The Food

Posted on January 29, 2007 by Frog

What with all the bad ministering, writing a paper and doing other homework, I just didn’t have time to tell you about the yummy food we had over the weekend.

It all started on Friday. I took a half day and got the better-half to meet me for Chinese for lunch. That task isn’t really that hard since they know him by name and favorite order there. The best part was getting him to agree to go to the grocery store with me. We decided to have brats for dinner and they were fabulous.

We let them gently simmer in a pot of beer and onions and then the better-half grilled them. Friday night I caramelized some onions and green peppers to go with the brats. We used a multi-grain baguette to hold all the meat and vegetable goodness. I have no idea what else we ate because the brats were so awesome.

Saturday we made a trip to a top-notch seafood store and got a dozen oysters from Nova Scotia and a dozen oysters from local waters. After we got in the car, the better-half decided that yes, he really did want to also have Chilean sea bass. He went back in and got a big fillet of fish.

I have to admit that we don’t have a whole lot of experience shucking oysters because we only shuck a few times a year and only in recent years. Maybe we’ve shucked oysters 6 or 7 times? I was a shucking machine. I joked to the better-half (who jabbed himself with the oyster–not the oyster knife) that I was staring the oysters down until they had to tell me exactly where to put my blade. My tool of choice? The 6-in-1 tool found at any hardware store. We each ate a Nova Scotia oyster raw and it was like taking a sip of the sea. Briny but tasty. We steamed all of the remaining oysters.

On the sea bass, the better-half slathered olive oil and salt and pepper and then grilled it. He also made an awesome sauce of capers, pepper oil and onions. Dinner was great except we need to start employing the warmed plate concept when cooking fish, especially in the winter. Everything got a little cool before we finished eating.

Yesterday I made a beer, onions and beef dish that’s really too thick to call a stew because it simmered so long there was hardly any juice. Some, but not very stew-like. We had some smoky bacon from Loveless Cafe and that added such flavor to the dish. We used a porter from a local brewery and that also brought a smoky deliciousness to the dish.

I sauteed some beet greens with shallots and roasted the beets and then tossed them with a Dijon mustard vinaigrette. Those roasted beets were amazing. I forgot all about the ability of beets to make it look like you just pissed blood until after I had a minor freak out this morning. I’ve pissed blood before and it isn’t a trip down memory lane I wanted to take. Well, that last sentence makes you want to hear more about how lovely our feasting was this weekend, I’m sure.

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A Reason Why I Don’t

Posted on January 28, 2007 by Frog

The Niece sings in a choir at church. The Niece’s choir was singing at this morning’s contemporary service so the better-half and I decided to attend. When my mother walked into the sanctuary she was surprised to see us. I told her it was Heathen Sunday. Then we confessed to being there to see The Niece sing.

The service started with a clip from the movie The Passion of Christ. Because of technical difficulties the video didn’t start playing immediately but the sound did. Creepy sounds of agony. I haven’t seen the movie but could tell we were going to get to watch the crucifixion scene. My mother hoped they wouldn’t get the technical glitch fixed. I agreed since the front rows were filled with the little kid choir. The choir of children under the age of 10. They fixed the projector and I put my head down so I didn’t have to watch iron spikes go through flesh. After the scene, I raised my head and filled my heart with hate. There’s no other way to explain it. Unless we consider that it was rage that filled my heart. How about hate and rage? I’m sure those were the emotions the minister was going for.

My sister was displeased and said she had to cover The Niece’s eyes. She also helped shield the little girl sitting next to her–the little girl who said she was scared just when the sound worked and no images appeared. My mother said she’s formally going to complain to the minister about his choice of film clips. I told her this was one of the reasons I don’t go to church.

I’m not naive. I’m well aware of the crucifixion story and what EXACTLY happens during that process. I don’t need to watch one on a big screen. I certainly don’t want my almost 5 year old niece to watch one on the big screen.

I don’t go to church. I don’t go because I disagree with the premise that I can only find redemption and faith in a room with a bunch of other people. You can argue that this outlook is old fashioned but that is the lesson I learned in Sunday school when I was a child. In theory times may have changed, but it was clear to me on this Sunday morning things weren’t that different. It felt like old times having religion beaten over my head. Let’s make kids scared so they’ll know the Spirit.

It really is none of my business how the congregation deals with their minister but I can only hope that he gets the message that showing R rated movies to small children isn’t cool. There are other ways to talk about the sacrifice that Jesus made for his followers.

Posted in General Spleen Venting | 1 Comment

Oh, I thought you said maths

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Frog

Yesterday afternoon I was walking around campus in my usual “I’m in a big hurry, people, move aside” way when a woman asked me which building was the math building. She repeated it and said “you know, math”. I had .5 nasty things to say back because she repeated the question so fast and emphasized math so much that I think she took me for a complete idiot. A complete idiot who pointed her in the right direction.

I really think if I showed up to my Wednesday night class drunk, the professor would ask me if I still had booze left in my flask. Oh how I love my loopy Wednesday night class. The professor actually had a riff on this old saying: “wrong emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble” and I snickered. The teeny tiny woman in the teeny tiny house who drinks wine while she cooks snickered too. I think we were the only ones who did.

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Oh Happy Day

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Frog

Finally, we’re past the two year mark:

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The Funk

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Frog

I’ve been in a bit of a funk today. There’s an issue at work that has been festering for a week which should have some resolution tomorrow but it has been bugging me. The issue has all the makings of good soap opera: manipulation, betrayal, back stabbing and amnesia. OK, maybe not the amnesia.

