The World:Buster Buster:The World

I miss having a big dog. I miss Zoe and Diamond a fuck ton as individuals, too, but in general I miss having a big dog. Mister & I have talked about that a lot since we buried Zoe this summer over our vacation. Mister works at night often and there is something to be said for the security provided by a big furry beast.

A few months ago my girlfriend Deb starts sending me pics of a litter of puppies that were born on the retirement farm her mom lives at in Butler. She jokingly asked if I wanted one. I laughed it off. The following week more pics. More laughing. Then the pups hit about 3-4 weeks and she sent me these...

And I fell in love. These are the first pics I have of Mister Buster Badass ~ Buster for short!  He was 4 weeks old when these were taken. He is a rottweiler/hound mix. He kind of howls when he barks. Its LOUD and cute for the moment. We shall see what I think of that when hes 80# of howling mad man :-)

Fast forward to 2 weeks later & the pups are ready to come home. Deb did me a solid and went to go get Buster so he spent 2 nights howling at Deb, Madison and Jeff in Rimersburg (thank god hes cute or I may never have gotten a puppy & thanks for being awesome guys!) before I got up there to get him.

One trip to the vet later and we were on our way back to his new home. Gizmo went up with me to get him. She is naturally neurotic, so I was expecting SPAZZ. She did not disappoint. She calmed down eventually, read: 3 or 4 days later, but was pretty much tweaked out from long car ride, new puppy, vet visit, long car ride w new puppy. Honestly she was better than I expected. She wanted to play with him but didnt want him to come too close. It was an interesting battle to watch her wage. Now she thinks we have gotten her the Best. Squeeky Toy. Ever.  I cant WAIT for him to outweigh her in about 4 weeks. Should be an entertaining flip to their play. She digs him, though.

Heh. Im so cute you wont even get mad when I eat all youre shit and I know it.

At the Vets office. Dunno why he licked the table but the pic is cute!

He likes to move while napping & his head fell out of his crate. Look at the Dumbo ear!

Gizmo in the back, Buster in the from. Shes 40#, he was around 12#

Beached himself on a pillow w Mister (who has nicknamed him WANG! for obvious reasons)

Napping on the chair together.

Gizmo - 3 years old, left ~ Buster - 8 weeks old, right. THE PAWS! They get bigger daily.

Taking a nap. He does that often.

Getting ready to eff some shit up

Post Turkey Day Crash

Cocooned in fleece for warmth post bath!

So thats Buster. Hes 9 weeks old now and growing like a weed. House breaking w the bell method has that all solid 3 weeks in. Not too bad on chewing our stuff but e make sure to have plenty other legal options around. Seems to dig his crate although I'm betting he's outgrown it in a few weeks.

Happy, healthy and adorable addition to the family!

It amazes me we are from the same planet. Least of all Parents.

Is it wrong to really and sincerely dislike a sibling? I am struggling with that at the moment, and after our holiday dinner last night I kind of came to a conclusion - I REALLY dont particularly like my sister. I see people that look forward to family time, that want to hang out with siblings; for a long time I wanted that, but I dont think we are ever going to get there.  For those who dont know I am the oldest of 3 girls at 35, the Bitch just turned 34 and the Baby is 28.

I know that bothered me at one point...that my sisters and I arent close. I know that about 10 years ago the other 2 were very close, well that was what I thought at the time - looking back I think that the Bitch just didnt have anyone else willing to put up with her shit so she made the Baby do it and the Baby didnt know any better so she did. They have since grown apart. A lot. Like to the point that it honestly wouldnt surprise me if the 2 of them never spoke by choice again - the Bitch holds a grudge like nothing I have ever seen & the Baby has never felt is it her job to make relationships work - I do my best to stay far away from all of it. There is a metric fuck ton of history and bullshit between the 2 of them. I have heard bits and pieces from both but to be perfectly frank I dont give a fuck, I had nothing to do with any of it and dont trust either one of them to ever tell the truth of it - they both have that "lie when the truth fits best" thing going on. Short version - there are some trust issues there that run both ways that I dont see being resolved for a really long time.

This sucks a lot for my mom and dad. I think the only thing they want is what every parent wants at the holidays - all their kiddies and grandkiddies rounded up around the table having a meal and celebrating the holiday together...you know that Norman Rockwell picture perfect arent we the happiest family ever bullshit? It makes me sad that the 2 of them cant even put away all of their bullshit to give that to my folks. It really isnt all that hard to set aside personal bullshit and suck it up. I do it every year :-) I dont think we all collectively have been together for a holiday in 3 or 4 years.  I dont really care about seeing the Bitch and the Baby, but I really miss seeing all the kids together.

Last night we Turkeyed at Mom's. The Bitch was there w her live-in boyfriend, sans kids because they had Thanksgiving with their dad this year, and the Baby wasnt there (as is tradition). The ladies were sitting around the table after dinner having a conversation, the men watching football in the den, all normal as could be. Our topic of conversation wasnt the point - the jist - the Bitch felt very strongly about it and I can see both sides of it so have yet to formulate a firm opinion one way or another. As one would in a conversation with differing opinions I was asking her questions - we were having a conversation. All of a sudden, and seriously like from zero to rage in 5 seconds flat, she goes furious red and yells at me that I just think Im right. Which I dont, and said as much to her; I dont know whats right or wrong, Im still chewing on it hence I was asking her questions. She then called me a bitch and stormed out of the room mumbling things under her breath. I told her to grow up, she told me to go fuck myself. In front of my grandmother, too. She really is just THAT charming. I laughed at her. I doubt that did much to chill her out but I dont really care...a 34 year old storming out of a room just like she did when she was 10 is funny as hell.

But it made me think. If she wasnt my sister I would have nothing to do with her. I have no patience for people that act the way she does. I would never actively seek out a friendship with someone I do not trust. Her most dominant personality traits are ones that immediately turn me off when I meet new people. Even down to her mannerisms and the way she speaks. Everything about her repels me. I cant imagine being close with someone who is so close minded name calling is their idea of a solid argument. Her idea of keeping up with current events is watching Entertainment Tonight. Im not judging any of that. Whatever works for her, none of my business, just not my kind of people.

The same can be said in reverse. She doesnt "get" me either. She doesnt get why I dont care about living in the suburbs or driving a super nice car, or why shopping is not a driving force in my life, or why I dont like the Bachelor or American Idol. She doesnt understand my politics mainly because she has no opinion or knowledge on the topic and has no idea why I care. She thinks I am less because I choose not to have children. She is wrong - she needed kids to validate her existence, I validate my existence in other ways. Neither is better, neither is worse. She thinks I am weird. She thinks I married a strange man. She thinks we have the wrong goals and direction.

This means I am doing it right.

Ive known her since the day she was born. I watched her practice and perfect all the bullshit games she plays and manipulations that make up the thing she calls a life. I think this bothers her more than anything because none of them work on me.  When she got up and walked out of the room calling me a bitch and telling me to go fuck myself I laughed. I laughed because I finally realized HOLY SHIT I AM NEVER GOING TO LIKE THAT WOMAN.

Im done. Im done trying to like her. I wont ignore her or anything like that, that would be juvenile, I can coexist with her whenever Ive been doing that for years, but I'm done trying to like her and feeling, to some degree, like Im wrong for not. Is it wrong to stop trying & just accept that I dont like her and never will?

The End of the End

Or... What Happens After You Commit Career Suicide

Well I did it. Finally. After well over a year of debating, fighting with myself, making excuses and generally being too afraid to just make a fucking decision already I made the fucking decision already.

I quit.

Tomorrow is actually my last day full time with the place I have gotten a steady paycheck from for over 11 years.

Hang on. I want to say that again. Tomorrow is my last full-time day with my job of 11 years. Just saying it makes me feel freer.

