Quirky??

This is a first for me.... I have been tagged by my friend, Lee.

Here are the rules: Link the person who tagged you.
List 6 quirks of yours.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.

First, I had to look up the definition of quirk, and here is what I found at dictionary.com:

quirk - noun
A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: "Every man had his own quirks and twists" (Harriet Beecher Stowe).

So, 6 quirks:

1. When I run, I breathe in through my nose and out my mouth, pacing my breathing with my stride - my standard breathing pattern is three strides in and four strides out. If I am running more than 4 miles, the pattern eventually shortens to 2 stride in and 3 out.
2. I heat up my travel coffee mug with boiling water before I pour my coffee in. Thus, my coffee loses less heat and stays hotter, longer.
3. I scrapbook standing up. Probably not too quirky, but most people I scrapbook with sit down. I like the perspective I get standing up.
4. I always have to straighten my pictures - the horizon has to be straight - or it just looks "off" to me.
5. I keep my fingernails super short. If they are even 1/8" long, they feel too long and I cut them.
6. I obsess over gas prices - I know where the cheapest gas is and tell Scott where he should fill up. Of course, Scott doesn't pay any attention to gas prices and rolls his eyes.

There you go - 6 peculiar things about Shirley.....

I'm going to tag:
Martha
Kaye
Violet
Jayne
Heidi
Michelle

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Drunken Chicken

My first attempt at Drunken chicken was a rousing success.

I hadn't even heard of the dish until this past week, in a roundabout way - from the Plant Manager at work. I was hosting Mark and Dean from our Billerica office for a IT project and Carl, the Plant Manager used to work with Dean. Apparently, Dean is renown for his drunken chicken, so much so, that drunken chicken became the main topic during the morning's production meeting.

So, what is drunken chicken? A whole chicken roasted on the grill (or oven) with a can of beer stuck in its cavity. The beer evaporates, thus flavoring and keeping the bird moist. A seasoning rub is also used to give the bird even more flavor.

In honor of Dean (who attended college at Syracuse), I used a rub from Syracuse's Dinosaur BBQ Restaurant. Since the Cajun Foreplay rub is a bit on the spicy side, I also used BBQ 3000 from Penzey's Spices. The beer we had on hand - Landshark Beer and an empty Diet Coke can to house the beer (because we generally don't drink canned beer, and I decided to make this dish on a whim):


The Beer is now in the Diet Coke can and I have stuffed the can into the cavity of the chicken, setting the chicken upright to prevent beer spillage:


I placed the roasting pan in the gas grill, running 3 out of 4 burners at low fire so that the temperature inside the grill registered 350-400 degrees F on the grill's thermometer (I have no idea how accurate that thermometer really is, but, hey, it made me feel like I knew what I was doing). After 1.5 hours, the 5 pound bird was done - moist inside, with a crispy skin, flavorful and just plain yummy. It was as good as my Rotisserie chicken, but without the hassle of the spit and the rotisserie burner. So - highly recommended - anyone with a gas / charcoal grill can make drunken chicken.

One last thing - while starting to carve the chicken, I discovered there was still beer left in the can! Next time, I'll drink half of the beer before placing the can into the chicken, because we can't have good beer go to waste.

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Food Adventures

Stolen from Patricia's Blog:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Game from an animal that someone in your family killed.

2. Ice cream from a dairy farm that makes their ice cream on the premises. Bonus points if you can eat your ice cream and see the herd of cows that it came from.

3. Wild berries that you find, pick and eat yourself. Where I grew up, wild blueberry bushes grew in the woods. Yummy!

4. Something deep-fried that was never meant to be deep-fried. How about Fried Ice Cream?

5. Pizza from a NY City pizzeria that's at least 40 years old.
Not New York, but I think Pizzeria Regina in Boston's North end might count? They opened up in 1926.....

6. Bread made from scratch, still warm from the oven. I used to bake my own bread.

7. Food from a street vendor. Bonus points if you and that vendor don't share a language in common. In Taiwan, there are lots of street vendors who don't speak English (or they didn't in the 70s)

8. Fish you have caught and cleaned yourself. Northern Pike caught at the St Lawrence River area. I also cooked it.

9. Birthday cake (and frosting!) from scratch. Sure - I was big into baking before we had kids. Now, no time to make it from scratch.

10. Salad from someone's garden. Tomatoes and basil count?

11. Homemade salad dressing. Easier to make than you think!

12. Baseball park food. Bonus points for a Fenway Frank. Beer doesn't count. I am sure I ate something at Fenway Park.....

