The Occasional Nomads

April things too small for their own post:

• I went back to Trader Joe’s for the first time in two months, but to a different store than the one I worked at. I didn’t want to be bombarded with questions or explain over and over why I left, etc. so Brett and I instead drove to the next closest store up in Nashville. Whoa! It had twice the floorspace of my former store, was better organized, cleaner, and I had fun wandering the aisles as I shopped, looking at how they had everything laid out and organized. And, the best part: no one knew who I was. I bought the items on my list and left. I won’t need to do another TJ’s shop for around two months, but I know where I’ll be going again.

• We’ve now walked all the trails at nearby Smith Park after a mid-month hike with K on the Green Trail. I found myself struggling at times on this last hike because of pain in my left knee, something that started up before I left TJ’s. It was weird because the knee doesn’t hurt at all on two-mile walks around the apartment complex but was very painful on this hike. It has me wondering how I’ll do with all the walking and especially all the stair climbing there will be in Japan.

The train ride across Canada has been a long-held dream.

• Brett and I have often talked about doing something BIG for our 50th anniversary and a few ideas have come and gone over the years. But, we think we’re getting close enough now to come up with something to work toward, and think an extended train trip or two would be a wonderful way to celebrate this big milestone. We’ve long dreamed of taking the train from Vancouver, B.C. to Toronto, for example, but there are many other great rail journeys all over the world to choose from, although many, if not most, are completely out of our price range. We’ll be 79 and 77 on our 50th, so this goal has two parts to it: continuing to maintain our health as well as choosing and making the journey itself. Fingers crossed we can pull both these off!

I used to wish I was a runner. But, I’m built wrong for the sport (bottom heavy) and since my knee injury back in 1999 my kneecap doesn’t work right for running. So I walk instead. And I love it.

My grandmother was a walker. She never learned to drive, or ride a bicycle, and after my grandfather died she thought nothing of walking three or five miles to grocery shop or go to the bank or elsewhere. She taught me the joy of long walks, how they might make you feel overwhelmed at the start, but provide growing satisfaction as you continued, and a sense of accomplishment at the end. She pointed out sights along the way when we walked together and encouraged me to pay attention to what was around me. Grandma was always a stickler about posture and encouraged me to maintain good posture as I walked – that’s stuck with me as well.

Through middle school and high school I walked to school and back almost every day – our house was two miles away from each school. The trip to the schools was downhill meaning home was uphill almost all the way – I always felt a little discouraged every time I started that walk but I got it done. I lived at my grandmother’s for a few months while I was in middle school and it was the same distance but the thankfully the route was flat. However, there weren’t as many trees shading me along the way. You take the good with the bad though when you walk.

We walked countless miles through the countryside in England

I count walking, along with maintaining a healthy diet, as one of the main reasons I have remained in good health (so far). Walking is another tool I use to help maintain my weight or lose a few pounds when necessary. I’m a brisk walker; you might not know sometimes that Brett and I are together because I often walk ahead of him (although if he wants to he can easily pace or overtake me). I’ve tried to slow down but it just doesn’t work – there’s a pace my legs like to walk and if I try anything different they rebel. The only issue I have when I walk is going down hills, a leftover from my knee injury. It’s the reason I don’t go hiking any more: I can go up, but coming down is killer.

I am pretty much miserable when I cannot get out for a walk. I become feel restless and unhappy, like something is missing and I can’t find it. Apparently those endorphins that surge when I walk are real. A walk truly does lift my mood and keep it up for the rest of the day.

Some of our favorite walks/hikes on Kauai (clockwise from the upper left): Kukuiolono Park & Golf Course, Old Hapa Road, Stone Dam Trail, East Side Beach Path, Maha’ulepu Trail, Waiokapua Bay Trail, Mahaulepu Trail

Hawaii provided the most memorable locations for walks, but there hasn’t been a place we’ve lived where we haven’t found trails or paths to get in at least a few miles most days. When we were traveling full time we walked a LOT, almost daily, sometimes up to eight or nine miles, but the calorie-burning benefits were often outweighed by French pastries, a daily stop for gelato, or cake and tea.

These days as long it’s not raining I walk for two miles every afternoon. I may have gotten in more steps when I worked at Trader Joe’s, but my daily walk is 40 minutes at a consistent pace, with my heart rate raised for a healthy period of time, something I didn’t get at TJ’s. Could I walk for a longer distance or period of time? Yes, and we occasionally walk other trails in the area that provide more mileage, but for now I’m happy with what I’m doing and the course I walk with its uphills and downhills. It works for me.

