Pop Quiz, life with Shepherds.

Pop Quiz. 

You work all day and you miss lunch, but it's ok because you know it's Taco Tuesday and one of your favorite bars has an incredible pop-up outside that makes incredible steak burritos. You spend your day fantasizing about the burrito you're going to get. Finally you head over there, and because it's so popular, you have to wait 45 minutes for it, time that you kill in the bar drinking beer and watching the bar TV. Finally you get your burrito and it's hot and smells fantastic. You rush home and set it on the counter so you can was up. Then you realize that your phone is still out in the car. You go out to get that phone, taking less than thirty seconds, and when you come back, a German Shepherd has your burrito and is starting to eat it. What do you do?

WHAT DO YOU DO?!

 

Fuck that dog. I took it away from him and ate the rest. And it was still delicious.

Dining right...

Started off at a crawfish boil last night...

Finished up with a nice dark gumbo and grilled garlic bread.

Gals, grub and guns...I think I've got everything I need here.

Thanks Brigid!!

A couple months back, Brigid sent me some great corn meal and I decided to learn how to bake.

My first couple of attempts were not all that spectacular, but one did confirm that the smoke detectors work as advertised.

Tonight though...perfection.

Behold--the corn muffin.

I made my first pan of these tonight...after not one, not two, but THREE trips to the grocery store to collect all of the stuff I needed. And they could not have come out better.

Thanks, Brigid! Now come visit New Orleans and I'll bake a pan just for you. Heck with pralines and muffaletta...my corn muffins are now at the top of the Big Easy culinary scene.

Dinner, New Orleans style.

How could I not eat at a place with this cool sign?

And the fare was exquisite.

Crawfish and Red Stripe...and corn on the cob (not pictured). It just doesn't get much better.

My day in Groton (again)

Did you ever have one of those days? Yesterday did it for me. I'd hand-crafted this beautiful post with tons of pics and links, and it was up for several hours. It was truly a god post, as such things are measured by me, so it figures that I would accidentally wipe the whole thing out yesterday while trying to correct one little typo that I spotted. Two hours' worth of work, undone by one ill-considered keystroke. Argh.

Anyway, to recap that day-I'll start over again with an abbreviated post, and that only because, after landing, I got to visit a true American treasure indeed.

(No, not Old Air Force Sarge...I'd be seeing him tomorrow.)

The day started back in West Virginia but it climaxed with an early afternoon landing at Groton's airport (KGON).

I set down on Runway 5 (above) and taxied over to Mystic Jet Center, my new favorite FBO in the northeast. In a flash, they had my aircraft parked and tied down. They refueled it at a pretty good price and then they loaned me this little Kia crew car to run into town.

I got down to the Navy Yard with no trouble and found myself at their Sub Force Museum just outside the gate. The museum houses some nifty exhibits about the sub force and it's history, from the early days of the World War 1 S-boats to today's nuclear boats. But time was short, so I zipped right through the building and made my way our onto the pier to look upon--and go aboard--the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, SSN-571.

Commissioned in 1954, Nautilus served for twenty-six years before being decommissioned in 1980. During that time, she set records for underwater endurance and she was the first submarine in the world to transit the North Pole beneath the ice. Nautilus was built at the very same Electric Boat Works that I'd just flown over, and she was christened on launching by Mamie Eisenhower, wife of President and retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Going aboard. Unline most museum boats today, Nautilus is still overseen by the US Navy, and a sailor on deck welcomes you aboard and gives you a self-guided tour map. And because the Navy runs it and maintains it, everything is in pristine shape.

Alas, everything is also BEHIND PLEXIGLAS! (sob!) But here we are in the forward torpedo room. Plastic walls or not, I'm still aboard the very vessel that I'd loved since I was a kid. The very first plastic model I'd ever built was of Nautilus back when she was still an active-duty boat, and little did I know back then that one day I'd be walking aboard her like this.

Control room. The tours today are sadly limited to the two forward compartments, and even in these, you're pretty tightly penned in. Still...Nautlius!

This inviting hatch door to the compartments aft was actually unlocked. The sailor on deck said that these spaces had also been cleaned up and made ready for tour but that the Navy decided against letting people into this space for "safety reasons". Twice I cracked it open, contemplating embarking on one of my self-guided VIP tours of the space, but as this boat is still Navy property, I decided against it. I must be getting old.

Submarine armory. A Winchester 1897 trench gun (left), two M1 carbines (center) and two M1 Garands (right) make for some fine close-in defense. There were a couple of 1911 pistols in there too, but the plexiglass kept me from getting good shots of them just as well as it kept me from playing with them.

Stairs! This was the first staircase ever installed on a submarine. It goes from the upper deck to the lower. (duh!). Upper deck in this area contains Officers' berthing and their wardroom. Below is the actual kitchen, enlisted bunk space, and various compartments housing the subs' machine shop, damage control space and ships' stores.

