Saturday Afternoon at the Riverside Rest

No rain this time! Started off a gorgeous, breezy, gold-and-blue fall Saturday with the American Top 40. 1986 brought pop, hard rock, soul, and singing TV stars into the limelight. Hits in late October of that year included "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, "Two of Hearts" by Stacey Q (which I fondly remember Mom using for many an aerobics class during my childhood), "Typical Male," by Tina Turner, "A Matter of Trust," by Billy Joel, "All Cried Out," by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, "Heartbeat" by Don Johnson (yes, that Don Johnson), and "Sweet Love" by Anita Baker.

Women seemed to dominate the charts that week, and one of the biggest names of the mid-80s was Michael Jackson's little sister who had been a child star in her own right since the late 70s. Janet Jackson had one of her biggest #1 songs with "When I Think of You."

I had such a nice time last week doing a photo story with my American Girl and Disney dolls last Saturday, I repeated it. This time, Samantha is showing people around while trying to keep some Riverside Rest residents from getting into trouble. Check it out here:

Saturday Afternoon at the Riverside Rest

I ran cartoons all morning as I worked on my photos. When I finished, I had leftovers for lunch and spent an hour reading Maiden Voyage. I bought that about a month ago from the Oaklyn Library Book Sale, but I've had other things I wanted to read first.

Spent the next few hours running animated films. This week, I went with three rare fantasies from the 80s and early 90s. Happily Ever After was the last production of He-Man creators Filmation. In this sequel  to Snow White, the princess in question seeks the missing Prince with the help of the Dwarfelles - seven goofy female dwarves who posses elemental powers. Moon Madness is a dubbed version of a French retelling of the tale of Baron Munchhausen and his visit with the moon-dwelling Selenites. The Care Bears Movie tends to get written-off as a sugar fest, but it does have its scary moments as the Bears battle to save an unhappy orphan who is trying to use an evil spell book to force people to like him.

I made my first pie in years while the cartoons were running. Almost every pie I've ever made has ended up running over the pan and making a mess. Recently, I've seen one-crust fruit pies made by folding over the crust, instead of covering it with a second crust. I used a variation on a recipe in my low-sugar baking book to make CranApple Fold Over Pie. I added spices and cornstarch to a cup of fruit concentrate, then tossed a cup of cranberries and two big sliced apples and put them in a whole-wheat pie crust, which I folded all around the pie instead of topping with a second crust.

Since I had the pie baking, I tossed some Merlin's Magic Chicken (chicken pieces coated with flour, salt, and paprika and baked in the oven at a high temperature) and roasted Brussels sprouts in the oven and continued the 80s theme with Xanadu. This infamous 1980 musical has Olivia Newton-John as a muse who comes to earth to inspire a young artist (Michael Beck) and an older man who has given up his musical career (Gene Kelly) to open a roller disco in the abandoned Pan Pacific Auditorium in LA. Infamous for having a great soundtrack and a freakin' strange script. (So strange, it was apparently made up as they went along, which explains a lot.) I love it, but it's not for those who aren't a fan of the music and style from the late disco era, Newton-John, Kelly, or campy musicals in general.

Oh, and the pie came out great. I baked it in a pie pan despite the wrapping to avoid the mess. It's perfect, tasty and crusty and just sweet enough.