I thought these two cookbooks and my big recipe notebook had been lost and were gone forever.

I have no memory of having them when Brett and I lived in Hawaii the second time around. I thought they had been in the big box of kitchen stuff that the movers lost when we had our stored household goods shipped over to us.

My last memory of any them was from 2018, when I made sure all the recipes I had clipped and wanted to keep were filed in the big notebook. I gave away several cookbooks then, but knew the Sunset book and the Japanese recipes were the ones I wanted to keep.

So, you can imagine my joy when I recently discovered all three of them sitting in the back of our credenza behind some other stuff. Apparently they were among the things that had been mailed to WenYu when we left Kaua’i in 2022. I have no memory of doing that though.

I’ve had the Sunset Favorite Recipes cookbook since 1974. In fact, the one I have now is my second copy – I wore out the first. It contains so many recipes I love and some I still make from memory, like our favorite meatloaf and oatmeal shortbread cookies. I’ve owned Japanese Country Cookbook since 1983, bought after Brett and I returned to the U.S. from our first tour in Japan. The big notebook is filled with clippings of favorite recipes that I began collecting right after Brett and I got married. I went through all of it before we left Hawaii in 2018 and edited everything down to recipes I had actually made and would make again. It was still stuffed to overflowing.

So many of the recipes and pages are covered with splatters. Some are yellowed and faded. I cried as I read through them, remembering flavors, aromas, and family meals. I can’t wait to make so many of them again. Some of the recipes I had saved are now available online, but too many others are not, like the one for Spicy Steak Pizzaiola that I cut from a Weight Watcher’s magazine who knows when. It’s the first recipe I want to make again.

Treasures lost and treasures found. I’m still beaming.

I may be the last person in the western world to have tried this viral recipe from a couple of years ago, but just in case I’m not, and you haven’t made this, all I’m going to say is: you really should.

There’s three solid reasons this recipe went viral:

1. It’s super easy to make and there are only four ingredients: olive oil, cherry or grape tomatoes, feta cheese, and pasta.

2. It’s doesn’t cost much to prepare and makes a lot.

3. IT’S DELICIOUS!

A few notes from my experience: a) don’t skimp on the olive oil – I used the half-cup called for and it was necessary; b) I used a giant box of colorful cherry tomatoes from Costco – it was the perfect amount. c) sheep’s milk feta is recommended because it’s creamier, but I used a block of American cow’s milk feta and it was creamy and fine; d) don’t add salt – feta is plenty salty all on its own; and e) a pasta shape with plenty of ridges or areas to catch the sauce works best, IMO.

I’m going to be redundant in support of this recipe and once more encourage those who haven’t made this to give it a try!

BAKED FETA PASTA

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
• 8-ounces feta cheese
• Black pepper
• 12-ounces rotini or other ridged pasta
• Fresh basil (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour all except 1 or 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a 9” x 13” or 3-quart pan. Rinse the tomatoes and pour into the pan; toss with olive oil and add pepper to taste.

Place the block of feta in the center of the tomatoes – it should be sitting at the bottom of the pan, not on top of any tomatoes. Drizzle the feta with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper.

Bake tomatoes and feta for 30 minutes, then turn up the oven to 450 degrees and bake 10-15 minutes more, or until the feta and tomatoes are browned.

While the tomatoes and feta are in the oven, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain well, reserving a 1/2 cup of pasta water.

When the tomatoes and pasta are done and out of the oven, mash both together well to create a sauce (I used a potato masher) – add a little of the pasta water if the mixture seems too dry (I didn’t need it).

Add the cooked pasta to the tomato-feta sauce and mix together well. Serve immediately with chopped fresh basil (if desired).

The changes we made at the beginning of the year, including the way we shop and having more meals with leftovers, are starting to pay off. We budget $500 a month for groceries and for the first three months of this year we’ve been able to stay under that amount.

One BIG change I inadvertently made at the end of January was menu planning for the entire month of February versus just two weeks at a time and it made a big difference in our spending. I still started out still by shopping the pantry and freezer when I created menu, then added in dishes I could create from a Costco chicken, and finally filled in with other dishes. Menu planning this way had me looking even more closely at what was on hand in the pantry, fridge, and freezer, and being more creative in figuring out how I could use what we already have. It also helped us shop for items that could also be used or extended into the following month. For some reason, the whole-month process seemed to work and the result meant we enjoyed a good variety of healthy, tasty meals without overspending on food.

