GarageGabs

My wife catches her first ever fish out of a local pond. Wasn’t anything big, just a 3-4 inch bream, but she enjoyed it a lot. She ended up catching another one a few minutes later. Very proud of her!

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Who needs David Beckham and the ESPN OVERKILL on the subject matter when you can have Cesar Perez!!?

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I gotta say, mine went pretty well.

My fiance’e agreed that we didn’t need to spend tons of money to validate our love for one another. I’m not dogging anyone that did spend money or go out or whatever, it was just nice to be able to stay in for once. No need to go out and battle the crowds at jam packed sophisticated restaurants. I love her for that. We decided to just stay in tonight, enjoy a dinner prepared by me, and a little television.

My preparations began innocently enough, much in the same way I prepare for posting. I sat on the toilet and reviewed Rachael Ray 2,4,6,8 Great Meals For Couples Or Crowds in search of a recipe that I could handle. It took me a while to come across a recipe where I recognized most of the ingredients, but I finally settled on almond crusted chicken cutlets and asparagus with scallion beurre blanc (beurre blanc is a sauce). Sounds sophisticated huh? I would recommend to anyone that doesn’t really know how to not buy this book. Ha ha, seriously, I like the book, but saying you can get this meal done in 30 minutes….well, it took me a lot longer. Also, most of the ingredients were not things I just keep on hand. We do like Rachael Ray and tivo her show sometimes. I think she is sorta cute.

Anyway, I made a list of what I needed and headed off to the grocery store. My good friend and neighbor, Ajit wanted to prepare a cake for his wife, so he rode along with me. I quickly found all but one of the ingredients. Rachael Ray was calling for “scallions” to be included in the sauce. I searched the entire produce section and couldn’t find anything called a scallion. Ajit, who is quite worldly, told me that he thought a scallion was some type of onion. With that in mind, I picked up some green onions. After having no success at finding Ajit a heart shaped baking pan we went to checkout. Evidently, Ajit planned on making a heart shaped cake for his wife. I asked if he was much of a baker and he said that he had watched his wife do it. Anyway, I asked the checkout lady if she knew what a scallion was. She didn’t know, but the lady behind me told me it was similar to a green onion. That’s when i saw the produce guy working in the produce section. I finished checking out, and went to ask him.

The produce guy quickly knew what a scallion was. He said “yeah, we’ve got them in bags”. I was overjoyed. He handed me a bag of what looked like garlic cloves that was clearly labeled “shallots”. “No dude, I said scallions”. He then took me to a book, listing all the produce. He turned to the onion section and said, “see, here is a picture of what you need”. The photo he showed me was a shallot again. In fact it was exactly the same thing as the bag he had handed me. It clearly said “shallot” below the photo. When the man let go of the book, I turned back one page and viola! There, plain as day, was a picture of a green onion. Underneath the photo it clearly said: “scallion”. The produce man was mystified and began to tell me how they had 7 different kinds of corn flakes on aisle 5, (he seriously told me that) but at this point I was in a hurry. Honestly, I’m not sure which is which, but I stuck with my green onions.

I made it home and knew I wouldn’t have dinner prepared before JC arrived. I decided to at least have the mood set, so she could relax as I prepared this gourmet meal. I quickly cleaned up the living room and kitchen table. I put on a little mood music. Lit a nice fire and went ahead and set the table.

Everything went pretty well with the setup. I was immediately pleased as the first part of the recipe called for me to cut up and separate the white and green part of the scallion. Easy, no problem. I began simmering the sauce (with the white part of the scallion) as directed. Next, I was to prepare the crust for the chicken. UH OH. Big problem. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of plain bread crumbs. For some reason, I had left out bread crumbs on my grocery list. Then I thought….“Jeez, what are bread crumbs? Crumbs of bread, that’s all.” I put two pieces of white bread in the toaster and toasted them on a dark setting. Sometimes I amaze myself.

Despite my breadcrumb success, I ran into another road block. The recipe said to combine the bread crumbs, almond slivers, and some other stuff that I won’t mention, and grind them up in a food processor. A food processor I don’t have. Again, I used ingenuity. I called Ajit. After a couple minutes of each of us determining exactly what a food processor was, Ajit agreed that they did indeed own one, and that he would bring it over so I could borrow it. He brought it over, warned me that he had found mold in it and left.

