An Update

It's been ages since I've updated my blog. I suppose blogging has lost a bit of its appeal, for whatever reason. Perhaps Facebook has taken its toll, but I also think that for a time, my blog was a needed outlet for a lot of rumination that apparently now takes place in other ways.

I spoke with a priest for about 45 minutes today about the talk I'm going to be giving at a Catholic conference this July. I'll be speaking about my journey "back to Rome," and then the next day, I'll be talking to a bunch of clergy from the Diocese of Chicago. Rumor has it that even Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, and the leader of the United States Conference of Bishops, will be there in attendance. This is very exciting, and humbling, all at the same time. One thing I know for sure: I'm the closest I've ever been to being in the center of God's will, and that's a darn good place to be.

This has been one of the best days of my life. Just for the record.

Team PHAT!

Man, I had a great time tonight! Dave P. and I have joined forces with Team PHAT for a BBQ competition. "Team PHAT" is a name that is funny to me...I'd never have picked it, but I get a kick out of being involved. We're thinking about T-shirts with a Buddha on it eating ribs.

The captain of the team, Eric, cooked a brisket for about 20 hours or so, and I made two different sauces for the team to try. It turned out that we liked them combined together, and we've decided that this will be the perfect sauce for the brisket. I was a bit nervous about the sauces, but I was happy to hear that they liked them after all.

Our next team meeting is next Wednesday, where we'll be working on ribs and chicken.

Here's the deal: this is going to be a blast!

Oh, and I'm in charge of desserts. I brought the chocolate Guinness/Irish Cream cake tonight, and they liked it, but decided to work on a different presentation. Next week, I'm going to make some individual three berry tarts or pies, to see what we think of those.

It's all a recipe for fun.

Grey Wolf

I was fortunate to be able to film this wolf, which I stumbled upon on the road home from Canada!  It was amazing!

The Finished Product

This is the finished oven we made this past weekend:

We all took turns doing all of the various tasks, but the four bricks on the right of the arch are my handiwork.  Apparently a restaurant in Grand Marais is thinking about buying this oven to bake their bread.  This oven will last 100 years...I think it would be great fun to go back sometime and take a look at how this thing is holding up!

Lot's more pics and stories from my trip when I return.  Right now, I'm about four or five hours west of the Bridge.  The north shore of Lake Superior is amazing!  Pictures to follow...

Exciting Stuff...

Now that I have parsed out most of my writing and reading into chapter categories, I am now beginning the rather overwhelming task of organizing each chapter into some sort of cohesive whole. It's daunting and exciting all at the same time. Throughout this process, I've had in the back of my mind something than Anne Lamott wrote in her book about writing, Bird by Bird. She had a novel that she had been working on for a long time, and it didn't seem to have the right feel or flow. She finally dedicated a weekend to organizing it, then cut every paragraph a part, with scissors, and literally reassembled the novel on the floor, moving one paragraph from the back towards the front, some from the middle towards the end, and so on. I feel that's what I'm doing right now. I've spent the past couple of hours labeling and tagging every paragraph in my notebook, and when I'm done, I'm going to literally cut them out, and put them back together. I'll then know what's there, and what's lacking, and begin working on fine tuning this particular chapter.

I have a sense of urgency, since I have some exciting possibilities of meeting some individuals who I believe can give me great insight into my book, as well as helping me find a publisher. This will be taking place at a conference this July, and I hope to have at least two chapters written in a fairly polished form, as well as a complete outline of the rest of the book, with excerpts. It's daunting, but I've been blessed with five weeks off from work. There's a lot of time to write in five weeks time!

Some of that time, however, will be spent in Minnesota, learning how to build a wood fired brick oven. I leave on Thursday for my trip, and can't wait! This is what I call a vacation! I found a very cool one room cabin to stay in, within walking distance of Lake Superior, and it's only $60 a night, since it's still somewhat in the off season. I hope to do some reading and writing in the cabin when I'm not busy mortaring bricks, stirring concrete and having fun building a brick oven with some other passionate foodies like myself. I'll be posting pics of the progress too, if I can find some wifi up there that's easy to get to.

Tolkein Reads Tolkein!

Now This Just Kicks Ass!

I'm going to take a class to learn how to build a wood fired brick oven, on the north shore of Lake Superior, and on my way home, I'll be driving home, via the northern route in Canada. I've been on the waiting list to take at the North House Folk School, in Grand Marais, MN, for several years now, and have always been disappointed. I got a call today that one of the members of the class this summer couldn't make it, and I was the first one on the waiting list! At the end of May, I'm heading north! This will be my journey: 1,500 miles! Giddy up!



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I think I'm in business...almost!

I just found out some very good news: it's possible, according to state law, to have a commercial kitchen in one's basement. I could easily convert my laundry room into usage for this purpose! I had feared that one needed to have a separate entrance, but though this is preferred, it is not the law. The question now only concerns zoning, which is covered by the City of Grand Rapids.

I'm very excited by this prospect, and if this is possible, I'll definitely be starting up a little baking business in my basement, and start selling things at the Farmer's Market this summer, followed by chocolates in the fall.

Giddy up!

Raspberry Flourless Chocolate Cake

Sarah really enjoyed this flourless chocolate cake I made for her last night. I wish I had a picture of the finished presentation, complete with red and golden raspberry sauces, homemade vanilla bean ice cream that is the best I've ever tried, (thanks to an amazing recipe!), as well as some chocolate garnishes and homemade whipped cream. Over the top, and very tasty!

