Modern Comfort food (and a new camera)!

I love weekends because I finally get a chance to actually cook a meal, not just hurry up and get fix something to eat.

Sunday was Chicken Curry. It's sort of one of our staples around here. Kind of a modern day comfort food, as my title revealed. Well, I also thought it was a perfect way to test out our new Digital camera.

Here's all the ingredients (yep, I'm giving up one of my recipes):

Back row (L-R) - Fresh cracked black pepper, Salt, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO), Chicken Stock.

Middle Row (L-R) - Coconut Milk (1 can), Garlic (1 tsp.; I was out of fresh), Curry spice (3 TBsp of my own home blended), Butter (2 TBsp. real dairy butter).

Front Row (L-R) - Finely chopped jalapeno peppers (about 6 medium sized, sans seeds), Finely chopped fresh cilantro, Finely chopped onion, chopped fresh tomato, Chicken (4 chunked no bigger than 1" cubes).

By the way that spoon used to be white, but my curry turned it yellow on the first batch many years ago. It is now referred to as "The Curry Spoon".

First - Heat your pan on about medium heat and add about 2-3 table spoons of EVOO, and the butter. When the butter starts to bubble add the Jalapeno and cook (stirring occasionally) until it looks like it is softening. Stir in the onion and cook until it starts to look clear. Then stir in the tomatoes. Salt and pepper to your liking (keep in mind that the curry spice is a bit on the spicy side). Cook this mixture, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes basically turn to mush (this is the base of a curry paste).

Second - Stir in the curry spice and cilantro. Cook, while stirring, until it's a paste like consistancy. Add the chicken, turn up the heat to about medium high, and stir until the chicken is just browned. Third - Add 2 cups of chicken stock stir and bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat and place the lid on the pan cocked to one side so that moisture can evaporate. Allow to simmer for 1/2 hr stirring occasionally. (It should look like the photo below at this point)

Next - Stir in the can of coconut milk and allow to simmer for an additonal 1/2 hr, stirring occasionally.

Finally - Serve on saffron rice

We use Basmati rice and usually add carrots and peas to it for some extra veggies in the meal.

If you're interested in my curry spice blend, or the secret to perfect rice, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to share that too!

Bon appitite!

Beer Judging (Hey, at least it's not about hops!)

For those of you that don't know, I started judging beer as a novice in 1995 (ok for those of you that do know me, I was unofficially judging them for a long time before that), and have been a licensed judge since 1997. All of the competitions that I judged in the past were amateur competitions, judging home made beer for free. Well this past weekend I joined the ranks of professional judging!

It was at the Indiana State Fair Brewer's Cup competition. I was able to judge commecially brewed beers, rather than homebrew. Now don't get me wrong I enjoy tasting, comparinghome brewed delights, and part of our job is to give pointers on how they can further improve, but this is the big time!

The money wasn't enough to pay for the trip, but it's the principle. Plus the real thrill was to actually be a part of keeping commercial brewing on the right path of preserving real beer styles!

Pros't, Sante, Salud, Strochen, Skol, Cheers! No matter how you say it, enjoy!

Again with the hops?!

Yep I'm talking about the hops once again, but hey with beauties like these I can't help but show them off!

If you noticed the date stamp on the photos (accurate this time) you'll see that I took these a few weeks ago. I had every intention of posting these at the time they were taken, but life sort of got in the way.

Over the past few months alot has happened:

Our oldest Son has been accepted into the Masters program of Christie's College of Art (Sorry if that's not the correct name or spelling) in New York! I'm sure you've heard of the famous Christie's Auction House! He's scheduled to move to the big apple in August. Of course we're very proud of this, and have no doubt that he'll make it through the program with flying colors!

Our Middle Son's construction business is booming and it looks like he's going to be hiring more employees. Again, very proud parents here! And his Son, our Grandson, is of course still the cutest little guy on earth, just ask Lightnin!

And last but not least our youngest Son is still proudly serving our country and is still currently stationed over in Europe.

This is where I need to add a bit more filler. He and his long time (3+ yrs) sweetheart have sort of parted ways. The funny thing is that he realized that really wasn't the reason that he is wanting to stay on Europe once his call to duty has been fulfilled. He's actually going to try to make a go of it living abroad, while maintaining US citizenship. Not an easy task, and again we're proud of his determination.

