The Aftermath

Ah, Christmas. It's like a really good sneeze, isn't it? The holiday has such a tremendous build up and then it all passes by so quickly in a blur of 24 hours that you find yourself waiting for someone to say God Bless You as you recover from it.

And recovering is the trick. I'm fortunate that the front of the house is fairly clean. The kitchen's in good shape, and so is the dining room and the living room. The problem is the back rooms. Everything we were given for Christmas now has to find it's place. While the DVDs and games are easily put away, the books I was given will now have to be precariously balanced in my to-read pile for me to catch up to. They're great books, I can't wait to wade into them, particularly My Reading Life and Pat Conroy's Cookbook, both by one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy.

I'm anticipating a slow week at work, something I haven't experienced since my return to the newspaper in November. The week between Christmas and New Year's Eve is traditionally slow, and I hope this one follows tradition to a T.

The writing is progressing. I'm chipping away at projects and I'm looking forward to getting into a steady groove of it after we enter 2011. The months between January and May tend to be my most productive in the writing world and I'm anticipating finishing at least one novel in the coming months.

But I'm also going to take the time to study music just a little bit. And I'm going to figure out what to cook with this jar of really cool, homemade cayenne-infused olive oil given to me by Mr. Pie and The Student Knitter.

But first I have to clean up this house and do a little laundry. Those sneezes are rough.

A Successful Day

We finally finished processing the last of our October weddings. It was a chore to get it polished off today, but after a long session of both of us processing we've managed to get it knocked down. Bethany has a couple of sessions left to put through Photoshop but they're most definitely a lighter task than the weddings.

Saturday morning at work I finished reading The Lost Hero, the new Percy Jackson novel, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. By the end of the novel I had pieced together enough of the foreshadowing to be able to guess at what the big secret was, so I can't say that I was surprised at the conclusion. However, I can say I'm pretty happy with it and I can't wait to read the rest of the series (which hasn't been written yet). I was fortunate to not start the first series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians until after they were all published. It only took me about two weeks to plow through those five novels. Yes, they're written for a younger audience but they're also really well written and highly addicting.

There are two novels coming out Tuesday that I plan to purchase, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Vortex and the newest Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel. They'll both be released at midnight and will happily download to my Kindle while I'm sleeping. I really am surprised at how much I'm enjoying reading on my Kindle. True, it's not the same as having a book in my hands, but I really appreciate the ease and freedom that a Kindle brings to my life. I live in a semi-remote area and the closest book store is an hour away from my front door. We once had a local bookstore that I absolutely loved (I was officially named their best customer) but, sadly, it went under. Amazon.com wasn't a bad replacement, but there was the interminable delay caused by my books being shipped from their warehouse. The Kindle allows my to shop from my library, in my pajamas, and have the book downloaded in my hands within a minute. Pre-ordered books are delivered as I sleep. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Since it was Sunday I did a little light cooking this afternoon. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. All I did was marinate some sliced chicken breast in white wine and a little olive oil. I seasoned with basil, parsley, minced garlic with a touch of salt and pepper. I boiled some instant rice and a few broccoli sprouts (it takes about four minutes in boiling water to get broccoli tender with just enough crunch to be satisfying) and then mixed it all together. It was flavorful but it needed just a little more flair. At any rate, it's something to experiment with in the future.

'Tis The Night Before Thanksgiving

'Tis the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house, the smell of fresh bread pervades the night air.

Thanksgiving is at our house this year and right now things are looking like fun. The turkey's been thawing in the refrigerator today. The two loaves of bread that Bethany and I made are in the oven. All the ingredients for the other dishes are laid out on the counter, all ready to be sliced, diced, chopped, stirred and cooked for the Thanksgiving feast.

Yes, life is good.

