The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

I had a couple birthday shens over the past 2 weekends. Last weekend (9/30), there was much hemming and hawing over a venue. I used to always drag the kinfolk to Red Hot and Blue for what still are my pick for best ribs, but with our current state of geographic dispersal, its really not close for anyone, and I didn’t want to have everyone drive an hour or more just to grab dinner and run home. I’d rather pick something close to someone’s house so we could hang out there some. I kicked around a few ideas like Nectar and Melting Pot, but I dropped them as being way too expensive. I don’t mind so much myself, but I hate dragging others along more or less against their will. So I settled on Eulogy, a Belgian joint in Olde City. X and I immensely enjoyed Belgo Centraal in London and were looking for a repeat. However, my dad despises driving in the city (I don’t much like it myself) and asked if I had a second choice in the suburbs. Say no more - this seemed like a good time to go to the fairly new Caribbean restaurant in W. Norriton, Blue Sky Café. Thus it was settled.

Everyone came over to Chez Fisher where we had snacks and hung out talking for a few hours. Around 5:00 we headed out to the Blue Sky.

First off, my misgivings about dragging people to an expensive restaurant against their wills was utterly wasted. The review I read said entrees were under $20. To me this means most entrees cost less than $20, although its acceptable if there are a few over $20. Either the price went up after that review, or this reviewer feels that under $20 can mean “one or two entrees under $20.” In any case, most of the entrees are under $30, so I felt bad about dragging everyone to an expensive restaurant despite choosing Blue Sky as a cheaper choice.

The Blue Sky features a fun and breezy Caribbean décor that definitely evokes the memories of actually being in the islands. We sat in a central room with a fireplace that looked like a Colonial dining room…with a sky ceiling? Strange but cool. The waiter was, to be honest, a bit off, especially considering the prices. He was friendly, but somewhat inattentive. He may have been new and tried to conceal his lack of knowledge of the menu by citing “Chef’s secrets” but he deflected a lot of seemingly reasonable questions on these grounds.

To start, I had the watermelon gazpacho soup which was tasty. I’m not sure what was “gazpacho” about it other than being served chilled…which fruit soups are usually are anyway. Nonetheless, I love chilled fruit soups, often an option at Pacific Grille, and I loved this one. Riz got the standard gazpacho which tasted good, although it could have been a bit chunkier.

For entrees, I’ll try and go around the table. Dad had the babyback ribs. He said they were not the best ever (no surprise there…he’s on the Red Hot and Blue bandwagon with me) but he definitely liked them. Mom had a crab cake which she reviewed favorably.
Riz had the jerk chicken which Lee said was not as good as Jerk Hut’s, but still good. It came with an astoundingly spicy dipping sauce. This sauce is what tripped up the waiter - he claimed the ingredients were the chef’s secret (absurd - what if you had an allergy? You’re not asking for a recipe, just the makeup). But later a chef came out to greet some friends and Riz flagged him down. He rattled off a list of ingredients without even batting an eye.

Lee had some catfish, I believe, which he said was good. He was suffering from a cold so I did not get a taste for fear of getting sick myself. Christa had a hanger steak in some sort of citrusy marinade. It was really tasty. The birthday boy picked up a crab pot pie, which is precisely what you think it is - everything you’d find in a chicken pot pie, but crab instead of chicken. I could alternately describe it as crab bisque with added veggies and a puff pastry crust. Either way…awesome. Riz picked up some sweet potato pie for dessert, also favorably reviewed.

I was a bit disappointed by the drink list. The beers were standard, nothing out of the ordinary, and there didn’t even appear to be ginger beer anywhere on tbe menu. Also, no plantains in any of the dishes we got. Christa got a tasty ratatouille, but I am also a big fan of those plantains!

I didn’t take pics of the food, but I did get some other pics:

After dinner we headed back to my house for cake and presents. My parents got me a Workmate which is a folding workbench/vise thing. It seems like it will be a good substitute for a workbench in my limited space.

The following weekend, X and I actually did go to Nectar. No pics there…I wanted to, but it just doesn’t seem like the kind of place where you whip out a phone and take snapshots of the food!

