Author: Jacob

What happens in bed…

When we started this blog, I promised that I would never post about what happens in bed.

Today, I’m breaking that promise.

This has been a busy work week for me, and I’ve been up very late solving problems and doing the general geeky stuff that I do.  Last night, I didn’t get to bed until around 3:00AM.  Marcia had gone to bed around 11:00.

I had turned on the hall light, not wanting to disturb Marcia, and was quietly changing into my pajamas, when she started laughing.  Loudly.  Hysterically.

At first I wondered if I had a hole in my pants or something, but when I looked over at her, I could tell she was completely asleep.  I have heard of people talking in their sleep (indeed, I have heard you-know-who talking in her sleep), but laughing so uncontrollably in her sleep is a new one.

I had to try: “Honey, what’s so funny?”

Another outburst of laughter, and then she rolled over and it was over.

I never did find out what was so funny, but at least she was happy.

Allez Cuisine!

Here’s another first: On Saturday, we did our first real paid catering gig (along with my mother and my uncle Kevin – my mother was the head chef). Marcia has worked as a professional chef before (at the Bed&Breakfast she used to manage), but this was my first time in the professional arena. It was the first time doing catering on someone else’s site for both of us. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too.

Marcia, Karen, and Jacob

The event was a wedding reception with about 150 guests, with an Italian food/decor theme. The menu was a mix of traditional Italian and non-traditional Italian-inspired food. The entrees were Grilled Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo (traditional), and Inside-Out Ravioli (a non-traditional but very delicious creation of my mother’s). We also did a fruit salad, a chef’s salad, some REALLY good breadsticks, a cheese tray, and a few other tasty morsels. We did not do the wedding cake, though we did provide a chocolate fountain which was a real BLAST, as you will soon see…

Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries

But let’s start with the strawberries – In talking with the mother of the bride, it became apparent that the bride’s favorite treat is chocolate-dipped strawberries. It was decided that we would provide a plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries for the bride and groom to enjoy. At first, we were just going to do some simple traditional dips, but then my mother got a crazy idea – and when she gets those ideas, there’s no stopping her. She wanted to use white and dark chocolate (dark in color, not in flavor) to make half of the strawberries look like tuxedos, and then use white to make the other half like like wedding dresses. It took a little bit of [very tasty] experimentation, but when she figured out how to do it, the results were great:

The world's coolest chocolate-dipped strawberries
We offered a few of them to the pastry chef who did the cake to put them on or around the cake if he wanted, and he loved the idea. The rest went on a plate for the bride and groom to share. We also made some more plain dipped strawberries for the rest of the head table to enjoy.

Cake Flower

The pastry chef (who was a friend of the bride’s family and also a wedding guest) had his daughter with him. She was probably 6 or 7 years old. While he was putting the strawberries we gave him on the cake, I was talking to the little girl, who said “my daddy made the cake.”

“It’s pretty,” I responded, “and you can eat everything on it!”

“Not the flowers,” she said.

I went into teacher mode. “I bet you can.”

“No!”

“What kind of flowers are they? Are they carnations?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can eat them. What do you think they taste like?”

She half-shrugged, half rolled her eyes at the idiot who thinks you can eat flowers.

“They taste like pepper.”

She’d had enough. I was clearly insane. She laughed at me, said “Nuh-uh!” and scampered off.

Later, I was lucky enough to serve her her food. I asked if she wanted salt, pepper, or flowers on her pasta. Again, the “for a grown up, you’re really stupid” look.

For the record, you CAN eat carnations, and they DO taste like pepper. Just be careful when you buy them that you get ones grown without any pesticides, because pesticide not only tastes nasty, it’s not very good for you.

Chocolate Fountain of Death

About halfway through dinner, we were all serving or preparing more food, when someone came in, grabbed Kevin, and said “the chocolate fountain is exploding!” We thought that perhaps it had spilled a little, or maybe overheated and ruined the chocolate (it does happen on occasion).

No. This was pretty literal.

A piece of food had fallen into the bottom of the fountain, and worked its way into the auger that moves the chocolate from the bottom to the top. It got stuck inside the auger tube and began acting as a lifting shelf for the auger, so the auger started climbing up the tube – like it was unscrewing itself from the fountain. Once the auger got above the top of the tube, it started flinging chocolate about. To make matters worse, a few moments after that, the whole fountain started to spin about because the movement of the auger had thrown the balance off. Then the rotation caused various pieces to come apart, and very soon the whole thing had come apart, flinging chocolate all over 4 bowls of strawberries, pretzels, and cookies, a white tablecloth, and a surprised little boy.

