Wherein I feel smug

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Frog

While we were in Puerto Rico, we went to the grocery store with our friend to stock up on supplies. While she was fretting over her choice of wine (she’s very specific on what she’ll drink and a little picky), I wandered further down the aisle and found the fruit syrups. I’ve never done Bo Diddley with a fruit syrup except the stuff leftover after opening a can of mandarin oranges. But, I felt compelled to buy the pineapple syrup.

My friend could barely let it go about me buying it. She couldn’t quite believe me when I said I was going to experiment. Perhaps mix it with club soda and rum to have a semi-pina colada? I told her I didn’t know but would figure something out.

Today I was making sweet and sour sauce for Chinese New Year. Guess what’s in that sauce? Turned out pretty well and I think it will taste even better by Sunday when we break it out to go with some salty food.

It’s also pretty decent as a splash in club soda (no rum–it’s only 1:30, people).

Yes, I told her that I had used the syrup. She wanted to know if I could deliver some sauce to her STAT.

Posted in Eating | 1 Comment

Snorkel Trip

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Frog

As promised, here are some pictures from the snorkel trip. The water was murky–a storm had been through a few days ahead–and the cameras didn’t really capture what we’d hoped. There were very few fish at the little island so we saw a bunch of grass and coral. The deeper reef had plenty of fish, but the cameras didn’t capture the vibrancy. When another boat fired up its engines to leave, the turbulence pretty well killed the underwater view.

We went out on the Fun Cat:

The view from Isla Palominos:

We saw some folks kite sailing:

Coral with a fish:

Neat:

On the second part of our snorkeling trip (the deeper water reef), I saw a ray swim by. That was pretty damn cool.

Posted in Watching | 1 Comment

Pry the internet from my cold dead hands

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Frog

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Posted in General Spleen Venting | Comments Off

I’m not a total pill

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Frog

The vacation was pretty great. We went snorkeling on Sunday and the crew and captain were professional and fun. That’s a big plus when you are trusting people to not dump you on a little island and hijack your pants as they head back to port.

I’ll have to add some pictures of the snorkeling site (little palomino island and a place off the coast of an island I can’t name–private hotel/beach, free water). I liked the snorkeling trip, but it seems to me the snorkeling was better in the Bahamas. The fish and coral were more vibrant, but if I could go on the trip again this coming weekend, I would.

Until I can get the underwater pictures back from CVS, here are some land shots.

The beach across the street from our condo:

View of the mountains:

El Morro in old San Juan:

I photobombed the better-half’s picture:

There was a huge festival going on in Old San Juan when we were there on Saturday:

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Starting to smell

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Frog

Do you know the phrase that guests and fish start to smell after three days?

As sad as it is that today is the last day of vacation and as sad as it is that most of today means airports, I am glad to go home.

I’m done with togetherness.

Yesterday we went snorkeling and at some point the better-half and I walked to the other side of the little island just so we could have a few minutes to ourselves. We like our friend, but it is time for us to separate.

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Livin’ la vida loca

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Frog

So, yeah, things are good. Warm, humid and breezy weather. Snorkeling on tap this weekend.

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Piles and Piles of Food

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Frog

I went out to the grocery store and I’m happy to report there are no more dead ducks on the side of the road. Perhaps, we can make it a whole week with the remainder of the flock intact. Do two ducks make a flock?

Friends are coming over tomorrow for dinner. We’re doing a seafood extravaganza. Mussels over baguette and grilled shrimp for appetizers. Then we’re making a fish chowder (cod, scallops and shrimp). There’s a beet salad in there somewhere and a dessert the better-half is in charge of because I’m doing most of the rest of the dishes (and he’s just better at it). The mussels are in the marinade right now.

These are the friends who have also purchased half of the enormous pork belly that I’m now smoking. It will be bacon later this afternoon. It’s been a comedy parade of me running from the kitchen to the smoker for the last hour.

To top it off we’re making bagels tonight (the sponge is on!) to put into their Christmas box. You may remember that several weeks ago I was wondering what to do about a gift and whether I had to go with a theme if the salsa ended up in the gift.

