Had an interesting experience this morning. We’re midway through a spell of frigid weather. I woke up about 4:30AM, checked the outside temp and was pleased to note it was 34 or so – not yet freezing. At 8AM it was just about the same and a pan of water outside was predictably not frozen. I assumed we had dodged a bullet since the sun was out bright and you would naturally assume the coldest part of the day was past. I went back out at 10AM and the water was covered with a thin sheet of ice. What’s that all about. Might be a good time for Obama to unhook from Big Al Gore and admit that it’s actually getting colder before it becomes too late. Too late is when even the most casual observer realizes it’s not getting warmer. He could claim he saved the planet from global warming and was moving on to the next big problem. There was a picture on the tube of a Nuke power plant in Jersey closing because of ice in the Delaware River. I looked really closely at that picture and think I spotted a polar bear way off in the corner, clinging to an iceberg.

Although we are still not through the cold spell, I can do an initial assessment on the garden. Tomatoes are history. The peppers were double covered so I can’t see what’s going on under the canopy but I’ll be surprised if they make it. I peaked under one spot where snow peas are planted and they looked ok and I’m hopeful that the cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce will make it. The forecast is for another 4 or 5 days of this frigid weather so anything that survives will be a bonus. I’m not liking the way the leaves on the citrus trees are looking. Way too soon to make a prediction but they definitely were hit. Ditto the elephant ears which I am not sorry to see get hammered.

I hate it that college football is over.

About the Gators. After the Sugar Bowl you have to come to one of three conclusions: (1) Cincinnati was way, way over rated. You got that hint when the odds makers had Florida a 13 point favorite even though the Bearcats were ranked 3rd in the nation and the Gators, 5th; (2) Alabama is really, really good to have beaten the Gators so soundly; or (3) Florida had a seriously off day and is really #1 in the nation. If by some stroke of magic Alabama loses to Texas, we’ll know for sure that (3) is the right answer. The thing that I enjoyed most about the Cincinnati game was the number of pass receivers that Tebow used. Where were these guys all season long? Ditto a couple of the runners especially that sophomore who broke a couple of long runs in the 4th quarter. I had never heard his name once during the season so I’m starting to feel better about prospects next year. I guess the Urban Meyers thing will straighten itself out between now and then. Nancy thinks the heart problem story is bogus and the real problem is that his wife gave him an ultimatum – her or the Gators. If that’s true – chomp chomp Ms Meyers.

And while on the subject of football, I hate the idea of a national playoff system. It will do to college football, what’s happened in the NFL, the NBA and college basketball. That is, reduce the significance of regular season games and go to a strategy of just making the playoffs. In college football, every game is important. In the NFL, for example, once a team has secured a playoff position, they dog it. Keep out good guys to rest and recuperate them for the playoffs. The tail end of the NBA season is exactly the same – for most teams the last month of play is just for exercise and used to rest the starters. The ones that have to play there hearts out to eke out playoff spot are almost always destroyed in their first playoff appearance. There is no incentive at all for teams to win more games after they’ve secured their position – in fact it’s dumb to risk injuries just to win a meaningless game.

College football is full of rivalries that go back, in some cases a hundred years. If those games happen to fall late in the season, as they often do, the intensity of the game can’t help but be reduced if one of the teams is already playoff secure and more worried about keeping healthy for the playoffs than winning a meaningless game. Why would a team ever put together a tough schedule? Why not get out of the conference and become an independent? Does anybody watches college basketball regular season games? It’s all about the playoffs, March Madness – which will soon be expanded from the top 64 teams to the top 100 or more. Most sports fans could list the top basketball schools but couldn’t tell you what conference they were in – especially the small school power houses. Anybody know what conference St. Johns is in; Gonzaga; Temple; UConn; George Washington??? I’d hate that to happen with college football where the conference strength is an important factor and every conference game is important.

