Tater chips worth waiting for

Greatest apologies, for not posting in so long. As has been my excuse for months now, the pending adoption of our little CJ takes priority over my foodie tendencies.

But occasionally, I find myself in the wonderful world of longing for that hallow leg. The same was true in my last post, where I wish I could chow down on fish and chips more regularly.

Such was the case a couple of weekends ago where I attended a game night with a few friends. This is where former high school nerds gather for lots of junk food and spend hours playing their favorite nerdy computer or board game. This time, we loaded up the more complex than you realize and ever addictive Scorched Earth.

At this point in time, I must point out that not only did we play a 2-D dos based shareware game from the very early 90's, but the owner of this copy of the software was in fact licensed to use it. In fact, he paid his 10 bucks back in the day, and pulled out a complete owners manual to prove it. Yah. I'm not kidding.

Nor am I kidding about the fact that we conducted a semi-scientific potato chip taste test. You see, potato chips are one of my favorite food, but in these parts, we have so many choices that I'm not sure I've ever decided with 100% certainty which brand and style is my favorite. I'll come right out and tell you that before this event, I would have told you that Dieffenbach's rule the day with a nice thick crunchy texture, good tater flavor, and a hint of lard aftertaste.

In discussion with some of these friends about potato chips, some expressed an even stronger preference for lard cooked chips, and some told me they prefer other cooking oils. That got me really thinking about how fortunate we are to live in an area with such a variety. I mean, there's no excuse for not finding a favorite potato chip. So, inspired partly by a chowhound tour I read a few months back, I set out to help my fellow game-players to discover their favorites, and to see if we would all agree on any particular trends.

The results were surprising.

The 5 of us tried a total of 13 different brands/varieties. Although, most of you might be shocked to learn there are 13 brands available, let me tell you that I skipped a few brands just for the sake of keeping a budget on this event. Below is a picture of the chips included.

Before you say - "hey, you've got 2 Herr's and 2 Good's, what's the deal?" First of all, Blue and Red Goods are NOT the same, so there. Plus, Herr's just recently started their kettle cooked line, so we had to include that. The key brands I was hoping to include but ended up leaving out are Wise, Tom's, Zerbe's, Zapp's. We ended up with a pseudo-scientific scoring system, where each taster chose and ranked their top 3 with scores of 5-3-1 respectively. We also chose a chip we really hated, deducting 3 points for any chip in this category. That balanced out somewhat if one of highly rated a chip that someone else absolutely hated.

I'll chronicle the bullet points for you:

• There were 2 clear losers, both receiving -6 points, being the most hated chip by at least 2 of us. These were Bickle's, and Martin's. The fact that Bickle's are lousy surprised no one. It's just about the only chip I won't eat if I see an open bag at a pot luck of cook-out. Martin's is a real shame because I believe they must have been better once upon a top. We all agreed they had a nasty after-taste, and missed the crunchy boat by being more chewy than anything else.

• The famous Good's Red vs Blue debate never formulated. Neither chip received any voted one way or another.

• Dieffenbach's did not make my top 3, and only made a top 3 for one of our tasters. Interesting.
  

• The most unique chip made 2nd place - Kettle brand light lightly salted - which were a dark very potato-ie tasting chip. None of us could remember ever having it before. I wonder if it was just a fling, or if the love will have staying power?

• Lay's were noted as a the favorite chip for one of our tasters, and the least favorite for another. These 2 gentleman have been friends for a very long time. I hope this does not create problems in their relationship because they are both above such pettiness.

• We ate a heck of a lot of chips that night. Just tasting them all did not make us tired of the chips. We all went back after learning our likes and dislikes to see if they met our expectations. Then, we proceeded to gorge on gobs of our favorites between slices of pizza and wings.

• 3 of the top 4 chips are cooked in "one or more of the following" - cottonseed and sunflower oil. The next 2 are cooked in lard. This proves that lard is good, but not best.

• I accidentally grabbed the light version of Cape Cod chips, so I'll have to make amends at our next game night so we can properly taste those.

I guess you're wondering which one won? I won't keep you in suspense much longer, except to say this it was a clear-cut (pun intended) victory, with 2nd and 3rd place fairly close between Kettle brand and Kings.