To add a bit more intrigue to this whole story: As most of you who bother to read my dribble know I travel to Europe quite a bit, and have tried to let you follow along on my trail whenever I'm able to get connected to the web. We'll we may be taking this a step further. An opportunity presented itself about 3 weeks ago for a temporary position (3yrs), with my present employer, over in Europe.

I decided to throw my hat into the ring and go for it! What have I got to lose? I absolutely love what I'm doing right now, so if I'm not picked I'm really not out anything, but what an experience if I'm lucky enough to be the top candidate and make the move! Not to mention the potential for further upward movement in the organization.

Of course nothing's really that simple. Lightnin has a booming career going too, and the loss of her salary would be a significant hit to our bottom line! Not a trivial matter for consideration. There's also the reality that we'd be moving so far from all of our family and friends, well we would be closer to one of our Sons.

On top of all this it's currently the end of our fiscal year, and of course work is at it's peak as everyone is frantically trying to spend what is left of their departmental budgets before the end date. Oh, did I mention that it's also evaluation (ratings and rankings) time for myself and all of the folks that work for me! So, as you can guess I've had a bit on my schedule, and on my mind!

I have my first interview for the position on Monday morning. Wish me luck, I think!

Sunshine and Cheeseburgers

The weather was simply too nice to stay at home on Saturday, so I washed and waxed the car and we headed out to The Farm. The Farm is a not so little dive, out on Route 27. I used to pass this place whenever I took the back roads from here to Lima, Oh, and almost always said that I wouild stop in sometime to see what it was like.

Well here we are 4 years later and we have not only stopped by, but have sort of become regulars. They do have one of the best cheeseburgers in these parts, and that's what we were interested in on that day.



While we were there they received a phone call from another little joint up the road that The Farm was about to be over run by over 150 bikes as part of a charity ride. Of course 150 bikes translates into over 200 people!

When they started coming in it was an awesome sound bike, after bike, after bike until the place was packed!

With only Tom behind the bar and Kate in the kitchen a couple of veteran servers kicked into gear and helped out!

Oh not me, after all someone needed to take some pictures, I'm talking about one of the ex-bartender's and of course Lightnin. Tina, the ex-bartender kept repeating, as she served cold refreshments, "I don't work here anymore" and Lightnin pitched in running food out to tables.

So, like I said I went out to take a few pictures.



Bikes,













Bikes,















and more bikes!













They ate and quinched their thirsts, and then were gone as quickly as they had appeared!







We stuck around and talked for a bit longer and then we headed on our way back towards home too!

It was a beautiful day for a drive with the rag top down or a ride on a two wheeler!

Fat Cat, Skinny Cat!

One of the sure signs of spring in Ohio is the appearance of the skinny kitty!

For those of you who have met Spot (AKA: Stinky Cat, El Gato, Dumb Katze), you know that at about this time of the year she begins to try to shed, or more like slough-off her winter coat, looking much like a miniture Musk Ox! So when spring comes along she gets a nice shave, bath, and what ever annual shots she's supposed to get.

Oh yeah she looks a little funny, and it's hard to keep from laughing, but we can tell that she definitely feels much more comfortable now that temperatures are on the rise.







We tried to get a shot of her in the same pose, but she wouldn't cooperate. True to the cat code!

Another Hops Update!

Well, it's only been another week, but just look how well they're doing!

The lead vines are almost up to my shoulders already, and we're still in April.

We've had both good rain and sun so they are about as happy as they can get. Another couple of months and we should be in for a good harvest!

Hops Update!

Doing my best to help green up the Earth! Well, ok I admit the hops do most of the work. ;-)

It looks like they have survived the freeze that we got over Easter and late this past week too. Unfortunately the Creeping Phlox that we planted didn't fair so well. It survived the frost, but the rabbits dug every one of the plants up and ate the roots! Little do they know it, but they're pretty lucky they don't like hops. If they did, rabbit stew would be on the stove while I'm writing this!

We were lucky that the storm, the same one hitting the East Coast right now, moved over us too quickly to turn to snow last night.

