Last weekend we went away to Brainerd area with friends, it was a nice getaway. I spent the time relaxing, which was very nice. I was able to get some serious amount of reading completed. We all took turns making breakfast, we did celebrate one night out the Prairie Bay in Baxter, MN. They had a very nice menu and restaurant seemed well run.
We returned home on Tuesday and jumped into a shorten week, but it combined a lot of worrisome news. My grandmother of 91 years old experienced some heart problems (I am not a doctor so that is technical as I can get) and on Friday made it through successful surgery putting in a pacemaker. That same day a long-time friend went to hospital experiencing chest pains, sounds like his artery is all f-'d up. He is not a drinker or a cheese eater, but my guess it runs in his family. He returned home over the weekend and is resting comfortably. My grandmother is resting at my folks home.
One of those things that should motivate you to take better care of your health. I am in the middle of reading the Omnivores Dilemma and the descriptions of what is going into our processed food and even the pumping of corn into cattle's diet is disturbing. What has struck me as surprising with this book and other documentaries, books and articles I have found on the topic is how little I (and the collective We) know about our food.
I grew up thinking that corn feed beef was the norm, that is what a wholesome meal for cows was to be raised on corn. Silly to think about it now that of course it is more natural to be raised on grass. It's not like cows would be sowing their own corn to raise for food without humans.
I went to the Silver Bison Ranch with our friend Noel and Sheila to get some yummy bison meats. We have been going to their a few years and it is nice to see the business was really hopping today. They raise all of their bison on fields outside of their little store. I enjoy the fact we know the people raising the animals and they are really a great resource for asking questions or getting what we need. We are going to try a brisket for the first time in the next couple weeks. I hope to get a nice slow cook on the Big Green Egg.
This weekend on the grill we tried pizza again. I keep messing around with the process. My guess is the next time we will get the fire going awhile and add the indirect shield. I think I am finished with a baking stone. I have yet to get a really good result with it on the grill.
The week ahead is extremely busy, so I doubt I will get to grill much until the weekend.
Peace to you - the soundtrack for the blog today was provided by Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Owning up
Being comfortable with feeling that the arrival of Valentine's Day as another 'Hallmark Holiday' can be a great risk (and I use the great with tongue firmly in cheek) for a relationship. It is certainly a day that is soooo over hyped that it generates fear and loathing. I know of people (ok, women) that have told me they expect to get a delivery of flowers, a dinner out and some sort of jewelery or they would be extremely upset by this huge slight on their relationship.
I can appreciate the formulaic steps people will go through to honor this tradition and perhaps for some relationships, this is something that really helps. The flip-side is that this expression is limited to one day. But really is it what anyone would want or is it the day we gauge our status of the relationship? Being a pathetic man, I have used this day in dating relationships in the past as a desperate attempt to build on a new relationship that really was smothering it in all practical matters.
Which brings to my thought about being honest on how you feel and can be shrouded by the gifts. I am not saying your are covering something up with gifts, but I am sure we all have our comfort levels with expression of our relationship and our feelings. I think some of naysayers (my self included) would scoff at people doing the traditional night out for dinner and the night of romance. It does have that slight cuteness to it, where you are celebrating with others out in public your relationship. It seems a little fucked out, if you ask me. It seems impersonal, where an anniversary seems more connected to your relationship versus the one day a year in the middle of winter to celebrate.
What am I missing on this 'holiday'? Maybe we could make it a universal love day not focused on relationship, but loving one another. Probably not, you really can't market or boost retails sales with a universal love day. What would you sell? Oh, I suppose you could hand out flowers to people you run into all day long, maybe do a gift exchange? Hmmm, this sounds even more pathetic.
It appears I will travel in my ignorance on the appeal of 14th of February. If nothing else, I have found a way to crap all over people being nice to each other. It is a gift.
This post was powered by the Zune Love Collection Playlist and I fully acknowledge the irony.
I can appreciate the formulaic steps people will go through to honor this tradition and perhaps for some relationships, this is something that really helps. The flip-side is that this expression is limited to one day. But really is it what anyone would want or is it the day we gauge our status of the relationship? Being a pathetic man, I have used this day in dating relationships in the past as a desperate attempt to build on a new relationship that really was smothering it in all practical matters.