The photos below were taken from our two shop-a-thons in March to show what we bought and how much we spent:

Total spent at Costco: $196.68

Total spent at Aldi: $61.70

Total spent at Whole Foods: $30.36

Total spent at Publix: $50.69

Total spent at Target: $6.89

What we bought the second shopping trip in the second week of the month:

Total spent at Costco (Round ll): $69.76

Total spent at Aldi (Round ll): $14.19

Total spent at Whole Foods (Round ll): $20.94

Total spent in March: $451.11. The only impulse items above were the Cadbury creme eggs (my favorite candy) and the Dave’s English muffins – they were regularly $5.99/package (big no) but the day we shopped were BOGO, and $3 each was a good price for a quality product. Otherwise, every other item was on our list. We spent a bit more than planned on the chocolate-peanut butter pie, but we really wanted to try it and they sell out quickly.

The meals planned and eaten in March were, in no particular order, (items already on hand are in italic): Swedish meatballs w/cream gravy and roasted potatoes (2 meals), farmers’ market pasta (2 meals), chicken and dumplings (2 meals), slow cooker chicken adobo with bok choy, chicken noodle soup (2 meals), air fryer beef fajitas (2 meals), pasta with baked feta (2 meals), chili-stuffed sweet potatoes, slow cooker brats & sauerkraut (2 meals), stuffed peppers (2 meals), pepperoni pizza, sausage pizza, ravioli lasagna (2 meals), spinach quiche in gluten-free crust (2 meals), Korean-style beef with rice, bulgogi fried rice, chicken Alfredo, and noodle bowls with chicken & vegetables. We ate dinner out on our anniversary and ate dinner for free at our hotel for our overnight getaway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I’ve pretty much given up snacking in the afternoons and instead have a five-ounce glass of wine in the early evening. Brett and I still enjoy a small piece of dessert each evening after dinner – the desserts pictured above will took us through the entire month of March. It all fits into the budget.

Buying Costco $5 roasted chickens to incorporate into recipes has made a big difference as has my return to cooking once again and planning meals with leftovers – I enjoy having a second day of meals that only need to be reheated. I try to stick to gluten-free products, but they are expensive so we shop very selectively for those. Costco can also be a real drain on the budget, but we look for affordable products that can be used in several meals over time to get a bigger bang for our bucks. We added in trips to Whole Foods this month for a few items, but we strictly limit what we buy there – it has to be for something we typically can’t find somewhere else. There were no trips to Trader Joe’s this month because we’re still using the items I stocked up on before I quit.

I’ve already gotten this month’s menu done and we’ve already gotten through the first round of shopping and are well under budget. All in all I am very please with how the planning and dining has been going this year, and how much we’ve been able to stay under our budget.

Feeling quite dejected after figuring out our full-time national park trip wasn’t going to happen the way we dreamed because of the expense, and honestly not wanting to have to buy a trailer or camping gear for some of the trip at all, Brett and I decided to have one more go at figuring something out for our post-Tennessee life.

For weeks nothing we proposed to each other caught our imaginations. We admitted to ourselves that maybe we should move to the northeast after all and learn to deal with those bitter winters.

But then a sort of amazing thing happened. What, we thought, would happen if we got away from this all or nothing mindset we seemed to have gotten ourselves locked into? What if we kept what was meaningful and appealing to us but divided up the year?

What happened was that we came up with a very good plan that includes everything we want and love to do, in places we want to do them. There are no poison pills, and we can afford everything as well as continue to save.

When our time in Tennessee is over we will (tentatively) move to New England, to a location near our daughters. We’ll again rent an apartment and establish a home base. We’ll take advantage of the sightseeing and camping in the area, and spend the holidays with our kids and grandkids. We’ll be close by when and if new grandkids arrive, and can set up health and dental care to see us through to the end.

But those winters? Brett, Kaipo, and I will become snowbirds and head for warmer weather January into March. We can choose one place to settle in every year or we can see the world and go someplace different: Spain, Costa Rica, Mexico, Greece, the south of France, and southern Italy all enjoy mild winters. It’s summer that time of year in Argentina. Or, we can stay in the U.S. and head to Arizona or Southern California or even back to Hawaii.

And what happened to seeing the national parks and getting those checked off? In September and October of each year we will go west in the car for around four to six weeks and visit a few national parks, tent camping some of the time to mix things up. We can see and do a lot in that time period and it won’t break the bank. We’ll be back in New England in time for leaf peeping, the fall holidays, and Christmas.

We again seriously and in-depth asked ourselves whether we should buy a trailer, but realized we a) would rather have a home base, and b) the cost for the trailer we want, new or used, would cost more than we’re willing to spend at this time of our lives. By dividing our travel into two parts during the year we can travel more efficiently and spend less over all. We still enjoy camping, although for short bursts, and will invest in a good tent and camping gear and include some camping in our travels out west and during summers in New England.