As the storm passed it brought high winds, but warmer temperatures. We actually made it up to 50F today, and are expected to be up into the 60's by Tuesday!



With all of the rain we've had, the warmth and sunlight is all that these lovely little vines need to get going again.

Hopefully I'll be ready to lift a carboy full of liquid by the time they're ready for harvest!

Wicked Weather This Way Comes

This past Wednesday we were hit with a pretty fierce storm on our way home from work. It just started to rain when we reached the driveway, but as soon as we were in the house it let loose. We had heavy rain and high winds, but that was about it. The folks East of us got that plus hail!

As the storm passed Lightnin got the camera out and snapped these shots.










As you can see in this photo, it was a pretty classic Thunderstorm "Anvil" cloud!

House-sitting and Deer

This past week we were house-sitting for some friends while they were out on vacation. So we kept their cat company and in the process met a couple of the neighbors, sort of.

While I was cooking dinner these two deer wondered right up next to the patio. As you can see the one got a bit concerned when it saw me with the camera, but it wasn't concerned enough to stop eating the ground cover.


The cat sat at the patio door looking at the deer and then looking at me as if to say, "Let me out and I'll bring home some dinner". I looked down and said, "Yeah right, whatever Simon". They stayed around until just about dark and then disappeared as quickly and quietly as they arrived.

Second Official Hops Update of 2007

Here it is April 6th, Good Friday, and it's currently 31F at 9:00AM! I thought this was supposed to be spring, Oh that's right I'm still in Ohio. We should actually feel fortunate to have a spring this year. It was up in the 80's last weekend and we took advantage of that.

We not only got out to see that the hops were coming up, but we also planted some creeping phlox. Let's just hope that they both survive the current backlash into winter!

I'm not sure if the photos can show scale well enough for you to see how tall the hops are already, but hey are actually up to my waist when I stand next to them. An excellent start for the season! Unfortunately Lightnin had to work today, so I didn't have her available to model next to the vines to give a better sense of scale.





I did want to try to get this close-up to show the frost that is on the leaves of the vines that sprouted up away from the rest of the main plant. This poor unfortunate may not pull through, but I can only hope that there is enough good growth on the main plants to survive the heavy freeze we're going to get again tonight.




I think the photo below shows the height of the vines a little better.














Well, like I mentioned we're in for a cold one tonight. We're expected to get down to 18F, setting yet another record for cold. We beat the old record of 23F last night by dipping down to 20F. On top of the cold we're also expected to get a dusting of snow. If that happens I'll try to get some photos of the hops against the white fluffy background.

I haven't checked on the Phlox yet to see how it's doing, but if the hops can make it through this I'll be happy!

1st Official Hops Update of 2007

Just a short update since Spring officially arrived at 8:07PM Tuesday night. The average daily air temperature is finally on the rise, but unfortunately the ground temperature has not made a significant enough increase to signal the sprouting of the hops. So I'll let them sleep awhile longer and just keep checking on them. I do need to clear away last years growth though, and will try to get that done this weekend.

Speaking of clearing away last year's growth: With the coming of Spring I removed my personal Winter foliage and am trimmed back down to my minimal Summer facial hair. I've also prepared a selection of hats to protect my noggen from the sun while tending to the hops!

More updates to come!

Tips on Following My Trail of Posts This Trip

Since I've had some issues with Blogger that have caused some photos and posts to sort of come out of order I would suggest that the best way to follow along on this trip would be to go to the earliest post of this series "Greetings Von Deutschland" dated 2/27/07 and work your way backup to here.

I hope you enjoy the trip, I have!

Well, back to work tomorrow. Three more days of meetings and then I head for home! I can only hope that the last leg of my trip is smooth and uneventful, that'd be different! ;-)

Cappacino,Beers, and Burgers

Here's the sign outside of Loyd's bar that I spoke about in my earlier post about my trip from Brussels to Newcastle. They do seem to have the best prices in town and a good selection of beers. They also have a pretty good kitchen with daily specials. I got the "Beer, Burger, and Chips" special today.