It wasnt an easy decision. Obviously. I cant imagine it is ever easy to decide to walk away from the security of the known and into the vast unknown for me or anyone else, but I have been forcing myself to do this job that I really do not like or want to do anymore for at least the last 18 months. I had foolishly hoped that I would just get over it or that I could just keep doing it while I waited for The Thing. Well, I didnt get over it. So instead I gave notice and am leaving to go make The Thing happen.

So the last 3 weeks have been peppered with "where are you going?" "what are you going to do?" "what restaurant are you going to next?" "did you & bossman have a blow out?". Nope, nothing even remotely that interesting, really. I reached my limit with my entire existence being dictated by the stupidity (mostly not deliberate, for the record) of others, being the go-to sounding and venting (read: bitching) board for 40 plus people and the general chaos that is the day-to-day operations of 5 restaurants and a commissary kitchen. Add all of that on top of working for a very...challenging/frustrating/pigheaded/illogical/would trip over a dollar to pick up a penny...man and thats a metric fuck ton of unhappy.  On the surface I manage all of that well - I think in a lot of cases I make it look easy - but the reality is it saps your will to live a lot of days and when those days far outnumber the ones that you go home with a smile on your face thats a problem. The kind of problem that puts you in a major funk in every aspect of your life, saps any creative energy you ever had and just generally made me into a person that I didnt know or want to know ~ and Im sure those closest to me probably feel/felt about the same.  Its pretty amazing how just 1 fucked up facet of life can knock everything else so far out of balance. 

Where am I going...I dont really know exactly yet. I have agreed to help out Bossman with some transition stuff in a consultants role until the end of January to help my people. Some folks think this is insane and that I should just cut the chord. I hear that, really do, but I cant. And I cant not for Bossman, but for my employees that I am leaving behind. They will need a bit of guidance. Its the least I can do for a staff that has busted their asses for me for so long - I would no more leave them hanging like that then I would jump off a bridge and expect to fly.

I dont really have a terribly specific plan at the moment. I have a general idea & the feeling that I am doing the right thing on every level, and I dont really need more than that, well outside of the support of my other half, which I 150% have. My next Thing will evolve as everything in my career has thus far - as it is intended to.

All things considered this is the closest I have felt to being me in a couple of years. Its going to take me a month or so, if not longer, to get old work out of my system and reprogram my head to make what I want my first priority as opposed to whats best for my work. Its a process that I am hugely looking forward to, truth be told.  I also cant wait to get into my own kitchen again, feel passionately about what I do for the first time in a loooong time and to let my life be dictated by my own stupidity as opposed to that of those around me.

Free. As of tomorrow at 5pm for the first time in over a decade I will be FREE.

And it feels FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

Totally Unrelated: WE GOT A NEW PUPPY! My next post will be pics of lil Buster Badass. Hes too cute for words!!!

Judgy McJudgerson

Hi there. How's things been in your neck of the woods? Enjoying summer? Yeah, me too.

Yeah...I know. Its been a minute. No, no. Nothing like that. I've had PLENTY to say, almost daily a post writes itself in my head...but as you can see hasnt made it onto this here blog as of yet. Honestly? Most of it probably wont for a few reasons. A lot of what I want to talk about (or I guess lets be real - bitch about) are things that are not necessarily appropriate fodder for all that visit me here to read. I've spent a lot of time lately stuck in my own head. Luckily, and thanks in part to the Mister, I figured that part out and am sorting through how to get the fuck out of my own head and am making some progress. And when my news is less "Oh Miss Mindy's in a funk lets all talk about it" and more "Wooooo! Miss Mindy's back to herself lets celebrate!" I will be sure to share. When in a funk Im not a talker. Its hard to talk when you've got your head down and you are barrelling through some bullshit.

So to my title.  Judgy McJudgerson.

Seems to be a lot of that going around lately and its pissing me off.  I've been seeing it on Twitter, FaceBook (the 3 times I visit there a week), amongst my employees & coworkers, out and about and just in general.

Knock it the fuck off people.

I say that with love but really, stop.

Ah dear sweet kettle, tis I, the pot, and I am here to call your judgy ass out!!!!

Really there is no need though. I thought at first that there was just more of it maybe, that I was dealing with, talking to, spending time with or hired a few people that greatly increased the amount of judgy going on in my world. Then I wasnt able to STOP seeing/hearing it. It was everywhere. I was a part of it at times. This needed to stop. I am not claiming perfect, that would be a lie, but I am trying and I cant ask for more than that.

A guy on Twitter making fun of some woman's beat ass car she put a Club on - yeah because you know her story. For all you know she could be a single mother of 4 who lives in a shit neighborhood and that piece of shit car that you so graciously looked down your nose at is her ONLY way to get food on the table for her kids. On the flip side she could also be a crackhead. My point is you DONT know, so STFU. I know at one point in my life I drove the only car I could afford and it was a total piece of shit. I hope no one judged me based on that. Or my glorious duct tape bumper :-)

Read a blog, multiple posts actually, written by a perpetually single guy who in my opinion has the personality of a 70 year old cranky man. {I dont know why I continue to read it other than its still in my reader and I dont know how to delete it} He spent multiple posts talking about relationships, of which he isnt in one, and marriage, which he has never been in, and telling people in those situations what to do and how to do it better. Right. And your single ass is an authority on EITHER topic how? Oh yes. Youre not. But still feel free to judge & offer opinions stated as fact to those of us that are because you are such an authority, right? No. How about you stick to what you know, or even better get off your high horse and realize just because you think it doesnt make you right. Reading Cosmo doesnt make you an authority on relationships, being a "therapist" to your neurotic friends doesnt make you the next Freud and having a keyboard doesnt give you the right to judge people and situations you dont know. Aside: Who asked you for your opinion & advice anyway?

Guy gets into a fight with his GF, puts his arm though a window and fucked himself up good. Thankfully he is doing well and thats awesome, but overheard the comment "well if hes got that kind of temper he just wont work in this situation". Really? Because you've never had a moment of bad judgment when in a rage? Because you always make the best decision regardless the circumstances? Sure you do....and I'm Santa-motherfuckin-Claus.

I could list hundreds more - these are just the 3 that have been gnawing away at me.  All I am saying is think before you speak. Yes, sometimes snark is good for  quick laugh - but would you want someone to say that about you? Would you want to have the entirety of your existence evaluated based upon the stupid things you've done?

I doubt it. I know I sure as shit wouldnt.

If we all just made a little bit of effort to stop judging people. To stop eying them up & down trying to figure them out. Stopped trying to make other feel worse so that we can feel better.  Stopped thinking that we are better than anyone else. Just stopped.

News Flash - we are all human. Get over it. 

The world would be a kinder place for one. And a more peaceful place for another. I know it will never stop completely - it is human nature for myself as well - but you will be amazed if you stop for just 2 seconds how m any things you WONT say or type.

I am going to keep trying. And even when I fail I'll try again. Im not delusional. I know the judging will never stop. All I ask is that we all think about the shitty things we send out into the universe before we send them and maybe instead of judging a person try to empathize a little bit or at the very least just shut up.

I know damn well Im not perfect, I do and say stupid things every effing day. Im pretty sure all of us are flawed in one way or another, so get over it. Not everyone thinks driving a sweet car is important. Not everyone thinks that success is measured by checking account balance. Money and the willingness or ability to spend it doesnt make you better or your opinions more valid than anyone elses. Who are you to judge anyone?

There is nothing so spectacular about me or what I do that makes me feel I should be judging anyone. I have done nothing in or with my life that makes me superior to anyone. I think these statements are true for everyone. Money doesnt buy class, importance or will it validate your existence. The ability to open your mouth and speak doesnt automatically make your opinion more valid than mine.

Bottom line - the only person made to look stupid by pointless judging - the person doing the judging. And I, for one, am going to be better at NOT judging. Care to join me? I wont judge you if you decide not to :-)


Totally Unrelated - I AM STILL A NONSMOKER!!!!!!

Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake

You know that jello salad that appears as just about every summer picnic in Southwestern PA? You know the one...the one with the usually stale & not quite busted up enough pretzels under that waxy under-whipped layer of cream cheese & cool whip that is topped with a gelatinous layer of strawberry jello & frozen strawberries. The one that as it sits on the picnic table the pretzel pieces start to get soggy and pink from weeping strawberry jello? The bright red center piece of a Yinzer Buffet!!

Yeah...its a favorite of mine too. Always has been. I have had fabulous versions of it and I have had abominable versions of it.....but I always try at least a little. There is just something about the salty crunchy pretzels, sweet cream and tangy strawberry that taste like summer to me.

I do love it in all of its 1964 jello salad with fruit floating in it glory. BUT. It could be much better. Its potential plagued me. The flavor combo & textures are excellent. The jello aspect less than desirable in my opinion.

Aside: I suck at making Jell-o. Yes. Really. Stop laughing. Jell-o. Well, if you ask to me make jello shots I will exceed all expectations and they will be the very best you will ever have. But if you want just normal jell-o, ask someone else. Mine never sets, it gets that hard ookie layer, it separates. Whatever. It used to bug me but Ive learned to accept it. Since its apparently confession time I also cannot make instant pudding - it always comes out super runny & gross. Im so odd.

Since I was unwilling to fight with jello & wanted to perfect this picnic staple it needed to be reborn. And it was. As a cheesecake. A custardy, light, creamy, melt in your mouth vanilla bean cheesecake on a graham cracker pretzel crust topped with crushed strawberry preserves.

Oh yes. This kicked strawberry pretzel jello's ass and made its mother apologize for it ever being born.

Some notes before I get to the recipe ~

I abhor dense cheesecake so this one has no thickeners or starch in it on purpose. It is closer to a dense cream cheese custard than a heavy brick-like cheesecake but it will still cut & plate gorgeously, just be gentle. I also am not a sweet freak so the cake itself doesnt have a crap ton of sugar in it.

Use a Spring Form pan. This is a WRECK to unmold if you dont and wont layer prettily either.

I use vanilla beans in it because I have a bazillion of them in my freezer (make my own extract w them) and I think its divine, but hardly necessary - just up the extract by 2 tsp & it will be just as good.

I used fruit pectin to thicken my fruit. It is a vegan jelly thickener that is at the grocery store - you could also just use a package of jello - but I fear the jello & also didnt want that artifical flavor when strawberries are so awesome straight this time if year. If I were making this in October I may feel much differently.

Cooks Disclaimer: I am not a measurer, I am a taster & a looker, even with baking & pastries when I can be and with cheesecake I can be.

Crust:

• 2 cups crushed pretzel pieces
• 1 package of graham crackers, crushed up
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 2/3 stick unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Put all of the dry ingredients in a food processor & pulse until broken up & combined. Slowly drizzle in butter and mix until its all together. Press into the bottom of a 10" spring form pan and bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes. Crust is done when golden & smells all toasty. Set out to cool. Reduce oven to 300.

Filling:

• 2-8oz packages Cream Cheese
• 1-8oz package Neufatel Cheese
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 whole egg
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 each cut & scraped vanilla bean
• 6oz Greek yogurt (plain, honey)

Put both the cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and mix on medium until combined & softened. Scrape bowl, add the sugar & mix on medium high until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl.

While mixing on medium add the whole egg than egg yolks one at a time beating well between additions and scraping at least once in the middle.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix on high until light, glossy and thickened.  Pour on top of cooled crust and smooth the top out. Pace on a sheet tray, put in middle of over and fill tray with at least 1/2" of water.  Bake at 300 for 45 minutes.

Test at 45 minutes. Give it a wiggle. The center should be set like jello, jiggly but set. It may require another 10 or so minutes at this point, set timer for 5 minute intervals and keep an eye on it.

When done remove it from the oven & set at room temp until pan is cool enough to touch then transfer to refrigerator to completely cool.

Strawberry Topping:

• 2 pints fresh strawberries - hulled & quartered
• 3/4 cup sugar (more or less depending on taste)
• 4 Tbsp Fruit Pectin
• 6oz water

Put the berries in a bowl with 1/4 cup sugar & toss to coat. Let sit at room temp until they start to get saucy, smash with a fork.  Put the water, remaining 1/2 cup sugar & fruit pectin in a small pot on stove & bring to a boil stirring constantly. It gets weird thick because of the pectin. When it is thickened pour over macerated berries and continue to fork smash to get a nice consistency. Let sit at room temp until ready to use on cake.

When cake is TOTALLY cool & set spread the preserves over the cheesecake, return to the fridge to let it all set up completely.

When ready to unmold run a paring knife around the edge to loosen the preserves & I use a blow torch to release the cake from the side of the pan, but you can just use a cake spatula or knife if it suits you better.

I served it as is. I didnt think it needed much else to be honest. Garnish wise you could do lots - choco dipped pretzel pieces or strawberries, whipped cream, fresh berries sauce....whatever blows your hair back.  If you like your cheesecake thicker or want one that is more firm add 4 Tbsp of flour in with the  sugar & cream cheese.

Hope you dig & let me know how it turns out if you make it!!

I also have made this in the mega muffin cups with the muffin cup liners, I just dont parbake the shells. Really cute individual dessert idea.

Happy baking!!

OMG IT DIDNT RAIN!!!!

Ive been determined to not let this wet & gloomy weather get me in a funk. I have seen a crap ton of somewhat justified bitching on the interwebs about all the muck outside and had no desire to take part in it. I get why parents would be hating this shit - my dogs have been all stir crazy not being able to get outside so I can only imagine the level of suck when its small humans all wired for sound and able to actually speak and stuff - but more or less its weather. Bitch all you want - its not going to change so suck it up is generally my feeling.

But I was off this weekend on a fluke. And for the first time in MONTHS it didnt rain. ::knock me over with a feather::

A couple weeks ago I decided to fuck Mother Nature and her bipolar temper tantrums and go ahead and plant all my herbs, tomatoes, window boxes and porch planters. They all looked fabulous. But there was still this black hole of overgrown SUCK that was going to take some time & energy to deal with - and some dry - it was a freaking SWAMP in the garden.

Last year we tried a vegetable garden - and it was moderately successful...if you define success as getting to harvest like 65% of the veggies before they were eaten by fuzzy woodland creatures or rotted, having the whole area go until almost August before it was over 50% weeds or that I was able to get it all cut back before winter so it wasnt a TOTAL wreck this spring. (I am rather generous with my definition of success when it comes to gardening) I, again mind you, made it abundantly clear that I have not inherited my parents' green thumbs and have been left asking the question, again, as to WHY I keep trying. Im sure The Mister asks himself that question, too, but he gamely goes along with whatever harebrained scheme I concoct for the yard each spring. I havent decided if he does it to humor me, if he harbors the same delusions of farmerhood as I do or if he realizes the futility of arguing and pointing out the insanity of my desire to garden. I guess it could be all 3, really.

So this year started the same. I AM GOING TO HAVE A VEGETABLE GARDEN DAMMIT! And I planted all the little seedlings and got them under a grow light and watered them, read them self help books to boost their confidence and all that bullshit for about 5 weeks then did what Mindy's almost always do - one night I said Id water them the next night. The next night I said Id do it in the morning. The next morning I forgot. The next evening I watered them all so much they almost swam away. The next night I figured Id watered them so much the night before they really didn't need the water....and so on and so forth until these poor seedlings were in need of vegetable therapy due to abuse & neglect.

UNCLE! I admit defeat. Plans changed. I decided that I needed to own my complete inability to stick with a gardening regime. That instead of trying to make myself be the farmer that I feel I should be for some unknown reason I need to just  deal with the fact that I am not ever going to grow zucchini like my dad, that the idea of having to "weed" anything 3 or 4 times a week is more of a commitment than I am willing to make and that the CSA we signed up for and a few farmers markets will give me all the veg I need minus the complete feeling of failure when I pull up to my house and see the sad sad sad patch of land I called a garden.

