So much has happened since I last updated this blog. We survived the hottest summer in Austin history, had a big birthday party, went back to Seattle for a visit, cooked/ate a lot of amazing food, and bought a house, just to name a few of things that went down this year. I’ve failed miserably as a blogger in 2011, but strive to do better in 2012. How about a montage to make up for [...]
Spring has definitely sprung here in Central Texas, and our state flower, the ubiquitous bluebonnet, is in full bloom along every interstate and highway across the great state of Texas. Spring is a time of renewal, of rebirth, but so far Spring 2011 has left a lot to be desired. Yes, it’s been almost two months since my last entry, but blog updates have taken a back seat to real life lately. I apologize for the [...]
We’ve been in Austin, TX for just over a month, and the transition from Seattleite to Austinite (not Austonian, apparently) is almost complete. The wife, dogs, and I have gotten all settled in our new life in a new town, and we did so in record time. It seems like it was just yesterday that we taking rainy walks in the dark with the dogs around our beloved Columbia City, but it’s been almost 6 [...]
So I live in Austin now. Pretty abrupt, I know, but that’s why I haven’t updated my blog in a few weeks. From out of no where, I got great job offer from a video games company in Austin, so the wife and I packed the house and pets, said good-bye to the best damn neighbors ever, and set out on an epic 4 (6) day 2,600 (3,700) mile road trip with a new life [...]
I’ve been on a baking kick lately. It started on my birthday, when I decided to bake a birthday cake for myself on a whim. From there, my new newfound like of baking has really taken off, and I’ve been baking like a fiend. For my birthday cake, I decided I wanted to do a traditional white cake with a chocolate butter cream frosting. After much research, I found a recipe for a Golden Vanilla [...]
Summer is on it’s last legs here in the Pacific Northwest and soon it will be rainy all the time and dark by 4 PM. It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost in the books, but we’ll be watching “A Christmas Story” and making New Years plans before you know it. I turned 35 last week and I’m not really sure what I think about it. The only thing that really bugs me about [...]
Recently I’ve become keenly interested in all things sausages. More the point, I’ve been reading about salumi, charcuterie, and forcemeats, and fantasizing about making my own sausages, fermented or otherwise. Sausage making can be an expensive hobby, with grinders, stuffers, and smoke houses costing a small fortune. Fortunately my lovely in-laws provided me with the building blocks for my budding hobby in the form of the grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for my KitchenAid mixer. [...]
It took four years, but Seattle’s schizophrenic weather has finally grown on me. To celebrate our beautiful, inconsistent, lengthy, sunny days (which are quickly slipping away) I thought I’d do another music issue. Curren$y – Pilot Talk An up-and-comer from the 504. Spitta, as he is known, has the most ridiculous flow ever. It’s all about getting money, smoking weed, etc. Highly recommend. Tame Impala – Innerspeak Psychedelic rock band from Australia. Booty shaking, hippy [...]
I love to can. Sure, it’s a bit weird that I get such a big kick out of it, but alas, I do. And I’ll find any excuse to justify spending a day in the kitchen tending to pots of boiling things (in July no less!!). During the holidays, for example, the wife and I spend a fortune on the best organic Honeycrisp apples we can find and use an entire Sunday to make apple [...]
As a Texan, I take my barbecue very seriously. For example, I would never throw burgers and dogs on a grill and call it a barbecue, because that would be a fallacy. That’s grilling, not barbecuing, plain and simple. I’m not suggesting that grilling is in anyway inferior to barbecuing, but cooking something on a grate over a hot direct/indirect heat source is not barbecue, so stop confusing the two. To me, barbecue consists of [...]