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.