Which brings to my thought about being honest on how you feel and can be shrouded by the gifts. I am not saying your are covering something up with gifts, but I am sure we all have our comfort levels with expression of our relationship and our feelings. I think some of naysayers (my self included) would scoff at people doing the traditional night out for dinner and the night of romance. It does have that slight cuteness to it, where you are celebrating with others out in public your relationship. It seems a little fucked out, if you ask me. It seems impersonal, where an anniversary seems more connected to your relationship versus the one day a year in the middle of winter to celebrate.
What am I missing on this 'holiday'? Maybe we could make it a universal love day not focused on relationship, but loving one another. Probably not, you really can't market or boost retails sales with a universal love day. What would you sell? Oh, I suppose you could hand out flowers to people you run into all day long, maybe do a gift exchange? Hmmm, this sounds even more pathetic.
It appears I will travel in my ignorance on the appeal of 14th of February. If nothing else, I have found a way to crap all over people being nice to each other. It is a gift.
This post was powered by the Zune Love Collection Playlist and I fully acknowledge the irony.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Creeping out to the sun
As much I wanted to tell stories of the wonderful places I been to eat for the amusement of the majority of the readers of the blog, I been stuck in a scary block of writers guilt. For me I usually get these instead of what I envision of a true writers block, where I lose inspiration - its the difficulty of finding a voice in the writing. Most of seems so trivial, but then like tonight I am writing for enjoyment.
Writing as an art seems to be trivialized by the access we all have to produce something. I am easily impressed, but when you find someone that is truly a great writer I get that pain of guilt for even bothering to try to write. I had been exploring the "blog-o-sphere" reading some great, well-written articles, which pains me in seeing people that put a little effort in editing their works.
Now that I have that guilt behind me I can continue with my strange currency. This past weekend we ventured to the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. The place shows the history of the flour industry and explains how it works and the mills impact on the development of Minneapolis. Nice place, great employees - if you come to town take a couple of hours just to hang out in the great building.
After we wandered around for awhile we ended up taking an early dinner at McCormick and Schmicks enjoying some yummy seafood and wine. I tried their stuff salmon, while Kathy enjoyed some sort of seafood combo. It was quite good, the veggies were a bit plain for my taste, but overall nice and great service, which always make the difference.
Sunday was a nice day to try another version of the sourdough bread we have been playing around with trying to add some whole wheat flour. I did not mix the flour correctly and it was a like a mixed bread. Not bad, first time also in making into small boule style loaves.
We went to a friends house to watch the Super Bowl and it really capped a nice weekend. Just hanging out with good friends and enjoying the time together. We made it home as the snow started and saw several cars flipped over, a bit scary. The snow made Monday's commute even more exciting.
Ah, it mostly good to be back at things here. Kathy is lining up some great grilling recipes that I will be exploring in about a week or so. I hear winter will end someday. I was also told we would have flying cars someday too.
Music for writing brought to us by the playing of the BoDeans.
Writing as an art seems to be trivialized by the access we all have to produce something. I am easily impressed, but when you find someone that is truly a great writer I get that pain of guilt for even bothering to try to write. I had been exploring the "blog-o-sphere" reading some great, well-written articles, which pains me in seeing people that put a little effort in editing their works.
Now that I have that guilt behind me I can continue with my strange currency. This past weekend we ventured to the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. The place shows the history of the flour industry and explains how it works and the mills impact on the development of Minneapolis. Nice place, great employees - if you come to town take a couple of hours just to hang out in the great building.
After we wandered around for awhile we ended up taking an early dinner at McCormick and Schmicks enjoying some yummy seafood and wine. I tried their stuff salmon, while Kathy enjoyed some sort of seafood combo. It was quite good, the veggies were a bit plain for my taste, but overall nice and great service, which always make the difference.
Sunday was a nice day to try another version of the sourdough bread we have been playing around with trying to add some whole wheat flour. I did not mix the flour correctly and it was a like a mixed bread. Not bad, first time also in making into small boule style loaves.
We went to a friends house to watch the Super Bowl and it really capped a nice weekend. Just hanging out with good friends and enjoying the time together. We made it home as the snow started and saw several cars flipped over, a bit scary. The snow made Monday's commute even more exciting.
Ah, it mostly good to be back at things here. Kathy is lining up some great grilling recipes that I will be exploring in about a week or so. I hear winter will end someday. I was also told we would have flying cars someday too.
Music for writing brought to us by the playing of the BoDeans.
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