Maque Choux Two Two

First, let me proclaim Happy Guy Fawkes Day to all my English friends. Both of them.

You can read about Guy then ask the burning question. What does this posting have to do with Guy Fawkes?

The answer is: Absolutely Nothing.

It just happens to be November 5th, which you now know has significance if you read the history lesson above.

Today's meal is a reincarnation of yesterday's Rib Feast with a tasty addition, Maque Choux, a cajun recipe provided to me by NOLA Cuisine. It's easy to make and tasty to boot, a great combination.

Here's the blueprint:

4 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
1/4 cup Tasso, finely diced
3 Ears of Corn
1/2 cup Onion, finely diced
1/4 cup Celery, finely diced
1/2 cup Green Pepper, finely diced
1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme leaves
1/8 cup Garlic, minced
1 Cup Tomato, diced
1/2 Cup Green Onions, finely sliced
Kosher salt, black pepper and Cayenne to taste

Basically, you saute the sausage or bacon, add the ingredients up to the celery, cook for a while, then add the remaining ingredients, cook for a while longer and dinner is served.

EEEEEE ZZZZZZZ!

Where is Rachael Ray to say "Yum" about a million times?

Here's the cooking



And here's the presentation

Rib Rub

Spices rubbed into meat, left to do its thing for a while, then cooked.

I have learned that the success to a dry rub is brown sugar. I used to just rub the spices into the meat and hope for the best. Now I mix the spices at least half-and-half with brown sugar and let the magic happen.

Here's a mixture of the following stuff:

paprika
garlic powder
salt
onion powder
chili powder
chili flakes
cumin

Mix a tablespoon of this with a tablespoon of brown sugar and you've got Rub Magic.

Spread it on neat and you've got Salty Nastiness.

Here's what it looks like after an hour or so of resting in the fridge:




Of course, if you don't want to risk making your own rub, check out the professionals like my friend Shane of Payne County.

Here's his stuff which he recommends cutting with brown sugar. Like the Stones said, brown sugar.

Veggie Stoup Redoux

Just keep adding water and eventually it will go away. That was the idea anyway.

The veggie stoup finally met its end tonight as the base for a leftover extravaganza.

Here’s the blueprint:

leftover rice base
leftover vegetable soup
leftover lamb meatballs with pine nuts and cilantro
leftover lamb meatballs sauce of yogurt, lemon and cumin
last two flour tortillas, toasted

I heated up the rice and meatballs separately and combined the ingredients right in the bowl.

Everyday is an invention around here, whether using original or pre-cooked ingredients.

Vegetable Stoup

I planned to make some kind of chicken soup. I was thinking of making dumplings or noodles to go with it. In the end it turned out completely different.

Not quite a vegetable stew.

Not quit a vegetable soup.

I called it Vegetable Stoup.

Here’s the blueprint.

onion
carrots
turnip
potatoes
celery
tomatillos
can of chopped tomatoes
garlic
ear of corn
can of red kidney beans
seasonings

Most of the ingredients I had in the fridge and I bought the tomatillos for another dinner but decided to toss them in to give the dish a tangy taste.

In a large pot (I use a cast iron Dutch oven) sauté the onions in Rachael Ray Extra Virgin Olive Oil to make them cute-as-a-button. Chop and toss in the rest of the ingredients, add some water and seasoning. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder and a good shake of Tabasco sauce.

Simmer for 1-2 hours, checking the liquid level and topping up with water as necessary. Layer in more seasoning to your taste.

I served this with warm tortillas since I seem to have an abundance of tortillas at the moment, but a good, crusty bread would be excellent also.

Chicken Curry Salad

It’s November!

And that means NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month.

This year I’m going to attempt to write about food I prepare every day this month. It’s a crazy challenge.

On the menu today was everybody’s favorite: leftovers.

Mmmmmmm, leftovers.

Let’s see what we had in the fridge:



some roasted chicken
a celery rib
an orange bell pepper
mayonnaise
curry powder
pistachio nut kernals
a flour tortilla

Add chives from the garden and we have lunch. I chopped all the ingredients and mixed them in a small bowl with curry powder to coat. Then I added about ‘this’ much mayo, mixed again and served it on the tortilla which I toasted lightly.

Here’s the result:

Mr. Observant Man

Mr. Observant Man needed corn starch. Argo corn starch. It comes in a bright yellow box and is located on the top shelf, mid-way on the north side of the baking aisle.

Mr. Observant Man could find Argo corn starch blindfolded. It’s that easy. Six giant steps, reach left and stretch and corn starch is at hand and in hand. Done.

Mr. Observant Man should have been blindfolded because with his eyes wide open he couldn’t find the Argo corn starch to save his hide.

Bright yellow box. Top shelf. Mid-way. North side of baking aisle.

Mr. Observant Man stared and he stared. He stared until his eyeballs dried out and shrank two sizes. No yellow boxes in sight. No corn starch! Argo, where for art thou?

Then, suddenly, without warning a bright PINK Argo corn starch box leapt out at Mr. Observant Man and conked him on the head.

“Wow,” said Mr. Observant Man, “a flying Argo corn starch box. And, hey, it’s PINK .”

Whaaaa? PINK ?

The conk on the head threw Mr. Observant Man into full Observant Mode and as he gazed around the store all sorts of PINK things grabbed his attention. Soup, candy, cereal, breath mints and products of all shapes and sizes screamed at him in PINK .

What did it mean?

Mr. Observant Man purchased several PINK products and made his way home to study them. He Googled Susan G. Komen and discovered this.

Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.
In 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure and launched the global breast cancer movement. Today, Komen for the Cure is the world's largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures. Thanks to events like the Komen Race for the Cure, we have invested nearly $1 billion to fulfill our promise, becoming the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world.

Corporations who support Susan G. Komen for the Cure pledge large sums of money and show their support for finding a cure for breast cancer by displaying their products in PINK .

Mr. Observant Man learned a valuable lesson and pledged to do his best to help. After the conk on the head he became

Mr. Observant Man .

Leopard

Installed.

So far, so good.

Introducing "The Hulk"

Leopard arrives Friday and with it Time Machine. Finally, Zero Touch backup for the entire house.

Right there on The Hulk. All backup, all the time.

I need a bumper sticker: Ask Me About My Terabyte

Said and Done

"Hey, did you run some laundry?"

It was an innocent question full of promise.

It could have meant, "Hey, you ran some laundry and folded it and put it away! That was nice!"

Or, "Hey, thanks for running the laundry! You're so thoughtful."

Or, "Hey, I didn't expect you to run some laundry! What a nice surprise."

In fact, simple questions often require long, drawn-out answers and I'm always looking for a way to cut to the chase and move on.

So, when the kids asked, "Where does air come from?"

I would answer, "Ask Mom. She knows."

Ninety percent of all questions can be answered with those four words. Here, though, I was stuck. Yes, I had run some laundry but it was only my camping gear smelling of bug spray, sunscreen, smoke and whatever chemicals my feet produce. I'm sure they have scientific names, but they are collectively known as Ewww-What's-That-Smell.

To the question, "Hey, did you run some laundry?" I should have answered, "Yes, I did. I sorted all the laundry and I have two more loads to run, but I did my camping stuff first to protect your delicate nose."

That's what I should have said; wordy, but correct.

What I actually said was this:

"Yeah, I ran my stuff."

As soon as I heard my words with my own ears, my brain all the while screaming, "Noooooooooooo!" I knew I was doomed.

A deafening silence followed. There were footsteps in the distance and the sound of a door closing. With emphasis. The conversation, such as it was, was over.

Mouth said, "Sorry, Brain, I guess I let you down. Again. What do we do now?"

After a short pause Brain said, "We die."

I sloped off to the laundry room and got the dark wash going. Might as well finish it up, I told Brain, it's going to be a long night.

George's Grill

This is a real American hamburger made in a real American diner, the kind of place that has been around forever and, hopefully, forever more. It's the kind of place your parents went to when they were young. The kind of place you went to. And the kind of place you're kids will go to. Good food, atmosphere, reasonable prices and a guy named George behind the counter.