Our winner was chosen as the number 1 chip by 3 of the 5 tasters, and the number 3 ranked chip by another. Even the 5th taster agreed it was pretty good. Winner of the nerdy game players club tater chip tasting event is:

Herr's Kettle Cooked!!!!!

What will happen when I finally buy the right version of Cape Cods? Will lard return to the scene with an attack from Zerbe's? Considering the decent performance of Gibbles, can a thinner, less crispy chip be a dark-horse in a future challenge? Is it possible for an tater chip not made in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to win such a event (Zapp's are you listening?)?

Future events will include our champion pitted against a challenger chip. First up, the real Cape Cod chips! Are they up to the challenge?

Restaurant Review - Fairgrounds Farmer's Market

OK, technically not a restaurant review, but a farmer's market review. I think I've made a few references to this place before, and have once heard it described as a "foodtopia" and I really can't disagree.

I sortof discovered this place a couple of years ago, although it's been around for a while. Not really different than your typical farmer's market, except that there's not also a lot of cheap junk being hawked - no flea market to go with it.

They've got no less then 4 of each of the following - produce stands, meat markets, and delis. There's a fancy schmancy cheese place, a Greek market, seafood, a couple of soft pretzel stands, hot sauce stand, an awesome bakery, and an ice cream shop.

But, I'm here to talk about the "restaurants" - which in a place like this are really prepared food vendors, but still, we go there for dinner or lunch regularly, as we did tonight. I had jambalaya and crab corn chowder from Dixie Kitchen, and the Red Head had fish n chips from Adelphia Cafe. One of these days, I'll have the guts to take my camera in there and photo what we eat.

The crab corn chowder was fantastic. Creamy, but not heavy - a little bit cheesy, with a little bite to it. But full of lump crab meat and just the right amount of sweet corn. Really, it was one of the tastiest soups I've ever had, and easily the best seafood oriented soup I've had outside of a beach or bay town. This is something I'll order again for sure.

The jambalaya was good, but a bit of a disappointment considering Dixie Kitchen bills itself as a Cajun place. It had some flavor and spice, the rice was cooked nicely, but the chicken was a little dry and it really didn't have much andouille sausage. Probably not going to make it into my regular fairgrounds rotation.

The RH's fish n chips on the other hand were/are excellent. We've had these before, and will keep going back. It's not a beer batter, but whatever they use is light and fluffy, and when fried up, not greasy at all. They use haddock here, which seems to be more common than cod - which is my favorite choice. They could use some improvement on the fries, but really with 2 big piping hot pieces of fried fish for $5.95, who can complain? I really wish Adelphia would open more of these little shops.

I know not everyone reading this will find their way to the Reading Fairgrounds Farmer's Market, but I encourage anyone to patronize their local farmer's markets and co-ops. The produce and meat are always much fresher and often less expensive than the super market. There's always good food to be had and lot's of friendly vendors preparing it - true congregation of mom-and pop shops.

Weekend Chow - part 2 Day Trip Report

Note: This post delayed due to technical difficulties..


On to the rest of our weekend...

Before the Red Head left her job as a day care director, her staff scrounged up some moola and purchased her a night in a brand spanking new bed and breakfast. We also had a AMEX gift card (to use for chow) that I received as a result of spending other peoples money while traveling on business the past 10 years.


Speedwell Forge is an amazing place - fully restored - mansion originally built in 1760. It's just a gorgeous building, with 2 separate restored buildings that were converted into guest rooms. We stayed in the Paymaster's Office, which was originally used for pretty much what you would think. It served as sort of a bank for the forge workers.
Browse their web site and you'll see pictures of the room. Here's the outside.

So we arrived around 3PM and were greeted by one of the most pleasant people you could ever meet. Dawn really has a passion for running her B&B. The house used to be her Grandmothers, so she puts a lot of love into what she's doing. She also makes a mean omelet, but I'll get to that.