It also means that sometimes a Cinderella team will win whether or not they’re the best team in the country by virtue of their full season record and the teams they’ve played. They may be the healthiest team at the end of the season because they haven’t sustained injuries associated with playing the big, physical teams in the SEC, Big 10 etc. Honestly, is there anyone who thinks TCU or Cincinnati, or Boise State is really the best team in the nation?? Best in conference, sure; Best in class, sure; exciting to watch, no doubt; best band; but #1 in the country? I don’t think so. Personally, I’d can the BCS championship and let the fans just argue it out over a couple of brewski’s about which team is the best in the nation. Even with the championship game, nobody ever believes the end result is correct unless you happen to be a fan of the winning team. Take the Texas – Alabama game this year. Every Texas fans knows they would have won if Colt McCoy hadn’t been injured after just a few plays. And every Alabama fan knows that even after spotting Texas two big time scoring opportunities in the first couple of minutes of the game, they still won. Does anybody think that the results of this game really tell us the #1 team in the nation? Hell, everybody knows Florida is better than Alabama, don’t they? And once I saw Boise State’s Orange and Blue colors, I knew TCU was toast. I think Boise State and Florida should now play to determine which team should really be wearing Orange and Blue.

What really gets me is that there are actually bills pending in congress to force a college football playoff series. Orrin Hatch and several others are sponsors – probably Ivy leaguers . Orrin, come on, man up. You’re a Republican. You sound like an ACLU, “that isn’t fair” kind of lib. Please, stay in Utah and write cute songs. Make yourself useful by trying to keep Gitmo operating and keep out of the really big stuff like college football.

I’ve got an idea. How about dividing the country into two groups and have two football seasons. I don’t care how the split is made except it can’t be all the large schools in one and the small schools in another. I suggest dividing the country into four quadrants. Each season you’d rotate among the regions so that in one season the SE plays the SW; In a following season the SE plays the NW and eventually, against the NE. One group plays from Sept to January, the other from January to May. That way we’d have college football all year and they’d be good games. We could designate summer as the bowl or playoff season and sprinkle those games based on regular season results.

The laptop is working out pretty good insofar as toting it off to find high speed internet access. We do that a couple times a month and it usually involves eating at a place set up with wi-fi. But the fastest connection is the Comfort Inn in Deland. They have a big sign out front that says free internet so I have no trouble pulling in and cranking up the laptop. Here’s the question – the sign also says free breakfast. Would we be out of line to go in and check the internet while munching on a bagel???

We are in serious need of some global warming here in north Florida. We have a stretch going of 5 days with daytime highs in the 50’s and nighttime lows in the freezing range. I think it’s the longest stretch of cold weather since the last ice age. I’m thinking of doing a big, smokey, bonfire to create my own localized carbon cloud. Or moving my gas guzzling F-150 up and just have it billow exhaust fumes in the general vicinity of the grapefruit tree. Try that with your Prius. I’ve double blanketed the garden so I’m reasonably comfortable that most, if not all, the veggies will make it. Tomatoes and peppers could be the weak link but the rest of the stuff can handle a bit of cold easily.

This morning I stripped the grapefruit and tangerine trees. If they freeze on the tree, they’re destroyed and right now, they’re at the peak of perfection insofar as sweetness is concerned. Even after eating from the trees since early November, I still picked a couple of bushels. We started converting those to juice and stoke the compost pile with the rinds – 100% utilization. We quit juicing when we filled up all the available containers – 3 gallons worth – and still have maybe another gallon in the queue. We have a dozen or so yellow grapefruit left then a bushel of mixed tangerines and ruby red grapefruits. So this last gallon will be an exotic mix.

I’m waiting for the wind to lay down a bit so I can go troll around for spec’s. They love the cold water. The only negative is that when you catch one you have to grab hold of it and freeze your hands off. Nancy has no interest in riding along while I catch them and have her remove and string them. The whole idea was a non-starter.

Our Christmas trip to NY was a total success. No flight delays in either direction and a fun time with Chris and Jamie. Other than the fact that it was incredibly cold, we managed to spend a day just walking around the city, two trips to Harold’s Deli and a visit to Marie and Eddy’s on Staten Island. We left with full suitcases and returned with full and even heavier suitcases. We found Wegman’s – a super market on the order of a Whole Foods – and loaded up with pasta, sauces, and many other items we can’t get in Florida. We were also loaded with Origins product and I picked up a couple of guaranteed indelible pens for my garden markers. If we’d have stayed another day we would have had to buy more luggage. As it was we had a case of wine shipped home.

