Curried Chicken Salad with a Story

In VA on August 24, 1991, my best friend Cathy Cornman, was married to Clayton Hill. I flew out for her wedding, as I had known Cathy since I was 13. My family moved to Springfield, IL from Lovington, IL when I was in seventh grade. The counselor at the school introduced me to Cathy (probably because we both played the flute) and we became inseparable throughout high school and beyond. When I was in VA for Cathy's wedding, I had some free time to shop at Tyson's Corner. I went into the Neiman Marcus store and there was a lady who was introducing her new cookbook. She had samples from her recipes for the customers. I tried her Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes that was delicious! I was going to buy her cookbook, but I didn't buy it at that time. I wrote the name of the cookbook and her name on a piece of paper and put it into my wallet. I carried that in my wallet for nearly 10 years. When I lived in Dallas around 2000, I went into a Corner Bakery and ate some of their chicken salad, which reminded me of the chicken salad I had sampled at the Neiman Marcus store in VA. I decided that I wanted to buy the cookbook after all. I looked and looked for that cookbook, but I didn't find it. I tried Amazon.com and I found out that the cookbook, "Picnics" by Marilyn Myers, was no longer in print. Amazon.com said they could hunt for the book I wanted if I wanted to pay whatever price it was. They found the book and I paid around $25 for it. So far, I have only made the curried chicken recipe from the cookbook, but I have passed along the recipe to many friends and I have used the recipe many times, so it was well worth the money I paid for the cookbook. Here is the recipe:

Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes

4 boned chicken breasts, cooked and cut into pieces
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1/2 cup good quality mayonnaise
3 Tbsp. whipping cream (I use nonfat milk)
1/2 teaspoon curry powder -- I use a Madras curry powder from a Middle Eastern grocery store
Salt
2/3 cup seedless grapes

Mix the mayonnaise, whipping cream (milk) and curry powder in a cup. Pour over and mix with the chicken, almonds and grapes. This is good on croissant rolls or just alone as a salad. Enjoy!

If I Made New Year's Resolutions

If I made New Year's resolutions, which I don't, here are some I would make. I saw this article in one of my bead magazines and it is definitely MY mantra!

I will never have enough beads.
I will never have the right colors when I want them.
I will never have enough time to bead.
I can never collect too many magazines or books about beading.
I will bring home new beads in the exact colors I already have.
I will always "need" to go to a bead shop or bead show.
I will sacrifice any manicure for a good beading session.
I will sacrifice sleep so I can keep beading.
I will always gladly spend my allowance on beads.
I will continue to buy the same colors because I like them.
I will not try new colors just because someone said I am in a rut.
I will try new colors and never use them again.
I will run out of beads one row before I finish something.
I will run out of a color one bead before finishing something.
I will gain weight from sitting at my bead table.
I won't care about weight because jewelry is one size fits all.
I will want to keep for myself half of the things I make as gifts.
I will want to give as gifts half the things I make to sell.
I will need ever higher strengths of reader glasses.
My cat deserves credit for some of my designs.
I will always want to start something new before finishing what I'm working on.
I will start at least two new projects before finishing the one in progress.
I will start something new before cleaning up, so my work area keeps shrinking as the mess gets bigger.

New May Jewelry

I am creating a lot of new beaded jewelry right now, as I have new beads from the Renaissance Bead Show I went to last Sunday, as well as beads from the bead stores in Tulsa and Kansas City. The dichroic pendant is from a bead store in Tulsa. I added a strand of seed beads, a blue silk cord and a blue silk ribbon.

The turquoise pendant came from a silver and gold buyer. Last week I took some kinked gold and silver chains and exchanged them for cash. He had a box with odds and ends in it and I bought this pendant. I used turquoise nuggets and silver spacers on the necklace. The two silver charms are from a pair of earrings I bought from Goodwill. (See my blog from March 13 on the jewelry I bought at the Goodwill store. I sent the other earring to my sister to use in a piece of jewelry.)

The green and blue focal bead on this necklace was purchased from Lumina Inspirations at the Renaissance Bead Show in Grapevine. I added copper colored seed beads and blue and green Swarovski crystals up the sides.

All of these necklaces can be purchased from my website: www.neeneeandcheechee.etsy.com

Cat Bracelet

MY new cat bracelet! Bob's daughter Jenny gave me the silver cat face toggle clasp for Christmas 2008. I decided right away that I wanted to make a charm bracelet using the toggle clasp. I started collecting the silver cat charms for my bracelet. I had planned to put them all on a silver chain -- Boring! Last Sunday I went to the Renaissance Bead Show in Grapevine and I saw these little ceramic cat beads that I could not resist. I bought two of them. I was going to dangle them down on my charm bracelet with the other cat charms, until this morning when I decided I wanted beads on my bracelet. I looked through my bead stash and I found these white and red vintage beads that I bought from Reduction Nation on Etsy some time ago. I had no plans for the beads. I bought them because I liked them. I am keeping this bracelet for myself, but if you want one similar to mine, contact me and I will see what I can do.

Industrial Chic Necklace

There is a new line of "beads" at Michael's Craft Stores called Industrial Chic. The "beads" are actually talismans or charms in bronze, gold metal, silver metal, copper, etc. and they come in lots of different shapes and fun objects. As soon as I saw them I knew I HAD to make a necklace! Here is MY Industrial Chic necklace. If you would like one similar, contact me, as this will not be for sale on my website right now.

Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens

Today I drove to Hurst, TX to visit my friend Ann Gutierrez and her kids, Micah and Rachel. I wish I could have seen Joel too, but he was teaching. I worked with Ann and Joel at Project SEED from 1996 - 2000. They are mathematicians who taught in the Dallas schools. I was a receptionist/secretary. I've stayed in touch with a lot of my SEED friends. I've never driven to Hurst and I was a bit nervous, as I don't drive on the Dallas expressways very often. But, thank goodness for the GPS in the car. I made it there and back just fine. Ann took us to the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens for lunch and exploring. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed it very much! You can see more of my photos on my Shutterfly album at
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=ee109e82741bc6a2f12f12eb75ef82b5&sid=8EbMmLJq3aKLYQ

Renaissance Bead Show - Grapevine, TX

My friend Mary Kulpon and I drove to Grapevine today for the Renaissance Bead Show. Mary had never been to a bead show and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She didn't get around to all of the vendors though. We were there for nearly three hours as it was. I went to this bead show last year and it was my first one. I was very overwhelmed to say the least. I have been to several bead shows since then, so I was prepared. Usually when I go to bead shows, I buy things I like and then try to incorporate them into jewelry projects. This time I decided to make a list before I went of things I needed for jewelry projects. Well, I still ended up buying a couple items I wasn't looking for, but all of these beads will eventually be used. So watch my website and blog for the jewelry I make with these beautiful beads.