Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
iPad Wine Lists in Restaurants Now!
Restaurant Wine Lists ....... on an iPad!
Wine geek meets techno geek. Becomes Techno-wino-geek. Yeah, that's me.
Wine geek meets techno geek. Becomes Techno-wino-geek. Yeah, that's me.
Art
The above image is at The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. It's also quite a large painting, and another one of my favorites. It is called 'The Favorite of the Emir' by artist Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant. Such a great painting.
Both of these are examples of art that are more 'modern'. Don't get me wrong, I like Van Gogh, and Picasso and a few others, but Rothko not so much, nor Pollock - though I can appreciate what they have created and can see what they were going for. Just not personal favorites of mine.
This is a painting I saw while at The Yale University Art Gallery recently. It's by an artist named Edwin Austin Abbey. So brooding. Eerie. Electric. Devious. Absorbing. Just so freaking cool. LOVE this painting. It is quite large, too.
Advanced Cat Yodeling
Advanced Cat Yodeling video, straight from the Engineer's Guide to your cat folks. Love it!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Grills.
There is a certain flavor, however nebulous, that is imparted in food when prepared on a grill. What is it – char? Smoke? Flames? Who really knows, but it is in many ways as wonderful as salt is in accentuating the flavor in a food. I really love it.
So, Debbie (my wife) and I started out ten years ago with a standard Weber charcoal kettle grill. We still have it and still use it occasionally. Yes, yes, I know that true aficionados of grilling, smoking and BBQing claim the high and holy ground that the only kind of grilling is with charcoal fires. I do agree, mostly, but often, getting said grill going properly takes 30-40 minutes or more (even with a chimney coal starter). Sometimes, that is really just a pain in the ass.
So, maybe five years ago, we bought a propane gas grill. Really nice…stainless steel, side burner, huge tracts of land to grill on…good stuff. It even came with a cover, which I unfortunately only rarely used. Why? Well, we have these outdoor stray cats that we take care of (and humanely trap, get fixed and shots, then release (or find homes for!)) and they LOVE to sleep on the grill cover (and shred it). I couldn’t bring myself to take the grill cover away from them, so the cover never went on the grill, so the grill, exposed more heavily to the elements, prematurely aged.
Well, the whole history to that grill is its own story. We bought the grill, but, when we unboxed everything, many of the parts were dented. Lowe’s, the place we got it, offered to bring us an already put together grill of the same model, but it was the floor sample. Pefecto! This after the whole home burglary experience where the pictures of the original beat up grill were on the camera that was stolen from our home that was in the red-hands of the punk who busted in to our house when the cops caught him. But I digress.
So, our prematurely aging grill never quiiiiiite worked right. The side burner failed after about two years. The porcelain enamel covered grill grates lost all of their coating over time and the cast iron underneath started to rust. And the burners…they never distributed the flames over the entire surface of the grilling area – it was all concentrated in the back third of the grill – making it really hard to prepare food correctly (or have enough room to cook enough at the same time). Couple that with the ‘flame distributors (or whatever you call them) that collapsed after too much corrosion in to the burners, further contorting the path of the flame to the grill surface. What a mess. But, still, it functioned.
So, my wife, for Father’s Day (from all the cats) and my birthday, got us a new gas grill. Not quite as big, and not pre-assembled (took both of us three and a half hours!) – but this grill is AWESOME. It’s a Kenmore grill bought from Sears. The instructions to assemble could be far, far better, that is true. But, now that it is up and running, it is awesome! It actually has flames under all of the cooking surface! And there’s a new (used all the time) grill cover. Yes, the grill grates are still that porcelain covered cast iron, but, if those head south some day, I figure it will either be time for a new grill or I can replace the grates with stainless steel grates.
Still toying with the idea of keeping the old grill around, but that feeling is fading now that I see how great the new grill performs. We baptized it this past weekend with some simply seasoned pork loins from Forest Fed Pork (aka Babes in the Woods) to be cut up and tossed in with some freshly made pesto and pasta. The pesto was from basil from our CSA and neighbor’s overabundance.
I am thinking ahead to the next things to try on the new grill. Tonight we’ll be grilling some pizza. Tomorrow night will likely entail Big Meat. Steaks, hopefully ribeyes.
I wonder if the Patio Cats will jump up on the new grill and sleep on it like the old one. June really loves to do that while Wills loves to see what I’m grilling, often looking for (and getting) a handout.
