We Ran Out Of Chili

Can You Say...MOB?


Sorry I didn't write anything earlier, but I was absolutely dead when we got back from the Chili Cookoff after being awake since 1 AM

I ended up passing out falling asleep in the middle of changing clothes for dinner...which I'm just now warming back up as the other guests are leaving...I hear the microwave beeping...hang on...

The good news is we pounded out 15 gallons of the "Jamaican me Cajun Green Butt Chili" in the allotted time, but (but not butt) the bad news is not enough of the locals and tourists were impressed with a pork based chili to net us any of the tasting prizes.

And the Chili Shack looked great...photos to follow when I get back to my own computers on Sunday...but the same team that beat us last year with their booth did another good one this year and walked away with the "Best Theme" prize.

Otherwise the event was a HUGE roaring success with a record attendance of over 2000 people showing up, and with only 27 teams this year everyone ran out of chili before the 2 PM cut off time.

Even though we made about 15 gallons...three gallons over the mandated 12 gallon quanty..we were actually out of the Green Butt Chili by 1:15 and had to stand there and apologize to people that still had tickets and were voting for the "Peoples' Choice" prizes.

Lesson learned...

John invited me back to cook again next year and we agreed that we'd probably go back toward a traditional top round beef based chili with red beans and give up making white chili from here on out in an event were everyone else's chili looked almost identical.

All and all, in the end we had a LARGE time and it's important to not miss the concept that the prizes are secondary to raising money for local charaties.

Time to go read the internet news and catch up on my fellow bloggers now, y'all have a LOVELY balance of the weekend and I'll report back in once we get through vibrating our way up the interstate to Knoxtown.

It's All Over But (But Not Butt) The Shouting

Massive Quantities Of Chili Ensue...

So we swept up the sawdust and other trash and stacked up all of the prefabricated and painted wood and foam panels and skeleton parts about 4 PM yesterday (I was too busy to take pictures.)

After working all day again like a Madman myself, with John and Pat wielding paintbrushes and the Turbo Pup standing guard over the proceedings, we then ran home and showered and cleaned up and came BACK to the restaurant with our housing hosts, Bruce and Ski, and John then fed us a feast fit for a king.

I had a beef tenderloin that had to have weighed 3/4's of a pound...the Turbo Pup got to finish it when we tumbled and stumbled back home, partially as a reward for her Sentry Duties but mainly just because she's spoiled rotten.

Now I've had a few hours sleep and had time to answer a bunch of business related e-mails...we landed another order during my absence from the office...and after a little more Googling and news reading I'm going to catch another few hours of sleep and then get up and be back at the Blackwater Grill at 6 AM ready to make two or three trips over to the scene of the crime Chili Cookoff venue.

I forgot to mention that we drew numbers at the "Captains Meeting" last night and we managed to get an excellent booth location, about twenty feet from where we were last year, right across the common area from where my Buddy Kimbo's band the "StringRays" will be playing music all day.

I just ran the numbers in my head and with 25 teams (down from 32 last year) cooking at least 12 gallons of chili each (we're doing about 15 gallons,) there will be THREE HUNDRED GALLONS OF CHILI cooked and consumed on St. Simons Island in the next 12 hours.

I swear that you can't pay enough money to buy stuff and do things that's this much fun, but still I have to be going now and get ready to try to win....

(drum roll please...)

People's Choice (First or at least Second Place)
Most Unusual Chili
Best Booth/Theme
Best overall Chili--By the Judges

Even if we just end up coming away tired with nothing but an empty chili pot the day will have been a success, because all of the proceeds from the entry fees and tasting tickets go to local charities.

Wish us luck...if you will...and Regards Y'all...

T-Minus One Day And Counting

Trying To Stay Cool Here Boss...


OK, ok, Ok OKAY...I admit it...

I can't leave "Good Enough" alone...things went like this since I started construction yesterday on the "Jamaican Me Cajun Green Butt Chili Shack."

My chili cooking partner John and I met for breakfast at the local Huddle House, an Island "Institution" since a place called "Poor Richard's" closed down about a dozen years ago, ran to Ace Hardware and bought funky pastel colored blue and yellow and pink paint, did the local Island lumber yard for sticks of wood and slabs of foam sheeting, and by 11 AM I was making sawdust on the back deck of the restaurant.

