Weather? What weather?
2007-12-17, 10:48 a.m.

Day 1212

Taking a flyer here and trying this weeks free association list from Unconscious Mutterings

Interview:: pressure
Army :: brat
Unwrap :: present
Evolve :: Darwin
Bus :: terminal
The real thing :: Coke
Streak :: nekkid
Gorge :: Ithaca
Spicy :: Chili
Course :: class

Hmmm. Don�t know what to make of that mess. That gorge one � you need to be a local to understand it. Ithaca is a village at the southern end of one of the finger lakes. Couple of nice (expensive) colleges there. Also near Watkins Glen, which is known for the race track, but the really spectacular part is the state park of the same name. Gorgeous gorges, (heh), waterfalls, just beautiful scenery. Ithaca�s tourism promo dealie has been �Ithaca is gorges!� � and it is. If I was inspired at all I�d find references, but I�m too lazy this morning.

Must be burned out from all the shoveling I didn�t do this weekend. What a wimp of a storm we got here. I cleared the driveway 3 times over the weekend, including this morning, and didn�t ever have to move more than 4 or so inches of snow. It was really kind of a let down. We were prepared for much worse.

Sunday morning Cindy spotted an ad from a national electronics retailer. It was really a good deal. We ordered on-line, cleared the driveway (snow blow job #1) and drove to the mall in the �blizzard�. It was pretty sweet. No traffic, great parking, nearly empty stores. Loaded up our goodies and went home. Managed to get the new hardware instaled in time to watch the Bills lose in the Snow Bowl. Looks like the Cleveland area got it worse than we did. Don�t know how many of you got the Bills/Browns game, but what we had didn�t look anywhere near as bad as that.

Now I�ve got to get the new speakers hooked up and we�ll be all set. Tomorrow the satellite guy comes out to upgrade one of our recievers to HD, then we�ll see just how good this new hardware really is. I gotta look up HDMI cables too. Seems we need at least one to take full advantage of the resolution of this system. Of course, the cable didn�t come with the system. At least they included batteries for the remote. Whoopee!

Also yesterday, during our not-so-hot storm, we had a wee bit of a cookie baking binge. Did cut-outs (of course), those little peanut butter ones with the kiss squished into them (white & dark chocolate stripes!), those oatmeal/white chocolate/craisin crack cookies, fudge, bark (chocolate with craisins, cashews and dried apricots imbedded into it) and of course the raspberry streusel cookie bars. Alison � thanks for looking for the raspberry swirlies, but I think Nestle gave up on them. Even their website calls for different chips in those streusel bars now. I went with white chocolate (sensing a theme here?). I�ll be taste testing one or three of them tonight. If they get the thumbs up (how�re they gonna miss?) I�ll be cranking out a couple more batches.

Oh! Got some pork butt at a really good price Friday. Called Zach and made plans to get some sausage done up Saturday. We managed to crank out 10 lbs of mild Italian (in links) and got another 11 lbs of hot Italian ground & mixed. Once we track down some more casings we�ll get the hot sausage stuffed and start on the jerky. It won�t be ready for Christmas, but it won�t be too long after. Debating what to smoke it with � apple, hickory or mesquite. Apple might be too subtle. Mesquite is great on beef, but the jerky will be nearly half pork � which just screams for hickory. All these terribly hard decisions to make! Probably will end up trying the apple just to see what it does. I mean, how bad can you screw up jerky, right? (Don�t answer that)

Did a black bean/venison chili Sunday too. It�s a Bobby Flay recipe. Mmmmm good!! The base recipe isn�t horribly hot, but a little hot sauce on the side does wonders. Got to try some of my smoked habanero flakes on it too (maybe lunch Wednesday). That�ll really kick up the heat, and the smokiness is always a nice addition.

It was nice, having the oven & stove cranking all day, during our �blizzard�. Certainly kept the house warm.

Ya know � it�s time to end this disjointed, rambling, wreck of an entry. I gotta go blow up some lasers or something.

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