Little Lenny's

          I want you to know right up front that I'm going to show you a picture that some might consider gross. I'm going to put it at the end of my letter blog this week so you can simply close it if you don't wish to look at it and you won't miss anything else. In the meantime, let's get on with it.

          We didn't spend much time at the bridge this week. The guys spent a lot of time with their butts in the air, days even, as they tied all the rebar together. Monday...

          Tuesday we watched them swing more pieces of rebar onto the bridge.

          Wednesday they were still tying.

          Thursday they were putting the Bidwell machine together. 

          Friday, by the time we checked on them, they were testing the Bidwell to make sure it would ride the tracks okay. Once it's loaded with concrete is not the time to find out you've got a hitch in the rail. 

          Fridays are only a half-day of work for them and they covered the whole thing in plastic before they left for the weekend.

          "I think Mike said it's so they can put a little heat to it if they have to," I told Miss Rosie when she asked while on our way to exercise class. "Once they pour the concrete if it's too cold the concrete won't set.

          Saturday, the Kipps stopped by on their morning walk. "It's probably to keep the frost off the rebar," Mike told Lamar when he asked, "so they can pour concrete Monday morning."

          And it has been cold here and we've had some frosty mornings.

          I made the bridge guys some cinnamon bread this week. I've been making this recipe for a while now and I always make it in the mini loaf pans. You put a layer of batter in the bottom, add a layer of sugar-cinnamon, more batter, more sugar-cinnamon on top and swirl it all together. Swirl. In a mini loaf pan. When I cut the bread it's like it was all mixed together. That got me to thinking. If it all just ends up mixed together anyway, why not mix it in the bowl and save all that layering and swirling.

          So I did just that. Twenty minutes into the forty-five minute bake time I smell it burning. I opened the oven door to find it had overflowed its tins and was burning in the bottom of the oven. I took the pans out and cleaned the oven then put them back in to finish baking. They weren't the prettiest breads I've ever made but they still tasted good. Why would mixing the sugar-cinnamon in make it do that? Wait! I know! It's the first time I made it in the new oven. Let's blame it on that!

          Tuesday night Mike saw a segment on the news about a shop in Dallas that has the best cheesecake. "Let's go get cheesecake tomorrow," Mike suggested.

          "Cheesecake?" I didn't know what he was talking about because I wasn't watching TV with him.

          "Yeah. There's a place down in Dallas that has over 300 kinds and it's supposed to be the best on the east coast."

          "I don't NEED cheesecake!" Mike doesn't help me with my diet at all.

          The next morning Mike asks, "You ready?"

          "For what?"

          "Let's go get cheesecake."

          "No. I don't wanna go. I don't need cheesecake," I reiterate. He didn't say anything, just walked away from me. I felt bad. I seldom want to go any place and I knew he really wanted to go. I relented, we got ready and left.

          I've been wanting to get a picture of the cows with the tree. This is close to what I was looking for except I wanted the cows standing up and closer to the tree. So, basically, this isn't it at all. 

          I only took these two pictures on the way down to Dallas, a town about forty-five miles from us. I promise I'll do better on the way home.

          Finding Little Lenny's was a bit of a challenge. Our GPS couldn't find any such place as Yalick Plaza. I called and Kaitlin, who answered, said it was close to Yalick Farms.

          "I saw Yalick Farms on the GPS!" I told her.

          "And if you see Turkey Hill then you went too far. Call back if you have any trouble," she said.

          I hung up and we went back to our GPS. This time it let us put the address in. Go figure. When we got to where the GPS said, "You have arrived at your destination," we couldn't see it. All we could see was a housing development called Yalick Farms. Now why did I think that was going to be some big commercialized farm farm?

          We drove around the block and Mike made an observation, one that was very prophetic as it turns out, but Mike said, "We could be driving right behind it and not see it."

          We pass the Turkey Hill c-store and pull off the road. I called again.

          "Turn around and after you go through the light you'll see a brand new turn lane on the right. That's us," Little Lenny told me.

          And we had driven right behind Little Lenny's and not seen it!

