The Brussels Sprouts are Sprouting!

YES! Less than a week ago I set up a small station indoors and planted a few seeds and today, BAM, several Brussels Sprouts seeds have sprouted!! How 'bout them sprouts! I feel giddy with delight and I find it very hard to contain myself.

Here is an extreme close up of one of the cells.

The general location is in the upper right corner of the tray.

In the upper right corner there are three, that's right, count them, three cells that have sprouted.

Happy sprouting!

Choose a Name Wisely

That's right. Naming a dish cannot be taken lightly. This concept is true in many areas. Giving a blog entry a title, for instance. I could have named the entry "Dandelions," or "Cooking Dandelions," but instead I named it "Hey Man, I am Cooking Weed." Just the word "weed" caught the readers' attention. The entry drew the second highest traffic the blog ever had. Of course most visitors were looking for a different type of content and they left immediately but nonetheless they came to the site. I tried.



Recently I went to a favorite sandwich shop, The Village Market and Cafe located in Gardiner, NY for a quick bite. Well, what can I tell you. I love meatloaf and I can't have enough of it. They have a nice sandwich that they call Workin' Manwich Sam-ich. They serve the meatloaf topped with caramelized onion, cheddar (love it!), and horseradish mayo. Never has one sentence contained so many favorite words of mine. But I digress. Since this is my favorite sandwich I want to see it do well and become a favorite of many customers. But then it hit me. Perhaps, and only perhaps, a female would not order this sandwich because its name is...too masculine. I can only picture heavyset, bearded men, order this sandwich.

Sure. They have other sandwiches like: Yes Dear, BLT, and Tofunito. I can see a lumberjack or a young female order a BLT, but, no way, no how, would a teenage girl order a Workin' Manwich! They also have brownies there too and they call them...brownies! If they called them Girly-Whirlies instead would a lumberjack order one? Would a police office go up to the counter and order a Girly-Whirly?

So, I explained to the person behind the counter my issue and the message was relayed to the manager/owner. But the message was received with bridled enthusiasm and a nervous smile.

Why can't they name this sandwich: Best Meatloaf Ever, or Hot-to-Trot 'loaf, or even better, Yummy-Yummy-Down-my-Tummy Meatloaf, or...The Grilling Greek's Meatloaf.

I beg any local readers of this blog to go to The Village Market and Cafe and tell the owner(s) about this issue and urge them to change the name of this sandwich. It will make me soooooooo happy.

Random Images - Clearing my Phone's Image Folder

Apple Wood

Recently I realized that I was running low on apple wood. So, this past weekend as we were on our way to Cafe Mio in Gardiner, NY, I stopped at Right's Farm to check out their apple wood. I purchased apple wood from them when I first started grilling but this time I was going to buy apple wood that required less work to cut into chunks.

This is what I actually bought. The wood looks like it came from wooden crates because some pieces still had rusted nails. Of course, I will remove the nails before using the wood for smoking the meat.

Cafe Mio

Cafe Mio is our favorite restaurant. The food and service there it's just great. Every time we go there the experience is amazing. The always have new options to choose from. This past weekend my wife and I went there to have lunch with two friends. The friends were going to bike there and they were going to be a little late because the winds were blowing from the south. Of course we were there on time because we used an automobile and the winds did not affect our time of arrival.

This is what we ordered to share and had it as an appetizer. I think it was called Shrimp Roll.

Thruway Market

Recently, Thruway Market, located at the foot of Oak street in Walden, NY, was selling their entire inventory at 50% off. They sold the business to a supermarket chain and they had to get rid of everything in the store. My wife and I went there several times and the first time we bought a few useful things, the second time we bought things that we might use, the third time we bought crap that no one else would buy and the last time we went there I bought two bottles of gefilte fish. Oy vey.

Here are two other pieces of crap things that I bought during this crazy sale.

Usually a crock pot is used by busy people that work. They slow cook food during the day and they eat it in the evening when they get home. Now, I am neither working nor I am busy, and that doesn't explain what pushed me to buy this crock pot.

This box has a metal divider and it holds the charcoals in place. As if the charcoals will grow legs and walk away.Another great purchase.

Greek Bank

In Greece going to the bank is an experience. The personal check concept does not exist and people go to their bank in order to access their money. Wait times range from a few minutes to an hour or more, depending of the day of the week and month. The first few days of every month all banks are swarmed by retirees that want to cash their checks.

Here is a picture from a National Bank of Greece branch. Pay attention to the digital counter in the back of the room. When you enter a Greek bank you immediately take a number from a machine, similar to those that supermarkets have at the deli counter. The day I took the picture I had 503 and waited over one hour before seeing the pissed-off cashier.

Full Moon Farm

We visited the farm recently to buy meat and to feed the piglets. We saw at the supermarket a table with vegetables that with drastically reduced prices because they wanted to get rid of them. So, we bought a variety of vegetables and went to the farm to feed the piglets.

This is the left view as you approach the entrance of the farm.

On the right side of the entrance you see the pigpen, clearly a messy place.

This picture shows the entrance (white door) of the meat store.

This is a random picture taken inside the meat store. 

 This shows other buildings located near the entrance.

This is the bag with the veggies that the piglets ate.  Yummy. At some point my wife complaint that I should place the veggies neatly on the ground. My reply was, "they are pigs, for crying out loud!"

Rasputin

If you haven't read any entries yet, Rasputin, or Raspy, is the owner of our house. She tolerates our existence and we are privileged to live in the same house as she.

Here she is resting on her Cats Love it mat.

That's it. I cleared my phone's picture folder and I have nothing else to share with you.

---

Where we buy eggs and meat - Full Moon Farm

Many times we buy our meat and eggs from the Full Moon Farm located in Gardiner, NY. Recently we went there to buy ground beef and eggs.

They have a self-serve store located right at the entrance of the farm. This time I saw in the store a display with beautiful yarn ready to be made into clothes by some industrious person. Diane?

When we walked outside of the store we met Doreen, a very friendly person who works there. She showed us 27 newly arrived piglets.

In the foreground the first structure has feed for them and right behind it is another structure for the piglets go to relax and play cards and board games.

Going to purchase my first charcoal grill

After reading many blogs, videos, pages, articles and having endless conversations about charcoal grills I decided to take the plunge and buy one. The grill manufacturer is Weber and it is a very well known grill manufacturer. I went to several brick-and-mortar chain stores, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Sears and visited amazon.com and I narrowed it down to the One-Touch Gold 22.5". Weber offers two other models but the Gold 22.5" was the best fit for me and by barbequing needs. After visiting Lowe's and Home Depot I was very disappointed with the selection and the lack of service I received. Well, I went to our local hardware store where they were able to order it for me for the same price as the large chain stores. Hot dog!

After ordering the Weber I drove to the local apple orchard to buy apple wood for smoking my meats. Normally they sell wood chips for $5 - $8 a small bag. I was able to buy lots more wood for the same price AND I helped a local business. The purchase wasn't huge but you understand my point. Here is a picture of the Wright's store.

As you can see they have a variety of options for apple wood purchases. I, of course, went with the smallest option because I will not use it in my fireplace. Here is an image of the actual wood that I purchased.

Look at the bundle of apple wood placed comfortably in the back of the Toyota matrix. It was placed there because it was the safest area for it. After all I didn't want it to get bruised and have it traumatized. Can you tell I have issues?

Next will be picking up the grill and setting it up.