Bacon Loving Heathen

Putting the Pig to Bed

2006-12-15T19:33:00.000-06:00

As much as I have enjoyed writing this blog in its two incarnations, my life right now does not really include time for blogging. I will leave the old posts for archive purposes. Thanks for reading.

A Celebration of the Pig

2006-11-04T18:25:00.000-06:00

There are plenty of reasons that we chose to move to Cleveland, but the first is food. We have been convinced of this again and again since we moved here.

Last night we went to dinner at Johnny Mango's, which is just a short block from our house. It is always busy, and rightly so. The food is excellent and the value is unbeatable. N ordered the jerk chicken, as did friend and neighbor J, and they were told it would take 1/2 hour to make it. This is reassuring. Served with rice, beans, the veg' of the day (pumpkin with yoghurt sauce) and bread and slather (hummus and pita) all for about 12 bucks is quite the deal. I got the flank steak with smoked jalepeno sauce, and the match was perfect as was the rare steak--I could have eaten it without teeth. Friend M got the chicken fried rice, which he said was very good too. Mojitos, Red Stripe, margaritas, and the always dangerous Christmas ale were imbibed. It was a great evening with friends, and even with the bevies, we had no worries because we all just walked home in less than five minutes. Nice.

Today we went to the West Side Market, our weekly trip to church, and bought all kinds of goodies. First we fortified ourselves with the best hot dogs in town at Johnny's Hot Dog stand, the oldest stand in Cleveland. N was chastized for getting hers with just ketchup while I was praised for the kraut, onion and mustard combo. The ladies at the counter there are great. We always get our coffee just around the corner from Johnny's at City Roasters and then get sausage at the next stall at Euclid Meats and Sausage. They always have an amazing array of sausages, and we have scored boudain and blood sausage and Lithuanian sausage and super-delicious bangers there. But today they had something I had never seen nor heard of: zelodec. It is a Slovenian sausage that is cased in pig stomach. They have it only near the holidays. Ladies and gentlemen, I am in love. This stuff is amazingly good, and you know me, the odder it is, the more intrigued I am. But when it is odd *and* great, well I just smile and thank my lucky stars.

And the lucky stars continued as we looked through the latest Free Times, a weekly free newspaper, and found that a restaurant in Little Italy is having A Celebration of the Pig. No joke. I just about fell out when I read it. And even better is that Michael Ruhlman will be there to sign his book Charcuterie: The Craft of Smoking, Salting and Curing, which is like a bible for sausage fiends. He has also co-authored The French Laundry Cookbook, The Soul of a Chef, and Becoming a Chef. Presumably he will also be there to eat the "exquisitely prepared pork dishes with carefully paired wines." So will we. I called up Battuto and said, "I would like to make reservations for A Celebration of the Pig." The woman on the phone said, "I love you." Wow, what a friendly city! Anyway, she said we were the first to make reservations and she was so excited about it. Of course, we cannot wait for that night!

Cleveland keeps trying to find ways to promote itself. Well, it is the City of Food, my friends. It is plain and simple. The people here love to eat and they love to cook, and the connections with the old world remain, as well as increasing connections to Latin America and Asia and Africa. It is the place to be foodies. You heard it here loud and clear.

Superior Pho

2006-10-29T16:34:00.000-06:00

Hidden in the back of a building at 3030 Superior in Cleveland that also holds "Just Like Mom's" restaurant and a salon is Superior Pho. You have to wander through "Mom's" to get to Superior Pho. I've never eaten at Mom's, but it is Southern fare. The contrast (grits vs. spring rolls) is pretty strking.

The food at Superior Pho is also striking. We started off with the spring roll special (pictured) that was the highlight of the meal. The spicy special sauce was laced with peanuts and chile oil. The spring rolls we stupendously fresh with pork, sprouts, lettuce, carrots all wrapped in soft rice paper. Two were provided and two were lovingly consumed.

N enjoyed a pot of very floral, almost sweet, Jasmine tea while I loved the Young Coconut juice. The drink was so refreshing and the cocnut shreds were soft and tasty.

We both ordered pho (pronounced "faw"), the Vietnamese soup. N's came with brisket and tripe and mine had those two yummy bits as well as round steak and flank. The noodles were perfect and the broth was clean tasting with green onions floating at the edges. A plate of sprouts, basil, lime and peppers was delivered to accompany the hot soup.

On an early Saturday evening, it was packed with every kind of person. A good sign. Also good was out bill, which was very affordable for what we got to eat. The service was solid and pleasant, if a bit over worked.

Make the trip out there on the 326 bus and enjoy the food at the aptly named Superior Pho.

Why Cleveland?

2006-05-17T14:41:00.000-05:00

As more people learn that we are moving to Cleveland, a frequent question that is either stated or indicated by raised eyebrows or questioning body language, is "Why Cleveland?" So, I will throw a few reasons out now and then to give some ideas about why we are heading there.

The first thing that hooked me on Cleveland was the food scene, and the mecca known as the Westside Market is just one reason (although a MAJOR) reason why we hope to live in Ohio City within walking distance of this place, which you can see at least one picture of here.

It is not all about food. There is also drink. How about the Great Lakes Brewery (you can even try their beer at Cafe Belwah in Beloit) and the Market Avenue Wine Bar, both of which are within 100 steps of the Market mentioned above. Not to ignore the past, there is also the Dunham Tavern Museum.

Can you tell me where the second largest performing arts center in the USA is located? Well, I am guessing you can since this post is all about Cleveland. Playhouse Square Center is something to behold.

Much like Beloit, Cleveland has been trying to figure out what to do for its economy now that manufacturing jobs are located mostly in other countries. Alternative energy is a biggie for them, and this is a symbol of it. Plus the Science Center just seems pretty cool (haven't been there yet, to be honest).

So, there are a few reasons. They just scratch the surface of the whys.

Happy Time

2006-05-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

The sun is out. This pleases me. 'Nuff said.

Acceptance

2006-05-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

Shockingly, after only one week on the market, we have received and accepted an offer on our house. The nearly 13 years we have spent in this lovely Craftsman-style home on our wonderful little dead-end street are coming to a close in exactly one month. It is hard to believe.

So now the thoughts turn to the quick turn-around on events. The upcoming inspection, which on a nearly 100 year old house will turn up plenty of nitpicks. The boxing up of stuff (there is no better word). The planning of the move (who, when, where, exactly?). The looking for the new house. The dropping off of the pups at family and friends' homes for the few days we are away in Cleveland. The trip to Manitoulin, hopefully. The work goodbyes. The neighbor goodbyes. The friend goodbyes. The family goodbyes.

My Dad evidently preferred "so long" to "goodbye," finding the former to mean that you will be back and the latter to be too lasting, but I held him to both when I was nine and never let that decision go until the goodbye was permanent. And I accept responsibilty for that, at least my end of it.

But it is hard to accept that there is just one month, just 30 days, just 720 hours, just 43,200 minutes left to get in all of the "so longs" and "goodbyes" and hugs and tears and smiles and laughs and last glances and the final sharing of space and time.

The Letting Go

2006-05-09T17:02:00.000-05:00

As I am down to the final 10 days of my teaching career here at BTC, the letting go is beginning in earnest.

Today I posted in the Announcements on our class webpage an address for former students to contact me in the future since my email here will terminate at the end of the month, along with my health and life insurance, etc. I am always amazed at how many former students frequent the CST site as they have already started contacting me to ask where I am going and what I am doing.

Slowly, I am pulling some things out of the desk or off of the tan fabric walls of the cubicle, although rather slowly and quietly. There is time enough for the wholesale purging later.

The year-end get togethers will take on a different tone, of course, as these are BTC-career-end get togethers for me, and while I know I will keep in touch with the close friends whose desks I stand and chat at and whose grimaces I share at the lunch table, the truth of the matter is that most of the people here will never hear from me again, or vice versa. That is the way it works, even if you stay in town. When you leave town, it is even more pronounced.

The For Sale sign is in the front yard of the house, and it is surprisingly not bothering me. We have had quite a few walkthroughs already, and two more showings tomorrow. Our house has never been so clean so often in our 13 years there. When you get your house ready to sell, you spiff it all up for new people you do not even know and then wonder why you did not do so more often for yourself.

The neighbors all know we are leaving, and after the initial distress we have all settled down. It will get harder again when the moving day nears, whenever that might be, the day when we let go of the address we got mail at, the paint we brushed on, the plants we started from bare root, the hardwood floors we discovered under bad carpeting, the home we made, the life we had here.

Part of the cleaning is getting rid of the clutter, and attics and basements are amazing repositories of junk that you thought you could not live without. But you find gems too like my Dad's yearbook in which his guy friends wrote so many wonderful comments and his girlfriends all swooned on the page: "I am holding out hope that you will choose me. You are my ideal" and "To the tall, dark, handsome man with the most amazing blue eyes I have ever seen" and things like that. I can surely say he dated more women in a week than I have in my entire life. Had he been around during my high school years, I suspect that the mullet, the Gremlin, and the pot would have had to go. I lived in Wayne's World, and in that world, the girls are all imaginary. Jay's world would have been different.

For the family too, it is hard, if only just knowing that we will be seven hours away instead of one or because we will not be in the house we have been in since our daughter was an awkward 12 up through her transformation to her present graceful 25.

There is always buyer's remorse in any decision you make, and this one is no different. It is not easy to leave. But sometimes you know you have to even if it hurts. It's like letting go of your Mom's hand when you are heading to the school bus for the first time. Or letting go of that same hand when you are turning to walk to your dorm for the first time, and she is driving away crying. Or letting go of that hand for the last time before she is gone for good, and not knowing just when that was or how it felt for you. Or for her.

This time, I am trying to feel it. And it hurts.

Telling It Like It Is

2006-05-05T16:09:00.000-05:00

If you are a big fan of President Bush, then you should stop reading here.

OK, if you are still here, then let me just mention the most amazing performance I have seen in some time. This performance is one of Stephen Colbert, a comedian from Comedy Central who was asked to speak at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. If you do not have friends in the Internet-know or frequent blogs or Salon.com, you may not even know about this performance. But the Internet is abuzz with this performance, and so I am just trying to add to the buzz.

Is the mainstream media not showing this story because it slams the President? I doubt it. Is it because it is not funny? Well, I don't think that can be it because it is actually very funny. I suspect it is more because Colbert is slamming the media just as much as anyone else.

What is it with our country that Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and many bloggers are the only people raising real issues and asking real questions? Then again, I guess many of the great satirists in history were pretty gutsy and also very honest.

Anyway, here's a link to Colbert's performance. If you head over to Salon.com you can also see the "job application video" he created that is also hilarious.

So, How Do You Time That, With the Raisins?

2006-04-22T13:56:00.000-05:00

Last night we took a Van Galder bus from Beloit's Fine Arts Incubator to Milwaukee. We went with our next door neighbors who are in their mid-70's and usually leave us in the dust energy-wise, martini-wise, and most other wises you can think of. But on the night prior they had gone to the epic UW Band season-ending concert that ran a Phish-show-like 3 1/2 hours. In fact, it seems the Band had the director flying around on a red and white cow, fireworks in an enclosed building, and Tom Wopat singing songs (yes, that old Duke of Hazzard himself). So, maybe there were some 'shrooms or 'meth floating about in that scene after all. Anyway, the neighbors were feeling a bit worn out, so we were able to keep up with them during the evening of drinks and gallery touring.