          The shop was neat and clean and both Kaitlin and Little Lenny were polite and friendly. There was a lady at the counter buying four banana puddings, among other things.

          "These are the best ever!" she told me. "When I was pregnant I'd crave these and have to drive over here to get one. They're so good!"

          "Where do you live?" I wanted to know how far she drove.

          "Schmokin."

          "I don't even know where that is?"

          "It's about 45 minutes from here."

          I knew I'd be buying one of those!

          "Is this your first time here?" Little Lenny asked.

          "Yeah. We saw it on the news last night and drove down from Wyalusing," I told him.

          "I can give you a sample of the cheesecake," he offered.

          "I'd love one!" I said. Mike declined. He can be funny about that sometimes.

          Instead of slices, they come in these cute little round cakes.

 

           Mike and I hadn't had lunch yet and we wanted to eat before we had dessert so we bought two to take home. Mike got plain and I got caramel. We also bought a banana pudding, a cannoli, and a loaf of rye bread — with caraway seeds, the only way Mike wants his rye bread. Me? I hate rye.

          "How long have you been here?" I asked.

          "We've been here two years," Little Lenny said.

          "And what got you into baking?"

          "When I was a kid I liked to bake. Help my mom or my grandmom. Then in the early 2000s, I got back into it again as an extra income. Then I had a customer that said, 'Lenny, you make cheesecakes?' I said I can make anything but you might have to wait a while until I develop a good recipe. She's my neighbor, we're great friends now. You know she waited two years! My wife and I went out and did a lot of research first before I made my first one."

          "So, is this a secret recipe?" I asked. I suspected it would be but I asked anyway.

          "Yes. It's my recipe. It's not Grandmom's, it's not Mom's, it's not John's or Joe's... six years it took to do this."

          "To develop the recipe?"

          "Well, including the recipe, model the concept and open our first store. It was about a little over a year to develop the correct recipe. It was 4:30 in the morning when I finally got it. I woke my wife up. I'm screaming with a fork, 'HERE YOU GOTTA TASTE THIS — I GOT IT! I GOT IT!' She's jumping up, 'What's the matter?' I said, 'I got it. This is the cheesecake. This is our basic. This is our texture.' From there I worked on building flavor profiles and adding to them."

          "So let me get this straight. You were up baking at 4:30 in the morning or is that just when the answer came to you?"

          "No, I was up. I was waiting for the cheesecake to set so I could cut it."

          4:30 in the morning. I can't imagine. I like to be sleeping at 4:30 in the morning.

          "I have a blow-up bed in the office. When I first started, I was so afraid of not being on time that I stayed here. I'd get up, go to the clubhouse here (and he pointed in the general direction of Yalick Farms) get my shower, and come to work. But you know what, there's an old saying, when you have fun at what you do, love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Legs are sore, brain gets tired, but I just enjoy what I do."

          "How did you get the name Little Lenny?" I know you wanna know.

          "My dad was Lenny and I was Lenny. It got so confusing that one day my aunt said, 'That's it! From now on you're Big Lenny and you're Little Lenny!' And it stuck. When I was thinking about names for my business I thought it would be fun to bring that part of my childhood into it."

          Other people were coming in and Little Lenny had others waiting for him so we started rounding up our stuff to leave. My thoughts and anticipation turned to tasting the banana pudding when we got to the car. "Did Kaitlin put a spoon in here?" I asked as I accepted our purchase from Little Lenny. "We're not going to get far down the road before I break that baby open."

          Kaitlin handed me a spoon. "Would you like a menu too?"

          "Yes! Thank you. I would."

          Out in the Jeep, Mike says, "I was going to buy a whole cheesecake and all they had were those little ones."

          Later, reading the menu, I see Little Lenny does have six and nine-inch cheesecakes. Either he doesn't keep them in the display cases out front or he'd already sold out for the day. Either way, you can always order one.

          Something else Mike saw on the news was the long, long, lines at Popeyes because they brought back their chicken sandwich. We were close to a Popeyes, relatively speaking, and decided to have lunch there.