After checking in, we headed up to Cornwall, to the Bluebird Inn. It's also an historic old building, with lots of charm and character. They've got a nice enclosed porch, which is where we decided to dine since it was so warm on Sunday. The Bluebird is clearly trying to hit some niche as a sophisticated English pub. I will admit that I got a little concerned when the menu bragged at how all their beers were served chilled to 30 degrees!!! Yikes, cold beer is fine most of the time, but not all beer is meant to be served at the same temperature, just ask Michael Jackson (the one with his original nose)

We both started with soup - crab bisque for the RH, and shrimp chowder for me. The bisque was quite good, though a little too thick, even for that style of soup. The chowder was a bit spicy, which is normally fine for me, but it kindof over-powered the tender shrimp, making it sortof a miscellaneous chowder. But still we both graded our soups in the B-range.

I ordered fish n chips, which were in this case very crispy breaded haddock. I generally prefer cod for my fish n chips, but haddock is acceptable. Strangely, it was not a beer batter, which is unfortunate because they were cooked perfectly. Ok, decent fish, but the fries were quite good. They had that slightly crispy, very potato-ee taste. Not greasy at all. Some of the best fries I've had in a while.
The wife had the Guinness tips pie topped with a puff pastry crust. If you know her at all this is sortof up her ally - she loves beef tips over noodles, puff pastry, and while she doesn't care for beer much, she usually loves cooking with it. The description says it's in "a rich Guinness demi glaze" and baked 'till "golden brown." Hmm. In actuality it wasn't all the rich like you would expect. It was decent beef, but the sauce just tasted like a generic thickened beef stock (not gravy) with half pint or Guinness poured in at the end. There was clearly no reduction or demiglaze to it at all. It had tons of alcohol still in it, and the flavor was just way too beery that you couldn't taste anything else. As for the golden brown puff pastry? More like a light blond soggy mess. I guess that description makes it sound worse than it really was, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't what we were expecting.

All in all, I'd have to give the Bluebird a B or B minus (saved from a C by the fries). They have a huge menu, so I'd go back if someone I knew wanted to, but it's not worth going out of your way, and was a bit of a let down.

We had no desert plan, but I must mention at this point that I had been craving these cream filled made by Harting's Country Made bakery. I could not find them for the past few weeks, so we though maybe for a treat we'd find some the next day.

Before heading back to the room, we scooted down toward Lancaster and hunted down Bruster's Ice Cream Shop. This is a make it on location chain that's starting to infiltrate Pennsylvania. Maybe I should replace infiltrate with infect. It was so bad that I really can't figure out how it succeeds at all, and I can't imagine how in the world it's expanding in a state that makes some of the best ice cream in the world. I feel bad for the folks who live wherever it originated, because they have no idea what ice cream tastes like. The people working there were nice enough, and they have some nifty flavors - perhaps too many gimmicky choices, but the ice cream is just terrible. Oh well.
UPDATE: I cant' believe this. I looked up the web site and discovered the place actually originated in Pennsylvania!!! I decided not to edit what I wrote because it still reflects what I believe. How could we let ourselves go like this!!!!

Considering our ice cream disappointment, we became obsessed (that's a theme with me lately) with finding those Harting's cream filled donuts. We stopped at two different grocery stores on the way back to the B&B with no luck. Let me tell you, no grocery store donut was going to be "good enough" after our ice cream fiasco. But they were not to be found that night :(

For breakfast, Dawn serves 3 courses. We started with homemade granola, which isn't one of my typical choices, but this was really good. Moving on, she brought us a dish of fresh berries (Rasp, Black, Blue) with real yogurt - yummm. We finished with a light and fluffy omelet with crispy red potato home fries. Quite delicious, with good company from another couple who were finishing up their meal and our host, who really made us feel comfortable.

We spend the rest of the day taking a nice drive around Lancaster County, walked around Lititz, where after about 45 minutes, I realized that I still had the key to the paymaster's office!!! So we finished up our walk and headed back to drop it off, making a convenience store stop still hunting for the donuts. When I dropped off the key, M hung out in the driveway and booted up my laptop - we were determined to get some of those donuts!!! We knew the place was in Bowmansville, which was more or less on the way home, but were not sure exactly where. Low and behold, it's right on the main drag. And we were off to grab the donuts.

They have a little tiny shop attached to the front of the bakery, with big windows looking into the actual baking area. The first thing you see are the creme filled donuts - exactly what I was looking for. They also have chocolate filled, fruit filled, and many others. Also various sticky buns and creme cheese buns and I could go on and on. I was surprised to see bread products, including fresh made hamburger buns - one of which I just consumed and used to eat a leftover Chipolte Orange Turkey Burger that I pulled out of the freezer.