The fastest way to clean up the mess was simply to clean the fountain, swap the tablecloth for a fresh one (luckily, no chocolate got on the floor or walls), and get things moving again quickly. Kevin put the soiled tablecloth in a freezer so it could be easily cleaned later (you can peel the cold chocolate off of the cloth and have a pretty good chance of saving the tablecloth). After things calmed down and dinner was done, we took a moment to take some pictures of the tablecloth (this is after being frozen):

Kevin and Jacob with the chocolate covered tablecloth
I wish we had gotten some pictures of the little boy who was equally chocolate covered, but he got cleaned up too quickly. Thankfully, the bride and groom and all the guests thought the whole incident was quite funny, and nobody was upset at this minor disaster. I think it’s the only thing that went wrong the whole day (which means my knife skills have improved!).

The Aftermath

In the end, we received many compliments from the guests, and the bridal party (especially the mother of the bride, who hired us) was very pleased. We were happy with a job well done, and a buffet table well-eaten:

The buffet table after the wedding
A number of people asked us if we had a catering company, or if we were available for hire. The four of us have threatened to start a catering business before, but have not actually done so. Perhaps with a little more experience, we would feel comfortable doing that. Only time will tell.

Head cold

Runny noseApparently this weekend is the time for my annual summer head cold. The human body is an amazing thing, and today I am particularly amazed at the incredible amount of SNOT the human head can manufacture in a short period of time.

Fortunately, this is just the summer sickness going around (at church today fully half of the guys I talked to were in various stages of the same thing), and from all accounts, I’m at the peak of it and it should subside within another 24-48 hours. Thank goodness?

Kentucky Hot Browns

Time for another culinary post… A few days ago we were watching the food network. Specifically, we watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay. This particular episode was all about a dish I’d never heard of – the “Kentucky Hot Brown.”

As we washed the episode and learned about the dish, we both started saying “that sounds really good.” By the end of the show, we had determined to make hot browns.

We went to the store the next day and bought the necessary items, remembering as best we could what was involved on the show (how do you make a Molnay sauce again? Oh yeah, Bechamel + Cheese). We then got fresh tomatoes from the garden, and I set to work:

I put a couple of very thick slices of roasted turkey breast on a thick slice of white bread (crust removed). On top of that went a couple of a tomato slices, sauteed just to the point of charring. Then a very healthy portion of molnay sauce (easy to do: Flour, butter, milk, cheese) slathered all over it. I put it under the broiler for a few minutes, just until the sauce was bubbly and the top golden brown, then put it on plates, topped it off with more of the tomatoes and a couple strips of bacon.

Can you feel your arteries clogging?

The result:

Jacob's Kentucky Hot Browns

This is what each of us ate: a DOUBLE portion of hot browns (really, each of those should be a whole serving), plus some fresh fried zucchini just because it was ripe. It was so tasty that we both ate just about all of it, and with all that turkey and cheese and bacon, sleepiness soon set in and we retired relatively early that night.

The verdict: This one is a keeper. EXCELLENT comfort food that isn’t very hard to do, and tastes GREAT.

Money can’t buy happiness or love…

They say that money can’t buy happiness, and money can’t buy love.

What money CAN buy is….a dishwasher.

And when two people who both hate doing dishes fall in love and get married, that is money well spent on making those two people happier and helping them remember how much they love each other.

So money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can sure help.

Only in Illinois… part II

Some time ago, I wrote about all the miles I’d put on my bike in the past year, and some of the interesting things that had happened in the process. One of those things was chasing a herd of cows down a farm road… Only in Illinois.

Well, today came part II. I was about 12 miles into my ride, headed north on a narrow road that probably doesn’t even exist on most maps. I was moving along at a decent clip – around 23mph, when I suddenly heard a loud rustling on the side of the road just ahead. A calf (or at least a small cow) sprang from the brush and ran for her life just ahead of me!

On both sides of the road were fences, so the cow had nowhere to go. She wasn’t going to let me catch up with her, so passing her and leaving her behind was out of the question. I didn’t want to run the cow several miles up the road to the end of the fence, as that would just leave some farmer with a lost cow.

I hit the brakes and slowed down so the cow could just walk and still “run” away from me, while I contemplated what to do. I could turn around and go back the other way, picking a different route than I’d originally planned. I could go to the nearest house and see if they knew whose cow it might be. I could call the police on my cell phone.

