t want to write a food blog. I didn’t want to concentrate strictly on fashion or home decoration or crafting. I wanted to write about anything I wanted to write about each day.

The only limitation I put on myself was that every Friday I would do a book review. I love to read, and I read a lot. I have faithfully stuck to my guns, blogging every Friday about books.

On Fridays, I get a lot of “likes” from strangers who peruse the internet for book reviews. One hit that I don’t get on Fridays is that of my brother. Dave is one of my biggest fans. He proclaims that he starts each day reading and enjoying my blog. While he doesn’t comment on Nana’s Whimsies, he often will send me a text with a comment about what I wrote.

But he doesn’t read my blog on Fridays. He’s not particularly a reader, and has little interest in book reviews. And for the six or so years that I have blogged, he has complained weekly about my Friday book reviews. But he isn’t complaining without offering his alternative, which is a weekly pizza review.

Yep. He thinks I should write a pizza review each week. I can’t seem to convince him that my readers in, say, Omaha, have little or no interest in whether or not I like a pizza restaurant in Mesa, AZ. I have stridently ignored his suggestion.

Until today. Why today? Because today is my brother Dave’s birthday. So, in lieu of a present, my gift to him is PIZZA REVIEWS…..

Fatman’s Pizza
Fatman’s Pizza is a Chicago style eatery located at 2430 Apache Trail in Apache Junction. As there are a huge number of retired Illinois people living in the East Valley, it was a smart move to locate this restaurant where those former Chicagoans are looking for some of their old familiar fare.

From the time you walk in the door, you are inundated with familiar Chicago memorabilia…..

– from the W of the Chicago Cubs to a blast from the past — Bozo the Clown (who this non-Chicagoan finds absolutely terrifying)…..

In addition to pizza, Fatman’s offers the typical food one would see at one of the million or so family-owned pizza places located in Chicago. Fatman’s offers both deep dish pizza and the pizza that is more familiar to South Siders — the cracker crust that originated in St. Louis. My husband was  born and grew up on the South Side, and he is thin crust all the way. A purist, he prefers sausage, and the sausage should have fennel seeds.

As fun as it was to see all of the Chicago memorabilia on the wall, my pizza expert Bill was unimpressed with the pizza itself. The sauce was bland and the sausage didn’t impress either of us. Plus, they gave us the option of having our pizza cut into triangular slices, and ANYONE from the South Side knows that thin crust pizza is cut into squares…..

The restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, perhaps because it seems to make its money from a carry-out business. They only take cash, and there is an ATM on premises. The place was pretty quiet on a Friday night. Sorry Bozo. I don’t think we would return.

Osteria

Our next pizza adventure was more successful. The fairly-recently-opened Osteria, located at 5609 E. McKellips Road in Mesa, is a higher-end restaurant offering a complete breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu that includes delicious pizzas cooked in a wood-fired oven, as well as salads and pastas. Bill and I ordered an Italian chopped salad, and then shared a pizza featuring their homemade fennel sausage and red onion…..

The salad was beautiful, offering such familiar Italian ingredients as salami and provolone cheese. The pizza was delicious, with the charred crust with which we became so familiar while traveling in Italy. Osteria offers a full bar, and they had an extensive wine list with many affordable choices. They also have a daily happy hour.

We were impressed, and will return to this restaurant, perhaps to dine on their outdoor patio.

Oregano’s Pizza and Bistro

Oregano’s Pizza has locations scattered throughout the Phoenix metro area, and they have recently opened one in Fort Collins, CO. While it’s a chain, it has the feel of a family-owned restaurant, though they are all decorated in the same way. Diners listen to Frank Sinatra and other crooners as they munch on their pizza and other Italian goodies…..

Oregano’s is flat-out Bill’s favorite pizza in Arizona. He grew up eating at Fox’s Pizza in South Chicago, and purports that, while not as good as Fox’s, this is the next best. The fennel sausage is sweet and delicious, and the cheese and seasonings are full of flavor. While deep dish is available, you can bet we have never ordered it. The crust is thin, crispy, and chewy. They offer a pizza cookie for dessert that is served warm and offers chocolaty goodness.