As for the creme filled donuts. Just go buy some, I really can't describe how awesome they are.

Weekend Chow - part 1 Homemade Cheese Steaks

The red-head and I had a nifty chow weekend, and I thought I might summarize.

On Saturday, we had home-made cheese steaks. I was so into it that I was planning to blog about the whole thing. But in full disclosure, the most interesting part turned out to be another baking failure.

To me a good cheese steak should be thinly sliced tender ribeye, or maybe top round, grilled onions, provolone cheese, no sauce, on a nice crusty Italian roll. Many of my favorite steak shops get their rolls from Conshohocken Bakery or one of the other regional shops. There's one in Reading called ATV that's popular, but way over-rated. We had decent meat, some local grocery stores sell real sliced steak meat in addition to that psuedo-meat they call Steak-um. I've tried slicing our own, but don't really have the equipment to get it as thin as I'd like.
But back to the rolls, this is where I attempted to become more homemade. None of our cookbooks had anything resembling the crusty roll necessary for a good cheese steak, so I consulted the web, and came up with this recipe.

It looks exactly like what I need. But, I must add a disclaimer that it took me 2 batches of this to realize what I was doing wrong. The recipe itself is delicious from a taste pov, but is really incomplete. They author tells you to simply mix the ingredients together and then form balls of dough. He gives rising times, which although assumed to be approximate, aren't even close. My first batch may have been affected by old yeast - which may have been the problem with our focaccia bread. It wasn't expired, but it's close. So I used a fresh jar, and also used warmer water, didsolving said yeast in that water as I do for my pizza dough before adding the dry ingredients. My second batch rose about 3 times as much as the first, but still not anywhere near the volume needed for a cheese steak. Not knowing a lot about baking, I just kinda figured they would continue to rise in the oven to the size needed. Nope.
I talked it over with the RH and after thinking about it, and after doing some research, I believe it was simply a matter of letting them rise as long as they needed - 2 or 3 hours if needed.

The first batch made fantastic breadsticks.



The second batch made fantastic plump breadsticks. I was pretty frustrated by that point, so I ended up driving over to a local pizza shop to grab a couple of Conshy rolls. No big deal I guess, we've still got the breadsticks, and we still had awesome cheese steaks. We overcooked the meat a little bit this time, but still yummy!!!

Worlds BEST Moravian Sugar Cake

World's best what? you say? Ever had sugar cake?
You probably have in some form or another.

Do you like sugar cake? I bet if you stop and think about it you'd probably say, "eh, it's alright once in a while." Moravian sugar cake? Some of you who are or know Moravians may have had this version.

What's a Moravian? This is no history or religion blog, but I'll give you a brief run down. The Moravian Church was founded in (fittingly) Moravia - a province now part of the Czech Republic in 1457 - which makes us the oldest Protestant Church in the world. Under persecution, the early faithful fled Moravia and settled in what is now Germany, eventually sending missionaries around the world, including America. OK, long story short - Moravians are known for missions, music, and food.

I can guarantee very few of you have ever had anything like really good Moravian Sugar Cake. Any my wife makes the absolute best. The best examples are moist, flavorful, buttery, not too sweet. It easily makes my list of all time anywhere favorite foods. It takes a bit of time and a number of steps to prepare. As you'll see.

The day before making the sugar cake, the red-head peeled, boiled, and mashed some red-skin taters. She reserved the potato water to use in the batter. Here's what all the ingredients looked like all measured out. Tater water, mashed taters, flour, sugar, butter and margarine (weird huh?), brown sugar (not pictured), eggs, salt, yeast.

Next, the wet ingredients - along with the yeast are creamed together - with the sugar and salt.

Switch to the dough hook. The flour is gradually added and kneaded until it pulls away from the bowl in a nice gooey dough.


Then the dough is left to rise for, um, well, about as long as you want. In our case, we left the dough before leaving for church and came home to it having pretty much tripled or quadrupled in size.