The Third Ward in Milwaukee is a spiffy area of bars and art galleries, upscale stores and design schools. It seems in a constant state of upgrade as there were all sorts of scaffolds and sidewalk-walker protective corridors in the neighborhood. If you are in Milwaukee, we recommend this area. Check out the Milwaukee College of Art and Design, Alterra Coffee, and the Coquette Cafe. We had dinner at the latter just after we arrived at 6 p.m., having cruised over the way-too-bumpy Highway 43 in the relative comfort of a massive bus with comfy seats. The Arts Incubator volunteers even brought along a nice selection of wine, cheese, and sausage that we all enjoyed very much, most especially because it was free (OK, so we did shell out 25 bucks to ride the bus, but with gas prices as they are, anything other than mere transportation sure felt like gravy to us).

Despite the libations and snacks, we arrived in the sudsy city hungry and thirsty, and the Coquette Cafe was a literal ten steps from where our bus stopped. The place was packed, but we were able to eat at the bar. This arrangement worked out very well, what with the proximity to the front for people watching and the proximity to, well, the bar with its many lovely bottles of wine and beer spigots.

I enjoyed an excellent hangar steak that was supposed to come with steak frites, but instead came with very McDo' seeming fries and an unimpressive aioli. Oh well, the glass of zin' seemed to help my mood in the face of poorly presented potatoes. Nance had a plate of sweet pea and carmelized onion ravioli with pine nuts and a few other goodies; it was an excellent plate, and she was in the mood for it, which always makes the taste buds more receptive. The neighbors had a roasted veg' gratin and a moonfish with saffrom sauce, and while the former was a tad bland, the latter was very crab-like and glisteningly orange with saffron. So, three out of four dishes are very highly recommended.

After the grub, we walked around to a few galleries, and some held some very impressive works while others held some works that were more curious than what I would consider good. Every gallery held many, many people, however, and that was the most fun of all: to be out with many like-minded people on a warm, dry Wisconsin evening in a place where, at least for that evening, you could walk down the street with open liquor and no one with a badge on their chest cared one bit. I think every day should be like that, but then again, I come from a family where we are all just a few bad days from slipping into a full-on Keith Floyd/Foster Brooks/Dean Martin-like drunken sloshiness.

Such a state might have precipitated the commentary Nance and I listened to on the way home on the bus. After four hours of bar-hopping disguised as an art event, the forty or so souls from Beloit boarded the bus to ride back to Beloit. The neighbors nodded off pretty quickly, but two gents behind us chatted the entire way. I am sure that the entire bus could hear every word they were saying, but since we were right in front of them, Nance and I had a complete Surround Sound experience. They chatted about how much their kids hockey sticks were costing them (they break easily and are about 100 bucks a pop), about how their grass was not growing well, about how Bush is ruining the country (proof positive that the neighbors were sleeping as they did not pipe up during this particular rant; personally, I found it to be pretty much spot-on), and then things took a turn for the musical and muse-ical when the cops had us leave Highway 43.

I really do not know why the highway was closed, but around Elkhorn we were diverted into the strange backwoods of Walworth County, and we did not emerge for an hour or so. Finally, we reached Delavan, and more cop-roller-lights guided us back onto 43 and toward Beloit again. It was late, and people were antsy and bored, so one of the chatters behind us started to sing some songs. He clearly hoped people would be chiming in. I can honestly say that I never heard one of these songs before, but Nancy and I did try to help him out by repeating back his lines. It was a pretty poor display, but then again, we were in the middle of nowhere, mostly drunk, and no one was complaining--probably because they were wisely asleep, or faking it.

As we started to pick up speed on 43, the non-singing chatter asked the singer where he learned all of these obtuse songs. The singer said that he used to be in the Beloit YMCA Boys Choir, "100 voices strong" he claimed. He went on at some length about how famous this group was and how it rivaled any other boys singing group in the world. I cannot confirm or deny this claim, but I did hear the strangest sentence of the evening in this context. The singer, in describing how polished and professional the Boys Choir was, said that they "even ate raisins so that we could shit at the right time" in between performances.

Sometimes you want to ask questions and then think the better of it.

Magic Eight Ball

2006-04-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I have finally found somewhere in the world that responds to job inquiries in a timeframe less than annually, and that is a food blog called Recipes365.net. I emailed them earlier this week when I found that they were looking for food writers, and they emailed me back in two days and offered me a position as a contributing writer. They say they pay enough to "buy a meal at McDonalds." Obviously this could range from a dollar to, well, a few dollars. But, it offers me a chance to add a writing credit to my resume and also write about something I enjoy. So that is all good.

My first post is about the Long Grove Chocolate Festival. Give it a read. For some reason, all of my paragraph breaks were removed, but I am sure you will be able to manage. It is a pretty short entry.

Otherwise, I have not much to report on the job front. I interviewed in Baltimore to teach English and was offered a job. Too bad that I hated Baltimore and that their schools are in complete disarray. I passed on that offer. Maybe if I was younger and well-armed, I would have considered it. Then again, maybe not. Nope, now that I think for more than one second, I can say "definitely not."

I was also offered at least an interview in NYC for a teaching job, but I rejected that one too because, well, it is pretty pricey there. And, we have three dogs. And, did I mention how expensive it is? And we also have a cat, at least right now. And oh yeah, it is expensive there.

So, then there is also my current job, and they kindly offered me a contract for the 06-07 year. I turned that one down too. Love the people, and I love to teach, but it is just time to do something new. Just a gut feeling.

Cleveland is also a gut feeling. Nancy and I just love it there. I did interview for a job there that I am well-qualified for. I think the interview went well. But, they said it would be a month before I likely heard anything, and darned if it does not seem that they will be holding out for at least that long.

So, everything is in limbo, to some extent. We will get to Canada, and we are likely to get to Cleveland, but we are just not sure how and when. I guess we are also not sure what or exactly where either. I guess only the why is known, at least to us: city setting, great food scene, lots of art opportunities of all sorts, major league sports, amazing museums, and most certainly, just a day's drive from Long Island.

Speaking of Cleveland, I found a very amusing blog there by a young woman who calls herself Midwestgrrl. She has a real verve to her writing, likes beer, is unashamed to be from Cleveland and to be left of center, and tends to rant well. Her blog is also linked from here now.

As I know more about the future, I will post it here. But right now, the crystal ball is more a Magic Eight Ball: "Ask again later."

Hiatus

2006-03-30T14:04:00.000-06:00

A few years ago, one of my favorite bands, Phish, went on hiatus. They came back for a great short run and then called it quits.

Likewise, the BLH is now on a hiatus that extends backward to March 3 and extends into the future, for all three of you who frequent this site.

In a nutshell, I have declined a renewal contract at my present job where I work with wonderful people but where I am very bored. I am searching for a new job with new challenges, but have not gotten the new gig figured out yet, although I may be getting closer.

With the potential impending upheaval, writing this blog will be on a far back burner, just barely simmering, for the next few months, I would guess.

I can report that I had an impressive half-pound beef hot dog at the Rock on the River in Beloit. It was grilled to a nice speckled brown, had a good casing snap, and was served with excellent fries. A slice or two of bacon wouldn't have hurt, but you can't have everything.

Until I return, don't lose faith in the healing power of fried pork products.

Bad Portents

2006-03-02T08:05:00.000-06:00

Just a few disturbing trends to note:

Somehow, Howie Mandel has revived his lame career and is now making big money just to say "Deal, or No Deal" and to point at young, barely clad women and say "Open the case." He sure is a far cry from Gene Rayburn.

Even more amazing, and disturbing, is the appearance of Anna Nicole Smith before the Supreme Court of the United States. Why is the Court hearing this case? Can anyone explain it to me?

The sky is now darker at 8:08 am than when I first woke up a couple hours ago. That is never a good sign.

Bad portents and all that... (you get weird stuff when you Google 'bad portents').

Balsa Wood Porta-Johns

2006-02-24T08:11:00.000-06:00

So, you know the porta-johns that they have at concerts? I am sure you have heard about those tipping over when pushed. It is messy on the inside when they tip, but they stay together because they are made of really strong plastic. If they were made of balsa wood, one little shove and they would crumble and the crap would spill everywhere and the poor little porta-john would not survive. It would be dumb to have balsa wood porta-johns.

Now and again, I mistakenly watch the news, and while I normally just get angry, this whole ports business intrigues me (I promise there is a distant connection here).

Many blogs are abuzz about this issue, and tee bee over at the Guide has some links to many useful discussions, as she normally does. I will cover my angle on this issue. Agree, or disagree, as you wish, but don't spend too much time thinking about it in a porta-john; they are not designed for the good thinking that a home toilet is.

First, I have to equate this situation to something I understand (other than porta-johns). I do not have a direct connection to any port or any shipping process that involves the high seas, so I like to make it a bit more tangible for myself. Let's go with airlines instead. I think that the parallel works. See what you think.

OK, so I get to the airport and check my luggage. American workers screen the luggage and American workers screen me, making sure that I do not have anything that I might bring on the plane to harm anyone. I presume that they are doing this for everyone on the plane, well, at least every passenger. I assume that this has improved since 9/11.

With me so far? Cool. So now, I get on the plane, and the flight attendants are doing their usual work, getting people seated, fixing their lipstick, etc. The pilots are where they are supposed to be, but the door is open so I can see them in there with their official looking hats on and the busy dashboard flickering before them. So, I see them and take my seat. Let's presume that each of the flight attendants and the captains is a person who appears to be Middle Eastern. I would suggest that people on the flight might be uncomfortable. That is just the way the world is right now.

But let's take a step back, and say that all of these Middle Eastern-looking people are working for an American company and have been screened by that company. Does that make you any more comfortable? It does me.

Now, let us take another step back and say that all of these workers look to be Chinese or Korean or Kenyan or Indian. Are you more or less comfortable? Now, let's say that all of them have been screened by an American company? More comfortable, or less?

Let's go even further and say that we have all Canadians working on the plane. They have been screened by an American company. Nope, change that, they have been screened by a Syrian company. Hey, let's even make them Americans who have been hired and backchecked by a Syrian company. Are you OK with that?

Me? No, I am not OK with that. I really do not care where the workers on the plane were born or what ethnic background they have. For me, the fact that they are hired by an American company that presumably cares about passengers flying in America (who may not all be American, by the way) makes me feel better. If they are Americans who are hired by the UAE, I am not comfortable. There are plenty of dirtbag Americans out there too. In fact, it seems almost trendy to rebel against the US by being an American who works for al Qaeda. And the UAE supported the Taliban and has all sorts of disturbing facts about it out there, no matter how much the Bush folks say that they are A-OK with them.

So, back to the ports. Fine, the Coast Guard is in charge of security for the ports, just like the screeners at the airports. That in itself is not entirely reassuring considering the limited resources the Coast Guard has for this job. But they have no say over who is on the ships that are arriving nor about who is controlling the ships that are arriving. I would rather have an American company that is controlling the content as well as the process. What? There isn't such a company right now? Well, let's find someone who will create one. Gee, how about maybe the federal or local governments? Shouldn't we maybe do something here that seems proactive in the war on terror?

Let's go back to the airline analogy. So, would the 9/11 terrorists really have had to pose as passengers if the UAE had been in charge of the airlines in this country? They would very likely have just been hired as pilots.

You know, when you have a Republican in the White House and a Republican Congress, I would like to think that you would get an emphasis on national security and less government crap. But correct me if I am wrong--isn't the government like really, REALLY, bloated and getting worse right now? And doesn't it appear that the national security--the security of this actual hunk of land called the USA as opposed to some "interests" in a far off desert--is rather sketchy right now, and possibly drifting further into the land of monied family deals and actually only about as strong as a balsa wood porta-john?