Also, the weather is a joke. I really am curious as to how we can send people to the moon and we can’t predict weather 24 hours in advance. I’m swearing on a fictitious stack of Bibles but the weather nimrod said there’d be sun today. HA! The weather just got more and more dismal as the day went by. Speaking of, it kind of sucks that while I have to be at work on time, those I work with who have children just show up once the kiddies are packed off to school. When school is on a two hour delay that means my co-workers get 2 1/2 hours to get to work. I know these latecomers have to take leave to cover the hours they weren’t at work today but it sticks in my craw that I beat the ice off my windshield this morning and got there right on time.

On a more positive note, I made lentil soup yesterday for dinner and it rocked. I used Alton Brown’s recipe* and instead of using the fanciful sounding grains of paradise I used black pepper mixed with a little ginger. I also used a mix of vegetable and chicken broth. We both had some for lunch today and I was sorry that I didn’t take a vat of it with me to the office. Drowning in a vat of lentil soup would have been so much more fun.

*Is it me or did FoodTV’s website just get a gazillion times more difficult to use? What is all that video hooha? Just let me get a recipe and be done with it already.

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Another Mystery Solved

Posted on January 21, 2007 by Frog

Many years ago my father gave us a weird picture and we hung it in our basement. When we moved a couple of years ago we put the picture in a box and the box went into our garage and sat there until a few weeks ago. We were cleaning out the garage and discovered the picture. I decided to hang it over our garage sink.

Here’s the picture:

In the past we just chalked up the picture as something strange but when I hung it in the garage, both of us decided that we needed to find out the story. As you can tell from the image all of the faces are the same. We used The Google to see if there was ever a movie produced with the title because it does look a lot like an old movie poster. No luck. Then the better-half dug deeper.

The man in the picture is Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins. We have a commemorative print by John Jodauga and I think it is fitting that it hangs in the garage. Now all we need is a ’72 Camaro.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 1 Comment

Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife

Posted on January 21, 2007 by Frog

Our destination after Once Upon a Vine was the Belmont Butchery. We came home with several packages including the biggest steak on the planet:

That’s prime rib eye and it was cut while we talked to the butcher. She really digs meat and after eating that steak last night we are plotting our return to her store.

All that fat in the before picture? Fat is good. Fat equals flavor. This steak was one of the best steaks I’ve ever had.

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This Monkey’s Gone To Heaven

Posted on January 20, 2007 by Frog

We went to Once Upon A Vine today which has been on our list for about a year–you can’t rush a good thing. I’m glad we waited so long because there’s a new product there. And, I now have a six pack of Strongbow in my possession.

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Tell Me 10 Things About Yourself

Posted on January 18, 2007 by Frog

Last night I went to the Adult Development class and sat across the room from a guy with tattooes that read TRUE on his right knuckles and LOVE on his left knuckles. Looks to me like he has plenty of ink after his wrists but due to the long sleeved shirt I couldn’t tell for sure. He teaches GED classes and works in an economic development office. He also talked about being fascinated by his latest read. He’s thinking of joining the same master’s program as I’m in. I hope he gets accepted.

Another person in my class was once a ski bum, lived on a sail boat, built her own house and rides a Harley.

Several people talked about how they are control freaks and one woman, who looked vaguely unhealthy but maybe that was just her skin tone under the florescent lights, said she’s been known to go back and fix other people’s work during group projects. All I could think was I’ll never be in a group project with that freak. One guy is originally from Bosnia and he wouldn’t stop talking about preferences (as in Meyers-Briggs). When this guy got to the part where he had to say what his weakness was all I could think was please say the stick up my butt. But, he didn’t. I don’t remember what he said because I was thinking too much about how much I hate doing that “tell me 10 things about yourself” routine.

The woman to my left wore kickin’ boots and her cell phone had a heavy metal ring tone. The woman to my right is from Montreal and said her favorite tool in the kitchen was a glass of wine. I think I’m sitting in the right spot.

Naturally I was the last one to spill my personal information and I said my strengths included being a smart ass and my weakness was that I hated, hated, hated doing these things. Both were true. I also said some other rambling things and someone asked me if I was a stand-up comic. I replied no, but a good smart ass. I think I said ass three times last night. I’m sure the professor put a mark next to my name on the roll sheet.

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Standing At Attention

Posted on January 16, 2007 by Frog

So, tonight was the first meeting of the Research class I am forced to take this semester. They held a gun to my head until I signed up for the course. Seriously, I do have to take this class this semester–no question about it. The gun thing is a bit of an exaggeration. But there was no wiggle room.

The guy, excuse me, professor, is a few years younger than I am but in the ballpark and I think he may know one of my friends. He works for the same organization as my friend. Not that it matters in but perhaps I can find out if he’s a hard ass or not. He seems to not be.

I wasn’t sure about the hard-assness when I walked in. He was standing at the front of the room and did not look relaxed at all. All I could think was that I didn’t want to take the class anyway and now Mr. Needlebutt is teaching it. Perhaps he was a little nervous? Anyway, I think the class will be fine since we’re not working so much on the statistics piece but more on the how you read and interpret research/statistics.

I could be completely wrong about the whole thing and was easily swayed into thinking the class was going to be OK because he let us out after an hour. I sort of moseyed out of the room hoping to talk to one of the other Adult Learner program students but she could only give me a “save me” look because she was talking to another AL program student and all I could think was that she needed to move seats next week. Sitting next to me and my snarkety-snark is a much better option.

Tomorrow night fun and thrills await as I attend the first class of the second one I’m taking this semester. This one is going to be fun. It’s all about how adults develop. A perfect class for the armchair psychologist.

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