My friend Jamie, the head chef over there at Blackwater Grill, already had 80 pounds of Boston Butt cooked down to where it was falling apart, and the resulting 8 GALLONS of stock from the cooking was cooled and skimmed and de-greased so I was confident that what I was looking at was basically a construction project for Thursday and Friday before putting the Chili Shack and the final "Green Butt" Chili concoction together on site at the "Rotary Red Hot Chili Cookoff" on Saturday morning.

Then as is usual, me having spent months drawing hand sketches and twenty five pages of AutoCAD drawings, once again I couldn't help starting to improvise here and there with some things that caused me to end up using up an hour and one half of unplanned time thinking about and revising my sketches, and then in the end cutting up and running out of lumber before I had the entire framework put together.

And we ended up not smearing a single ounce of paint on anything by the end of the day either.

At least Pat and the Turbo Pup got to act like they were on VACATION, but all I did was look at the marsh behind the restaurant deck and stumble around tripping over my power cords in full blown panic mode by 3 PM.

So any way, after spending time re-planning and regrouping I'm getting an early start this morning by going BACK to Ace Hardware for a few items and BACK to the Lumber Yard for some more boards.

Then after giving me a head start making more sawdust John and Pat are showing up about 11 AM to begin smearing the base coat of paint on the parts of the structure I have finished.

Then this afternoon I will come back across everything with a roller or paint brush doing details and highlights and generally trying to make things look like an old weathered beach bar/"Tiki Hut."

And even though the process will possibly take most of the day, I know that we'll be finished and can proudly use whatever we have as a finished product Saturday morning, because most of the teams just set up a portable canopy tent and hang up a sign and slop chili around for three or four hours.

I MIGHT actually make it to the beach for a few minutes over the next two days, but then again I MIGHT NOT.

After all, I came down here this week to cook chili, and everything else is a bonus.

How do you say that in Latin?

Vedi, Veni Vici?

Virgil Freakin' Crazi?

OK, I give up...I'm taking ideas if you have any...

Coastal Induced Coma

Just Report Me "Missing"...


Well, we made it... nearly 8 hours and 550 miles later.

We delayed our departure a few hours yesterday morning, for what turned out to be no good reason, because the stupid weather and news people were yapping about Chattanooga getting SEVEN INCHES of snow and our path between Knoxtown and the Georgia Coast intersected with that area on the interstate and we didn't want to be fighting with tractor trailers while things might be below freezing.

Thus we arrived about sunset and missed happy hour and had to go straight into dinner mode with our Friends Bruce and Ski.

I swear I feel fifteen or twenty years younger when we turn left off US 17 and start driving east across the marsh and we can see the bridge over the Inter coastal Waterway and the Island on the horizon spanning north...all eleven miles worth...and Jekyll Island south of the ship channel and St. Simons Sound.

It was nearly 60 degrees outside and we had the windows down in the car on the way across the creeks and marshes and the Frederica River.

Even the Turbo Pup seemed to really understand where she was going.

I wish everyone could have the opportunity to find somewhere like this that they really, Really, REALLY love being at/in. And I know many others do, but so many people don't because they either have no choice of where they're born or where they live or else they're just afraid to step out into the world and seize the moment and make a change in their existence and lifestyle.

We've done it before and I hope to be able to move back here permanently in 2011...only time will tell.

Some people might consider me to be a bit unreliable or distracted or unconventional, but based on what I've seen and done over the past fifty years I say that looking at things from my own life perspective, tempered with my personal near-death experiences over the past twenty years, that I've struck a pretty reasonable balance between "shoulder to the plow"..."nose to the grindstone" and my own "Devil May Care" philosophy.

And tomorrow at 9:30 AM I get my first look at my 80 plus pounds of cooked Boston Butts, greet my friend John Howton, and I get to see the components of last years "Bayou Chili Shack". And after a trip to Home Depot for paint and foam board and some lumber I'm going to spend three days doing EXACTLY what I would rather be doing...something that most likely can't be done anywhere else in the world on March 4th, 2010...except on our Little Island.

Wish us luck...if you will...and photos to follow...Y'all...

If The Spices Don't Get You...

The Static Electricity Will

I have to warn everybody that there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on here in the wee hours of the morning at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River...so it's best you keep your distance...

For instance, I just had to put together this pile of stuff in support of this weekend's exercises:



That would be a picture of what I technically call "Spice Blast #1", a mixture of the following ingredients...and it's only ONE HALF of the seasonings going into 15 gallons of my soon to be intergalactically famous Chili...

