Sunday dinner at Mom's house.

The weekend was hot and sweaty, filled with lots of work in the yard that Denise and I have been hackin' at for a while. Usually I try to fill the weekends with fun in order to avoid this sort of toil. But now that we're not otherwise embroiled (there's been no extra money for Gun shows and such lately), I have no excuse but to get to work and try to make the place look decent.

Sure enough, little bit at a time, we've been clearin' the weeds in the back and side and draggin' brush to the field across the street for the city to haul away. Little by little, between breaks for cold water and a rest on the swing, we've been getting stuff done. As the yard has begun to take shape we've been goin' to Lowe's and buyin' flowers and bushes to plant here and there.

That's what we did Saturday afternoon. As the heat index reached over 100 we were busy planting bushes and weeding the garden down by the street. Denise and I took turns mowing the side and back, and then Denise decided to go ahead and mow the next door neighbors front yard. My neighbor lady is old, and her husband, who used to take care of the yard, has been in a nursing home for about a year. So their yard is looking a lot like mine. After Denise mowed it I spread some top soil out on a few bald spits and spent some time watering it all by hand.

Then, happy in the progress we've made, we showered and headed to a party! Yep, a party. A friend of Denise's from before she met me was having a shindig at his house. As parties go, it's pretty tame. About six or eight middle aged folks sitting around and drinking, laughing as they tell stories about what it was like to grow up in Killeen. The stories they tell make me think that the life around here today is quite tame compared to the life they led in the 60s and 70s, when the town was growing fast.

I really don't relate to any of those stories and don't have much to contribute, so I usually don't find myself included in much of it. It's an old story. I find myself eventually retreating to the couch, playing with the cat or watching TV while the "grownups" enjoy themselves. Maybe it was the heat, or the fact that I'd been so worn out by the time we got there, but I just didn't have any energy to stand there on the margin and pretend to give a shit about what they were going on about. If the heat index hadn't been still hovering around 100 I'd have been out on their porch smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. That's my usual escape.

Anyway, Sunday was a day to sleep in. Denise and I rolled out of the sack at about 11AM and then headed back out into the yard to get some more stuff done. By 2PM it was time to shower and head over to Temple. Mom had begged off her dinner Friday night and told me that she was planning to fry some chicken on Sunday. So you can probably guess how things went down.




By the time we got there just after 3PM, the last batch of chicken had been lifted out of the grease to cool and mom was workin' on the stuffed potatoes.



You can see all the fixin's there in this shot. She mashes the inside of the potato and mixes it with butter, sour cream and cheese. She crams the mashed potatoes into the potato shell, covers it with more cheese and puts it back in to oven to melt together.



While she's doing all that I'm wandering around, checking out her garden. It leaves me feeling how far I've got to go before mine looks anything like hers.



I also find one of the house cats to mess with. This is one of my sisters kitties. You can see from the look in her eyes that she was happy to see me.

Of course, that's not all I was doing. Mom recently bought herself a new bed. It's one of those space age foam things that's really soft on her joints. The delivery men put the new bed together for her and took her old bed upstairs for my sister to sleep on, but the twin bunk-beds were just stacked in the other upstairs bedroom (sis has been sleepin' on one of them). So, while Mom worked on the taters and Denise tossed the salad and made the drinks, I went upstairs and put the bunk-beds together.

I slept on those things myself when I was in high school. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had to take them down and put them back together again. I do have one fond memory of a buddy of mine spending the night once, about half way through high school. He "slept" in one bed across the room, with one Playboy, and I "slept" in the other, and we both tried diligently to pull our way through puberty. I think that may well be about the gayest thing I ever did, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Anyway, the beds came together (get your mind out of the gutter) easily, so soon I was back to messing with the cats and waiting on the food.



Denise mixed the salad that mom had put together before we arrived.



Mom has her own recipe for dressing (there in the little bowl). Denise mixed it into the salad as we waited for the taters to come back out of the oven.



Meanwhile, Denise mixed the drinks. Mom's blender mixes one hell of a Margarita or Daiquiri.



This time it was Strawberry Daiquiris. After Denise and I got Mom to begin to enjoy this sort of thing again, not long after Daddy died, Mom tried to surprise us with some drinks. We came over one day after taking her out to eat. Thing is, she couldn't quite remember the recipe. Was it a half a can of Rum or a whole can? So the first batch of daiquiris she made were stout as hell. We all had a good laugh over it.