The décor is really neat. Very open with a huge Buddha tapestry dominating the main dining room. There is also a sushi bar and several small dining rooms that look as though they can be isolated by drawn curtains. The layout may be a bit TOO open. We were sitting at a small booth and there is no tall divider between it and the adjacent booth. At some point our neighbor mentioned getting a vasectomy and X overheard and inadvertently made eye contact with our neighbor. He took it right in stride joking that when you get to be that age you talk freely about these things. A less outgoing person might have been embarrassed or offended.

We got a Bento Box appetizer that contained pork dumplings, chicken dumplings, mushroom dumplings and lobster spring roll. All very good…I think the pork was my favorite. While the box is a good sampler, it only had 2 of each item, so it might not be great for a large group.

For the entrees I could not resist the idea of anything smoked with tea leaves, so after trying to decide between jasmine tea smoked duck and tea smoked venison, I settled on the duck, mainly because I was intrigued by the jasmine tea. It came in a bowl with tasty vegetables…chinese eggplant and other things. The duck had a definite smokey taste, but I wasn’t picking up the jasmine. It was either overpowered by the sauce or is just too subtle to pick up.

While I was there, I figured I would taste a little sake. I had some previously but it mainly consisted of a particularly lively late-night session at the Banzai Restaurant that saw my then-girlfriend and I dining with some other raucous people who were going through the stuff like water. Chef Lee was going wild…wilder than usual…setting things on fire and feeding us squirts of the sake he uses to fuel the fires. The guy across the table gave me a glass of it, and I thought it was pretty good. Anyway, I asked the waitress if she could recommend a noob sake served up cold and she pointed one out that seems to be very popular. It was also one of the cheaper offerings at $12. It had a very nice flavor…almost a grape overtone.

X chose a steak duo that included a filet mignon and a short rib that came with french fries. You can justify french fries in a classy restaurant by calling them something like pommes frites and presenting them neatly stacked like Lincoln Logs. X will not complain about french fries no matter what you call them. A rose by any other name…

For dessert we chose the aptly-named Birthday Cake which is a cake shell filled with ice cream and topped with meringue. It even comes with a candle and a chocolate wafer that says “Happy Birthday.” It’s definitely a good choice for any occaision, and Nectar is a great restaurant. Its a great way to experience upscale non-chain food at a reasonable price and without the hassle of going into the city.

After dinner, we sent the valet into the sea of BMWs and Lexuses to fetch my Civic. I sincerely apologize to the valet, but not knowing there was valet parking (the place has its own lot right there, for Pete’s sake) and knowing that the price was going to be enough that I was going to charge it, I did not bother to bring any cash, so I couldn’t tip the guy. I promise to bring a little cash next time.

We capped the night off by seeing Little Miss Sunshine, remarkably still in the theater after so long, and perhaps even more remarkably drawing a crowd of 20+ people even to a 10PM screening!

Thus caps off 26 years of…Me.

At least…I think its report #2.

09/28, Oaf called to report that he was going to the rock gym with some friends. I had been goading him to drop by sometime, as we went climbing a few times back in our college days. Ironically, Mike and Mary were going to see a play and we had originally planned to go, but decided not to so that we could go to bed early. As a result, I had not previously planned to go climbing. Even more ironically, we went out for a drink afterwards; I did not go to bed early by any reckoning. To bring the irony to Morissettesque levels, X stayed up until after 11 watching Dawson’s Creek reruns on The N The N, with its lineup of vapid but irresistible teen dramas is fast becoming the most evil time sink on television.

Back to the climbing…met up with ole’ Oaf and 2 friends of his. After a brief refresher on tying the retraceable figure eight knot and a brief tutorial on the grisgris belay device, a-climbing be went. Too bad we went the night we did - on Tuesday the gym was empty. Not even the regulars were there. On Thursday, all the regulars were back…and lots more people, too! Both the toprope and boulder areas were quite crowded. We split into pairs and squeezed onto toprope stations wherever we could. Steve did pretty well considering he hasn’t touched a hold in probably 3 years!

We spent about an hour toproping and then I suggested trying a little bouldering just to wear ourselves out the rest of the way. It didn’t take us long before we gave up. It was a good workout. I pushed myself pretty hard in showing some boulder problems to the others when they weren’t sure where to go. Between that and the extra endurance needed for toproping, I was pretty beat!

After wrapping up at the rock gym, we headed across the parking lot to Max and Erma’s for some cold ones. Matt and James didn’t stick around too long The beer didn’t agree with Matt too much. But Steve and I hung around for an hour or so, catching up on what’s new and what’s old. It’s close to a year since I last saw Steve. He came to see Prelude, but we went to the cast party after the show and there wasn’t much time to hang out and catch up. Steve is better at keeping in touch than I am, so he always has a lot of information on what people have been up to.