George has been working this joint for 47 years and by now he knows the ropes. All of them.

The ropes include "plate" lunches, served on a real plate and set on the menu from Monday through Friday.

Monday is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Tuesday is spaghetti with garlic bread and a green salad.

Wednesday is fried chicken with cut corn and apple pie.

Thursday is roast beef with gravy, baked potato and salad.

Friday is pork chops with apple sauce and cole slaw.

I chose a cheeseburger with the works: lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion. With a side of fries. Fresh, not frozen. And iced tea, shaken not stirred.

George busied himself around the kitchen making sure everything was being served to his standard, and he worked the cash register.

After our lunch the waitress asked us if we had saved room for dessert. By a strange stroke of fate we had, and ice box pie was made to order to fill that room.




Ice box pie. Made in George's kitchen daily. Never a slice remaining at the end of the day, according to George. An ice box pie consists of a flakey crust filled with a pudding or fruit filling and topped with meringue. So good. I was half-way into it before I remembered to take a picture!

And, here's George, the owner, cook and chief bottle washer.

George said, "Haven't I seen you before? You've been here before."

"It's been a while, George, like 43 years. I was probably a bit skinnier."

"Yeah," George said, "I remember. Your hair wasn't so grey."

And he was absolutely right.




George's Grill
175 E. Kings Highway
Shreveport, Louisiana

Milk in a Pouch

I just don't know what to make of this. Milk in a plastic pouch.

Kangaroo milk?

Happy Birthday, Kink!

Kink the Kat turns One Year Old on his official birthday today. Based on fang size the vet estimated Kink's birthday to be sometime in early October so we picked the 1st as the grand day.

Happy Birthday, Kink, and many more. On channel 4.

Kink, aka the Kinkster, aka Kink-O, aka Kinkers, aka Kinkilito, aka Kinky Dinky has taken the celebrations in stride by sleeping all day. No doubt, there is an all-night party planned and I'm not invited, thank you very much, Kink. Really.

At the grand old age of 1 Kink has outgrown the Slashing and Gnashing Phase which means I'll no longer have to explain the Little Mermaid band-aids.

Kink's favorite sport is Knocking Things off of Other Things and I think he's going pro. However, if you like clean surfaces in your house then Kink's your guy. He can clear a table in a few minutes using a variety of techniques.

There's the Casual Bat, a slight nudging of the object until it falls off the edge.

There's the Two-Pawed Swipe that not only sends objects to the floor but at a great distance.

There's the Full-Frontal Slide that involves a high-speed skid for maximum disruption (especially effective with newspapers).

And there's the Pick-n-Toss that is a double action lift and throw, almost a ballet.

We're happy that the Kinkster brings some excitement to the house and we're looking forward to his second year during which he discovers, hopefully, that's it's not cool to party at 3am.

PizzaNet

Am I the last person on the planet to have ordered pizza over the Internet?

I've been in a pizza mood lately, something to do with the phase of the moon. I woke up this morning and my first thought was

"Boy, I'd sure like a hot cup of coffee and a slice of pizza."

(Memo to Special K people. Two words: pizza flavor.)

So, this evening as the moon peaked over the horizon looking like a large pepperoni with anchovies and extra cheese, I fell prey to primitive urges and started looking around the kitchen for the phone number to Papa John's. I'm sure many of you out there have that number memorized, but I don't. It's on a yellow Post It note.

Somewhere.

After a few minutes of fruitless searching I thought, "D'oh! I can get the number off the Internet. Mmmmmmm, Internet..."

Off I scurried upstairs and after a few chops on the keyboard Google served me up Papa John's website complete with phone number and order button.

Order button?

What is this "order button?"

Well, nothing kills my appetite faster than a new button on a website so I pushed it and was launched into the Land of Customer Information which I expertly navigated with a few clicks and like an apparition appearing before my eyes was a screen full of pizza thumbnails.

"Mmmmmmm, thumbnails....."

"Order me! Order me!" they all screamed.

I clicked on "The Works," hit Confirm and seconds later my email dinged with a confirmation note. Delivery in 30 minutes.

That's it? Yep, that's it. I went downstairs and sat by the window like a lonely hound dog waiting for its master to return. Sure enough, right at 30 minutes a pizza delivery car pulled up to the curb and Dinner was Served.

"Sign here," Pizza Delivery Guy said.

"No prob," I enthused, "I ordered this pizza over the Internet. All by myself."

"All by yourself, sir?" Pizza Delivery Guy said uncertainly.

"All by myself," I said proudly, "on the Internet. I've got an Internet upstairs." And I pointed up the stairs.

Pizza Delivery Guy slowly backed down the sidewalk saying, "That's freaking awesome, sir, freaking awesome." He got in his car, locked the doors and drove off.

Kink the Kat was sniffing around the pizza box anticipating a handout.

“Whaddya think about that, Kink? Pizza over the Internet.”

Kink gave me The Look, then said, “I can has pizza?”

And we did.

Peas Call

I try to be on top of the latest trends in technology but nothing could have prepared me for the cell phone vending machine at the grocery store.

You can buy a cell phone at Kroger’s?

Yep, there it was big as life between the ice machine and the bar-b-que display, a bright, shiny cell phone vending machine with brightly shined cell phones behind glass like candy bars, which is pretty much what it was: ear candy.

Insert a credit card, key in some information on the little touch screen display and clank-bang a cell phone drops down a chute and you’re on your way.

I thought, oh, great, now we’ve given little kids something else to whine about at the store.

“Mommmeeeeee! I wanna cell phone. I wanna cell phone! CELL PHONEEEEE!”

“No, honey, you already have a cell phone. You don’t need another cell phone.”

“Mommmmeeeeee! I wanna BLUE cell phone! BLUUUUE CELLLL PHONEEEE!”

As if we need something else to spoil kids with. Why, when I was a kid I was lucky to get a gumball that cost a penny. And, I’d have to walk to the store to buy it. Uphill. Both ways. In the snow.

“Another gumball, boy? What happened to the one we bought you two years ago, huh? Spoiled brat, I tell you. When I was your age we chewed tar from the road.”

It won’t get any better, either. Years from now we’ll be hearing the same conversations.

“Grammaaa! I wannnnnnt one! PLEEEESSSSSEEEEEEE!”

“I told you no. You haven’t used the anti-gravity belt you got last week. You’re not getting another one.”

“But, Grammaaa! I wanna BLUUUUE one!”

Is there no safe haven even at a grocery store? It’s not like a grocery store had its own line of cell phone, you know, like Apple or Blackberry.

But, isn’t that a great idea! What if grocery stores could market their own line of distinctive cell phone that would allow you, the customer, to distinguish yourself from all those pink, black and blue cell phone owners.

Fruit and vegetable phones could give grocery stores the competitive advantage they need in the fierce cell phone vending market.
I can see the marketing campaign now...

Who’s that cool person with the cucumber phone?

Got cauliflower ear?

Corn is so obvious a choice it doesn’t bear mentioning.

Lettuce talk!

So much phone, so little cabbage.

His and hers: a pear.

I’ve bean meaning to call you!

Is that a banana in your ear or are you happy to call me?

Orange you glad you bought this cool fruit phone?

Onions bring a tear to my eye, but your call brings a smile to my lips.

The possibilities are endless. I’ll expect to see fruit and veg phones on the stands within a week. You just can’t hold back great ideas like this.

Vegan

I have no idea who Alicia Silverstone is.

Really.

No. Idea. What. So. Ever.

Never heard of her, never saw a film she was in, never read about her in Science or Natural History Magazine, and basically never heard of her.

Who is Alicia Silverstone?

I am clueless.

But, that didn't stop me from watching her pull her wet, naked body out of a swimming pool and deliver some kind of message, which during the massive testosterone rush I forgot.

The conversation went something like this.

"What are you looking at on YouTube?"

"Uh, it's an advertisement for P.E.T.A. The animal people. People for animals. Animal people. You know." I was hastily trying to shut down YouTube but I was so too slow and Alicia was so too naked and I was so too busted.