There's 7-1/2 Table spoons each of:

Cayenne pepper
Plain old Kroger Brand Chili Powder
Fancy "Pendries" brand Cumin from Texas
Garlic Powder
Dried Onion Flakes
Fancy "Pendries" Brand Smoked Spanish Paprika (the dark red color you see there on top)

Now all of that mixture is sealed up in a container in preparation of the drive later this morning to the Georgia Coast, and there's another container containing almost as much similar stuff, but I'd have to kill you if I told you what there is in that mix before we cook on Saturday (once we win or lose I'll publish the details.)

Meanwhile, I have to report that stuff like this was going on in my living room last night...



That would be our little Missy the Turbo Pup taking a break after I wallowed her around on her blanket and she got a bad case of "static head".

She's ready to go to the BEACH....and so's her Dad...

Snow Again In East Tennessee

Trip To The Potty




The good news is that tomorrow afternoon the Turbo Pup's footprints will be on the Beach!!

Top Ten Things You Never Want To See On a Menu

Sorry...I'm Getting A Little Crazy Due To Sleep Deprivation...


Ok, ok, OK...I admit that I made this list up myself in about five minutes while reading about food safety this morning. I was inspired because some of the articles are so incredibly stupid...telling people simple stuff like to wash their hands and warning people with deadly incurable diseases to stay out of the kitchen and stuff...

Any way, here goes...my top ten list of things I never want to see listed on a restaurant menu:


1. Seeping Abscess Sauce

2. Sauteed Festering Fistula

3. Rendered Glandular Secretions

4. Ovarian Ham Omelet

(Tie) Thinly sliced Post-partum Depressions

5. Phlegm Flan

6. Renal Retinas in Cataract Shiitaki Au Jus

7. Braised Hemorrhagic Hysterectomies

8. Gelatinous Genitalia Gelatin

9. Compounded Corpuscular Butter

10. Vienna Sausage & Vegetable Vasectomy Medley

(I left out "grilled testicular rectalosis" which came in a close #11 in the polling.)


OK, everybody issue a collective Eeeeewwwwwwwuuuuuuuu!

But still, imagine a menu with those words on it somewhere in...I don't know...San Francisco or Berkley...could happen?

My PLC Is Haunted

I'm Calling In Technical Support...


I'm still not quite sure what's going on, but I've got this one IR sensor that, if it didn't cost nearly $400, I'd have already thrown out in the driveway and run over it with the car a couple of times in a screaming conniption fit.

The stupid thing is programmable about a zillion different ways, but all I want is for it to look at something that's between the range of 32 degrees F and 300 degrees and tell my software when it sees something out of range (moving past in the plant on a conveyor at about 5 bottles per second) and trigger a relay contact.

Simple stuff like this happens all the time every day in control panels in manufacturing plants all around the world....

but not in my basement so far in the past week.

I set the thing up, verify the settings, unhook it from my Laptop, hook it to the PLC panel, and it keeps losing it's silly little electronic mind.

WTF?

I'm giving things until the end of the day, then I'm calling in a consultant I guess.

Someone like this guy may be able to help me...

Please call if you know anyone that's local or you can give me a reference so I can fly them in for a consultation...

Down To The "Wire(ing)"

Self Imposed Fire Drills and "Stuff"...


So I finally got the old HP laptop and my custom PLC panel and both Micro Epsilon non-contact IR sensors back into the same room--my shop--in the basement on my test bench last night after dinner and a nap.

I figured I'd fool around tonight for a couple of hours with some final software modifications and fine tune the instruction manual wording, and then toss everything into cardboard and bubble wrap and hit Fed EX tomorrow afternoon.

If you agree with my optimistic summary of my progress, you'd be...

W R O N G!!!

As of about 15 minutes ago I've got one Infrared sensor that's losing its proverbial mind with it's 0-10 volt DC output jumping all over the place on the chart looking at exactly the same spot in the shop as the other sensor which is working fine.

It did the same thing a few weeks ago before I shipped the first panel to Kansas City, so I replaced it with another sensor on that panel, and when I hooked it back up on this system which is ultimately headed to Maryland...it calmed down some and I thought I was going to be able to fine tune the programmable outputs to something usable.

Now I don't know, and I only have about 48 hours to get things straightened out.

Stuff like this drives me crazy, but if I'm an expert at anything in life it's being guilty of severe but somehow well intended procrastination...just ask my family and friends and ex-wives/girlfriends.