Pretty soon the stuffed taters were done and coming out of the oven, and then the feast began.



That's my plate, with three big pieces of boneless dark meat, a stuffed tater and just a hint of salad. Oh, and an excellent adult beverage to finish it off. The food was all perfect. The chicken came out just right... not greasy at all, over cooked or under cooked. I tell ya, mom's got it down pat.

What's better, there was enough left over that I could have fried chicken for breakfast this morning, and there's still enough for Denise and I to have it again for dinner tonight, and split a stuffed tater too.

While we were there, mom told us about the plans she has for Fathers Day. We're all gonna gather at her house and go out to see daddy. We're gonna take some new plastic flowers out there to make sure he's got fresh looking stuff to decorate his plot, and then we're all gonna come back to her place for more fried chicken and home made peach ice cream! Mmmmmm, that stuff is goooood! It's perfect. Daddy would have loved it. I'm sure he'll be watching and wishing he could have some. I'll have to have a little extra, just for him.

Well, that's the weekend. I'm back in the library at San Saba, having had my Monday ritual... Jalapeno sourdough bread bacon cheese burger, fries and a diet Dr. Pepper. The rest of this week looks like it's gonna be hot and sweaty. There's more yard work to do. Y'all take care, and we'll run it all down again in a few. Cheers!

Alright dammit, this is top secret family shit, so take notes. This tape will self distruct in 5 minutes.

First Mr Phelps, lets talk chicken. Buy whatever pieces you like to eat. I'm partial to dark meat (don't go there). Whatever you get should be skinless. Bones are Ok, but they sell boneless, skinless pieces now (breasts and thighs) and those are a lot more convenient to eat.

Yer gonna marinade these pieces over night in the fridge. Mom's traditional recipe calls for washing the pieces and then salting them down generously. She can't say how much. It's one of those trial and error things where she learned from her mom, who learned from her mom. Salt it down good and leave it in the fridge over night. Personally, I think you could exchange the salt for any sort of strong seasoning that you like. I've marinated the stuff in Italian dressing or BBQ sauce, and I think it was pretty good. Just not the same as moms. Another thing, use kosher salt rather than the stuff we all grew up with. It has a much better flavor, and you won't have to use as much.

When the time comes to cook it, you'll need a can of condensed milk, a few eggs, more seasoning, and a pan of flour. You mix a few egg yokes into the milk in a dish (not the white, but the yoke only), and season the flour with pepper and whatever else you like (Mom puts more salt). Heat up your oil to a pretty high level. If the oil isn't hot enough the chicken will take forever to cook and impart an oily taste to the food.



When I was growing up, mom used to cook everything in a skillet. When they started coming out with these little Fry Daddies, she fell in love with them. She's tried big industrial looking fryers with baskets that you dip down into the oil, but she says these little things work the best. They prevent you from putting too many pieces in the oil at once, which apparently leads to an oily taste in the food. Takes too much heat out of the oil when you put them in and forces you to leave the pieces in the oil longer, or somethin'.

Now here's the serious shit: Take a piece of chicken out of the marinade (DO NOT wash off the marinade), dip it in the flour and give it a decent covering. Shake off the excess, and then dip it into the whipped milk/egg mixture. Now, dip it back in the flour and press it in, giving it a good covering. You can see in the shot above that she leaves the pieces in the flour till they are ready to fry. Fry them till they are golden brown, and then take them out, lay them on a paper towel and let them cool a bit. When you bite into this stuff, I swear to God, if you've done it right, you'll experience something akin to nirvana. The Buddha himself would have got his ass up and taken on a carnivorous nature if his momma had known how to cook this stuff. He'd a put on some real pounds then. If you do it right, you'll end up with somethin' like this.



Ok, now for the ice cream. Here's the ingredients: 9 - 10 eggs, whipped in a blender, 2 quarts of half and half, 1 or 2 cans of Eagle Brand sweetened milk, 1 large box of instant vanilla Jello pudding, 1 large box of peach or strawberry Jello (depending on what sort of ice cream you're making), fruit pieces (peaches or strawberries, or whatever other ingredients you want), cut up and whipped in the blender. This part is up to you. If you want to have big pieces of fruit in the ice cream, then don't whip it as thoroughly. Finally, add 1 cup of sugar. Sweeten it to taste. Up to you.