My new pacesetter and I came around a slight bend in the road, and saw the farmer and his son, just getting out of a pickup truck by an open gate. Aha! That’s how she escaped. The cow suddenly realized she was trapped between two bad things – the farmer that would make her go back into the pasture, and me, who had two wheels and a bright yellow shirt. She hesitated, considering going back the other way.

I sped up.

She turned and ran.

We repeated this 3 or 4 times, me using a bicycle to actually herd a cow towards its pen. When it got close to the gate, the farmer’s son (who looked to be about 10) whistled and clapped, and the cow turned and went straight into the gate.

I’ve never ridden a horse in my life, and I don’t know how well I would like chaps, boots and a ten gallon hat; but today, on my trusty Trek and in lycra shorts, clipless cycling shoes, and a bike helmet, I got to be a cowboy.

I waved to the farmer as I passed the truck, then sped up and continued on my way. I only looked up when I passed the main part of the herd farther down the pasture, to smile, wave at the cows, and shout “You stink!”

Thank goodness the rest of the ride wasn’t upwind.

A late-night run in with the police

Last friday night was one of the most beautiful clear nights we’ve had in a very long time. It was the perfect night to take our telescope out to a favorite stargazing spot, a cemetery about 7 miles south of town, and look at things like the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the Mizar binary star, Owl Nebula, etc… Jupiter was particularly brilliant that night – we could even make out 3 of the 4 Gallilean moons with just a pair of inexpensive binoculars.

As I was hunting for the owl nebula, which is just northeast of the northernmost corner of the big dipper, I suddenly found that my night vision was gone. I couldn’t see anything. Taking my eye away from the eyepiece, I found that Marcia was waving at a pair of very bright headlights coming up the access road into the cemetery.

Great. Visitors. After midnight. Marcia wasn’t sure whether the people saw us, which is why she was waving to make sure we didn’t get run over. That’s when the red and blues flashed for just a second, and I realized it was a police officer. From the Sheriff’s department, to be exact.

I approached the car from the front, making sure they could see my hands (but without raising my hands like some sort of criminal – I would have just felt dumb). Officer Carlson introduced himself and asked what we were doing. Marcia said that we were doing some stargazing, and the officer noted that it was a perfect night for it. He asked “are you aware that cemeteries close at dark?”

Honestly, “no, I didn’t know that.”

He explained that the main concern is people coming and getting drunk or high or other things, as cemeteries do tend to be secluded (which is why it was perfect for astronomy – no bright lights nearby to ruin the view), and that since it was obvious that we weren’t doing any of things, he wasn’t going to give us any trouble.

Whew!

Perhaps out of gratitude for not arresting us, or wanting to prove that were indeed just a couple of geeks staring at the sky, or just because I was really excited to share what I was seeing, I asked if the officers wanted to take a look. “Have you ever seen the moons of Jupiter?” Officer Carlson accepted my offer, and they got out of the car.

As I fumbled for a flashlight, since my night vision was ruined by their very bright headlights, I heard a clanging sound. I turned around with the flashlight to discover that the other officer had gotten out of the car and walked right into a fence.

And he had his own flashlight.

I wanted to show them Saturn, as that’s probably the most visually impressive thing in the sky these days, even if it does appear significantly smaller than Jupiter through the telescope. But Saturn had already set, so Jupiter would have to do. I trained the telescope on Jupiter, got the magnification up as high as I could and still allow it to be focused, and let the officers take a look. Officer Carlson was genuinely interested and taken by the beautiful image of the huge planet. I don’t think his partner (who we later discovered was an intern and had had a class with Marcia’s brother who also studied law enforcement recently) was as impressed.

We talked a little more about astronomy and I pointed out a couple of interesting things that most people don’t know about the stars, and then the officers thanked us, we all shook hands, and they went on their way. I must say that this was by far the most pleasant run-in I have ever had with an [on-duty] police officer.

(Ok, there was the one time when we were walking around a used car lot at night looking at cars, and found one with the window rolled down and a storm was approaching. A police officer happened through the lot as part of his evening rounds, and we flagged him down to tell him about the window and see if he had any way of contacting the dealership owners so they could save their car. As I walked up to the window of the police cruiser, I joked that I liked being on that side of the window MUCH better. The officer wasn’t very amused, but I still think it was funny.)

Unfortunately, we try our best to be law-abiding citizens (speed limits notwithstanding), so we probably won’t be going back into the cemetery after dark. We’re going to have to find a new stargazing location, and that cemetery is going to be hard to beat.

