Category Archives: freezer

Weekend Update (and Beer Report)

Yep, it’s cold. Just like they said it would. It was 0° F out this morning and will be soaring up to 15° F by this afternoon…all with a 10-20 mph wind. Toasty!

So back to the weekend. takaza and I met up with linnaeus, datahawk, roho, and genet for lunch at my favorite suburban beer outpost, The Firkin in Libertyville. I had a fine time, sampling some truly excellent beers: Lagunitas Brewing’s Lumpy Gravy American Strong Ale (celebrating the 40th anniversary of Frank Zappa’s seminal album of the same name), Lagunitas Brewing’s Brown Shugga Barley Wine, and Unibroue’s Trois Pistoles Strong Dark Ale.
Given that the first was 7% alcohol and the other two 10% and 9% respectively…yeah, I really enjoyed those beers! The chicken and shrimp etoufee was only OK, but with beers like that, who cares? The downside is that for a little more we could have gone to Tramonto’s Steak and Seafood and gotten a much better meal, so The Firkin isn’t someplace we go all that often.
After lunch we all headed up to Roho and Genet’s place in Antioch and admired their bowling-alley-in-progress (well, not really – they’re installing hardwood floors, and feren commented on the similarity to a bowling alley…) and then relaxed with multiple episodes of Ninja Warrior and some fun conversation.

Sunday? Yeah. Lots of laundry. All day long. OK, and lots of Psychonauts, too, since I’m re-playing my way through the game. I also broke down the ten-pound pork loin we bought the weekend before into meal-size packages of pork chops, and then ground up the trimmings into sausage and froze that as well.

That’ll hold for now. More to write but I have to tend to a few things…

Time to Cook!

Well, the snow came and went, as predicted. I think when all is said and done we got about eight inches up here. It’s not too big a deal, but the roads were pretty sloppy this morning. It took me twice as long as usual to get to work – 15 minutes! Man, I love living nearby.

So takaza is still off in Detroit training, which means one more night of living the bachelor life. Last night was terribly exciting: relaxing on the sofa, reading the paper, chatting with folks on the muck and by IM, and listening to a good net radio station. Woo, life in the fast lane! 🙂 Tonight may be a bit different, though. Now that we have a little extra freezer space to work it, it occurred to me that the dinner that we traditionally cook for the first night of our New Year’s shindig could be made in advance and frozen. This would take a lot of pressure off me right before the party, which is always a Good Thing. I’m thinking about making a curried lamb and lentil stew tonight. I also want to make a tasty chili, and Dan will be making a beef stew. How crazy will we get? Who knows. This adds an extra bit of flexibility, though, and I love the idea of being able to offer a couple of different dishes.
I expect I’ll be stopping at home after work to track down the recipe(s) I want, then it’ll be off to the store to pick up ingredients.

Hm, need to make some plans for the weekend, too. I’ll work on that.

Time to Play Catch-Up!

My goodness, where to begin. I’ve been remiss in updating things (yes Mom, I know 🙂 so I have quite a bit to write about.

Last week was a bit of a blur – mainly just getting back into the swing of things after the previous short work week. Saturday was takaza‘s birthday party! After kicking around ideas of how to celebrate his birthday, he finally settled on spending time with friends, so a party it was. I was a bit worried about the weather – a nasty mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain – but most everyone got to us OK and everyone got home safely (sorry you got lost, awfulhorrid and bookwurm! We’ll see you again soon, though, I hope. Barbarian, check your e-mail!). We had about 20 folks, various snacks and desserts, and three huge pots of chicken and dumplings. We got in some Lupus in Tabula, which was fun, but not quite enough games – we’ll need to work on that at New Year’s.

On Sunday I had lunch with unclevlad and datahawk at Osteria di Tramonto (yum! The roasted duck cavatelli is to die for!) then we toured the Westin Chicago North Shore to give them an idea of the Security challenges for the coming year. It was a great meeting and there was a lot of good discussion. I’m feeling really good about Security for next year, and I hope that Vlad is feeling a bit more comfortable with me in the chairman role. Afterwards I stopped by the Hyatt Woodfield to pick up a bag of mine that they found after MFF (yay!), then picked up some dinner for Dan and me on the way home.

Yesterday Dan took a day off to celebrate his birthday with a little time away from work. We had agreed that this Christmas we would get a single big item for ourselves, then get each other a smaller gift. Dan went out and bought that item yesterday: an 8 cubic foot chest freezer. We got a good deal through Best Buy on a Frigidaire that Consumer Reports recommended. To go with that he also got a Food Saver vacuum bag sealer, which will be a big help if we’re going to be laying in a supply of frozen stuff. We started things out by breaking up a 4-lb. tray of chicken breasts into small packages, and I’m pleased to say that everything worked splendidly! I expect that the 20 feet of bag stock that they supply probably won’t last very long, though, so we’ll need to pick up more of that.
Now we need to experiment a bit and see what other fun stuff we can do with the Food Saver (sous-vide, anyone?).

So today, Dan is flying off to Detroit for a few days of training, weather permitting. Although it’ll be weird being around the house alone, the quiet time can be nice, too. I have a couple of projects I want to work on, and maybe a bit of shopping as well. So, not a very exciting week, but after last month who needs excitement?