Sometimes that's just the way it is.

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Firewater Friday - Screw that!

I hold no claim to being a rock-n-roller.  In fact, I did not attend my first concert until I was the ripe old age of 19.  Granted, it was David Bowie, but still. And, talk about nose-bleed seats?  If my seats were any higher in the rafters I would have been sitting on the roof with the pigeons.

I’ve been to a few concerts since . . . does seeing Neil Diamond twice with my mom count? No? Okay . . .  seriously, the man puts on an awesome show.  Really!

Anyhoo . . .

My sister once scored me a pair a tickets to see Bon Jovi.  They were decent seats . . . first tier on the side of the stage with a decent view of the action below.

I wasn’t and am not a big fan of Bon Jovi, but the price was right and my sister-in-law thought they were the cat’s ass.  So, I treated her to dinner and the show, sure that it would be a fun evening.  I couldn’t imagine how it could suck. Food, beer and rock-n-roll!  Woo hoo!

I remember the opening act well; it was the Jeff Healey. If you don’t know who he was . . . and I say was because he died from cancer at the terribly young age of 41 . . .  he had a hit called Angel Eyes that was a Billboard top five hit for 22 weeks in 1989.  You need a further clue he was the blind musician who played a role in the 1989 Patrick Swayze film Road House.  Anyhoo . . . he was amazing and he put on a great show.

Bon Jovi was . . . well, I remember them coming on stage and starting their opening song.  After that . . . mmmm . . . not so much.  I fell fast asleep . . . I mean I was horking some serious zzzz’s right there in the middle of all that rock’n and roll’n and chicks- a’scream’n and my sister-in-law hoppin’ and a boppin’.

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert you know how loud they are.  So, it takes some extreme talent to master the art of snoozing through all that noise. 

I . . . am . . . the . . . master.

Alright, I admit it.  I’m lame.  

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

I read something a while back that mentioned humpty dumpty . . . either that or I looked in the mirror and felt a certain kinship with the eggy fellow.   Whatever . . . it got me wondering about the origin of the little rhyme.

Way back when . . . and I mean waaaaaaaaaaay back to the 15^th century . .  . Humpty Dumpty was a term used to describe someone who was  . . . uhm . . . stout.  Yeah, that’s it . . . stout.  Or, to be less delicate . . . really friggin’ fat.

 

Anyhoo . . . much to my surprise, Mr. Dumpty was not a reference to a particular person; or any person at all, for that matter.  Nor even an egg as the illustrations would lead you to believe. 

I had always assumed it was a linguistic slam of a king or something.  Well, it turns out the Humpty Dumpty was an allusion to a weapon of war . . . a big ass (pun intended) cannon, to be exact. 

In sixteen hundred and forty-eight,

When England suffered the pains of state,

The Roundheads laid siege to Colchester town

Where the king's men still fought for the crown.

There was a siege on the town of Colchester in 1648.   The town contained a castle and several churches and was . . . dum diddy dum . . .  protected by the city wall. Not just any wall . . . but THE wall . . . Humpty’s wall!  Humpty Dumpty was strategically placed said wall. 

There One-Eyed Thompson stood on the wall,

A gunner of deadliest aim of all.

From St. Mary's Tower his cannon he fired,

Humpty Dumpty was its name.

During the siege, a bombardment from the attacking forces busted a hole in the wall beneath the cannon which, not surprisingly, caused the great fall. 

Humpty dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty dumpty had a great fall;

Threescore men and threescore more,

Could not place Humpty as he was before.

‘All the king's horses and all the king's men’ . . . i.e. the cavalry and knights . . . attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall. But because Humpty was so . . . uhm . . . stout . . . that is, the cannon was so frickin’ heavy  . . . they couldn’t get him back up on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

This caused the town to fall into the enemy hands.  The end.

No-Knead Bread

3 Cups All-Purpose Or Bread Flour, More For Dusting

¼ Teaspoon Instant Yeast

1¼ Teaspoons Salt

Cornmeal, As Needed

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”
Lewis Carroll quote

Thought is the fountain of speech

I had a dream the other night that I’d been going about drinking from the office water fountain all wrong. 

Apparently, all you had to do was put your head down and lips near the spout and a lovely flow of cool water would be available for the slurping.  

How I to know there was was a proximity detector installed on the deceptively antiquated looking water fountain?

But, alas, I woke up to find that I did, indeed, have to press the button to make the water come out. 

Curse you, imaginary magical water fountain.

When will my dreams ever come true?  My subconscious mind is nothing but a big tease.

Deboning Chicken or Turkey Breast

             

Place a whole chicken or turkey breast skin-side down on a plastic cutting board with the pointed end facing away from you.

Using a sharp knife, slice through the white cartilage in the center of the breast, just above the keel bone.

Pick up the breast and bend it backwards, pushing toward you with your fingertips to pop out the keel bone (the keel bone is the dark heavy bone in the center of the breast.)

Work with your fingers and the knife along the sides of the keel bone to free it and pull out the entire bone, including the cartilage (white soft portion) at the pointed end of the breast.

There are two long bones (one on each side) which extend backwards toward the point of the breast. Slip the knife point under one of these bones, loosening it.