I tend to get ahead on a project and get all pompous and confident, and then I end up fooling around doing other non essential crap and wake up in the end running in circles screaming like my head is on fire.

Thus, today and tomorrow are going to be days of that sort, so if you don't hear from me just go outside and look on the horizon toward Knoxville, Tennessee...or possibly watch the Weather Channel or Fox NEWS and see if there is some instance of some middle aged guy spontaneously bursting into flame.

Why do I continue to do this to myself???

I'm supposed to be lounging around getting ready to cook massive quantities of Chili...you know?

OK, time for another nap now because I have to get going before 10 AM if I'm going to get help from the IR sensor customer support people and not risk bursting a blood vessel in the process.

Regards Y'all...

We Might All Be Going To Hell In A Basket...

But At Least I'M Enjoying The Ride!!!


First of all...let me offer a hearty "I told you so"...

I direct that commentary toward those of you who read my blog posting from EARLY Saturday morning and then ended up wincing your way along with me through the mindless, never ending, meaningless coverage of the the Chilean earthquake and "potential Tsunamis" on every TV channel including CNN and FOX News yesterday.

By 8 AM Saturday morning anyone with any sense knew that the Tsunami threat was pretty much over based on what happened on the northern coasts of South and Central America and the Mexican Baja Pensula, but the "TV News Networks" insisted on holding out...praying for a disaster...and televising a mind numbing, second by second, "live-on-the-scene" report from Hawaii of people standing around babbling and waiting for a four foot wave to arrive on the scene.

I'd rather spend my time watching important things like paint drying and Pizza dough rising...

and I, personally, am ready to buy an expensive ticket, go get on an airplane and set about to find Hernando Revolver Geraldo Riveria and sneak up on him and strangle him to death with his own microphone cord.

There's probably a Nobel Prize or an Emmy or some kind of award available for anyone that can save the TV viewing public from the guy...

I'm sorry folks, but that SOB gets on my last nerve every time I see his stupid moustached face on TV because he just can't freakin' shut up after telling you what has or will happen on/in any given "news story."

Gretta Van Sustren runs a close second yapping away about Natalie Holloway and the other "missing/murdered/abused woman/child du joure" but I respect women enough to not threaten to lay a hand on her although I could find myself yelling at her to give the story a rest every now and then.

You know?

But Hernando Geraldo is different...

the man just bothers me with his style including things like the famous empty Al Capone's vault episode back in 1986:



So any way, I'm having a hard time staying focused this morning, having basically wasted Saturday doing nothing but going last minute grocery shopping for things we need to drag with us down to the Chili cookoff this week (check out Goya Recaito Cilantro Cooking Base) and cooking a giant portion of my soon to be internationally famous Horseradish crusted pork tenderloin for dinner with our neighbors.

On the professional front, the good news is that I got the HP laptop fired back up with the arrival of a new AC adapter via Fed Ex this morning, so I'm back in the PLC programming business in time to meet the deadline. Unfortunately now the battery has also been proven to be a casualty of the AC supply malfunction also but I can live without it for the time being and as long as I have 110 power my life will go on uninterrupted.

All that said, I absolutely have to get my head focused on finishing the Phase II PLC programming and build another four pneumatic valves...preferably today and Monday, because I don't want to be answering the phone and worrying about that kind of stuff while out of town trying to cook Chili and sit around the pool and on the beach.

It's tough being me, but I made my bed...and I guess I have to lie in it now...

A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Somebody Tell Owl Gore To Sit His Giant Butt Down...


So I'm hanging out here early this morning, Googling around for good deals on replacement batteries and a new hard drive for my back-up lap top computer with one eyeball and watching re-runs of Glenn Beck with the other on Fox News.

Then just now a "Fox News Alert" comes across my TV window on the computer talking about an 8.5 Magnitude earthquake offshore of Chile in South America about 1:30 AM this morning.

This following a 7.0 magnitude quake off Japan a few hours earlier in the evening on the other side of the the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Of course in usual fashion the idiot news people have to say the words "there are [as yet] no reports of damage, injury, or deaths."

Another report said that "the extent of damages and injury are unclear."

WTF?

If the details are "unclear", why don't the news morons just say "we don't know" or better yet...just say "there's been an earthquake, preliminarily estimated to be of magnitude 8.5, off the coast of Chili"?

"We'll get back to you when the sun rises and we actually know the extent of the damage."?