The first trip to Harold’s yielded a pastrami sandwich that was about a foot high and included enough pastrami for several sandwiches at lunch plus enough for dinner that night. People at the next table ordered an X-large pastrami which was more than double the size of ours. They also had a gigantic salad platter and were feeding 5 adults and 3 kidlings. My guess is they still had enough left over to eat for the remainder of the week. There’s a great pickle bar that includes stacks and stacks of bread so you can break down your monster sandwich into as many smaller ones as you want. But the surprise was the pancakes another customer ordered. No exaggeration, each cake was about 30” in diameter and 3” thick. The platter was 3 of those pancakes. We also split a piece of cheesecake 5 ways and struggled to finish even that. The second trip netted a BLT which fed 4 of us. It was made with several pounds of crisp bacon, a head of lettuce and several sliced tomatoes. I could go on and on about watching what the other customers ordered. I knew about the sizes but what I didn’t appreciate was just how good the food would be. Without a doubt, the pastrami and cheesecake were the best I have ever eaten – anywhere, anytime.

We were going to eat at a restaurant in the city which Chris said was the best Italian in the city but we approached it without reservations since we just were not sure where we would be at any particular time. It was on Sunday and when he went in to see how long the wait would be, they told him the first opening was on Tuesday. So much for Carmine’s.

All in all, the experience was good for me since I had never really been back to an inner city residential area since we left Philadelphia in 1952. Jersey City is exactly the same environment as South Philadelphia where I grew up. It was a time warp for me. I for sure wouldn’t want to live there but an occasional visit would be fun. Nancy had an Aunt and Uncle that lived in Jersey City and, as it turned out, not too far from where Chris lives. She remembered the address, of course, so we drove by to see if it was still there. It sure was and she knew it immediately. The facing of the building had been changed but you could tell that the neighborhood was exactly as it was 60 years ago.

One good thing about it being so cold in NY, it conditioned my body for winter in Florida. We’re having it this coming week. The forecast is for us to have the longest stretch of cold weather in 5 years. Of course our low temp is not as cold as the high’s we experienced in NY, still, I feel better prepared. You also have your clock reset with respect to traffic. I think the traffic in Orlando is unbearable, and it is, but compared to NJ/NY………………. One thing that jumped out at me is that the powers that be must spend close to zero on road repair. Clearly the roads, in general, are the worst I have ever driven on and there is not the first sign of any road work going on. NY/NJ are notoriously the highest taxing states in the country but they sure aren’t using it for road maintenance.

Go Gators. Not sure what to expect. The urban Meyer thing is strange. There was a strong local rumor that if Meyer decides to go away, Utah’s coach is in the crosshairs. Sorry about that.

In closing, hit the lake as soon as we got home and snagged a quick dozen spec’s. Nice coming home present.

We’re having a different kind of Christmas this year. Chris works in retail so he’s a busy camper right up until Christmas day – which also happens to be his birthday. So we haven’t had a Christmas together with him in quite a few years. We decided last year that we would break with our tradition this year and spend the Holiday with him. Tom and his family also decided on something new and headed west. They flew to Salt Lake and will do a few days with Tina’s parents and then drive to San Francisco to do the big day with Tina’s birth mom and the extended family on that side. I’m certainly looking forward to being with Chris but dread the thought of traveling, especially by air, to the Northeast. The airport horror stories are being reported 100 times a day now just to torture me. My thin, Florida blood will no doubt get a serious thermal shock. Luckily I still have plenty of Utah winter gear and I’m sure Chris is stocked with internal anti freeze – maybe in the form of scotch.

Woke up Monday morning to some new visitors. Not sure if they arrived late Sunday or early Monday but the robins are back. The arrival of the robins is not a subtle event in which you spot one or two more every day but rather one day there are none and the next hundreds. And it’s not like you could miss them. They are flitting from tree to bush and the woods are just alive with them. Sounds good but I’ll check the garden this morning with a degree of trepidation. Robins are voracious feeders and they will gobble up tiny new garden plants. Everybody has a mental image of robins as worm eaters. No doubt they do but they also feed on vegetation and whatever kind of berries they can find. We have a local, wild bush called a beauty berry bush. They are loaded with small, reddish purple berries this time of year. They will be stripped in a short time. Ditto the water oaks which have an itty bitty black berry – gone. The parking area by the house is covered with pine needles which the robins are pulling apart, I guess looking for bugs and seeds. None of this was happening yesterday morning so there’s no mistaking when they’ve hit Pierson on their migration. I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that their arrival comes along with the biggest winter storm in decades from the Carolina’s to New England. It’s cold here – not quite frosty, but too cold for me – probably feels ok to the birds compared to what they escaped from.