I dumped all the ingredients in the food processor. I put the top on and hit the button. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Hmmmm. I phoned Ajit. He told me he had never used it, but said he thought he saw a button on the front. Wow, amazing advice. As we were on the phone I figured out how to lock it in place and zoom, it cut on.

I ground up my breading mix, and was just preparing to dip my chicken cutlets when the phone rang. It was Ajit. He needed eggs, for his cake. For some reason, he didn’t know how many. After a few minutes of deliberation, he determined that he needed 3 eggs. I only had one egg. I knew this because I had to mix my other egg with heavy cream in order to coat the chicken before dipping in the breading.

Ajit was at a loss, I could tell. I knew he wanted to get this cake done before his wife arrived home. At the same time, I had all this stuff going. I had sauce simmering on the stove, oil heating up for my chicken, and a huge mess in the kitchen. The only option was to call our other neighbor, Brad. I told Ajit I would call him for him. I was a bit fearful of calling Brad. Don’t get me wrong, I like Brad. Like him a lot. He just likes to talk, and I didn’t have time for talking. Brad confirmed that he did have eggs. He then confirmed that he had 3, but he was worried about the date. I admit, I did tell him that the date didn’t matter, but upon checking it he said the date was fine. I called Ajit to tell him to go get the eggs. Just as I did that, JC walked in the door. Ajit sounded hesitant to go and get the eggs. He then asked me if I had apple sauce. HUH?? What kind of cake takes apple sauce?? I suggested that JC take him to the store so he could get what he needed, and give myself time to finish preparing my meal. Problem averted.

At this point, I was in a bit over my head. My sauce was only supposed to simmer for 5 minutes, upon which I was supposed to add something else to it (butter and the green part of the shallots). I ended up having to cut it off. I still needed to cut the tough part off the asparagus, and cut up some potatoes ( I figured I’d add potatoes to the mix because chicken and asparagus isn’t enough for us).

I went to work. I breaded my chicken and laid it in the pan. I had to do 6 filets, my pan could only hold 3 at the time. Meanwhile, I was adding an entire stick of butter to my sauce as well as the green parts of the scallions. I was very proud of those scallions! I had the asparagus going, but was worried, because it only takes a few minutes for asparagus. My potatoes weren’t even cut yet!

In hindsight, I wish I had left out the potatoes. Everything else was done as I waited on the potatoes. Luckily the recipe actually instructed to put the chicken in the oven at 250 to keep it warm. My sauce was ok on low. I was worried about the asparagus.

Finally, after about an hour of actual cooking time, everything was done. I called JC in and had a look at what I had prepared.

I have to say, I was quite pleased. The en tree was bueno, especially the sauce. The potatoes were rushed and not good at all, but oh well. I enjoyed the meal, and I’m pretty sure JC did.

As we neared completion of the meal, I busted open a bottle of bubbly, and JC and I reveled in our greatness.

After eating our meal we decided to go into the living room and watch “our shows”. Lost was coming on tonight at 10, but we had a couple hours to kill. We DVR most of our favorite shows, and it seems that JC always has something in the library that we haven’t watched yet. Tonight was no different.

We began by watching the most recent episode of one of our favorite shows, Oxygen’s “The Bad Girls Club”. I’m not sure how we got addicted to this show, there’s just something about skanky chicks living in the same house. We were somewhat excited about this episode because it was the first since Ty beat the crap out of Aimee. They have this “rule” on the show that if you throw a punch, you’re out, so Ty got booted after fighting Aimee. I can’t stand Aimee, and I felt it was wrong that Ty got booted because Aimee wanted to fight every bit as much as Ty, she just got her butt kicked. Anyway, tonights show was kind of boring, mostly just Leslie being alone (Ty was the only other black girl) and Kerry being upset with Jodie for messing with a guy that she was writing songs with. Pretty boring.

If you haven’t seen Ty beat up Aimee, here it is.

We only had 2 shows left in the DVR after that and still had a little over an hour to kill. JC likes a show that comes on FX called “DIRT”. I’ve only watched bits and pieces of it and haven’t really gotten into it. I still had an episode of “The White Rapper Show” to watch, but I figured I’d let her watch her show. I mean it was Valentines Day. If you’ve never seen “The White Rapper Show” don’t bother. It’s one of the dumber shows on TV, led by MC Serch (formerly of 3rd bass) who VH-1 calls an “icon”. Yeah right. The “rappers” on this show emulate every thing that is WRONG with rap these days. It’s hard to believe that people that had time to consider presenting themselves chose to do it in this way. Even the guy that is all about rapping for children acts like an idiot. Just think, the winner of this show can be just like MC Serch!