So with no further ado I present to you...BEFORE

Those spikey things in the front right are asparagus. I kept those, just trimmed them down. And that monstrous green thing in front of that meter is cilantro. Yeah. Seriously. Cilantro. And there are some mutant strains of lettuce and the weeds that thrive in my neighborhood. Its it lovely? My window boxes and herbs are all up there too, so from the porch side it looks happy - but from the street ~ train-mothereffing-wreck!

And then the sun came out. And the ground became less swampy. And I wasnt at work. And neither was The Mister. Angels sung!!

So we spent the weekend ripping shit up. For the first time since I have had a yard every single perennial (and annual) that i have bought has been planted, in its home, BEFORE it has wilted and died.

I know! Right! The ones on the wall are to go under a hose on the side of the house, but everything else is planted, the mulch is down and my house looks nice again!!!

I still have to trim that stupid carpet piece I keep forgetting about and will probably add some more plants as the season progresses - I already have homes picked out for some mums I havent even bought yet and some ground cover pieces that I want for under the dwarf Japanese Maple, but holy hell it looks like a different house to me!

I just want to go sit in it.

This was 1 of 2 bitch projects outside this summer. The other one isnt one that I can help much with ~ The Mister has to tear down and rebuild a retaining wall that holds up the patio. I doubt it will be much fun, but with the birth of this garden I was able to move the 3 big azaleas that were in that planter so when it is done I can plant it with strawberry plants. Oh yes - homemade strawberry jam FTW!!

Which reminds me I am going to post a Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake recipe here in the next day or so. It was so good my mouth is watering just thinking about it. And it was EASY.

Aside: Yesterday was week 6 of non-smoking. Yep folks. SIX Weeks! I am taking the pills when I remember too, but that isnt all too often. Still dealing with the occasional want to have a smoke, but they are fewer & further between than before and ever so much easier to dismiss.

I am LOVING this summer start so far...rain or no rain!

May 1st, 2011.

It was a remarkable day for a few reasons, a couple just mine, another for the whole world. When I was originally composing this post in my head yesterday it was much more lighthearted than the one that ended up here today, but thats ok.

I checked my Twitter around 10pm last night and its blowing up with PotUS is have a press conference at 10:30pm. My first thought - Fuck. This cant be good. So we wrapped up watching the Simpsons and flipped to CNN to see what was going on.

Aside: the talking heads on the news channels are sooooo fucking annoying. Obama didnt speak for about an hour after he was supposed to and for a portion of that hour of waiting I listened to every jackass on staff at CNN go from saying "we will not speculate" to "Osama is dead". Why is it so fucking difficult to shut the fuck up and let the President tell us what he has to? After about 20 minutes I turned off the audio & waited to turn it back on when the President started to speak. They all kept saying the exact same fucking thing over and over and over again. I dont know how people watch these jackasses all day every day. I would jump off a bridge.

So the end story - Osama Bin Laden was found and killed. Yes. This is tremendous news. We've hunted him so long there was definitely relief in my heart. I vividly remember 9/11. Who doesnt? It was terrifying to see that kind of destruction on our own soil and that overall sense of "holy shit we arent invincible and someone actually brought this to our front door". It felt like our worlds were collectively flipped upside down. I was insulted and offended to see them celebrating in the streets in the Middle East. I didnt then and dont now understand their hatred. I cant even imagine hating anyone so much that I would celebrate destroying that many lives and striking fear into the hearts of so many.

And I never would. I'm not wired the same way they are. I place a value on all life, I dont have the same kind of twisted faith that makes them think what they did was justified, I dont think that killing thousands solves anything ~ it just breeds more hate. I was disgusted with them, but at the same time pitied them. I would never understand the hate that motivated them to fly planes into our buildings and dance in the streets at our misery ~ and I'm ok with that. I dont ever WANT to understand that kind of hate & pity them because that encompasses their entire existence. 

I drew strength from the fact that we drew together and helped each other piece it all back together. I felt safer knowing that no matter what else happened we would stick together and fight for what we believed in. I felt stronger knowing that you may knock us down, but we will get back up.

Obama told us all last night that he paid. The man that led the AlQaeda to level that crippling blow to our nation was found and killed. I am proud of the men & women who fight for us, those who went in to get him and all the people that were involved in finding him. He deserved whatever he got and I am proud that we got to deliver it to him.

Then I start to watch our nation react. People take to the street, dancing, singing, hollering and waving flags. Chants of USA USA USA everywhere. Couches are being lit on fire at WVU, the Penn State campus erupted, outside the White House there is an atmosphere like New Years Eve. I shook my head. After all that we have been through all we learned was to hate the way they do? That wasnt the message I took away from 9/11. This felt like the celebration of our revenge. The death of one man makes up for the thousands we've lost in the last decade to this war?

One man. One man of thousands that still hate us to the core. He was a symbol of the terror we felt, he was a person to blame, he was the embodiment of all of the fear we have felt for the past decade.

But he was still only one man. One SYMBOL.

I was as ashamed of people celebrating his death as much as I was of them celebrating the destruction of the WTC. Death and war are not things to celebrate. His death doesnt mean we can walk away from the shit storm we have spearheaded in the Middle East. This is not a war we are ever going to win and we sure as hell didnt win it by killing Osama Bin Laden. There will be another extremist taking his place at the head of Al Qaeda. We killed a symptom, not the disease and I am not so naive to think that this is even the beginning of the end in that part of the world.

I guess I had hoped that we learned something from our brash confidence pre 9/11. That we learned how valuable our freedom is because of how quickly that value was shook to its core one day ten years ago. I had hoped that we learned that hate is never the answer. I dont think we did.

Progress!!! (a.k.a the post I really wanted to put up today :-)

So this was my original post for today before the world erupted late last night...

Yesterday at 9:30am marked a full 3 weeks of me being a nonsmoker. Three weeks, 21 days, 504 hours. To some this may not seem like all that much of an accomplishment. I feel safe in assuming they also have never had a pack a day plus habit to battle out against no one but themselves. I can definitely say this is by far the longest I have ever made it in a stop smoking campaign and I am still finding it hard to believe that I'm almost to the 30-day mark.  That whole 30 days to relearn a habit is a benchmark I have set for myself hoping that it works and I will have broken the habits of when I smoke and the random "I want a cigarette" moments will be fewer and further in between.

The Zyban has helped. A lot from what I can tell. It is somewhat hard to judge though; this is the honest to goodness first time that I have felt at peace with my decision to quit so that may also be playing a role. I havent had any adverse side effects that I can tell from taking the medication. Part of me wants to test it and stop taking them - I am not a huge fan of taking medication - but the other part feels that they wouldnt prescribe it for 12 weeks if it wasnt necessary to take it for 12 weeks so I should probably shut the fuck up and do as I was told...which is probably what I will do. Not worth risking falling off this wagon when Ive been on it for so long.

I am still having the random urges to smoke. Its strange because there is no pattern to why I have the craving, but it happens at least once a day that I have the overwhelming urge to find and inhale a cigarette. Doesnt help that I also have a really bad lil devil that likes to help me rationalize all kinds of bad decisions. The lil angel seems to be stronger than lil devil so I am still winning the battles and havent cheated. I wont consider the war as won until Im off the meds.  Talking to a bunch of ex-smokers they tell it kind of similar to an alcoholic, I will just be a smoker who doesnt smoke. I sincerely hope this isnt true. But I can totally see that it may be. Kinda sucks...but if I never wanted to crave nicotine I should have never started smoking...so I cant be all that bitter, really. My choice, now I get to reap the rewards of being an amazingly dumb 17 year old. Lucky me :-)

My other big deal was the completion of the painting of the steps.  The Mister & I are in week 3 of a major home improvement project - we are completely redoing the foyer & upstairs hallway. I decided, and whether this was smart or not will remain to be seen, to paint all of the wood work in those areas. This has been a major undertaking in that there is a metric fuck ton of wood in both of theses spots - an entire stair case, banisters & steps; the whole foyer which is one of those wicked leaded glass, side windows plus door; 3 bedroom doors, 2 closet doors, 1 bathroom door & a window frame to round it all out. Im doing it all in two colors so its not just as easy as tossing some paint on them and walking away.

