Category Archives: Food

Trip to Chicago

April 15, 2016Adventure, Awesome, Family, Food, FunAwesome, Band kids are awesome!, Chicago!, Family, Funwarren

A few weeks ago, Isaac and his school band went to Chicago to play a special performance in the Chicago’s Symphony Center. We drove separately as we didn’t want to ride the bus and he didn’t want us tagging along separately. So, we made a family-1 affair of it and had a lot of fun touring around Chicago seeing the sites and having a great time!

We did stay in the same hotel as the band…The Palmer House Hilton in downtown, right near Millennium Park. The hotel is listed as an historical landmark and I can see why…it is a beautiful hotel and well worth the experience! I loved being able to step outside and see the “L” pass by. We could walk to almost everything. I especially love that part.

We had Chicago deep-dish pizza the first night at Giordano’s. I typically do not like deep-dish as all of the bread wears me out but it was a cool ambiance and the flavor was really great! I especially loved to start off with a Chicago staple as well! I know Jon Stewart gave Trump a hard time about eating New York pizza with a fork, but with deep-dish, we had no choice!

Abigail, Emily’s parents and I braved the Sky Deck in the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). The Sky Deck is a set of glass push-outs near the top of the building where visitors can step out into what seems like thin air at 1353 feet up! It was really neat to do and the views were simply amazing. To me, the Sky Deck was so high up that it didn’t feel like a scary thing at all. It was sort of like flying in a plane…I think 100 feet would have been more scary. Anyhow, it was worth the trip. We bought a City Pass there which gave access to a lot of the cool exhibits throughout the city and saved us a lot of money.

We walked around in the cool air a number of days and nights and saw Calder’s Flamingo, Cloud Gate (aka the “Bean”), and the Chicago Board of Trade. Really, Chicago is a fantastic city to visit. We took in the Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. There is just so much in Chicago and it is a shame we didn’t have a lot more time to really take in more of the city. We spent some time seeing Van Gogh’s work in the Art Institute but that was only the tip of the ice berg of the famous works that are housed there. We saw American Gothic and Nighthawks and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. We saw Monets and Picassos and works of the ancients. It is truly a remarkable collection which I would like to further explore.

Finally, we did get a chance to actually lay eyes on Isaac and his his fantastic band play fantastic pieces in a fantastic hall! I think they were all so very proud to play and their love of music was quite evident! I so enjoy seeing Isaac and everyone in the band in tuxeudos / formal dresses and I am very proud of the hard work that led them to be able to play at this venue.

Even though it snowed while we were in Chicago, it was a marvelous trip and one I would love to repeat!

Ghost peppers

August 31, 2015Adventure, Awesome, Food, GardenGarden, Maybe I am glad it didn't stick with me too long, Peppers...or lava...you decide, Ring of Firewarren

A year or two ago, Isaac and a bunch of his buddies discovered hot peppers. They each grew various types and took them to school where they traded, challenged each other, did nerve damage to their tongues, etc…you know, guy stuff. Most of the guys had run of the mill peppers…habaneros, thai chili, cayennes, etc. To be sure, there are some good and hot peppers in that bunch and they were a lot of fun. This year, we decided to step it up a bit and planted ghost peppers, also known as bhut jolokia peppers. In 2007, it was rated as the world’s hottest pepper…a mere 401.5 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. For reference, a jalapeno pepper registers between 1000 and 4000 Scoville units. A freakin’ ghost pepper rates at 1,000,000 (1 million) Scoville units!

Anyhow, we grew a beautiful crop of ghost peppers this year. They grew nice tall plants and this week, started ripening into their beautiful red color. Isaac picked them on Sunday and ate the end off of one of them. We watched as his face turned red and he immediately had to get a tissue as his sinuses drained. He drank a ton of milk and had that goofy look on his face when you know you’ve made a mistake.

