Blue Mesa

I haven't been to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill but I would dare say this restaurant is a great find as well.

Stephanie and I got...[Uh, yeah sorry for the interruption.  Here is an update:]

While being back in Dallas for travel we went back to Blue Mesa and now I am glad I just saved this as a draft that I almost never got back to...because this last time was HORRIBLE.

Service, food, everything.

Imagine chicken tortilla soup tasting like a watered-down version of Campbell's vegetable soup.  There was nothing that made it discernable from a bad chicken and veggie soup.  Maybe if you squint and close one eye you can imagine seeing a few sprigs or flakes of cilantro?  Nah, I can't taste it.

Eat at your own risk.

Michael Ruhlman - The Elements of Cooking

Earlier I was fooling around and managed to lose/delete (?) an earlier posting of this book...

The Elements Of Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman.

An article/blog by a colleague of his can be viewed at this link -

A Hunger Artist:
The Elements of Cooking by Bob Del Grosso...or an Amazon article at this link - Essay.

If you reference my 'Tyrone' page on the right panel I have a pictorial of a few culinary books I have referenced or read in the past and Michael Ruhlman has written at least 3 of them.

I will be excited to read how Michael 'puts it down on paper.

Backup

So I (we) was in a couple of stores tonight to buy an external hard drive to backup our laptops on and I turned and said to my wife, "What do you think?  The Seagate, or the WD My Book?"  She looks at the boxes, then she looks at me...then she says, "Give them to me so I can see which one is lighter, thats the one I think we should get!"

No comment.

Hometown, homegrown, homemade...

Whatever you want to call it, specialty places, stores/food services that have been in place for generations...that's what real food is made from, or at least originally came from. I am glad to see that these days have not gone by the wayside yet.

Although I was a bit disappointed that Krohn Dairy Store would not let me tour the facilities (9/11, regulations, insurance, blah blah blah) I still managed to get my hands on some fresh samples and Judy (my mother-in-law) made sure we went away with a few pounds of their best cheese and cheese curds.

Mark Konop at Konops Meat Market seemed a little taken back that I would actually want to see his families operations...apologizing that the particular day we came there was not a whole lot of 'excitement' going on, but come tomorrow...that's ok Mark, I had to get back to work.

I would have gotten more pictures but I didn't want to get anyone nervous.

And don't ya know, after packing all that meat and cheese in my check-in bag I had one of those 'inspection' tags in my luggage upon returning home and unzipping it to put it away. It was sittin' right on top...and luckily for them, nothin' was missing!!!

Freezer to Green Bay

Well, this week we had quite a challenge at the IOC kitchen.  Our walk-in freezer went down...actually I think by the time we realized it was not keeping temp it could have been down for 24 hours.  We do not frequent our freezer every day, it's not necessary.

 We called US Foods & Sysco but to no avail.  Neither could produce a trailer with refrigeration(freezer capabilities) at 4pm in the afternoon (which seems kind of hoky to me), but tried to promise one first thing the next day.  But of course, that would be too late...we were a bit disappointed with the food companies.

But we got it all squared away ourselves and for now, our walk-in refrigerator is maxed out.  We'll just cook/make our everyday menu out of the thawing meats and products as they become defrosted and in order of the most likely to go bad first.  We think we have a pretty good chance at staying one step ahead of having to waste anything.  That was yesterday...

Today I am getting ready to leave work..we (my wife and I) will be attending a marriage up in Green Bay, WI.  This is Stephanie's extended family(Grandma, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, etc...).  And it will be a good time to spend with them since all her immediate family will be there as well.

We'll be flying out of Dallas in the morning...(yawn) 4 am comes quick!

I am so excited!!

Posted by:  Stephanie 

Almost 10 years ago I met this girl who had just finished 2 years with  Anastasis in the Drama Department. She showed me  the video about Mercy ships and talked to me about how Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the poorest of the poor. I was in college at the time.... well mostly I was skipping classes, developing an impressive social life and wardrobe. One night after talking to her I went home found the Mercy Ships website and for the first time in my life I had clarity and purpose for my life. I knew then that Mercy Ships was for me. That summer I worked at Hume Lake Christian Camps and had a mentor nmed Stephanie. We went through all of my strengths and weaknesses and pretty much just picked the career of nursing. At the end of the summer I got really sick and spent a long time in the hospital and God placed the desire in my heart to be a nurse and re-sparked my desire to go work with Mercy ships. After bit more screwing around in college, I over heard one of my so called friends telling another girl I would never make it through nursing school or to the ship. That one comment was the turning point for me, when I enrolled for my courses that semester I new it would be different this time. Not only would I finish these courses but I would do well and this time I had the motivation of not only proving that I could do it, I also knew that I wanted to work with Mercy ships in Africa and Nursing was my vehicle. So in 2004 I served 1 year on the Caribbean Mercy as a nurse. In January, almost 10 years from that day I watched that video my husband (Tyrone, whom I met on the ship)  and I are heading to Sierra Leone  to work on the Africa Mercy. I will be working as a nurse and Tyrone will be working as the Cheif Cook. My plan was much different, but God is so good and His plans are much better than mine. I am so excited to be on the ship with Tyrone using the talents God gave us, to serve Him and truely bring hope and healing to those in need.

Done...maybe

I think I finally finished playing around with the whole website in general...but maybe to come back and finish a page for each one of us.  One Tyrone page, one Stephanie page will probably be added on this blog underneath the introduction link on the right hand side for our favorites and such...