Author Archives: Jennie

Coming to Grips with SEO and Well-Meant Advice

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve really been struggling with writing for my blog.

The combination of the everlasting winter and the everlasting knee replacement rehab certainly contributes to my Debby-downerism, but it’s more than that.

On one hand, all the SEO tips and blogging experts tell me that I need to focus on one area and write compelling content about that area.

On the other hand, the reason I started blogging was to write about what was on my mind and to share information and visuals that I thought people might be interested to see. Continue reading →

Travel Diary: Tips for Your Next Trip

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Linda Dini Jenkins from Travel the Write Way

Linda Dini Jenkins from Travel Italy the Write Way

 

This post contains affiliate links; see my Advertising Disclosure policy for details.

Tips From Traveling Friends

I have a blogging friend whom I have never met, yet our thinking trains seem to often run along the same rails — and it happened again this week. I had planned to write a post about some items I’m adding to my travel closet stash, and Linda also wrote a post about the things that are on her travel must-have list.

Linda Dini Jenkins is a travel writer who blogs at Travel the Write Way. She offers tips about tourist destinations, and plans tours in Italy for small group travel. Here’s what she says about this week’s post.

“It’s trip planning season again. At least that’s what all my travel blog colleagues are writing about in their columns lately. This is the time of year, they say, when people start to plan for their annual holiday, especially if that holiday involves crossing oceans. To help potential travelers in their search, all kinds of lists are appearing to promote the top 10 beach destinations, the best European bargain spots, “undiscovered” this or that, and what you should or shouldn’t pack on said trip.” Continue reading →

A Global Vignette

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One of the things we said when we married thirty one years ago was that we would never live in a split-level house in the suburbs. Well, guess what? We were wrong. When the time came to buy our empty nester house, a split level offered us the most bedrooms and baths, along with flexible living spaces that would suit our musical lifestyle. The problem is that although we have lots of spaces, every space in the house is a little small — and that includes our entry hall.

GotMyReservations Global Vignette 1

This is the after photo. I don’t have any good before photos.

Continue reading →

Table for Two: Greek Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup

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GotMyReservations Table for Two RecipesLeftover veggies and chicken in your fridge? Try Greek Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup for a healthy and satisfying dinner. When combined with a piece of bread and some fresh fruit, you’ve got an easy meal!

This recipe is a version of avgolemono, which in Greek means a soup or sauce made with chicken stock, egg yolks, and lemon juice. There are many different versions of this recipe online, but this soup must start with the three main ingredients, and rice and chunks of chicken are usually added.

The recipe I used made sixteen servings, so I cut it down to four servings for the empty nest using the built-in calculator on the allrecipes web site. Then I doubled the amount of veggies called for in the original recipe amount. By blending the vegetables and stock into a thick base before adding the meat and rice, you get a hearty soup chock full of veggies without sacrificing the original flavor concept of the soup. Continue reading →

Travel Diary: Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant

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Where do you go when you have a large group of friends who want to talk to each other and not disturb the other diners? Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant! How about when you want to have a cozy dinner with your special someone or with close friends? The answer is still the same. Cooper’s Hawk.

Cooper’s Hawk is a winery and restaurant chain that has locations in six states, including Illinois, where I live. Every time we go to Cooper’s Hawk, we say to each other, “Why don’t we come here more often?” The atmosphere is lovely, the decor is interesting with the wine barrel theme, and the food is fresh and creative — especially for a chain restaurant. There is a full bar if you are interested in something other than wine, as evidenced by my recent choice of the Dirty Nasty Martini.

GotMyReservations Coopers Hawk Dirty Martini

It’s not all about the wine!

Continue reading →

Ice and Snow Tablescape

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It’s still snowing here in Chicagoland, and the weather reporters are calling for more snow today and again on Saturday. Under these circumstances, it’s only natural that my thoughts turn to white dishes.

GotMyReservations Ice and Snow Tablescape Intro

Actually, I was intrigued by Yvonne’s post earlier this week at Stonegable where she enumerated ten reasons to collect white dishes. I loved her layers of different patterns of white, so I tried to showcase my own white palette. Continue reading →

Spiral Baked Veggies with a Twist

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GotMyReservations Spiral Baked Veggies with a Twist

When I got a Paderno spiral slicer for Christmas, I knew exactly who was going to love this new gadget. My brother, the engineer who never met a machine he didn’t like.

Continue reading →

Winter’s Blue Tablescape

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The Christmas tree is put away, the comfortable chairs are back in the window, and there’s a fresh coating of snow outside. It seems like the perfect day to take a visit to Germany in the Winter’s Blue Tablescape.

GotMyReservations Winters Blue Tablescape Intro

I’ve talked about my next door neighbor and her dishes many times. The tableware and decor items that I selected (and salvaged from destruction) from her estate sales have been sources of inspiration for tablescapes, including Paperwhites in a Punch Bowl, Family Reunion Gifts Bring a Sunflower Tablescape, and most recently, Downton Abbey Tablescape for the Servantless Home Decorator. Her house remodel is almost finished by the flippers and it is up for sale; hopefully we will soon have a lovely family living in Oksana’s home and bringing life back to it after almost six years. Today I’m honoring her once again with a tablescape inspired by her set of Hutschenreuther collectors’ plates, each with a different scene from a German village. Continue reading →

Broccoli Cheese Soup

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Welcome back to Monday at Got My Reservations. Today I’m introducing my new series which I’m calling Table for Two: Recipes for the Empty Nest.

GotMyReservations Table for Two RecipesWhen I was in the hospital and rehab center for my knee replacement, I was given many menu items that I had rarely eaten over the last forty years of constant food constraints. I had French toast, chicken with noodles, and all kinds of desserts. It was the Boston Creme Pie that put me over the edge. I decided that I was done with dieting, as it obviously wasn’t working, and that I was ready to try a new way of eating. When I came home, I started looking at our favorite recipes and I tried to figure out how I could remake the recipes so that they only made enough for two to four servings. The Table for Two series was born. Continue reading →

Mona Lisa Mystery

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What is it about the Mona Lisa that makes her the media sensation she’s been for centuries? R.A. Scotti’s book, titled Vanished Smile: The Mystery of the Mona Lisa, attempts to answer that question.

The book centers on the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, and Scotti uses her crime-writer skills to build a past, present, and future for perhaps the most famous smile in the world. Pretty much everyone in the art world got involved, including an attempt to pin the theft on Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, who were both considered anti-establishment artists and possibly revolutionaries in pre-war Paris.

In our book club, people sometimes bewail the contemporary practice of skipping around from time period to time period and from character to character without a lot of notice. This book, however, is not one of those. Scotti tells the story of the theft and the attempts to recover the painting in a pretty linear fashion, but also includes the history of the painting and its artist, Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a fascinating read by a master storyteller.

Reading this book brought back our visit to The Louvre in 2010. Of course, we had to see the Mona Lisa on our first trip to Paris. We had no idea what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. Continue reading →

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