Not to be out done, I decided to step it up a notch. I chomped the remaining pepper, including the seeds, and within 10 seconds, knew that I had really screwed up. It took no time for my sinuses to clear and then my lips and tongue felt as if they were swelling…I imagine they probably were. I could feel it down my throat and all throughout my mouth and nose (watch the video link). Finally, and this is the best part, within 3-5 minutes, I had to deliver my supper to the porcelain altar. Luckily, my mouth was so hot that I couldn’t taste a thing!

A video of my reaction

So, if you find yourself in need of something stupid to do on a Sunday evening, find a ghost pepper and eat it all in one or two bites…it’s for the teenage boy in all of us!

By the way, Isaac took a few to school to share with his buddies…sharing is a good thing, right?

Great raspberry year!

August 3, 2015Awesome, Food, GardenGarden, I'd marry raspberries if polygamy were legal, Raspberries!warren

Probably my all-time favorite fruit is raspberries. As a kid, we had a patch in the yard where we could stroll by and get berries any time we wanted. Raspberries tend to get a little wild and spread like crazy. Of course, that makes them wonderful but they can be a bit much for a smaller yard.

Of course,w e have a smaller yard in Charleston so we were unsure whether we could have raspberries. At some point, I stopped caring whether a patch looked good or not so we planted a dozen or so starter canes and our patch was born. Actually, we started a patch of red raspberries and a patch of black raspberries and then we added another red patch. All of them have thrived and produce probably 25 pounds of berries per year.

We have made jellies and jams and syrups with them for several years, but Emily found recipes for black raspberry pie and for red raspberry muffins, both of which are to die for (yes, I said that).

We freeze a lot of the berries and use them as we need them. My word they are just like fresh and so much better than the flavorless ones that cost too much in the stores! Thank goodness for backyard raspberries!!!

By the way, here are the recipes for the pie and muffins…Emily found these somewhere on the Internet so these are not our own…

Black Raspberry pie

It’s been awhile, but let me explain

July 21, 2015Food, ThoughtsGee whiz I suck, Summer, Thoughts, Time flies!warren

I don’t really have a good explanation. This Summer has been busy and wild and rainy and I feel like we just cannot get ahead of stuff going on! Band camp has started for Isaac and will continue this week at the school and next week away at their “away camp”. Abigail starts next week as well with camp at the school and then we are back in school…or so it seems.

We haven’t been to our executive deer stand, I haven’t harvested the honey yet and I am not sure you could call what was a yard a yard any more…more like a jungle. And so, here lies my blog, lonely and abandoned. I had trouble with it being attacked and just in general sucking from a hardware and infrastructure stand-point. It was hosted on an aging server in my office. As it grew in size, the server balked more and more often and then knuckle heads from places unknown slammed it hard (though it didn’t have to be hit too hard to bring it to its knees). Finally, I decided to migrate it to a paid service where I get better machines, better storage, better maintenance, etc. I hate paying but it should just flat out work better now.

So, hopefully things are settling down some and I can get back to posting. It’s been a fun Summer in spite of rushing around. I’ll have to tell some of the stories we accrued. In the meantime, please enjoy this pic of the strawberry pie Emily made me…she made me about 4-5 this summer and they were incredible!

Fish Hawk Acres

June 19, 2015Awesome, Food, Garden, Nature, WVAwesome, Field to table, Nature, WV kicks ass!warren

West by God Virginia is full of all sorts of interesting delights that often go overlooked. While we are not technically a “fly-over” state as they are traditionally defined, we really are pretty much overlooked for everything except as the butt of jokes.

There are so many things in WV that I would consider gems that most people passing by just miss. A few weeks ago, we discovered one – Fish Hawk Acres. Fish Hawk Acres is a combination catering service, organic farm and outdoor restaurant…at least 4 days a year. We had the pleasure of driving to Rock Cave, WV a small town near Buckhannon…another small town in central WV. Emily and I met in Buckhannon 25 years ago so I reference Buckhannon whenever I can. Anyhow, we drove into Rock Cave and through a few fields to an un-assuming pavilion where Dale Hawkins, the chef and owner of FHA was preparing a gourmet meal with items that were all grown in one of 14 farms nearby.