To top it off I've even collected a my second paycheck in nine months and this one was my first full one. I celebrated by taking Bethany to dinner, buying her flowers and then myself John Adams and The Last Airbender. I missed The Last Airbender when it was out in theaters and it looks like the kind of fantasy action movie that's right up my alley. John Adams is the seven part HBO miniseries that garnered 13 Emmys when it aired last year. I've been hankering to own it for a while and I'm looking forward to settling in to watching it next week. The Revolutionary War is probably one of my favorite periods of history and this docudrama looks to be entertaining.

In the meantime I'm reading The Lost Hero, the first book in the newest Percy Jackson series. It's true that Percy Jackson's adventures are intended for a younger audience, but they sure are a lot of fun. I'm enjoying the fun twists on the Greek myths that I was taught in elementary school and it's been something of an education reading the series. I don't know where my readings will take me next, but I do have quite a to-read pile to keep me happy.

The writing is going well this week. Tuesday evening I covered the Covington City Council meeting and then had the house to myself as Bethany was in Lewisburg practicing for the upcoming chorale concert. They're performing selections from Handel's Messiah on Dec. 12 and I'm looking forward to that concert. It's been a great part of my early Christmas season since she joined the Greenbrier Valley Chorale a couple years ago. But I digress. I spent the better part of two hours on the second draft of Blood and Steel Tuesday evening and added something in the neighborhood of 3,000 words. I'm about to really delve into the meat of the plot and I'm pleased so far with both my first draft and the smoothing over that's occurring in the second draft.

Since the bread now requires some attention, I believe I'm going to wrap this post up. I'd write a little more after dealing with the baking, but I just can't seem to put The Lost Hero down.

A Better Photograph

Since the last photograph I uploaded wasn't my best work I thought I'd offer up this one tonight. After all, I couldn't let you think that the last photo was the best of my football work. If you're looking for the story in the photography, you'll have to know Covington football to understand it.

Covington doesn't throw the ball unless they're behind, and with a 6-6 final record, that happens more than the Cougars would like it to. When they do throw it, they tend to put in another quarterback, who you can see scrambling to get the ball out of his hand before he's sacked. There's not a lot of drama in the photo, but if you've watched enough Covington High School football you know what's going on.

It is the week of Thanksgiving and we're slowly getting ready for it. The turkey (all 22 pounds of it) is in the refrigerator happily thawing out for the big day. I went to Kroger today and bought the last of the things we need to have on hand when Thursday rolls around. I think we'll have a grand total of eight people, which should make for a nice dinner. It's a shame that the only football that's going to be on television is the Patriots at the Lions, which should be a complete massacre.

It's Good To Be Me

There are some days that are just meant for not doing anything.

Today's been one of those days. I wish I could regale you with an exciting tale of adventure and narrow escapes, but it's just not that kind of day.

No, today is the kind of day where it looks warmer than it really is. Even the thermometer deceives. It makes you think it's about 60 degrees outside, but what it doesn't take into account is the wind. This wind holds more than the whisper of winter that comes in early fall. This is a full blown promise of the bitter cold that's coming.

The answer to that promise is soup. And hot homemade bread and a cold glass of Pepsi. And falling asleep on the couch watching reruns of Castle. And a good book, which I haven't yet made it to, but I will. I have plenty to read.

You're also reading the words of a man who's two days away from a nice little vacation in Pigeon Forge that will celebrate our second anniversary. Before that, I have two days of fill in work at The Virginian Review. Apparently the person who took my job after I left three years ago left yesterday and the editor asked if I'd come in and lend a hand to get them through. Which is cool. It'll be neat to get back in the newsroom after taking some time off from it for a few years.

But before that is a Sunday of football.

Yes, it's good to be me.

The Best Soup I've Made Yet

Last night I made the best homemade chicken noodle soup I've made yet.

The recipe came from my sister in law, Heather, though I can't confess to know where she picked it up from. I've put it on here in the past, but last night I decided to do something just a shade different. Ever see how those chefs on The Food Network take a healthy pinch of kosher salt and sprinkle it in their dishes? Well I did that before I boiled the chicken. Oh...it was perfection in a pot. The salt really sharpened the flavor of the chicken broth and had a great influence on the noodles.