"How come she isn't wearing any clothes?"

"She's a vegetarian. A virgin. I mean, a vegan. Not from Vega, ha ha, you know, but a plant person. Plant eater. Herbivore. Cow sort of person." I babbled the incoherent language of the so busted. I tried a weak smile as a diversion.

"So, how come she's naked?"

"Well," I stammered, "because she's a vegan. True vegans, I mean, really true vegans don't even wear animal hides." This was a weak defense and I knew I was going down for hard time.

"She could be wearing Spandex, don't you think?"

My brain, saturated by the testosterone rush was sluggish, but instinctively I picked up on the key element, animal hides, and attempted to minimize the damage I had already inflicted on myself.

“Well, that’s true. You don’t get Spandex from squirrels.” Immediately I knew that I wouldn’t have to analyze that statement in retrospect. It sounded totally lame in real-time.

As the Cold Stare bore down upon me I realized that my only option at this point was to take a flying leap off the cliff and hope the net was there.

“We eat too much red meat,” I blurted, “and we’d be healthier if we ate more vegetables and that’s what they’re trying to show with the swimming girl that if you don’t eat so much red meat you won’t look like a manatee coming off a six-month binge at Ben an Jerry’s.” At which point my brain ran out of fuel and sputtered to a halt.

Guilty as charged, Your Honor, with my remaining dignity I awaited execution.

There was a pause and I looked up hopefully.

“Yeah, I can see that. It’s good. Really good. We should do a vegetarian meal two or three times a week. Yeah, I’m on board with that. You can start tonight.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had survived! Caught in the act watching Alicia Silverstone, about whom I have not the foggiest idea, slowly pull her wet, taut, bronze, slippery, lustful body out of a pool of water and say blah blah, so, blah blah, and so blah blah, so amazing, or something like that and live to tell the tale was like Game, Set and Match plus Bonus!

I basked in my euphoria as visions of Alicia slipped below the surface.

Dinner.

Ah, the brain started up again. (Darn you, brain!) I had to come up with a vegan dinner. What to do? What to do? I thought of the great chefs from the Food Network.

I thought, What Would Emeril Do?

Deep fried pork in pork fat with pork fat fritters and deep fried pork fat. Hmmmm, no.

I thought, What Would Bobby Do?

Bar-B-Que whole hog stuffed with chickens stuffed with prairie dogs stuffed with lizards... Hmmmm, no.

What Would Rachael Do?

Pour in the EVOO and throw in your onions (yum-mie!), zucchini (yum!), lots of garlic (double yum!), tomatoes (yum-a-rum-tum-yum) and this is going to be so yummy that my yummer is in overdrive! Yum!...

And that was it: Ratatouille!

There was even a vegan movie about a rat by the same name. I was saved!

Ratatouille: zucchini, egg plant, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, tomato paste, spices and I was a Vegan Hero.

I got busy and in no time had my vegan creation simmering and giving off good smells. Well, mostly good smells. I lifted the lid and wafted the aroma into my nostrils. Yeah, garlicky and onioney and tomatoey but something was missing. Something was missing. What could it be?

Something...

(Later that night.)

“Ummmmm, this is great! So flavorful. So hearty. So healthy.”

“It’s all in the spices,” I waffled, “you layer them in. First onion, then garlic, then basil...”

“Whatever.” I was cut off. “Yummmmmy, this is good. I had no idea vegan could be so tasty. Maybe we should do this all the time, you know, go all veggie.”

I pretended to focus on a piece of corn bread.

“This is soooo good,” the compliments kept coming. Then a pause.

“Hey, what’s this?” holding a spoon towards me.

“Uh, I think that’s a piece of mushroom.”

“It doesn’t look like mushroom. It doesn’t smell like mushroom. What is this?”

“Well,” I stammered, feeling my brain about to shut down for the second time today, “it could be a piece of sausage. But, a very small piece. Tiny. No account. Not worth bothering about. I mean, not like a whole squirrel or something...” I was starting to blather.

“So, what do you call this,” pointing to her bowl, “this is supposed to be vegan. What do you call this?”

The missing ingredient was provided by a pound of Andouille sausage, chopped small. I cursed my luck at getting busted twice in one day. In my mind I heard the clanks and bangs of gears shifting, rods pushing, hydraulic lines tensing and out of all that noise forged in desperation came this:

“I call this the Spirit of Vega. It is the essence of Alicia, slim and savory with just a hint of meat.”

After a few moments I cautiously opened one eye.

“Well, it’s very good, and I think it’s a step in the right direction.”

What? I passed? I made it? I thought, Yessssssss! Who da man? Who da man? And as I was about to do my end zone victory dance I heard,

“I’ll expect more meals like this but if I catch you watching any more P.E.T.A. ads on the Internet I’ll break all your fingers.”

Fair trade, I thought, as I Googled “recipes squirrel Spandex.”

9-11 Remembered

Where were you when...

President Kennedy was assassinated.

I was sitting at my desk in the 7th grade home room. It was just after lunch. Our teacher, Polly Alford, came in and she looked particularly grim. She normally looked grim but at this moment she looked Particularly Grim.

Mrs. Alford brought us to order and then rambled on about government and democracy and how great America was, and we were trying to figure out if we should be taking notes or hiding under our desks.

Then, she paused, looked out the window and when she turned around she looked less grim but very, very sad. She said quietly, almost in a whisper, “The President has been shot.”

There was a momentary pause and the kind of silence during which you could hear a pin drop. Suddenly, one of our goofier classmates started laughing and blurted out, “Good! My mom and dad voted for Nixon!” Many of us laughed, but Mrs. Alford didn’t laugh. No, Mrs. Alford drew herself to her entire six-foot height and hissed like the python I always knew she was, “Sssssssssilenssssse!”

The babbling stopped at once and before Mrs. Alford could unleash the tirade about Respect that we knew was coming the Librarian appeared in the doorway.

The Librarian was a nice, old lady with grey hair and librarian glasses. She stood in the doorway quietly like you’d expect a librarian to do, and then she took off her glasses and dabbed the corner of her left eye with a tiny handkerchief. My desk was nearest the doorway and I could see that the handkerchief was embroidered along the edge.

Mrs. Alford turned and faced the librarian who simply said, “He’s dead. The President is dead.”

I thought that Mrs. Alford was going to faint. She blanched, turned to her desk and sat down in her chair, heavily. After a few minutes of silence she looked up and said,

“The President has been shot dead. Can anybody tell me who will now become President? Let’s write on the board the order of succession. Who can name the Vice President?”

And, so, we discussed government in real-time and life went on.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon

I was in Titusville, Pennsylvania during a summer road trip around America. My high school buddy and I had set off from Phoenix in June, travelled and camped around the edge of the country and into Canada and ended up at his aunt’s house in Titusville for a week or so of decent food and a solid roof over our heads. We decided to spend a few extra days in Titusville because his aunt had a TV and the moon landing was coming up.

The moon landing was to be two events. The actual landing did not have a live video feed but the networks would broadcast the radio traffic as it happened. The next evening the networks would broadcast live video from the moon of the actual descent to the surface by Neil Armstrong.

For some reason I was the only person in the house when the landing occurred. The aunt was not too interested in the whole affair and my traveling companion was lukewarm also. I, however, always the geek, couldn’t get enough and was riveted to the TV even though it was a radio transmission.

I grew up with the space program and knew by heart all the terminology. So, as Neil and Buzz transmitted to Houston flight data I was right there with them. As copied from the flight transcript I heard the following:

Aldrin: 40 feet , down 2 and a half. 2 forward. 2 forward. That’s good.

Aldrin: 40 feet, down two and a half. Picking up some dust.

Aldrin: 30 feet, two and a half down. Shadow.

Aldrin: 4 forward. 4 forward. Drifting to the right a little. 20 feet, down a half.

Aldrin: Contact light.

Armstrong: Shutdown.

Aldrin: OK. Engine stop.

Aldrin: ACA out of Detent.

Armstrong: Out of Detent. Auto.

