A very productive week

We arrived here a week ago tomorrow with non-functioning Jakes and one whole side of our clearance lights dark. I didn't know the clearance lights were out until we did the safety inspection but there was no doubt about the Jakes. I had the Jakes working by Monday afternoon and yesterday I finished off the clearance lights. We now have LEDs all around, including the one at the top middle on the driver's side that hasn't worked the whole time we have owned the bus. I don't like driving after dark but we'll have to do it at least once so people can see how beautiful we now are.

Last night we cooked up a mess of chicken wings in oyster sauce for our hosts:
- as many wings as you need to feed your crowd, cut them at the joints
- brown the wings in oil with some garlic
- drain off most of the oil and add some red wine
- add some soya sauce and some worcestershire sauce
- add some oyster sauce (you'll find it with the stir fry sauces)
- simmer the wings for about an hour and a half. You may have to add water, depending on how much plonk you used to begin with.
- I like to add some chopped onion and a few chopped carrots but they aren't essential. Sometimes I add parsley too - depends on my mood.
- before serving thicken the sauce with some corn starch

We like to serve the wings over basmati rice prepared according to the recipe one of Marilyn's Iranian tenants gave her:
- partially cook the rice
- slice some potatoes as thinly as you can
- oil a frying pan and warm it
- place the potato slices around the edge and across the bottom of the pan to cover it completely
- spray the inside of the potato slices with cooking oil
- gently place the rice in the pan
- add water sufficient to finish cooking the rice
- place some paper towel on top of the rice and put a lid on the pan
- cook gently for at least another hour

The goal is to have the rice steamed fully and have the potato slices crispy and golden brown when you turn the rice out of the pan. If you do it right the potatoes will provide a golden covering to the rice when it turns out. I used our low sided cast iron pan for the batch we made for the Kirkwoods. I peeked at the rice when I thought it was cooked & I didn't like the looks of the potato slices so I cranked the heat up for a couple of minutes. You have to use your nose & ears to tell you how the potatoes are coming along because you can only see a bit of them around the edge of the pan and the important part is under the rice where you can't see it.

Today I ripped out our non-functioning DVD/VCR combo and installed a $39 DVD player we bought at Wallyworld yesterday. We debated buying the fancy Blueray model but then said "who are we kidding?" We buy all of our DVDs in the bargain bin for a max of $3 so it will be a while before the Blueray discs are in those bins and by then the players will be $39 like the one we just bought instead of $279 like the one we didn't buy. Of course in addition to the DVD player I had to install another box (another $39.95) to convert the multi-wire signal that comes out of the DVD player to the single coax that our TV demands. Can somebody explain to me how it is progress to go from one wire to 3? We looked and looked for a DVD player that had a coax output but they apparently don't exist anymore. Presumably our magic box will still work when we can buy a $39 Blueray player.