Don't Be Fatuous, Pork Chop

Silly pork chop, I already made a gravy last time. You're right, this one would be prepared slightly different, but I'm thinking more of glazing you. Wouldn't you like a nice sauce to lie with? What's that?...you want it to be memorable? You're already getting a blog post what's more memor...oh...you say you demand a sweet sauce. Between the two of us, pork chop, you're in no position to demand anything. You're uncooked, already dead, and been manhandled by a number of butchers on your trip to my cutting board. You're about to be trimmed of that fat and slowly reaching a state in which no one could ever love you if not cooked soon. Demand you say? Well let me check the cabinets. How about this:

That's right we're talking the king of dried cranberries. These babies make the snacking process a downright pleasure. Oh pork chop, you're about to enter a euphoric state of affairs. So here's what I was thinking to go with you.

You, pork chop, and three of your brothers
1/2 tsp each of salt, pepper, garlic powder, mixed together
1 medium onion sliced and separated into rings
1/3 cup + 1 TBSP water
1 TBSP brown sugar
1 tsp corn starch
1 tsp corn oil
3 TBSP balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup orange flavored cranberries

So pork chop let's trim that fat and sprinkle you and your buddies with the seasoning mixture. Now let's get you all cooking on medium high heat after heating up the corn oil. When you're all done, take a rest off to the side and keep warm. But, before I do, smile!
Wait, what? You want some buddies? OMFG pork chop! You wait this long to tell me you must have more than a sauce?! Dazzle me, you say. Ah hell pork chop, you're so needy. I'll see what I can do, so just relax.

Now for your sauce. First let's drop the heat back to medium low, about 3 on a 1-10 scale. I'll put the onion and 1 TBSP water in the pan with your juices and cook the onions until they start to brown, stirring periodically. Then I'll toss the brown sugar in and stir until it dissolves, about a minute. Next here comes the rest of the water, balsamic vinegar, and cornstarch. Once stirring that together, I'll add the king in all his glory. Stirring frequently, I'll get your sauce up to the beginning a glaze. I know it's coming to this because it's getting bubbly and thick. Now, pork chop, it's time for you and your buddies to meet the sauce I've prepared for you. Ahhh, you like that don't you. Feels good. OK settle down pork chop. It's time for you to see what I was doing as your surprise.
Give up? They're plantains! Aside from the fact that they're a bitch to get out of their peel when they're actually ripe, they're very good just grilled up. They turn into these sweet little chips that go well with many things. What you see is a live action shot of them in the grill pan. It's a shame they had to bend over and take it because you're being super lame about wanting a partner. So pork chop, I'll present you to the world.

Have Turkey Will Gravy-fy

After spending some time on Stash's website, I thought I'd contribute to society by putting up recipes and such once in awhile. That said, let's start with a dish that's all about leftover turkey. Of course, you can make turkey just for this, but it's really more of a "this will do" recipe. To summarize, you take turkey and make gravy with it. The addition (dare I call it a pairing?) is sweet potato fries, just not fried. Let me explain. I grew up where I can count the number of times we ate out in a year on less than both hands; the majority of which were special occassions. Not to say that we didn't eat well...hardly. This meal goes back to the homely ones that, as a kid, I thought had such a creative spin so it was more than just "leftovers." The other half came from a restaurant where Kelly had sweet potato fries (deep fried of course) and I thought, "Hell I can do this better." What's more, it goes fantastically with my down home cookin' idea. Now to the food.

Turkey Hash and Sweet Potato Fries Ingredients:

Turkey

A Sweet Potato

1/2 Cup Flour

3/4 stick of butter (what's that?...6 TBSP)

Water, about 3 cups possibly more

Bread -> Toast

Seasonings

It's best to start the sweet potatoes since they'll take time in the oven. Go ahead and preheat it to 350. While that's warming up, cut the potatoes into strips leaving the skin, like fries. Spray or brush with some oil and sprinkle with what you like. I used salt, pepper, and paprika. You'll probably add more of each when it comes out of the oven, so set it aside. Next time, I'll probably try some steak seasoning and sea salt.