Ok, mix most of this stuff in the blender, adding the fruit a little at a time until it's liquefied. Add the sweetened milk with regular milk to fill the blender (half at a time). Once it's liquefied, empty it into a mixing bowl and begin again. Make enough to fill your ice cream maker to about two inches from the top. It'll expand a bit in the freezing process.



Pour the mixture into the ice cream container, place it in the bucket, making sure it sits properly on the little spindle at the bottom of the bucket. Attach the lid and the motor, and start filling the bucket with ice and rock salt. You want to make sure you don't let the salty runoff from this process get into the ice cream. THAT shit will ruin your day. Most if not all the buckets have a hole to allow only a certain water level to prevent this, but you can still accidentally get some salt on the top of the ice cream if you open the can prematurely. So be careful. Run the ice cream maker till it stops turning on its own.

If you have a cheap machine, you might experience a problem with the ice cream next to the side of the can freezing and stopping the paddles, stripping the gears of the machine. In this case, the machine never stops. While the ice cream next to the ice freezes, the mixture on the inside never does. If that happens, you're not totally screwed. You can take the paddles out and scrape the frozen ice cream into the mixture and start again. Been through that a few times. That shit will also ruin your day, so don't scrimp on the machine. You get what you pay for.



When the machine stops, unplug the motor and take it off , being careful not to let the lid of the ice cream can come off in the process. Reach unto the ice on both sides of the can and pull the can up a bit to allow ice to fall in under it. Then wipe off the lid before you open it to prevent salt from getting into the ice cream. The can will sit there on its own, and you can pop the top and enjoy the "fruits" of your labour.



Mom and I hope you all do well and enjoy the goods. I hope we've given you the info you need to join my family in the long standing traditions of obesity, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Seriously though, what the fuck. Life is to be lived! Ya gotta die of something. I plan to go with a thigh in one hand a maybe a leg in the other, If ya know what I mean. Enjoy.

Started a new semester yesterday, after a good week off and a very pleasant weekend.

I started four new classes on base this week, as well as a new online class. I've got about 45 people in each of my lunchtime history classes (11:30-12:30 and 12:30-1:30 every day), with more wanting in them every day, and I've got about 30 to 35 people in each of the two government classes in the evening (7:30 to 10pm M/W and T/Th). A lot of the folks in my lunchtime classes took the other half of the history last time and are back again. It was like old home week when I walked in the first day. Lots of laughs. Most of my students are soldiers or retired soldiers or family/dependants. The online class has only 17 people in it, but it might grow. I'll be working on that one this week, trying to come up with new exams. I may eventually use those new exams in the conventional classes too. Spring them on the folks in the evening classes on base. I LOVE test day!

Anyway, this last Spring Break was a great time off. It started with two nights and good times at Sweetwater.



That was a great trip, with great friends and lots of great food.

Then on Wednesday, I took a trip to Ft. Worth to spend the day and have dinner with some other, older friends. I've known this guy for about 20 years, and his wife since they got together about 15 years ago.



We've been on a dozen or so hiking and/or canoe trips, and these are the folks I rafted the Colorado with in 03 and 05. Click on the link over at FlickR to check out more of those shots.

The week was rounded off with a fabulous Sunday, beginning with a trip in the morning to Austin to walk through a gun show (resulting in the acquisition of a new toy), and then a trip up to Temple to eat southern fried chicken and home made peach ice cream at moms, and ended with two awesome episodes of Rome back to back on HBO at my sisters place in Belton. That was a full day.

I walked into the gun show thinking it was about time for somethin' to happen. I was officially designated as legal and dangerous by the great state of Texas a while back, but I had yet to pop the cherry on the old CHP card. I needed to get it over with. The main reason why I wanted one of these things is because it allows the holder to buy new toys without having to go through a potentially tedious background check every time. You're considered preapproved due to the check they do on you before they give you the card. It makes for a very convenient purchasing experience, so I was lookin' forward to my first time.

I walked into the place and found an old guy I'd bought several things from in the past. He's always situated with his table right there at the door. He builds very nice rifles from a mixture of foreign and American made parts. His manufacturing standards are high, and his stuff usually includes things that you don't necessarily find elsewhere. He also has a cute little pug dog that he brings up to the shows from Houston. It snoozes there on a pillow under the table. I grew up with pugs, so it's sometimes hard to tell whether I'm more excited to see the pooch or the firepower.

