Mazie's 2nd Soccer Season
Mazie is playing soccer again this year with the Cyclones in the Fuller Soccer Club. The whole team has improved a ton and there is some improvement to ball handling this year. Mazie is having a great time too.
Tyler figured out how to climb into this area of Mazie’s art table. He thought it was a lot of fun, until he couldn’t figure out how to get out.
Remodel Project Starts
This week we started the remodeling project on our house. I plan on taking photos of the process. It’s a decent sized project. We are lowering the floor in the basement, putting in two egress windows, installing a new furnace and air conditioning unit and adding a mud room to the back of the house. It’ll be just a little under four months. They start demolishing the floor in the basement this week.
Here is what it looks like now.
Hot Dashboards
It was really hot today. It seems that the thing to do today was to take a picture of your car dashboard to prove it! This is what I saw on Facebook just now.
It was really hot.
Congrats to Jim on First Marathon!
This weekend my friend Jim ran the Minneapolis Marathon. This was his first one and he looked great, even at the end!
Our remodel meant that a pretty sizable Azalea bush in our yard had to go. My Mom couldn’t stand to see it get discarded so she came over in 100 °F heat and we dug it up to go live at her house. She’s a true tree hugger!
Outdoor Burner
Here is a scenario. You are doing a brisket on your Big Green Egg. It’s a weekend, and the meat will be smoking on the grill pretty much all day (and possibly all night). You aren’t going to serve just any barbecue sauce with it, you make your own. This requires you to simmer the sauce for hours. The longer the better. The brisket, and you, are outside having a nice day probably with a good beer. Where is your sauce? Inside on the stove? Total buzzkill. This is where you need an outdoor burner.
When I got my Double Big Green Egg table I knew I wanted to do a full meal outside, from prep all the way to eating. While I love my grills, there are some things that you need a burner for. Last year I picked up one of these Max Burton Pro Chef 1800 units from Kitchen Window and it’s worked out great.
Why get this unit?
- This is a commercial unit and it is built well. I feel comfortable with moving it in and out of storage and not needing to be overly gentle with it. (Note, it is only outside when in use. Otherwise it’s stored inside.)
- The unit is very easy to clean. The cook surface is a flat glass plate that just wipes down. The touch sensitive control surface is easily wiped down as well. When grilling my hands get dirty and this unit gets dirty.
- I wanted a burner I could dial into a temperature, and this one can do that. If simmering a sauce I want to just punch in a temp and not think about it. Easy.
I’ve been really happy with it for everything from cooking pancakes for a brunch on the grill to simmering sauces or boiling some water for carrots. The only job I found it challenged by was boiling a huge kettle of water to cook corn in. It just didn’t have enough power to deal with 3 gallons of water. But really, the corn should be grilled anyway.
Inside Job
I finally got a chance to watch Inside Job tonight. Wow. Very good documentary on the financial collapse. For those that have read a bit about the issue the recap of CDO’s and Swaps will be redundant, but it’s not much. The skewering of the ratings agencies and the economic profession is pointed.
Wonder if Eddie Vedder’s next album will be “Recorder Songs”. Maybe “Kazoo Songs” instead.