Slide that into the oven on the top rack for 20 minutes, we'll be back. Next melt the butter in a pan on medium heat. When that's good, start pouring and mixing the flour into with the butter. It should be crumbly when you've got it all mixed. Let that get brown, then start pouring your water in and stirring. Personally, I started with about 2 cups and slowly went up from there to meet my consistency needs. I ended up with about 3 cups of water. You're welcome to use milk instead. Once you've got a gravy going, add your turkey. I didn't mention an amount, because as the rule goes: the more turkey you want, the more you put in. If backed into a corner and forced to tell how much turkey I used rather than hand over my wallet, I'd have to say between 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups. Salt and pepper it to your tastes and let everything marry.

By now the fries should be almost done in the oven. When the 20 minutes are over, put the heat up to 385 for about 10 minutes. Afterwards, they should be crisp on the outside and done on the inside. For plating, cover a few pieces of toast with the turkey hash and lay it next to a pile of fries.

Just Another Day in Augusta Co.

myThanksgiving

Dad Me

Situated at the base of the Shenandoah National Park sits Crimora. Housing the abandoned mines which founded the township, Crimora has no stoplights, a fistful of trailer parks, baseboard heating, and a post office right next to a Dollar General and The Village Market. It's my home. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is long gone and Crimora's 100 miles away. Kelly and I went there first for 1/2 Thanksgivings. Before eating, we were able to snap a few images.

A shot of the mountains (above) and my sister unveiling the oreo cheesecake she made me

Here, Uncle Jimmy takes a shot with the bow.

And now, it's the old man's turn.

Sadly, we had to leave for Inwood the same day so we could have Thanksgiving all over again at our house with Kelly's family. Both meals were gut busters; I wish I could eat like that all the time.

Naming Standards

Kelly and I finally got around to watching the premeire of Top Chef. Throughout the last couple seasons, we've begun a semi-tradition of giving nicknames so we can keep track of the contestants. The newest part of this tradition is that we'll actually document the names. So, here they are:

Cool Lesbo: Jamie

Fake n Bake: Ariane

Bug-Eyed Duck: Carla

Big Normie: Richard

Mr. Embarrassed: Patrick

Weird Face: Lauren

Capt. Kirk: Jeff

Bollywood: Radhika

Beard - 2: Daniel

K Fed: Fabio

Olive Oil: Jill

City Girl: Leah

Man Face: Melissa

Big Screech: Alex

Gansta: Eugene

Finland: Stefan

Wide Biel: Lauren

Bald Wayne: Hosea

After the first episode, Wide Biel and Mr. Embarressed have gone home. The former because of her poor peeling, brunoise, and ultimately her cooking skills (the lack, obviously); the latter was eliminated because he had the least favorite dish. Finland won the first elimination challenge.

The contestants have been conditioned on what to expect from the kitchen. Hopefully no one loses their head in with three minutes to go during the elimination challenge and starts smashing knuckles with a meat tenderizer. Not that that sort of thing is a frequent occurance on Top Chef, but you never know about a room full of strangers all cooking together. Hopefully some psych evalutations were performed to prevent that kind of outburst and prevent potential harm to themselves and others.

I'll have to wait a couple of episodes before I can pick someone to pull for, but after the first episode, I have to lean towards Bald Wayne (partially due to the name) and Capt. Kirk (although he can't hear my cheering because of how awesome he is).

State Of The Dude, Part II

I mean to pick up where I left of in Part I. Let me however journey back a few stanzas to the 5K. The results came in today, and as it turns out I came in 85th at 26:09, with an average mile time of 8:25. There were 185 people overall. You can view the official results here. Kelly's results are there as well. She came in 118th and was 4th in her bracket.

Back to the end. We concluded Saturday night with the Friend's Thanksgiving. The occasion and events are really there in the title. It's a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of friends but before the actual holiday. Kelly made her macaroni & cheese. Good thing I was around to bring the cornbread since there were no other entries.

Breakfast with Scott & Beth was a lot of fun and at times, hilarious. Scott and I showcased our manly nature by order Mama's Pancake and Mama's French Toast Breakfasts, respectively. We marvelled at our ability to down two plates full of our title food, eggs, and sausage. Top it off with biscuits & jelly and you've got yourself one helluva meal. After the trip to the store, it was time to play the first ultimate frisbee held on Sunday. I took Jade and I don't think she could've been happier. It's unfortunate that I must say that taking her was the best part. While gameplay was good, the wind was a real downer for the whole day. 

Sunday night finally came and Stash and I got to play GOW2 together for the first time. While very nostalgic, I had some network problems that I'm not convinced are solved. I'm running the xbox wirelessly to our single router. Unfortunately, the router is upstairs so it's got a lot of walls and interference to run through. I changed the broadcast channel in hopes that would help the interference part of the whole equation. I think it helped, but I'm not sure it completely solved the problem.