I don't care how many times the Bush administration says this deal is just fine and everything will be OK and security is not an issue here, this whole deal stinks, big time.

February is the Cruelest (But Shortest) Month

2006-02-20T07:54:00.000-06:00

I've always disliked February. Overly cold, too grey, nothing great in sports happening. A good month to hibernate.

This year I was trying to be more upbeat. I was hoping to win the 365 mill' PowerBall, but since I matched no numbers in the drawing, I guess that hope was ill-founded. I was hoping for a lot of snow and moderate temps, but instead this weekend we hit 15 below. Perhaps I was putting to much hope into this cruel month.

But really, there are things to be happy about. The Winter Olypics have been great fun to watch, mainly because curling is on all of the time and OLK is long gone. The days are getting longer; the extra sun is always welcome this time of year, even when it is piercing air that frosts within your nostrils. So, maybe February is not all ice and frowns.

Still, it's hard not to look forward to March, with the trend toward more snow and less-brittle cold, with the even longer days that lead to comfortable grilling and beer-swilling, the college and high school basketball tournaments, the greening of plants, spring break, and the quick slide through April and May toward the end of the school year.

So, I will try not to malign February too much, since there are only eight days left of it anyway.

Happy Valentine's Day--Can I Say That?

2006-02-14T08:11:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day. It is a day to wear something red and let your love know that you love him or her, although you should really do that everyday anyway, you know?

I recall as a child that V-day made me nervous. I really did not want valentines from gross girls when I was very young (every young boy is Calvin, believe me), and by the time I was old enough to wish for a girl's attention, everyone was too old and awkward to give them out anyway.

I am amazed that nowadays kids are still allowed to hand out valentines. Around here, Christmas is banned from the schools because of its religious ties (are there actually any left?) and therefore Hallowe'en is banned because of its non-religious ties/pagan ties/devil ties--or just because Christmas is banned and pissed off some people and so Hallowe'en had to go too. Actually, I think that the one cancels out the other, don't you? Just let the kids enjoy both.

Even at colleges, you can't call a certain day Good Friday anymore; most places opt for something like Spring Holiday. That moniker will be struck down as soon as someone decides that it is too druid-influenced. I can imagine in my lifetime that every holiday will be banned for political correctness. In my happier moments, I can also imagine that perhaps political correctness will instead be banned, and kids will be allowed to dress up as devils and sing Silent Night and still somehow turn out OK. Seems to have worked in the past, if you ask me (which you did not).

Anywhooooo...where my wife works, with little kids of 3, 4 and 5, some of the boys were very excited to give their little boy friends valentines. Some of the teachers discouraged this innocent act--"oh no, you need to give them to girls" or something like that. Ah ha! here is the origin of the gay species--boys giving boys valentines at age three. Give me a break.

Sometimes you have to wonder what people are thinking...or not thinking.

300 mill', Ice Women, and Scratch

2006-02-13T08:16:00.000-06:00

Once again, I got no matching numbers in the PowerBall lottery. But, no one else won the big money either, so it now stands at 300 million bucks for Wednesday. I guess I will just have to keep wasting a buck here and there until someone wins that big purse.

Perhaps I cannot adequately explain my dislike for Old Lady Kwan to those who do not find her to be an odious, self-serving whiner, but it did my heart good to have her drop out of the Olympics that she did not belong in anyway. You know, sport is supposed to be about competition, not just chumminess and insider-tracks; let's leave that stuff for Hollywood and politics. But could NBC have gone more out of its way to fawn over her decision to leave the Olympics because she was not healthy enough to perform? And did she really have to sit in front of the cameras for a half an hour shedding tears about her decision? Maybe they can welcome her to the White House when she returns to the USA in the next day or so just to give her a "well done" on what could have been since that is all that seems to matter with her. It's not "what have you done for me lately" but "what you could have done for me but never did."

Of course, just to prove that she cannot let go of the spotlight, she is already talking about competing in the 2010 Olympics when she will be 29. Perhaps she can skate against Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamil, all of them performing 1/64th axels with their walkers in hand.

Curling is on right now, and I am a huge fan. Shuffleboard on a grand scale on ice, and not one of the women has whined or cried yet. What more can you ask for?

My step-daughter just got to enjoy the biggest snowstorm of her life: 26.9 inches in New York. I am so jealous that I would almost fly out there just to see it. And, one of my fav' reggae dudes is playing in NYC today--Lee "Scratch" Perry. If you do not know him, you should make it a point to give his stuff a listen, if you like reggae. He is The Man, at least among living reggae artists.

Little-City Living

2006-02-09T16:07:00.000-06:00

About 10 friends joined my wife and I last night to have a chip tasting party at a local pub. Kettle Chips, which is opening a new plant in Beloit this year, has a Happy Hour Party Pack that you can order and then sample the five beta-flavors. Whichever flavor gets the most votes nationwide will be produced in mass quantities by Kettle and consumed in mass quantities by people like us. Yum. While my wife liked the Dirty Martini quite well, I was more a fan of the Tuscan Three Cheese. Other opinions varied on the Buffalo Bleu Cheese, the Spicy Mary, and the Creamy Caesar. Sadly, there was no BLT option to be had.

This pub also has great beer, like Bass, Harp, Guinness, and Hoegaarden on tap. These bevies make the chips taste even better.

Last night, coincidentally, the Stateline Brewing Society was there, so we got to enjoy a number of excellent homebrews, including a very tasty brown ale and a habanero beer that was really enjoyable--in limited quantities, of course.

Add to those consumables a game or two of shuffleboard, some pool, and lively conversation and you have yourself a lovely little-city night with friends.

A Muddled Mind

2006-02-07T08:58:00.000-06:00

Just a few random thoughts:

Even though the Super Bowl was mucho boring, it was nice to see some team (*any* team) other than the Patriots win. You know, people always complain about how it's always the Yankees in baseball and the Lakers in basketball, but in actuality those two teams haven't won anything in quite awhile, while the Patriots had won three of the last four Super Bowls, I think. So, with the Patriots losing out this year, and USC losing in college football and then losing all of its good players, this should be an upcoming season of new champions in each sport. Well, except for Duke and Tennessee and Connecticut in college hoops (men and women), who seem to always be in the mix.

Soon the Winter Olympics will start and I will be amazed, as I always am, at the skills of the speed skaters, hockey players, skiers, and luge riders (not to forget skeleton or bobsledding either). But I will have to work hard to see any of those things because all that matters in the Winter Olympics is ice skating. That is all you ever get to see. Old Lady Kwan will be weeping because she has lost yet again, and that is all they will focus on. Maybe at least Dick Button will be there to make his disturbing commentary on the men's ice skating, which at least makes it amusing to watch, in a disturbing sort of way. I don't suppose we can hope for any sort of Tonya Harding issues this year that will enthrall us all in a spectacle of anything but actual sports, unless NBC can trump up some sort of lurid affair between Catie Kouric and, you guessed it, Old Lady Kwan. I know--yuck.

Last night, in a complete mind-numbing stupor, I enjoyed not one but two stand-up comedians on TV: Kathy Griffin and Jim Gaffigan. I know, it is a complete waste of my productive time to watch things like this, but I am a big believer in the healing power of laughter, and so this was a medicinal evening. Griffin was her usual acerbic self, especially about Gwenyth Paltrow and muslims, and Gaffigan had a great bit about Jesus and whether or not he was actually a good carpenter (my favorite line being delivered by a person who supposedly hired Jesus to do some carpentry work. "Yeah, yeah, I know, son of God and all that. Well, right now you are building a shed.")

This year we received our state tax refund in two days. We e-filed, of course, but that still strikes me as way too efficient for any state government to be. But, as an efficient consumer, I promptly spent the money on a pending bill with just a few clicks. Yeah for electronic money.

Can someone tell me how people wasted time before cell phones, Google, and cable TV? My mind has been so muddled by all of them that I have forgotten.

Nice Rack

2006-02-06T08:09:00.000-06:00

As I was pondering whether to walk the dogs or exercise first this morning (the walking is punctuated by way too many stops for smelling and peeing--by the dogs, for clarification--that it does not count as exercise), I paused for a moment to wonder about what makes me exercise anyway. Some thoughts.

I do not think that it is longevity. I know too many instances of people who have never exercised in any formal fashion, and yet they have lived to be very old. Our landlady when I was a kid lived to be 108, and yet I never saw her do one pull-up. On the other hand, she was always working, so I guess she did not have time for pull-ups either.

I also do not think that the exercise is just for health. Again, I can think of many people who are quite healthy and they do not execise as far as I know. And this is kind of related to longevity, so perhaps I should move on. Although I must admit that when I do exercise I do feel healthier.

I cannot say that I exercise for the 'high' involved. In fact, I am not sure I ever hit any big rush of a high. I am usually pretty upbeat, so perhaps the exercise keeps me in some leveled-out buzzed state. But that is not really my motivation.

Certainly the ability to eat things I should not and in quantities that I should not be able to is getting closer to the truth. Add to that the fact that I can also drink wine and beer without getting a big tube around my waist makes me more motivated to exercise. I think we are getting closer here.

So, it seems to me we are looking at fear here. Fear of death, fear of ill health, fear of getting too large. Fear is a pretty good motivator. Now when I was a kid, especially a teenager, certainly my biggest fear was going bald. That was a mortal dread. Were I to lose my flowing locks and have a shiny pate, well, I would have rather been dead.

But, then I met my wife, and her ideal man is a young Woody Allen. Now, I did not know what this said for me, and frankly I am still not sure what this says for me. But I do know that as long as I can amuse her, then I will be able to shrink, go bald, get thick glasses, and act Jewish and she will still find me attractive. All of this presumes that I am presently better looking than Woody Allen, which perhaps is not such a safe bet.

Exercise, of course, is not something that can prevent baldness (at least not from any infomercial I have seen), so that cannot be the big motivator. No, my friends, I have figured it out. Breasts. That is the big motivator.

Anywhere you turn these days, in the larging-up of America, men are often stacked bigger than their wives. This is not a look I care to emulate. If anyone ever says to me "nice rack," we'd better be playing pool or looking at guns hanging on a wall. Even seemingly thin people like Bobby Flay on the Food Network seem to have a bit of a need for some, well, support, if you know what I mean. Please, please, please--never let the words "Alan" and "cross-your-heart bra" be uttered in the same sentence. Oh oh, it just happened.

Off I go the exercise bike. The dogs will just have to wait.

Three Bucks on Floyd and the Pigeons

2006-02-02T17:24:00.000-06:00

Well, the exciting news is that I won money in the PowerBall drawing. The not-so-exciting news is that I won only 3 bucks. Could have been worse--I only spent three on the tickets. So, now I can feel comfortable in buying a few more next week when the jackpot is 180 million. Shucks, I would take that in Canadian, pesos, or pounds of bacon. Man, that would be quite a pile of bacon.

If you get the Travel Channel, Keith Floyd is now on each day from 9-10 CST. If you have a cushy schedule like I do, you can catch the show. Or, if you have a TiVO I guess you could use that too. Anyway, Floyd loves food, is a great roadside cook, and is usually at least half in the bag. Give it a watch sometime.

In case you do not have a blog yet, you are too late. Blogs are now being composed by pigeons. What human would start a blog once the pigeons have gotten ahold of them? Oh, and how can I pass up the comment that these blogs will likely be written in (ouch) pidgin...

