Chef Mason and Primitive Gatherings

We are due for a HUGE temperature change in Wisconsin.  We were up to 67 today (I even turned on the AC in the car to cool it down after being parked in the sunshine)  down to a low of 24 tomorrow with snow and single digit windchills!  Blustering winds of 45 mph are blowing in some difficult weather.  They are already having power outages around due to trees falling on the power lines.  Just two towns south of us is totally out of power.  I sure would not relish being a power company worker in this weather.

Yesterday was sooo nice and warm, it was a perfect day for a picnic!  I picked up grandson Mason from school and let him choose a place for some fast food.... this time it was A&W for chicken strips.

Ahhh okay.  But for a change, we went to his favorite park.. the Blue Park he calls it.  We took out a blanket and had a picnic!   It was sooo nice out that I let him play for two hours. He found a little pal to hang out with and they were hunting for BigFoot and playing Follow the Leader.  I did my share of swing pushing and *look at me* attentive watching as he went from activity to activity.

About 2 pm I said it was time to get back to his house and start making supper.  I told him that this time I had a cool MACHINE to let him use! That sure perked up his ears and off we went home without a complaint of leaving the park.

Of course, the first thing we had to work on was his RECIPE... we wrote letters with both his hand and mine on the marker, and reading off the letters as we wrote each item. He may only be four, but he sure knows his letters and is enjoying making up his recipes.

Now it was time for Grandma to take out her MACHINE.....  

Although it says it is for apples, it will also do potatoes quite well. I find the smaller slices of uniform thickness cook up better in casseroles and even for potato salad.  No thicker hard lumps and no squishy mushy overcooked pieces.

I have two of these machines, one for house, one for the motorhome. I like the suction cup Norpro base type better than the clamp on base type from Pampered Chef.

These are just the right thing for a four year old boy to operate.  I stuck on the potato, and he does the cranking.  While I clean up the unpeeled sections he misses with a knife, he yanks off the core portion from the spikes so I can slice that up too.

 He had quite the little factory going and cranked up TEN potatoes! 

Next he had to mix in all the pieces of ham among the potato slices.

I took out a wire whisk that was another fascinating tool. I explained to him about the milk and the corn starch and how we were going to whisk them up a bit at a time so we do not get any lumps. Look at him go!  His whisk is a BLURR! Pouring it over the casserole and adding some dabs of butter on top. Then he sprinkled the seasonings and helped me find the tin foil.  We had a bit of an ooopsie of the tin foil popping out of the box.  We rolled up the extra 17 feet that accidentally unrolled.  Sorry Heather and Dan for the wrinkled tin foil in your drawer......  haha

We put the tin foil on and slid the pan into the oven.  But... ut oh!  We quickly took it back out because we almost forgot the final step..... his job was sprinkling on the cheese.... oh my!  He knew how to do that because of making the pizza and the lasagna the last two times he cooked with me.

When his daddy came home at 3, we gave him instructions on when to turn on the oven.  

Now it ws time to make one more treat... we had waited for big sister Allegra to come home from school to help, but we did not know it was her Girl Scout meeting so she was not coming.  Oh well, she would miss out on the dessert making, but Mason knew what to do.  He requested Rice Krispie bars which he has made a bunch of times at my house. But THIS time he requested that we add chocolate chips to the bars!  He made sure I brought a bag along with my goodies.... so we whipped up a batch.  

 Of course, the Master Chef Mason gets to lick the bowl! 

This was my last day of helping out to take care of him. Next week Auntie Kimmy has recovered enough to take over her duties again.  I was gifted with these wonderful notes on the kitchen counter... to take home and hang on MY fridge!

awwwwwwwwww

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Today was the special Winter Event sale at Primitive Gatherings in Menasha WI.  It is a quilting store with quite a large internet shopping presence in the quilting world, and has another shop in California.  Their patterns and kits are available in many quilting stores across the country. 

https://www.primitivegatherings.us/

I am fortunate to live only 25 miles away... so I set about my morning to get over there and take advantage of some sales, some free patterns and use up a generous gift card I had gotten for my birthday from my loving hubby!~ 

The parking lot was full up by 9:30 a.m. 

and I managed to find a place

 just as someone was pulling out. 

I took a few pics when I came in, but a clerk snapped at me *NO PICTURES UNLESS YOU ARE BUYING!*   Huh?  I stammered that I WAS going to be buying but I wanted a few pics for my blog... free advertising and all ya know?  She did not seem to care about my explanation. Then I said I get over 20,000 readers a month and she waved me off.  OH well, I guess that means I could take some more pics?  So I did.  LOL

Downstairs some women were working on a *make it - take it* project.  You buy a little kit there at the store and the clerks help you put it together right in the classroom. Now that is a cute idea!

I bought some matching Moda fabrics to some that I had bought from their summer warehouse sale.  Now I have enough of these colors to go into my next quilt.  If you spent more than $25 --- you received a free kit of wool fabric and the pattern to make a cute pincushion about Wisconsin and Home.  They also gave away four free wintery patterns for some fun things to make and a coupon sale book of coupon codes to use every month throughout 2017. They had drawings every half hour to be present to win, and free refreshments in the lower level by the classroom. After two hours of looking around and enjoying the displayed projects and getting new ideas....   I left with my treasures and headed on home.

This afternoon I picked up something REALLY COOL

for a home decor window project

and I will write about it tomorrow when I start working on it!