Doing a little of everything has it all: family, a home base, adventure, and travel, all without built-in poison pills. Each part works, is affordable and doable, it easy to adjust as needed, and makes everyone happy . . . especially us!

When our son and family headed off to Florida for spring break week, Brett and I found ourselves with some time on our hands and decided to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a long-held goal for us. We checked weather forecasts for the week and chose what we believed would be the best possible day for a visit, made a reservation to stay at a hotel in Knoxville the evening before, and off we went.

Our goal was to visit Cades (pronounced kay-dees) Cove, the most popular area of the park and the most accessible location for us, just an hour’s drive out of Knoxville. A cove was, in the language of the area, a relatively flat valley between mountains or ridges. Cades Cove was a farming community, with a population of around 125 families in 1900.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park was established in 1934, although the work to create the park started many years before that. Great Smoky Mountain National Park is renowned for its biological diversity, the beauty of the ancient mountains, and the quality of its remnants of Southern Appalachian mountain culture. It is America’s most visited national park.

The current paved one-way loop road around Cades Cove was once an 11-mile two-way unpaved road for residents, with entrance to the Cove available on five narrow unpaved roads. Today only one entrance exists.

Views of the park from around the loop. We crossed loads of rushing streams as we drove around.

We could not have picked a more beautiful day to visit. The skies were clear and blue, and the temperature cool without being cold. Visitor numbers were light as well. When we picked up our guidebook at the beginning of the tour we were told the loop tour would take us around 45 minutes or so, but we stopped at several places along the way and spent around two hours overall in the Cove before heading out of the park and home (the driving tour can take over four hours in the summer and fall when visitors are at their peak). Wildlife is abundant in Cades Cove year round, and we saw geese, elk, and flocks of wild turkeys (but thankfully no skunks or snakes). Even with visitors and cars moving along the loop we could also hear large birds calling in the distance, but weren’t sure what they were.

Cades Cove contained small mountain communities where farming was done. Sorghum was a typical crop, and the tools used to process it in one community have been preserved as well as a grist mill and its mill run, two barns (cantilever and drive-through), the smokehouse, some homes, the blacksmith’s shed, and more. The last resident of Cades Cove was Kermit Caughron, who died in 1999.

National parks are mostly all about the natural world, but Great Smoky Mountains NP does a wonderful job of showing human respect and care for the nature they co-existed with. Long before white settlers arrived indigenous people lived in Smokies for thousands of years, but all lived in the mountains with apparently little impact on the natural world that surrounded them.

Our little pup had the time of his life in the park, either being outdoors, running through a meadow, or just hanging out the window to observe and sniff the air. We enjoyed a picnic by a rushing stream before we left Great Smoky Mountain NP, Brett added to his national park t-shirt collection, and I got to scratch another national park off my poster. All in all, an absolutely wonderful visit!

The book has closed on our fourth annual anniversary Day of No Cooking, and we had another fabulous day eating and celebrating.

Breakfast at BBB

We were exited to try Big Bad Breakfast, a casual place just down the road from us that focuses on Southern-style breakfasts. It’s a franchise begun in Nashville by a James Beard- winning chef, with restaurants now all over the south. Brett wanted a biscuit and ordered a simple sausage and cheese biscuit; I played it safe with a gluten-free “Jack Benny”: eggs Benedict on a potato hash cake with sautéed spinach. Service at BBB was friendly and efficient, and both breakfasts were filling, but they were both lacking when it came to flavor. We gave the restaurant 6 out of 10 possible points, and don’t think we’ll be going back.

Lunch was to have been at P.F. Chang’s, but it turned out we did not have an actual card, just instructions and codes to send off for an actual card. Oops! So, we headed to our original choice for lunch, Bishop’s, for a meat and three. Brett and I had a meat and three for lunch in downtown Memphis right before we got married, and hoped Bishop’s would be as memorable.

Lunch at Bishop’s

It definitely was, and Bishop’s earned an 10 out of 10 for their delicious southern-style food, served cafeteria style. Brett got fried catfish with hushpuppies for his meat along with two sides: macaroni & cheese and mashed potatoes. I chose Hattie B hot chicken tenders and added green beans, carrot soufflé, and macaroni & cheese for my sides. The portions were huge; I ended up bringing home two of the three hot chicken tenders as well as leftover green beans and carrot soufflé (the mac & cheese helped cut the heat of the chicken and I ate all of it). We also had dessert – banana pudding and peach cobbler – that we switched halfway through so we could enjoy some of each. For the record, I am now officially a carrot soufflé fan – it was different and delicious.