Matt and James live fairly close to the gym, so hopefully they’ll come by more. Steve is a little far, but maybe he’ll become a regular, too.

Sorry for the lack of pics. Ole’ MDA has a much nicer cam than ole’ Kicky, but I just haven’t had any opportunity to take pics since I got it!

Recently someone commented on ’s blog that Rachael Ray’s recipes flirt with expensive and/or hard-to-find ingredients. I was somewhat surprised to read this since my wife and I and my parents have all commented that her recipes can usually be made using fairly easy-to-find ingredients. I think the catch is that Ray seems to assume a baseline kitchen stock. If you have the right stale items in your kitchen, you should rarely be more than 4 ingredients away from what you need.

Here is what you should always have in your kitchen:   
• Vegetables:  
  • The ingredients for mirepoix which presents itself in whole or in part with many recipes:  
    • Yellow onions
    • Celery
    • Carrots

  Plus:

  • Potatoes
  • Fresh Garlic
• Dairy:  
  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Butter
  • Grated Parmesan Cheese
• Oils:  
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Canola or Vegetable Oil
• Herbs/Spices:  
  • Cumin
  • Cilantro
  • Coriander
  • Crushed Red Pepper
  • Ground Cayenne
  • Sweet Basil
  • Parsley
  • Oregano
  • Thyme Leaves (not ground thyme)
  • Dried Rosemary
  • Bay Leaves
  • Whole Nutmeg
  • Cinnamon
  • Garlic Powder
• Other Items:  
  • Coarse kosher or sea salt
  • Fine kosher or sea salt (or get a grinder and grind the coarse stuff)
  • Black Pepper
  • Montral Steak Seasoning
  • Poultry Seasoning
  • Adobo…OK I’ve never seen Rachael Ray use adobo but its good to have around. Goya’s adobo doesn’t have MSG.
  • Chicken Stock
  • Flour
  • Sugar
  • Bread Crumbs

I did some spot checking of RR recipes on FoodTV.com and I’d say if you’ve got all this stuff, you should be able to most things with just a few additional ingredients, usually ingredients that are perishable and hard to keep in the house.

A few other notes: Ray always uses fresh herbs. You don’t have to. Personally, I cannot use fresh herbs quickly enough and end up throwing a lot away. Obviously buying all of these herbs in dried form all at once will be expensive, but once you get them, they last awhile, so just acquire them as you go.

Substitution - Ray DOES use somewhat obscure items sometimes, but you can always substitute. Remember, the recipe is just a guideline. Use a little onion if you can’t find shallots. No andouille at your market? Kielbasa can work instead. Rachael Ray’s goons will not come after you if you tweak the recipe.

Once you have your kitchen well-stocked, not only will you be able to cook most of Rachael Ray’s stuff with a fairly short shopping list, you should be able to make a lot of other recipes. If you don’t make it to the store, you may even have enough stuff laying around to cobble together a decent meal anyway!

Goodbye Sidekick…Hello MDA!

It is with somewhat heavy heart that I announce my departure from the Sidekick platform. You see, X’s aging Samsung R225 was finally beginning to fail (seems the microphone was flaking) and she was in desperate need of a new phone. I figured as long as we were going to be renewing our contract (and thus our love/hate relationship with T-Mobile) I should probably consider a new phone as well so that we don’t have to extend our commitment any longer than necessary.

The Sidekick III was, of course, an obvious choice but aside from some minor improvements, it was largely more of the same. The MDA, a Windows Mobile based phone with a QWERTY keyboard has always intrigued me, but I was always somewhat put off by the hackishness of it. I was always reading about people trying to overclock it to get Skype running and all this other tomfoolery to accomplish what seemed to be basic tasks. But with T-Mobile’s 2-week return policy and their assurance that I could flip to the SKIII with no issue, I decided to give the MDA a whirl.

There is a great deal of debate over which device is supposed to be the better one, with each camp being staunchly devoted to its platform. Many say the SKIII is for kids, and the MDA is for grownups. That’s all a matter if marketing. Because I believe the best phone is the one that is right for you, I will endeavor to provide some objective comparison.