I spent most of the day running errands in Roanoke. I was flying solo, which is a pretty rare event, so I spent a couple of quality hours in the bookstores perusing the shelves. I came home with a wedding photography book for Bethany as an early anniversary present that looks pretty interesting (which means I'll probably be reading it too).

Speaking of wedding photography, we're on the last week of our October wedding crush. We've successfully shot three weddings so far this month and we have a wedding in Vinton that promises to be very photogenic. So much so that we're bringing in a friend to add to the shoot and so we can train someone as a back up in case one of us ever gets sick or just wants to take a break from it.

Sunday I'll be leading the first outing of the Alleghany Camera Club at Roaring Run beginning at 4 p.m. The weather looks promising and I'm hoping we'll have a little more color to enjoy by then. I'm hoping to be able to snag a few outdoor photographs to place in the "Needs Processed" pile to shake things up a bit.

Judging by our shooting schedule we'll be polishing off the last of the fall portrait sessions by the sixth of November. Bethany and I are planning to take a little vacation the following week (to where exactly we haven't decided) and after than I'm hoping that I'll be able to settle back in and spend some quality time on my writing projects and perhaps even pick up another tune or two on the guitar.

I'm definitely hoping to get some more reading done as well. I've stumbled into a pretty rich vein of fall books. My current read is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel called Hollow Men that is so intense that it almost feels like watching an episode. After that I'm thinking I'll get to James Patterson's Kiss The Girls, his second Alex Cross mystery novel, and then Dragons of the Hourglass Mage by long time favorites Weis & Hickman to round out the fall.

And by then it'll be time for all the holiday food....

A Two-Nighter & Pork Chops

The Green Mile was a two-nighter. In all honesty, it probably would have been an epic one night stand had I felt up to it. If you haven't read The Green Mile yet, go find a copy. I polished it off in basically two really long sittings. The story is excellent, the narration perfect and the premise is enough to provoke some pretty heavy heavy thoughts, all of which is a requirement to meet my "Must Read Standards."

I felt like Stephen King explained himself just enough to satisfy the reader and yet managed to leave enough mystery to leave the reader with a few tantalizing unanswered questions. I've only read three of his novels to date, but there's no doubt in my mind that he is a master storyteller. He may not crank out something at this level with every novel, but The Green Mile certainly stands out above the rest of his works in my mind.

I mentioned in a previous post that we were planning to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving last Sunday at The Student Knitter's house. We did and dinner was excellent (not that I expected any less. They really know how to cook). And, like any cool host, they sent us home with gifts: green peppers and jalapeños out of their garden. They have a problem that most people would like to have. Their garden just won't stop growing, even this late in the year.

Not one to allow good, garden fresh produce go to waste I tried out a new recipe tonight. Paula Deen had an episode about grilling last week and one of the things she grilled was pork chops topped with green peppers and pineapples. It looked delicious and I stored that away in my head to give it a try. Since I had some fresh peppers I served it up tonight.

I don't have a link for the recipe, but it's really pretty simple. Take whatever pork chops you want to use, place a thick slice of pepper and pineapple on each chop and wrap them individually in aluminum foil. I left mine on the grill for 20 minutes and they were cooked to perfection. You should salt and pepper the pork before cooking, something that I forgot to do. The pineapple flavor is pretty subtle and the peppers taste great. Granted, it wasn't the best thing I've ever grilled, but it's worth making a second time around.

It's about time to wrap this up since Ghost Hunters is about to come on SyFy. I have a few hundred wedding photos left to get through and I'm hoping to knock off a few of them right now. Tomorrow I'll be visiting my grandparents for their 71st wedding anniversary and then getting back the grind on Friday.

A Declaration Of Autumn

I'm officially declaring it to be fall. It's decided. I don't care how hot it is. I don't care that the leaves have just started to change around here. It's fall. Deal with it.