I started with the hardest part first and yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the staircase and all of its bullshit. I LOVE how it turned out, I did NOT love the sheer amount of tedious detail work involved with it. The doors upstairs are going to be a pain, but NOTHING compared to these steps with all the shit on them. They have been so bad that I have only been working on them a couple hours a time because I get so bored by the tediousness I get stabby, hence its taken this long. So when I got it done finally I did the happy girl dance. I see the light at the end of this project. Finally. Woooo!

Not a bad weekend, really. And finishing up that hard part means more motivation to complete the rest of it so the Mister can lay the new floor.  Ahhhhh....the joys of home ownership. Tell me again why I dont just fucking rent?!? Oh yeah...because I decided to buy a house at 23 and didnt realize until I was 28 that 1) that was a horrible idea, 2) I got completely FUCKED on the deal and 3) buying a house isnt all its cracked up to be when you dont have kids & a school district to worry about. Moral of the story kids: when your much older parents try to tell you something, like not to buy an old house at 23, think twice before not listening. Some shit just isnt so easy to get out of...a mortgage on a house is a dying neighborhood is one of those things.

The Highlight of my Hockey Season

I was off Wednesday w the Mister. We were planning a lunch date somewhere in the East End & then a trip to Construction Junction to try to find a new front door then dinner & Game 7 to finish the night. (Penguins Hockey in case you dont know what Game 7 means but if you dont know what Game 7 is GET OFF MY BLOG! jk...maybe...)

So after perusing some menus online we made our lunch choice - Park Bruges in Highland Park. Had some amazing mussels, frites, poutine and crusty bread. It was a lunch full of delicious win. I got the white wine and Mister got the sausage mussels.  Shockingly it was packed at 1:30-2:00 on a Wednesday, but that always makes me happy to see any really good small local place doing great sales on a week day. Service was sketchy timing wise, but it also looked like the 2 girls & the owner or manager that was working got their asses handed to them through lunch, and seeing as I am VERY familiar with how awful that can be I forgive them. Well that and it was terrific food & our server was super nice regardless of the timing issues. We will definitely be back.

We are sitting at lunch and Bossman calls me, which is rare when Im off unless something is horridly wrong, asks me if I want his tickets to Game 7. HELL YES I DO!! But I was much cooler when I answered him. I tell Mister & I think he might have actually screamed a little. See, a few months ago Bossman took all the GMs to see a game in a luxury box on a Sunday. One of my manger's girlfriends went into labor, so obviously he couldnt come into work, my GM for that place was just returning from vacation & was going to the game so I didnt want to ask her to do it and yes, I could have pulled rank and made one of my guys do it but that isnt my style either...so I worked it myself & figured I'd just hold that card until a later date when I wanted to use it. Bossman said that since I took that one for the team I could have the 2 tickets he scored (not his season tickets, other ones). Moral of that story? Sometimes when you just suck it up karma rewards you with awesome gifts!

So I got to go my first real live playoff hockey game. And it was a Game 7. And they lost. But I dont care now & didnt care then. It was amazing. It was a real bummer they were shut out so they never scored a goal...but aside from that it was incredible. The energy was off the hook, the noise made my ears ring, the white out was unreal to look at. It was almost sensory overload. I. LOVED. IT.

I got slightly pissy when our own fans began to boo our power play. Ok, I will admit our power play sucked this series. BUT it wasnt totally the Pens fault. Tampa figured out early on, maybe even during regular season, our PP was a dead spot. They then figured out how to collapse on it, block us from even getting into their end after clearing the puck and overall how to shut down our PP. It was already limping along, we had no serious scorers with all the injuries so yeah, thats a problem. It just didnt help at all that Tampa executed a defense that rendered what little PP we have totally useless. All that aside - what kind of fucked up "fan" kicks their own team when they are down?!? What kind of asshole boos their own team in a Game 7 when they are obviously struggling?!? Thankfully there were far more real fans in the stands so when that crap started it was drowned out by "LETS GO PENS" chants. If you were there and you booed any of our guys for any reason SHAME ON YOU. *angry eyebrows & finger wagging in your general direction* You are NOT a fan. You are an asshole.

I was sad to see our season end. I will miss hockey until October. I cannot wait to see all of our guys healthy and back on the ice. Part of me is wicked happy that we were eliminated now. The very idea of having to listen to some of the douchiest fans in the NHL rag on us for being eliminated by them in the 2nd round was kind of nauseating (looking at you Caps fans) and lets be real, there was no way in hell we were making it out of the 2nd round alive barring a hockey miracle. I love my Penguins, but you just cannot suffer the kind of blows they did this year and make a solid Cup run.

Another note to anyone who was bitching Sid wasnt sent out to "save" us...Are you fucking insane?!?! So in order to win 1 freaking series that we stand little to no chance of turning into a legit Cup run you want them to send him out there to potentially incur further injury? Yeah. Not fucking worth his long-term viability. Have you met Eric Lindros? Have you seen what happens to good players (may be stretching the word good there but you get my point) when they try to play through head injuries? Do you really think that if they HAD sent him out there Tampa wouldnt have done everything they could to send him off on a stretcher? Puh-lease. I dont see the Pens staff or team doctors telling us how to do our jobs so hows about all the arm-chair hockey coaches & neurologists just shut their whore mouths and let them do what they do? 

Im proud of the boys & how far they made it even with all the set backs. I want to punch every person who is already talking contracts & who we are getting rid of and who they think was useless during the playoffs right in the mouth because with few exceptions I think they all played their hearts out to give us a great season whether we keep them all or not. Related: I often wonder when I hear all these self proclaimed "experts", both professional & amateur,  spouting off about the players, coaches & management decisions what the basis of their opinions is. Im pretty sure all they need is a TV & a mouth/keyboard as qualifications to be a sports talking head, the brain is even optional ~ look at Mark Madden. Whats that old saying? Opinions are like assholes - everyone has them and they all smell like shit. This seems especially true with self proclaimed sports authorities :-) Im going to let Shero & Disco Dan figure out whats best for their team since, ya know, thats what they do for a living and just assume that if they ever come into one of my restaurants they wont tell me how to pick & choose my staff....seems reasonable, huh?

And anyone who bashes Fleury needs smacked. If you cant identify defensive holes versus goalie errors you shouldnt be allowed to talk about hockey to anyone anyway. No, hes not perfect, but he's also not superhuman. When a goalie is hung out to dry with bad defensive decisions what's he supposed to do? He's a goalie, a very important part of our defense, but definitely not the ONLY part of it.

I hope I get to go to another playoff hockey game, maybe next time it will be a win. But win or loose, thank you Pens for another great season and this fan will be cheering for you again in October no matter what the team looks like or who's on it :-)

A kinda long rant...but it has a good point.

I do not get it. At all. What happened to personal accountability?  I havent seen it anywhere in forever. I've been looking, too.

I think it is just one of those cycles, they do happen upon occasion, when a lot of other people's drama ends up in my world. It really cant be helped. I employ well over 100 people & my restaurants see thousands of people a week; drama is bound to get all up in my shit every now again no matter how hard I try to dodge the bullets. I get that. Most often I can also deal with it without many complaints...Ive grown quite used to it actually however sad that may be. Long & short it usually just rolls off my back. It has to or I would either be drunk, stoned or institutionalized on a very regular (read DAILY) basis.

But in the last week I have had to deal with some of the most insanely stupid bullshit that all falls back to this one concept ~ when did it become ok to not be held accountable to anyone for anything? When did that sense of entitlement become acceptable? When did it stop being your own damn fault when you do something stupid? In a nutshell - I blame Baby Boomers. The generation above me has bred a generation below me of lazy, entitled, excuse making brats. I know that is a broad generalization, and I also know that from my own experiences there are exceptions to every rule - but unfortunately the rules still exist. And I seem to be dealing with a lot of those rules lately.