Then, the R-H split the dough in half in to 2 pans for a second rising, where it tripled again. Most expert bakers like the R-H will tell you that it's these multiple risings that develop flavor and and texture. I'll agree.


Now to the final prep for baking. Butter is spread all over the top of the dough, followed by brown sugar. But, we're not done with the butter at all! Holes are poked into the dough where little pats of butter added. Yum.


Here's what the heavenly goodness looks like after it comes out of the oven.

And after it's half eaten.

Oh, you really have no idea how good this is, you really don't. It's buttery, and creamy, and a little bit tangy, with a crunchy sweet (but not too sweet topping). A few of my co-workers may remember the couple of times I've brought it in. And a few friends have had it on special occasions - such as the case today for a birthday.

The house will smell awesome for the next 3 days.

Chili Freaks

And boy - do I mean freaks.
As you know, I love chili and I love to make chili. I've even included a few posts on here about the subject.

Well, about a year ago, my Nephew was planning to get married on St. Georges Island, Florida. Unfortunately, his lovely bride had an family emergency and all of those plans got re-arranged (don't worry, they're married, they just didn't have a ceremony on the beach).

My sister, the red-head, and I decided to keep our plane tickets and motel reservations and take the trip anyway. It's a beautiful area, with awesome beaches, wilderness swamps, and quaint small towns, such Apalachicola. Really quite worth a week's vacation on it's own. But, we only had a couple days, but one of them coincided with the annual Charity Chili Cook-off.


Not sure how many of you've ever been to anything like this, but it's a unique experience. There were parrot heads there, a radio station, food vendors, etc. We got to sample several chilis (for a buck each!!!), and got a little insight as to how some contestants assembled their concoctions. I saw a lot of canned chicken broth, a lot of red powder, quite a bit of beer and other booz, and a fair amount of hot sauce. The chicken broth is what surprised me most. I really don't use it that much because I think it makes chili taste like chili soup, which is very different than what I'm trying to achieve. I have experimented with beer and will continue to search for other forms of liquid in order to back off on the "tomato-i-ness" of my own recipe. Although some folks like it that way.

At any rate, the cookoff web site has a lot of pictures that give you a good feeling for what it was like there. We took a few of them ourselves. I cut off these chubby gentleman's heads because I don't know them, but they had OK chili (a little bland) and a cool name. Can you tell which dude is the team captain?


These guys easily won for most creative booth. I did not try their chili, but it looks like they've won a number of awards over the years. We're pretty sure this was a real coffin hollowed out with cooking equipment mounted inside. It certainly was an impressive setup.

Peanut Butter Eggs

Happy Early Easter everyone!

After my review of Speckled Hen I was thinking about doing a post about all time favorites. The kind of post that would include not just favorite foods but favorite actual dishes. Not just favorite food, but the actual best version of that food. One thing that will be sure to make the list will be our church's chocolate covered peanut butter eggs. Some of the wonderful ladies of the congregation make these just before lent to be sold at the same time as our fastnachts. They also make coconut eggs, but I'm just not as into that. I really love chocolate peanut butter combo. Obviously, I love Reese's, but my favorite is Watchamacallit.

Anyway, the mixture is pretty much just peanut butter and cream cheese. They ladies carefully measure and roll out each egg and allow them to set a bit.

Then the mixture is dipped in a slightly dark chocolate mixture. I think the real secret here is the Wilbur Chocolate - made in nearby Lititz.

Then the eggs are cooled, trimmed - yup trimmed to perfection, then packed for sale. I can't even express how good these are. If I had to list my top five foods anywhere anytime - these would make the cut.

My Valentine

I am a loved man. Really, I am. My wife found a way to make a nice evening for us without going to a fancy restaurant. As you can probably guess - she cooked. It was quite simply the most delicious meal I've had in a long time, and that includes our trip to Arizona. Sorry that some of the pictures are a little blurry - my arms were tired from shoveling snow and ice for 2 hours!

We started off with home-made bruschetta. This is one of our favorite starters, and the red-head struggled at first to make it just right considering this isn't exactly tomato season. After trial and error -low and behold, it tastes outstanding good with canned maters as well - some of the best I've ever had.