Flip Screen - the Sidekick has its trademark flip screen. Its a little bit gimmicky, but it is very easy to flip open with one hand. In fact its downside is that it may be TOO easy to open - the only times I dropped my SKs have been when they flipped open unexpectedly, which causes the phone to jump out of your hand.

Keyboard - the SK platform still holds the keyboard crown. While MDA’s is better than most of the Blackberry and Treo keyboards I’ve noodled with, it lacks some key features. The MDA’s keys are all in rows. The SK keys are curved a bit which makes them a bit more ergonomic. The MDA also lacks a dedicated row of number keys which makes entering numbers annoying because they require a shift. It would be nice if the OS were a bit smarter as well - when entering a phone number in the contact app, you have to remember to use the alt button. The lack of number keys also means 10 less special character keys. As a result angle brackets and comma both require a shift, and common symbols are not always where you might expect them to live. Some common symbols like double-quote involve 4 keystrokes!  There is also no dedicated @ key. Finally there are only alt and shift keys on one side. The SKII and beyond has dual shift keys that greatly improve your typing efficiency.

WiFi - the Sidekick does not support WiFi, only EDGE/GPRS. That means you need a cellular signal to get on the interwebs. The MDA has built-in WiFi so you have an alternative if you don’t have reception or are travelling. I never get a cell signal in the bathroom at work, but I can certainly get a WiFi signal!

Touch Screen - the MDA has a touch screen. The SK does not, and may well never. The upside to the touch screen is that I always preferred to keep the screen closed unless I actually had to type something, and I can do that with a touchscreen, even if I need to type a few strokes. Even after the SKII added the send, end, cancel and d-pad outside the screen I still occasionally had to open the screen for somewhat “frivolous” purposes. The touch screen allows you to do pretty much anything without opening the keyboard. If you can’t seem to do what you want using the hardware buttons, you can just poke the screen. You can really even skip the stylus if you’re just doing a few taps. Downside is that a touch screen is something you have to worry about scratching and damaging, and as with my PalmPilot days of old, I am forever forgetting where I last put the stylus. The stylus is also on the bottom of the phone when the Palm’s was on the top. I’m sure this phantom stylus syndrome will pass with time.  Oh, and I occasionally jab a finger into my laptop screen forgetting that it’s not touch-sensitive.

Open vs. Closed OS - the Sidekick’s awesome Hiptop OS is a closed OS. Not everyone is admitted into the developer program, fewer have the ability to use their apps outside of an emulator, and fewer still ever get their apps published on the Catalog. To further compound the issue, the SK is indeed marketed toward a younger crowd, with a bit of emphasis towards the hip hop/urban crowd. As a result, the market is obsessed with games and ringtones, while the enormous potential of having the Internet right in your pocket seems to be largely ignored. People on the Hiptop Forums are not clamoring for a way to centralize their family’s schedule online, they are mostly complaining that the camera is crappy and they can’t load their own ringtones!

The closed system does have some big benefits. The hardware and software combinations are all pretty much identical. There’s only one place you need to go for support. Because the applications only make it to the Catalog after being vetted and tested, you can be confident that it will work. Because there are different versions of Windows Mobile and a multitude of hardware, there is no guarantee that an application will work on your hardware/software combination. Because there is no centralized vetting process, anyone can release an application and even charge for it. These applications can be shoddy, or even crash the software requiring a hard reset and potential data loss.

The other end is that the possibilities for software are limitless on the MDA. You don’t need a developer key to even try to develop an application for Windows Mobile; you can get everything you need right from Microsoft. The dream app you want might just be a Google search away. If it’s not, you can develop it yourself. Of course, lazy Troy will probably never actually develop his own app…but it’s nice knowing the possibility is there!

Online Backup - the SK automagically syncs all of your phone data online. Everything - contacts, e-mails, settings…if you have to replace or reset a Sidekick…or even upgrade…you simply pop your SIM card into the new phone and it downloads everything. Soon enough it’s right back to where it was. You can also access a lot of this through a web interface.

Windows Mobile has nothing out of the box. Not a thing. I will even go so far as to call this EMBARASSING, considering the device is designed to sync with a PC.  Why can’t you back the system up, too?  You can sync your PIM info to a PC running Outlook - contacts, tasks, etc. but to get full backups you need to buy a third party application and even these can be iffy. If you have to wipe the phone for some reason (this includes installing the latest ROM upgrade from T-Mobile - hint: upgrade the ROM BEFORE you start customizing) you will have to reinstall every app and punch in every setting.