Vegetables — These vegetables were for sale…fresh from the field

Dale talked some about his theory on sustainability and farming, food and cooking, and his pleasure in returning to the family farm in WV to do what he loves. He found that he was more a chef than a farmer so he partnered with Patti and Lupe Espinosa who took the endeavor from a 3 acre row-crop farm to a 30 acre farm to supply his cooking. Before we ate, Dale and Pati took us on a walking farm through a few fields to describe how they manage and conserve water and soil as well as how they plant vegetables and manage weeds. It was an incredible operation and one that made me wish I could undertake such an adventure.

We returned from the field, ready to eat. I guess there were 100 or so people that dined on beef tips and pork loin, asparagus and fresh roasted potatoes. We had cucumber-basil mojitos (not bad) and salad made from fresh greens.

After dinner, Sarah Loudin Thomas, a WV-native who has authored two books read a few segments from each novel for us. In her blend of WV and now-NC accents, she told us a story of life in WV in the early 1900s. After she read, a number of people asked for her to sign their books including her 5th grade teacher who was in the audience! It was one of the coolest things of the night!

On our way back, we had to stop for gas. For some reason, I felt the need to pollute my palette with ultra-processed ice cream. Still, we had a wonderful time as a family, enjoying one of the many gems that WV has to offer!

Growing time

May 29, 2015Food, Garden, WVGarden, It's food...coming from the ground!, Playing in the dirt!warren

It’s that time of year again…stuff is growing…including my aching back and sunburned neck…but that’s a good thing too I guess. It’s great to be outside and doing stuff. We put the main garden in on Mother’s Day weekend when our chance of frost is gone. What may be more exciting though, I think, is that I got sorghum in the ground again and that it should grow. We planted it at Emily’s grand’s house where we used to do the bulk of our gardening. It’s too big a plot for us to garden in right now but will be perfect for a good sorghum crop.

I tilled a bunch of the land and we planted every sorghum seed I had. We first did sorghum a few years ago. Year 1 was great. Year 2 was a total flop…so bad we didn’t harvest a single cane. I expect that this year we will do well. We planted in good soil with appropriate spacing, etc. It’s a good bit of work processing sorghum and the end result yields not a lot of sorghum syrup but it is so cool to be a part of this old-timey process…kinda the same way I feel about beekeeping. It’s a great family time and, in both cases, the end result is literally finger-licking-good!

I didn’t get many pics of our work but Emily, Abigail and Emily’s Dad planted at the end of a long day’s work tilling and mowing and weeding.

The other big thing that is growing now is our raspberry patches! There are tons of berries on the plants and, after we got fencing in place, they are remaining there not being eaten by the chickens. I think raspberries are my favorite berry and possibly my favorite fruit. It’s hard to beat being able to eat out of your own yard!

Making truffles

February 20, 2015Awesome, Food, Fun, WVCooking, Food, Making dessert, OMG!, They ain't all pretty but they taste awesome!warren

In town, there is a business called “Uncork and Create“. I’ll make up some of the history but mostly, it started as a place where an artist walks a group of people through doing a painting…everyone does the same painting with their own unique touches. Wine and snacks are welcome and it’s a fairly social gathering. They have since branched out from painting into all sorts of cooking/food classes.

Emily got me a gift certificate to go to one of their classes for Christmas. I am no cook, but I do like wine and sweets, so when I saw that they were offering a class on making chocolate truffles, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to give the place a try!

My class was offered on Valentine’s Day so taking it was either a really good idea or a really bad idea. I figured that if I arrived home with a pile of homemade truffles for my Valentine, I would be off the hook.

They have a local chef prepare a few easy recipes and we dug in with ingredients and kitcheny tools and stuff needed to make our recipes. The chef was a fun woman who was easy going and clearly enjoyed what she was doing. She teased and played and taught us some tricks for proper chocolate coating. There were a number of ingredients she brought so we could customize our truffles also. Several couples attended so I was at the “singles table”. We all agreed to customize our truffles with Grand Marnier orange liqueur. We tasted it and decided it wasn’t flavorful enough so we added more…and more. Well, you get the idea.