My choice was a Lamb burger with a Pedigree Ale from Weston's Brewery. I chose the Pedigree Ale to go with lunch because I had been served the last pint of Geordie's pride while making my decision on what to eat. Pedigree is a Special Bitter style, and a wonderful example at that, but that's not what this post is about. If you read my post from earlier this morning you may have noticed the bit of a blue funk that started to creep in on me as I wrote. Well my knickers have been unbunched and I'm back in a much better mood!


As I walked out of Loyd's yesterday I remembered that I had a picture of this bridge from one of my earlier trips. It is now under rennovation and is covered with canvas. I tried to get as close to the same shot as I had tken previously, and the sky even has a similar appearance!



















I also decided to get a shot of my hotel from Loyd's. My hotel is the big building at the top of the hill, just through the bridge in this shot.












I also stopped just after crossing the draw bridge that I had to cross to get back to the hotel to take this shot. I was hoping to show the steep grade that leads up to the hotel. I'd estimate it at about 18%, although the phot unfortunately doesn't really show it well. It was as difficult to walk down as it is to walk back up, and if you were to lose your footing you could easily roll all the way down into the Tyne itself.






The last photo was taken from about half way up the hill. You can just barely see Loyd's, it's the white building with the red roof in the lower left of the photo under the bridge. I think this photo does capture the distance I've been walking a bit better, and possibly the steep grade of the hill.

As I snapped this photo I started to feel drop of rain. As I completed my climb up and around the building the wind had started to pick up, and as I write this now it is raining once again!

Well I intend to stay in and try to reduce the sypmtoms of the cold that I have caught by taking a hot bath and purhaps sipping on some tea, so that's it for now.

Cheers!

Photos of Brussels Architecture

Here are just a few shots of Brussels architecture. After we had concluded our business, I took advantage of the sunshine that we had on my last day there.

It became extremely windy, and then started raining again later that night.























I really do feel very fortunate to have a job that allows me to travel to Europe. the advantages are obvious, and I've tried to share them with you, it does have it's price though.

I've been traveling for just over a week now. It's cold and cloudy out once again and rain will be moving in later. I've cought a cold and am beginning to feel a bit of the depression that can set in when traveling alone. I do miss my wife, and wish she could have been here to share the experience.

I think that it's been especially hard this trip because it's the first time traveling since my surgery. My wife took time off to take care of me during my recovery, which is why she cannot be here with me now. I have three more days of meetings, and then it's home again. I can do it! I'll get out and get some fresh air before the rain comes. I'll write up my report from last week's meetings, and prepare for this week.

Who know's, maybe I'll find something else to post about!

Edits to Schloss Ronneburg

Ok, I'll just have to make my edits to my previous posts the hard way. Here are a couple of shots that I was trying to get into the post about Ronneburg Castle.

It was clear that people were much shorter bak in the 1300's that we are today. In attempt to show scale I had "Dude" pose on the opposite side of a door way so that I could sap the photo!


"Dude" stands around 6' 3"-6'4" tall, I'm 5'11", and I come to just over his shoulder, about to his ear. ANyway as you can see he clearly cannot clear this entryway.



Now, any normal person would remember that since I just snapped the photo to show how short the entry was, that it probablydidn't magically enlarge once the photo had been taken. I think you know where I'm goning with this!

Yep, I got a temporary reminder, a souvenir if you will of our visit!

The Largest Loaf of Bread I have Ever Seen!

Well what do you know? Blogger is finally letting me add photos to a new post at least. It's still not letting me edit my existing posts by adding photos. I may need to try something in a little bit. Anyway, back to this post!

My host Edgar, had to travel to Nuremburg on business while I was visiting. We weren't expecting him home until late, but he pulled into the drive while "Dude" and I were cooking dinner. In walks Edgar carrying this huge loaf of bread and a rather impressive hunk of cheese! I didn't think to get a shot of the cheese, but this was too big to not share with everyone!












The loaf is sitting on a full size cutting board, and the coffee cup sitting next to it is also a standard size cup. The loaf easily measured 18" across the diameter, and if you can read the scale above, it weighed in at 3.19Kg. That's nearly 7lbs! I think we shoud have called the folks at Guiness! (no, not the beer, although....)

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Almost!) This one is also still under construction, I'm still experiencing Blogger issues

With successful meetings in Brussels completed, I head for the third leg of my trip: Newcastle, England. Why on earth would I expect this trip to be uneventful?

