I finally figured out how to get the pictures off my phone and on to my hard drive,

so I can show you more pictures of mom's chicken and ice cream. I know, here we go again. Hey, it's an institution OK. Ya can't argue with an institution. Actually, I went over there tonight to have Memorial Day dinner with the folks, and forgot my camera, so I had to take these shots with the razor. I touched them up a bit, but I can't believe this phone can actually take nice shots. So, if you're not familiar with the ritual, Mom cooks the chicken...



And makes sure the ice cream mix is ready when I get there. My job is to arrive on time with a big bag of ice, set the ice cream container with the mix inside into bucket, fill it with Ice and get the thing going.



You pour the ice into the thing on each side and add salt periodically. All very complicated and technical. Here's a shot of mom adding a bit of salt after I got the thing going.



You've got to watch the thing to make sure it stays full of ice, and see to it that the water doesn't overflow into the ice cream mix. Eventually the ice cream thickens and the motor winds down till it automatically shuts off. Then, take the motor off the top, pull the ice cream container out of the ice, and pop the tip.



The end result is well worth the effort. I know, you've seen it all before. That's OK, You don't need to eat any of this. VERY fattening. Really bad for ya. That's OK, I'll take your share.



Ha! You know, as much as I go on and on about this stuff, you'd think we have it all the time, but we really don't. Only about five or six times a year. There's always a lot left over. Too bad you guys couldn't be there. OK, I'll stop.

As far as the other shots off the phone are concerned...



Here's a great shot of dad and their new little yippy dog. Total lap schnauzer. The pooch ran away from the neighbors across the street and my folks took her in. The neighbors are cool with it. Not a Pug, but she's a sweetie.



Here's a shot of dad at the Chinese food place we go to every Friday. Now that I know how to use this thing, I'll be able to post all sorts of things off the cuff. Should be fun. You'll get to see actually how boring and predictable my life has become.

New classes begin tomorrow, and I'll be busy again, but no early mornings for a while. Can't wait. Love the job. A whole new batch of young minds to corrupt. It's a living. Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend. 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.