Insanity?

There are times in life when a guy just has to admit that he ain't the smartest thing on the block. It is well known that I am not always there when it comes to skills in the kitchen, if I had to cook for Fat Albert he would end up as some sort of anorexic that was one day away from starving to death. I fully understand the idea of nasty food, I was at Cuzco Peru and ate a wonderful rotten fish dish that made me throw up and actually see the meals I had eaten the month before but this time I had a great idea. It seemed quite simple, bacon and lots of it in a cake.... this means bacon in the cake, bacon in the icing and bacon as the decoration.

I have a wonderful wife, she is sexy, beautiful and smart, in this case smart might not be an attribute. I had a friend on Facebook that had the gull to post on my wall a picture of a chocolate cake with bacon on top of it. I thought that since I was not only a guy but a real he-man kind of guy that I could out do any photo of a simple cake with bacon on the top.

Judy, the love of my life, explained to me that I could make my  dream cake if I could follow a couple of rules... 1. I had to put it together outside (mix it).
2. I had to cook it outside.
3. I had to find someone else totally as insane as I was that would help me with the creation of this Frankenstein dessert.

This was no problem to me, I could easily mix a cake out side and of course I am king of grilling things outside so the only problem was finding a person who was insane as me. I have a business partner and friend who lives next door to me and while the best of friends she even thought my latest idea was simply insane. The nice thing though is she has a daughter who when I broached the idea of a bacon cake cooked outside thought it would be lark to give it a try.

Judy, while I love her totally, was not happy that I was able to complete each of her requirements, so with her reluctant blessing I was off to cook the wonderfully ignoramus cake that I so desired. Simply put, it was great, bacon, vanilla and sprinkles cake with bacon and chocolate icing with a bacon smiley face as decoration on top.

Elsie (my equally insane neighbor) and I have decided to create a bacon and chocolate cheese cake next. The funny thing is that now there are a few more people who want to work on this endeavor. I guess after all the work to get people to even try out the bacon cake (then they loved it) I have now set the trend for modern food.

Elsie and I are the masters of bacon dessert but there is always room for the up and comers in the world of bacon.

In case you wonder, the date on the photo is totally wrong. :-)

Stinking Coon

I just saw something I have never seen in my life and if I had not moved to the "civilized" land of the North Shore of the Boston area I would have simply missed something in my life. It was never on my bucket list of things to see or do before I died but it was something to remember for the rest of my life. This event ended with a very large stinking coon.

Judy and I stepped out into our backyard to enjoy the wonderful New England spring evening, we were talking under the star lit night like boyfriend and girlfriends have done since the beginning of time (by the way, we are married but she still is my girlfriend). Then the air was pierced with a sharp and loud cry from our next door neighbors backyard. I was not sure if it was a human, animal or a New England Bigfoot so I jumped up and ran to the fence to see if I needed to save someone from being beaten up or maybe help someone beat up a Bigfoot.

I did not know what to expect as I peered through the darkness of my neighbors yard but what I saw simply amazed me. It was a raccoon and a skunk having a fight both screaming and yelling at each other. The skunk finally ran off but left the pleasant smell that only a skunk can leave.

The Raccoon looked victorious at first till it realized that while he had won the battle he now stunk to high heaven and simply had lost the war.

Kate (my neighbor), if you are reading this then please know that I did not stink up your house..... it was the stinking coon that caused the stench.

Bear Jerky

Sometimes people forget how grand it is to have parents that are great people. My mother and father are headed up to the wild and wooly Boston coast line to visit Judy, me and the girls. I am excited about seeing both of them but it put me into a mood of thinking about why I adore them. I know, the simply way to answer this is to say that they are my parents so I have to honor them and love them but there has to be more to my feelings then that.

The thing I am most thankful for with my mother is that she did not kill me when I was just a lad. Letting birds loose in the house, putting a HUGE snapping turtle in the tub (we only had one bathroom by the way), letting 100+ crawfish loose in the garage to crawl into little spaces, die and then stink up the whole house, digging up our backyard and stocking a small pond with catfish, bringing home a 5 foot snake I caught..... I think you get the type of kid I was... yet she never killed me. As an adult I am pretty sure she must have thought about it for a split second several times but thankfully she is an even tempered Christian woman.

My father was the toughest man around, at least to my eyes as a child. I never saw him in a fight, I never saw him scream at people, I simply knew that he could whip anyone and anything if he had to. I was positive that when he and I were out climbing mountains that if we ran into a bear that he would not only fight to protect me from the varmint but when it was all over we would be walking back to the camp site eating bear jerky.

This brings me to the value as an adult that I have found with my father. He taught me that you can be tough, a REAL man and not have to go around fighting every fight. I never saw my parents in one of those screaming arguments with each calling the other names. He simply showed me how to be a man, how to treat my wife and how to love my kids...... thanks Dad!!!

By the way Dad, when you get here lets go hiking and try to bring some bear jerky home with us.