New Air Fryer

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We picked up a new air fryer from Costco on the 23rd after we noticed the old one’s cord was getting really hot when in use. We’ve only had it a handful of years, but it was a free gift Joe got from his old job, so it could be worse.

The new one, a Gourmia, was $40 on sale, normally $50.

What I like:

It has a larger capacity (8-QT verses 3-QT) even though physically it’s not much larger than the old one.

It has a window so you can check on the food without opening it.

The beeps when you make selections are much quieter than the old one, and can be turned off if you want (I knew this going in because I downloaded the user’s manual before deciding to look at it).

The air fryer fan is much quieter than the old one.

It came with a very nice laminated cheat sheet of cooking times for a variety of foods.

It has although cooking modes besides air fryer, like bake, dehydrate, keep warm, although I’m not sure how frequently we’d use those.

It has a cord wrap on the back.

What I don’t like:

When using the preheat option, it will only beep a couple of times to remind you to add the food and gives you something like ten seconds to do so before it just starts counting down the time as if the food is already in it. It does the same thing when it beeps to remind you to turn the food halfway through the cooking time. I wish it would give you more time like our last unit.

When you wash it, water gets in-between the glass and unless you literally unscrew and take it apart, you cannot easily dry it. Owners have also complained grease gets in-between the glass too which means it’s going to look dirty like our toaster oven. The difference is the toaster oven doesn’t live on the counter so I don’t have to look at it.

There aren’t any protective rubber feet on the bottom of the basket so you can’t pull it out and set it down on a bare counter, you’ll need a pot-holder or something. The old one didn’t have this issue.

The stainless steel parts around the basket are difficult to clean without creating streaks, so it looks dirty even when it isn’t.

It has a screen instead of buttons so those get dirty the second you touch them.

The machine was only $40 though, so perhaps I’m expecting too much. Overall I guess I like it, but I don’t love it, and if anything else comes up that is super annoying we might take it back to Costco and look for something else. I like Ninja’s options and watched a video where they don’t beep at all and have physical buttons instead of a screen, which I like, but it’s twice the cost.

Anniversary Extended Weekend (10/23-10/27)

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Joe took multiple days off from work so we could have a nice staycation to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary, which was on October 23rd. I can’t believe how much time has passed. As I wrote on Facebook, it’s been a tough year with Wookie’s passing, but if there’s anything positive that came from it, it was Joe and I growing even closer in our shared grief. I’m so thankful to have a supportive partner and best friend throughout all these years. I’m truly very lucky.

Wednesday (10/23) we ran several errands in the morning (including TJ Maxx where I got a new watch band) before going to Texas Roadhouse at 3 pm for dinner. We wanted to get there when they opened to minimize how many people we’d be around as we are still not comfortable eating indoors and possibly catching COVID. We got boosters a few weeks beforehand, though, so we felt the risk was minimal.

The dinner started out rocky when we were seated by the restrooms and Joe noticed an awful smell come wafting our way. We asked to be seated elsewhere and were moved, so everything was good from there. The steaks we ordered were good and since I had gotten a gift card from Discover, I wasn’t stressed about the bill. It’s not like we can’t afford it, we’ve just had bad experiences where we paid a lot for a meal and didn’t feel it was worth it. That’s the reason we didn’t go to Cooper’s Hawk across the street (no gift card via Discover).

That being said, while we did enjoy our meal (minus the louder than necessary music in the restaurant), we both felt we really haven’t missed eating out. Food prices have increased too much and we’ve been just fine getting takeout when we don’t feel like cooking.

Thursday (10/24) we headed into the city to visit Lincoln Park Zoo. Since we wanted to beat the morning rush, we got into the city before the zoo opened, so we first went to Montrose Point where we watched the sun rise.

Sunrise from the bird sanctuary

Instead of trying to find street parking like in the past, we decided to park in the zoo lot even though it’s pretty expensive at $35 for the four hours we were there. But since the zoo admission itself is free, and I read the parking fees go to the zoo, I felt like it was the right thing to do since we’ve enjoyed many free visits over the years.

Since we were at the zoo when the gates opened at 8 am, and the zoo buildings don’t open until 10 am, we walked around the entire zoo, the nature boardwalk, and the farm in the zoo (which is even more boring than before now that the baby chick exhibit is gone) for the first two hours. One of our favorite parts of the zoo is swan pond and waterfowl lagoon area over by the small mammal house. I saw some new species of birds but didn’t add them to my life list since I don’t think they would count not being in the true wild. We sat on a bench by these bodies of water and had a morning snack of banana bread I had baked earlier in the week for our excursions. We always bring some snacks with us so we’re not tempted to buy overpriced food. Also it prevents us from wanting to leave too early because of hunger.