Oregano’s has a full bar, and though there is often (usually) a wait, that wait time has significantly decreased due to the opening of several new restaurants.

Oregano’s is one of our favorite pizza joints in AZ.

No matter where you live, go out and enjoy a pizza tonight in honor of my brother Dave, who has been known to order a pizza with sauerkraut, jalapenos, and anchovies. The cooks literally came out of the kitchen to see who ordered such an atrocity!

Happy birthday, Dave!

Dave and his seven grands!

Believe me, this family has not forgotten the meaning of Christmas. Still, yesterday was important for another reason. December 23 is always the day that Bill and I spend with Court and his family. I make a big dinner, and we open gifts. For the past five years or so, I have prepared racks of lamb for this meal; however, this year we enjoyed a prime rib…..

…..thus, kicking off what we refer to in our family as our Season of Beef. From here until January 2, our family enjoys a variety of versions of some kind of beef, from beef tenderloin to prime rib. It’s What’s for Dinner.

This evening we will spend with some more of our family, that time being kicked off by a Christmas Eve service in which our little Maggie Faith will be singing with the children’s choir.

Between now and after Christmas, my blogging is likely to be hit-or-miss, mostly miss. We leave for AZ on Thursday, December 27, and so perhaps the next time you hear from Nana will be on December 28, or maybe even December 29.

I will leave you with my two personal favorite Christmas pictures: The first is a photo of Kaiya (who was about 4 at the time) and Mylee (who was about 2), who had just been caught opening up their presents early one morning while their parents were still sleeping a few days before Christmas…..

Have you ever seen such guilty faces?

My second favorite photo is of Jen’s grandson Austin, who had just been forced to put on the Christmas jammies she had gotten him. The resemblance to Ralphie in A Christmas Story never fails to make me laugh……

Merry Christmas to all of my friends and family who support me by reading my blog. I appreciate you all so much.

Despite all of my complaining about the aggressive drivers that I have seen this holiday season, I have seen a similar number of people who are kind and thoroughly enjoying the holidays. While in downtown Denver yesterday afternoon, I saw a business woman dressed in a suit, but wearing a headband on which there were two small brightly wrapped gifts perched on her head. I also saw a man proudly wearing this…..

His children were undoubtedly very proud of him.

But perhaps my favorite holiday tribute was a photo that I saw on Facebook, featuring the Holy Family created by stones on the beach. Someone went to a lot of work, and knows the meaning of the season.

Most of all, our Vermont family have arrived safely and will spend the next few Christmas days with us, and that makes me smile.

Have a great weekend.

Baby, It’s Cold
I am senstive to the Me Too movement, and I have no desire to enter into the fray regarding the song Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Generally speaking, it’s never been one of my favorites anyway. Having said that, I will tell you that you will have to pry the version of that song as sung by Hayley Reinhart and  Casey Abrams out of my cold, dead hands, so to speak. I simply love hearing both of their voices and the playful way these two friends sing to each other. So there.

Tinker Bell Singer
The little 16-year-old girl who won this season’s The Voice — Chevel Shepherd — was frankly amazing. Our eldest granddaughter is 15, and it’s hard to imagine that this girl is almost the same age and can sing like Loretta Lynn. I thought it was a fun season, despite some of the drama, drama, drama, and I was glad to see Chevel win.

Thanks for the Memories
Tuesday night, while watching The Voice, I began scrolling through my Google Photos, and then I simply couldn’t stop. The photos go back way further than I remembered, and it was indescribably fun to reminisce. Here are a few of my favorites…..

Court, giving his firstborn her first bath. Mostly, he’s staring at her in wonder.

When Bill was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he had a lot of difficulty picking up small items like screws. He is putting something together, and he asked Kaiya to help him. I can’t look at this photo without crying.

Papa and Alastair before walking age. (Alastair’s, not Bill’s.) I didn’t remember this photo, and I can’t tell you how happy it made me to discover it.

Joseph and Micah have been traveling by airplane since they were tiny. They are always eager to come visit Colorado, and you can see it in their expressions.