That was followed up by sauteed dry scallops (dry - meaning not treated with preservative like most scallops). Nice and simple, a few breadcrumbs, butter and olive oil, and a nice hot pan. Cooked till lightly brown on the outside and just barely done on the inside. Sweet and yummy.



Our entree was crab stuffed chicken breast with twice baked potato and sauteed broccoli. The taters were great, but we both agreed that the recipe used for the crab chicken was a little bland. I think it was supposed to be a light and simply flavored dish, but in the future, leaving the skin on and/or browning the chicken would be the better option. 'Twas still quite good though, particularly the crab stuffing.



Ok, and now for the best part, which is saying a lot considering how awesome the scallops turned out. Frozen peanut butter pie, with chocolate graham cracker crust and homemade hot fudge sauce. Yah, I said homemade hot fudge sauce. This pie shows precisely why I rarely eat desert out. Quite frankly, most restaurants, particularly chains, can't match anything the red-head makes.

Phoenix Area Report

Just got back from a week in the desert, and it was fantastic. Was sent there for a conference and dragged the wife along with me. It was realllllly hard to talk her into making the trip.

If you've never visited Arizona, it really just might be our most beautiful state. I would not have said so before this trip, but then again before this trip I would have voted for North Carolina (considering I would vote on only what I know). We too a beautiful drive up through Sedona


Past the San Francisco Peaks


And to the Grand Canyon


OK, now that I've got your attention!

A couple of quick food reviews from the area. The best part - when you're on a business trip, you rarely pay for your own food! Here are the highlights. Given that we ate out a lot, I won't list everything.


We had a nice meal at Rock Bottom, which is really a chain, but they have smoked salmon fish and chips, and the best mac n cheese in any restaurant I've ever been. Oh, and the beer is pretty good also.

The Keg serves a very good steak, maintains a great atmosphere and service. The rest of their food is only so-so. It's way more expensive I would ever pay considering the quality.

A fun evening took place at Harold's Corral with a bunch of co-workers after a long day of meetings. It certainly wasn't fancy, but they make a fine burger.

I must mention Sweet Tomatoes. Again - it's nothing fancy, but it's a nice affordable salad and soup buffet. I really like a nice mixed green salad with all kinds of different veggies. In addition to the usual, they also had black beans, chick peas, jicama, various squashes, and some unusual dressings. The soups are decent as well. This is also a chain, one which I think would do well in SE Pennsylvania.

The best for last as usual. Rosita's Place in South Phoenix (not to be confused with just Rosita's) is by far my favorite Mexican restaurant anywhere and one of my all time favorite places to dine. Just google it and you'll find some reviews online.
My friend Enrique(Henry), takes me there every time I visit. I've learned recently that Mexican food has much more variety than most people think. Much like the Italians, Mexicans use whatever types of ingredients are locally available. That means that some areas use more tomatoes than others. In fact, Rosita's place doesn't even use tomatoes in their salsa. Some use cheese, others don't. Even the type of tamales are different. Of course, tamales are my favorite and Rosita's makes the best (and spiciest) tamales verdes I've ever had.

Restaurant Review - Master Burger

I figured since my first review was a very positive take on 5th Street Diner - I'd post a lousy review. I wanted to make sure I could adequately explain why I dislike a place. Problem is - we have been eating out less and less in recent months so it was difficult coming up with a place where I could remember why I hated it.

Yesterday, I was provided the perfect example. Master Burger is located in the food court at the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing PA. If you don't live near Reading - don't make a special trip.

Driving by the mall almost a few weeks ago, I noticed their sign announcing "Master Burger now open!" I though - hmm, never heard of it. So I researched it, googled it, asked around - no info. If it's a chain, it's not from around here, and it's probably not very big.

I was really hoping it would be something impressive - maybe like Fudruckers, or even 5 Guys. So, when a couple of us husbands needed a place to get some chow last night while our lady companions scrapped around at some kind of party - we decided to check it out.

At first, we were pleased to notice they prepare their burgers as they are ordered. Then we noticed that they prepare them one at a time. Then we noticed it only took them 30 seconds to prepare each one. Yup - there were burgers sitting in some kind of steamer device, which were then thrown onto a grill for a few seconds, slapped onto a stale bun, then topped with bitter LT&O. I discussed the quality with my companion and his 3YO son (who had quite possibly the world's nastiest looking chicken nuggets I've ever seen). We agreed at the time that the burger itself was better than a typical fast food burger, but certainly disappointing.