Once the truffle ganache is mixed, we had to refrigerate it so it would set up…chef came to our table after a bit and asked us how much hooch we had added to our mix…it turns out our mix was slow to set up…ooops! It wasn’t that much was it?

Finished truffles — The finished product

We finally got everything pulled together and made some really delicious truffles. I guess they aren’t as beautiful as I had hoped but for my first go at it, I was pleased. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed my time at the event. I won’t be able to make these things too often though or I’ll either be three sheets to the wind or overweight!

Follow up to my weight loss

September 19, 2014Food, ThoughtsCurse you Mountain Dew!, Feeling great!, Weight losswarren

A few months ago, I wrote about changing diet and losing weight. Today is the 6 month anniversary of that last update so I know you must be dying for another update. All told, I lost 54 pounds during this process. It was long and difficult as you might expect. It wasn’t hard so much because I had to do a lot of physical labor (in fact, I did not exercise one bit) or because I was angry about having to lose weight, but rather because it was a very trying test of my will-power and an amazing illustration of the power of food.

I am talking anecdotally here of course, but I think I was addicted to sugary stuff…not like cocaine addicted, but I sought sugary stuff over other food sources for sure. I drank a 2-liter of Mountain Dew a day and ate all manner of whatever other crap I felt like, whenever I felt like it. I am not a dummy…I knew better than to eat so much junk, but it just tasted so good and I craved carbs constantly. Fruit didn’t really taste good to me. I only wanted junk. As I look back on it now, I know my head was addled by something…weight or sugar or both.

Some folks have mentioned that they do not eat as much junk as I did so they do not think they will be able to lose weight, or that it will not be easy. It wasn’t easy for me either, but I understand what they mean. Honestly, I needed to be educated about what causes weight loss and weight gain. Of course, I know there are many medical aspects to weight that some folks suffer, but in the absence of those, I’d bet that if you are overweight, your diet probably is not as healthy as you think. Lots of bread, whole grain or not, and lots of pasta or potatoes and rice, come to mind as things that may be keeping weight on. There is a lot to weight gain and “junk” hides in all sorts of ways in a typical menu.

So, here it is 6 months later. I am within 2-3 pounds of my weight-loss weight, so I am still 50+ pounds down from where I was. The exciting part is that my blood pressure is down to normal without medication. The really surprising part is that my cholesterol numbers are all back in line too! I basically dropped 40 points off of my overall cholesterol number. My good-cholesterol numbers are good and my bad-cholesterol and triglycerides are normal again!

I still occasionally crave junk food a little, but not often and not bad. I haven’t touched soda since January of this year. I only drink water, coffee and hot tea. Every now and then I will have a cookie or two or a small bowl of ice cream, but it doesn’t mean much to me any more. The cool thing is that fruit and vegetables taste good to me again. I find myself not drawn to junk but rather to whole foods that I can identify. I know that sounds like a load of crap, but I discovered plums and almonds. I love plums and almonds! I know what a plum and an almond look like! Who knew they actually taste great?!

When I pick up a 50 pound bag of cat litter, I wondered how I ever even moved around before with the extra weight. I lost 10 bags of sugar! That just amazes me when I think about it that way. Of course, I know my body built up muscle to handle it, but it astounds me how much more pressure I was putting on my joints and my heart. I am so happy to have dropped the weight and I have found that I can easily keep it off, so long as I just decide to eat what I now know is good. So, your mileage may vary, but I am pleased with my weight-maintenance plan…

Taters and maters

August 8, 2014Canning, Food, GardenCanning, Garden, I say "taters and maters" in my best Slingblade accent...try it!warren

I just like saying that title…it is like so many words or combinations….it’s just a fun thing to say. What words do you have like that…stuff that’s just fun to say?

Anyhow, I’ve long posted on gardening endeavors so this is in that tradition. We have a little habit of planting too much and then filling our kitchen full of food that we can never hope to eat before it goes bad. We go a little pioneer (or more like early 20th century) on it and can everything!