State Of The Dude, Part I

It's been a week. I've got a few updates. First of all, I want to amend the recipe for the cornbread. Basically, make it two eggs instead of one. You're welcome to take down the milk a little, too...say 3/4 cup?

So I just got off the phone with He-man in good ol' San Fran. The big man's doing well. I'm sure he's got some more great artwork going up soon. Check it out. Speaking of Will, he mentioned I should try making jalapeno and cheese cornbread. Being the genius I am, I forgot to get jalapenos so I'll have to remember that when I go out tomorrow.

Gears of War 2 came out on Friday. Of course I had to get a copy of that. I gotta say it's pretty impressive. The weapons are all really great. The GOW2 team even revamped all the old ones so they perform more realistically, yes including the chainsaw machine gun. I haven't run into all the new weapons yet, but I have gotten to play with the flamethrower and shoot mortars. The monsters are more badass than before and they actually come in hoardes rather than half dozen hanging out in a room or hallway enjoying some coffee and scones. Another great thing about the game is the graphics and environments. The game employs the Unreal 3 engine with a few modifications made to it. Not much else to say except that it's a lot of fun to play. I'm still playing the campaign and working out some network issues (see next post).

Saturday we ran another 5K. This time we didn't have to get up before the sun and head out of state. The whole race was 15 minutes away at the local VA which hosted the fundraising event. The run was actually a lot of fun. What I mean to say is the area in which the run was held was a lot of fun to run in. The run itself made me wonder why I do these things in the first place. Out of a few hundred, I placed 89th coming in at just over 26 minutes. My first mile was about 8:05, the second mile was 16:40, and the third finished at just over 26. As you can tell, my mile times dwindled as the race went on, moreso between miles 2 and 3. Perhaps that was due to the lack of training or all the candy I've had to eat since Halloween drew to a close. The other reason was that by the time mile two was over, I didn't feel like running much longer. Some people from work and I are talking about a 10K come May, so we'll see how that goes.

So I had a little more here but I got tired of writing so I'll make another post tomorrow or sometime in the next couple of days.

Capt. Reynolds & Inara Serra

Halloween blew through wVA with its usual gusto. Last night was the costume party that we attend. Larry and Alex (the hosts) were Jason from the Argonauts and Medusa, respectively. We also saw a few of the main cast from Gilligan's Island, Dr. Horrible, Michael Phelps, Sara Palin, Marvin the a seductive witch, a vineyard vixen, a pirate, and a few others. Here are a few picture of us. I was Capt. Malcolm Reynolds and Kelly was Inara Serra, the Companion. Both are characters from Firefly, the show that ran for a season; and Serenity, the movie that served as a sequel to the show. The premise of both the show and movie is a space western.
We ended up playing, undefeated I might add, in beer pong. Yah us. After being sure we were set to drive (thanks to the Larry and Alex's breathalizer), we uneventfully made it home and got some sleep. Unfortunately, we forgot about the time change so we woke up just before 8 AM.
For breakfast, we made a sweet potato & egg concoction that hasn't been fixed in awhile. During breakfast, we watched Kung Fu Hustle. Now, if you've never seen Kung Fu Hustle, then I strongly recommend it. It's a parody of just about every other kung fu movie you've ever heard of with some similarities to the Matrix thrown in. Then again, even the Matrix was a very kung fu-ish movie. Anyway, ripping good laugh with some ridiculous action. Once that was over I played with the dogs.

Can't Scare 'em All

...Road Worth, Hungry And Mean

Did you know I've never made cornbread before? You'd think being from the south that I'd come out of the womb with a seasoned iron skillet in tow and two stone tablets on how to use it. Although this isn't the case, the shock of the aforementioned realization while at Cracker Barrel (Seeing Double) gave me a challenge of 1) finding a good recipe and 2) making it. I figured meat loaf and mashed red potatoes a perfect candidate for testing cornbread, especially since Kristy (Kelly's sister) was coming over. Kelly made the meat loaf and I handled the rest. I can honestly say, with all due humility, it was a fantastic meal. For desert we had apple turnovers Kelly bought from work topped with ice cream Kristy brought. As you can tell, the cornbread came out wonderfully, receiving pleasing smiles from all involved.