Radio room, for Dr. Jim.

And just like that, I was back off. Hey look--ducks!

I had a few minutes left to try to take in the whole museum, and it wasn't enough time. I did get to see an exhibit dedicated to NR-1, the Navy's deep research submarine. Also decommissioned today, her sail is outside the museum. Pity that the whole boat wasn't kept.

Also outside and up on blocks is a World War Two Japanese midget sub. I believe that it's one of the ones that surrendered to Old NFO during the war, but I cannot prove that.

Inside, I thought that the Medal of Honor gallery was the best part. More than anything else, it shows what kind of men went to sea for America back in the day.

They closed and booted me before I was done, but I left happy. It was definitely worth the trip.
I then adjourned to a dinner of fried cams at a nifty little place called The Spot. The food was plentiful, cheap, tasty as all get-out, and it came to the table quickly and quite hot. Two thumbs up for The Spot!

Channeling my inner Brigid, here's a picture of my food. Yum!

Then it was off to the airport for my scheduled bird strike. Hopefully I don't erase this post again because I'l never got to the next day if I do, and that was an even better day.

That's not Chili--it's tear gas with beef!

A coupe of spoonfuls makes you sweat, and a good whiff brings tears to your eyes and clears your sinuses. But day-um, it is GOOD!

Made a large pot of it last night, and it will be lunch and dinner for a couple of days until it's gone.

I need to treat myself right like this more often.

Breakfast at the Lair

So this morning, motivated by other bloggers who post about cooking and who shall remain nameless, *cough* *cough*, I decided to do my own cooking post, both as a tribute and in the hopes that a certain Yankee will come to understand that some dishes just have to be done a certain way.

First, take an andoulle sausage and slice it up.

Then cut the slices in half and brown them in a skillet with maybe just a touch of olive oil.

"Yo! Get the hell out of the kitchen!"

Where the sausage is frying, slice up some potatoes thusly.

Once the sausage is properly browned, add the potatoes and fry for a bit, until they are properly cooked through. Make sure that you get them into the grease by moving the snausages out of the way.

Next, while the potatoes are cooking, chop an onion.

Stir the potatoes and sausage to make sure that they all get cooked right. Kick kitchen "help" back outwhen they get too pushy.

"Seriously! Get out of here!"

When the potatoes start looking done, add the onion and any seasoning that you like.

I prefer to add some Frank's Red Hot, Italian herbs, and just a touch of garlic. Sometimes a little Tony Chachere hits the spot, too. Stir it a bit more until the onions cook down a bit, and you've got it--a perfect blend of sausage, potato and onion and a great start to your day.

"OK, fine, you goblins...here's a piece of sausage for each of you. Now GO AWAY!"

Chicken!

I cooked me a chicken, I did. All by myself.

The whim struck me while I was at the grocery store today. I bought a chicken and set about cooking it for diner.

And in the spirit of legendary food (and everything else) blogger Brigid, I shall now relate how I did this.

First, I got out my beer can chicken rack, which is a rack designed to hold an open can of beer and a whole chicken.

See here for details and cooking tips.

Then I opened a can of beer and drank some.

Whoops. Drank too much. Better finish that one and open another one.

I opened the second one, drank half, then knocked the can over and spilled much of the rest on the floor. Murphy was on it like white on rice, but now I didn't have enough again. Good thing I bought a whole six-pack for this. I finished off that can and opened a third. drinking half, I put the rest in the rack and put the chicken on the rack, then coated it nicely with some cajun seasoning that I found back in my cupboard. I then put it in the oven and celebrated by having another beer.
I then cleaned up the kitchen, had another beer as a treat for cleaning the kitchen, gave Murphy all the stuff that was inside the chicken, then knocked off the last beer because I didn't want it to get lonely. Then Murphy and I adjourned to the living room where we took a well-deserved nap until the oven timer woke Murphy up and he, in turn, woke me up. The chicken smelled GOOD!

I took that sucker out of the oven and it looked like this:

Almost too pretty to eat. And it came out just right--crisp on the outside, and tender and juicy and fall-off-the-bones perfect on the inside.

It was fantastic and there was just enough there to ensure than both man and dog were satiated. And now Murphy and I are relaxing out on the deck and I'm just bidding farewell to the last survivor of six-pack number two as the sun goes down. Life, as they say, is good.

Trapped at the Soo

Low clouds. High winds. Tons of rain last night and sporadically today. Grounded. Can't fly out of Sault Ste. Marie today.

Not minding one bit--we got food and I got beer.