I covered the tomatoes and peppers just in case. The peppers have been producing in abundance for the past 3 months but the tomatoes are a couple weeks from ripening. I’m hoping that we don’t get any serious cold weather that can’t be handled with the light crop covers I bought last year – at least not until we’ve picked a bushel or so of the tomatoes. I yanked out the last of the green bean plants and picked off the last couple of pounds of beans. They would have continued producing for a few more weeks but as tender as they are, chances are we’d lose whatever beans were still on the plants. That plus I have a dozen new broccoli plants waiting for a space and they just fill out where the beans were. The other thing I yanked out were a variety of peppers called Volcano. It’s a variety of Hungarian wax peppers. They were just too hot for me but my neighbor said he loved them hot. So last week I suggested he pick them clean or at least get a few bags full. The next day he said the peppers were so hot his wife had a bad reaction just handling them. He still cooked up a batch and claimed he was having trouble too. The plants were beautiful and productive but out they came. I popped them in the compost pile – maybe they will ward off bugs next season. I replaced them with beets and onions. Space in the garden is too valuable to waste on something that’s not great tasting.

About 8 years ago we met a co-worker of Tommy’s from the west coast who had decided to quit life as an engineer and become a chef – actually open his own catering business. He visited Tom in Salt Lake and prepared a complete meal one day which included the most fabulous cole slaw I had ever before, or since, tasted. It was actually a vinegar and oil based pepper and cabbage slaw compared to the traditional mayo based cabbage slaw. We were smart enough to capture the recipe, put it away and forget about it for all these years. I was looking over the garden last week, saw all this new cabbage coming along and wondered about how many different ways there could be to deal with it and that slaw flashed back in my head. Nancy was able to find the recipe and I did the honors using all the stuff from the garden. It was as good as I remembered it and just the right touch to set off the fried speckled perch.

Simon is on the Lake Mary newspaper staff and, of course, we have a subscription. I may be biased but the paper is really good and I usually spot a few articles that entertain and educate me. In the latest issue Simon and his girl friend Julia did a consumer awareness piece in which they compared the holiday season milk shakes at Chic Fil A and Steak and Shake. It was well done and they came to the conclusion that the Steak and Shake offering fell just a bit short. I think these dedicated journalists should extend the survey and not just stop with the holiday season. Add some real tough competition such as Brewsters, Baskin Robbins, and Cold Stone. Tough work but somebody has to do it. I’ve never been in Chick Fil A but after reading this, no doubt I’ll have to give it a try

So far December has been perfect for the garden. We had a few cold snaps in November that put down the voracious critters and it’s been a great combination of sunny and overcast days with just enough rain to get the job done. Usually Dec is a dry month but we’ve had good moisture so far. We’re now picking 100% of our salad, and have all the green beans and cabbage we can possibly eat. Next week we will be adding broccoli to the mix and cauliflower the week after that. So from now on for the next 4 months, 100% of our veggies will be fresh from the garden. Snow peas and carrots added in January so we’ll have a nice variety.

Another successful spec fishing day. I read in the paper that little yellow jigs were the trick and it just so happens that I have a couple. In fact, I think I have a couple of everything that could possibly catch a spec. I trolled around with an old standby and caught nothing. So I clipped off the little red rubber minnow imitation and tied on a yellow jig. Caught one about 10 minutes later; then another on a little wobbly spoon. Between those two lures, I caught nine nice fish in about an hour. That’s 3 meals worth. The really good news is that I caught them along a 1200-1500′ stretch of shoreline not too far from my dock. Trolling that stretch I think I encountered three different schools of fish, maybe 100′ off the lily pads. The way it works is that those schools will gradually move towards the pads and shore where they eventually deposit their eggs. The trick is finding the schools because once you do that, they will be there dependably for the next couple of months- at least through February. Last year I didn’t locate them until late January so I’m way ahead of schedule this year. Good for me; not so good for them. Wait, late breaking spec story – got the biggest one I ever caught, anywhere last night. Tom was with me so I have a witness to history. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen one this big, let alone catch it. So in the last couple of days I’ve caught the two biggest spec’s I’ve ever seen. You have to assume I’m not snagging the biggest one in the lake so I’m wondering just how big the biggest, oldest, meanest spec in the lake is. I’m willing to lay claim to being the spec king for Lake Inez right now. And since only me and the guy next door fish the lake for spec’s, chances are I’m going to hold that title for the foreseeable future.