After sifting through a few recipes, here's the one I used:

1 cup (160 g) yellow corn meal	combine	stir	bake 400°F 20 min.
1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
1 Tbs. (14 g) baking powder
1 tsp. (6 g) salt
1 cup (240 mL) whole milk	whisk
1/3 cup (80 mL) vegetable oil
1 large egg

Another important piece of this recipe is to use a 10" iron skillet. Warm the skillet over medium heat and melt butter or mist a small amount of oil to coat the bottom. Pour in your batter and send to the oven.

Seeing Double

Let me start with yesterday. We had breakfast with a few friends of ours at Cracker Barrel. We haven't seen Scott and Beth in awhile, so it was good to catch up. We touched on all kinds of topics such as houses, school children, a little bit about work, the stock market and financing in general, and old tv/movies. After leaving there, we got our usual errands done: store, lowes, etc. After spending some time at home, we braved 81N and went for Hagerstown. There, we met with Kelly's grandmother at, take a guess...Cracker Barrel! In all, everything I ate on Saturday came from Cracker Barrel. She originally had picked Moutain Gate, but changed her mind. So after battling my way through many plates of Cracker Barrel, we wished Grandma B a happy birthday and came home. I spent most of the evening afterward installing some small shelves in the garage and some general maintenance. Check out the stunning pictures of The Garage, Round 2:

I spent some time today doing the last of my research and preparation for dd-wrt. After talking to Dom about a similar piece of 3rd party router software (Tomato), I did some digging and learned about my router. I found out it's a newer generation Linksys WRT54G. Oh, newer generation, I'm thinking great this should be able to handle anything. Tomato should go on no problem.

Wrong.

As it turns out, newer generation just means 'what are the absolute basic features we can cram onto 2 MB of flash memory?' See, the older models came with 4 MB and some even with 8. Perhaps they process data at a faster rate and while that's fantastic, it's still no reason to stiff your customers and give them only the bare necessities. So, needless to say, Tomato wouldn't work for me. That's when I learned about dd-wrt. It comes in many flavours, one of which being the micro version, which fits on 2 MB flash memory. So after successfully flashing the thing, I couldn't get on the internets. I thought...wtf!? So after screwing around and connecting to other wireless networks in the area it dawned on me that I needed to do a hard reset of the cable modem. I cycled the power on it, but that was no help. What makes me feel stupid is I KNEW that a hard reset is required but somehow I let it escape my steel trap mind. Nevertheless, I'm now running a solid install of dd-wrt micro.

Tall Tales

So this is a picture of Ryan and me. It was the 2nd time we ate a whole box of cereal as our dinner. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the picture from the first time. It was an equally glorious victory picture of a large accomplishment.
"But Wayne," you may ask, "eating a whole box of cereal isn't a big deal." Yes it's true, many people can survive this intestinal onslaught. However, we had a set of rules that make the Average Joe unable to perform such a feat. Rule 1 - The cereal had to be 1 lb. That's right. 1 whole pound. If it was over such as my first cereal, Cheerios, we used highly advanced mathematics to bring it down to a pound. Rule 2 - It had to be eaten in one sitting. No bathroom breaks, no getting up to stretch out. The only allowed movement was going from the couch to the floor. Rule 3 - No eating dry cereal. God created cereal and milk to go together. The only exception to this rule is when you're snacking, which we weren't doing.

My Scorecard

1st time: Honey Nut Cheerios

2nd time: Trail Mix Crunch

3rd time: Shredded Mini Wheats - Maple & Brown Sugar

Ryan if you're reading this, send me the first picture and your scorecard. You should definitely put it up as a comment to this post.

Musical Chicken

5K

4:30 AM came and I gave serious thought to letting it go, too. Before the sun, we got up and hit the road. We ran into Stacey and Travis on the road, got called slow because of that, and soldiered on. We missed the turn for the Park & Ride, but ended up getting a better place that we were able to walk to when the race was over. So we started the run a couple minutes after 8 AM and the sun had barely been out for 30 minutes. Kelly and I were together for the first two miles, then I decided I wanted to get the race over with. In all, I huffed my way to a 28 minute 5K. Not bad I suppose and it was under the 30 minute absolute max I set for myself. The race itself was cool. One thing I gotta say, DON'T START WALKING WHEN SOMEONE IS RUNNING RIGHT BEHIND YOU. I swear this happened to me twice. First of all, their pace wasn't enough to keep up with inflation. Secondly, YOU'RE IN A RACE. Once it was over, I snapped a few shots (not of us).