February WTF

2006-02-01T14:44:00.000-06:00

It's been well over a month since I have posted much here, which is lame on my part. I can certainly not blame the holidays any longer. My stepdaughter would say "WTF!" in regard to my slacker attitude of late.

I guess I just need to get over the fact that I cannot write some sort of interesting, nicely tied up tale every post. I suppose that if I just vent, chat, or blab, that will do just as well sometimes, assuming that there are some souls out there who care to read what is pasted here. Here goes.

I am tired of hearing about Brokeback Mountain. I am tired of hearing how transforming it is for America. Nothing new is happening in that movie that Charles Nelson Reilly and the Village People did not do for America 20 to 30 years ago.

Sadly, even I am getting tired of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The best show on now, for my money, is The Office.

I am strangely excited that Kettle Chips is coming to Beloit. They run much of their factory with solar power and convert some of the fat they fry their chips in into biodiesel fuel. I think their presence will really shake up good old Beloit. But on the downside, I could get really fat and jiggly living so close to their new factory in Belwah.

Will we get any more snow and cold in Wisconsin this winter? January was downright muddy and drab.

Today I bought a lottery ticket, maybe the fourth in my lifetime. I am not sure if I am feeling hopeful or desperate due to this act.

I have always disliked February, and here we are on the first of this fickle month. Let's hope its White with snow but Temperate to equal Fun. WTF

Cures

2005-12-28T12:08:00.000-06:00

I recently read that blogs are intended to be updated on at least a daily basis. I contend that this rule should not apply when the end of the semester coincides with the holidays, conferences require attendance, and relatives and friends come calling with good wishes and treats. The world o' blogs can take a rest now and then, I hope.

Anyway, such are my excuses for not writing here in some time. But don't let my absence here make you think that my dining has been lacking. Far from it.

Here, an overview, as a cure for the missing posts.

My step-daughter Ginger lives on Long Island, and she has access to meat markets, fruit stands, wineries, and bakeries that I am most jealous of. Even though I grew up in the country on a farm, I have come to appreciate the gastronomic and cultural advantages of living in an urban setting. A smaller city like Beloit is nice, but I have to drive pretty far to get to a nice deli or a place that makes good bread. There is an allure to walking down the street and being able to score some cured sausage, fresh mozzarella, and a bottle of wine from a local vineyard. Ginger is well-aware of her food-centric parents, and so she kindly brought us some treats from Joe's Meat Market, including a vodka marinara for pasta and a dry-cured sausage, the type of which I have written about here before. I have yet to cut into the baton of meat as there are so many other leftovers to eat at the moment, but I did find a recent article in Food and Wine magazine about the popularity of cured meats. In this article, they note that a dry cured sausage can last for months outside of the fridge, but it eventually needs to be cut with a chainsaw and can certainly be used as a weapon. As a buddy of mine called it, "the sausage of retribution".

One of the leftovers upon which I have been dining is ham, fresh smoke-cured ham from Sorg's meat market in Darien. It was a big hit on Christmas Even with the family, with my niece calling it the best ham she has ever eaten. I guess that makes it worth the 30 minute drive to get it.

One night when Ginger and my wife Nancy went to a baby shower/house warming where only women would be present (and plenty of wine), I decided that the dogs and I would have a real man's night at home. So, we watched a bowl game of little import, cooked up a stuffed beef heart, and drank a strong red Zinfandel. My Dad was a big fan of most food, but my oldest sister noted that he liked heart very much, so I thought I would go with an homage meal to him. He was a man's man, to be sure. Of course, this manly evening ignores the fact that one of the dogs is a female, that our female cat sat on my lap much of the time, and that I feel asleep by 10 p.m. By the way, the heart was amazingly good. And if you ever doubt that the meat you are eating actually came from a living being, try eating some heart for a cure of that illusion. You will not be able to ignore the fact that you are eating something that kept another creature alive.

Speaking of homages, our entire Christmas Eve meal was made up of favorite dishes from those who has passed on in our family. So, in addition to ham, we had pate, shrimp, fried bologna sandwiches, macaroni salad, jello salad, herring, and plenty of wine, beer, and punch.

Well, just in case you injure yourself when preparing that beef heart for New Year's, you should go to Archie McPhee's website and get yourself some bacon bandages. Another in a long line of products that I wish I had invented. I mean, talk about curing...

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A few years ago, Nancy and I made a trip to Cleveland just to eat, and we loved it. So, we are reprising that event for New Year's this year. The food details will appear here as time permits.

Snow in KC

2005-12-09T11:42:00.000-06:00

Down in Kansas City at the ACTE conference, where seven inches of snow has pretty much shut the city down. But, they are still serving food. So far I have not had any BBQ, but that will be rectified this evening.

Food so far has included good sashimi, Buffalo wings, salmon, and a mushroom and spinach crepe. All quite edible.

As I write this at a free email kiosk, other CTE people are looking and leering at my computer and its connection to the real world, and I so end this post with the hopes of finding time to write more in the next couple of days.

Mercy, Mercy Me

2005-11-20T18:12:00.000-06:00

On Saturday in the afternoon, my wife and I drove up to Madison with Sammy Davis Dog. In Beloit it was sunny, in Janesville it was partly cloudy, and to suit the mood as if in a movie, in Madison it was cloudy.

We meandered through the traffic and arrived at the vet that would be removing Sammy's left rear leg, broken in two places, unfixable. He weighed in at 35 pounds and showed the confidence of a prize fighter in the ring, as if he knew something we did not. But when the kind young girl tried to get him into the dreaded back room, he twisted and turned and tried his best to grip the slippery tile floor. Once he was back in the surgery waiting room, we headed out to the car and drove back south. Once in Beloit, it was sunny again, a message in the air.

A couple hours later and both my wife and I were coincidentally in the "terlet" as Archie Bunker would say. As I was in the one nearer a phone, I managed to get myself to the phone without revealing anything pornographic to the neighbors. On the phone was Tracey from the dog shelter that connected us with Sammy.

"Hi Alan, I am just calling to prepare you," she said.

No one, when a loved one is in surgery, wants to hear this sentence. My mind raced as I buttoned my jeans. What, it is even worse? They have to remove both legs? He will now have wheels for rear locomotion? He ran away? He died?

"Alan, they are going to be able to save Sammy's leg. It has healed amazingly well at the break by the knee, and they can repair the break by the hip," she lilted over the phone.

I was stunned. I said, "Please let me check and make sure I am not dreaming." I thanked her and hung up. I found Nancy and lifted her high in the air. I explained the news to Oreo and Zoe. I stood and stared and smiled.

Later that night, I gave thanks. I am not a believer in God, but I do believe in some sort of spirit life, that people who die lose the body but something not visible lives on. I do believe that. And I thanked my Mom and Dad and Grandpa, and Nancy's Mom and Dad, and our old friend Fran, and our old dog Barney, and my first dog Socks, and all of my friends and family sending their good thoughts to Sammy. Something happened somewhere, and how could we not be thankful?

This morning we drove to Madison to Tracey's house to get Sammy. They did not want him to stay in a crate all night, so Sammy slept in her bedroom. She and Allison, the shelter director, were there. They were surrounded by a dozen or so adult dogs, and about that many puppies alternately whimpered and played in large stacked cages in the kitchen. We are devoted to our dogs to be sure, but these people go beyond anything that most of us comprehend. They will not allow any dog to fail or go homeless if there is any hope at all. The dogs there seem to know it.

As we chatted and filled out Sammy's paperwork, the many dogs milled about and chatted, comparing war stories, no doubt. A rough looking big dog named Joe often nuzzled Sammy. Joe had a shaved rear half of his body. He had a shattered pelvis from a gunshot and had recently had surgery. He was from Red Lake. He and Sammy clearly knew each other and were following similar paths even still, although Sammy now has a "forever home," as the shelter folks say.

Before we left, we learned that Sammy's original savior from Red Lake had called him "Mercy." We paid the adoption fee, lifted Sammy up, and drove him home, exactly four weeks after we first picked him up, first looked into his eyes, first felt his warm breath, first knew he was going to be part of the family. And now he is. Sammy Davis "Mercy" Block Doyle Dog.

What else can I say, but mercy, mercy me. Welcome to the family, Sammy.

Big Brother Drinks Wine and Gets Big Dog Tears

2005-11-18T08:11:00.000-06:00

Working in the IT world, it is pretty easy to get used to Micro$oft's method of self-promotion. They discuss a product for several years before it actually appears on the market. Right now that is the case with Windows Vista (previously called Longhorn) that probably will not be out until next Christmas at best. They have been discussing it for four years already. It gets old.

As a contrast, I love the way Google is slowly taking over the world. We have all known the good old Google search engine. Some may have heard of Gmail (2600MB and counting of storage space), which is their email program that includes searching capabilities so that you can find that three year old email about Baumgartner's in Monroe very quickly without having to page through 1246 screens of old email. (BTW, if you want a Gmail account, let me know. You need to get an "invitation" to join. I have 100 to give away right now. And contrary to my sister's assumption, I do not make any money when you join.) Gmail, much like Google, just arrived all of a sudden and people started using it. You did not know about it years in advance.

A tool I have liked for a long time is Google Scholar where you can search journals, dissertations and other scholarly works for the purpose of writing papers and articles.

One tool that has gotten a lot of press is Google Print, which is their project to scan every book in several libraries at some of the biggest universities in the US. This has been controversial as they want to scan and post copyrighted texts. It is in the courts, but for now you can search all kinds of public domain texts. Can you imagine the team they need to scan all of this stuff?

Google Talk is a chat tool much like AOL's Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger. But Google Talk is free of ads, does not include a bunch of flashing graphics, works very quickly, and also (if you have a microphone and headphones or speakers) lets you talk to any of Google Talk user for free. Bye, bye telephone, at least eventually. Right now Talk works only with other Talk users, but that will change soon.

The latest venture is Google Base. Have you even heard of it? Probably not. Its potential scope is enormous. Now, do you have something, anything, that you want people on the net to know about? Google Base is for you. It is designed to be a database and repository for, well, everything. Got a recipe? A poem? A picture of your dog? A car to sell? How about a house? How about a service? Have an online course you want to promote? Have a city you want to let people know about? Do you need any of these things? Well, Google Base is happy to post that information and even store it for you. Yesterday a search for motherboards at 5pm brought up 49 hits. Today at 8 am the same search yielded 92 results. Mind blowing? Not really, but consider that this has not been advertised at all. The number of pages for just one item almost doubled in well less than 24 hours Just wait until people start actually using it regularly. Who needs match.com? Monster.com? eBay.com? Walmart? Classified ads? Web hosting services? Hello, Big Bro.

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The third Thursday of each November is a cause for wino celebration, courtesy of Georges Duboeuf. This wine maker from France drummed up the idea of releasing Beaujolais Nouveau on this day every year. In bigger cities like NYC and Cleveland, they have big parties to celebrate its release and its consuming effects. It is a young red wine, meant to be downed between now and New Year's. After that, it kind of goes downhill. But this is no Strawberry Hill. It is good stuff. And so each year my wife and I head down to Everett's Liquors like the oenophile lemmings that we are, and we buy some up. We had a glass, and this year's batch is going to make Georges a pile of francs. Oh yeah, euros. Whatever.

