…. about cooking. First and foremost, get yourself a good cookbook! This week I was given a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. Much to my surprise, it was as much fun to read as it was to actually prepare recipes.
I discovered that the reason my roast beef was over cooked last week was not because my thermometer is broken, but because I cooked it to 160° instead of 145°. I actually knew this but apparently had a brain fart.I learned about knives: what kind I need and how to keep them sharp. Consequently, I threw out three old useless knives and discovered I have what I need except for a chef’s knife.Now, do I continue with a whetstone or shop for an electric sharpener?
I learned that I will no longer use nonstick cookware, because I have learned to properly use olive oil in my classic copper bottom Revere Ware pans. Not only that, but I like the way they look so much that I am shopping for a new pot rack in order to show them off. Vain, I know, but what can I say. We are in an extended kitchen remodel anyway, so now is the right time.
This week’s new recipes include blueberry muffins, chicken Mark Nuggets, vegetable stock (which I used for a tasty chicken and mushroom pilaf and a delicious vegetable beef soup)and some chocolate butter cookies for dessert. Do you want a good laugh? I did not like the way the cookies tasted so I threw away the rest of the batter after a dozen cookies. The next morning, my daughter said, these are pretty good dad. Oops, guess I still have a lot to learn.
Looking forward to more cooking adventures this week!
I have always been fascinated with cars. Started when I got my first Lincoln Continental Mark I diecast car as a six year old. Not too long after that, in the late 50s, my dad would take me every year to the Ford Rotunda for a test drive in this year’s new models. I still remember my first ride. It was once around the track in a 1960 Mercury Monterey in September 1959. Now 50 years later, the Mercury has been discontinued.
That is also about the time that I started to sit on the front porch and daydream about driving a new car. I remember how fun it was every September to spot the first of next year’s models driving up Oxford street in Dearborn, Michigan,hometown of Ford Motor Company. This was of course before all the new car started to look the same.
in the spring of 1966 I enjoyed teaching myself how to drive. My parents went to New York City for a weekend, leaving us with a rather dimwitted old lady to babysit. She didn’t notice on Saturday morning as I backed my mother’s Volvo out of the garage then proceeded to spend an hour learning how to work the clutch as I drove up and down the driveway. Then, I was off and running so to speak. Backed out into the street and took off to tour Berea. I enjoyed the pleasant afternoon driving all over town. The next morning I took it up a notch! Used my dad’s 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix to deliver my paper route. Man, I was king of the world.
Finally got to drive legally, you know with a license, in the spring of ‘67,still with mom’s Volvo. I loved driving that stick shift so much that I can remember the driving instructor telling my mom “this kid will never wear the brakes out” because I liked to downshift so much. The sound of the engine braking as you let out the clutch is still music to my ears. in the winter of 68 the Volvo became my car after I smashed the front end into a tree. Mom got a new Saab and I have owned my own car ever since.
well, now that I have a voice activated text feature on my keyboard lets try this blogging thing again. I have a lot of thoughts, but my keyboard skills are lacking, which obviously makes blogging very difficult. Well, I think that difficulty has just disappeared. I am pretty sure that I can do 60 words per minute or more with this headset. So today we are going to try it out.
I guess this will probably date me when I tell you that I went to the Super Bowl before it was the Super Bowl. Okay, actually it was the NFL Championship game in December, 1964. Browns24, the Colts-7. Woke up Christmas morning to find two tickets in my stocking. I still remember seeing Jim Brown and Gianni Unitas. Have been a big fan ever since, but have never made it to the Super Bowl. guess I had better get going if I am going to make it to 44 straight like those old coots on the Visa commercial.
let’s get back to the present and talk about today’s game.growing up in Detroit, then living in Chicago. I have never rooted for Green Bay. That is until today. we have a new dog and a family, and he is from Wisconsin. So in order to celebrate his arrival we are rooting for his hometown team, so go Packers!
If I never hear the name Brett Favre again I would be delighted. However,if I were to make a prop bet today it would be that we hear the name Brett Favre at least 150 timesbefore the game is over.
Whatever happened to Chad Brock?
Don’t you just love it when the next song comes on the radio and you say to yourself whatever happened to?…………. Yeah a one hit wonder. Maybe it’s because I listen a lot to satellite radio and favor 50’s & 60’s pop along with 80’s & 90’s Country. Obviously, it is too soon to say who, in this current crop of stars, will be a one hit wonder. Looking quickly at today’s landscape I can only hope a few of these artists someday make the category.
Is there something about lost love that favors a singular shot at stardom? My favorite song of all time is Last Kiss. No Katie, not the remake from Pearl Jam in ‘99. The original recording was from singer song writer Wayne Cochrane, however the successful recording was made by the immortal J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers in 1964. To this day, the opening chords put my brain in happy mode. Which I guess is a little weird since it is about a girl being killed in a car accident.
