Saturday, October 03, 2009

NEIBA

Yesterday we trekked from Boston to Hartford to help set up the Sisters in Crime/ Mystery Writer's of America booth for the New England Chapters at NEIBA.

Leaving Boston on the NYC route on a Friday afternoon is always frenzied, and once we turned off onto I-84 South, there were the truckers from hell and the lane darters from hell, making for a stressful ride. Instructions to the convention center were so-so, and we made one wrong turn.

NEIBA stands for New England Independent Booksellers Association, and they have a trade show in the fall every year. This must be m 8th or 9th year in attendance.

It's hard to beat a room full of books. Although the show looked small this year, and small wonder with the beating publishing and esp. independent bookstores are taking, many big publishers were on site with huge displays of books.

One starts to drool.

So we set up our booth and made it look nice, chatted up a few folks who stopped by early, and left for a dinner at Rein's Deli in Vernon. Well, you just can't go to Hartford from here without a stop at Rein's Deli.

Except there was a booksigning outside the main exhibition room, and hors d-oeuvres to die for, and we had to use extreme discretion so as not to trash appetites. Avoided the wine, but not the book signings and arrived home with three new books.

Rein's was the same as always. Lots of old folks eating there at 6:30 on a Friday. Lots of fat old folks. Everyone with a bit of heft doesn't die young. We had matzo ball/kreplach soup and potato pancakes, not exactly a pig out, but let me tell you the hot turkey sandwiches looked like they hung over both sides of a PLATTER. For some reason, served with fries not mashed, and everyone knows a hot sandwich with gravy screams for mashed potatoes.

Successfully avoided the bread pudding for dessert. Bought a loaf of rye bread for six dollars. Must weigh a pound and a half. I froze 2/3. It will be good with the saurkraut/sparerib soup later this week. We're still on our soup/salad routine and it's working well. Made a taco salad Thursday that was really yummy, with plenty of lettuce, tomato, onion, navy beans and avocado. Lean ground beef, but not too much. A mixture of two cheeses left over.
Dressing of green peppers, (canned Mexican), sour cream and mayo. Well, ya gotta go easy on the dressing.

I made cranberry squares for an "event" this week. I'll put the recipe in the blog when I get a chance. It's the easiest thing you'll ever make and mucho delicious. I had to find something with ingredients on hand. Challenge yourself.

Off to plan the weekly menus and make a shopping list. It's good to be semi-organized.

Grapeshot

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