Dogfish Head lays down a lot of trash-talk with the announcement of their new Imperial Pilsner.

I can’t wait to order one.

All the fun of college (courses) without all the homework!

I always enjoyed my latin class in college, I never did very well on tests. I am interested in history, but not flashcards. I am in the car for a few hours a day.

The Solution: Non-fictional audio lectures.

I’m midway through the High Middle Ages. Last year I was really digging Classical Mythology.

At $35 for 24 half hour lectures, it is just over a dollar a lecture for an mp3 download. I find that I repeat-listen to them more than I do the same with some music.

If you should get the craving, this turned out really tasty.

I was breaking recipes / this is not exact, just what I did, should I try again having forgotten:

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh okra, 1/4" slices
• 2 white onions, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• 3 stalks celery, 1/4" cuts, with leaves
• 1 can, diced tomatoes
• 2 chicken breasts, diced
• 1 polish keilbasa (substitute w/ andoule) cut bite-sized
• 3 quarts chicken broth
• Peanut oil
• Dash of white pepper
• Dash of Old Bay
• 2 tablespoons flour

1. Set the chicken broth to simmer in a large stew pot. Cut the celery and toss it in. Open the can of diced tomatoes (I used tomatoes with jalapeño) and toss it in. Cut the okra and simmer it until soft in peanut oil. Toss the oka in, replace with the diced onions and pressed garlic, add more oil, simmer until brown.
2. While this is simmering, use another pan to start cooking the sliced sausage.
3. With a fourth pan, begin the roux with 2 table spoons flour and 2 table spoons oil. Put the roux on medium high heat and stir briskly. Continue to stir briskly until the roux is the color of peanut butter - do not allow the roux to burn! If your roux burns, start over.
4. Toss the finished sausage in the pot and replace with the chicken breasts. Add white pepper and old bay to the chicken breasts while they are cooking.
5. Stir your roux. Sautee your onions. Stir your gumbo.
6. Repeat.
7. The roux should be done soon, pour it in the gumbo. Follow it with the onions, garlic and chicken.
8. Simmer the gumbo for about an hour, serve over rice.

I was impressed for my first from-scratch gumbo. Next time I make it, I will be sure to use red and green peppers, as well as something with more kick like slices of jalapeño or habañero.

I brewed a brown ale this weekend at Ben’s house. It was great fun, and easier than I had expected it to be. Our first two failed attempts relied on packaged yeast which refused to ‘activate’ in the package, before we’d even cracked any grains or boiled any wort.

For this batch, we took a trip to Maryland Homebrew. We were able to choose from a nice variety of refrigerated hop pellets and live yeast, as well as grab two cases of used bottles and a large wort pot. I had grains, malt extract and everything else we’d need already from the starter-package I got from my Dad over the holidays.

I’ll be back at Ben’s in two weeks to bottle our beer and look forward to getting a taste - if we successfully brewed a drinkable beer, I will need to buy more carboys :cheers:

To prepare the new aluminum pot we had acquired, I decided to fill it with water. I set the water to boil, intending to pour it out and with it, the taste of aluminum which I didn’t want in our beer. 30 quarts of water is heavy and difficult to carry. 30 quarts of boiling water was a two man operation - Kevin and I each had a handle, Ben was in charge of opening any doors in our path.

I pointed out that the water would kill the grass - the back yard wasn’t good enough, we’d have to make it to the alley. By this point the weight was getting to be too much and water was sloshing a bit as we quickened our pace. The oven mitt I was wearing did nothing to protect me, I was sloshing boiling water on my hands and wrists for about half a second before instinct took over and I dropped my end of the pot.

I dropped my end of the pot full of boiling water.

Steaming boiling water proceeded to pour directly onto both of my feet - my right leg at mid-shin, my left on the top of my feet. Ben was also in the line of fire and got the tops of both of his feet doused.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I couldn’t see anything for all the steam and was busy removing the now chilling but soaked oven mitt when I realized that I’d poured boiling water on myself and Ben. I yelped a few times and hopped out of the stream of water back towards the house like a prancing fairy. Ben was doing the same, removing his shoes, hopping up and down, all while pointing out how stupid my decision to drop the pot was. I kicked off my right shoe, in which the most water had poured and hopped back into the hosue.

My shoes (leather loafers) and jeans protected me mostly. My left foot has two 1st degree burns the size of dimes where water soaked through the holes in the shoes. My right food has a similar burn on the top and a large and lovely 2nd degree burn in the form of a blister the size of a silver dollar. I kept it on ice most of the day but by this morning it has swollen out about 1/4".

Ben fared slightly better - pictured. The only burn he got was in what will likely be a more annoying place for him; directly on the top of his foot where the tongue of his shoe had shifted over to one side.

UPDATED WITH A PICTURE OF MY BURN:

Zappa on censorship »

We are under attack by words! Ideas!

Battlestar Galactica »
No new episodes until Season 3 in October. Time to start counting the days.

On parking in Adams Morgan. Come visit! When you get here you can bitch about the parking or the metro or the cab ride! I’ll smile and change the subject to something that a discussion has more likely hood of affecting, like death or taxes.

DC Council member Barry:

“There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend,” Barry said at an afternoon news conference in which he described the robbery in detail. “I don’t advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen.”

Not the freshest quote, but damn if it isn’t ballsy. Quoted below is how the average politician would have approached it perhaps?

Senator Geary, The Godfather: Part II:

Uh, Mr. CHAIRMAN – I would like to verify the witness’s statement. For years now a growing number of my constituents have been of Italian decent – and I have come to know them well. They have honored me with their support and with their friendship. Indeed I can proudly say some of my very best friends are Italian-Americans…

Curses again to Amazon one-click.

Coming soon, used, at half price, to my bookshelf.

Pho »
Washington DC’s needs PHO. It is a mystery why I am surrounded by bad chinese and pizza places and have to drive for a decent Pho Thai. Pho 79, you don’t count because your pho is terrible.