Once 10 am came we went back through the zoo a second time, this time seeing all the indoor exhibits. The only one we could not access were the gorillas since that building was closed for some unexplained reason. We sat outside that building for awhile just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. I told Joe before we left I wanted to swing by the snow leopard for a second time. I’m glad I did, because while the leopard was nowhere to be found, the red panda was out, and I got the single best photo of a red panda I’ve ever gotten!

I’m pretty sad that my photo didn’t get many likes online because I really think it’s a fantastic photo, so much so that I set it as the background on my PC.

We thought about heading to Chinatown for lunch but I want to do more research on the best restaurant to try, plus we plan to visit Jackson Park during spring migration which would be a closer drive, so we decided to save that trip for another time.

As we took the scenic/long drive home, we could not think of a place to stop for lunch until we were much closer to home and we passed this Polish deli called Helen’s. We stopped inside to grab some potato pancakes, stuffed cabbage, soup, and a dessert. Unfortunately they don’t have pierogis or blintzes during the week, or we would have gotten some of those too. We also stopped at A&W for a root beer cream freeze since they are delicious (and it was; we drank it as we drove home). The Polish deli food was really good, especially the pancakes and vegetable soup. I didn’t think the cabbage rolls were as good as the Polish deli closer to home, though.

Friday (10/25) we went on a morning bird walk with the DuPage Birding Club at Fullersburg Woods. I opted not to bring along my camera as I was still tired and sore from all the walking at the zoo. Our guides were a married couple who were both extremely nice and knowledgeable. They made the walk fun despite my aches. They showed us where to find a screech owl and I swear I spotted its side profile for a few seconds, but it’s hard to say for sure. They really blend in well with the tree bark, plus it was inside a tree cavity which makes it even harder to see fully.

After our walk we stopped at Trader Joe’s and Target for a few things and then got Chinese food for lunch (and dinner, and dinner for the next two days too since we always order three large dishes).

As if we didn’t want to torture ourselves enough, we went on another bird walk on Saturday (10/26) to Busse Woods in Schaumburg. Luckily the main walking portion was in the first area we visited and the other two spots were close to each subsequent parking lot. I left my camera at home once more but kinda wished I had it with me so I could contribute to the group checklist on eBird.

When we were at our final spot, I suddenly had a craving for a corndog, and started looking on Yelp for somewhere to grab lunch after our walk was complete. We ended up settling on Sonic of all places. The corndog was ok, but the other things we tried were even better.

The grilled cheeseburger (an app exclusive) tastes like a Wendy’s doublestack but on Texas toast. Very tasty! Their Philly cheesesteak was impressive. We weren’t expecting it to be as good as it was, or as large. The only thing that would have made it better was a little salt, pepper, and mayo. I dipped mine in Sonic’s signature sauce which is also very good.

I got a pretzel twist to take home and it crisped up nice in our new air fryer. The cheese dipping sauce it comes with is good; reminds me of the old school cheese you could get with an order of nachos at the roller rink (showing my age with that reference).

The highlight, however, was the Dirty Dr. Pepper, a drink you can only order in the app.

Very unique and flavorful. I’m not even big on Dr. Pepper, but made this way I’d drink it much more often.

Oh and a funny thing happened earlier in the morning. We had been discussing how ABT was having a customer appreciation sale and that we should really replace our living room TV (it has developed the purple spots of death which have been growing since earlier this year) and were leaning toward getting an LG TV. Joe placed a mobile order for an iced coffee at McDonald’s and the code to give at the drive-thru was LG24. Freaky, right?!?

Weekend Recap (10/19-10/20)

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Nothing much was done on Saturday (10/19) because Joe was still in Pennsylvania on a work trip, his first since Wookie passed away. It was really weird being home alone for days and not having my Wookie alarm on standby at night. I may or may not have put a knife under the pillow because I watch a lot of true crime and one can never be too cautious.

Joe got home fairly early Sunday (10/20) morning so we ate homemade breakfast burritos before heading to Lincoln Marsh. We saw the Great Egret again, and found the Great Horned Owl.

But the most interesting thing was when we were looking for the owl we noted how quiet it seemed. And then I looked up and saw something sitting on a tree branch but wasn’t sure at first it was a bird since it was not moving at all. So I took a photo and zoomed in and it was a red-bellied woodpecker staying completely still. I told Joe “there must be a predator nearby”.

I noticed it had its head turned toward the right, and when I looked at the other side of the tree, that’s when I noticed the Cooper’s Hawk sitting there, looking in the direction of the woodpecker.