Anyway, it's cool when you find what you want right off the bat and then get to walk through the place for an hour and see if you can come up with anything better. The excitement builds to a crescendo. I walked by, got his attention and pointed to one rifle, saying "don't sell that one till I get back". He smiled and nodded in recognition, then turned back to his other customer as I walked on.

I walked out of there about 30 minutes later with a bright, shiny new M 70 (Yugoslavian version of the AKM, built on an American receiver).



It has a thicker receiver giving it a more sturdy shooting platform. Early AK-47s had milled receivers (like an SKS), and were steadier and more accurate shooters. A normal late model AK has a stamped receiver, and many have a problem with the receiver warping during sustained firing. This one doesn't do that quite as much because the receiver wall is thicker, and so it has a reputation for being a more accurate shooter. I just think they're cool as hell, and I've wanted one for a while. Many of the ones I've seen on the market have been thrown together imports or ridiculously expensive pre-ban guns. This one was the best of both worlds; well built and affordable. Couldn't believe my good fortune. I threw it in the trunk and zipped back up north towards home, giddy like a little girl.

I stopped briefly at Rudy's BBQ in Roundrock to pick up some Jalapeno sausage and creamed corn. Mmmmmm! I'll eat off that stuff all week long. I needed to be at Mom's by 3:30 so I could put the Ice cream maker together and get it started. Mom makes the cream and then gets me to taste it to see if it is sweet enough.



She pours it into the cylinder, which I then place in the wooden bucket. I attach the motor, pour in the ice and rock salt, and set the thing to turning, refilling the ice and salt as needed.

The routine for doing this is probably in my DNA. I remember when I was a kid and my job was to sit on the thing while my dad cranked it. It was a sign of growing up when I shifted to cranking and took over that job. It was SO COOL when they put a motor on that bastard. The ice cream tastes just as good without the sore arm. Mom's chicken is famous with everyone I know. Has been for as long as I can remember (you may need to put some sort of plastic sheeting over your keyboard to ketch the drool from looking at these pictures... fair warning).



She's got it down to a science. It's actually amazingly easy to make, but it never tastes like moms when I do it myself. What can you say. After about 20 minutes, the ice cream maker shuts down, indicating that the ice cream is frozen, and I bust it open, lift the cylinder up out of the ice, and parcel out the portions.



I've inherited all these duties from dad, who sits back now and waits for his plate. Mom gets the first plate, of course, and dad is second.



He sits in his TV chair and usually feeds a bit of chicken to one of the cats. Their new dog now gets her share along with the others. He's a pushover. Don't know where this guy came from, 'cause the guy that raised me was a cold hearted son-of-a-bitch. I guess we all mellow with time. Sis gets the third plate, and I get the last. There's a method to this madness. Just in case yer thinkin' "Aw, what a nice guy", it turns out the sweetest ice cream is always in the bottom of the bowl. It just so happens. Total coincidence.

After everyone's had their fill, I start the dishes soaking in the sink...



And then its relax, maybe nap, loosen the belt and let the belly expand. The queen retires to her easy chair, and I eventually drive home with my share of the spoils.



A good time was had by all. At one point in the process I was talking with sis about the two upcoming episodes of Rome. She said that we'd probably get to see Mark Antony in the buff, suckin' on a huka (she has the hots for James Purefoy).



I said, innocently, that we'll probably also get to see him fall on his sword. She erupted in outrage. How dare I spoil it for her. I'm like, "didn't you see that movie a dozen times?" I don't think you can really be accused of divulging things that should be common fuckin' knowledge. Jebus, you silly cow. Read a book sometime.

We watched the two episodes back to back, and it was as good as I was expecting it would be. Can't wait for the end, but hate to see it come. I think about how they could continue the series and show us their HBO version of the whole Julian drama. But that's already been done so well in the old BBC series I, Claudius, so I doubt they'll go there.



Too bad. It would be fun to watch our two boys get old and live through some cool history.

Well, that was my week. Now the grind has begun again. It looks like rain all week, and I'm desperately needing to pull weeds and do laundry. And yet here I sit. Well It's late, and it all starts again early in the morning, so enjoy the read, and don't slobber too much on yerself lookin' at the food. Later.