Anyway, like I said, JC watched “DIRT”. I hung in for a few minutes, but the show just doesn’t really get my attention. I decided to go into the kitchen and clean up.

I got done cleaning and it was time for LOST. Tonights show was a HUGE letdown as it basically just did a flashback on the Desmond character. Didn’t learn a whole lot new except that Desmond sees Charlie is going to die. Honestly, I wish Charlie would die, he gets on my last nerve. They didn’t show us what was going on with Jack, Kate and Sawyer. In fact we never even got a glimpse of what was going on in that story-line. I hate episodes like this, I don’t feel like it served much purpose other than to show Charlie might die. I mean, we already knew Desmond could see into the future, and we already knew his girlfriends father didn’t approve of him marrying her. GOSH! The whole episode caused me to down the entire bottle of champagne.

Anyway, that was the extent of our Valentines evening. After LOST went off I started watching ESPN and saw the Tim Hardaway “I hate gay people” thing and came in here to blog. I just wanted to make this post so women would have an idea of how hard it is for men (well, at least me) to do just about anything. It might have seemed like a simple dinner but so much went into it. Nothing comes easy and several disasters were averted as well. With that I say goodnight, and Happy Valentines Day.

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Ok, I will not begin my first actual installment of an attempt at a Super Bowl Preview. Basically, I’m going to give you a preview each day for the rest of the week, through Saturday. Each day will contain a theme. That’s 5 previews if you’re counting. I’m going to leave out the normal stuff like this being Peyton Manning’s first Super Bowl, or the 2 black coaches thing and try to focus on tiny Super Bowl nuggets that are important to me.

It’s funny, when I use the word nuggets, it makes me think of my dog, Apollo. Apollo is generally a good dog, but I have to leave him at home alone during the day. He hates his cage, so I set him free in my garage. If you’ve been visiting my site for some time, you’ve seen webcasts from my garage and know that it is all done up with sports stuff, carpet, pool table, etc. Well, every day that I leave Apollo in the garage, no matter how many times I have taken him outside, he feels inclined to leave what I call Apollo Nuggets all over the floor. I will not bestow you with a picture of Apollo’s steaming nuggets, but I do feel the need to post a Pre-Super Bowl Photo of my dog:

Apollo can not speak, but I am almost certain that he is pulling for the Colts.

Ok, now, onto the Tuesday Preview.

Today’s theme is going to be venue. As I’m sure you know, this years game is being played in Miami, Florida. This marks the 9th Super Bowl to be played in Miami. The first 5 were played in the Orange Bowl (Old Dolphins Stadium). All the others were played in the same venue, just under a different name. First it was called Joe Robbie Stadium, then Pro Players Stadium, and now Dolphins Stadium. I know, totally meaningless, who cares? I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.

Quite a few memorable NFL moments have gone down in Miami Super Bowls-

The Green Bay Packers put a stamp on their dynasty by defeating the Oakland Raiders, 33-14 in Super Bowl II, in 1968.

In 1969, in Super Bowl III Joe Namath and the Jets came through on Namath’s guarantee and defeated the heavily favored Colts, 16-7.

The Colts one and only Super Bowl win came in Miami, Super Bowl V, in 1971, as the Baltimore Colts beat Dallas 16-13 in what was called the “blooper bowl”.

Dallas and Pittsburgh played both of their classic 70’s matchups (Super Bowls V and X) in 1976 and 1979 in Miami. Pittsburgh won 21-17 and 35-31.

Joe Montana led a last minute drive, hitting John Taylor for the winning score in Super Bowl XXIII with less than a minute to play in 1989. The 49ers won 20-16.

Steve Young threw a Super Bowl record 6 TD passes as the 49ers dismantled the San Diego Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX, in 1995.

The most recent Super Bowl played in Miami was the last game John Elway played, as the Denver Broncos defeated the Atlanta Falcons, 34-19, in Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999.

So, as you can see, Miami is a venue with a great deal of history attached to it. In fact, Miami holds a bit of personal history for myself as well. I was able to attend Super Bowl XXIII in 1989. My Uncle obtained 2 tickets and invited me to go along with him. I was a 16 year old kid going to the Super Bowl. Our tickets for that game were $100. We drove all the way to Miami, from North Carolina. Here is what I can tell you about that Super Bowl, and Miami.