Hang on...just now at 3:04 AM they're updating the magnitude to 8.8 on the Richter scale and saying they have Tsunami warnings out from Central America to Antarctica.

So any way, my point this morning is this...

Get over it...there's nothing that we can do but watch the news organizations and "news people" spaz out and hyperventilate...

That would be because the earth has been vibrating like hell for how ever may thousands or millions or billions of years your religion (or the lack thereof) tells you it's been around.

I'm sorry as heck for everyone injured, killed, and suffering with damaged property, but at the same time I'm dreading the next week onslaught of news coverage.

Isn't it amazing that the Haiti story has virtually disappeared off the front pages of newspapers and your TV screen?

It's not that they are still not digging up dead people in the Caribbean and people aren't still starving and peeing and pooping in the bushes outside due to a lack of facilities, it's just that the news consuming public...particularly so called AMERICANS...and the idiots in the news business have no real interest in presenting quality information...they're interested in headlines and SENSATIONALISM.

So now, in the interest of extending to you my own personal, infinite internal database of obscure knowledge most people never care about or bother to learn (because they usually have better things to do...) I offer these tidbits regarding earthquake history here in the Western Hemisphere and the US specifically.

First of all...If I lived on the West Coast of the US, based on what I've been seeing going on on the Geological Service Website, I'd be packing my bags and moving the hell out...because if the "wild fires" and mudslides haven't gotten to you thus far, I say that the states sitting on the fault lines...anywhere between San Diego and the Canadian line...are due to shake harder than hell in the next year.

Think about it...the last real earthquake was in what ...1987 in San Diego during the World Series and the Northridge Quake in 1994?

Earthquakes don't care who is President.

Earthquakes don't care what Owl Gore says about "Global Warming."

Earthquakes just happen...earthquakes just ARE...earthquakes are the result of the realities of living on a planet that is not a "static structure."

Almost everyone seems to forget that the earth is rotating on it's axis at a rate of 1,041 miles per hour.

Add to that the fact that the earth is flying through space in it's orbit around the sun at a rate of...ready??

...about 67,000 miles per hour.

Then add the un-symmetrical gravitational pull of our moon, which is spinning around the Earth at a rate of a little more than 2,200 miles per hour.

Add all of that to the realization that we're all living on the outer thin skin...the so called "Crust" of the Earth...under which there is a blazing hot, 780 mile diameter, 9,800 degree core cooking the crap out of everything it comes in contact with...i.e. the source of volcano magma...and you can understand why things might just be a little bit unstable up here in spite of the best efforts of Obama and the UN and the patchouli stinking, Kumbaya singing, Barbara Streisand loving, tree hugging liberal/progressive Democrats.

Seriously Folks, I'm not a geologist or seismologist...but I could play one on TV...and I'm real concerned about the trend I'm seeing in the frequency of significant seismological "events" around the globe. There's nothing we can do about it, but if I lived in couple of areas here in the US I would be thinking about my own personal safety and that of my family and property.

Everyone knows about California, but having been in the business of designing significant industrial structures for much of the past 30 years I happen to know about and have written about here previously the areas in the New Madrid Fault Line in the central US suffering an a catastrophic earthquake in 1812 along the Mississippi River basin and the 1886 Magnitude 7.3 earthquake which struck in of all places, Charleston, South Carolina.

Think about it with me for a minute...CHARLESTON, SC?

EARTHQUAKE?

(FOX News UPDATE...now they say there is definitely a Tsunami wave traveling along the South American Coast, with a travel time to Southern California of over ten hours...)

I thought FEMA spent all of their time in Charleston, South Carolina worrying about Hurricanes.

OK Folks...stay calm...don't get all crazy and out of sorts...

I say forget the GOVERNMENT...forget FEMA...watch the news, go to the store, keep your supplies in order and your powder dry.

Life and reality is going to come to your front door regardless of who you vote for...

...and when something bad happens, I say it's your own fault if you aren't prepared.

Laptop Woes

My Old Friend Is At The Doctor In The Shop...


I sorry to report that I finally had to drag my old HP Laptop Computer over to the computer shop yesterday.

I've had it so long (October 2006) it's like my alter-ego...and with each day creeping toward full blow Alzheimer's it serves more and more like part of my brain because it has so much stuff in it.

I paid near $2000 for it back then and used it as my primary computer until I bought the HP server PC, and it has been everywhere from Chicago to Key West to Pennsylvania to Kansas City and most places in between with me and never once let me down, so I finally was forced this week to give it a break and let it go see the computer doctor just this once I guess.