I get to the airport at a quarter to 6AM; to catch what I thought was going to be a 7:05AM flight. It ends up being a 6:00AM taxi ride. My KLM flight to Amsterdam (should be Amsterdamn!) was cancelled. Why am I not surprised, after all the last time I flew with them my flight to Frankfurt was cancelled. That’s a 2 out of 3 record for them with me; I don’t think they’re getting another chance!

Anyway, where was I Oh yeah, so myself and one other lucky KLM customer hop into a cab that the airline so conveniently provided and two hours later we’re at the Amsterdam airport! My flight from there to Newcastle starts to board in half an hour, oh yeah this is looking good now! I’m second in line and the person in front of me is leaving, boarding pass in hand. I approach and place my first bag to check on the treadmill, hand my ticket to the attendant; she looks at me and says (in a thick Dutch accent) exactly what I was hoping (NOT!): “I’m sorry sir, but my boarding pass machine has just stopped working, it will just be a minute for someone to come to fix”. I very politely point out that my flight will be boarding in 20 minutes now. She very politely responds as nearly anyone else would have, however she says it in a much lower voice than I was thinking: “Shit!” “Oh I’m sorry sir, let me see what I can do” She climbs over the tread mill to her colleague’s computer and they both work together to get me on my way.

So here I am again, 24 gates away from my flight, and I haven’t even cleared customs yet! With now 10 minutes to go I get through customs and rush to my gate. Thankfully, this time, the flight is delayed by the fog and rain. We begin to board about 20 minutes later than we were supposed to, but at least I wasn’t the one holding everyone up!

We take off, and the flight is amazingly uneventful Thank goodness! I arrive in Newcastle and the driver I had arranged to pick me up is patiently waiting. He is a talkative fellow, which to me is very welcome, because even though it is the Queen’s English, it’s English all the same! Now don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in relearning my ancestral languages, (und Ich kann Deutsche und Flemmish besser verstehen dan sprechen). It's just that it takes so much concentration that it honestly wears you out after a few days. He mistakenly asks how my flight was, and I oblige by telling him the story I’ve just told you above. By now we’re both laughing as we pull up to the hotel. “Here we are sir”, he states, “The weather is particularly nice today, so hopefully your stay here will be better than the trip”.

With those words he just double jinxed me. A simple phrase of good wishes and I’m doomed! It’s now 10:00AM on Saturday, the hotel is completely booked, checkout isn’t until noon, and my room will not be ready until 3:00PM. Damn, the bar doesn’t open for another hour, so I make a more logical decision; I have the concierge check my bags and I sit down for a traditional English breakfast!

Oh it doesn’t end there, but thank goodness it doesn’t get any worse!

I take my time eating, and if you’ve ever sat down to eat with me you know that I am slow anyway, but what else am I going to do for at least another hour anyway! I finish and decide to take advantage of the nice weather; after all it’s supposed to start raining again tomorrow. I take a walk down along the Tyne River. The sun is out, so is the wind, but I still enjoy a nice leisurely 45 minute walk.

I get back to the hotel and have now earned a taste of a good English ale and or lager! As I sit and type this story for you to read I am sun burned (my hat was in my baggage, which I checked with the concierge), and wind burned, but man does this Castlemaine XXXX (off the tap, of course) taste good!

Only two more hours to go before I can get into my room, hmm what ever shall I do? Hey, I know maybe I'll go down to Loyd's Pub where I can get a cask aged, hand drawn "Geordie's Pride" (produced by Mordue Brewery), for a mere 1.55 English Pounds per pint. (that's about $3.10 American, and don't forget it's an English pint which is 20 US ounces!). It's a wonderful example of everything that an English Bitter style ale should be! Besides the walk would do me some good! ;-)

Cheers mate!

Brussels Here I Come Once Again (Still under Construction; I'm Experiencing Blogger Issues)

Well with my weekend in Frankfurt concluded I now had a little work to be done! Hmm, those words sound familiar, oh well it’s off to Brussels I go!