We were both extremely full after lunch so came home to rest, digest, and enjoy a cocktail before heading out to Nashville for dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

A wonderful dinner and dessert at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse

From start to finish, everything about our time at Ruth’s Chris was superb. We were seated at a table strewn with rose petals – very romantic! I ordered the petite filet, but mentioned to our waiter that I felt sad the broiled tomatoes were no longer on the menu . . . and the head chef made them for me!! Brett ordered crab cakes with a mashed sweet potato casserole on the side and our waiter brought out vanilla ice cream to go with the potatoes – very, very yummy, and something neither of us would have thought of. And, at the end of our meal we were presented with a yummy cheesecake to share! We were pretty full at that point but managed a few bites and brought most of it home. It was an absolutely wonderful evening from start to finish, everything we expected and more, and the gift cards we received helped us enjoy a truly memorable evening.

This was our best Day of No Cooking yet, and I don’t know if we can top it. Even the less than stellar breakfast couldn’t drag it down. There will be lots of research to do this coming year to figure out where to go next year, but we’re looking forward to the challenge!

We had a wonderful month in March with lots going on including an overnight getaway, a national park visit, a long visit from our son, travel plan updates, and a couple of big purchases.

There’ll be more about the big purchases later, but we finally decided to replace the awful mattress and sofas we bought when we arrived here in 2022. We did a lot of research beforehand in order to get top quality at the best possible price, and ended up with exactly what we wanted along with big discounts. Our backs have been very grateful.

The weather has been lovely for the most part this month outside of several rainy days. The first BIG thunderstorm of the year arrived the middle of the month and we know it’s only the beginning for the season. The storms here manage to be both exciting and frightening at the same time.

Here’s how March happened:

• Keep grocery spending under $500. We spent $451.11 this month on food.
• Aim for zero food waste. Another month with no food thrown away!
• Have one full no-spend week. We didn’t spend on anything from March 17 through March 24.
• Have four no-drive days. We have nine no-drive days this month! Our total was helped by our son being here and taking care of the kids’ drop-offs and pick-ups on several days.
• Try one new recipe. I finally got around to making the viral baked feta dish – we loved it (recipe coming)! But otherwise we stuck to old favorites and to dishes that used what we had on hand.
• Walk at least 40 miles. I walked 50 miles this month! My beloved blue HOKA’s, purchased in 2022 after we arrived in Tennessee, gave up the ghost this month with the top separating from the sole but a new pair (black/gray/white) arrived in record time from HOKA so I could keep walking. The old pair put in a lot of miles during my time at Trader Joe’s, – the only part of me that never hurt were my feet.
• Visit one natural or historical site in the area. Brett and took an overnight getaway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park!
• Read four books. I read six books this month: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett; Messy Minimalist: Realistic Strategies for the Rest of Us by Rachelle Crawford; The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food by Andrew Friedman; The Bee Sting by Paul Murray; Small Mercies by Dennis Lahane; and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.
• Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes. I did both a grammar and kanji lesson every day again this month, but Duolingo has become quite problematic. They are pushing the Super version, and so the current (free) program is now running very slow and also has strange grammar questions without any introduction, and the same with vocabulary. It causes a lot of mistakes and I have to frequently stop and wait until the next day to go on (while you can make as many mistakes as you want with the Super version). It’s VERY frustrating! I’m searching for a new online program but haven’t found one yet that’s a good fit. I have moved up to Level 3 in the kanji program but I am now often completely baffled by which pronunciation of the kanji to use in which words – so confusing and so difficult to remember (each kanji has at least two different pronunciations; the one used depends on the word). Achievement has definitely slowed down.

Funds going into our change/$1 bill jar in March totaled $34.92, a little better than last month.

March’s goals remain the same as before:

• Keep grocery spending under $500. This will be a challenge in April as we’ve used up many basics and need to replenish.
• Aim for zero food waste. 
• Have one full no-spend week. 
• Have four no-drive days.
• Try one new recipe. I still have all those Instagram recipes to try.
• Walk at least 40 miles.
• Visit one natural or historical site in the area. We’re aiming for a hike in nearby Smith Park this month – there’s one trail left we haven’t done.
• Read four books.
• Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes.

We’ll celebrate Brett’s birthday in April – no plans yet, but we’ll come up with something special, even if it’s only burgers at 5 Guys. Otherwise we’ll enjoy what we hope is a rather low key month, although we’ll be back on full-time grandkid duty once again.