Aldrin: Mode Contro, both Auto. Descent Engine Command Override, Off. Engine Arm, Off. 413 is in.

Houston: We copy you down, Eagle.

Armstrong: Engine arm is off. (pause) Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.

Houston: (pause) Roger, Twan (pause) Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’e got a bunch of guys here about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.

We were all turning blue. I was turning blue. I could imagine the entire descent sequence because I had studied the procedures for years. Looking back, I had no concerns that there would be a problem. Of course they would land. Of course they would return home. What could go wrong?

To me the subsequent descent to the surface the following evening was anticlimactic. The hard part was landing. After that, what could go wrong?

Apollo 11 came and went and life went on.

9-11-2001

On the morning of September 11th, 2001 I was sitting at my desk doing the usual: reading email, getting ready for staff meeting and going through some papers.

The phone rang. It was my colleague, Mike, in Odessa, Texas.

“Hey, Bill, are you scanning CNN,” Mike asked?

“Well, I was about 10 minutes ago but not now. What’s up?”

“Check it out,” Mike continued, “a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.”

“No shit,” I said, “like a Piper Cub or something? Did air traffic control send it there?”

I had no idea of what had really happened but as I surfed to CNN and brought up the live video feed I could see thick black smoke billowing out of one of the towers. I still thought it was a light aircraft that had been misdirected, somehow, to fly on course into the building.

“Mike, wouldn’t the pilot see the building and go around it or over it?”

Mike said, “I dunno. Maybe there was an engine problem or something.”

As we discussed what could have caused a small aircraft to fly into a building I surfed other news feeds for information and lost the live CNN video. Finally, I got a live video from the BBC News website.

I told Mike. “Hey, I can’t get back to CNN but I’ve got a live feed from the BBC. Man, that building is smoking. Do you think there are people on the roof?”

Mike replied that he didn’t know but there were helicopters circling and maybe they were trying to rescue people from the roof.

Moments later there was a flash and a huge fireball erupted.

“Oh, man,” I exclaimed to Mike, “did you see that? The fire just exploded.” I thought the eruption came from the building on fire. Seconds later it became obvious that the other building had exploded. Mike and I both thought that the fire had “leapt” to the other building.

Moments later the BBC reporters said that a second aircraft had impacted the other World Trade Center tower.

This was all very confusing.

“You mean air traffic control sent a second airplane through the middle of the city? What’s going on?” I asked Mike.

Then the reporters on the scene started to piece the story together. These weren’t light aircraft, they were commercial airliners and they were flown into the buildings intentionally. Within a few minutes there was video of the second plane circling over the city and heading directly into the World Trade Center.

Soon, the hallways were filled with people talking about the “attack” on New York City. We moved up to the conference room on the 8th floor where CNN was being broadcast over two large projectors onto two floor-to-ceiling screens.

We watched black smoke billow out of the twin towers, we watched helicopters and aircraft circle the stricken buildings and we watched people jump.

That was quite disturbing. Because of the telephoto camera shots of the buildings we could see figures plummeting from the open windows. We watched in horrified silence.

Then the first tower wavered, quivered a little, swayed ever so gently, and collapsed in a heap. There were screams on CNN. There were screams in the room on the 8th floor. Nobody expected to see that. However, in a room full of engineers soon the discussion went from horror to an analysis of what had happened and how the floors of a high rise would “pancake” down once the support structure was weakened enough.

All eyes turned to the second tower. It was burning fiercely and there was no hope of stopping the fire. It was only a matter of time and that’s all it took; a matter of time. The second tower swayed back and forth then collapsed into itself in a cloud of smoke, dust, fire and screams. Even though we had seen one tower go down, the sight of the second tower collapsing was just as horrific.

How many people were in the building? What about the people on the streets below?

We had lots of questions, no answers, and thought of work on that day in 2001 went out the window. I remember following the news during the day about the Pentagon attack and the flight that went down in Pennsylvania. The news finally pieced together enough of the story to announce that we were under attack by “terrorists” and my thought at that time was of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and how it galvanized this country to go to war. Awakened the Sleeping Giant came to mind.

And I thought, this is going to be bad. Very, very bad because you don’t tug on Superman’s cape and you don’t mess around with Jim.

It’s been bad and life has gone on.

Tag! I’m IT!

In a former life I worked in Information Technology, aka “IT.” IT started as “computer stuff” then became more refined as Data Processing, then Computer Applications, then Management Information Services, then just Information Services and finally Information Technology.

I guess the names meant something to someone but to those of us on the front line of the business it was still “computer stuff.” We programmed computers, we loved them and hated them in the same day. We lovingly unpacked them, fed them clean power and dusted their little blinking displays, and, years later, hurled them into a dumpster without so much as a good-bye, more a good riddance.

Yes, we in Information Technology were tough taskmasters; always distracted by the next shiny object.

And we were a fickle bunch. I remember the lunchroom discussions when Hewlett-Packard decided to switch from light olive to pewter as a color for their computer enclosures.

We were deadly serious.

“I hope they cornered the market on that pewter Pantone color or they could find themselves shades different, SHADES DIFFERENT, in a few years,” I recall hearing a co-worker foam.

Shades different! Heavens to Betsy that could sink the stock price!

Good old Hewlett-Packard or HP as we in the know refer to it. HP is still hanging in there in spite of not cornering the pewter Pantone color market twenty years ago. HP developed one of the first and arguably the best handheld calculator back in 1972. They followed with a line of mini-computers that brought computing power into colleges and small businesses for a few thousand dollars at a time when mainframe computers cost millions.

And during my years of servitude in IT I programmed on those HP minicomputers in an era before the Internet, before cell phones…

It was way cool.

Now, here I am at home. Home. Not a business. Not a corporation. A place inhabited by cats. And I’ve got more computers than you can shake a stick at. Upstairs, downstairs, wireless network, wireless printers, scanners, stereo hook-ups. You name it and I’m running it. It’s a full time job just keeping the printers supplied with paper!

I’ve got drawers of spare print cartridges, drawers full of wires and old power supplies, connector cables, antennas, tools and all sorts of stuff. Need a framastat? No problem, I’ve got two!

Every day I go around the house doing IT maintenance; checking print levels and paper supplies, checking bandwidth, doing backup, cleaning up spam. I tell you, it’s a job.

And, so, it’s with some poignancy that my venerable home computer, faithfully running Windows 98 for nearly ten years, finally cratered, kicked the bit bucket, shrugged its mortal modem coil and displayed one last Black Screen of Death. It’s death rattle was a rakkity-rack, rakkity-rack of a crashed disc drive and, in the end, I pulled out the power cord and heard that final Doppler whine down of it’s fans and motors until there was only silence.

It was dead. Not kipping on its back, it was. This pavilion was dead. A goner. Deceased. Met its maker. Passed beyond. Departed.

In short, toast.

Realizing that we were now One Computer Down in the house I switched into IT mode and determined immediately what had to be done.

“Hey, I’m going up to the mall. Do you need anything?” I offered innocently.

“It’s raining. Why are you going to the mall in the rain? You’re not going to buy a computer, are you?”

Dang those managers! Think fast, think fast.

“Uh, no, er, don’t be silly. Why would I do that? I, uh, need to get a, uh, um, er, power cord. Yeah, that’s it, a power cord. I, I mean WE, need a power cord. New one. Pewter.” I was rambling.

“OK, that sounds good. Just make sure you get a 20-inch power cord with 320 Gb of disc space and at least 2 Gb of memory. Oh, and don’t forget Apple Care. Hurry home!”

Stunned momentarily I let the commands sink in before running to the garage lest I wake up. That sounds like one of these:



In a trice I was returned with the “power cord” and proceeded to set it up. Fortunately, Setup Assistant was there to help me through the process and soon we were synchronizing files, loading this and that and having a wonderful time.

About half way through the setup procedure, now that I was in full IT mode, I started thinking about the network. It’s old our network is. Very old. Ancient. 802.11.b sort of old. I’m surprised we can download any videos from Girls Gone Wild, I mean, CNN at that speed. We definitely need an upgrade. I might have to wait a week or so before going out for another “power cord” although if I’m careful I can hide the cost in our Tater Tots budget.