Of course you don’t have to trust your data to some third party, either. Everything has pros and cons.

The software is no different. The Sidekick comes right out of the box with PIM applications, web browser and chat. So does the MDA. The PIM apps on the MDA beat the pants off of the fairly crude SK apps. The SK chat apps are way better than the OZ chat app that cannot even look up AIM away messages (Danger resolved that issue on the SK platform about 3 years ago!). The MDA’s built-in browser (Pocket Internet Explorer, often referred to as pIE) is not as pretty as the SK browser but it is more robust. The SKII could not handle accessing my company’s web e-mail portal which requires first logging into a clientless VPN. pIE can.

Windows Mobile also comes preloaded with Pocket Word, Pocket Excel and Pocket PowerPoint. You can share files directly to your PC without having to E-mail it to yourself. SK does have spreadsheet and presentation programs but they seem fairly limited.
The software area is where the MDA really shines, and where you have to really make your decision. The SK platform is a communicator first, a PDA second and a phone third. The MDA is a PDA (perhaps more accurately pocket computer) first, communicator second, phone third. If all you want from your mobile device is chat, decent web surfing and the occasional note or reminder and you don’t want to have to noodle with it at all, the Sidekick may be the right fit for you. It’s not a “kids” phone as some might have you believe, it just doesn’t have as much flexibility as the MDA.

The MDA’s possibilities are limitless. I once commented that if the SK just had a Flash player so I could watch Homestar Runner from anywhere, I’d be pretty happy. With the MDA, I DO! The catch is that with the MDA you have to be willing to hunt for what you want. Installing the flash player is pretty simple (although it is Flash 7, so it doesn’t work for fancy new things like YouTube). Connecting to the WLAN at work has been 2 days of trial and error, and it still doesn’t work quite correctly. However, anytime I get frustrated with these things, I remind myself that the MDA still does everything the SK does right out of the box - this other stuff is gravy.

Its kind of like choosing between a game console and a computer. You have reasonable assurance that the console will do everything its supposed to do without requiring a whole lot of tweaking.

The computer can potentially do a lot more than the console could, but you may have to fool with it.  A lot.

If you like tinkering, the MDA might fit you. If you don’t, the MDA may well drive you nuts.
One last consideration is the cost. The MDA will probably cost you a little less than the SKIII, but the Sidekick data service is $20 extra per month while the Total Internet package for the MDA will run you $30. In other words, the MDA will cost you more in the long run. One benefit for the MDA is that Total Internet includes unlimited access to T-Mobile Hotspots, and that’s not just confined to your phone. Bring a laptop into Starbucks and you can jump right on.

So far I’m pretty happy with the MDA and I will probably hang onto it. About the only thing I really don’t like is the built-in chat app. But A) I can always get a different chat app (the benefit of an open system) and B) when I got into the SK, a lot of my friends were using AIM all the time. These days, chat just isn’t as useful to me, so it really doesn’t bother me all that much.

That, dear reader is my convoluted MDA vs. Sidekick comparo. To boil down: Stop asking people which one is better. Start asking yourself “which one is better for me?“

Labor Day - the unofficial end of the summer. The 2006 Labor Day started in true form with the remnants of hurricane Eduardo providing a steady soaking rain for Friday and Saturday.

The parents retired so we threw them a retirement party. Most of Friday night was spent putting together the food we were bringing (the Pearsons generously offered the use of their house and the sons of the house of Fisher and their wives (mostly the wives) provided the food. To be honest, X did a great job organizing our work. Her parents came by to help with some cooking, but we were finished by 10PM and only had a few loose ends to wrap up Saturday morning. We didn’t have to panic or rush at all.

The party went well. There was plenty of food and everyone seemed to have a good time. The chocolate fondue fountain worked better than I would have expected and was also not nearly as messy as I would have expected.

I had intended to bring my big camera but between the heavy rain and all of the other stuff we had to transport, I decided to leave it behind. At some point we need to get a better P&S for times when it will be less conveinient to bring the *ist. I did think to snap a quick shot of my parents which is actually kind of interesting in its crappiness:

We decided to skip the beach citing housework and schoolwork for X. On Sunday, we met up with Kate, along with Mike and Mary freshly off of their trip to Hawaii. We had leftovers from the party and hung around and looked at their pictures. They brought a cool necklace for Christa and a Kona-flavored cigar for me, along with a postcard of the label since they couldn’t find a box. I may frame the postcard instead of using it in my table.