I love to grill.
There is a certain flavor, however nebulous, that is imparted in food when prepared on a grill. What is it – char? Smoke? Flames? Who really knows, but it is in many ways as wonderful as salt is in accentuating the flavor in a food. I really love it.
So, Debbie (my wife) and I started out ten years ago with a standard Weber charcoal kettle grill. We still have it and still use it occasionally. Yes, yes, I know that true aficionados of grilling, smoking and BBQing claim the high and holy ground that the only kind of grilling is with charcoal fires. I do agree, mostly, but often, getting said grill going properly takes 30-40 minutes or more (even with a chimney coal starter). Sometimes, that is really just a pain in the ass.
So, maybe five years ago, we bought a propane gas grill. Really nice…stainless steel, side burner, huge tracts of land to grill on…good stuff. It even came with a cover, which I unfortunately only rarely used. Why? Well, we have these outdoor stray cats that we take care of (and humanely trap, get fixed and shots, then release (or find homes for!)) and they LOVE to sleep on the grill cover (and shred it). I couldn’t bring myself to take the grill cover away from them, so the cover never went on the grill, so the grill, exposed more heavily to the elements, prematurely aged.
Well, the whole history to that grill is its own story. We bought the grill, but, when we unboxed everything, many of the parts were dented. Lowe’s, the place we got it, offered to bring us an already put together grill of the same model, but it was the floor sample. Pefecto! This after the whole home burglary experience where the pictures of the original beat up grill were on the camera that was stolen from our home that was in the red-hands of the punk who busted in to our house when the cops caught him. But I digress.
So, our prematurely aging grill never quiiiiiite worked right. The side burner failed after about two years. The porcelain enamel covered grill grates lost all of their coating over time and the cast iron underneath started to rust. And the burners…they never distributed the flames over the entire surface of the grilling area – it was all concentrated in the back third of the grill – making it really hard to prepare food correctly (or have enough room to cook enough at the same time). Couple that with the ‘flame distributors (or whatever you call them) that collapsed after too much corrosion in to the burners, further contorting the path of the flame to the grill surface. What a mess. But, still, it functioned.
So, my wife, for Father’s Day (from all the cats) and my birthday, got us a new gas grill. Not quite as big, and not pre-assembled (took both of us three and a half hours!) – but this grill is AWESOME. It’s a Kenmore grill bought from Sears. The instructions to assemble could be far, far better, that is true. But, now that it is up and running, it is awesome! It actually has flames under all of the cooking surface! And there’s a new (used all the time) grill cover. Yes, the grill grates are still that porcelain covered cast iron, but, if those head south some day, I figure it will either be time for a new grill or I can replace the grates with stainless steel grates.
Still toying with the idea of keeping the old grill around, but that feeling is fading now that I see how great the new grill performs. We baptized it this past weekend with some simply seasoned pork loins from Forest Fed Pork (aka Babes in the Woods) to be cut up and tossed in with some freshly made pesto and pasta. The pesto was from basil from our CSA and neighbor’s overabundance.
I am thinking ahead to the next things to try on the new grill. Tonight we’ll be grilling some pizza. Tomorrow night will likely entail Big Meat. Steaks, hopefully ribeyes.
I wonder if the Patio Cats will jump up on the new grill and sleep on it like the old one. June really loves to do that while Wills loves to see what I’m grilling, often looking for (and getting) a handout.
I love to grill.
Boiled Peanuts
Boiled Peanuts......are very strange looking, slimey and the thought of them made me want to shudder at first, but they actually taste pretty good -- like a salty garbanzo.
These are a Southern thing, according to my coworker (who ordered them from www.boiledpeanuts.com). They look kind of primordial, and let's face it, gross. When I heard 'boiled peanuts', I assumed they were shelled peanuts boiled for a time, but no no no. They are boiled in the shell. Hence primordiality. And slimey. And gross.
But as I said above...they taste pretty good.
Who on Earth ever thought to prepare them this way in the first place, though?
These are a Southern thing, according to my coworker (who ordered them from www.boiledpeanuts.com). They look kind of primordial, and let's face it, gross. When I heard 'boiled peanuts', I assumed they were shelled peanuts boiled for a time, but no no no. They are boiled in the shell. Hence primordiality. And slimey. And gross.
But as I said above...they taste pretty good.
Who on Earth ever thought to prepare them this way in the first place, though?
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