Example #1 - A line cook, lets call him Bill, is working the grill station. Its busy, its hectic, it get stressy. He is called a check & misses some stuff. Food is called for pick up, e doesnt have it, gets called out, says it wasnt called. Gets told to fire the food. He continues to bristle about it not being his fault. She tells him to do his job.  Bill turns to my Sous Chef, who just happened to be doing some shift coverage that day and was helping out next to Bill on the fry station to get the kitchen out of the weeds, and proceeds to tell him how this isnt his fault WHILE HE STILL HASNT PUT THE DAMN BURGERS ON THE GRILL to which my Sous Chef says Bill she called them, I heard them, it doesnt matter, FIRE THE BURGERS. And Bill finally did.

Fast forward an hour later - rush is over, line is cleaning up & restocking, he asks to go smoke. He goes to smoke, seems calmer when he gets back and gets to work. Sous Chef pulls him aside and tells him that in those situations just get the food on. It doesnt matter whos mistake it was, shut your piehole and fire the food.

About 20 minutes later a fully uniformed cop walks in our door. This is soooooo not awesome. No one likes it when the cops walk into a bar. Ever. He finds my Sous Chef and explains that Bill is his son, and didnt appreciate the way he was being talked to and gets all tight. SC defused the situation by explaining what happened. Yes folks...a 20 year old man called his Daddy because he screwed up at work and was called out on it. I couldnt even imagine how mortified I would be if either of my parents ever called my work or had the nerve to show the fuck up about anything like that ever. Old enough to work old enough to handle my own shit. Even worse - why didnt Daddy tell him to man up, son.  He is not doing that kid any favors. At all.

Example #2 - This cook has been having a case of the Mondays for about 3 weeks now and that is frustrating. Having to constantly ride him like a damn horse to get him to do anything  is wicked annoying. Hes a good kid, hes just lazy - but thats manageable as long as you dont have a whole staff of those. He comes in at 11am all pouty, mopey and blah. KM gives him his list. Hes been at work for 20 minutes at this point and decides to go have a smoke. KM sticks his head out the back door and tells him to go home and he can smoke all he wants to. Attitude ensues. He ends up going home in the end.

An hour later cooks Mom calls to yell at my KM, tells him she wants to speak to his supervisor because no one talks to her son that way and so on and so forth while he rants in the back ground. KM handles it, tells her who to contact.

Havent heard from Mom yet, dont know if we will. Either way its ridiculous. You cant come to work & not expect to have to work. This is our future. Oiy Vey!

Example #3 - and this one is my favorite. Six months ago guy is at our bar on a Sunday by himself. He has a few beers and some mussels, hes there for about 4 hours and leaves. Guess he got a wicked hangover, told her it was bad seafood. She finds the check & we figure its a hangover. We all have a chuckle about it.

Week later she calls again. She talks to one of my managers and they go back & forth about how its our fault he drank that much. Its an awkward conversation really, how do you address that?

A month later she calls again.  At this point I really want to talk to the husband and tell HIM to man up and call her off. We didnt do anything at all wrong outside of serve him. She rants, she raves, she threatens, they give her my email address and tell her to contact me - I never hear from her. Phew...bullet dodged.

Until today when she call and tells me a completely different story. Same tune, different lyrics. We have a ridiculous back & forth about it. Again, I dont really know what to say. I ask a few questions, to clarify the differences in the story, she isnt totally helpful but was in a huge hurry.

Im not sure what it is she would like me to do. I cannot control what her husband decides to do, and I am very sorry that he made a bad decision that led to further problems, but it was his decision, not ours. She want that bartender disciplined? And a refund and some other shit.  Me: Stunned. Passing that one off to the boss.

Its infuriating to me. Why is the world such a mess? Because it is being run by a group of people who do nothing but point fingers and place blame taking no responsibility for their own actions.

You cant call my son out for making a mistake at his job, it hurt his feelings. Yes, I can. And I dont care if I hurt his delicate sensibilities.

You arent allowed to make my son work when hes at work, hes delicate and needs special consideration. No, hes not. And no, he doesnt.

Its all your fault that my husband came to your bar, drank more than he should of, got a wicked hangover from it and lied about it to his wife. Um no.Not at all, really.

We cant give kids failing grades when they fail because itll make them feel bad. We cant make sure kids are passing all of their classes in order to be eligible to play sports because itll make them feel like failures. We arent allowed to discipline children in anyway that may actually work because reasoning with a 4 year old monster is better for their self esteem. We cant make adults do their jobs because its not fair to have expectations. If you loose your job because you suck at it you should be able to collect off unemployment for as long as you need to because you cant be expected to actually DO the job you were hired & paid to do so it must be the employers fault you suck. Its ok to expect more and do less.

Actually its not. At least not in my world. In my world I bust my ass for what I have. If I need money I get a fucking job - McDonalds is always hiring and if you dont have a job any income is better than none. I own my bad decisions and the consequences of those actions. In other words Im a grown up and I thank my mom & dad for popping me when I deserved it, holding me accountable when I fucked up, instilling in me a work ethic that allows me to earn my way and for letting me know that I am not some delicate little flower that needs to be coddled and protected. They made me tough enough to survive in a world that isnt always easy and made me smart enough to know how to make my life as cushy as I can. They also didnt raise me to believe that I was any more important than anyone else, that what I do effects everyone around me and to be aware of that when I make decisions,  that I am entitled to only what I earn and no one is going to hand me my happiness on a silver platter wrapped in a pretty bow.

Thank you Mom & Dad. As rough as I ever thought you were I could not be happier that I did not turn out a whiny, ego-maniacal tool bag.

Zombie Jesus Day...

...has come & gone. I think thats supposed to mean that SPRING has SPRUNG. If today was any indication I think it definitely has. Got to ride with the windows out of the Jeep & the music turned up wicked loud. The Gods of Rag Tops have spoken - the time for toplessness is now :-) 

The kielbasa? Came out awesome! Personally I think I could have added a smidgen more salt but overall it was excellent. It smelled & tasted just like Popops from all those years ago.  Dad agreed. I made enough to feed a small army of ravenous goats so I gifted a bunch to a few friends at work, all rave reviews there too. Looks like I have acquired a new holiday tradition for the family...good thing I think sausage stuffing is a good time. Somewhat related: there is no way to talk about sausage stuffing without making about a bazillion sex jokes...and for some reason they are always funny- yeah...Im 12.

The Mister got to experience his first foray into charcuterie & he can be my sous chef anytime. After a minor blow up of "would you shut the hell up and listen to what I am trying to tell you" hollered over "well I dont know what Im doing and you wont explain it" (Guess who was saying which & you'll win the prize!) we both quit yelling and the stuffing began. All told 4+ hours from grinding the meat to stuffed sausage. Definitely a project easier accomplished by 2. I gave most of it away but did save a coil so I can toss it on the smoker next time I smoke some meat...and that should be oh so yum.

I also made cinnamon cake that was indistinguishable from any my Nana used to make. This would make me the first of our clan who is able to make this recipe without completely balling it up. I think I am going to try to turn it into cinnamon rolls at some point. Would def have to tweak out the quantity a bit, but that buttery eggy bread w some cinnamon & some raisins with a cream cheese frosting? Oh HELL yeah. If I pull this off with any success Ill post the recipe.  Only difference between mine & Nanas is hers is made with Oleo - totally how she has it written in the recipe, margarine for those of us born after 1950 - and I use butter. Margarine is NOT food and I do not cook with things that arent food.