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Today is the last full day that Sammy Davis Dog will have four legs and something in his sack (sorry, not talking Santa here). So, if you think of him tomorrow, send him some good vibes. He's probably going to be a scared little guy. But, he was lucky to get out of Red Lake while he could. Below is an email from the person who saved him; a real hero in my book. Here she writes about those who were less fortunate than Sammy, at least so far:

"Cold weather has hit, and there are many animal needs. I have a number of
dogs and puppies who need hope right now.

Here's what I have so far:

1) 2 females with 2 litters shepard mixes. I have had them for several
weeks. In relatively good shape- Pups are 4 weeks old nursing and eating
puppy food, There are 14 of them altogether. ( I can place about 10 at the
Tricounty Humane Society.)

2) Five pups rescued at dumpster today- they were freezing to death and not
in good shape- trying to save them

3) 1 female unwanted possibly pregnant- in the village of Ponemah. The people
wanted to kill it. I am feeding weekly.

4) 1 female tan golden shepard abandoned by owner- she moved and left her
behind. 1 male black and white shepard in the same household. Both are
adults. not spayed or nuetered

5) l female shepard brown unspayed. I rescued a litter of 5 pups and took to
Tricounty and were adopted. 11/11/05 The mom remains homeless. A lady will
feed her until 12/2/05

6) Rottweiler /shepard mix female with a litter of 7 puppies- 3 weeks old now.
She is fostered at a home who will care for her until I get her out.

7) Black and white pretty female pup about 6 months old- unspayed. She
comes to my classroom and begs food and cries due to cold. She apparently has
no one who cares for her or feeds her. She eats once per week when I am in
Ponemah community.

8) l kitten with broken foot found starving and freezing at the dumpster.
Currently fostered at Polly's house indoors

9) l adult tiger stripe cat fostered at Shelly, my coworker in Bemidji

10) 1 adult female who came into someones yard (They claim) She had a litter
of puppies. No more info on this one. This report just came in to me.

11) 2 pups saved at dumpster - both in good shape. Fostered at Polly's for
about 3 weeks.

12) One female pitt mix puppy, about 6 months old. People don't want her.

I guess being homeless for these poor animals is so critical now in northern
Minnesota winter- gets very cold and many die without food and shelter."

The Case of the Casings

2005-11-17T08:04:00.000-06:00

Having recently completed a three-session course on sausage making, I was in serious need of some sausage casings, having already secured a meat grinder and sausage stuffer for our Kitchen-Aid mixer. Normally these days I would opt to go straight to the net and order what I needed, but it seems that buying hog intestines through the mail might be where I draw the line on what I will allow my mailman to deliver to us.

So, I decided to do something novel. I called a local butcher. Nowadays, that is not so easy to do in a small city. In my earlier days here in Beloit, WI, there was a place on 4th Street called Iowa Meats, where you could get any old sort of custom cut that you wanted (perhaps the Broken Down Old War Horse can recount the days of real butchers in Beloit). I distinctly recall the day I went in there about ten years ago or so and the owner told me he was closing. Not only was he closing, but he was going to be the meat manager at the new Super Wal*mart. I had heard that Wal*mart was known for closing mom and pop shops; I just did not realize that mom and pop were going down so willingly.

Anyway, there is still a local butcher with two locales, Blackhawk Meats in South Beloit and Pinnons, which is part of the Exxon gas station and Jersey's restaurant out by the massive, looming Wal*monster. I called and both shops had hog casings (no luck on sheep casings). I drove out to Pinnons and said that I was the BLH who had called about the hog guts.

An older gent, who struck me as somewhat clueless, went into the back, passing through the hanging strips of thick, clear plastic. He came out with a blue mop bucket in his hand. He quickly showed himself to be an amateur as he stuck in his hand and yanked up a whole wad of guts. Everybody knows you pull intestines out of a bucket one at a time.

The old gent was soon reminded of this fact in a very loud tone by a younger, burly chap who had the distinct look of a man who enjoyed grinding up cows for a living. He moved the old man out of the way in a most Nick Burns-like fashion and showed him how you pull one casiing out at a time. As they started, I could see I was in for a long stand at the counter, and so I threw out the comment that I would want about six of the willowy entrails.

The younger man bellowed, "Oh, well you want a hank." He was clearly disgusted with the whole scene, working with this lame customer and lame old man. So, I tried to seem more with it: "Yes, I would like a hank." Sure. Whatever.

So, the young guy marched into the back of the place, motioning for the old man to follow as though he were a chided dog. Soon the old geezer returned and slopped a sealed plastic bag on the scale. The young guy stayed in the back and started up the meat grinder, plopping big hunks of ground beef into yet another bucket.

The grey-haired man told me that there were 3.5 pounds of guts here, and that they were 17 bucks a pound. Sheesh. Do the math--pretty pricey for stuff most folks would throw away. Not wanting to get into a whole battle with the young butcher, I said that was fine. I would freeze what I did not need right away. But, just as the old man was about to ring it up, the young guy--clearly just wanting the whole scene over with--yelled, "Just charge him 20 bucks."

I can tell you that the old man's grey hair moved in the breeze I created as I shoved the 20 at him and yanked the suddenly discounted bag away from him and scooted out the door.

I raced home with my bag of casings and took a picture for proof, as you have already seen.

Subsequent Internet searches have shown that 25 dollars is about right for a hank, but me telling you that I ordered a hank of guts on the net for 25 bucks would not have been very fun, now would it?

Midwest Meanderings

2005-11-08T13:10:00.000-06:00

For all the Sammy fans out there, an update:

Sammy continues to do very well. His bare patches where his hair was mostly missing when we got him on his head and on his left rear leg have pretty much filled in. He continues to be happy and playful; Oreo has decided that he is a worthy opponent in playful dog battles like rope-tugging and cheek-pulling; and Zoe has played with him for perhaps 1 minute in the sixteen days he has been at our house--a victory to be sure with her.

But it seems as though Sammy is soon to be one of those cool three-legged dogs we have all seen in the park, on TV, or perhaps have even met. His rear leg is broken in two places, the bone is shifted back and twisted, and the nerve damage is so severe that he most likely does not even feel the leg. This explains how he is occasionally able to stand on it, get it slammed by Oreo, or even lean on it to pee without wincing. But the leg is slowly going dead, and eventually, the vet says, Sammy will try to chew it off himself.

So, better to remove it now and let him get on with his playful life. He has been through enough already in his life without having to deal with anymore pain or sadness. I just get sick to my stomach when I think about what must have happened to his leg to damage it so. How could we not just want to give him a loving place to live? And he gives us so much love and happiness in return, more than any dog we have known, especially for such a short time.

So, the leg will go, and probably the nearby family jewels while he is in dreamland, and then he will be truly available for us to adopt. That will be a happy day for us, and we hope and believe, for him.

I also learned more about his background; it seems that Sammy is a Midwesterner! We originally thought that he was a Katrina rescue that came through the shelters in Minnesota. But in fact he is a rescue from Red Lake, Minnesota, where there is an Indian reservation. He was one of a pack of strays that were rescued by a local woman who lives on the reservation; she sends them to Madison's Shelter from the Storm because they work very hard to find homes for strays and injured pets like Sammy. I guess the nearest vet to the reservation is 130 miles away, and they rarely have time, money, or space for injured dogs and so put them down in short order.

We are thankful that Sammy escaped that fate, whether it was living in the dump at the reservation or swimming in the floodwaters after Katrina.

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Tee Bee at the Guide to Midwestern Culturepoints out that many of the rioters in France are Muslims. How many of you knew that? Why is the American news media shying away from reporting this fact? If they were rich white kids, I would want to know; same thing for if they are poor arab kids. I had to admit to my friend Larry that Fox News was one of the only channels to report this "demographic" issue on the national news, thus proving that my TV does indeed receive that channel despite my earlier claims to the contrary.

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Speaking of national news, CNN recently dumped the methodical but decent Aaron Brown for the pinhead Anderson Cooper during its 8-10 p.m. slot. Who knows where Brown will end up, but with Wolf Blizter and Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn, CNN now has almost as many annoying anchors as Fox. How I long for the level-headed Canadian news when we are here in the Midwest.

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Barak Obama was on the Daily Show last night (reruns at 9 a.m. CST the next day for those with a cushy schedule like mine) and had a great line, saying that the only person more hyped than he (Obama) is indeed host Jon Stewart. But seriously, Obama needs quite a few years of serious service on the national level, not just in Illinois, before people are going to take him seriously for anything presidential in nature.
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My friend Larry was telling me about a three-legged cat he knew when he was a youngster (Larry, not the cat) that did very well balancing on fences and fending off dogs, and I have discovered quite a few sites devoted to three-legged pups, like this one about Oscar. Stories like these make you hopeful.

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My friend Bob is planning to start up his own blog soon in which he will educate us all about local Greater Beloit history, of which he has an amazing capacity to keep track of in impressive detail. When this sort of "oral history" gets rolling, you will hear about it here. So much of Beloit's history is the Midwest's history.

Much More Than Tea for Me on Long Island

2005-11-04T15:50:00.000-06:00

It has been a long time coming, but here are some comments on our recent trip to Long Island.

We had a lovely visit with our daughter in Lindenhurst, on the south side of the island. She is only ten minutes from Fire Island and the awe-filling ocean. Just a few blocks from her house is a lovely downtown, with a coffeshop, three bakeries, a deli/butcher shop, a supermarket, quite a few restaurants, the Long Island Rail Road, and a Catholic Church with a large display of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, my mother-in-law's saint of choice (we took that as a good sign for our daughter, heathen tendencies aside).

The deli/butcher shop is known simply as Joe's. Quite a few guys work there, but the most notable in size and verbosity is Big D, a massive Italian man who wears a monikered baseball cap and is a big fan of veal parm' sandwiches. We enjoyed one of the calf-sized (as in your leg, but enjoy the pun) veal parms (as well as an eggplant and chicken sandwich that was scrump') on the way into the city, speeding along from stop to stop, taking 40 minutes to get to Manhattan.

Another taste-treat from Joe's is their cured sausage, hanging like batons from the silver bar running the length of the counter, dangling over the heads of workers and customers alike. I brought a couple back for chums at work, where the brittle links were named the "sausage of retribution". They do taste weapon-like at first, but after a few minutes of teeth-battering, the fat begins to soften and the taste begins to ease out across the tongue. Good stuff.

After I left to come back to work, my wife stayed on the island for another four days, and she and our daughter braved the flooding rains to venture to the east end of the north fork of the island (one town, Rivershead, got 12 inches of rain in 24 hours the day after they visited). As the landscape shifted from Targets and TJ Maxxes to orchards and out-buildings, they found some great markets holding piles of fruit, bunches of vegetables, and seriously good pies (I recall them mentioning a peach and raspberry for certain; I guess there was none left to sneak onto the plane). They rambled down a random road and happened upon a BBQ joint that sounded second to none, even out that close to the Hamptons. The Farmer Bar used to be just that, a bar for farmers, but is now a place where hickory smoke is savored and allowed to slowly cook slabs of good old pork. My wife had the Brio Trio, also known as the BBQ Hat Trick of Love, and I could not have been more impressed or enamored. Now you know one of the reasons I married her--adventurous and amorous in the world of gastronomy.

Many people do not realize that Long Island is a major producer of wine, but it is. In fact, America's oldest winery (1836) is there, and I recently read that the acres of vines on Long Island has doubled in the last ten years. Anyway, they had some great wine too, and I have the pictures to prove that they *really* enjoyed it (but those remain secreted away).

Before I go I must mention the breakfast we had in downtown Lindenhurst at a classic diner; my choice was pastrami and eggs, served "basket style," which meant that the pastrami was wrapped around the eggs. The highlight was actually really good fried potatoes. But the best meal we had was at our daughters place, where we made a roasted squash (cubed, tossed with olive oil, garlic and marjoram) and a roasted chicken. This chicken was from Joe's. It was trancendent. Boned, stuffed with ham and cheese, and roasted enough to crisp it but not melt the cheese into nothing, it was one of those great meals with family that just cannot be surpassed. Until you add in the Blackout cake from the German bakery in town. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and chocolate pudding in the middle. Whew! My irregular heartbeat quivered with dangerous excitement at all of that sugar and caffeine in my system.

So, while the immediate thoughts after the trip were those of complaining about travel woes (see previous posting "1919"), the lingering memories are those of tastes, laughs, hugs and comfort.

Sausages, SBC and Sammy

2005-11-03T16:33:00.000-06:00

Let me just say that I am totally impressed with people who can blog every day, some several times a day. I guess my blogging stamina is lacking.

Well, that and other things have been occupying my time. My wife and I are taking a sausage-making class, and that is taking up time both in the making and the eating. Down a few sausages and you do not feel like blogging or doing much of anything else.

I have also been battling my Internet connection at home, which has been slow and buggy at best. I recently learned that if I wish to upgrade my speed with Charter, my bill will go from 54 bucks a month to 120 bucks or so. No thanks. So, instead I am switching to DSL with SBC, and that will kick in late next week. And hey, SBC is changing its name to AT&T again, so it will be ol' Ma Bell in the 21st century.

And how can we forget Sammy the Wonder Dog? He has certainly ensconced himself in our household. Oreo has finally decided Sammy is worth playing with (and Oreo, at age 12, acts like he is a pup most of the time anyway). Zoe still hates Sammy's guts, snarling and snapping at any chance. I guess she is jealous of his happiness, friendiness, and the fact that he is now the resident cripple with his broken leg (her bad hip was fixed seven years ago).

A vet in Madison looked at his leg over a week ago and she showed me on the X-Rays where his femur was broken in two places and shoved back about a half-inch or so. Now it is trying to regrow bone. Might explain why he tries not to use the leg much. Her suggestion was that he might need to have the leg removed, but we are hoping that the surgeon who is going to fix him up will find a better way to approach his injury, considering how young he is. Perhaps a bionic leg is in order. Just this week he has been propping himself up on that bad leg while watering trees, a real sign of growth in dog manhood.

So, there are my excuses for a lack of postings. We will see what new ones I can come up with in the next posting. Until then, I will be munching on ground meat shoved into sheep intestines.

The New Stuff

2005-10-25T08:19:00.000-05:00

Here are the pics of the new kitchen stuff. Read the previous post for pics and narration

The Kitchen Project

2005-10-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

When you love to cook, love to eat and enjoy entertaining, the assumption often is that you have a great big kitchen, a fancy kitchen, a trophy stove, or at least an island where people can lean while sipping a glass of Syrah. Not so in our house.

We have a small kitchen, but it is very functional. Everything is well within reach without taking more than two steps. Our appliances are adequate if not great. But a few things needed some help. The lights were too dim and ugly. The ceiling had stains from a leak in the upstairs bathroom. The counters were chipped and faded and hideously 70's. You will note that I have used the word "were".

Now we have a new celing, new lights, and new countertops. My niece's husband completed all of the work with his usual exceptional skill and interest in challenging the edges of a schedule. The morning of the day we had a load of family members over for a football and food party, we were painting cabinet edges that had been chipped, loading up shelves with tupperware, and then using our fun new kitchen.

The feedback from the crowd was positive, and my wife and I enjoy it very much indeed. The pets just seem to be happy to have their bowls back in their regular places.

Sammy the Wonder Dog

2005-10-23T21:40:00.000-05:00

Today we picked up our foster dog, a pup who was stranded in New Orleans after Katrina. He is about four or five months old, had/has a broken leg (he puts very little weight on it), was found roaming around an abandoned Indian Reservation, and has been to various states on his way here, all the while trying to keep him out of shelters where he would likely be gassed (or whatever they do) in less than a week.

At the place he stayed for the previous two days, he earned the name Sammy (I like to think it's as in Sammy Davis). For all he has been through, he is so happy, so trusting, so friendly, so smart, and so obedient. He is acting as though he has been here all of his life. The only time he makes a peep is when we are out of his sight; then he cries. Not surprising.

Oreo seems to be doing his best to ignore Sammy, Zoe has only growled at him (as she does at everyone) and Harriett has delivered a hiss or two. He has taken it all in stride.

Having never been a foster parent, how do you let a pup go that you are attached to? I am not sure how you do that, and I am not sure I want to.

Who loves ya baby? We do.

I Thought My Story Was Bad, or Good--Whatever

2005-10-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

I thought that my recent post about airline travel showed some real suffering, but my story is nothing compared to the one told here: http://foodgoat.blogspot.com/2005/10/letter.html

At present our kitchen is in a total state of disarray as we are getting new countertops, a new sink, a new ceiling and new lights. It needs to be done tonight because we are having a family gathering Saturday, and tomorrow we will need to make some apple pies and prep some fried chicken. Ugh, I am not optimistic. It is 8:21 pm and there is still a long way to go. All those home makeover shows you see that do everything in two days are complete bulls*&%t.

1247, 1919, 3541

2005-10-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was officially signed, the first Miss America was crowned, and the Black Sox scandal rocked baseball (assuming the Internet sources are to be trusted).

In 1247, Bedlam became part of London, Pope Innocent IV sent missionaries to try to convert the Mongols, and the 4th Earl of Derby died.

In 3541, perhaps people will finally all have the personal flying vehicles we have been promised since science has been promising things. Until then, we have to deal with the airlines.

And deal with the airlines we did on our trip to Long Island.

Our trip out was fine. Drove to Rockford, parked the car, hopped on the plane, and made our way to Detroit. Sat in Detroit for a few minutes, then got on the plane to JFK. This part all went fine. I stayed in Long Island with our daughter for four days. The rains came and went and came back again. We enjoyed the city (more on this in a future post) and much good food.

I left on Sunday, taking a shuttle to the airport, the driver being a fan of gospel music, big watches, and electronic toys. I got to the airport at 1:30, flight 1919 due to leave at 4:11, and due to arrive in Detroit an hour before flight 3541 took off for Rockford. I then waited and found out that the flight was delayed, first for mechanical reasons and then because of weather.

Now I had only a one hour window to get to my plane in Detroit, and this time was soon seeming to drizzle away. Sensing impending doom, I called the customer service number and got myself onto a flight to O'Hare, flight 1247, just in case.

Turns out, I needed it. I got to Rockford exactly one minute too late, as my plane left the gate as I ran down to the counter, only to be greeted by a rude woman who could not work her walkie-talkie to see if they could get me onto the plane.

After initially being told I would not get onto flight 1247 to O'Hare in two hours, I finally got to a person with some semblance of a brain, and she got me a boarding pass onto the plane to O'Hare. I then took a bus to Rockford and a cab from the bus terminal to my car at the Rockford airport, where I was supposed to have landed five hours earlier.

Four days later, my wife was due to take flight 1919 to Detroit from JFK and then 3541 to Rockford. But, in true Twilight Zone fashion, she suffered nearly the very same travel fate as I did. Flight to Detroit delayed. Missed connection to Rockford. Flight 1247 to O'Hare instead. At least instead of a bus, she was greeted by me in a car, who drove her home. She still got home four hours later than she should have, her flight to O'Hare being delayed because they could not get the cargo door closed. Perhaps they had never done that process before.

So, new rules in life: no connecting flights allowed and no flying Northwest, although I suppose any other airline would have been about the same.

At least in 1247, people did not have to worry about flights arriving on time. But I wouldn't have wanted to live then, with the lack of, well, nearly everything I rely on everyday.

Perhaps 1919 would have been better. Still didn't have to worry about the flights, but gee, I do not think I would want to change places with people who had to deal with the aftermath of WWI, the impending Depression, and diseases that were not yet cured.

Well, I do not hold out any hope to reach the year 3541. Actually, I am not sure I think that people will be around at all then, but if they are around, I hope they have those personal flying machines to arrive late in, all on their own.

Come on, Vogue

2005-10-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

Having recently returned from "Long GIsland" and eaten quite a bit of food that calls for some commentary, the temptation here is to comment on that food. But I think I will wait until I am hungrier; I tend to write in better detail about food when I am craving it, and right now I am in a rare, not-hungry mood.

I will instead mention one of my great literary idols--Jeffrey Steingarten. Mr. Steingarten is the food critic for Vogue magazine, which has always struck me as one of the more challenging jobs on earth. Think of Vogue--all of the sickly looking models, rail-thin and lacking any semblance of someone who appears to enjoy eating. What perusers of Vogue are interested in reading about food? Perhaps they can enjoy food only by reading about it if they wish to look like the models in the ads in Vogue. Or a further perhaps--maybe they do not read Mr. Steingarten's amazing prose at all, looking only at the endless picture. How sad for them.

Mr. Steingarten has thankfully collected his food writings into two magnificent books: The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate. I love these books, and when I finish reading them, I am always tempted to just start them over again from the beginning. These collections of essays save me from having to secretly buy copies of Vogue and hide them under the bed. I can see my wife now, finding this stash of ladies fashion magazines, wondering what she had gotten herself into with "I do". Even going to the library and sneaking to the Vogue section would be risky, what with the hidden cameras and the chance meetings of people I know in the section of magazines that would include Woman's World, Utne Reader and Vegetarian Times. Too risky.

But, there is a new option, which is a magazine called Men's Vogue, which features the Cary Grant-like pose of George Clooney on the inaugural issue's cover. I saw this periodical at Cub Foods and decided that it would not hurt for me to see if Mr. Steingarten had an article in the magazine. Much to my delight, he does, and seeing that it was about a meat slicer of much renown, I had to buy a copy. The article is great, and it even features photos of the shiny antique slicer, a slicer that costs thousands of dollars and is most easily found in Europe. I cannot imagine anything much cooler than that.

Of course, this admission of purchasing a copy of Vogue of any sort is a dangerous one, and I suspect my chums will have at me for it, especially my friend who recently accused me of wearing an ironed shirt--a low blow, if I have ever heard one. (OK, so the short was ironed, but my wife did it.) Anyway, I did read a number of other useful articles and even felt the urge to go buy some new aftershave. I guess the slippery slope to becoming a slave to fashion is greased with bacon fat. If I get too hooked and anyone sees me wearing a silk tie to work (nice ties are the track-marks of fashion), please be sure to yank it tourniquet-tight around my neck.

While in Long Island, my wife and I were watching the television during a long spate of rain. A show called Iron Chef came onto the Food Network. We are not fans of Iron Chef, but I had read that our favorite Cleveland chef, Michael Symon, was to appear. Wouldn't you know it, but he was in this very episode. So, we watched, and the show has a certain addictive quality if you are into competitions. Two chefs get identical ingredients and one secret ingredient, which in this case was asparagus. They make five dishes, serve them to the judges, and the winner is so chosen. Mr. Symon ended up losing to one of the famous Japanese chefs from the show, and it did seem that the winning chef had come up with a group of superior dishes.

One of those dishes, dessert in fact, was a selection of asparagus with chocolate, the most notable being tips of asparagus dipped in chocolate and then floated in iced white rum. One of the judges noted that chocolate made everything better, and then went one better making me smile from ear to ear: (I paraphrase, not having the episode on tape) "everyone knows that there is nothing better in the world than chocolate--except bacon, of course".

And the judge who said that? Jeffrey Steingarten.

And he was wearing a tie.

The McRib

2005-10-05T16:36:00.000-05:00

Today at work I ate, sadly enough, a sandwich that was very much like the old McRib at McDonald's.

I no longer eat at McDonald's, unless in dire need on a road trip, and can honestly say that I cannot recall when I actually last sat in one. When I was a kid, I was all about McDonald's, and as a 16-year old, I was notorious for eating a 20-piece Chicken McNuggets pack, two or three cheeseburgers, a large fries, and a vanilla shake. This is when I was 6'2" and weighed about 150 pounds and could not gain weight even if I needed to.

The only time I can recall needing to gain weight was during my freshman year of high school when I was on the football team. Convinced that I would be gaining weight soon, the idiot coaches decided I should be a lineman and gave me jersey number 75, just like Mean Joe Green. I really wanted to be a quarterback as I could throw a nice spiral and knew I would never gain weight; no such luck. My shining glory was sacking a QB for a safety in the final game of the year. I never gained an ounce despite spending all of my dishwashing money on milkshakes and Charles Atlas powder from the back of a comic book. I had that old hollow leg, as my Mom used to say.

My Mom liked the McRib. I found them too gristle-laden to enjoy, opting for the short-lived, Burger King-like McDLT, which separated the hot stuff from the cold in an environmentally-offensive styrofoam package. It went the way of the dodo bird, just like the french fries that they used to cook in beef tallow. Julia Child used to lament this change to vegetable oil, and I have always found that copying Julia's ideas is a good way to go; and so let us all lament the loss of beef tallow at McD's. If they still used it, I might eat there.

Of course, if they served any real bacon, I might eat there too.

But back to the preformed/deformed McRib. It has a cult following on the Internet. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McRib , http://www.petitiononline.com/mcrib12/petition.html , and http://nessart.8m.com/mcrib.htm for examples.
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On a completely unrelated note, I just learned that The White Stripes, one of my fav bands, will be on The Daily Show, one of my fav shows, on December 1st. This pleases me.
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And tonight NHL hockey starts again, this time around on OLN, previously the channel of Lance Armstrong and bull riding. Shoot-outs, smaller goalie equipment, and a competitive Blackhawks team should make it worth watching. Tonight the Rangers play the Flyers on OLN, not surprising since OLN is owned by Comcast, which also owns the Flyers. Still, tune in to watch Forsberg and Jagr and Philadelphia's large coach Ken Hitchcock, commonly called Wimpy; he will gladly pay you Tuesday for the McRib you serve him today.

A Little Bacon-Filled Blog Vacation

2005-10-04T17:13:00.000-05:00

I guess that sometimes life and work get in the way of regular blog postings. Such it is here at the moment. As I will be out of town until Sunday, the blog entries here will be minimal until next Monday. But rest assured that the discussion of family, "heathen-ness" and bacon will soon resume...for the reason I will be away is that my wife and I will be visiting our daughter in Long Island and heading into the Big City. We already have dinner booked at a place that offers "swine of the day". Yes!

In the meantime, here is a link to some photos of the NCAA Track Cycling Championships we recently attended as fans.

(While you are pondering this little blog entry, let me mention my disappointment that you must use Internet Explorer in order to get the option of inserting a hyperlink into your blog if you use Blogger. Now I am sure that in my preferred browser Opera that I could manually enter the html code and it would work too, but the fact that the hyperlink button option is not available when using Opera smacks of laziness on the part of the programmers or a strange kinship with Micro$oft. Whatever.)

Thanks for your patience while I head east to eat expensive pork products, hang with the family, and talk about why I do not believe in anyone's God.

Be Like Linus

2005-09-28T19:47:00.000-05:00

Today the weather cooled quite considerably here in the Midwest, and I welcome it. To me, weather that is too hot for a blanket at night is just not enjoyable; I need a cover on of some sort in order to sleep, and when the lightest of sheets makes me sweat, I tend to lay awake grumbling about how hot I am. The cool weather also allows one to wear a jacket, and I love to wear a jacket. I have way too many spring/fall jackets, but I find I am unable to control this addiction, much like my addictions to Kettle Chips (salt and pepper flavored especially), songs about doorbells, and books about food.

The cool weather is also reassuring, if only briefly. This morning the news mentioned the melting of the polar ice caps, that they are smaller now than they have ever been in human history, at least recorded history. More proof, they say, of global warming and bad things to come for us. The reporter specifically talked about the USA and how we were going to keep having hotter and hotter and longer and longer summers. As it is now, I get to wear my fall jackets well into December, which doesn't seem right. Some say that this doom and gloom scenario is just that, and that soon we will be heading toward an ice age again, at least according to the scientists, that all of this global warming stuff is hooey. Much like the weather itself, I guess I will just wait and see what shows up each day and dress accordingly.

Along with the cool weather, the days are getting notably shorter, and this always makes me a bit anxious. I feel like the time just slips through my hands with each passing day, splatting on the floor like a fumbled egg. By the time February rolls around I am usually pretty glum, and everyone else is too. If it weren't for my wonderful wife, strong coffee, and the promise of sunnier days ahead, I suspect I would be medicated to get through the end of the barely cold, barely snowy winters.

Of course, any bad mood can be remedied by the smell of bacon frying in a pan. I don't suppose the pigs feel this way about the smell, but then again maybe they do, considering they will eat pretty much anything placed in front of them. I never knew cows were like that, eating weird stuff, but this summer we saw several eating old deer bones and one trying to gulp down an old beer bottle. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.

But anyway, that smell of bacon is a great one, isn't it? I also like the smell of sage in stuffing. You just instantly think of all of the Thanksgivings-past and your Mom or Dad stuffing the big old bird. Smells are really something, aren't they? When I was a kid, we would get hand-me-downs quite often and my sister would always smell them and say, "Oh, these are from Aunt Cathy" or "These are from Janie". I thought she was a freak, but I was jealous too. That's just the role of the big brother, I guess--never let the little kids know you admire anything about them.

Like many kids, my little sister had her favorite blanket; she just couldn't sleep without it. I suppose for her it was the smell that comforted her through the hard times. For me, it was--and is--the weight of the blanket, covering me, protecting me, comforting me. The blanket is, in some ways, "over, against myself" as the theologian Martin Buber says that God is or at least should be; the person all huddled down and the God in touch with the person, protecting, comforting, "over, against oneself".

The Almighty is a blanket? Obviously, I have a hard time with that concept, but for those who feel a God, I suppose the blanket analogy would work. For me, I think I am a bit closer to Linus, worshipping things like pumpkins, craving my warm blanket and fawning over a particular girl with blonde hair.

Binary Blather--Where's the Bacon?

2005-09-27T15:29:00.000-05:00

Most people who even know of this blog will be bored to tears by technical chatter, but today's post will include just a bit.

I have appreciated your comments about my blog, both posted here and emailed to me directly. I encourage any of you who feel you have something to say to start a blog too. You can do so for free at www.blogger.com and there are no rules as to what you say, how much you say, or how often you say it.

Blogger.com is owned by Google, and today is Google's 7th anniversary. Isn't that something? I feel like they just started up yesterday. But they have been around for half of the life of the World Wide Web. Isn't it amazing that back when Clinton was first president that barely anyone knew what a website was? The World Wide Web was invented only 14 years ago. Anyway, as part of their celebration, Google is offering a customized home page, where you can make the Google page look like you want it to and include constantly updated information on things like the weather, sports, recipes, news, and movies. You can even create custom feeds that will give you information about pretty much anything you want.

The idea of this constantly updating information is based on a technology called RSS. We won't worry about the details, but RSS allows your web browser to get updated information without you having to do anything. So, no more clicking to refresh information; the browser does it for you with RSS. You can, for example, get an automatic feed of this blog by connecting to http://feeds.feedburner.com/baconlovingheathen . Then you would never have to visit this site; the blather would come to you when it was posted.

In order for this to work, you need a feed reader, and I again will not get technical here. But let me put in a plug for a web browser called Opera at www.opera.com . The makers of Opera recently decided to offer it for free, and in my book it is better that FireFox and certainly better than Internet Explorer. It even includes a feed reader and a mail reader. It is smooth.

By now I have probably bored most of you to the point of drooling, or you have just stopped reading. I promise the next post will not be a techie one. In a few months you will be using RSS without even realizing it anyway.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

2005-09-25T20:09:00.000-05:00

For many years, my wife and I went to L'Etoile restaurant in Madison, WI for those very special occasions, such as a birthday or anniversary. L'Etoile, when we first started going, was amazing, transporting, exciting and delicious. Plus, it was just becoming well-known outside of Madison, so there was that thrill of knowing about something before everybody else knows about it. I would say we were the same way about Twin Peaks and Howard Dean, but we have been way behind the curve on other trends like Krispy Kremes and Coldplay.

In the past couple of years, we have gone to L'Etoile much less, and it has gotten much more famous. Its owner and chef, Odessa Piper, who started the place back in 1976 or so, has been featured in many national magazines and newspapers. Seeing the time ripe, I suspect, for new harvests, Odessa recently gave up the running of the place to two relative youngsters. She is now said to be working on a cookbook. No offense, but we took a cooking class with her and I suspect that the book will be tedious and overwritten, much like her class was detailed but not too tasty (unlike other chefs who had taught classes there, she did not seem to want to share any of the food with those of us who paid 60 bucks to eat what she was making). Anyway, I am not sure why we have gone less, but I think it is because it just is not as good anymore.

This past Saturday we went to L'Etoile with my sister. Before we went to dinner we did a mini-pub crawl; Madison is pretty good for this sort of thing, although the streets and bars were awfully quiet for a Saturday night. In the end, the meal was fine. But in the old days, we would have been oohing and aaahing for two hours, every bite something new and magical. My sister had some potatoes with truffle oil that we would have gladly eaten a trough of, but other than that, the food did not thrill us beyond belief. If I can make it at home just as tastefully, then I am just not happy to pay 90 bucks a pop for a dinner that I could have created at home for a quarter of the cost, at most.

It's like when I go to an art museum. If I could make what is hanging on the wall, then I do not think it should count as art. Same thing with high-end food. I used to use similar measures when I edited a poetry magazine; if the poem was not better than what I could write, then it probably did not deserve to get even a second reading. Of course, having said that, the one poem I can still recite by heart (that I rejected, by the way) was entitled, "Let's Go." The text of the poem was a single "Let's Go." It was written in the handwriting of a mad person or perhaps a very old or very young person. It made me laugh that someone sent me such a pathetic poem. But, I still remember it. So maybe my whole measurement system is stupid and incorrect. Who am I to judge?

One of the great things L'Etoile has always done is bring out a surprise from the kitchen, which they always introduce with "here is a little something from the kitchen." Many places call this an "amuse bouche" (if you have seen the 'Sex and the City' episode that mentions "amuse bouche" then you are now laughing). Anyway, in the past, the little something from the kitchen was normally what kept us talking for days. On this visit, that should have been the case, because the amuse bouche was a mini (I mean one bite) BLT, with each ingredient coming from an impeccable pedigree, we were assured. It was OK. But when you go to a place where your bill will cost more than your monthly car payment, OK cannot be part of your vocabulary. Plus, if you think about it, even the most pedestrian BLT is beyond OK.