One of the first things we did was enjoy Miami’s sprawling beaches. As you can see, they were crawling with scantily clad young women. In all seriousness, I am not sure why this photo was taken other than the extremely short-shorts I was wearing. I do recall seeing my first ever real live bare breast on Miami Beach. Not sure why we didn’t photograph that.

We enjoyed luxurious hotel accommodations, complete with cool “beachy” lamps and bedspreads, and a very modern kitchen. Seriously, the hotel was fine for the time. I’m not sure what exactly was going on with me “fashion wise” during this period of my life. I didn’t seem to care too much, but at least I was representing N.C. State, even as a kid. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

People dressed differently in the late 80’s

Funny dressers included myself. Check out those tight jeans, big hat, and glasses. Also, I had some elaborate camera case for some cheesy camera. Is it me, or were my feet way to big for my body?

Ok, if I had to do a ranking of favorite moments during our trip they would go: 4. Hearing Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing” played 40 times consecutively on a radio station. 3. Seeing my first bare breast on the beach. 2. Montana to Taylor, 38 seconds to play. 1. The girl on the right. As a 16 year old kid I had never been near boobs like that. No, that jughead hat and “Cobra” sunglasses did not impede my vision.

I remember it was VERY hot and humid, and we arrived in the stadium as soon as the gates opened.

It’s a shame every kid can’t get a chance to watch Joe Montana play.

As for the game, it of course was a classic. Montana led the Niners on a late TD drive to earn Bill Walsh his 3rd (and last) Super Bowl. I’ll never forget it. Some notes on Miami:

Obviously, it is hot and humid in Miami. Sunday is actually looking pretty good weather wise, a high near 80, 20 percent chance of rain, and partly cloudy. Rain can come at any time though. It’s also very breezy in Miami, but it doesn’t appear to have much effect on passing games. I’m sure it’s not an issue now, but the grass they had down in the stadium in ‘89 was terrible. It must have been new and wasn’t rooted well, because it was coming up in chunks by the end of the game.
What impact will the venue have on each team? Well, no one can be certain, but you can try to make some guesstimates.

Rex Grossman has obviously played in Florida before. The last time he played in Dolphins Stadium he was coming off the bench (curfew violation) in the 2002 Orange Bowl, leading the Florida Gators to a romp over Maryland. Grossman threw for 248 yards and 4 TD, in a little over 2 quarters. Grossman’s season splits offer little as to what his performance might be this weekend thanks to his inconsistency. He’s been a slightly better home QB, but nothing to make a big deal over. He’s been a better rated QB on turf but again, nothing big. He’s better at night, and better when it’s warm, but again…no huge discrepancies. Long story short on Grossman? He could play on the moon and you couldn’t predict his performance. Nothing jumps out when looking at the Bears backs as far as venue is concerned either. The Bears, as a team, are obviously used to (and built for) playing on grass.

Peyton Manning is a different story. It’s also a story that might surprise you. Over the last 3 years Manning has actually been a slightly better QB on grass. He’s thrown for about 15 yards more per game, added a couple percentage points to his completion percentage, and actually has a higher QB rating (by a whopping 1 point) on grass. The variations here aren’t huge, but with so much emphasis placed on the Colts being a fast, turf team, it’s interesting that Manning holds his own on grass. It’s nearly as hard to pinpoint Manning’s performance as it is Grossman’s, but for an entirely opposite reason. Manning is so danged consistent in almost every situation that it’s impossible to find huge variations. The wildcard for the Colts will be their run game. Joseph Addai is built for turf, and averages a full 1 yard per carry more on turf. Same goes for Dominic Rhodes. On grass, he’s losing nearly a yard per carry, compared to his turf average. Could the Bears physical defense shut down the Colts run game, forcing them to go exclusively to the pass? Would this be a bad thing for the Colts?

History would seem to side with Peyton Manning. Miami’s Super Bowl History has been about quarterbacks; Starr, Namath, Bradshaw, Montana, Young, and Elway are all part of the Miami legacy. His name seems fitting to add to that list.

Verdict: I don’t think the venue will make a huge difference, BUT if it does create any advantage, I think it would be with the Bears. The Bears are built for playing physical football on grass. The Colts (offense and defense) are built around speed. History don’t mean squat as nearly every Super Bowl has been about building the legacy of a quarterback. Round 1 goes to Chicago.

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