Grasp the bone and lift it away from the breast, removing the rib cage while you slice closely along the back of it with your knife until it is free; repeat for the other side.

The wishbone remains - just pull it out.

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Turkey Breast

1 Deboned or Boneless Turkey Breast

1 Lb Slab Bacon

Stuffing

Butterfly the breast by laying it flat on a cutting board. Holding the blade of a knife parallel to the board, about halfway down, slice into the thickest portion of the breast. Cut along the length of the breast, but not all the way through. Unfold so the turkey opens like a book.

Put the turkey breast between two pieces of wax paper or plastic wrap and gently pound with a mallet until it is about 1/4 inch thick.

Spread a thin layer of the stuffing over the breast, leaving about 3/4 inch border around all sides. Tightly roll the breast lengthwise.

Basket weave half the bacon on one side of the turkey breast roll.  Turn over and basket weave the remaining bacon on the other side of the roll.

Tie the rolled turkey breast tightly with kitchen string and set it on a roasting pan.

Roast at 400° for 20 minutes, then drop the heat to 325° and roast for another 45 minutes to and hour, or until the internal temperature of the breast reads about 155° on a meat thermometer.

Once the turkey reaches that temperature remove it from the roasting pan and tent it loosely with foil. Let it rest at least 10 minutes, and up to 25 minutes.

While the turkey breast is resting, if you want, you may be able to make a little gravy with the drippings.

Ollie ollie oxen free

Ollie ollie oxen freeeeeeee . . .

You remember don’t you?  Playing Hide and Seek as a little kid . . . there was always one kid who was the bestest hider.  Maybe it was you - maybe it was your best friend - maybe it was the other kid.   Whatever.  There came a point in the game where the seeker had to give up the ghost and sound the all’s clear  . . . ollie ollie oxen free . . . meaning that anyone still hiding could reenter the fray without fear of being tagged.

Yes, this blog post was inspired by an Ihasahotdog dog . . . what of it?

The big question is . . . who is Ollie and why did he set the oxen free?  Don't be silly.  There was no Ollie and there were certainly no oxen.  What's the matter with you??  Sheesh.

Hide and seek is a centuries old game . . . many, many centuries.  The all clear signal has been sounded over these multitudes of years and morphed from something like all ye out come in free or something like that.  You know how kids are . . . in one ear and out the other and you know their going to mess up the translation.  It happens. 

Ollie . . . all ye . . . allye . . . ollie.  That makes a certain amount of sense.

Oxen . . . oxen . . . uhm, that one is not so easy . . . how about outs in free -or- all come free.

All ye, all ye outs in freeeeeee. 

-or-

All ye, all ye, all come freeeeeee.

They both work for me.  

-OR-

How about this . . . alle, alle, alle sind frei.

Das ist deutschen . . . er . . . I mean, that is be German.  Sorry, I got caught up in the moment.  Anyhoo . . .  Alle, alle, alle sind frei literally translates to all, all, all are free.

I think all are plausible. You, my friend, are free to glean from this what you will.  

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

1/2 Cup Mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons Prepared Yellow Mustard

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard

Or

3 Tablespoons Guinness Mustard

2 Tablespoons Honey

1/2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Mix the mayonnaise, yellow mustard, Dijon mustard, honey, and lemon juice together in a bowl. Cover and chill in refrigerator overnight.

What the duck?!

True story.

I am one of a two person IT department.  Part of my job is to help employees and instruct them in the use of our in house applications.  I’m happy to be of assistance . . . however, I can’t tell someone how to do their job and I have little patience for ineptitude

So . . .

An end user comes to my desk and asked me to show him how to do something . . . for the purposes of this post I will call him Duck . . . as in, What the Duck.

He wanted to summarize an spreadsheet report by product code and then total the costs by product code.

Easy peasy . . .

Right . .  .

Duck has already been shown how to do similar things in comparable reports . . . it's the same procedure across all reports . . . on a number of different occasions.

No problem.  I sigh inwardly and I give him a quick refresher on how to do this.  It really is quite easy.  So easy a caveman could do it.

You select ‘group by’ on an options drop down menu, select the ‘group by’ option then drag and drop to group the items by product code . . . bink . . . done.

Then you select ‘summary’ on the options drop down menu.  Click the column you want to summarize . . . bink . . . done.

It gives a total by product code and a total of all product codes. 

Exactly what Duck wanted and how he wanted it to look.

Seriously, a caveman could do it.

“Did you understand that?”, I asked him.

“Yes”, Duck replied.  “Can you come over to my desk when you have time to show me how to do it?”

I . . . just . . . did . . . head explodes.

Green Balls Recipe:

1 - 10 Ounce Package Frozen Chopped Spinach

2 Cup Herb Stuffing Mix, Crushed  

1 Cup Firmly Packed Fresh Grated Parmesan Cheese 

1/2 C Melted Butter

4 Green Onions, Finely Chopped

3 Eggs, Beaten

Thaw and drain spinach.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well. Make 1 inch balls and place on greased cookie sheets or cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Watch closely because they will burn easily.

They are very good with a honey mustard dipping sauce, cranberry sauce, or by themselves.

Make ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze them.