Hey, I didn’t spend all that time in IT and learn nothing!

While I’m at it we could use a laser printer and a big screen TV, and surround sound and, well, as Chief Information Officer of the house I’ll need a Corvette to drive around in. And a condo. Definitely need a condo for off-site planning meetings. And if I go over budget I can blame the kids! Perfect, just like the old days.

I can’t wait!

Returned

Hello All.

I have returned from a month-long journey and have taken care of some nasty spam that infected the site.

I also finished the final Harry Potter book and thought it was brilliant. No spoilers here. JK did a masterful job of ending the story and tying up the loose ends. I'll have to read them all again just for fun.

More later.

Closings

The closing ceremony for the 21st World Scout Jamboree was held last night in true Scouting fashion - in the rain. However, the weather did not dampen the spirits of the 40,000 participants who celebrated 100 years of Scouting, ending nine days of activities, meeting people from other countries and general good fellowship.

The little city we built two weeks ago is coming down around our ears and every hour more of the park is visible. By tomorrow all that will be left will be neat piles of equipment, tents, flags, poles and fittings waiting to be picked up and distributed. Most of the equipment purchased by the Jamboree will be donated to Scouting and humanitarian organizations.

More stories and pictures will be forthcoming when I have more than a few minutes of Internet time.

The Internet. Who knew?

100 Years of Worldwide Scouting

Celebrate 100 years of Scouting around the world. Scouts from all 158 countries who are members of the World Scouting Organization are represented here at Hylands Park to participate in the 21st World Jamboree.

Check out the fun!

London Town

Ah, London town! It changes all the time and never changes. The trains run on time, the cabbies try to run you down and if you're not careful you'll run out of money faster than you can say "kidney pie."

On the flight over we were entertained by the brilliant, Academy Award nomination (no doubt), Blades of Glory staring some guys which was shown in color, dialogue in Spanish and subtitled in Greek. Hey, it's an international flight. Noting the difficulty with the sound system on our brand, spanking new Boeing 777, the plane in which we hoped the flight control systems worked better than the audio-visual systems, our Chief Flight Attendent, Brun Hilda, informed us that

a) there was a problem with the film. (No duh!) It would be shown in Spanish, subtitled in Greek.

b) it didn't matter because all the gags were sight gags and the dialogue was worthless. (Thank you, film critic Hilda.)

and c) if you think the a/v system is bad you should see the flight control system.

We all watched the film in silence.

Arriving in London it was bright and sunny. Not to last. By the next day a front had moved through the country dumping untold inches of rain everywhere. In a typical British understatement the BBC Weather channel reported that this much rain hadn't fallen on London in a single day since the reign of Flavius Octavius. Nothing like a little ancient Roman humour to brighten one's day. I always say that!

Later that evening we decided to go down to the pub to meet some friends. OK, that's not entirely accurate. It would be more accurate to say that we decided to go down to the pub to drink multiple pints of English ale and if we met anyone we knew, all the better. Or not. Whatever.

The slight flaw to our plan is that we decided to bicycle to the pub so we wouldn't have to drive back. Great plan, huh? The flaw to our plan was not considering how we were going to bicycle BACK from the pub. Slight miscalculation that went uncorrected later. For those of you who cycle for an obsession, er, hobby, did you know that there's a little balance gland thing in your brain that is highly affected by English ale, especially large quantities, that becomes totally disfunctional if bathed in said English ale? Well, it's there and it's quite annoying when this gland thing is not working and gravity is. Come to think of it, gravity always works.

Curse you, gravity!

Anyway, to make a long story short the National Health system in Britain is really good and there are Casualty Centres all over the place, especially near pubs and, well, that's all.

Tomorrow, rather, today in a few hours, the great train adventure to Essex.

Then and Now

Dateline July, 1967.



Skinny Boy Scout attends the 12th World Jamboree in Idaho.

The theme is "For Friendship."

Attended by 14,000 Scouts from 100 countries this is the second World Jamboree to be held in the United States. During this remarkable adventure the Skinny Scout makes friends with Scouts from a dozen countries, some of whom he would correspond with for nearly a decade.

Datelline July, 2007.



Not so skinny Adult Scout leader prepares to attend the 21st World Scout Jamboree in England, the 100th anniversary of Scouting as initiated by Lord Robert Baden-Powell in 1907.

The theme is "One World, One Promise."

Going on staff, this adult will be one of 8,000 staff members supporting over 32,000 Scouts from 130 countries. I'm in "contingent support" which means I'll be involved in everything from translating (Je parle français?) to finding ice to locating the nearest ATM. Who knows? The only constant is to Be Prepared.

I've heard that phrase somewhere...


The adventure awaits. I leave tomorrow.

Paul Potts

This has to be the most inspirational story this year. Yes, he won the competiton and has a CD coming out in a few weeks. Good for him.

Devil's Backbone

I'll be on the Devil's Backbone for a week.

Summer camp in the hill country of Texas in July. You got your two options there: drenched in sweat or drenched in rain.

Builds character.

Akkident

It were an akkident. I guard Kat Ch0w.

Father's Day Deux

My daughter skipped into the room beaming, obviously greatly pleased with herself. (This is never a good sign.) She waited impatiently for me to notice her and finally, in exasperation, cleared her throat with an

"Ahem."

"Ahem? Is there someone there?"

"Oh, Dad, you are both funny and smart."

(OK, I made that part up but it could have happened. Really.)

Anyway, back to the story...

"I got you a cool Father's Day present. You're really going to like it. Wanna guess what it is?"

"An iPhone."

"No."

"A date with Paris Hilton."

"Dad, be serious, you are not Paris Hilton's type. She likes RICH old guys."

"A tie. Like the past 18 Father's Day."

"Not this year, Dad-0!" Claire was quite pleased with herself. "One word: NetFlix."

NetFlix. Hmmm, I had heard of the rent-a-movie service but since I don't watch TV, much less movies at home, and I can't imagine spending time watching a movie on an iPod, something like NetFlix was way low on my tech radar screen.

I decided to be Fatherly. "Oh, that's grand. You know, I had been thinking about NetFlix (for about a nanosecond) but you know me, slow to change."

Claire was unperturbed. "They're running a special so I signed you up and ordered some movies for you. You're really going to like them. They're a nature series on the migration of the snail darter, some kind of fish, whatever. Anyway, you'll be getting the entire 23 disc set of snail darter migration CD's."

I feigned appreciation wondering if I could make it through Disc 1 of a snail darter migration before I gouged out my eyeballs with a spoon. I smiled and replied, "How thoughtful. I. Can't. Wait."

Expecting the daughter to smile and leave, she stood there. I could feel the presence of the other shoe about to drop.

"And...?" I offered, hopefully.

"And...well, uh, I had to give them a credit card number to sign up for the free special."

"And...?

"And...well, uh, since if you like NetFlix you'll want to keep paying the low monthly fee of *cough*something*cough* I, uh, sort of, uh, put it on, uh, your, uh, card."

She smiled.

"So, you put a free special on my card and I can cancel it if, heaven forbid, I grow weary, ever so weary, of snail darter antics?"

Daughter paused in thought, then spoke.

"Well, 'free' is such a subjective term. Maybe 'discounted' would be a better description."

In my best Father Knows Best I summarized the situation.

"You got me a subscription to a service I'm not likely to use, rather than a date with Paris Hilton during which I might have a chance to check out her iPhone, and you used my credit card to pay for it and for the next year or so I'll be getting fish spawning films."

Claire smiled and said, "I knew you'd like it. Happy Father's Day!" She gave me a kiss on the cheek and skipped out of the room.

As I opened up my laptop to look up recipes for snail darter I mused to myself, "Well, at least it wasn't a tie."

Nature Lesson

A caterpiller spent a few days munching on our parsley plant which was bolting, so we let him munch. He pretty much cleaned up several branches and one morning we discovered this.



A chrysalis. How cool! We decided to leave it alone hoping we could see what hatched out.