I also have to rank Teen Angel right up there. Mark Dinning released this anguished ditty featuring a girl who gets killed by a train when she runs back to a car stalled on the tracks to retrieve her boyfriend’s class ring. Upon its release in 1960 it was banned by some radio stations as “too morbid”.
Must have been a 60’s thing because in that era we had others such as Dickie Lee’s “Patches”, a girl who offed herself when her lovers family forbid him from seeing her, Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I love Her” (death in a stock car race trying to win $ to buy a ring) and Moody River , which fits the morbid category as a lover contemplates suicide after his girl cheats on him, though no one would consider Pat Boone a one hit wonder.
As for Chad Brock, “She said Yes” was his only number 1 hit . I just found myself happily singing along and wondered: Whatever happened to Chad Brock? Turns out on October 25, 2010 Brock announced on his social networking page his intention to run for the United States Senate (GA) in 2014.
Had an interesting conversation with a young pastor yesterday. He is preaching a series called 50 Essential Stories from the Old Testament. My first thought was I bet I can come up with 30 or 35. I purposely did not ask him to name any of those 50, then sat down after supper to list as many as possible.
As I started I thought 25-30 would be easy. I have been in and out of the bible all my life, though not “religiously” until the 90’s when I spent 5 or 6 years in study and small groups. Lately, not so much. Anything less than 20 would be embarrassing. I mean c’mon: creation, Garden of Eden, 10 Commandments, Coat of many colors, parting of the Red Sea. How about Samson & Delilah, David and Bathsheba, David and Goliath, Noah’s Ark. That was easy, but that is only 9.
A little more thought gave me Joshua at Jericho, the Tower of Babylon, Cain and Abel, Lot’s wife/pillar of salt, Daniel in the Lions den, Shadrach,Meschach ,and Abednego, the Jews wandering 40 years in the desert. Okay, that gets me to 16. Moses placed in a basket in the river? Abraham told to sacrifice Isaac? Abraham and Sarah have a baby at 90 years old. Joseph is reunited with his family. Or is that a continuation of the coat story? I am making it separate in order to get to twenty and not be (totally) embarrassed.
Okay, just pulled out my Bible and started flipping. Plagues, patience of Job, the prodigal son and so much more. Time to get back to the Book. Thanks Pastor Joe !
Chop Suey is the Spam of Chinese food
“Nature knows no indecencies, man invents them.” -Mark Twain.
Cleveland Street resident Anthony Harbison said he woke up and smelled gas.
“I just knew something was wrong. It smelled too bad.”
Firefighters asked him to leave his residence. He grabbed his homework, a TV, a Playstation and his four dogs.
He planned to spend the coming hours with friends until he knew it was OK to return to his house.
“This is it,” he said while walking away from his house. “I took all the necessities.”
I have been asking that myself. Happily married male, soon to be sixty, long time social networker. In fact, my networking started via telephone in the mid ’60s, probably before the term networking even existed. As a young teen I spent hours on the phone every night. I called Dawn, Ginger, Bev. Was it gossip? I suppose, but I do know this: I really enjoyed talking to girls and finding out “what’s happening?”. Is that any different than what we do on facebook?
When I wasn’t on the phone I was hanging out on a bench in town, drinking Coke and eating licorice. My friends would mill around as we basically did nothing. In the winter, we moved inside to Nick’s Campus Snack Shop. Sort of an early Starbucks trend.
Was in the initial computer class offered at Dearborn High School in 1969. Data processing at that time included boxes of cards, punched with information then fed into a giant computer. I was bored stiff and soon left the field for blue collar labor. Looking back, not so smart…………
Spent 8 weeks as a student at Eastern Michigan University. Spent more time shooting pool at the Union than in the class room. Did not meet probation requirements (1.5 GPA) and soon left for blue collar labor. Looking back, not so smart……….
I was one of the early “burger flippers”, though technically I flame roasted burgers with Jeff at Burger Chef. To put it in some perspective, the industry was just installing its first drive through windows and McDonalds was just kicking around the idea of breakfast. Spent twenty years managing minimum wage employees until it became maximum stress.
Went into home delivery of frozen foods in ‘94 with Schwan’s. Fun times as I discovered the joy of no employees: just me and the consumer.Sort of a bi-weekly door to door networking thing.
Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in ‘97, leading to the need for a more sedentary lifestyle. Took a 6 month course and became an A+ Certified computer tech. Never really understood what I was doing, though, and ended up scuffing along for 2 years. Turns out I really wasn’t so smart, at least not in the tech field.
Finally landed in the funeral industry as a pre-planning consultant. I became known as the ultimate layaway specialist, promoting “buy now, die later” options. In a manner of speaking also the ultimate in social networking, espousing the value of friends&family gathering to share info about the deceased.
No regrets, but if I had it to do over…….. I might tweak a few things !
And if Americans didn’t want something cheap, Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist.