Bison and baby....

My daughter and her husband were in Yellowstone National Park this week-Sent me some wicked pics. This is one of my favorites.

Quote of the week......

"You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you."

Maya Angelou

The Dog Days.....

of May????

Are you friggin' kiddin' me? It's 8 PM and it's 82 degrees and it's May 25th.

So what's wrong with this picture? 

Absolutely nothing.

Just not used to it. 

It's been warmer than normal since Easter. We had a couple days n the 80's then.  

Hell, I can remember summers in the last decade where it hit 80 once or twice-period.

So anyways, it's hotter than hell, my son and his accomplice Rick are roofing my mother's house (Welcome to the real world guys-don't forget the sunscreen!). And life is good.

So what's a Dog Day in May look like in Tupper?

Like this.

Red is semi-comatose.

Boomer is comatose, well not quite, but close.

 Then there's Dodger- he's too young too know it's hot.

You know, some days, it's not bad to be a dog.

Pizza, pizza......

It's Thursday and that means pizza kids.  I made a wicked one tonight. 

I'll call this the his and hers pie.  One half for my better half and one half for me. Cool, huh?

You see, we have different tastes.  I'm more primal-like give me pepperoni. She's more refined, like green peppers.

So I made a pizza that would make us both happy.

First, the dough. Bought it at Shaheen's IGA.  It's good stuff.

It's a frozen disk of dough. It costs $1.79 and it's well worth it.

(This is the one that's still in the freezer for next time)

It thaws in about an hour and it's wicked spreadable (did I say wicked again?).

The pan I use is 18" in diameter. I bought it at the Christmas Tree Shop. It was like 6 bucks.

That was 2 years ago. It didn't fit into our old oven. When we got the new oven a couple of months ago I slid it in and waddya know? It fit.

So over the course of the last couple of weeks I've been playing around with the big pan. The small frozen doughs I buy at Sav-A-Lot for 99 cents are too small. 

This disk is perfect. Makes a wicked good pie (there I go again).

So here's the scoop. Nance likes peppers, onion, tomato, and garlic. I like onions, garlic and pepperoni.

I sauteed the onions, pepper and garlic. Things started smelling good.

I sliced some tomatoes. I ripped open the bag of pepperoni. I made her half and my half. 

Looked like this.

Then I baked it at 500 degrees until the edge and bottom got nice and brown. 

The top stuff wasn't quite done, so I turned on the broiler for a couple of minutes and crisped it up.

Looked like this when it was done.

Nice.

Wicked good.

Kill Bill, Vol. ?????

This isn't a food post, rather one about the people I hang out with in the summer up at our camp in Cape Vincent.  

Last summer my good friend Steve and I decided to build a planter around this butt-ugly assemblage of meters for the power that sits in between the camps.  It was an overgrown mess. 

So one morning Steve clearcut  it.  We went and found some stone to put around it, took a trip to the nursery to get some mulch and viola', a planter was born.

Now that's all pretty unremarkable except that earlier the same morning, Steve had gone into his bathroom, and well, sat down on his throne, and the throne went through the floor.  Pretty funny,like realllly funny.  

Now Steve's the handiest guy I know, and within hours, he'd put in a new floor and new toilet (before we got into the planter).

So we're sitting around that evening admiring our handiwork, and someone gets the idea to put the used throne in the planter.  It was a joke, a gag, a temporary laugh-and boy did we laugh.  We planned to take it out the next day, until......

Anne, the owner of the property fell in love with the toilet and planted a bunch of annuals in it. I've got to admit it looked pretty good.  The toilet stayed there until the end of the season, and one day it disappeared.  Well didn't quite disappear, but the caretaker took it to the dumpster.  Old Don Render, it seems, had had enough of Steve's throne.  

So this spring rolls around and no throne.  And it wasn't like we were actively searching for one, it was just that the planter looked forlorn, empty, missing a key element.  

Simultaneously, Steve and another regular, Bill have this silent war going on.  It started with solar lights. You know the kind that you put in the ground around sidewalks and such.  

Bill put out 10. Steve put out 15.  Bill got these solar globes that change colors at night. Steve went and bought solar butterflys. 

This weekend Steve went for the coup de' grace.  He bought a  fountain to replace the throne.  It'll drive Bill nuts.  Steve called me yesterday and said Bill just stopped and stared at it, speechless, awestruck, dumbfounded.

Hence, Kill Bill Volume ???  has entered a new chapter. God knows what he'll buy to counterattack.  I just hope it isn't those plastic pink flamingos.

Here's the fountain in the planter.

And a close-up.

Now ain't she a beauty.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Kill Bill Vol. ????? coming soon to a blog near you.

Guest Post...

my buddy Ted sent me these pics displaying his culinary prowess and my oh my the results look great. Here's the recipe and pics of Ted's Beer Can chicken he made yesterday.

BEER CAN CHICKEN

Recipe – Bob Blumer

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it couldn’t remember where it left its beer!

Directions:

Remove neck and giblets from chicken and discard. Rinse chicken inside and out and pat dry with paper towel. Rub chicken lightly with oil and your favorite dry rub season.

Open a can of beer and drink it all to make sure it is ok to use and since you have rubbed down that chicken you probably worked up a sweat. You want to make sure you keep your fluids up during this whole process.  Open another can of beer and take a few big gulps – to get it down to a half can. This is where we use Gluten free beer hence the soda can. They don’t make gluten free beer in a can around here yet. Pour beer into can. Plunk the bird cavity over the beer can.

Place on center of grill using the two legs and the can as a tripod.

Cook 4lb. chicken 1 ¼ hours on medium – high, indirect heat. 

You know I was going to make a joke about this pic, but that wouldn't be appropriate, would it?

Man that looks really good.

Like I want some, right now..........

Thanks for the pics!

You say tomato....

I say tamawto......

Got the tomatoes out of the little pots and into the big pots yesterday.  

They're good size for this early.  And of course there was a frost last night, but I covered them. 

I'm hoping for a bumper crop.

Steal this book.....

or borrow it from me. Just kidding! Buy this book.
I read a lot.  Lately I read a lot on the internet. It's cheap. Well, not considering the $ sent to Time Warner each month.  As a kid I loved books, as an adult I make the excuse that I don't have time to pick up a book, and read it from start to finish. About a month and a half ago I started reading real books again. 

Not sure why, might have been the weather, might have been boredom, who knows? At about the same time I started blogging- food blog, it's cool, a great way to write about what you eat- not that anybody wants to know what I eat, but it's fun. 

So one day on my internet travels, I come across a blog by a dude that cuts cheese for a living. His blog is plain and simple.  Gordon's Blog  . Why I went there was cheese.  I like to cook and eat a lot of stuff, but man, if you can give me a piece of  sharp cheddar and a dry cracker i'll forgive all your sins.  I'm new to the blog world (still am) and I liked his blog.

Simply because it was about cheese, and I had yet to find a blog about cheese anywhere. 

Yep, there's a ton of sites that'll show you incredible cupcakes but I like cheese, and here was a blog about cheese. I was excited.... I put Gordon's blog on my sidebar along with a bunch of others I feel worthy- and that's another story about being a novice blogger. 

Anyway Gordon wrote a book and I read it. 

It's a great read for a lot of reasons.  Initially I bought the book to learn about cheese, and I did. But I learned so much more that I may have to write a book myself. Class struggle is what the book is about . With the crap going on in New York right now, there's never been a better time to tune up and gain some perspective. 

Gordon, Thank you!
(The processed slices are a joke kids)

And for anyone reading this that cares about their neighbor, borrow my book.
Better yet, buy it.

Quote of the Day.....

"A waist is a terrible thing to mind." 

       -- Jane Caminos

When the moon hits your eye.....

Like a big pizza pie, that's amore'.......

Pizza. 

I love pizza.

Why?  

Hard to say without some serious psychoanalysis and if I got on a couch right now, I'd probably nap. So a visit to the shrink, although advisable for a lot of reasons, is out of the question at the moment.

So I'll guess.  When I was a kid, I was a fussy eater (just ask my mother, she'll tell ya). Being an only child, and probably a loud whiny one when not given what I wanted  I suspect that early on, I decided I liked pizza.  I also suspect my parents decided early on to keep me quiet. 

If the brat wants pizza and he'll shut up, let's give him pizza. 

There is a scientific basis to this discussion. It's called The Pizza Cognition Theory. 

Click on that link for the whole explanation, but basically it states that ...

The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes ... becomes, for him, pizza.

I must have had a hell of a first slice of pizza. Thanks Mom & Dad. 

I may have had pizza in Germany or Italy as an infant (Dad was stationed in Germany)-I'll have to check with Mom on that, but my earliest memories, and lord they're good ones are having pizza at the Dew Drop Inn in Saranac Lake. 

The Dew Drop Inn was run by Forrest "Dew Drop" Morgan. 

Here's a pic I grabbed from Bunk's Place.

Suffice it to say Dew Drop's was a happening place when I was a kid in the '60s.

Dew is legendary.

They had celeb waitresses before they were celebs, like Faye Dunaway.

Faye was and is hot.

So back to pizza. My parents would bring me there on occasion. If you were lucky, you'd get a table on the  enclosed porch, which was literally a foot or two above the Saranac River.  As a kid, it was a treat to go there. You'd get these little packaged breadsticks and crackers and butter and watch the ducks on the river while waiting for the pie to come. 

Then there was Rosie.  She was a waitress, and if you lucky you got Rosie to serve you. She was a character. Sweet, funny and she always wore these giant earrings. Giant hoops and many others that made an imprint in my memory along with the pizza.  The pizza was neopolitan-thin crust. I can still see the char on the bubbles of cheese that popped while the pie was in the oven.  

Good stuff.

On the ride home which was about 20 minutes, sometimes I'd fall asleep, other times I'd chew on the leftover crust in the back seat of the Chevy Impala.

If I was lucky, there's be a piece to munch on the next day, and therein lies my affliction for leftover pizza.

I'm a firm believer in The Pizza Cognition Theory.

How about you?

Grillin'.....

The weather here in the Adirondacks has been mild, really mild this Spring.  Other than a minor snowstorm last week, it's been the nicest Spring I can remember.  In March we had a couple of days in the 80's, April was warm and mild, and this past weekend temps were up in the 80's again.  

Time to shift from cooking indoors to out.  

The only problem with this shift is that our gas grill kicked the bucket a while back, so there was nothing to cook on.  

Yesterday I had the itch to buy a grill and quench my thirst for some grilled goodies.  

Gas or charcoal?  I've done lots of cooking on both.  In my humble opinion charcoal gives a better flavor, but is time-consuming.  Gas is convenient, and if you spend enough and let the grill season, the flavor is comparable to charcoal.  At our camp in Cape Vincent we've got a Weber Kettle for charcoal and my buddy Steve has the big gas Weber. 

That said, I drove to the local hardware store and after much deliberation I decided to purchase a charcoal grill for home. When I saw this grill I knew I had to have it.  It spoke to me. It whispered, "Bring me home and I'll show you I can produce finer chicken and ribs than any of these $500 gas grills.  I'm retro and you're old, we're meant for each other."  I was sold.  The sale was completed, and tonight our relationship was consummated.

First, here she is.

Ain't she a beauty? The best money can buy for $21.95 (Hey , I'm on a budget).

For dinner I made grilled chicken adobo, grilled onions, steamed veggies and rice.

The chicken recipe I found on Allrecipes.( Click here for recipe. ) It was easy and excellent.

You simmer the chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, water, vinegar, honey, garlic and pepper for about a half hour, then throw it on the grill to crisp it up.  

The grilled onions were a first too, and also from Allrecipes. (Click here for recipe.)

You peel the onion, cut out the top, then I used my apple corer to hollow out the middle. Drop in a chicken bouillon cube and some butter, replace the top, wrap in foil, and put on the grill for an hour or so.  

These were awesome too (well, if you like onions.), and a nice complement to the rice and veggies.

On the grill.

And on the plate.

All in all I believe our relationship will be solid for years to come.