We then went to Waltz for minigolf. They have a decent course with some fairly challenging holes. I had a really good night and schooled everyone. Of course, I was also keeping score so everyone assumes I must have been fudging the number, but the truth is: I am just that awesome. I also snapped a pic of this large insect standing on a colored light:

After golf we grabbed ice cream at a chain whose name now escapes me. They had some interesting choices including the one I got which involved banana ice cream and a peanut butter swirl,

Monday was mostly relaxing and working around the house. We did visit Cherelli Clan for S’mores, but otherwise it was just a take it easy day. I finished some outstanding painting tasks in the kitchen and blue room and tacked in about half the molding around the living room floor.

I did make one mistake - I finished reading “Dandelion Wine.” On Labor Day weekend. For someone like me who is practically a different person once summer hits, the end of this book is tough enough without reading it as the sun sets early and the cool Spetember wind is blowing through the windows. The end of the season was easier for me this year between knowing that I wil actually be able to go to the beach in the fall thanks to no marching band and ther parents’ retirement. I am also very eager to begin curling in earnest…I actually have a winter activity to look forward to.

But the ending is still heartwrenching.

Cue the drug-related comment spam!

I know what you’re thinking. Both of you.
One of you is thinking “Pot roast in the summer? Give me a break!”
The other is thinking “That doesn’t look like a Le Creuset pot…”

Ok reader #2. You got me. It’s not Le Creuset. But it IS cast iron. I got that Lodgeware dutch oven for $30. That’s less than $1/pound! A Le Creuset dutch French Oven would cost like 10 times that. I won’t have one of those for a long time. It cooks great, BTW. Especially meatballs and pot roast.

Back to you reader #1: I don’t subscribe to this seasonal nonesense. Oh sure, naturally in the summer I find myself craving burgers and grilled vegetables and seafood and in winteri have an insatiable hankering for bean stew and chili and onion soup. But at the end of the day, if it sounds good and the ingredients are available, I’m making it.

Pot roast is great - easy and cheap. You can make it in your crock pot if you want. If I’m around the house and can monitor the stove, I’ll do it on the stovetop. You can also do it in the oven, but I find it easier on the stove to turn the meat and monitor to make sure it isn’t boiling too fast.

This was one of the best ones I’ve ever made. Here’s a few tips:
Use wine AND beef stock. Just wine can be overpowering, but just stock lacks the great wine flavor!
Put a little thyme in the pot. It adds a great dimension. Don’t overdo it, though - thyme can be overpowering.
To thicken the gravy, knead equal parts butter and flour into a doughy paste and whisk it in. I did this for the first time and the gravy was just awesome.

Special bonus: Like a roasted turkey, the leftovers are arguably even better!

Troy’s law of cookware:
Everything should be made out of silicone. Anything that cannot be made out of silicone should be made out of cast iron.

You can’t make a soup pot out of silicone.

Le Creuset 4.25 qt Soup Pot in Dune

I love the Le Creuset Soup Pot. The wide, rounded shape just seems really useful for anything from browning meats to actually making soups or stews. Its also expensive with the 4.25 qt size retailing for over $200! At that price, I’d either have to settle for a smaller size or save pennies for quite a long time. Trouble is that I don’t really need a soup pot, let alone one from Le Creuset. I have found that if I try save up $200 for something so unnecessary and extravagant, I always spend the saved money on something more necessary and less extravagant.

Of course that’s not a bad thing, but it does make it hard to realize these dreams without a little creative financing and creative shopping.

After attending a Gartner Security Summit in DC last year, I managed to get on a mailing list where they send me surveys which sometimes offer a $25 Amazon GC in exchange for participation.

Note to EVERYONE - I will always fill out surveys if I get a reward. I will sometimes fill out surveys if I MIGHT get a reward. I will NEVER fill out a survey if I get nothing.