We decided to go with the idea of Friday Night/Saturday Morning for their gift. I infused some brandy turning it into ginger liqueur. To that side of the box, I added a jar of the salsa I canned mid-December and I bought a bag of blue corn tortilla chips. The other side of the box contains a small bottle of vodka, a bottle of V8, some of our home-grown garlic, cream cheese and the bagels. Hopefully they’ll like it.

Posted in Eating | 2 Comments

Chickenman

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Frog

Perhaps I have mentioned how much I like this song:

I’m the idiot in the audience who almost always yells out this request. At least I don’t yell out “Freebird”.

Roadkill reminds me of this song. And, we have some very interesting roadkill just down the way from us, but the story begins several years ago.

Someone had a black goose or duck (don’t know, don’t care and don’t really like birds except for eating). Speaking of eating, this goose-duck liked to eat on the very edge of the road. The road consists of a decent curve and a small hill that pretty well obscures your view. The bird was hit by a car. It’s carcass stayed on the road for months. The goose-duck looked a bit greasy from my perspective so perhaps it became fused with the asphalt. Gross, I know, but fascinating because it was there for a very long time.

Fast-forward to around Thanksgiving 2011. We noticed a flock of four ducks (like this) in about the same place as the long ago dead goose-duck. We both said good luck to those birds as we drove by. Around Christmas one ended up dead on the other side of the road from the original greasy dead goose-duck.

The other day I noticed a second one dead on the other side of the road. Now, who is dumber? The ducks or the owner who keeps letting his flock wander the road?

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Ugly cover, cool rocker

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Frog

What seems like ages ago, we inherited a rocking chair from the better-half’s mother. The cover was some horrible yellow chenille with massive stains. Naturally, we put the rocker right out in plain sight because that’s the way things work around here. I don’t know that anyone other than the MIL ever sat in it. Why would you? Gross.

The Fuzzy and Anna Mae team discovered they could pull horsehair and stuffing out of the bottom of the chair. They moved to their new home. I tidied up and then our newest addition, Lucy (yes, she’s a permanent resident), found out she could pull stuffing out of the bottom of the chair.

Those cats were the last straw for the ugly cover. I finally went to the fabric store today and now the chair is recovered. I wouldn’t spend too much time staring at details–not that you would, you are the internet.

Before:

After:

As you know, I’m not much of a shopper. I just don’t like looking for anything. If I know what I need, fine, I go out and purchase it. Having to go to the fabric store is like having dental surgery. I know nothing about fabric and people who inhabit fabric stores are crafty in a completely different way than I am. Basically, they can take string and make it into something amazing. They may as well be turning iron into gold as far as I’m concerned.

There’s really no need to wonder what took me so long to recover that chair. As it turns out the two people working in the store were young, knowledgeable and didn’t look at me like I was a nube.

I have some leftover fabric…wonder what I can do with it?

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 2 Comments

Happy New Year (updated)

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Frog

Tonight we’re staying home because we don’t do large groups of drunk people. Small, intimate groups of drunk people just work better for me.

We spent some time today making chorizo sausage. In the taste test, we’ve failed again. This time it’s too salty but the pepper is perfect. So, we’re going to try again soon with a decrease in salt and a slight increase in fat. Should be perfect.

For dinner tonight, we’re having:

Smoked Blue fish dip (horseradish, cream cheese, capers)
Braised Red Cabbage
Mashed Potatoes
Wiener Schnitzel

We have a bottle of champagne chilling. The launch site for our fireworks is set up and, honestly, midnight seems a long way off right now. I’m sure a bit of that smoked fish dish and a cool, refreshing cocktail will help me pass the time.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe night tonight. I’m looking forward to 2012. 2011 has kind of sucked.

Now with pictures:

That looks like a ton of food, but the wiener schnitzel cutlets were very thin pieces of veal–the picture just makes them look big.

After dinner we cleaned up and then went in to sit by the Christmas tree. I awoke with a start and got the better-half awake. It was 11:45. I was so afraid we’d missed the stroke of midnight. We did not toast with champagne but did shoot off some fireworks and wished his mother a happy new year. I think it’s pretty neat that nearly every year I’ve known him they always talk on new year’s night. It’s been an especially good end of the year for her so she did the calling last night.

Posted in Eating, Generic Thoughts | 1 Comment