It had been limping around with power supply/cord and battery "issues" for the past couple of years but it was too important to me to give it up for any length of time because in spite of being...get this...A SIX COMPUTER HOUSEHOLD...it is the second most powerful computer in the building right now.

Pat's new company machine might have a faster processor...I haven't used it and checked the specs yet...but my HP is a "Media Center Edition" with a 17" screen, weighing about 100 pounds 11 pounds, with every kind of port and cable connection known to man on it.

I can hook a cable TV connection to it and watch Food Network on it if I want to

It has 4 gigs of RAM and not one but TWO 120 gig hard drives, and I have two versions of AutoCAD, a full blown version of Photoshop CS3, and a whole bunch of other technical software which would take about a month of time to either download or install from CD's if something happened to the machine.

And that's right, with the addition of Pat's latest business laptop--another Dell--we have six computers here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

We're up to our ears in laptops, because in the past, before Pat went on "fur low", every time one died...

hold on...the phone's ringing...

GREAT NEWS...that was the computer shop (seriously) calling to say all I needed was a new AC power supply adapter and the machine would be almost good as new.

any way...every time one of Pat's corporate laptops died they just sent her a replacement, and since she worked remotely from the Island they didn't bother to pay to have the old one shipped back.

So you know what I...Mr self proclaimed computer nerd (in another life) did?

I hoarded those suckers and then I bought parts on line on e-bay and in the end managed to replace crashed hard drives and broken displays and keyboards and so now I have a little fleet of notebook computers varying in age dating from 2003 to 2007...and the cost me on average about $50 each.

When I started writing this posting, before I learned that my primary HP laptop was going to be OK, I decided that it would be a pretty good idea to take one of the other machines, upgrade the hard drive from 20 gigs to something larger, and put copies of Autocad and Photoshop and my PLC programming software and other important stuff on there so that when and if the day comes when my lover the left side of my brain the old HP has to go back to the shop or ...God forbid...it dies, I don't go into full panic mode like I did over the past few days.

I absolutely have to get this latest PLC programmed and out the door before we head south to the Chili Cookoff, and I also have four more three-way valves to re-build, and now I have to go out the door and go pick up my old friend, Mr. HP laptop, and bring him home and order a new AC adaptor on line because I refuse to pay $89 for a new one.

While I agree that dogs might be "Man's Best Friend", in today's technical world a good laptop computer is worth it's weight in gold in my considered Redneck opinion.

Almost Famous?

I'm Associating With Celebrity...


Finally, after three months of research and development, I'm happy to report that I believe that I have my soon to be internationally recognized "Jamaican Me Cajun 'Green Butt' Chili" concoction completed, and scaled up to a 15 gallon recipe.

Late yesterday afternoon I called my good buddy and fellow Georgia Tech alumni John Howton, owner of Blackwater Grill, to give him the news and deliver the shopping list for Boston Butts and other stuff we were going to need for the Chili Cookoff.

John proceeded to blow me away...we hadn't spoken in about ten days...when he told me that Food Network's Guy Fieri's crew had just finished filming his restaurant to be shown on "Diner's, Drive-in's, and Dives" next month.

Isn't that TOTALLY COOL...or what?

I can't claim credit, but I did write to the show a few months ago to tell them about Blackwater and our Little Island in general, and turns out they called last week, said they had heard from a number of people about Blackwater, did a phone interview, then showed up last Sunday and again on Tuesday to film the show segment to be aired sometime in the next six weeks.

John's head was spinning I'm sure.

They also filmed a segment over at Southern Soul BBQ right around the corner from our old house on the island. We didn't spend much time there but it's still cool to have the people and places around our favorite spot on the entire planet featured for the rest of the world to see.

I wish we could have been down there because John invited a bunch of his friends and regulars to come out for the filming, but he knew we couldn't make it from Knoxtown with the trip next week already in the works.

This kind of stuff couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, a man who loves the restaurant business and has spent 45 years developing his skills and loves to deliver a superior dining experience to tens of thousands of satisfied customers every year.

Meanwhile we've got to start winding things down here going into the weekend and finish the last minute design details on the Chili Shack and some other professional stuff in anticipation of spending five nights in PARADISE.

It's 24 degrees outside here with snow flurries right now, and it's going to be near 60 tomorrow on St. Simons.

