My Hospital Adventures

Many of my friends know about my recent surgery. I got to spend two days in the hospital, and all things considered it wasn't entirely unpleasant. The nurses were awesome! They were always there with a friendly smile and great care and concern, as well as lots of encouragement.

One of the most uncomfortable things about abdominal surgery is gas. In my case, my gut shut down for about 24 hours after the surgery, and the gas just builds up. The doctors and nurses are aware of this, and make sure they get you up and moving around as soon as possible after your surgery. With this in mind, you would think they would feed you foods that were low on the gas-producing scale of things.

So what did I get to eat, you ask? The first real meal was a lunch; broiled fish, cabbage, and rice. Next? There was corned beef with broccoli, and potatoes, The rest, I can't recall specifically (after all, I WAS on drugs!) But the vegetables we all of the gas-producing varieties...broccoli, cabbage, and beans! oh my! Needless to say, gas was clearly an issue!

Obviously, I survived the efforts of the kitchen staff to make me explode, and returned home to my convalescence.

hospital stays on Whidbey Island.

Dog Biscuits

I prefer to call them cookies. My dog loves them. There is the never-ending quest to find a new variety that she’ll go crazy for. When Eva was a puppy, I would give her little tiny dog biscuits, suitable to her size. I bought one of those industrial sized bags and by the time she finished it, she wasn’t tiny anymore. As a result, she likes her cookies small. It’s rather amusing to see her reaction when I hand her a full size large dog-sized cookie. She gives me this look, “you really expect me to eat all this?” Sometimes she drops it on the ground to have a look at just how huge it is, then she picks it up and trots off to a private space in the yard so she can eat it unobserved. I’m thinking maybe she doesn’t like to be sloppy and drop crumbs when there are people watching. You can take the same giant sized cookie, break it into pieces and she’ll happily stand there and take each piece from your hand until it’s gone. Since she is a rather large dog (24 ½ inches at the shoulder, 80 or so pounds) people who give out cookies to dogs always give her the biggest one they have. When a stranger hands her a cookie like that, she just drops it on the ground, then looks up as if to say, ”You got anything smaller?” Eva loves to go to town with me, and we’ve figured out all the stores where dogs are welcome. Most of those also hand out cookies! There’s the feed store, of course, and the local Ace hardware, the tire place, and a few small businesses downtown that welcome dogs.

But I digress. The original point of this was to talk about making dog cookies. Rene asked if I could make dog cookies. I said, “Never have, but I’m willing to try. Why?” Turns out, Rene wants to have a doggy café out in front of the coffeehouse this summer. Sounds like fun! So now, I have been busily baking dog cookies, testing recipes, testing flavors on every dog I meet, until I have finally established my basic dog cookie recipe. Being the tinkerer I am, I couldn’t leave well enough alone when presented with a recipe, I had to modify it, and then modify it again. Ultimately, I have my very own dog cookie recipes. Eva loves them! Of all the dogs I have given them to I have only heard of one that even hesitated before eating them. Most people tell me they don’t think the dog could possibly have tasted anything. They disappeared so fast! So now the task at hand is to determine how to package them and a price. I’ve almost got those details worked out, and a good thing, too, because summer is almost here!

Now, if I could just get my silly word processor to talk to my printer…(but that’s another story…)

Dog gourmets on Whidbey Island.

Rockhoppers menu

So this has been an interesting few weeks. Preparing for something as simple as serving a few breakfasts and lunches (March 1) and then getting ready for wine and beer (hopefully April) has made for a lot of planning and work!! So here is a copy of the menu we will be offering. This has a HUGE learning curve attached for me so if you come in in the next month or so and things aren't exactly perfect...Please be patient! It will get much better. In the mean time... I WILL BE ATTEMPTING PERFECTION... (in whatever form it may come in!)

Now if you have never heard of a Hopper Flopper let me explain that this is a Rockhopper version of a "Big Dutch Baby".

These are the best! They come hot out of the oven and can be covered with anything. My preference is blueberries and powdered sugar or strawberries and powdered sugar.

So come by the shop and enjoy our new food and spend some time socializing with new people you have not met before.

Serving food on Whidbey Island.