I'm declaring it fall because Bethany and I picked up a soup recipe book at Kroger and I'll be breaking out the Crock Pot to slow roast a pork loin for dinner, kind of a warm up for the slow cooker work that will be done as the weather cools. It looks like the first fall like temperatures will be in for next week, so I'm going to get ready.

My first two days of this week are going to be spent at home. I'm going to change the lock on the front door. Then I'm going to strip all the Morning Glories off the porch (they're dying anyway) and get them properly disposed of. I may or may not break out the lawn mower for what I hope will be a final time this season. The deciding factor will be the shape of the yard after a close examination. I'm going to start my search for a good coat rack to place by the door and a welcome mat to match for those rainy days and weeks of wet snow like we had last year. Bethany's going to pull out the fall decorations and start spreading them festively throughout the house.

Bring on the cold weather, the awesome football and the seasonal foods. I'm ready for corn mazes and Halloween costumes and even to start thinking about a Christmas wish list and Hallmark ornaments. This is my favorite time of year and I'm declaring that it has arrived.

The Great Pumpkin should soon follow suit.

Looking Foward To Fall

We're back from vacation and while it was a good trip, I'm glad to be home. I'm not going to lie. I really like sleeping in my own bed and being in my own home. Family togetherness is great and all that, but there's nothing quite like home.

As I mentioned in the last post the writing is getting back on track. In fact, Devan and I are having our first meeting tomorrow about The Hunter and I'm looking forward to really discussing the vision of the novel and the series. I think it will go a long way toward speeding work along, particularly since it'll be the first time we've been able to speak in person about the project since he came up with the idea while he was in Iraq.

My current read is The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. It's fun, but it's almost an homage to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I think that all the epic fantasy written in the 70s and early 80s has a strong influence of Tolkien, be it in the story itself or the style of the writing. Next up on the To-Read List is probably going to be Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. It has a pretty interesting premise and I'm excited to see what he does with it. It will also give me a feel for his writing before I plunge into the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time finale, which Sanderson co-wrote after Jordan's death.

I don't know how the weather is where you are, but here in western Virginia fall is starting to creep in. The nights are getting cool and the morning temperatures are barely in the 50s. I've been told that the leaves are starting to turn in Bath County, which is north of where I live and a lot higher in elevation. I went with Bethany and her mom to chorale practice last night in Lewisburg and I could already see some fall colors in that particular westerly direction.

Looking at the calendar I see that September is half over. I love October. Bethany's filled this one with weddings, but even still I'm looking forward to it. Cooler weather, better football, great food and awesome books. Fall is also publishing season and a lot of great reads are published this time of year. Of particular interest to me is The Towers of Midnight by Jordan and Sanderson on November 2.

I'm also counting down to the time when I make my annual attempt at jambalaya. I've made it twice, both times on a cool autumn Saturday when I could smell it cooking in the Crock Pot all day. Last year was a fiasco wherein I learned that there is a difference between instant rice and regular rice. The year before was better, though it came out mushy. This year will be my third attempt at making it and I have hopes of getting it right this time.

Fall puts me in mind of soups and stews and other warm foods. We have a great recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup, which will no doubt be made one weekend, and Bethany loves experimenting with the soups. The cooling weather just seems to demand that more attention be paid to cooking and eating fine foods and I, for one, plan to answer that demand.

I Am The Man Of The House

I am the man of the house and I take on manly construction projects.

Ok, so all I really did was clean out the desk nook in the bedroom, break down the desk, move the shelves to more useful positions and hang the closet rod, but still. It was manly.

If you're wondering, I still have no idea why the lawnmower won't start. I began taking the thing apart and pieces started falling out so I just put it off until wiser heads could prevail. If they don't prevail by Tuesday I'm going to borrow a mower.