In the spirit of Brigid, food-blogger extraordinaire, This is a steak tip sandwich, covered with carmelized onions, cheese, onion rings and a touch of Jack Daniels sauce. Beer is a Widowmaker. I've had two. Got it at Maloney's Irish Pub on Portage Street. I'm happy. Spud's happy too, only without beer. 

Meanwhile, here: Ships.

Entering the Poe Lock up bound, it's the steamship Arthur M.Anderson. 

On the night of November Tenth, 1975, The Anderson was down bound on Lake Superior in a severe storm. Nine miles ahead of her was another steamer named Edmund Fitzgerald. The two were in radio contact as they approached Whitefish Point. The Fitzgerald skipper, Ernest McSorley, reported that he was taking on water but was otherwise "holding his own." A minute later, the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of twenty-nine was gone. The Anderson was the vessel that notified the Coast Guard and even came about in the storm to search for survivors. None were found. The Fitzgerald was gone with all hands.

I know the story, and when I saw the Anderson making ready to lock through today, I put Spud's lunch   On hold and we stayed to watch this lake legend pass by.

The Sam Laud passed through the MacArthur Lock just a bit later.

Now we're going to go watch Da Yoopers perform, and then it's back to the campground. We'll fly out tomorrow, weather permitting.

A Fall Sunday well spent

What a beautiful day.

After church this morning (Yep, Pop...I went.) I stopped by the range to test out some new loads I'm working on for my Winchester Model 94 .30-30.

It's an old pre-'64 that I found broken on some auction site maybe ten years ago. I fixed it but it's been a rack rifle pretty much since then. Well that changed when I was rooting around in my reloading area and found a .50 cal. ammo can chock full of primed .30-30 brass that I prepped back in the early '90s and forgot about. Almost eight hundred cases, trimmed, primed and ready for loading. (What was I thinking way back then?) So now I'm going to work up a couple of loads, one for 150gr. bullets and one for 170gr., and load them all up. Then I'll shoot them empty and repeat the process.

Here's my target with the upper left being preliminary sighting-in, and the other three representing various powder weights.

It looks like 32.5 gr. or Winchester 748 under 150gr. Remington SP bullets is going to work for me. (Lower left target). The flyer on the lower right came about because by the time I got to that target, the rifle was smoking hot and my finger touched the barrel as I was sighting. (I also shot that one standing off-hand so the group kinds sucks.)I didn't exactly flinch when I touched it, but I did rush the shot to stop the burning. Funny how you never see John Wayne or Gary Cooper having that problem with their old lever guns.

Then, after shooting the breeze with all of my range friends for a while, I went down to the river with my newest toy: a 12 foot Pelican Pulse 120 kayak that I bought yesterday, fairly-well used, from the local kayak rental place.

Once a year they sell their rental boats, and while I missed out last year, I managed to get there in time this year and got one.

Today I spent a couple of hours playing on the Shenandoah river and breaking my new boat in, just paddling up and down and enjoying the warm, sunny day. The water sure was cold, though. Still, on a day like this, who can complain?

And just so Murphy wouldn't feel all neglected, I stopped at the store and bought him a marrow bone, fresh from the meat department.

You're, like, the best human ever...I love you, man!


Then it was into the kitchen to cook up a beef stroganoff that was worthy even of a distinguished chef like Brigid.

Now I'm drinking beer and getting ready to clean the Winchester on my deck as the sun sets. Life, as they say, is good.

Breakfast of Champions

Because I actually can cook.



--Take 1/2lb of Andouille sausage, slice up into pan with some olive oil.

--Chop up two or three potatoes, put in same pan.

--Fry at medium heat for a while, adding garlic, tabasco, Frank's Red Hot (different from tabasco) and crushed red peppers.

--Next chop up onion and toss into pan. (Add green or yellow peppers too, if you have any.) Simmer it all together, stirring every few minutes, until potatoes are crispy and sausage is blackened.

--Give dog a taste. If he doesn't fall over, add more tobasco.

Savor and enjoy!

Hungry...

Found some sliced turkey breast in the back of the refrigerator. It's dated 11/04/10, but it's still sealed. What do you think?

Try it, or just have some of the cottage cheese out of the carton it was hiding behind?

And when did they start putting cottage cheese in milk cartons?

Oh wait--it's just... never mind.

Time to call for pizza.

Martha Stewart, watch out

So if was suppertime here at the Lair. Lagniappe got his Eukanuba so he was content, but I needed more. So I pulled the last bag of "steam-in-the-bag" vegetables out of the freezer and got ready for some nice hot broccoli, peppers and onions. Yum.

Of course the stuff in the bag was all frozen together in one big clump. The directions on the bag say "gently knead the frozen contents apart", but this stuff was seriously frozen and no kneading was going to separate it. So, being a guy, I beat the bag on the counter half a dozen times, then grabbed a nearby handy Mag-Lite and whacked it some more. Now everything was "gently kneaded" apart.

