Spiacente non ho scritto ultimamente

It's been a while since I have posted. I have a few moments before leaving for work so I can do a quick catch up while I enjoy my morning latte made with my new machine! Speaking of that I found a good milk with a high fat content so I can get good foam. We get a milk delivery from Royal Crest and they have milk called "Royal Rich" and it makes great foam. I discovered in Italy the secret to the foam is the fat content of the milk. Since I don't live on a dairy farm (and all of my Wisconsin family have moved of the farm years ago) it is my only access to whole milk.
I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving. My parents made the trip to Wisconsin this year and Mom told me they had a good time visiting with family. Mom told me that my Aunt Yvonne had 27 people there for dinner! WOW! Way to go Aunt Yvonne I bow to your hostess skills. We had 8 at the house this year. We had Chuck & Cora and Mike's family up to the house for a late dinner. I brined and smoked a turkey over maple wood this year and we made roasted butternut squash and cranberry ravioli, and homemade taramasui for dessert. Cora made potatoes, roasted veggies, and roasted a turkey also. So we have plenty of leftovers.
The weather has been cold and we have had some snow. We haven't had anything like last year so I haven't been able to use my new snow blower. I am patiently waiting to get it out of the garage. Work has been busy, it seems we are the belle of the ball right now. We had a successful launch last month and we are getting ready for another launch next month. Since the launch we have had all the big contractors calling us. We were just awarded a 35 million dollar contract that is going to keep us busy and we are still looking at several others. I have been tagged to become a systems engineer and to start working towards becoming a program manager and do some business development work also . I have some meetings this week with a large company that hopefully we can partner with to get a local contract worth close to 50 million.
Lisa is working at the north hospital only now, she likes the 10 minute commute to work. She is also going to work one day a week with the Centrua Hospital system soon because they are paying $40 an hour for ER night shift. She is still busy with her crafting (stamping, scrapbooking, and quilting) and we are planning our next vacation.
Well the coffee is almost empty and it is time for me to leave for work. We are teaching a course this week at work so I need to get there before the students arrive. I am assisting today but will be the primary instructor tomorrow.

è tempo del caffè!

It's coffee time! My new espresso machine form Italy has arrived! The UPS man delivered it yesterday and I have been playing with it both nights.

Well we got back the other weekend at it was a seriously long flight in very small seats. Also somehow in the distant past I set it up for kosher meals in my profile for United. Well it seems very weird to have somebody with a heavy German accent hand you a kosher meal and say, "Here is your special meal." That was just a bit freaky for me and the irony was not lost on Lisa and I. I've since changed the meal option for me because the food wasn't good on the trip over to Germany. The Rabbi overseeing the meals in New Jersey would have died if he was served the meal we got served, but the meal coming back was really good. We had a very nice lamb dish.

Anyway we are back into the swing of work and Colorado. Lisa made fresh pasta the other night and the white bean sauce we had at school, it was really good. We are planning our Thanksgiving menu already since dinner is at our house this year. I will be smoking a turkey (using maple wood) and we will be doing some fresh pasta and maybe a celery risotto also. I also would like to do the fennel torte we had at school also, I love fennel.

Well back to the espresso machine. While in Italy Lisa bought pottery and I bought a espresso machine. It is a beauty and makes a very fine cup of espresso. It is a little more work than the last machine since this one has the pump handle to let you control the strength of the coffee. I have invited my friend David up on Saturday while the girls go to their stamping club to play with the new machine. We will be babysitting Lilly and working on the perfect cup of espresso. It has to have the perfect "creme" on top of it. He always has great coffee beans, maybe I should have him bring some of his ground coffee along. I think I need to send a e-mail to him tomorrow on that topic.

Hopefully Lisa's pottery shows up this week then it will be Christmas in November.

Ciao!