I just hope that the weather holds up for us there the following weekend...

More Butter Pornography Phantasies Fantasies

Drawing My Plugra...Is That Legal In Tennessee?


I'm sitting here trying to stop thinking about the King Crab Legs I have thawing in a giant boiler filled with lemon water in the sink right now.

You see, this evening after running a couple of errands and having a couple of cocktails at our local watering hole, I'm coming home and while those suckers are drained and steaming on the stove top, and a couple of ears of corn and some big red potatoes are boiling in a pot, I'm melting a stick of my new found friend--"Pugra"-- in a little stainless steel boiler and skimming the milk solids off the top of the liquid...and then dipping my steamed crab meat in it and thinking thoughts that probably shouldn't be associated with food....

You can take all of the above for what it's worth...at least I got over the idea of streaking unclothed down the street smeared in expensive dairy products...the voices told me it wasn't a good idea...

Things I Didn't Know I Needed To Know

Regarding My Cooking, I Try To Never Stop Learning...


Recently I was mindlessly watching Alton Brown on Food Network cook something in the last few weeks while working on my Truffle and Chili recipes, and the words Plugra European Style Butter stuck in my mind from his dissertation.

Alton was basically poo-pooing on my cheap store brand unsalted semi-sweet butter I buy three pounds of at a time when it's on sale for $2.99 a pound and keep in my freezer.

And here I was thinking I was some kind of culinary genius because I bought and stockpiled massive quantities of unsalted butter in my home, purchased on sale at low low prices.

I swear I break out in a cold sweat if I look in the two fridges and deep freeze and don't see two or three pounds of butter in our inventory...but I digress...

So any way, right after I heard Alton's reference to the Plugra (which happens to be a brand as well as a "style" of butter in this instance"), when I was raiding our local Fresh Market Grocer of their inventory of Ghiradelli Chocolate I also noticed that they stocked the "Plugra" brand and I bought a couple of sticks--a half pound--for about five dollars.

Then last night I had to break a stick out of the Fridge because all of my usual inventory was frozen solid, and I needed something to make my Bearnaise Sauce to go with the beef tenderloins, Asparagus, and Red Potatoes on the evening's dinner menu.

Boys and Girls, I have to admit that I was speechless when I tasted the stuff raw.

Forget the flavor for a minute, even the texture of this Dairy Ambrosia is different from the wax that they're selling us with a wrapper with the words "Butter" stenciled on it .

If you already knew about it, feel free to smirk and feel superior to me in my infinite Blogger Self Impotence.

If you didn't know, drop what you're doing right now and go buy five pounds and hoard it in your freezer, because this weekend I'm buying everything else I can find on the shelf and putting on my parka and sleeping with it in my fridge.

Or smearing myself all over with it and runing around outside nekked yelling "Plugra Rules"...

Or...WAIT...never mind...

Toys "Stuff" In My Attic...

"The trouble with owning a home is that no matter where you sit, you're looking at something you should be doing."


So on a whim I went up into my attic this afternoon. For some reason I hadn't had reason to make that journey since we had the home inspected prior to closing in 2008.

The visit lasted about 15 minutes but only covered the area that the previous owner had decked out with wooden planks for storage...I didn't feel like sticking a knee or foot through the hall or dining or kitchen ceiling and/or having to tape and mud "Virgil shaped holes" in the sheet rock.

I just got through climbing back down, dusted the insulation off my elbows and knees and folded the attic staircase back up into it's hole in the ceiling and as usual with home ownership my head is spinning with ideas and a list of things I need to do up there.

The real purpose of the journey was to look at the wiring in the master bedroom and at how hard it would be to add a light or lights in the expanded walk-in closet I'm planning on building this spring.

The good news is that adding lighting will be a piece of cake, the bad news is that I just can't leave it at ten feet of 14/2 wire and a 4x4 ceiling box...I noticed another half dozen things that need to be done before the temperature returns to spring/summer daytime levels.

Heck, I've got plenty of time on my hands...all I need is THE MONEY...

Stumble...bUMBLE...SnorrrrRRRRR...

I'm Full Of Chili, & To Lazy To Post


Don't worry Ladies and Gentlemen...there's nothing really wrong here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Maybe after an early morning nap something will come to me to bitch about, but right now I'm too lethargic to Google let alone do a spellcheck on a few hundred words if I actually managed to write them.

Z
z
z
z
z
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Z
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZ...snore...