The only problem was that I'd also put a hole in the bag somehow. "Steam-in-the-bag" only works with an intact bag. Damn it.

But I'm a guy, and guys are resourceful and inventive. And we have duct tape. So I used a few pieces of duct tape to seal the bag and I popped it into the microwave for the requisite four and a half minutes. The duct tape held, and I had my daily serving of green vegetables. Not bad.

Duct tape. Every guy should keep a roll in his kitchen. I now keep mine right next to the Mag-Lite.

The first full day with The Spud

Saturday was another shooting day. A couple of months ago I'd volunteered to take a group of novice shooters out to the local range. This bunch was from a local Tea Party chapter and none had much shooting experience but they wanted to get together and try it so one of the organizers, a former student of mine, called me up and asked me to take them. For the record, I'm not a Tea Party member myself, but as any reader of this blog well knows, we share the same views on most things. I'm just not a joiner. As luck would have it, the selected day fell on Spud's first full day here, so I took him along.

Here's the Spud, posing with the Ruger 10-22 that I entrusted him with. He did a great job of aiming every shot and demonstrating good muzzle awareness. The boy's learning to be a good shooter and we'll make a rifleman of him yet.









After we shot, a couple of the shooters offered to treat Spud and I to lunch. So we stopped at the Golden Corral, an excellent buffet-style restaurant. It was here that I learned a lesson about letting kids--or at least The Spud--work a buffet line without supervision.
On his first foray, he bypassed all of the quality meats and vegetables and returned with a plate just heaping with macaroni and cheese, pasta in tomato sauce, and that crappy all-dough pizza that places like this put out. I just sighed, because I'd told him up front that he was going to east healthy here and that we were going to try to get him off of his regular all-carb diet that his mom and grandmother seem to keep him on. So after he'd finished that mess, I accompanied him back up for the second round. After stopping him from heaping his plate with a massive scoop of mashed potatoes, I "suggested" a few healthy alternatives--broccoli, roast, shrimp and some catfish. (This place had some excellent lightly-breaded catfish.) He kind of screwed up his face a bit because he'd never had catfish (yes...he's a yankee boy all the way) but as soon as he sat down and tried a piece, he announced that he LOVES catfish.

Hey...it's a start.

So after eating that balanced, sensibly-portioned plate, he said that he wanted some more catfish. So I goofed again and let him return to the buffet counter for plate #3, figuring that just he'd get a couple more pieces and call it a day.

He returned with about 15 fillets on his plate...and more pasta. Cue the face-palm.

The rest of the day was spent swimming--I took him and Lagniappe down to the river--reading (I've started him on my old Hardy Boys books and he's loving the first one) and watching a movie. Do you believe that he's never seen Smokey and the Bandit and had no idea who Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed were? I will give this boy a sense of culture yet.

He loved it. Now I gotta find another movie that instills positive "guy values" for tonight. Anyone think that eleven is too young for Full Metal Jacket? Any other recommendations?

Oh, and just as an aside, to anyone with kids...do they all have this programming that makes them turn on every light in a house--even lights in rooms that they are just passing through in broad daylight--and then leaving them on? I mean, WTF?

Cooking with dogs

So this evening, I decided to make some spaghetti. Both Lagniappe and I enjoy a good spaghetti.

First I started some meat browning and boiled some water, then I tossed some dried spaghetti noodles in. This is when I realized that I had no spaghetti sauce. Nothing in jars, nothing in packets...nothing.

"Now what?" I asked, looking at Lagniappe. Lagniappe just looked up into the pantry, and there on the shelf were cans of tomato paste and a packet of chili mix.

"You think we should try it with chili mix?" I asked him. When he didn't say no, I opened the packet and dumped it into the meat with a can of paste.
"I dunno, dog," I said. It looks kinda dark. What else can we add?
Lagniappe looked up to the spice cupboard, so on his advice, I tossed in some crushed red peppers, some tobasco, some garlic powder and some hot sauce.

"It really doesn't look much better," I told him.

Lagniappe was now looking at the refrigerator, so I opened it. Back behind the beer, there were some cherry tomatoes in there that a nice neighbor had given us. "Good idea, boy," I told him. I chopped a few up and added them. I saw that Lagniappe was still looking into the open fridge, so I looked in there again too and saw a packet of Swiss Cheese. I checked it and noticed that it was almost a month past it's "sell by" date.

"Use it or lose it, eh, boy?" It still smelled ok so I used that to top the chili spaghetti after dishing it up.

There's nothing like a good spaghetti...and that was definitely nothing like a good spaghetti. To be honest, it was about half way between "lousy" and "completely foul".

Lagniappe seemed to like his portion, though. So that's a "thumbs down" and a "paws up" for using chili mix to make spaghetti sauce.