I’ve got a new time killer. I go through Sudoku books at a fairly good pace, compliments of my bride. This week she brought home something new – a puzzle book called Ken Ken. Just what I needed, another time killer. I let it sit on the table for a few days then decided to try it. Big mistake. Ken Ken combines light arithmetic with Sudoku to step up the challenge – or so they would have you believe. I’m challenged enough by the top level Sudoku, and at first glance, I was fairly sure I didn’t need the added complexity. I walked through the sample puzzle and decided to stick a toe in the water. After about 10 puzzles labeled moderate, I tried one labeled demanding, and then onto “beware, very challenging”. To me they were decidedly easier than Sudoku puzzles with the same labeled degree of difficulty. They are like Sudoku with clues all along the way. But at the same time, I liked them better so now what.

I enjoyed the sight of Obama returning from the global warming conference on Air Force One landing in the biggest blizzard to hit DC since the 20’s. Wonder what was going thru his mind. Either that the whole warming thing is a bunch of crap or that maybe a bit of global warming wouldn’t be all that bad.

And touching lightly on politics, the people of central Florida elected a wack job for a congressman last election. I cracked up to learn that one of his constituents has a web site named mycongressmanisnuts.com. Making it even more delicious is that this nutcase is suing the author. If he hadn’t, I guess it never would have made the news and given me all this pleasure. In case you are wondering the congressman’s name is Alan Grayson.

To complete the shed tunnel story. In Florida you never know what’s in a tunnel. The creature that dug it may be long gone and a new resident finds it just to his liking. I was hoping it wasn’t a gopher turtle hole but that’s for sure what it looked like. Gopher are now called an endangered species and if there was one in there, he was probably even more endangered than the average turtle. Not really, I would have very quietly moved him to a better location. I think if the enviro wackies find out you have a gopher on your property, you have to go to extraordinary measures to remove them – even going as far video taping the removal and relocation process. Before I got too close I cut a 12′ bamboo shoot and pushed it through from one side to the other. Nothing came running, slithering, or crawling out and I didn’t feel any impediments so I assume it was currently unoccupied. My neighbor had a load of coquina rock delivered a few months back for a project at his house so I went over and picked up a few small, tunnel size rocks and a wheel barrow full of coquina sand. Filled and plugged as best I could and reset the paving squares. We’ll see.

Went to the dermatologist the other day for a regular 6 month check-up. The doc walks in the room where I’d been waiting for 20 minutes and says “do you use a sun blocking moisturizer to take care of your sun damaged face?” I’m looking at him thinking this guy is in serious need of some sun damage. He must take a bath in SPF 1000 twice a day. Looks about a quart low on blood to me. I break the bad news to him, for about the 20th time, that I’m out in the sun about 16 hours a day and that no, I don’t use any skin moisturizers, sun blocking or otherwise. I sometimes wear a John Deere or Redman ball cap; does that count??? He just nods in that knowing fashion. I was going to ask him if he had a vitamin D problem but decided not to carry on the conversation any farther. Then he says hmmmmm, has that spot on your face right next to your nose gotten bigger? I said, what spot on my face. He gets the mirror and points it out and asks how long it’s been there. I said I think I was born with it. He said he didn’t like it and would cut it out. He does the cutting and then starts scraping. After it’s over he says that the way it felt when he was scraping it, it was most likely a hereditary benign whatchamacallit. That’s what I said, I was born with it. Honestly I had never noticed it before but then I don’t really stare at my face to see what’s new. Probably needed a payment for the Lexus.

The words I fear most from Nancy are “xxxxxx is leaking”. The xxxxx can be anything – sink, toilet whatever. From experience my head immediately goes to a worst case scenario where I spend hours and hours cramped up underneath something trying to get plumbing apart and back together without doing serious harm and eventually ending with a professional plumber and an $800 bill. Nothing I ever do creates the leaks so it doesn’t seem right to me that I end up with headaches, backaches, scraped and cut hands. Nancy doesn’t respond well to suggestions such as “just use the other bathroom and maybe it will fix itself”. Or, “can’t you just use the bathroom sink to rinse off the dishes?” I’ve had three plumbing events in the past two weeks – a leaky toilet, leaky plumbing under the kitchen sink, and a bathtub stopper malfunction – way past my limit. Luckily I was able to deal with the last two in just a few minutes and was smart enough to call my neighbor when the leaky toilet was heading in the wrong direction quickly.