Act well thy part

There used to be a building near Stirling Castle in Scotland, which had an inscription carved above the door “What-e’er thou art, act well thy part.” The building was eventually torn down, but the engraved stone was taken to Salt Lake City. I’ve seen it, and ever since have contemplated its meaning. The last couple of weeks I have especially been thinking about it.

As I think about it, another of my favorite philosophies comes to mind: “anything worth doing is worth doing incredibly well.”

I find it a healthy mental exercise on occasion (probably once per quarter or so) to divide my life into the “roles” that I fulfil. That is, to ask the question, “what am I?” Some of those might include being a husband, a businessman, a computer programmer, a musician, etc… When examining the individual roles, I can ask myself if I’m a “good one.” Am I a good husband? Am I a good businessman? Am I a good musician? Taking the time to figure out what it means to be “a good one,” and then planning how I can become better allows for great introspection, focus, and planning (and sometimes, I realize that I’ve taken on a role that I don’t really want or need, and having defined that, I can abandon the role).

So ask yourself, “What am I?” “Am I a good one?”

Are you a cyclist? Be a good one.

Are you a cook? Be a good one.

Are you a teacher? Be a good one.

Are you a mother or a father? Be a good one.

And so on….

Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing incredibly well. If it’s not worth doing well, than it may not be worth doing at all. We should never accept mediocrity from ourselves – we can be better.

“What-e’er thou art, act well thy part.”

2000 miles and counting

2000 Miles on a bikeThis picture was taken yesterday, about 5 miles south of town. It’s the odometer on my Trek 1000 road bike, crossing over 2000 miles. I bought the bike about a year plus 2 weeks ago, so basically I’ve ridden 2000 miles in just a bit over a year.

So, for a year of road biking (this is my first road bike – always rode on mountain bikes before), here are some of the highlights:

Biking with horses

One day last summer, I was riding north of town when I passed a farm that had several horses in a very large enclosed field. I’d often passed this place, and the horses would usually stand there and watch me go by. This time, they decided to run with me.

Horses are generally much faster than people. A pro racing cyclist might be able to produce 3 horsepower of energy for a couple of seconds, but will only be able to sustain about half a horsepower for any length of time. (A horsepower is about 750 watts. Lance Armstrong could sustain 400 watts for a long time, and could hit 2000 for just a couple seconds in a sprint). I’m far from a pro racer, so I wasn’t even doing that. Yet the horses weren’t just running as fast as they could to run away, they were running right alongside me, just a few feet away.

When we got to the fence at the end of their enclosure, the horses slowed and stopped, but looked at me as if to say “just remember, we could drop you.”

My First Century

In cycling lingo, a ride of 100 miles is called a “century.” I rode one last July, taking the better part of a saturday to ride to Nauvoo and back with another cyclist I’d met during one of the local club rides. I was actually surprised at how tired I wasn’t. I thought I would be exhausted and in pain by the time we got back, but I actually felt pretty good. We did the century in just over 6 hours, which I’m told is a pretty respectable time.

Fastest I’ve Ever Gone

Last fall, the local cycling club went for a ride that included a big hill out by a rock quarry. A friend challenged me to race DOWN the long, reasonably steep hill. On the way down, my top speed was over 52 MPH (84kph). It was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time – imagine the damage it would cause to crash at that speed, especially wearing typical road bike clothes, which don’t offer any protection from road rash at all. I later joked that if I ever do that again, I’m taking my helmet off first so that if I do crash, I likely won’t live to deal with the aftermath.

Oh, and I lost the race. Archie topped 55 MPH that day.

So, a year of serious road biking, and I’ve done some interesting things. This next year I hope to do another 2000 miles (or more!) and have even more fun pushing myself, staying in shape, and making new friends.

A little more on Corned Beef and Cabbage

There was some concern here as to whether my assertion that Corned Beef and Cabbase is not traditional Irish fare, but rather and Irish-American dish. Here’s the story:

The Irish cuisine most closely related is bacon and cabbage – a traditional Irish easter meal in which a salted bacon joint would be boiled with cabbage and potatoes. In the 19th century, as Irish immigrants became numerous on the east coast of the United States, particularly in New England, they found that corned beef was a palatable alternative to bacon and was more readily available from the Jewish butchers that were common. Corned beef was (and still is) also quite a bit less expensive than bacon, which was important when food and funds were not as plentiful as one would like.

So corned beef and cabbage is not traditionally Irish, but is of decidedly Irish-American origin. There’s even more information about the dish on wikipedia and kitchenproject.