As my son drops me at the baggage check in we see that I’m going to need to rush, that is run to get to my gate. I make it, but just barely. Luckily all of my intercontinental flights are business class, and I’m in the 4th row on this plane. As I’m falling into my seat the Lufthansa attendant asks if I would like a paper to read. As I wipe the sweat from my brow with my shirt sleeve I kindly reply with a smile: “Nay, aber ein bier bitte” (no, but a beer please!). She politely smiles and brings me a Warsteiner pils. I notice that they are closing the door, I’m the very last to board.

My hotel was conveniently located a mere 3-4 blocks from the Grande Platz, and by spotting the tower of records I knew which direction to go. As I enter the square I know where I’m at, and where I’m headed, by my favorite landmark. You got it, Leroy’s! It’s actually named LeRoy de Espania (The King of Spain). I’ve written about it before as it’s always my first stop when visiting this truly multi-national city.

As is normal for this time of year it was raining, so I was forced to go inside to drink. I usually like to sit in their courtyard, but then I’m usually arriving early in the morning because I’m coming directly from the states. This time, of course, it was an intercontinental flight and I arrived in the late afternoon/early evening.

Well as I sit and sip my Kreik (Cherry Lambic), and dine on tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, I see that the rain is letting up. Good, I might just stand a chance of doing a bit of sight-seeing before the sun goes down.
One thing that I do absolutely love about Brussels and actually Europe in general, is the architecture. The views are absolutely outstanding!

Blogger/Internet Issues

Ok, I'm currently experiencing Blogger/Internet issues, and have been for several days. Please hang in there and as soon as I can I'll get some more photos, and the stories that go with them, posted so that you can follow along with my travels!

I'll try to post what I can and then add what I can when I can so you may need to check back ina couple of days to see what has been added so that the stories will make sense once the photos are uploaded, and visa versa.

Hang in there!

Schloss Ronneburg (Ronneburg Castle)

Schloss Ronneburg is a 12th century castle not too far from Hanau-Stenheim, about a 20-30min drive through a beautiful countryside. We actually visited the castle the same day that we were wondering around Alten Steinheim, but the weather had turned on us during the drive. It was now cold, windy, and raining once again. That didn't stop us, and it actually helped to give a feel for how life must have been for those living during that time period.
The castle looks fairly unimpressive at first, especially compared to some of the other larger one's, but once inside it's beauty becomes apparent.
In this picture "Dude" is standing in front of the kitchen area. As we came near the room I could smell the aroma of old smoke from thousand's of years of wood burning fires used not only to cook with but with ingenius engineering skills were also used to heat the upper floors of the castle.





Just imagine having to dip a bucket 90
meters to get fresh water, and ummm how tasty that water must have been! I bet it even had colour (sorry color, languages you know) and opacity (I thought I'd throw that one in there) to it as well! (get it, well? Ok it's been a long day!) Just for the record I've been trying to post this since the day we visited the castle, but I've had a combination of tarvel, internet, and Blog Spot issues that didn't seem to work in my favour (sorry favor). Anyway, they have a bucket and a spigot that will allow you to thorw a bucket of water into the well to see how long it takes to splash. I counted 12 seconds. Now let's see, gravity accelerates at 32ft/sec/sec (if I can remember my physics correctly). You do the math if you want to, at any rate it was a deep well!












I thought this little item was pretty impressive too. Just in case you didn't recognize it, this is a replication of a catapult. It would have been used to cast large objects at the apporoaching enemy. You now things like large stones, lit hay bails, dead and rotting animal (and sometimes human) carcus'! (or would that be carcusi? Ok a litle science jargen joke) Oh yes, chemical warfare was invented years and years ago!

Hanau-Steinheim and Marienkirche

The weather held out long enough for Dude and I to take a little walk around Alten Steinheim (Old Steinheim). It's a wonderful little town that is nice to walk around. I've blogged about the Schloss Steinheim (Steinheim Castle) previously, but I don't think that I've blogged photos of the old church, Marienkirche.




One of the interesting things about this church is that it was pretty much destroyed during WWII, but was reconstructed after the war using the remaining stones from the rubble. That is also true of most of this town itself, as is the same for many cities and towns around Europe.

I also found the below picture interesting. This add was actually being displayed on the side of the church! I'm pretty sure it doesn't really need a translation.














More posts from Germany, and elsewhere coming soon.