So, now what? Well, I think we will next take my sister to Harvest, which sits right next door to L'Etoile. Harvest is amazing, transporting, delicious, and surprising. We had a seven course meal there in which every course featured asparagus, including a white asparagus ice cream that was beyond description even three years after I ate it. It is one of the best meals of my life to this point. I am happy to weigh down our credit card at Harvest.

But, there is also Chicago, which is just down the road. One of the greatest food writers of our times, Jeffery Steingarten, believes that Chicago is simply the most amazing place to eat in the USA right now. He lives and breathes in Manhattan, so this is a significant statement. But I do hate paying those damn tolls, and really, if he is writing about this in Vogue, then we are already behind the curve anyway.

Maybe we will head back to Cleveland, which was way ahead of the curve in the late 1990s when we visited. Yes, Cleveland. You read it here first...

Hockey, God and the Blame Game

2005-09-22T08:43:00.000-05:00

As another hurricane is wandering toward the gulf states, having already caused a mess in Florida, I wonder about all of the God-fearing people down there. I have seen plenty of footage of old people being moved from one city to the next in wheelchairs. I have heard Pat Robertson saying that God is cleaning house down in New Orleans. I read where a pro-life group said that Hurricane Katrina looked like a fetus when it hit land, indicating that God was purposely ripping down the five abortion clinics in New Orleans. Now I am seeing those same old folks, so many of them poor minorities, who were moved to Houston during Katrina, being moved again, since Hurricane Rita is bearing down on the city of Houston. I have to wonder, are these people still praying for help? Is it doing any good?

I first thought this the other night when watching The Daily Show. One of the great delights of television is host Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, a "fake" news show on Comedy Central. The thing about The Daily Show is that while they do indeed have a humorous take on the news, in many ways it is much truer than anything you will see on the nightly news. For example, I learned on The Daily Show that many of the contracts to rebuild New Orleans have already been given out, most of them no-bid, and one of the biggest went to a subsidiary of Halliburton. What a surprise.

Anyway, soon after Katrina, George Bush declared a day of prayer. The host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, noted the irony of this idea. He said (and I paraphrase), "Isn't a hurricane an act of God? Is praying the right idea? Shouldn't we have something more like a Day of Shunning?"

This theme reminded me of a comedian who had a great joke about sports and religion. He wondered why athletes were always giving God credit for their success. Just once he wanted to hear the other side: "Jesus made me fumble." That still makes me laugh out loud.

One of my favorite sports to watch is hockey, and one of my favorite things about hockey is that very few of the athletes ever bring up God as the cause of their success. It is usually hard work, teammates, good parents, etc. Perhaps this is because so many of them are Canadian. (Canadians are not nearly as evangelical as Americans. Many go to church, but in my experience, I think it is mainly to sing and eat.) Yesterday we received a flyer in our cable bill telling us we could order NHL Center Ice, a package of channels where you can watch every hockey game you want to, many on Canadian TV. I have subscribed to this package for several years. But when I called to order, it turns out that Charter is not carrying the package anymore (even though they sent out the flyer). They cited low demand last year. You may recall that there was no demand last year since there was no hockey. I was crushed. If I were religious, maybe I would have prayed for them to change their minds. But, truth be told, if I were religious in the typical sense, then I would probably just blame God for everything.

So, as I watch this latest hurricane spinning on the tube, as big as the Gulf of Mexico, I can only sit and hope that the humans who are supposed to be leaving the affected areas are doing so, and that the humans who are supposed to be preparing to help in the aftermath are also doing so. If it gets really bad, maybe the president will send Dick Cheney down to console everyone.

And this leads me to one of my favorite television moments ever, courtesy of The Daily Show. You may recall that after Katrina hit, you did not see Dick Cheney for several days. Apparently he was finishing up a fishing trip and then finalizing a land purchase in Maryland for his four or so absent days. When his schedule freed up enough to do some work, he flew down to the gulf coast to meet with people. Has has all the compassion of Darth Vader. Anyway, the reporters were asking him how his visit was going and if people were being friendly and thankful. He went on at some length about how everything was going well. Now this was being recorded live by Fox or some welcoming channel like that, and as he chatted about the love fest going on down there, a passerby walked behind the camera and said, "Go f**k yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go f**k yourself."

Yep, everything is going just fine. Thank God.

Bringing Home the Bacon

2005-09-20T19:59:00.000-05:00

Today I was working on updating my CV, or Curriculum Vitae. For those who have not had the pleasure of compiling one of these babies, it is like a resume on steroids. Normally used in the academic arena, a CV is supposed to tell the story of who you are, what you have done, what you are doing, and what you hope to do.

From what I can tell, there are no major rules for the CV. I first created mine a couple years back when I was selected as teacher of the year where I work and I needed a portfolio to submit to the state competition. The idea, of course, is that once you have the CV started, you have to keep it updated. That is the part that is easy to slide on. It is easy to forget things you have done when you get busy doing the things you do everyday, if that makes any sense.

It was interesting for me to notice, as I updated my CV, that I have worked at four places since I graduated from college, and the durations have varied considerably. The first job for four years, the second for less than one, the third for a year and a half, and my present job for just over eight years now. One of my friends at work was telling me that a former teacher used to say that he was on the 20th year of his five year plan. When I graduated from college, I never planned on staying at any job longer than five years; I guess this attitude is typical of my generation, as opposed to past generations where if you got a good job, you stuck with it. I have a good job, and I have stuck with it. I have plenty of autonomy, I make good money, I have great benefits, and I work with great people. Why leave a job like that?

A few years ago, I thought that I should do just that. I thought that I should try something new. I talked to my wife about it, pondered and plotted, wondered what I would want to do instead. Some of my ideas were fun, but none were practical. So, after some thought and reasoning, I rekindled my interest in my job and things have been pretty gravy since.

But it makes you think of people whose jobs leave them, instead of vice versa. I have seen this happen firsthand, and it isn't pretty. This has been happening in our country at an increasing pace for a number of years, and while it may be part of the global economy, the world becoming flat, WTO, NAFTA and all of those things, it does not mean that it is easy or welcome.

In teaching, we tend not to think that this kind of job removal can happen to us, and traditionally this has been the case. Good teachers are usually secure in their jobs, and too often bad teachers are too. But as the world is changing, I think this pattern is changing too. There are many forces at work that are changing education as it has been for the past 100 years, and I personally feel that many educators are not ready for the ramifications of these changes.

So the question becomes, do you wait for the future to arrive, or do you try to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to bringing home the bacon?

Biking for Bacon

2005-09-18T20:35:00.000-05:00

Today my wife and I rode in the Wisconsin Bike Federation's 1st annual fundraiser ride in Cedarburg, WI. You could choose to ride the 15 mile, 30 mile or 60 mile route. We chose the 30 mile route, and finished up the hilly ride in 2 hours and 15 minutes. We were pleased. A pretty good crowd was on hand with folks of all shapes, sizes, aptitudes and degrees of biking attire. The weather was beautiful, and with the exception of a couple of rude drivers who clearly believe that roads are only for large SUVs and BMWs, people were amiable.

After the ride we wandered over to the Cedarburg Wine and Harvest Festival, knowing that we could thrown down some food and not worry about the calories after our taxing ride. Several blocks long, the Festival featured booths selling kettle corn (that people were eating out of bags a good three feet long--disturbing), various kinds of crafts, cariacture drawings, gelato (we had a caramel apple and a French chocolate, both superb), beer, brats, cheese, and wine. We also heard some good music along the way, especially a young band called Stealing Strings, who showed influences from Phish, The Big Wu, to the Grateful Dead along with bluegrass veins all the way back to Bill Munroe and Flatt and Scruggs. There seems to be a trend lately of young people starting up excellent bands that start with bluegrass music and then stretch out into the jam bands arena. The most famous is probably Nickel Creek, but around here we love the Paradise String Band. What a cool trend.

After hearing some music and licking some gelato, we stopped to get some protein. I opted for a passable cheeseburger, but my loving, heathen wife opted for some bacon. This came in the form of a "wrap". As much as some people like these wraps, I just can't rally around them. This was a BLT wrap, with all of the usual innards, but missing the crucial toasted bread. Instead, the carbs were a somewhat flimsy, well, wrap of some tortilla origin. I tried a bite, and it was OK. But, as a friend of mine at work said, she would "eat a shoe if it had bacon on it".

Words to live by.

Music to Fry By

2005-09-16T16:33:00.000-05:00

A common thing amongst some bloggers is to post what music they are listening to whilst blogging. At present, I am listening to none. But it leads me to another question: what is good music to listen to while frying bacon, hanging out with someone you love, or perhaps pondering the heathen-angle toward the world?

Let's start with the bacon music. I suspect there are some good bacon-related songs out there, and while I do not know them, I probably should. But here are a few I would listen to while frying bacon, just because I like them:

Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire" is always a good choice, and fire and bacon go well together.
Coldplay "Yellow" is just a great song, and you might imagine yellow yolks in your fried eggs next to the bacon.
Professor Longhair "Bald Head" is good for the visuals of a bald lady. "How come no hair?" Plus he is from New Orleans, and they need all the good vibes they can get.
The White Stripes "One More Cup of Coffee" is right there with the jolt that you need with your bacon.
Hypnotic Clambake "Pork Brains" is song from a band from Boston that is little known outside of the east coast. They have a zydeco style with lots of other influences. Any song that contains the lyrics, "Grab that sow and squeeze its head, grab that sow and squeeze its head. You know that sow will soon be dead. Pork brains! Pork brains!" is a winner in my book. You cannot believe what a good dance song this is. Seriously.
******

My wife and I just learned today that we have been approved to accept a foster dog from New Orleans. Not sure if we will actually get to host one or not (there were many volunteers), but we felt that we needed to do something to help out. Hosting an animal and perhaps keeping it happy until its human mom or dad can find it seems like a good thing to do. We'll see what transpires. But I can assure you that after all of that trauma, any dog we host will get a rasher of bacon to be sure.

Bacon, Mom and God

2005-09-15T17:10:00.000-05:00

The power of bacon has always amazed me. It can wake a sleeping person, cause hunger in a person green with a hangover, enchant dogs blocks away, and tempt shaky vegetarians. Bacon gets too much bad press. Whenever I eat bacon, I am pleased to do so. True, a pound a day would likely send one to the great truffle-pig heaven in a hurry (that would be the ground, by the way), but as Julia Child said so often of butter, beef and gin (and I like to think she would have about bacon too): "everything in moderation." Served her well for much of her long, well-lived life.

When I was a kid, no one could make bacon like my Mom. The old cast iron skillet, the electric stove, the grease-soaking paper towels, the white bread layered with Miracle Whip, ice berg lettuce, and a garden tomato slice. A cheap, soul-pleasing dinner. She also made this amazing dish where she wrapped split hot dogs in swirls of bacon and the dog's split back was filled with American cheese. They'd get broiled and the bacon-holding toothpicks would get burned at the tips. I can smell one right now.

Of course now, as an adult, I would use some fancy, aged cheese in a top-end beef hot dog that was recommended in The Rosengarten Report, the bacon would be from a local farmer, and I would soak the toothpicks prior to broiling so they wouldn't burn as easily. But something would be missing from the experience.

Some would argue that bacon is a gift from God, but I prefer to think of it as a gift from the pig. If you have ever spent any time with a pig, they are strong, smart, resourceful creatures. When one is going to get its neck opened up, bled and butchered, it knows that via instinct, and all of the other pigs hanging out know it too. When what you are eating was looking at you a day or two ago, it puts things in perspective. You appreciate it more, and you assign responsibility, sacrifice, guilt, and thanks properly.