Several days later, having seen no apparent activity, I glanced out the window and this little guy was hanging on for dear life in the rain. The rain stopped after a few hours and before my very eyes he flapped his wings a bit then took off. He fluttered around the back yard for a minute or so, then got caught by a breeze and went up and over the house.



Happy mating, little buddy!

Father's Day

The sound of a plastic bowl of water being spilled on a tile floor is quite distinctive.

The bowl is on the floor to begin with and there is not the anticipated crashing, bouncing noise, rather there is a subtle clinky-boinky noise that is identical to the noise made by a paw stepping on a plastic bowl of water and dumping the contents on the floor.

Try the experiment yourself! Fill a plastic bowl with water and set it on the countertop in your kitchen. Then, sweep the bowl onto the floor and observe the noise and mess.

Experiment 2 is to take the same plastic bowl full of water, place it on the floor, and step on the lip of the bowl with your toe and observe the resulting sound and mess.

Whereas the mess is about the same, the sound is totally different.

Back to the story.

After hearing the bowl of water spill over the floor, I didn’t need Kink to jump on my newspaper with wet paws to apologize.

Really, I didn’t.

Philmont

I have three crews coming off of Philmont in the morning. They have been hiking in the New Mexico wilderness for 10 days, probably in the heat, probably in the rain, probably in the cold and definitely in the altitude. The 36 individuals making up the three crews of four adults and eight Scouts each have trained for a year for this trip, but the trip itself has been in the planning stages for nearly two years.

In the morning the crews return to base camp.

Since I haven't received a call from Philmont I can safely assume that the crews didn't melt-down, have a medical emergency or otherwise fail in their trek. It's a tribute to planning and preperation.

I have been the coordinator for this trip. I've been to Philmont twice before and I volunteered to do the logistics for this expedition, but not go myself. It was a tough call to remain behind but others deserve the experience I've already had. Ever the mother hen I will be anxious to hear from the crews, share in their stories, ooh and aah over their pictures and marvel at their experiences.

There are always stories about a trek to Philmont.

Philmont can change a person and I remember one day in particular many years ago...

It was the hike to Sawmill Camp. We knew it would be tough, nearly 13 miles with the final 5 miles uphill. Not only uphill but 2,000 feet uphill; over half a mile uphill. To compound the difficulty we would be taking on a 4-day supply of food before embarking on the ascent to Sawmill Camp, so we were loaded down with food and water. Our heaviest, averaging about 50 lbs each if not a bit more.

Loaded up we set off, found the trail and hiked along relatively flat terrain. It was a creek bed. About two miles into the trek it started to drizzle, then rained, then poured down with rain. We pulled to the side of the trail and tried to shelter under a rock ledge and some trees.

Eventually, the rain let up and we pushed forward only to be confronted my more squalls as a line of thunderstorms passed over the canyon we were in. The rain was relentless and the trail unforgiving, but step after step we kept on and up and finally reached the summit at Sawmill Camp.

After resting for a bit and pitching our tents in the rain, I finally rolled into the tent exhausted. Moments later my son, Chris, crashed into the tent and lay flat on his back on his sleeping pad.

He said, "Dad, the day didn't beat me but I can tell you without shame that I am done.":

Philmont tests the limits of a man and that day my son learned where his were. So did I.

But, the next day we continued our trek and completed it a few days after that. The march to Sawmill has since become legend and a tale to tell around the campfire. We not only survived it but we grew from the experience.

Now, a new crew continues the tradition.

I can't wait.

Update June 21

I talked with the crew leader this morning and they have checked out of Base Camp and are on the bus back to Houston. By all accounts a successful trip. Heavy rains in May greened up the trails and there was water available in every camp. Must have been a sight to see! The crew should arrive around midnight and I'll be there to meet and greet.

Just think, if we get lucky we can start planning for a trip in 2009!

Porky Thing

We have some ground pork in the fridge that needs something doing to it.

That was all the instruction I got.

Ground pork. Something.

OK, so I looked at my staples and found the following: eggplant, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, rice and other stuff. Thanks to the other stuff I figured I could pull off this challenge.

The first thing to do was to fry up the ground pork with some onions, garlic and a rasher of bacon, (chopped). While that was cooking I trimmed off the leafy side of the eggplant, sliced it in half lengthwise and scooped out the middle. Thinking about throwing away the eggplant center stuff, I changed my mind and dumped it in with the frying ground pork and onions.

I scooped out enough eggplant to create a couple of eggplant bowls about a half an inch thick.

As the pork stuff cooked I found a box of Pomi Strained Tomatoes and dumped that in. Then I added some cinnamon, nutmeg and a generous dose of Tabasco Sauce - Smoked Chipotle. I dumped in a cup of water, a cup of rice, stirred to mix and covered the pan for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, I heated the oven to 350.

When the oven beeped, I ladeled out some of the pork mixture and partially cooked rice into the eggplant shells, topped them with a couple of slices of tomato and grated some Mexican farm cheese on top. Returned to the oven to bake for 20 minutes or so.

So, when I was done I had a stuffed eggplant, plus a pork rice tomato sauce side dish.

Good eats were had by all!

Catnip Treats

Hey, you know those catnip treats you bought for Kink?

Yeah.

Well, they look like pistachios.

*pause*

How do they taste?

*pause*

Not like pistachios.

Catnip Dreams with Mousie

Go-Tee-Bo!

My cell phone has “voice recognition” which works about as well as the famed singing pig. The pig sings out of tune but it’s amazing that it sings at all. It's more like Voice Wheel of Fortune. You never know what you're going to get.

“Call Home,” I say.

“Call Rome,” phone replies.

“Sono spiacente, Gina che Lolabrigita non è disponibile.”

“Numero spiacente e errato,” I mutter and hang up quickly.

“Call Home,” I say.

“More Foam,” phone replies.

“Attic Foam and Insulation, Carl speaking.”

“Sorry, Carl, I was trying to call home, not foam.”

“Ah,” Carl said, “you’ve got the Binford 3000 phone. No problem. Happens all the time. But, if you need a few extra R-numbers of insulation keep us in mind.”

“Will do, Carl, have a good one and keep cool.”

Once again into the fray.

“Call Hommmmmmmme,” I shout!

“Lindsey Looooooohan,” the phone informs me calmly.

Quickly I hit the power button. The last time I called Lindsey we partied all night and I felt terrible for a week.

There has to be a better way. I’ve been working with voice recognition for several decades and it’s always been a pain. It works sorta, almost, not quite and, uh, your mileage may vary. Then again one could say it doesn't work worth spit.

Patooie!

Once I had a system that picked up on any conversation or ambient noise. You couldn’t turn it off. It went like this.

“Whew, it’s hot today!”

Shutting. All. Windows.

“Noooooooooooo!”

Confirmed.

“Stop! Don’t shut windows!”

Shutting down.

“Don’t shut down! Stop!”

Formatting hard disc.

“No, don’t format hard disc!”

Confirmed.

"Stupid idiot computer!"

Two large pepperoni pizzas, extra anchovies. Confirmed.

And so it went until that system met an untimely demise in a bayou.

Then I discovered Klingon. Klingon is the ultimate voice recognition language.

Besides Klingons, who speaks Klingon? Certainly not computers or cell phones. I figured that with Klingon the cell phone would have no choice but to obey. The only downside to using Klingon would be if there were a Klingon battle cruiser in orbit and what's the chance of that?

Klingon Battle cruiser! I crack me up!

So, I changed all my voice commands to Klingon and the results have been spectacular, beyond my wildest dreams. I'd have to boast a 100% success rate in voice-activated calls.

"Go-tee-Bo!"

Calling Joe...

"Yoooooool KAP!"

Calling Home...

"Rayyyyyyy Gni-Daiii!"

Calling Weather One...

It really is a good system, although the astute reader would recognize that nothing works 100%. Maybe 99%, or 99.9% and I confess the system did have one mysterious malfunction.

In an early test I called my wife's cell phone using the Klingon phrase

"Hi-jol phat!"

which means basically nothing, but is very close to the Klingon phrase

"Hi-jol pat"

which means "beam me up."