After sleeping on it - I'm going to have to take that back. If I really put Master Burger up against any other burger joint, I'm pretty sure it might never win. Oh, and the fries were pretty lousy also.

The Red-Head's pies

Just to change things up from all the smoky goodness the other day, here's a few pics of some equally tasty items. My wife makes the most outstanding pies. Part of the magnificence comes from the flaky yet moist crust, part of it comes from the fresh ingredients, and the rest comes from practice.

Let's just say that in our house, a frozen or otherwise pre-made pie dough and canned pie filling would be practically sacrilegious. Over the years I've enjoyed apple, pumpkin (not one of my favs), pecan, chocolate cream, lemon meringue, cherry, blueberry, raspberry, peach, strawberry, mixed berry, and probably a few more I can't thing of at the moment. My favorite is probably apple, followed closely by pecan, chocolate cream, and blueberry.

Here are a few examples. Note the nifty magazine like picture with the lemons, just in case it wasn't obvious what was under the meringue! The apple pies is from this year's T-giving, and I can't even remember the raspberry - but it looks delicious (and like it has almonds)!

Chicken Fried Bacon

This might just be the most awesome food idea I've ever seen.

Unfortunately the original You-Tuber does not allow for embedding. But you gotta see this anyway.

Chicken Fried Bacon

Just getting started

Well, here's another blog. Not that I have as much time as I should for the adoption blog but this will be much much easier to post. I'm kindof using it as a journal for my food experiences as well - something I should have done many moons ago.

My wife and I absolutely love to cook, and absolutely love to eat out. Whenever we travel, we tend to avoid chain restaurants, which has led to some interesting experiences. Unfortunately, I've just recently gotten into the habbit of taking my camera with me in order to photo-document those experiences. As this new blog progresses, I will go back and re-count some more interesting food escapades, some with pics, some without. This is also my way of sharing more of myself because I'm incapable of creating a blog without a theme. Call it anal, but I just can't bring myself to do it!!! In actuality, this blog will be similar to the other in that much of what actually happens will be joint experiences, but will be reflected on by just me. On second thought, it's a good bet to think that I'll include her thoughts as well.

Also, you'll be more likely to see home-made experiences more often. We've fully shifted to our more streamlined budget (nice way of saying forced semi-poverty) in order to work on serving our church and adopting a child. Because we saw that coming, we have spent the last couple of years aquiring some mid to higher level cooking tools. For instance a new stove, a chest feezer, decent knives, and most importantly, a kick arse grill that can double as a smoker. Pictures of all forthcoming. In the long run, this will save a ton of cash, because being able to cook larger quantities of tasty chow (and freeze the leftovers) will be more cost-effective even before our family grows.

So, what can you expect? What kinds of food do I like? I like many of the same things most people do, such as pizza, burgers, ice cream, etc. But I've also really come to appreciate the difference between Frank's in Mt Penn and Domino's (ick), as well as the difference between Fudruckers and McDonald's. As far as cooking food myself, here's what I aspire to perfect...

* Pizza- I'm starting to figure this one out, but I can get better.

* Smoked Pulled Pork BBQ - first attempt at this on the new grill came out great, not sure if I can duplicate.

* French Toast - this has always been a specialty, and lately I'm experimenting with some slightly different techniques. For me French Toast is not a desert and should not be eaten with powdered sugar and whipped cream.

* Macaroni and Cheese - this is my wife's absolute favoritest food, so I want to learn how best to prepare it. I've still got a lot to learn about cheese and cream sauces though.

* Thanksgiving dinner - something I love to host. Melissa and I split the cooking duties down the middle, I make turkey, stuffing, and mashed taters. She makes cranberry sauce, gravy, yeast rolls, and apple pie.

* Chili - at this point, chili is the one food that I feel confident I can make better than any restaurant, so I'm always torn when I see "worlds best chili" on a menu. Should I order it and find out for sure? Or would that be a waste of $3.99?

* Hot Sauce - this is kindof a hobby and passion. I love spicy food, and have been growing peppers for a number of years now.