It was a great day with the family, really. Still odd to see my sister & her kids hanging out with her new boyfriend. My BIL was a bit of a douche...but its still weird. I actually defended him to my mom. She called him an asshole because he wouldnt give Sister what she wanted as far as weekend visitation. Why the hell should he?!? He wasnt the best husband ever, but as much as I love my sister shes a total asshole. She cant help it really, its just who she is, but hes done with her so why does he have to acquiesce to her every request? Oh yeah...he DOESNT. Mom thought I was being harsh, I call it realistic. He had no choice but to deal with her when they were together, not quite the same now. I know its evil but seeing her get a bit of her vindictive medicine amuses me. A lot. I know, I know...y'all probably think Im mean for taking pleasure in her annoyance, but

Capped the evening by almost yelling at Gram (Moms Mom). I dont even know wtf we were talking about over cake & all of a sudden shes all "Blame Obama" and Im all "what?!?!" I kind of forgot that Gram likes to sit and watch Fox News All. Damn. Day. And believes every damn word those talking head idiots spit out. It pisses me off. Even when its rhetoric being spouted by my 85 year old grandmother.  I still dont get how you can blame any one individual for the shit show that is our government. That is and was a group effort. The problem isnt political parties. Its politicians. And until the masses can see that its going to be more of the same. She looked at me like I was an anarchist. Maybe I am...but at least I dont believe everything I hear on TV. Thank god she doenst get the internet. Lord knows what kind of crap shed believe if she could read some of that shit.

Tonight: Cheese Burgers & Potato Salad and if I have my way a Pens win into round #2 of the Playoffs! The return of Matt Cooke & moar hockey!

Delicious Food & Fond Memories

Oh I have made some deliciousness to send out into the world in the last couple days and will be heading home today to create some more!

So next month we are doing a special feature menu centered around Belgium and I want the cheese boards to be the real deal. I spent yesterday making up a country style pate with pistachios and orange & fennel chicken terrine. Love them both. Ive been on a pate buying kick lately for home, but just havent found one that I am over the moon about. I compare them to my own and am always kind of disappointed in the flat flavor. Ive gotten it from Crested Duck at Pittsburgh Public Market, D'Artagnan from Market District and they were both good, but fell kind of flat for me. Honestly I think its because when they are made the folks forget that anything served cold has to taste over seasoned when hot to taste right when chilled. If you cook off a sample piece it should taste salty almost when its eaten so when pressed & chilled its right. Either way I had a how to make & press pate lesson with my production guy, unmoled those puppies today and they are PERFECT. This makes me happy.

The terrines are something I like a lot. They are a bit "old school" as far as when they were popular, but when they are made well they are simply divine.  They are generally made with a relatively universal meat - like chicken, turkey, even pork - and are garnished with so many different things.  Personally I love a dried cherry & cashew terrine, or a spinach & feta.  More or less they are a shaped & seasoned forcemeat that is poached very slowly, chilled & served cold.  The one I made yesterday was fresh fennel braised in fresh squeezed orange juice with some orange zest. I generally am not a fan of fennel, but these came out absolutely perfect. The terrines are really nice as a luncheon dish, accoutrement for a cheese board or on finger sandwiches with some flavored mayo.


Also made a beer brined roasted half chicken that is going to be served with a dried cherry stock reduction sauce.  This dish w that sauce may get me into my restaurants to eat multiple times when Im off work in May. Brined the chickens for about 36 hours in a Belgian beer brine, spritzed them with some extra virgin olive oil and then dusted with herbs de provence & cracked black pepper.  The brine makes them so tender & the skin crisped up beautifully. The sauce for this is one of my absolute favorites veal stock reduction sauces made with a cherry lambic & dried cherries, oh so perfect for this chicken dish. I cant wait to eat it fully assembled.

Loving that I am having a close to flawless cooking week :-)

Tonight I am adventuring into the wide & wonderful world of sausage making. My Popop (Dad's Dad) was a foreman for Armour for years & used to make, every Christmas & Easter, a special fresh Kielbasa  with my Nana that was a family favorite. He didnt use any curing salts so it was gray, but it was rich & loaded with garlic and spices. It is one of those food memories that I will never ever forget. I remember watching him make it, getting yelled at by my Nana to get my fingers away from the manual meat grinder, the smell of it simmering on the stove when I walked into their house that meant HOLIDAYS, the amazement of watching him stuff the natural casings with ease and wondering if I could do that too (for the record every time I tried back then it was an amusing FAIL, but I never gave up); it didnt start out as one of my favorites, but I always ate it and as I got older I learned to love it ~ the gray color was a turn off for me, once I got over it it was wonderful!

Fast forward to now - I'm no longer a kid, my Popop has been gone for close to a decade now, my Nana, thanks to a fall, is just starting her new life in an assisted living home and the huge family gatherings of my past are no more.  I actually miss having the 30 of us all together for the holidays like we used to, but it just doesnt happen that way anymore. My uncle & his family moved to Florida. My Aunt & her family have decided their status & their McMansion make them too good to spend the holidays at home with their family so they are skiing, beaching or golfing for every major holiday. I can honestly say I dont think Ive actually spoken to my Aunt in about 5 years, not due to some huge falling out - we just live on different planets and she happens to think my planet is a scary scary place.

Since Popop passed my Dad has tried, valiantly, to recreate what Popop used to make. Now in traditional old school methods there are no recipes to follow ~ you ask Nana now and she says "oh you need a bowl of fresh ground pork the size of my favorite ceramic mixing bowl I got as a wedding gift, you need the marjoram from the 4 plants in the yard to dry over the winter (thats a measurement in her world) and enough garlic so you can smell it"...so yeah not very helpful.  But I get it. Thats the way I cook. I cook from taste, not from a book or recipe. If Ive eaten it there is a really good chance I can recreate it next to perfectly within 2, at the max 3, shots at it. Its a pretty awesome skill if I do say so myself. Dad's attempts have been pretty disastrous, really. He kept trying to make it lean. Lean & sausage are not ever meant to go together. He also isnt a fan of seasoning, so his 2 or 3 attempts have been dry, hard & bland....sounds delicious, huh?

So this year I have decided to try to resurrect this tradition and am going to try to make Popop's Kielbasa for Easter. Ive got the goods at home (sans the marjoram dried from the plants in Nana's yard, some dried from Penzy's will have to do) and plan to spend my evening with The Mister grinding 20 pounds of pork butt & salt pork, seasoning it up & stuffing it into yards of natural casings. If I am lucky I will be able to make the neat coils of kielbasa he used to make and neatly wrap in butcher paper to take to Mom & Dad's on Sunday. I miss my Pops...he was a ornery old man but he was our ornery old man & I hope I can do it justice. At the very least I know Ill be able to get it closer than Dad did :-)

I will have to let you know how this turns out - if it is a success I am also going to try to make Nana's Cinnamon Cake on Saturday. it isnt really a cake as much as it is a sweet egg bread, similar to a Challah with raisins actually, but instead of braiding its loafed up and topped with this cinnamon crust that kind of reminds me of that sweet cinnamony stuff on top of the sun dried tomato bread at Panera. Its one of those recipes that you have to follow to the letter or it doesnt come out right. Mom has been making it for years and its pretty good, but she goes back & forth between undercooking, which makes it wicked heavy and doughy, or overcooking, which makes it dry & hard. Its not a recipe I have ever struggled with & Mom is up to her eyeballs dealing with 2 Nanas in 2 different assisted living joints that both want her undivided attention ~ not jealous of her at all.

Hope you all have a great holiday however you plan to spend it.  I plan to spend mine in a food & beer induced coma :-) Happy Weekend!!!

To Beer or Not to Beer?

Got into an interesting conversation on Twitter last night started by Craft Pittsburgh Magazine.
(shameless plug: I write the Cooking with Beer feature for this fantabulous new Craft Beer magazine that is available at a lot of great bars in & around the area. If you're into beer & into Pittsburgh grab one. Its a great read & my recipes are pretty awesome)

It all started with this Tweet:
Would you let your teen drink #craftbeer as a way to learn respect for alcohol, before they're pressured into binge drinking by peers? 14 hours ago · reply · retweet · favorite


It was a lively and interesting conversation with a couple people with some different opinions. But it stuck in my head, as some things will do upon occasion.  I will preface with this as well: I do not now nor do I ever plan to have children.  I also am not telling anyone how to raise theirs ~ it's quite frankly none of my damn business what anyone chooses to do with or to their kids. That being said I am an intelligent human being who is also entitled to have an opinion about whatever I would like to.