I must not have aspirated the "h" properly and that's the best explanation I have to what happened.

My wife's cell phone rang once, then went dead.

Later that night the kids asked, "When is Mommy coming home?"

I looked up into the evening sky as a small red dot orbited through Orion's Belt.

"Not for a while, I think, not for a while."

Walking Like Dallas

The rain pounded down on the car as the windshield wipers flapped back and forth furiously trying to keep up with the deluge.

I asked the Navigator, “What does Weather 1 say?”

Navigator was on the cell phone to our personal weathermeister back in Houston who was monitoring the storm, high and dry, I should add, on the Internet.

“Weather 1 says that the line of storms runs north-south along I-35.”

“How far north-south?”

“All the way.”

“How far all the way?”

“All the way to the equator.”

We pushed on south down I-35 through light rain, heavy rain, brief snatches of sunshine, fog and wind. What a day to be on the road, but here we were.

As we approached Dallas I checked the map. Let’s see, we take 35-East through this squiggly bit, then somehow get past this complicated bunch of stuff and merge with this road (I can’t read the number) and finally pop out on 45-South.

Piece of cake.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. I’ve made this run through Dallas before at flank speed, in traffic, and you have to be very alert and nimble to make all the exits which come fast, close together and suddenly. Be in the wrong lane for even a second and you will be cast off the freeway into the warren of twisty little streets below.

If that happens you might as well call a realtor and buy a house because you’ll never find your way back. You’ll be in Dallas forever.

Today, though, we would not be racing through Dallas. We would not be cruising through Dallas. We would not even be puttering through Dallas. We would be lurching through Dallas 100-yards at a time. Then stopping to take in the sights before lurching on another 100 yards.

If the US had gone metric we could have been lurching along at 100 meters at a time. Dang!

The one advantage of this mode of transportation is that we approached all our exits in slow motion. That’s not to say we had an easy time crossing 5 and 6 lanes of traffic to reach the correct ramp, but it was less hair raising.

Finally, after 3 hours we merged onto I-45 and headed south to Houston.

As we increased speed to 75 mph, lightspeed to us, Navigator remarked cheerfully, “Well, the worst is behind us, now! Only 5 more hours to go!”

As I examined the black thunderclouds ahead of us I thought, “Let’s hope so.”

More on Ribs

I have had a few rib disasters recently. Although I do many things well on the cooking front, I am BBQ challenged. When I think of me doing BBQ the word "black" comes to mind. It's not a good thing.

I have books on BBQ. I've watched Bobby Flay to the point where I almost like him, but not quite that far. I've talked with Old Hands who tell me useful stuff like "You gots to feel the BBQ, boy!" Yeah, all I feel is the heat from the family when they say, ewwwwwwww, it's all black.

I've tried rubs, wet mops, dry mops, smoking, unsmoked, direct heat, indirect heat and psychic energy (see the Night of the Raw Ribs). The result is either insipid or black.

Time to cue the Beatles.

Little darlin' it's been a long, long black rib job.
Little darlin' it's been a real bad rib you ett.
Here comes the Sun... (dinky, donky)
Here comes the Sun, oh Mama,
It's all right, it's done to per-fect-shun!

First, the rub. It's a fine, fine rub I do than I've ever done before. It appears that the secret is Brown Sugar. Cue the Rolling Stones.

Second, the cooking. Grill the ribs for 7 minutes on each side over the FLAMES!

Third, move the ribs off the heat and bake, closed, for a couple of hours at 300 degrees or less. Less temp, more time.

Finally, enclose the ribs in foil, add the BBQ sauce mixture (a family secret) and bake for a further 10 minutes)

Allow to rest for 5 minutes and serve.

Here's the "family" recipe (today) for BBQ sauce: 4 oz KC Masterpiece, 4 oz Raspberry Chipotle sauce, 2 oz brandy. Heat, mix and baste.

I think my Black Era was from basting the meat too soon with a tomato-based mixture which caramelized and, essentially, burned. Also, I might have had the meat too close to the direct fire. Providing the BBQ part at the end seems to give the best results, at least for this house.

One final note about rubs. My best experience has been with rubs where the prime ingredient is brown sugar and not salt. Some rubs come out very bitter or too salty. I will experiment with taking salty rubs and cutting them with brown sugar.

Having said that, when I announce that I'm experimenting with a rib recipe the most common response is that "we're eating out tonight. See ya later!"

Where's the adventure, huh?

Monty Python Cheese Shop

Monty Python Brewpub Sketch

“Hi, my name is Cloud and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

(You wish, I thought in reflex.)

But, aloud said, “Cloud, that’s an unusual name. I wouldn’t suppose that your last name is Bank by any chance.”

“No,” Cloud replied, “my last name is Chambers.”

“Cloud Chambers?” I smiled, “I hope you’re a physics major!”

“Why would you think that,” Cloud responded airily?

“Uh, no reason. None at all. Well, you seem to have quite a few beers on offer.”

“Oh, yes,” Cloud wafted, “we’re the number one brewpub in Lawrence. We have an extensive selection.”

“Great, just wonderful. Well, I’ll start with the Jayhawk Stout.”

“Oh, the stout’s my favorite,” Cloud gushed, “it’s rich and creamy and, oh, so strong! I get goose bumps just thinking about it!”

“Uh, yeah, OK. Well, I’ll start with the Stout.”

“It’s off.”

“What?”

“Off. It’s off as in ‘not on.’ Out. We’re out of stout. Oh, I made a rhyme!” Delighted with herself Cloud performed a little hop and clapped in excitement.

Distracted by Cloud’s charm for a moment, I turned my attention to the beer menu for my second choice.

“OK, then, I’ll have the Irish Red.”

“Ummmmmmm! The Irish Red is naughty and tart, a perfect companion to our Chicken Fried Steak dinner.”

“Yeah, that’s sounds just right.” I was warming up to the evening. “I’ll have a Red and the Chicken Fried.”

“Great choice!” Cloud looked ecstatic. Then her face fell. “But, the Red’s off.”

“Off?”

“Yes, like the stout. Off, as in ‘not on’ as in ‘we don’t have any’ sort of off”

“No Red?”

“No Red.”

By this point I was looking around for the hidden camera. Seeing none I scanned the beer menu for my third choice. Wheat, no. Raspberry, definitely no. Blonde something, no. IPA.

IPA, Indian Pale Ale, yes! That would hit the spot. I placed my order.

“OK, then, I’ll have the IPA.”

I glanced up at Cloud. I didn’t need the Weather Channel to see that a storm was moving in. Definitely a front colliding with a warm air mass from the Gulf. It might even be a tornado warning.

“Let me guess,” I said, “IPA is off. Off as in ‘not on.’ Off as in ‘you don’t have any on tap.’ Like you and me, it ain’t gonna happen kinda off.” I batted my eyes, rested my chin on my hands and paused for a reply.

Cloud looked down and as she did so the storm dissipated. She brightened considerably and broke into a wide smile.

“Wow, you must be some kind of psychic. You’re right, we’re out of IPA. You must have ESB.”

I gazed at Cloud for quite a while before speaking. Finally, I said:

“Darling, if I had ESB at least I’d have a beer.”

I am so disappointed

How evil are you?

Cheeta - Who Knew?

As a young lad I was an early riser. On Saturday's, that is!

The TV festival started early and I didn't want to miss a bit of it. Sky King. Commander Cody. Bullwinkle and Friends. And, of course, Tarzan Theater.

We all loved Tarzan, Jane and Cheeta the mischevious chimp. Tarzan saving the explorers, Jane soothing Tarzan's fevered brow (or so we thought) and Cheeta stealing the important jewel, map, key or one of a thousand important things to steal. Cheeta came through in the end, though, and there was a happy ending.

Of all the actors and actresses in all the Tarzan films from the 30's and 40's, one actor remains: Cheeta.

Yes, Cheeta the Chimp is alive and well and living the Life of Riley. He's 76 years old which makes him the oldest chimpanzee on record. He's also an accomplished artist and produces what has been called "ape-stract" paintings.

