Kevin and Peter offered to let me join them in an evening’s entertainment… and as the saying goes: We went to the fights, and a hockey game broke out!
OK, it was scheduled to be a hockey game, with the Lincoln Stars playing the Omaha Lancers. I guess there is quite a rivalry going on here! We had great seats, and the spectators were as hot as the ice was cold! When the Stars made a goal, the place exploded!
The fights weren’t TOO frequent…
In between periods, the Zambonis prettied up the ice. One of them was masquerading as a BMW! Fun!
The lighting got interesting during the intervals…
The game was pretty tight at first, but as it went on the Stars led by a bigger margin. In the last few minutes they scored twice, culminating in an amazing 6-2 victory!
Next week we are going on a Tesla Test. So today I prepared Tires for Tesla Testing! We are planning on about a 5,000 mile loop, driving the Tesla long distances in winter weather. We’ll see how well it works out! Next week you will hopefully see the first third of the trip. So anyway, it was time to rotate the tires so I got that done today…
The wheels have these funny “Aero Covers” that fill empty spaces between spokes in the wheels, supposedly reducing drag and increasing efficiency. But they are strange!
Without the wheels, you can see the suspension systems well. The rear is especially complicated!
I was torquing the last nut on the last wheel when my torque wrench broke! It seems at one time there were two screws holding the ratchet assembly in the head, and now there was only one, and it was getting loose! (Some of you have always assumed I had at least one screw loose.) I was pretty sure they were all torqued correctly, but I drove to Kevin’s house to check with his torque wrench. Yep, all was good.
This is hot off the press!! My brother-in-law, Steve, just retired today! We had a little party with family and a few friends, including Simon, the pastor of our church, and Yami, the president of Union Adventist University. (Oh, yes, Yami’s husband Daniel showed up a little later.) We had a great time with fabulous food and awesome cake. Yum! Congratulations Steve!
This weekend our Sabbath School Class is having a dessert auction, with proceeds going to needs in Ukraine, missions in Peru, and more. I’ve been having fun with making Bread Pudding, so volunteered to donate some to raise money. It will be auctioned off in my absence, because we will be on the road by then!
Since some folks don’t know the history of Bread Pudding, I thought I’d do a little research. I asked Grok, my trusty AI pal, to give me a colorful history… And I loved it! So here I present: An overly wordy, romanticized…
History of Bread Pudding
In a cobblestone village tucked between rolling hills and ancient oaks—think Provence meets old England—bread pudding wasn’t always the humble dessert it claims to be. Picture this: it’s the late fourteen hundreds, smoke curls from thatch roofs at dawn, and Sister Marguerite leans over a scarred oak table inside the Abbey of Sainte-Claire. Her sleeves rolled high, knuckles white from years of kneading, she tears yesterday’s crusty loaf into fistfuls. Not out of wastefulness—no, nothing’s tossed here—but because the miller’s wheat harvest soured early this season, and every crumb’s a quiet rebellion against famine whispers drifting over the valley.
She soaks the chunks in goat’s milk left warming by the hearth, the fat rising like lazy ghosts. Nutmeg, grated fresh from a pod that arrived tucked in a traveler’s boot from the Indies, scatters sharp and piney. Eggs from the henhouse—still speckled brown—bind it all, their yolks trembling under candlelight. A drizzle of honey, wild and dark, pools at the edges; it’s bartered from a beekeeper who swears the hives dance under moonlight. Into the brick oven it goes, slow as confession, while outside the bells toll matins and dew clings to lavender rows.
By noon the air’s thick with cinnamon ghosts and vanilla steam—smuggled once by a Moorish merchant who’d laughed, “Take it, sister, it’ll sweeten your sermons.” The pudding emerges puffed like a sleepy cloud, crust caramelized to mahogany, crusty top yielding to a custard heart so silky you’d swear the saints had a hand in it. Children sneak fingers, licking off the glaze, while the abbess pretends not to notice. It’s not called “pudding” yet—just “poor man’s cake,” a secret name passed between kitchens where leftovers stretch miracles.
Centuries roll on. Cut to seventeen thirty London: rain lashes leaded windows, horse hooves splash gutters. Mr. Thompkins, a bankrupt silk trader, stares at his last hunk of stale pain de campagne. His wife, Eliza, once raised on abbey tales from her grandmother, cracks three eggs—one hen’s, two from the black market—and stirs with a silver spoon she hasn’t pawned. Raisins plumped in rum from a cracked cask, orange zest scraped bare-handed. This time the oven’s tin, not brick; the top blisters faster, crackles like gossip. They serve it to creditors who come for debts—suddenly everyone remembers Eliza’s smile, pockets deeper than yesterday. Word spreads: even the Tower guards crave it, trading shift gossip for slices.
Flash forward—nineteen twenty New Orleans. Jazz spills from Bourbon Street lamps, humidity glues linen shirts to backs. Chef Alphonse, Creole blood thick as his gumbo, hears Yankee soldiers whining about “home cookin’.” He laughs, ties an apron striped red like his mama’s, pulls yesterday’s French bread—crusts thick as regrets—from the trash bin. Milk from a Jersey cow, still warm. Eggs, dozen fresh. Now he adds bourbon, real stuff, amber as river sunset. Pecans toasted till they snap, vanilla pods slit open like secrets. The oven’s iron, walls sweating steam. Out comes a pudding crowned with meringue peaks, torched till golden scars appear. Diners swear the bayou itself sighs through every bite—swamp sugar, smoke, and sin.
Back across the ocean, nineteen fifty Italy. Nonna Rosa’s kitchen in Tuscany smells of rosemary and regret—she’s widowed, kids scattered. Leftovers? Sacrilege. She cubes ciabatta gone arrow-hard, soaks it in ricotta thinned with espresso grounds. Figs, dried and sticky, revive in Chianti. Into the wood-fired forno, coals popping like old arguments. Her neighbor Luigi tastes one spoonful, declares it’s “pane di cielo—bread from heaven.” Word races through hills on Vespa smoke; tourists detour, pockets full of lira, bellies empty. Suddenly Nonna’s a legend, her recipe scribbled on linen napkins fluttering from clotheslines.
Today? Oh, it shape-shifts. Paris patisseries hide it under praline shards and sea salt. Tokyo cafes tuck matcha flecks into custard, serve it on bamboo trays. Even that little village near Provence rebuilt its abbey—tourists pay twenty euros for a ramekin of the original, unaware it’s the same milk, same nutmeg, same stubborn refusal to let bread die. Each forkful still carries Sister Marguerite’s prayer: may no crust be lost, may sweetness mend what’s broken. And somewhere, a kid licks glaze off her thumb, tasting history without knowing it’s there—just sugar, spice, and the echo of hungry saints.
Here is my prize winning Bread Pudding: (OK, so I made up the part about being prize winning. Sue me.)