          I keep wanting to put an apostrophe before the s in Popeyes but their logo doesn't have one and I keep wanting to add the word chicken. But it's not Popeye's Chicken, it's Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

          We weren't out of Little Lenny's parking lot when I had the banana pudding open. I like the tiny chocolate chips sprinkled on top. Other than that it was a very traditional banana pudding and it was good but not the best I've ever had. My daughter-in-law Katrina holds that distinction. She made the best banana pudding!

          The line at Popeyes wasn't too bad and we chatted with the lady ahead of us while we waited. She told me about her kids and her first grandchild. She even pulled out her phone and showed me a picture. He's a handsome little guy. "They live in New York," she bemoaned. "I don't get to see him very often."

          I commiserated with her. We miss our little Andrew a lot too.

          Around the perimeter were people waiting for their food.

          "I bet they're waiting on chicken sandwiches," the lady said. "We'll have to wait too."

          It was almost our turn at the register when her phone rang. She turned away from me and chatted for a few minutes then, "OH NO! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" she all but screamed and laughed at the same time. "You have to show this lady here." She turned to me and put her hand on my shoulder. "You have to see this. Show this lady," she said into her phone. On the screen appeared a hand holding a drink cup from where? From Popeyes.

          "That's my daughter-in-law. They're in New York on their way home and she's standing in line at Popeyes too!"

          I got such a big kick out of the big kick this lady was getting.

            The chicken sandwiches were just four dollars so Mike got two, I got one and we shared a small fry. I ordered ours to eat in and prepared to wait. Boy was I surprised when our order came up almost right away.

          The lady that had been ahead of us spit and sputtered, "But you... I didn't... How did..."

          I knew what she was trying to say. "I think it's because I ordered to eat in." Everyone who was still waiting had ordered to go. It was the weirdest thing. They must have two food lines running in the back, and the eat-in wait wasn't as long.

          The chicken sandwiches were really good. I didn't care for the pickle on it but that was easy enough to pick off. The mayo was light, the breading crunchy, and the buns were really good too. You gotta have a good bun. Would we go back for another one? You betcha!

          So! I was aware I hadn't taken many pictures on the trip down to Dallas then on into Wilkes-Barre for a chicken sandwich so I made more of an effort to take pictures on the way home.

           Remember the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard? A graveyard adjoins a church whereas a cemetery does not. 

          At home, we ate our mini cheesecakes and they were excellent for both flavor and texture.

          "I like it better than yours," Mike said. Thanks a lot Little Lenny.

           And the rye bread? Mike thinks it's the best he's ever had — and he's had lots to compare it to! The cannoli? I've only ever had maybe two other cannolis in my life and it was so long ago I can't remember. But Little Lenny's was good.

          We had our first snowfall this past week. I could sit and watch those lazy flakes fall from the sky for hours. And I was so excited to go out and get pretty snow pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't get much snow. And the ground was wet and too warm so it didn't amount to anything. The only picture I took of what snow had fallen was on the plastic in the work zone. 

          My best girl, my little ray o' sunshine, my Joanie took a much prettier picture and gave me permission to use it here.

          "I should've put my mums back out," she told me later. It's still a better picture than mine. 

          I felt a little guilty that I didn't get any snow pictures for you. We had a heavy frost a couple of days later so I went out early, before the sun could melt it off, and took pictures.

         

          A frozen field of goldenrod.

          The spent heads of my Bergamot covered in frost crystals.

          I walked on down to the pond, which was covered with a skim of ice.

          There were no berries left on the Elderberry bush. No berries on the Autumn Olive bushes either. The Bradford Pears still had some fruit hanging on it.

          I have a feeling it's going to be a rough winter for our bird friends so I've started feeding them.

          "Peg, how's Itsy doing with being diapered at night?" you ask.

          Well! Let me tell you! Most times she's dry but there have been about four times since I started doing this that she was wet — well once it was a little more than wet and I had to wash her bottom. But anyway, one of those times was Friday a week ago. I could tell her diaper was heavy when I stripped it off her. I glanced inside to see what it was heavy with and noticed blood.

          I didn't call the vet because we were going on Monday to drop Ginger off for her surgery so I thought I'd take a urine sample in then and have it tested.

          Monday gets closer and closer and my fear is growing and growing. I'm afraid of losing Ginger. I'm afraid she'll die on the operating table. But it needed to be done.

          Mike had bought a quart of eggnog. When it was empty, I rinsed it out and cut the bottom off. Monday morning I followed Itsy out in the yard and when she squatted to pee, I slipped it under her. She was a little surprised but kept right on peeing.

          I dumped it in a plastic bag and put it in another plastic bag. Yep. I double bagged it. I wrote Itsy's name on it and gave it to Dr. Lori when we took Ginger in and explained I'd seen blood in her diaper. Later, when she calls with the results, she said there was blood in Itsy's urine but it was microscopic. It was like she was saying how could you have seen it? But it was there. I saw it. Figure that one out. I guess, when this whole thing started with Itsy peeing on the floor as soon as she was out of bed, we should have thought to have her tested for an infection. But being 14, we just chalked it up to age.

          Ginger. She did well and came through the operation just fine. They removed the tumor and her spleen. They kept her overnight and when we went to pick her up, I could hear her crying in the back room.

          "That's Ginger," I said to Mike.

          "How can you tell?" he wanted to know.

          "I know her voice." Ginger cried again and I was even more sure. "That's Ginger."

          Kelly, the receptionist, finished the phone call she was on and I asked, "Is that Ginger?"

          She smiled. "Yeah. She's okay. She just wants to be held. We all go in and hold her as much as we can between appointments."

          I got an antibiotic for Itsy and Ginger has three medications she has to be on. She's supposed to be confined and not allowed to do much walking and no jumping but we find that's near impossible to do. When confined, she cries. She doesn't want to be held too much and ends up walking from room to room. I'm guessing she's uncomfortable and I would be too! I don't think she's jumping, per se, but she is going up and down the doggy steps and as little as she is she has to launch herself from one step to the next so it's kind of a little jump. 

          One of the meds for Ginger is Tramadol. She takes a quarter of a pill for pain twice a day. Tramadol must be bitter because when she finds it she shakes her head and spits it out. It seems to leak into the surrounding food too because Ginger will take another bite, chew with mouth open, get a taste of bitter, and shake, shake, shake, her head. After two different episodes of this, Ginger doesn't trust me anymore. Every piece of meat I give her, no matter how small, she chews checking for the pill. There were a couple of days I couldn't get it into her at all. I got it down once with peanut butter, once with a piece of hamburger. Then I had a little luck coating the pill in lard before putting it in something. My theory was coating it would keep it from dissolving and maybe she wouldn't taste it that way. But every day is a challenge.

          Thursday Ginger went back in for a checkup. Dr. Lori didn't like the feel in one area and was worried she may have developed a hematoma. So she did an x-ray. I asked if I could see it and she pointed out all the local landmarks. Where her stomach is, her colon, and intestines. Dr. Lori thinks she's just full of poop and asked me to give her some pumpkin twice a day to soften her stool and make it easier for her to go. Luckily both my girls like pumpkin. I mix pumpkin with soft dog food and put their liquid meds in and mix it up. So far, getting them to take their antibiotics has been a breeze. 

          Now for the Grossness Alert!

          I have a picture of Ginger's tumor. I wanted to see it. I don't think the picture is gross but I understand that we're all different. I've handled chicken liver when I make Rumaki. This isn't any worse than that. Then there's beef liver. That really is kinda gross. I've cleaned the insides out of chickens and cooked the giblets. Then there's raw meat all cooks see and handle. Hamburger, steaks. Not to mention all the dead animals I've seen on the road and a few I've had to scoop up. This isn't any worse than any of that. But I won't make you look at it if you don't want to.

          Ginger was nine pounds before the operation. Her tumor weighed one point two pounds. That's thirteen percent of her body weight! I'm one sixty (but I'm not bragging) and that would be like taking a twenty-pound tumor out of me! Holy cow!

          There is one blessing in all of this. Ginger had developed a cough several months ago. Since having the tumor removed she hasn't coughed at all. Mike thinks the tumor was the cause of her cough and Dr. Lori agrees that could have been the cause.

          Close the page now or scroll down to see the picture.

          Let's call this one done!