Snow and ice....that's all we've had for weeks now. Tonight the temp is 14 degrees and VERY windy. Fortunately, most of my days off have coincided with the storms so I have been able to sew a lot this year. I did have one trip into work where the car just spun out of control and just kept turning around and around and I wound up in the opposite lane, facing the wrong way, and slammed up against a snow bank. Luckily (probably more than luck), no one was coming in either direction and a couple of men stopped and got me out of the snowbank. Very scarry. I'm off tomorrow and it will be a sew today.

LoneJack. Thanks for the information on Black. We used to grow Black Krim but we got fed up with the concentric cracking in our garden. Then we switched to Margaret Curtain. I think it was actually worse for cracking. Both were great tasting and just fine for personal consumption but only our "heirloom knowledgable" customers and a few chefs would buy them. They were just too ugly for the standard buyer not to mention that they aren't round and red. Concentric cracking is characteristic of black fruits in our garden due to rapid changes in soil moisture here. It doesn't just rain here anymore ..... when it does rain, it comes down in torrents. Black also sounds a little larger than our Black Krims and Margaret Curtain's were. I'll give Black a trial. I've confirmed that I've got seeds in my inventory. My seeds are from TGS. My DH was in old Mexico earlier this year and he picked up some much larger black fruits w/green shoulders, 14-18 oz. They looked like Black Krims on steroids with no concentric cracking and they tasted great. Not sure what the variety is or if it was a F1 hybrid ..... I saved the seeds ...... We'll see what the grow-out looks like in 2018. We grew Chyornyi Tarasenko this year. It's a nice black in the 12-16 ounce range. Less prominent green shoulders. Good taste. Little to no cracking. Moderate production. Probably deserves to return for another year. Kevin, IMO Big Beef is a good overall tomato. I see you had Pink Brandywine in 2017. Were they from Burpee seeds? I've grown out those Pink BW from Burpee seeds and they produced some huge fruits. Shell 6A

On the food end of things (Since this is the Cooking Forum). I MISS good sushi and sashimi out, especially the varieties of fish I can't find and make myself (ie Yellowtail/Hamachi). I miss being able to sit at the sushi bar and banter with the sushi chef, who really knew what I enjoyed eating. I MISS being able to drive down to CT to avail myself of the best seafood shops - Stew Leonard's and ShopRite have excellent seafood counters. Western MA has slim pickings (I could go towards Boston, but I LOATHE the traffic patterns there). I MISS my jaunts down to the Korean H-Mart supermarket chain. If I drive outside of MA right now, I trigger a choice upon return, even if I am only gone for part of a day: COVID test and wait at home 3 days to get the results back, OR forgo the test and wait 10 days to leave my house (actually I could be in my yard, which would make my chickens happy, as they'd still need to be watered and fed.) I miss the olive bar. I liked doing my own mixing and matching, and I never want a full container. I MISS relaxing at restaurants with friends. Beyond the food.... I MISS getting together with friends, any where. I do occasionally meet with one friend who is single like myself. But that's once a month, if that. I miss physical contact with other humans. Until October, when Obi-Wan had to be put to sleep, I did have affectionate contact with one of my cats, who was a lap-buddy. The surviving cat is not really affectionate. She prefers to sleep at the foot of my bed, but away from my feet. I just want some good hugs. And good face to face conversations. I MISS get togethers and gatherings. Last June my brother and other immediate family were supposed to get together with me, drive to Maine, and place Dad's ashes with Mother's, in Penobscot Bay. We hope we can do that this summer.

kathyg, it sounds like you're describing the Storyworth product or something like it. I received this as a gift from my kids. It probably can be anything those involved want it to be. For me, it's not so much an autobiographical effort. The questions submitted by my kids seem to be more about my personal likes and dislikes, opinions and reflections on particular topics rather than travelogues or stories about past events in my life. It amuses me to think about whether the motivation behind the gift was their interest in capturing my thoughts or, much much more likely, an outlet for me to be amused while thinking and documenting them.