And, believe it or not, you can purchase a painting from Cheeta and support him through his old age.

Just go to the Cheeta website and navigate to the Want a Picture link to make your contribution. In a few weeks you will receive your very own, unique painting by Cheeta, a couple of autographed photographs and a Certificate of Authenticity.

Here's my painting. The black smudge at the botton right is a thumbprint.



And here's a picture of Cheeta with Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller. Cheeta is on the right.

Chickened Out

If you have been watching the news then you may have seen the report about ConocoPhillips teaming up with Tyson Foods to produce a hybrid fuel based on chicken fat.

Now, what exactly does that mean?

Well, I can tell you that the CEO’s of the two companies were mighty pleased with themselves during the announcement. Mighty pleased.

“The bonus to consumers may even meet the level of my annual bonus,” the Oil CEO squawked, a feather clinging to his lips.

“You’re kidding,” the Chicken CEO clucked, who’s bonus was chickenfeed by comparison.

“Yes, I’m kidding,” the Oil CEO confessed, “my little joke.”

And the two CEO’s fell about laughing and slapping each other on the back; feathers flew.

Now, think about this for a moment.

A chicken in your tank. What does that mean?

I’ve heard of a tiger in your tank, but I’ve never heard of a chicken in your tank.

Tiger. Sleek jungle animal racing through the underbrush in pursuit of prey. Fierce, strong, agile, fast. Claw and fang.

Chicken. Clumsy bird that can’t fly, can’t cross the road, in pursuit of cracked corn. Cowardly, one might say “chicken,” weak and tastes like chicken. Beak and egg.

Which would you rather have in your tank? Tiger? Chicken? Tiger? Chicken?

Just imagine. You’re driving down the freeway in your Binford 3000 Cobra XTi and, bing, the low fuel indicator chimes.

To your left is an Exxon station featuring Tiger Gas. Put a Tiger in your tank, you hunky guy, you!

To your right is a ConocoPhillips station featuring Chicken Gas (reminding you of that bad episode with KFC last weekend.) Put a Chicken in your tank, you total loser. Braaakkk!!

What are you going to do?

Well, I can tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go out and buy a couple of Hummers and some Exxon stock!

But, that’s all hypothetical. I mean, who’s going to drive around with a fake chicken’s head hanging out of their gas tank like people did with tiger tails? More important to consider is how the fuel is going to be made.

Think about it. Chicken fuel.

They’re going to, like, pump chicken fat from the chicken farm in Arkansas to the oil refinery in Texas. Does this mean they’ll have to construct a chicken fat pipeline through Louisiana? What are the environmental considerations? What if there’s a chicken fat rupture in Monroe?

“Monroe schools were evacuated today following a rupture of the Chicken Fat Pipeline. Hazardous material specialists from Shreveport were flown in to contain the spill which was being channeled into a local bayou where the fat was consumed by local alligators. Protesters from POTA, Prevent Obese Treatment of Alligators, were present, objecting to the industry practice of using alligators to clean up chicken fat spills.”

No, I think this a bad move. It’s going to encourage copycat fat fuel refining. No telling where this will end.

BP: Put a pork pie in your tank!

Shell: Put an oyster in your tank!

Valero: Put a bull in your tank!

Believe me, this is a slippery slope for oil companies to be on. I mean, what if the chickens don’t produce enough fat? How will it be made up?

Chicken fat production is down. Meanwhile, at Big Oil Company headquarters the annual employee physical…

“Whoa, Bill, looks like you’ve gained a few pounds! Been at those donuts at staff meeting have you? Well, we’re going to have to transfer you to refining. Yes, to refining. You’ll do well at refining…”

And in the Big Oil cafeteria a new line of Soylent Green wraps opens.

Ranch or BBQ?

Egged On, Not!

I’m an expert cook. Who says? Me!

I can cook anything. Moose? I’ll do a moose mousse. Pig? A pit I’ll dig. Squab? Give me a kibab.

Boil an egg. Please, don’t insult me. I can boil water and I can boil an egg, thank you very much.

Hard boiled or soft boiled? I can calculate the time to within a nanosecond of perfection. Hah! Egg, bring it on.

So I thought.

Egg Number 1.

Ever the consummate expert I prepared the landscape: Canadian bacon in the microwave to heat up, crumpets in the toaster to toast. Boiled egg with Canadian bacon on crumpet…yum-o! What’s not to like?

The crumpets popped up right on cue as the microwave beeped and and the stove timer chirped that the egg was done.

Taking the egg to the sink all looked right with the world. The crumpets were brown and warm, the Canadian bacon at the right temperature and, sure enough, the egg was cooked to perfection.

Carefully, I broke the shell on the edge of the sink and worked the shell off. I nearly had the egg shelled when…

Then, without warning, a furry paw reached around, snagged the egg and pulled it out of my hands.

“No!” I shouted, but it was too late! The egg and Kink’s furry paw fell to the floor in a yellow and white splatter on the tile. Kink proceeded to lick up his kill and I entertained thoughts of killing.

Egg number 2.

Undaunted, I left Kink to his ill-gotten gains and pulled another egg out of the fridge. Come on, I’ve cooked chocolate soufflés and Moose mousses. What could be difficult about a boiled egg? I placed the egg in the pan of water, turned up the heat and let it go. Meanwhile, Kink was licking the kitchen tiles. Good for you, Kink, point to you. Kink 1, Egg 0.

Bang! What bang? There was a bang, a clank and a fire. Soon I realized that the egg in the pot had exploded and blasted egg white and yoke all over the stove. I looked in the pot and the eggshell was empty. The egg had inverted itself and was a slimy mess.

Dang.

Egg number 3.

I will not be defeated by an egg. I’m an expert cook. I’m a pro. Boiling an egg is like the most elementary of dishes.

I can boil an egg.

I cleaned out the pot, filled it with water, selected a nice, free range, brown egg and set the timer. Boil, boil it went. Tick tock went the timer.

Ding!

Egg done and a perfectly cooked egg if I must say so myself. Smugly, I cracked the shell on the sink and proceeded to unwrap my lunch treasure.

Purple spots. Wha? There were purple spots on my egg! No, purple spots shouldn’t be on eggs. I examined the spots closely and in the end decided it wasn’t worth the risk to eat the egg.



You know, I’ve gone off the whole idea of eating altogether. Just as well. I could use losing a few pounds.

Kool Kink

Repeat

I've said it once and I'll say it again:

Annie Lennox

Catnip Jones

Sandy never showed an interest in gardening until we bought some catnip.

Now he's doing a month at Betty Ford.

Day at a time, Sandy old pal, day at a time.

Migas

Migas is a Mexican egg dish that has as it's core onions, corn tortillas and eggs. I am on a journey with migas having only just discovered it. I feel like Christopher Columbus in this endevour. A New World.

Migas means "crumbs" and there are migas-like dishes from around the world.

I'll concentrate on the Southwestern variety using leftover corn tortillas torn into little bits. A general recipe for migas would be as follows:

Saute some chopped onions in oil. When they are well cooked and turning brown toss in a handful or more of corn tortillas torn into little pieces, about half an inch in size. Cook this for a while. Meanwhile, beat some eggs with a little milk, then add the eggs to the onions and tortillas. Cook for a few seconds then add some chopped tomatoes and nopalitos (if you have them). Season with salt, cumin and anything else you like. Toss in some chopped jalapenos, for example. When the eggs start to set crumble in some Mexican hard cheese or feta cheese or grate some sharp chedder on top. Reduce the heat to very low, cover and let cook for a few minutes.

Uncover and shout, "Migas!"

For a small migas:

1 onion chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
6 corn tortillas, torn to pieces
2 eggs
3 tbsp milk
1/2 cup shredded cheese

For a large migas, serving 6-8:

2 onions
3 tomatoes
12 eggs
10 corn tortillas
1/4 cup milk
1 cup cheese

Additional things that could be added are chopped jalapenos, nopalitos, bell pepper, garlic and other stuff you think might be good to eat. Since this recipe is sort of like a flan, then chopped ham, bacon or sausage would work.