This photo was taken at my 50th birthday party, and it’s a treasure to me. You might recall that I had pink eye at the time, which accounts for my eye slits.

Dad, holding Bec, when she is just a wee tyke. He was so handsome.

Dad, as a young baker. I love this photo because it’s such a good shot of the back room where all the magic happened.

I can’t tell you all of the photos that I perused. Hundreds of them, most of which I didn’t recall having. A trip down memory lane.

Ciao.

As I recall, for whatever reason, I don’t think I did much baking at Christmas last year. I made up for lost time this year, having baked several batches of biscotti, a couple of rounds of shortbread, some chocolate peppermint cookies (that were YUM), peanut butter blossoms, and my personal favorite — M&M cookies (which become Christmas cookies when you use red and green candies. I don’t think that’s cheating. I’m firm on that.)

We’ve sipped eggnog (well, I sipped eggnog; Bill drank it in about three gulps and had a second glass), and we’ve enjoyed our morning coffee in holiday mugs. I heard a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We’ve enjoyed our own and others’ Christmas lights. All-in-all, it’s been an enjoyable holiday season thus far. I, for one, am happy about the fair weather. I can live forever without a white Christmas, I don’t care what Bing has to say about that.

Yesterday I did a Christmas activity that really reminded me of my dad, and the bakery at Christmastime. I baked Swiss Butter Braid. Butter braid is a traditional braided loaf that the Swiss call Zopf, and that my dad sold a lot of at the bakery during the Christmas season. I learned about Zopf via lots of time spent on the internet. I had trouble finding it. The problem was that any time I would google butter braid, google would feed me recipes for braided coffee cakes. My dad’s bread isn’t sweet. It’s just good and buttery.

I frankly can’t remember how I finally stumbled upon a recipe for Zopf. It was several years ago. I tried it at once and was not awed by my result. But this year I gave it another try. Bill’s nurse happened to be sitting at our kitchen table yesterday when I pulled it from the oven. As I was doing so, I explained to her that bread baking wasn’t my strong suit. She was unconvinced, and here’s why…..

Because friends, it turned out to be a perfect loaf of bread, and I’m pretty sure my dad was smiling down on me. And my mom was gritting her teeth, recalling just how many yards of crinkled ribbon she had to curl to close the bags.

By the way, I also recalled my dad yesterday as Bill worked diligently to get my new computer up and running. We bought a program that transferred all of my data from my old computer to my new so that it would be exactly the same. And it mostly is except that web sites like Facebook or Pinterest require me to sign on again which means I have to remember passwords. This is where my memories of dad came in— in my complete and total lack of patience. Bill is so kind and patient, and he had to remind me on numerous occasions that we would get it all figured out. And I’m sure we will. But I am simply not a fan of change. I had to remind myself again and again that I was the proud owner of a BRAND NEW COMPUTER, as well as that Santa was watching my little mini temper tantrums.

By the way, while trying to figure out how to access Facebook on my new computer, I somehow managed to create a whole new account in addition to the one I already have. So unlike those FB messages you see explaining that they have been hacked, I am forced to admit that I have hacked myself. Like Scarlet O’Hara, I will think about it tomorrow. Just don’t be surprised if you get a friend request from me. And then, just ignore it. You don’t want a friend as cranky as me anyway.

For my birthday, Bill bought me a new computer. I got tired of hearing the death rattle emanating from my old computer. My new computer has the same sized screen as the old jalopy, but is thinner and weighs considerably less. And it is my sincere hope that it takes less time to open up each morning and doesn’t take half a day to download information when opening a website. Yes, I know that it wasn’t that long ago that we were writing with ink and feather quills, but now that I’m 65, I’m honing my cranky skills.

The problem with new technology is that it’s new technology. Therefore, we (and when I say we, I mean Bill) needs to figure out how to transfer the information from the Old Man to the Young Whippersnapper. Thus, we have this happening…

….and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Jen came to Denver Saturday and cooked my birthday dinner. We relived the 50’s, imagining what Mom might have made for my birthday dinner. Here was the menu Jen prepared: an old school relish tray, breaded pork chops, Brussels sprouts, and Swiss Mac and cheese……

Breaded chops sizzling in the pan.