Lazy Sun Son Of A Gun

Sunlight Deprivation Relapse...


Well, it rained and was cloudy all day and as a result I successfully managed to do basically nothing except chase some vendors around looking for price quotes and making some accounts payable calls to my customers trying to chase down some money.

That's the bad thing (besides with dealing with all of the government crappola) about being in business for yourself...everybody expects to get paid on time every few weeks or even up front on commercial purchases for new businesses like mine, and yet your clients--often giant companies--are generally cavalier with taking their time sending you the money they owe you.

Right now I'm basically in the "banking" business, loaning money to a couple of companies for going on three months now from the first day we started spending money if you count the time spent while the products were still in my shop in fabrication and programming and we couldn't bill them yet.

I've still got a pile of government forms to file with the State of Tennessee and the Department of Labor by April 15th, but I'm letting them lay in a pile on my desk festering because my brains start dripping out of my ears and nostrils when I look at them and start reading the instructions written in English and Spanish.

I got a form in the mail today--I swear I'm not making this stuff up--that was telling me how to find out how to get EEOC information which complied with the Americans with Disability Act.

It opened up with this paragraph:

"The law requires an employer to post a notice describing the Federal Laws prohibiting job discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, equal pay and disability."

Sorry folks, but I've got some news for everybody...I don't care what the Government says, any person which is deaf, dumb, blind, bearded, bald, crotchless-overall-wearing, transgendered Mormons or Quakers (and I mean all of those qualities applying to a single individual collectively) need not apply over here at my Company's Corporate offices, because I'm just not hiring them.

They'll have to fine me, sanction me, censure me, and send me to jail...it's just THAT simple.

Call me "I N S E N S I T I V E" I guess.

Heh...

Sunshine And Warm Weather Causes Cures Mental Illness

I Want To Hang Out With Jack Nicholson...


Sorry, but best intentions aside I just couldn't stand it yesterday...letting weather not involving ice falling from the sky pass me by un-utilized.

After looking at the temperature on the wireless backyard weather station display every fifteen minutes, when the temperature reached 65 degrees F I broke down and took the NY Times Crossword outside with a Rolling Rock Beer and another Cigar and wasted another two hours laying like a lizard in a chair on the deck.

I fooled around so much doing that and having a fit of ADD induced home improvement urges--re-hanging the storm door on the carport and completing some more re-wiring in the basement lighting system that I managed to screw up and cook the prototype Boston Butt at 225 instead of 350 degrees F, so after three hours I still had undercooked meat that wasn't wanting to turn loose of the shoulder bone.

I salvaged everything by cutting the meat off the bone, tossing the thick fat sheath from across the bottom into the trash, and then chunking everything up and sliding it back into the oven for another two hours.

After that everything went as expected, except we wanted to eat before 9 PM so I left out a couple cans of Great Northern Beans because they wouldn't have had time to cook down.

Thus we ended up eating great tasting chili that wasn't quite as thick as I like to make it. The beans are supposed to be a background filler...about 25% to 30% of the volume, so the Chicken and Beef Stock made things a little soupy but it was still excellent in my opinion.

No matter, I'm going to bore Pat and the Turbo Pup and our neighbors with rerun portions again tomorrow night after I cook it down some more, and then freeze the balance and go to work transcribing the final formula for 15 gallons.

The recipe works as long as I follow it, and now all we have to do is wait 12 days for the opportunity to torture the taste buds of the judges and the general public with the results of my imagination and efforts.

Otherwise, I wish something interesting would happen in the news (other than some idiot crashing something into something else), and so until then I guess that the only thing else I have to say is...

Regards Y'all...

Acting Like It's Spring

Warm Weather Causes Procrastination...


I basically didn't get a darn thing done yesterday.

That is, if you don't consider sitting on the back deck in the near 60 degree weather with my shirt off, reading the newspaper and smoking the first cigar in a new bundle since some time in 2009.

Ok, I guess cooking my soon to be famous Chicken Piccata for dinner counts for doing something, but other than that and getting the Boston Butt into a Brine mixture to thaw out in anticipation of today's Chili Laboratory and Science Festival I really didn't accomplish much else.

And I loved every minute of it, but now it's time to take a nap and then get up and re-build some valves while the Chili simmers I guess...and it's going to be even warmer today so I have to lock the outside doors and close the blinds so I can concentrate.

Y'all have a LOVELY Sunday...if you will...