My next big project will be to clean the guest bedroom and really put it to rights, which Bethany will be taking a pretty big hand in. There's not much that needs to be done there, but we needed the closet space to get things moved out of that room and moving things out of that room will make space to move some stuff out of storage and get our small storage room converted into a temporary third bedroom.

On an unrelated food note, I tried out a new potato snack. I found the recipe on the Food Network web site and you can find it here: Garlic Roasted Potatoes. The recipe is just as easy as it sounds and really pretty tasty. We didn't have any small potatoes so I quartered three jumbo russet potatoes and put 'em in the oven for an hour and it worked just fine. Simple, quick prep time and a perfect snack. You just can't ask for better than that.

How Much Wine? The Whole Bottle

Monday morning finds me at home polishing off the last of Brimstone, which had a cliffhanger ending that is going to completely disrupt my reading schedule. But that's another story for another blog.

At any rate, the week looks promising and open. I'll spend today processing Bethany's wedding pics and cleaning the house. There's a load of laundry spinning 'round the washing machine as write. Later, if all goes as planned, I'll hit the gym with Bryan and then cook pork chops for dinner.

Oh, speaking of dinner, we were invited down to Patrick and Amber's apartment last night for our first dinner with them since they were married. We made a pretty interesting chicken dish out of a Food &Wine cookbook. I'd tell you what it was called, but I can't remember and it doesn't matter anyway since we completely changed the recipe. Admittedly, the first mistake was mine. I misread the amount of wine that was supposed to be added to this dish. Instead of the six tablespoons that was listed, I read off six cups. So we upended the whole bottle into an eight-cup measuring cup and realized we were going to come up two cups short. We dumped it in anyway brought it to a simmer with an extra three-quarters of a cup of crushed tomatoes.

It was then that Amber read the recipe and realized that we'd blown it completely. Being the fearless souls in the kitchen that we are, Patrick and I started improvising. We threw in the entire can of tomatoes, parsley (which apparently should have went in with the wine) and tossed in some sliced and baked zucchini and squash. Forty minutes later it was an excellent dish, nameless but very tasty when coupled with the nice loaf of bread from the Food Lion bakery. I'd link you to the recipe as I've done on previous posts, but it's impossible since it came out of a book at their house and since we more or less just made it up as we went along anyway.

One of the highlights of the week will be the book sale at the C.P. Jones Memorial Library in Covington Saturday morning. I'm planning on taking some books over to donate to the sale on Wednesday when I go into town. I don't really need any extra books to read since my To Read Stack is pretty deep at the moment, but I'll at least see a few people I know and will probably take Bethany's grandma with me.

Thanks to the estimable Special Agent Pendergast, I'm rediscovering my love of detective novels. Bethany even bought me a used copy of Agatha Christie's The Labours of Hercules, a novel I started to read so long ago that I've forgotten how it goes.

I'm also pretty happy to say that the writing seems to be going well. The resolution to write every day is starting to pay off as I'm finding the tone for The Hunter, the first volume in mine and Devan's new series.

So it's Monday. There are plenty of jobs in the paper to apply for, I have a baked potato to eat for lunch, a television to watch and enough books to keep me happily reading through the month (I think). Life's pretty good.

Out And About

Yesterday was a mix between work and fun. After spending the morning bound to a computer I went photo hunting with my sister, Elisha, who was looking to practice her outdoor photography. We made a quick trip up North Mountain to see what we could photograph and I came away with this image you see before you. It's a Swallowtail butterfly, a pretty common butterfly around here. There were dozens of them along the road and it was a simple matter to stop the Jeep and take a photo without ever leaving the air conditioning.

Last night for dinner we tried something a little different. I made chicken rolls. You simply pound out chicken breasts until they're decently flat, cut them into strips, place whatever seasoning or stuffing you want in them and then roll them up and secure them with a toothpick. Fifteen to twenty minutes on the grill in low heat and you have yourself dinner.