Dessert was a rare treat when we were growing up, But one that Mom served asa special treat was date nut roll that came in a can with real whipped cream. They apparently no longer make canned date nut rolls, so Jen made a date cake from scratch.

Jen and I pose with our relish tray.

Winston makes friends with Bill.

By tomorrow, it is my sincere hope that my new computer is fully operational and I don’t have to write my post using one finger on my iPad.

Yesterday I turned 65. I remember when I thought only really old people were 65, but now it’s me. I feel no different than I did on Friday!

To celebrate my birthday, our family gathered at Dave and Jll’s house, where we ate pizza and salad. The high point, however, was after dinner, when the whole gang participated in the making and decorating of Christmas cookies…..

Maggie Faith, Kaiya, and Mylee get ready to hunker down and make themselves some cookies.

Alastair was pretty particular with his batch, and I’m pretty sure he ate them all.

Addie and Allen are carefully working on making cookies shaped like biology experiments. Go figure.

Maggie gets ready to put her first batch in the oven.

Dave, Court, and Bill started the ball rolling by softening up the dough for the kids.

Some of the results, courtesy of Mylee.

And, of course, she made a monkey!

You may have noticed a few missing grands. Dagny was feeling the effects of an injury she received at school. She was there, but escaped Nana’s camera. As for Cole, he has been feeling punk the past few days and wasn’t able to come to the party. His sisters made sure he got some cookies, however…..

I had a wonderful birthday, spent with people I love. Thanks to everyone who helped make my day special.

Have a great weekend.

Piddling Penny-Pinching
As I have already mentioned, Jen got a new puppy that she named Winston. Despite the fact that Winston is three-quarters poodle and only a quarter Yorkie, he looked more like a Winston than a Jacque. Anyhoo, when she picked him up, the breeder told her that he was nearly housebroken using what she called a piddle pad. She suggested that Jen continue using that method of housebreaking. But she went on to say that when she orders them from Amazon, she orders piddle pads for humans. Why? Though they are exactly the same, the pads for dogs are significantly more expensive. Apparently people are more willing to pay hard-earned cashola for their dogs than for Grandma.

It’s a Lego! It’s a Robot!
My eight-year-old granddaughter Mylee has liked playing with Legos since she could fit them together. At 3 years old, she was building complex vehicles and buildings using my meager Lego supply. So it’s not surprising that she has been participating in an after-school Lego Robotics class. Last Saturday was the day that they shared their hard work with the public. Mylee was proud to show me the results of her team’s — the Super Rainbow Robotics — hard work…..

Next year she moves into the competitive category.

It’s a Bargain
While I am embarrassed at how much food I waste, there is something deep within me that won’t allow me to pass up a Buy One-Get One Free item. The other day, I was purchasing whole nutmeg, because EGGNOG. The problem was, the only brand the store offered was McCormick’s whole nutmeg, and it was Buy One-Get One Free. Dang. I won’t go through even one jar before the expiration date, but I simply couldn’t leave the store with only one. I’m going to start seeing who among my friends and family would like a free jar of whole nutmeg. Any takers?…..

Cheers
Though a faithful wine drinker, Jen came across an interesting whiskey that she allowed me to taste the other day. The liquor’s developer is a country singer — John Rich — who apparently decided one shouldn’t have to take out a second mortgage to drink tasty whiskey. Friends, it was delicious. Now if I can just find Redneck Riviera Whiskey somewhere near one of my two homes……

Trash
Since I’ve been buying most everything online (and have managed to avoid getting any of my packages pilfered by porch pirates), there are many, many boxes that we have to find a way to fit into our recycling bin. Bill spent an hour the other day cutting up boxes. Bless his heart…..

Lettuce Pray
I’m delighted to see lettuce back in the grocery store. They promise me that it comes from farms that aren’t producing lettuce with e-coli. Should I believe them?

Ciao.