The following were taken on the way back home. They were taken while we were still in Maryland. Unfortunately, time in Virginia felt like 15 seconds so I wasn't able to work the camera fast enough.

Could've Been a Gull in a Clipper's Wake

As updates go, this one is par for the course with a few exceptions. Part I is all about work. Work is roughly the same. Our deadline sits with dark clouds looming as all our plans show completion time being long long after it's supposedly due. I can't tell you how I feel when I'm on a support call and I get to say, "oh that issue...yeah all of a sudden it's not a big deal with our customer. Why you ask?..." The call goes on from there, but I've uttered those words on more than one occasion.
Part II is about home. As home goes, things are changing in the garage. I finally bought a toolbox so we can get stuff together and organized. My need to have a space to do my tinkering/listen to music/maybe start playing music again made the reorganization an inevitable endeavor.
So I've got my old PC speakers out there with my laptop, tools, and archery equipment. The dogs usually run in and out of the laundry room and perform pest control (no rats yet!). Even though I've got no pictures, I'm currently trying to figure out why my old disc changer stopped working. I'm not sure how far I'll get, but I've got the space to work on it now. Hopefully I don't fry it (or myself) trying to work with AC -> DC power. I'll get to that after hooking it back up in the truck and listening to it in operation, or a lack thereof. Let this be the first of many projects. It's a work in progress. Maybe I'll have a place to start making wax bullets of my own.
Part III is music. I got Clutch's live recordings album Full Fathom 5. It's definitely an enjoyable piece of auditory literature. The album features music all the way from 1995 to their latest release, From Beale Street to Oblivion. Unfortunately, there's nothing new on the album like we heard at the concert in Richmond. I'm sure the DVD does, but I doubt I'll get that anytime soon.
Part IV is where the computer nerd in me comes out. After talking to the Dominator and doing some research, I'm going to flash our wireless router with DD-WRT. It's a 3rd party utility that should provide more features than the Linksys default. Unfortunately, I can only use their micro- version since our router only has 2 MB of flash memory. I'll post the outcome of this little venture in an upcoming post.
Part V is the future. Tomorrow, we're trekking to Hunt Valley, MD to run the 2008 Race for the Cure. Good ol' 5K at 8 AM and it'll take almost 2 hours to get there. Anyone else fail to see the logic in driving 2 hours to run a race that takes less than 30 minutes? The donations are for a great cause and I must say we always have fun running with all those other people. So come the next few days, I'll have a post for that.

Don't Worry, Everything's Clean...

I decided to jump on an opportunity and buy a used bow. I know what you're thinking...what's wrong with it? was it dry fired? did somebody drop it from a tree stand? As far as I know, no. My goal on Saturday was to get it sighted in at 20 yards. During that time, Dom and I played tic-tac-toe. No, we didn't sit out in the grass for a picnic with pencil and paper. We took an archery block and taped off a section that matches a tic-tac-toe board and played from 20 and 25 yards. We were using a tree and a fake deer for a backstop. We managed to get a few pictures and a video in the process.
The bow is a Reflex Buckskin. It's set to a 28" draw length and currently set to 55 lbs of draw weight. I love the bow. It fits me very well and was a great deal. My losses to date are: two arrows (including field tips) and another 100 grain field tip. I'm still learning the particulars of archery, but I think I have a good grasp of the basics. I doubt I'll get much hunting in this season (except in Crimora should something wonder into the yard), but I hope to next year.
Thanks be to the Dominator for getting me six more arrows, a kisser button which we will install, and some bow string wax.

The Last Hurrah

For more on the whole weekend, don't forget to check out Will's blog. You'll find more pictures and stories on our adventuers.
And that's it. All the days of burritos, walking miles & miles, waiting for the train and/or bus, gettin' lots of coffee, finally making it to haight-ashbury, and a few other things we don't have pictures from made for a great trip out to San Fran. The pictures of the giant statue and room were all in the atrium level of a local hotel.

Good Thing I Packed A Lunch...

Saturday was probably the busiest day. We had to get up, eat, and head to the pier for Alcatraz. If you view the last two entries, you'll see a handful of pictures from that day. The above picture was from the next day, when we spent some time on the cable cars. The cables actually run underground and the cars attach to it to go uphill. Prior to all that however, we went to the gym and went to a Japanese Tea Garden.