I made my classic Italian Hagy chicken just to keep it simple so I could try out the method. I cut the breasts along their length, which made the rolls bigger. The seasoning definitely seems to clump together at times and, while the flavor was excellent, I believe that the "less is more" approach will make it better next time. Next time I might even add goat cheese. I've been told that would be excellent.

Back To Basics

In my continuing quest for culinary exploration and education I turned to pork chops last night.

I was reading through my cook book, Master the Grill and found a recipe for basic chops. The idea of basic appealed to me so I went with it. All it took was a pinch of coarse kosher salt, fresh cracked black pepper and some quality time on a hot grill. Those chops were some of the best pork chops I've ever made. I couldn't believe how far a little salt and pepper went. I guess that just goes to show how well the basics really work in the kitchen.

Now that I've touched on the basics, I think that I'll skip ahead to something more complicated. I saw Rachael Ray flatten some chicken breasts, stuff them with tasty things and roll them up for cooking. It's probably one of those things that looked a lot simpler than it really is, but I'm hoping to find out in the next day or two. I don't think I'll like the recipe for them in the grilling book (and I don't have any goat cheese anyway) so I'm going to just see what I can come up with. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

Cookies & Chicken

We took advantage of a cancelled meeting and tried out a new rub for chicken tonight. It was a Tuscan Rosemary rub, which is pretty simple. All you need is two cloves of garlic, minced, two tablespoons of crushed rosemary, a teaspoon of kosher salt, a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper and a quarter cup of parsley. Stir it all together and you've got yourself a pretty tasty and simple rub for chicken.

For dessert, and mostly 'cause I had a hankering for cookies, Bethany made the classic preacher cookies using a recipe that you can find here. The chicken, of course, was a healthy meal. The cookies not so much. But I worked out today. It'll be ok.

So I Didn't Catch Anything On Fire

I blogged yesterday about how I was going to attempt some new foods. Well, I did and my first effort was about a 75% success.

My main course was a new marinade for chicken breast. It was a pretty simple buttermilk marinade. For those of you interested, it came out of Master The Grill. Simply take 3/4 cup of buttermilk, add a tablespoon of olive oil, two teaspoons of kosher salt, black pepper to taste, and then your choice of herb. I used rosemary today, specifically because I took some fresh rosemary out of the beginnings of the herb garden just outside our bedroom window. Place chicken breasts in the marinade for an hour and toss 'em on the grill.

A tasty main course indeed. That dish accounted for 50% of my success this evening.

The other 25% comes from Tyler's Florence's Stirring the Pot. The recipe is too complicated to reproduce from memory, so I'll include this link to a Onion Ring Recipe by Florence that's pretty close to what I used. The main difference is that he dredges in a seasoned flour first before dipping the rings into the batter and that he uses club soda instead of beer in my recipe. (By the way, I've discovered the club soda has a tendency to explode out of a freshly opened bottle just for the sheer hell of it. Don't believe me? Well, you will.)

Now, when I mentioned to Dad that I was going to fry onion rings earlier, he asked the age old question of "Do you know what you're doing?" I'd vehemently object to him doubting me on the subject if it wasn't for the fact that the last time I tried frying anything in vegetable oil on the stove I caught the pot on fire. (It was an interesting few seconds. And when I say I caught the pot on fire, I mean I caught the pot on fire. They don't teach you skills like that in culinary school.)

This time I didn't catch anything on fire. The onion rings turned out just fine, but they could've been a lot better. I don't think that I pulled the batter off just right. It lacked a lot of flavor that I think would've been there had it worked like the recipe said it would (and I figure it was something I did or didn't do and not the fault of the recipe). It's like playing baseball and reaching first on a walk instead of a base hit. Either way, you're on base, but the base hit would be a much better way to get there.

So we've survived the first evening of something new without anything burning down. Since I'll be helping Patrick move all day tomorrow, I figure that the next evening I'll try something new will be Wednesday. Perhaps I'll try some ribs...