No wonder it was so quiet! The birds were trying not to become a meal.

We also watched an egret fishing. Prior to this we were looking at something in the marsh and the egret very quietly landed very close to us without us knowing. Joe turned around and was startled by it. According to the chatting guy from the other day this egret isn’t really scared of people and will get close and let people get close to it.

After visiting the marsh, we headed to the arboretum. We got there so late (almost noon) there was actually a very long line of cars waiting to get in. Every parking lot was packed, but since we mostly drove around and could park alongside the road it didn’t affect us too much. I think everyone wanted to enjoy the last nice Sunday.

Over by one of our favorite sections, Turtle Pond, was a huge swarm of Asian ladybeetles, the ones that look like orange ladybugs. They were landing all over us; it was creepy! We had to flick them off us, so we got the heck out of there.

Lincoln Marsh 10/16

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Lincoln Marsh is located in Wheaton Illinois. It’s not a far drive from our house and is home to a lot of great wildlife, including a pair of Great Horned Owls that have babies there every year. The problem is it’s overrun with mosquitoes that seem to be impervious to bug spray, so we avoid it until those little bastards have died off. Needless to say, October 16th was our first visit back since early spring.

Sure enough, we saw two great horned owls sitting on the same tree limb just a few feet apart so I assume it was the owl couple from the winter. I guess the babies might be around too? I don’t know when they establish their own territory.

After that we headed toward the marsh area and saw a hermit thrush! It was so cute doing this little move on the branch where it really flick its tail and turn the other direction. That’s a new bird for my life list and I got some really clear shots of it.

Right after that, we looked to the marsh and stopped walking when we realized there were two muskrats sitting there grooming. They looked a bit small so I’m guessing juveniles. I was able to get a bunch of photos and from different angles where the lighting was really cool.

Eventually after I got enough photos we decided to walk down the pier to the bird blind which required walking right next to the muskrats, thus scaring them into the water. The one took off pretty quickly but the other one waited until we were really close before doing so. I’ve never seen them so close before and so much of their bodies as they’re usually swimming, so that was cool.

After that we walked toward the second marsh area where we ran into another photographer who was very chatty. I don’t mind when people tell me about things they’ve seen before or whatever but it gets irritating when you mention something you’ve seen and they just keep talking about themselves without acknowledging what I’ve said. I get enough of that from my parents, so I kinda walked away from the guy to go look for photo ops and Joe got stuck listening to his monologue.

There was an egret (which the guy kept calling a white heron) in a tree that flew over, caught a fish, and then started eating it. Not only did I get good photos of it with the fish, but the lighting gave it a cool glowing effect.

We were there about an hour or so but it was a fun little trip and I’m glad Joe was able to leave work early so we could get there right when the lighting was perfect.

I forgot to mention that beforehand we stopped at the DuPage County Fairgrounds to drop off our mail in ballots, so we’ve officially voted! Let’s hope that disgusting cheeto looking devil doesn’t make it into office.

Afterwards we got McDonald’s because we were interested in trying their limited edition Chicken Big Mac. We split one and also a Quarter Pounder with cheese. I haven’t had one of those in years but it was pretty good too although not as good as Culvers. We got a basket of fries which was more fries than either of us should have and were only good until they got cold, but we finished them anyway because we’re afraid to use the air fryer after the other day when I went to unplug it and noticed how hot the cord was. I don’t think that’s normal. I guess this is the best time of the year to need to replace an appliance since they’ll all be on sale. I just need to figure out what a good brand is. Ours was free from a T-Mobile catalog when Joe worked for them and employees earned points for good work that could be used toward merchandise. Anyway, the chicken Big Mac was delicious. I’d rather have one of those than the regular Big Mac.

After dinner Joe took a shower and I changed into my comfy clothes and we watched Interview With the Vampire which we’ve seen before but not anytime recently.

Funny story about that movie. Back in college somehow I was picked to be part of a “future leaders of America” type group which is hilarious since I’m not that outgoing. I don’t remember how I even got involved in that thing. Maybe it was a condition of my scholarship? Because it’s not something I’d ever seek out. In any case, we went on an overnight trip to Lake Geneva and the first night everyone decided to go see a movie in this little theater in town and it was Interview With the Vampire. No one really talked to me so I sat alone in the theater but I remember really getting into the film. I wonder if I would have felt differently about it had I been with a group of people. Did I only really love it because of the other emotions I was feeling at the time? That trip made me feel like such an outcast and the movie was the only fun I remember having.