It seems like we can never start the canning process before 10pm though. Anyone who has ever canned knows that starting that late has its good and its bad aspects…it’s usually cooler later at night and canning makes things in the house pretty hot. Canning also sometimes takes a long time so starting late might mean sleep deprivation. In our case, we just never have time before 10pm so heat has nothing to do with it.

Getting ready to can some hot garden mix

Anyhow, the other night, we started spaghetti sauce at around 10. Spaghetti sauce is a great way to use up a lot of tomatoes…our recipe calls for 30 pounds at a time. We add spices and veggies and meat and ~~fungus~~ mushrooms. Adding those things means we have to pressure can and boil the living fire out of the jars. Tomatoes alone are pretty acidic so any nasties can usually be killed with straight-up boiling and letting the acids do their work. Adding the other stuff prevents that so pressure canning is necessary…pressure canning simply allows the temp to get a lot higher. Our recipe calls for the canner to stay at temp for 1 hour. Talk about a late night! We did clear out most of our tomatoes though and we will have lovely vittles this winter when spaghetti will taste especially awesome!

Some of this year's potatoes — Some of this year’s first crop of potatoes

Speaking of awesome, home-grown veggies are usually in the own league compared to store bought. I think the biggest difference comes in potatoes. Taters are easy to grow and are just so much more tender and smooth to me when I grow them. It’s striking and makes it well worth the work of digging the tubers. This year, we planted one crop which we harvested in July. We turned right around and planted another crop which appears to be doing very well! I love the idea of two tater crops this year! We usually plant once and take what we get, but the taters were just too good to pass it up!

A little more about my diet

March 19, 2014Awesome, Food, Thoughtsbe comfortable however you are built!, Of course, They are calling me Skeletor at work now, Weight loss is cool...feeling greatwarren

A LOT of people have asked me specifically how I lost 47 pounds (so far…probably won’t lose any more). I did follow a particular diet called “The Ideal Protein Diet“. My chiropractor said she was tired of telling people to lose weight to help with their back problems but then not having a real suggestion that was easy and worked. She researched around and found this diet and tried it. It worked so she became a provider.

I know people have all sorts of self-image issues and skinny isn’t always good and fat isn’t always bad. I am not about chasing the “skinny ideal” and everyone has to make their own decisions about their own health so please don’t think I mean to judge anyone on whether they are thin or not thin. I have blood pressure and cholesterol issues and those are the reasons why I did this diet. My blood pressure is normal now without my medicine. I will continue to monitor it daily, but so far, so good. For me, I was comfortable at my previous weight but not with my other issues.

Anyhow, the gist of the diet is to minimize carbs and maximize protein but it is unlike Adkins or those sorts of diets in that the practitioners of this diet want participants to eat good protein (i.e. not bacon, etc) and to eat lots of vegetables, control portion sizes and hydrate. It has worked for us because the diet program provides a video series that is excellent and not just smoke-blowing. We see a weight-loss coach weekly who is helpful to our monitor progress and guide us forward. The diet is very well regimented so there is no counting points or calories or anything like that…it’s just easy. The other neat thing is that the process includes monitoring muscle loss and fat loss. The idea is to minimize muscle loss and focus on fat. It’s interesting but I lost very little muscle in this process which is not typical of most diets.

It is a little expensive to start as there are “good protein” products we eat to supplement other lean meats, etc but it has worked very well and I have not been uncomfortable or weak/tired, etc.

I am transitioning to the third phase where I begin to reintroduce healthy carbs and prepare for a maintenance phase. The idea is to retrain my way of thinking about food and what is really going into my body. The focus now is on eating whole foods, good portion sizes and how to enjoy food without gorging and snacking constantly. There is no magic to keeping the weight off…no more eating donuts every day. No more drinking four Mountain Dews a day. No more snacking on chips right up until bed time. This diet helped me get the weight off. Of course, it is now up to me to keep it off and I have been pretty well educated on what causes weight gain, how to manage it and how to move forward while still being able to enjoy food.

I don’t usually advertise stuff on this blog because this space is not really about that but I know weight loss is hard and I am so pleased with how this worked that it seems like others may benefit. If you are local, the link to my provider is above.

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!