Last Weekend
I'm on my third round of the cold that won't let go, but this time with a hack. If it's not better by Mon afternoon, I'm headed to the doc for antibiotics, as much as I hate doing that for something that appears to be viral. I'm starting to show signs that it's moving into the bacterial, and given that the 3rd time appears to be the charm, I really can't put it off.
Boy, does time fly. I was just thinking to myself, Shivaratri is right around the corner only to discovery . . . bloody hell . . . it's this Thursday. Yikes! Normally, I warm up to it by practicing chanting in the car during my 2 hour weekend commute just to see what I remember. Interestingly enough, each time I remember different sections. Like New Year's each season I say to myself, I'm going to have it committed to memory by next year. Inevitably, something happens and I don't. Despite the date on the calendar, I just received a flyer from the Temple that places it on Wednesday. WTF? International date line issue?
For those who are interested in Shivaratri, Puja net has a number of multimedia files for the event: http://www.puja.net/Pages/Yagyas/Journal/08Events/08FebShivaratri/ShivaratriResources.htm
Given how I'm feeling, I'll be there for the morning session, but won't be coming back for the evening. There's no way I can fast and sit through 11 rounds of rudram over the course of 6 hours. I have no voice at the moment, therefore, won't be chanting which makes it rather difficult. I'm also keeping the beard.
As for food - I nabbed more blood oranges at the Farmer's market and am thinking of making marmalade, but that may have to wait until next week. The pork butt was still frozen when we left the house yesterday, we bought 2 whole chickens and I practiced quartering them. Not terrible for a first attempt, but not pretty either. I clearly need practice doing this.
I seasoned the pieces with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and crushed rosemary, the BBQed them at 200 - 250 for several hours. The result was a very crispy and tasty skin. I love the Jack Daniel's glaze at a local eatery and found a recipe online from someone who has managed to reverse engineer it. The chicken was consumed in record time along with a bit of steamed asparagus and a salad.
Sunday, I BBQd the pork butt with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin and a little cayenne. I made the Tyler's Ultimate BBQ sauce which kicked ass. The pork was started at 11 am and finally came off the grill at about 4:30ish. That and a salad was all that was needed.
I also made what I thought was sour dough bread, but it didn't taste very sour to me which is odd as the starter is now more than a year old and has been feed relatively regularly and on it's own tastes nastily yeastily sour. So, I'm off to try another recipe that uses different ratios as this one may simply have had too much live yeast added to the starter to kick start it again. If that doesn't work, then it's an e-mail to one of my old chef's who supplied the starter for the Bread 101 class.
I'm on my own this weekend, so it's probably going to be another try at the bread, marmalade, and some dessert thing that I'll need to take back to the office along with something simple, like chops or fish. We'll see.
That is all.
Boy, does time fly. I was just thinking to myself, Shivaratri is right around the corner only to discovery . . . bloody hell . . . it's this Thursday. Yikes! Normally, I warm up to it by practicing chanting in the car during my 2 hour weekend commute just to see what I remember. Interestingly enough, each time I remember different sections. Like New Year's each season I say to myself, I'm going to have it committed to memory by next year. Inevitably, something happens and I don't. Despite the date on the calendar, I just received a flyer from the Temple that places it on Wednesday. WTF? International date line issue?
For those who are interested in Shivaratri, Puja net has a number of multimedia files for the event: http://www.puja.net/Pages/Yagyas/Journal/08Events/08FebShivaratri/ShivaratriResources.htm
Given how I'm feeling, I'll be there for the morning session, but won't be coming back for the evening. There's no way I can fast and sit through 11 rounds of rudram over the course of 6 hours. I have no voice at the moment, therefore, won't be chanting which makes it rather difficult. I'm also keeping the beard.
As for food - I nabbed more blood oranges at the Farmer's market and am thinking of making marmalade, but that may have to wait until next week. The pork butt was still frozen when we left the house yesterday, we bought 2 whole chickens and I practiced quartering them. Not terrible for a first attempt, but not pretty either. I clearly need practice doing this.
I seasoned the pieces with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and crushed rosemary, the BBQed them at 200 - 250 for several hours. The result was a very crispy and tasty skin. I love the Jack Daniel's glaze at a local eatery and found a recipe online from someone who has managed to reverse engineer it. The chicken was consumed in record time along with a bit of steamed asparagus and a salad.
Sunday, I BBQd the pork butt with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin and a little cayenne. I made the Tyler's Ultimate BBQ sauce which kicked ass. The pork was started at 11 am and finally came off the grill at about 4:30ish. That and a salad was all that was needed.
I also made what I thought was sour dough bread, but it didn't taste very sour to me which is odd as the starter is now more than a year old and has been feed relatively regularly and on it's own tastes nastily yeastily sour. So, I'm off to try another recipe that uses different ratios as this one may simply have had too much live yeast added to the starter to kick start it again. If that doesn't work, then it's an e-mail to one of my old chef's who supplied the starter for the Bread 101 class.
I'm on my own this weekend, so it's probably going to be another try at the bread, marmalade, and some dessert thing that I'll need to take back to the office along with something simple, like chops or fish. We'll see.
That is all.