I'm a pretty decent arguer. I dont get personal (most of the time) and can argue my points intelligently and thankfully those that were participating in this back & forth were as well.  What it came down to was 2 very different perspective on the topic of introducing kids to alcohol early.

If the parents take the initiative to make responsible alcohol consumption a part of their growing up you de-taboo it, make it less of a "big deal" when they get into peer pressure situations and therefore greatly reduce the chances of your kid having issues with the teenage binge drinking that we all know occurs. If you teach them about things like Craft Beer, teach them to appreciate it and respect it, you will, by default, teach them to be responsible about it. Appreciation + Knowledge = Responsibility. I know this isnt a fail safe way of looking at it at all; some people will abuse alcohol no matter the amount of education or knowledge you try to impart - but I would also assume that as a parent who knows their child that you would also know if your child has tendencies toward that kind of addictive behavior.  This theory is based up on a "normal" parenting situation; the parents drink responsibly and not in excess and they would want to impart these same values in their kids.

The comparisons offered here were mostly food related.  You develop your pallet throughout your life based on what you are exposed to and what you experience. This is true for food, beer, wine, liquor and the earlier you start the more developed the pallet will be. Some said this was an invalid argument, but it isnt. If you teach a child from toddler age that there is more to food than peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and American cheese you will teach them to eat real food and develop life-long eating habits that revolve around a balanced diet ~ not McDonalds. The same can be said for alcohol. If you teach from their teen years responsible consumption you will create life-long habits about drinking behaviors and the taste for quality over quantity.

The opposing argument was less about the social responsibility of earlier education, we were all pretty much in agreement about that, and more to the end that teenagers couldnt appreciate the nuances of craft beer specifically without the binge drinking of their youth. That in order to appreciate the best you had to experience the worst. This is flawed logic to me. I didnt have to drink Mad Dog to appreciate the aroma & flavor of a delicious Bordeaux; I dont have to drink Old English to appreciate an Orval. I can refer back to my boss' kids. All three were taught about beer at a very early age, it wasnt taboo, they were allowed to try it and find out what they liked and what they didnt. Two of them are in college now and neither is particularly interested in Frat Boy Keggers. Yes...they will still go because thats what college kids do...but they cant stomach drinking flat Coors Light from a warm keg in any kind of excess. They have an appreciation for & have developed a pallet for good beer. With this comes better control, better decision making and removes the desire to drink until they black out on some shitty Macro.

In the opinion of my opposed debaters development of the pallet & a more nuanced education about alcohol and the social responsibility of teaching about safe alcohol consumption were 2 totally different subjects; in my mind they are not. One in turn breeds the other. If you teach about flavor, aroma, quality and the nuances of any alcohol, craft beer for this particular argument, you will teach respect for the beverage and its effects on an individual, respect for the beverage will equate to more responsible choices which will lead to less binge drinking by teenagers.

I never got into this part on twitter because, well, 1) I was tired and it was late, 2) I honestly grew tired of the illogical place the discussion was headed - debates are only fun to me when both sides are argued logically and 3) hard to express a full opinion in 140 characters; But I can equate this argument to sex education.  Is it better to teach abstinence ~ cross your fingers and hope like hell your kids listen to you and do what you know you yourself probably didnt no matter what your parents told you or to teach them about honest sex education and give them the tools to make sure they are safe and understand the risks & consequences involved with doing what you know they are going to do anyway?

Yes...it would be lovely if it was as easy as telling them "no sex until you're married" and "no drinking until you're 21"...but be realistic. Did you do that? Did you wait until you were married to have sex? Did you not let a sip of alcohol pass your lips before your 21st birthday? For a few folks yes, both of those statements may be true...but for most of us, myself included, they are both so totally false they hurt. So knowing that, knowing that no matter what you say to your kids they are going to go on thinking they are invincible, you as the adult have NO idea what you're talking about and they know what is best for themselves (and you know that's what they're thinking...its what we all thought when we were 13-18) would you blindly hope they are smart enough to figure it out on their own or do you arm them as best you can to make sure they are equipped to make the most intelligent decisions a teenager can make?

To me it seems smarter to arm them, to give them as much info as you can going out there so they can make smart, educated decisions. I know thats what my parents did to the best of their ability. I know that I was able to make better decisions because of it. I also know that I was painfully aware of the consequences of the decisions I made from my teen years forward because they told me & after some minor trial and error, nothing too serious mind you, I learned they were right.

I know it isnt a black & white issue at all and everyone must make the best decisions they can for their families and their children based upon what they believe and the individuals involved. I just happen to think that making rules in absolutes, like no drinking until you're 21 and no sex until you are married, is an invitation to any rebellious teenager to do the exact opposite and that turning those topics into a discussion would be a more effective way of letting them make better decisions on their own without even realizing its what you wanted for them in the first place.

So, dear reader, is it best that I dont plan to reproduce & release upon this world a drunk-ass sex fiend or is my line of reasoning sound?

**Blows the Dust Off Her Blog**

Well hello there the few of you that may still adventure over here to my little corner of the internets! Its been awhile. Too long really. I could make a bunch of excuses, but really whats the point? Bottom line...I havent been writing. Its not for lack of things to say, more lack of time or desire to do it.

So whats new...

I quit smoking...again. This time I went ahead and got the drugs. Zyban to be more specific.  As much as I hate to admit it...its worked. As of this morning I am 9 days smoke-free. I havent cheated even once.  The majority of the issues I have had with quitting have not been physically driven this time, they have all been in my head. The end of last week I was wrestling with the WANT to smoke. Not need. Not going to kill someone if I dont get my precious nicotine. Just the very simple I WANT one. Thankfully at those moments of indecision and/or weakness I have been at home where there is no one to enable me at all so I didnt give in to it. I really do feel like this time I am really done with it.

To any smokers out there looking to quit I would definitely recommend giving Zyban a try. It has less severe side effects than Chantix, is covered by most health plans in that it is technically an anti-depressant and honestly worked - at least for me. I started taking it on a Saturday, I smoked for the first week, until the following Sunday morning when I had my last cigarette at 10am. It is odd. Every other time I have tried to quit unassisted smoking becomes an obsession. Every though is punctuated by "I want a smoke". Its like being poked in the forehead with a pencil. I had no tolerance for that...obviously...because I was never successful. The difference with the drug - I dont think about it. It turns off the doohickies in my melon that crave the nicotine - seriously, it just shuts them the fuck up totally. It then becomes just me breaking the habits. The in the car cigarette, the after food cigarette, the I dont want to look at this computer for another minute cigarette, the holy shit that person just pissed me off cigarette...you get the point. All that's left is the WANT. I can control the want. There are a lot of things I want, doesnt mean I get them all.

So with this non-smoking comes the diet & exercise thing too. I signed up for a CSA so I can have fresh veggies delivered to my house once a week to inspire healthier cooking at home, going to get out and play more. I dont care if I'm ever skinny, I came to terms with not being a beanpole decades ago, but I would like to be healthier. As would the Mister...so mission You're In Your Mid-Thirties & Cant Continue to Treat Your Body Like You're In Your Twenties (YIYMTCCTYBLYIYT for short ;-P) is underway. I cant call it a diet though, if I were to do that I would be forced by the demons in my head to go out and devour gallons of Hagen Daas and pounds of chocolate.

Lots more going on, as usual, but I'll save those things for the other posts I plan to start writing more frequently. Ive still been running my restaurants, playing in my kitchen, redoing parts of my house, starting all my gardening for the spring, playing with my puppies & living. Hope you all have been doing the same!

Cheers!!