I don’t think I was journaling back then which is a bummer because my memories of the time can get a bit fuzzy. Although I do remember we stayed at a bed and breakfast type place and all sat at this really long table for meals. I think it was in a wooded area in the fall because I can picture big windows in this dining area and colorful leaves on the trees outside.

Ok, I looked it up – the movie was released in November 1994 so that tracks with my memory.

Also a fun fact – most people call it Interview With a Vampire, myself included, because that sounds better than Interview With the Vampire.

Weekend Recap (10/12-10/13)

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Saturday (10/12) started with an emissions test for the Crosstrek and stopping at Menards to buy $46 worth of bird seed.

Then we headed out to Kane County for a guided bird walk at Kenyon Farms Forest Preserve. The walk was pretty uneventful, so afterwards we decided to check out Muirhead Springs in Hampshire, as I noticed some people I follow on Instagram get photos of some unique waterfowl there.

When we arrived at Muirhead we studied the map and were surprised to discover what a long walk to the water area would be, but decided to forge ahead. We took the path (which is a very large loop) toward the left and then proceeded to walk about 2.5 miles over forty minutes before finally reaching the water.

We saw some cool birds there, though, including nine new species which I added to my life list:

American Bittern – American Coot – Black-bellied Whistling Duck – Greater Yellowlegs – Long-billed Dowitcher – Northern Harrier – Northern Pintail – Pied-billed Grebe – Savannah Sparrow

The majority of birds were too far away to get any decent photos, other than the sparrow, howver.

Savannah Sparrow

It made me wish I had brought my tripod, and also owned a longer zoom lens.

When we were ready to leave, we noticed a dirt path that cut right through all the vegetation and directly back to the parking lot. So you’re telling me we didn’t have to walk miles to get to the water? And that the people I saw walking from the right when we first got there were using that path and had we walked that way we would have saved our poor feet? Ugh, well lesson learned I suppose. It made sense, too, since I even remarked to Joe I couldn’t believe how frequently some of the same people were coming there if they had to endure that walk. Turns out, they didn’t. Too bad the forest preserve district doesn’t include that unofficial path on their map! Overall, though, we felt relieved to learn of the shortcut, otherwise we probably wouldn’t want to go back. That initial trek was brutal! The walk back to the car was a breeze.

We decided to stop at Beef Shack for lunch and enjoyed our food outside on their patio. They truly have the best beef sandwich I’ve ever had. I don’t know why anyone still eats at Portillo’s. There’s just no comparison between the two. Portillo’s beef is flavorless, fatty, and chewy, whereas Beef Shack’s is full of flavor and tender. Their hand cut fries are delicious as well.

Sunday (10/13) we stopped at Home Depot to return the patio umbrella and stand I had ordered online because they are too big and the umbrella didn’t sit snug in the stand anyway and therefore wouldn’t stand up straight. Our current umbrella is the one my parents bought when we are kids and that my mom gave me a few years ago, and is now finally falling apart. Part of that is because when we tilt it, it rubs against the overhang by the patio door which has torn the fabric. I can’t seem to find an umbrella that is short enough to clear that area but can still tilt, which is necessary given the position of the sun in the afternoons. The hunt continues!

We decided to try a place called Blackberry Market in Glen Ellyn for breakfast since they have outdoor seating. Was it a bit cool outside? Yes, but it wasn’t horrible, and it was fun feeding some biscuit crumbs to the little sparrows that were brave enough to get very close to us. We split their Farmhouse Breakfast with scrambled eggs, a cinnamon roll, and Joe got a coffee.

The food was ok. I didn’t realize they used sweet potatoes in addition to the regular potatoes in the breakfast platter. I don’t mind sweet potatoes, but I don’t care for them for breakfast. If we went back I’d request they use all regular potatoes instead. Unfortunately I had just made an apple cake with a cinnamon buttercream frosting at home that week, and the cinnamon roll tasted almost exactly the same, minus the apple, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have because I was burnt out on that flavor. But let me assure you, it was delicious, and it was pretty big too!

After breakfast we headed to the arboretum for a few hours and swung by Hidden Lake afterwards to look for the Sage Thrasher but could not find it. I was hopeful it had found it’s way back home in the west, but later saw more photos of it being posted, so it was just hiding I guess.

Our final stop was the Danada Equestrian Center for their fall fest.

We got there right at the start at 11 am and were surprised by how many people just kept driving in. We hung out for maybe an hour to watch some of the horse demonstrations.

Arabian Horse

We decided not to eat lunch there as the offerings (2 food trucks) were rather paltry. Our parking lot was full when we left and they were directing cars to a huge field nearby. I probably wouldn’t bother attending that fest again because there wasn’t a bunch to do for adults. Plenty to do if you have kids, though.