SPELLING BEE

By Bea Westerberg

Fall happenings

“Opening your eyes to see a new day is a good thing.”

– Unknown

I think the Duluth/Proctor area is all safe and as sound as it was before the Rug Crafters held their annual get together last week. This year’s group was a bit smaller than normal with 40 crafters and 3 teachers. In years past, we had about 50 crafters and 4 teachers. I almost did not get to go due to my leg issue but things worked out in the end. My friend and roommate Jackie drove her trusty vehicle. It takes a lot of space to pack and travel as rug hookers, so even with just the 2 of us, we did not have a lot of extra room. We did our “Must Do” stop at Tobies for a fix of French onion soup and pecan cinnamon roll on the way up to the event.

I got the most done on a class project this year than I ever did before. Maybe because it was a simple pattern and I had all the colors all picked out ahead of time or maybe I did not spend as much time being a social bee. I quickly learned that it was best to keep the leg up or pay the price. We had a wide range of evening meals including a very good $5.00 hamburger at the Anchor Bar over in Wisconsin and a Lobster pasta for many times that price at The Boat House at the Fitger’s Mall in Duluth. It’s hard for those lobsters to swim all the way to Duluth! For $25, you can get a Bloody Mary with a Lobster tail.

If anyone might be thinking it is not quite fall time, just look around and see the words “pumpkin spice” on just about anything that is in sight. I don’t know if the person who told me that pumpkin spice toilet paper is available was serious, but I probably would place some money on that bet. The Halloween supplies are also coming out in all shapes and forms. Wow, a lot can happen in the next 6 weeks and maybe one needs a good supply of Halloween treats to still have some available when the kids come around. I am sure I would be doing a little sampling of this and maybe just a nibble of that. Before you know it, I would need to do another shopping trip to restock. If I was half way smart, I would not buy my favorites but that is not the way I do things.

I am wondering where the hot chocolate bombs will stack up this year. You may recall they came out about 2 years ago this time and the world went crazy about them. I have a good supply of forms to make them with so I might get back in the hot chocolate bomb business. I gave away only the ones that turned out the best or looked the cutest. That left me with a good supply of “tasting” ones that lasted well beyond the holidays. One does have to plan ahead for such things.

The Crumbl cookie fever is in progress but I don’t know if it will have a holiday effect. The stores for them seem to be popping up all over (but not in Hastings as of right now). It is a little painful to see a cookie priced at almost $4.00 each but I have seen them being marched out of the stores in their pink one, four, six, or a dozen boxes. Friend Margaret and I did take part in a Crumbl taste test awhile back. We had no idea how one would order the cookies so we just went in and asked up front how to do it. The teenager cashier was very kind to explain to us how to do so. We each picked out 2 cookies so we had our box of four to try out. Since neither one of us are coffee drinkers, we went a few doors down and ordered tea from the coffee shop. This was still a very normal time to be eating in one’s vehicle so we parked and started out with a big piece of the first cookie and some tea. The pieces got smaller as we got filled up and Number Four cookie was almost not touched! Ah, but we got to have a Crumbl Cookie experience.

There are many, many copy cat Crumbl recipes out there if you feel you want to do your own thing. I have no idea if they come close to tasting like the “original”, but Christmas is coming.