Recently I managed to pick up $50 in GCs from these surveys and had no idea what to do with them until an idea popped in my head that perhaps I could put them towards some Le Creuset. Perhaps if I could amass 4 or 5 of them, I could bring it into a reasonable price range. I popped on over to Amazon to see what the prices were like and I found that some items were on sale for more than 50% off! In particular, the soup pot pictured above was $90 marked down from $230 with free shipping (it weighs about 25 lbs)!  I wasn’t crazy about the color, but for the price, can’t be too choosy.  Of course in looking up the normal price, I see that Amazon is now selling my beloved blue for $80!  Lesson learned: if the color you want isn’t on sale, wait a little while and see if it comes on.

This brings my Le Creuset count to 5: I also have the 1.25 quart “Hot Chocolate Pan” in Red (it’s really just a saucepan with a pour spout. Very useful actually), a 2.25 quart “French Oven,” in Flame, a Rectangular Baker in Red, and the 10.5″ Grillpan in Lemongrass.

One day while spending the weekend at my then-girlfriend’s house, her father and his twin brother game bounding excitedly through the door armed with a sizable piece of beef and a block of provolone. Her father went to work carving the meat into long, thin strips while her uncle put together some sort of breading.

As they worked, they told us stories of their mother making these spedinis to celebrate special occasions. When you came home to spedinis on the grill, it surely meant something good.

The brothers did not seem to have any particular good news, but perhaps the spedinis themselves are news enough. Before long, they began dipping the meat strips in olive oil, dredging them in the breading, and rolling them up around a small piece of provolone. The rolls were skewered with onions and bay leaves and then placed right onto a hot grill until the steak was perfectly browned and the cheese became a melty surprise at the center of each roll.

They were amazing. The smoke from the burning bay leaves lent an exotic flavor to the Italian spices in the breading that was perfect with the tender meat and the pungent cheese. Perhaps it wasn’t that spedinis celebrated anything as much as they made anything a celebration.

Italians have a habit of dropping trailing syllables. Prosciutto sounds like pra-zute. Mozarella sounds like mooz-a-rell. In much the same way, spedinis sounded like spideens when pronounced.

Spedini also has no specific definition - it seems to be a bastardization of the Italian word for skewers, “spiedi.” As a result, it is sometime spelled “spiedini.” Googling both “spedini” and “spiedini” yields many drastically different recipes. Some do not call for skewers at all. Some are fried and not grilled or broiled.

As a result, it took 4 or 5 years and some crafty googling for me to track down both the correct spelling and a recipe. I kept trying different variations of “spideen.” It was not until I found a link to a favorite meal from upstate NY that is sold as “Spiedies” that I realized there might be another spelling. These are not quite what I was looking for, but it was the breakthrough that allowed me to finally unearth a spedini recipe in the Summer of 2005 similar to the one I had enjoyed that day long ago.

Since then, spedinis have become one of the crown jewels of my backyard barbeques. We’ve adapted the recipe a bit, particularly using fresh bay leaves instead of dried ones. If I ever open a restaurant, I think spedinis will be the signature dish.

In our house, spedinis still celebrate special occasions - any warm, clear summer night just happens to be special.

**EDIT**

It probably would have made sense to post the recipes I based mine on.  I do most of my cooking by feel, so I don’t follow recipes exactly.

My spedinis are mostly based on http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/1061/spedini.html

I find that the measurements in that recipe are absurd.  I cut the dry ingredients in half and still have some left over!  I don’t know what “Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle” is.  I just use Parmesan. 

I also use http://www.kieto.com/recipes/spedini.htm for some additional inspiration.

Enjoy!

I wish I had a wide-angle lens on old Kicky here.
Last night, coming down the blue route approaching 76 was a sign indicating “RIGHT 2 LANES CLOSED.” Directly across the street, a sign declaring “LEFT 2 LANES CLOSED.” The right lane was blocked by cones. The left lane was blocked by a truck with a man wearing an orange vest nearby and looking very confused. The center lane was blocked by all the people on the right trying to left and all the people on the left trying to go right.
Oops!

This here burger is from Five Guys.

Some here have claimed that it is EVEN BETTER than Charlie’s! I’m not sure what the verdict is. It is definitely an amazing burger and they offer the additional toppings similar to Zac’s (and fries) which is nice. The burger comes standard as a double for about $5 (and coincidentally will increase your cholesterol by 500 pts and the fries are very good.

But I don’t yet know if I can pull the crown from Charlie’s. The Five Guys roll is much better quality. The patties are fatter (not fattIer) but Charlie’s burgers just seem to melt when you bite into them. I think a side-by-side comparison is going to be in order.