It's fun to cook for a woman I care about.

I'm crazy about this girl.

I think I may have found a girlfriend.

Exultant Monotony

This chocolate thing is incredibly satisfying to me. I just finished wrapping about 50 chocolates, some that are chocolate covered caramels to give to friends, and the others are to fulfill the charity auction item that I donated for the United Way. It's surprising how gratifying it is to see them all lined up, waiting to pass on to someone who I know will enjoy them.

As I wrap each one of them, I examine it to see how each turned out. Some have little imperfections that bug me, and then some are as perfect as can be, and I take immense pleasure in seeing them. I like the fact that these aren't your average home made chocolates too! I enjoy the monotony of the task as well, because every individual chocolate has the possibility of perfection. I'm just wired that way, and that's why I've decided to turn this passion of mine into a business.

I'm determined to have a business up and running this year. There's a lot to learn about being in a food business, but I think it will be incredibly enjoyable, and if I can make some extra money from making chocolates and giving people incredible tasting chocolates that they've never had before, or even dreamed of before, I'll be happier yet.

Chocolates for me are an exultant monotony, as G.K. Chesterton wrote: perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again,’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

A Pandora Recommendation

If you're ever in the mood for some reflective, contemplative and completely ethereal, earth-transcendent, heavenly minded and holy music, then I suggest you listen to this Pandora music station, centered around the music of Palestrina. It's all acapella choral music that I've been listening to for the last hour or so. It's good for the soul, like stepping out into a warm rain shower in July, while the sun is shining.

Chocolates

I'm very pleased with these. Clockwise from the top: milk chocolate with a milk chocolate/Irish Cream filling; dark chocolate with the same filling; dark chocolate with a white chocolate/thimbleberry/raspberry port filling; dark chocolate with a Lindemann's Framboise beer/dark chocolate filling; and in the center, white chocolate with the thimbleberry/raspberry filling.

Best Decision of My Life...almost.

Oh the joys of a clean house! The best decision I've made in recent years is to hire a cleaning crew. I found a mother/daughter team on Craigslist. They did a serious once over on my house two weeks ago, spending four hours whipping the place into shape, with the majority of the work being done in my disastrous kitchen. They came back today and in two and a half hours got everything back into tip-top condition. While they were here, I began tackling one of my "garage" rooms, and after a nap, I'm going to try and finish cleaning that up. That room will now get into the rotation next time, and then I'll tackle my bedroom so they can grapple with that as well. In a month or two, every room in my house will be clean and organized and get a once over every two weeks.

I can't tell you how liberating that is!

Mr. Hershey

I'm a chocolate makin' crazy man! As of tonight, I'll have about 200 chocolates filled, and ready to seal by tomorrow. That's A LOT of chocolates! I grew weary of cutting and dipping chocolates by hand. It's very tedious and frustrating work. Instead, I decided to concentrate on molded chocolates to streamline the process. I filled six molds with 40 chocolates each, and today I've been filling them. Half of the chocolates will have the Irish Cream concoction I came up with a year or so ago...just about this time, in fact, during Nutcracker. The other filling is one that was requested by the woman who purchased my chocolates at an auction. This one uses a Chai tea infusion and is surprisingly tasty.

I'm off to go fill those now.

A Good Day

Today's turning into a good day--it appears I licked the cold that was nipping at my heels, thanks to plenty of sleep, vitamin C and Zicam. I was able to sleep in and come downstairs to an immaculately clean kitchen, thanks to my new found mother/daughter cleaning/support network. And it made me want to have some fun in the kitchen tonight for dinner. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be cooking, but I'm going to have some fun chopping and dicing, and doing it up right. I think I'll head to my favorite grocery store, The Fresh Market, and see what's in the store and come up with it when I see what they have in the offing.

And within the next hour or so, I'm off to coffee with another woman. We'll see how it pans out. I'm all spiffed and polished, and ready to chat with a delightful woman.

Then tonight, I think I'll light the first fire of winter, and actually enjoy a rare evening off and watch a movie, complete with popcorn with plenty of butter, and perhaps a bottle of wine.

My Happy Place

Right now, I'm in the middle of cleaning out my junk room, listening to Lynn Rosetta Kasper on her podcast of the Splendid Table. My friend Tanner is hoping to stay in my guest room (read junk room), and I also want to have my nephews over for a weekend sometime this fall.

My iPhone makes doing this sort of arduous work very tolerable. Life is good.

Chocolates...again

Well, tonight I took a few minutes to whip up a ganache. The Kasteel Rouge Belgian ale I had a few weeks ago has stuck in my mind, and I thought it might be very tasty combined with dark chocolate as a filling for chocolates. I mixed cream and the beer, half and half, then added an equal amount of chopped dark chocolate to come up with the filling. It didn't have enough of a fruity flavor though, so I added a little raspberry port for good measure. Not having one of the fancy billion dollar chocolate funnels that professionals used, I ladeled the ganache into a Ziploc bag and snipped the tiniest of holes.

It was very satisfying filling my molds with ganache. It was one of those moments where your tongue sticks between your teeth, and sticks every so slightly out of your mouth. Yup--that's how I get when I'm working with chocolate, like a kid completely consumed by his latest passion. I'll let it set over night, and sometime over the weekend, when I have some free time, I'll seal them with a layer of chocolate. If all goes as planned, I'll have my first filled chocolates to try on Sunday night.

Giddy up!