13. Homebrewed beer. One of Scott's friends from HS / college makes his own beer. Was tasty.

14. Something baked in an EZ-Bake Oven.
My mother refused to buy me one when I was a kid.

15. Slab bacon from a butcher shop or meat market.

16. Real maple syrup. When you live in New England, you are bound to have this and maple syrup candies (shaped in leaves - pure sugar)

17. Astronaut ice cream (purchased from a gift shop on a school field trip, if possible).

18. Something you didn't think you would like, but you tried anyway. Raw oysters and clams, when I was a freshman in college. Yummy!

19. Yuengling beer. I had to google this - I thought it was a Chinese beer! I'll have to look for it at the market.

20. Mastroianni Brothers bread

21. Bueon Y Sano burrito

22. Guiness draft. Warm, in a pub in the UK somewhere.

23. Haggis (not for taste, for bragging rights!) We experienced Haggis last summer during our trip to Scotland. It was OK - kind of like a corned beef hash. I was going to eat more, but I bit into something with the consistency of cartilage and was done.

24. Beets Don't like them, though.

25. Avocado Yummy!!

26. At least 10 different kinds of sushi. Parents operated a Japanese Restaurant for 20 years. I've had a lot of sushi. The kids love it, too.

27. Something you've grown from seed Was into growing tomatoes, basil, parsley from seed before kids. Found that buying the plants was easier.

28. Something with the head still attached when it was served. In China and in Chinese families, fish is traditionally served with the head still attached. I refuse to eat the eye, though it is considered a delicacy.

29. Crawdads/Crayfish (Bonus points if you caught/cleaned them yourself). When visiting the south. But we didn't catch them.

30. Alcohol that was older than you were. Probably not, but who knows??

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Parents vs the Kids

A couple of weeks ago, when Brian's Baseball team was still winless, the Baseball moms devised a scenario to build up their sons' self esteem for the less than successful season - a moms vs kids baseball game, which, of course, the kids would win.
The kids found out about the match up right after they won their first game, and riding the high of that win, started with the smack talk - ("we are going to whup your tushies!").

With the team no longer winless, the match up morphed into a Kids' Family members vs the Kids/Coaches game (no doubt, due to the lack of any baseball acumen of the moms). We set to the field last night, a perfect first day of Fall. We dubbed ourselves the "Moon Angels" team - in direct opposition to the Sun Devils

Erica plays in the outfield and Brian is up to bat:


One of the dads tries to prevent the Sun Devils from scoring:


Elaine advances from 2nd, and Patty hobbles from 1st to 2nd:


Erica and Scott in the dugout:


Scott make some sort of a play as pitcher, Sun Devil Cory minds 1st base:


Can you tell we had a blast playing? We all agreed - this sort of match up should be required for all Little league teams. In the end, the Sun Devils won, mainly due to the moms' being softies. If had been under the dads'/siblings' control, the win would have gone to the Moon Angels.

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Get Ready to Party....

It's been a busy week, all culminating in Brian's birthday party.

Baseball Game on Tuesday (they won!)
TaeKwonDo Testing on Thursday
Baseball Game on Thursday (Brian did not play - he was at TaeKwon Do - but the team won again!)
Cubs game on Thursday (only Scott went)
Fall Festival Fundraiser at school yesterday

Earlier this afternoon, we set up the Bounce House for Brian's birthday party:


Brian, Erica and the Thomas boys try it out.


The party starts in 30 minutes. 6 boys, one bounce house and then off to play Laser Tag. Hopefully it's enough to wear them out because it's a sleepover party....

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Decided 2nd Degree BlackBelt

Brian smashed through his board breaks Thursday night and joined the ranks of 2nd Degree Decided BlackBelt:

Setting up the board for the Hammer Fist Strike:


He punched right through it:


Same thing for his Axe Kick:


We had the goal of getting all of this done before his 9th birthday, because the boards get harder at age 9. But I am sure he wouldn't have had a problem with the next level of boards..... just good to have accomplished this goal.

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Cubs Game

Yesterday Scott filled a gap in his baseball resume - he attended a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. He took three other baseball fanatics from work and they enjoyed what ended up being a remarkable game.

Because Scott isn't the veritable "camera Nazi" that I am, he forgot to bring one, but fortunately, one of the "posse", Eric (GenX Techno dude), always has a camera on him and took most of these pictures.

A perfect September afternoon and the ballfield:


The classic mechanical score board:


Scott enjoys his $6.25 beer. Outrageous, eh?


Serious Scott savors his beer - at $6.25 a cup (and not even a souvenir cup!), he wasn't chugging it.


The view from their seats - 6 rows directly behind the Brewer's dugout.


After a spectacular rout in the bottom of the ninth, the teams went on to play 3 additional innings before the Cubs scored a run in the bottom of the 12th to win the game, and they stormed the field.


A fun day for all!

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