Bread bomb. We tried a variation on the Dutch oven, no knead bread. Instead of regular flour, we tried old fashion, 100% whole wheat flour. We prepare the dough in the evening and let it rise overnight. Only this time it didn’t rise very much, reminiscent of the very first loaf we made. Turns out we used the regular yeast instead of the fast rising yeast called for in the recipe and which turned our earlier failures into success. Still we cooked it at the same temp and the same time to see how it would taste. When we cut it, it was clearly not cooked – brown and gooey inside. I’m not sure if using the faster yeast would impact the cooking time or not but next time we try the whole wheat flour, think we’ll cut it a bit longer. I think that’s why it felt like a bomb – it weighed about 3 pounds because all the moisture was retained instead of being cooked off.

As long as I’m discussing bread, hit a real winner this weekend. We occasionally stop at the Fresh Market in Longwood to pick up specialty items. That’s where we got the whole wheat flour. The past two times there I spotted an item that had my name written all over it – cheese and jalapeno corn bread. I’ve always resisted but this time I succumbed and put it in the basket. Probably a big mistake because it is totally awesome. No doubt it will be popping into the basket with way too much frequency. Good thing we don’t live near that market or our grocery bill would be triple what it is now and I’d be 100 pounds heavier in no time at all.

Spec’s finally turning on. As expected, it took a few cold snaps and a full moon in Nov to get things rolling. I had been going out for an hour or so for about a week and each time managed to get only one fish. I’d string it up and then when I got back to the dock with only one on the stringer, let it go. Last night there were 5 on the stringer. So far the ones I’m getting are what I’d call medium size. Last year they were huge and since this is so early in the season, perhaps the big ones are still holding back. I caught them on a small wobble spoon and a plain little bitty rubber minnow. They both seemed about equal in production. My killer lure has been a micro small beetle spin with a green/natural minnow tail. I would have been fishing with that but got it hung up on an underwater something or other and lost it shortly after starting. The wobble spoon is a new addition to the arsenal and I’m fairly well pleased with the results.

Aside from the revelations that the climate scientists have been fudging the data to show global warming, here’s an example of why I never believed a word of it. Two days ago all the forecasters were showing our temp to drop to the low 40’s today. Yesterday they revised that to the low 50’s. Actual morning temp, 67. Not a clue. Even with modern equipment, satellites, and doppler radar – the forecasting models have an accurate horizon of about 20 minutes.

Had another wildlife moment. I have a small, 8×10, plastic shed housing yard equipment. About 5 years ago I set a series of 2’x2′ x 2” concrete squares in front of the shed as an entry way and to make moving the heavier equipment easier. I had noticed a couple weeks back that one of the squares was a bit wobbly and sinking enough to make opening and closing the door a bit difficult. So I pulled it up with the plan to refill the sand that had eroded out. It hadn’t eroded – it was dug out. Under the square was a smooth, cylindrical opening about 8” in diameter that headed back under the shed. Clearly it was a critter made hole. I walked around behind the shed and sure enough, there was the entrance hole and a mound of sand. So the tunnel runs about 10′ right under the center of the shed. I’m not sure if the critter who dug it still considers it home and I really don’t have a good way of filling it back up but if I don’t do something, I’m guessing that it will cause the floor of the shed to give it up. I’d like to run a hose under there and shoot some water through to force out anything calling it home but I’m afraid that would aggravate the erosion problem and maybe cause the shed floor to collapse. If I block up both ends and there’s a guy in there, he’ll just dig out a new tunnel and further undermine the shed. damn. This wildlife moment is threatening to turn into a natural disaster.

Down in flames – And I don’t think next season will be dream season. It wasn’t a big surprise since the Gator’s had squeaked through a couple of games that they should have dominated. I never thought they were really the top team in the nation. No doubt the Gators will be in a “rebuilding” phase – hopefully not for the next 10 years. It was fun while it lasted. If Simon ends up in Florida our focus will shift from the football team to the marching band anyway. yeah, right.

I was saved from having to watch the whole game by the Astor Christmas boat parade. We were invited to watch the parade at our friend’s place on the St. Johns River. I had planned to skip the parade and watch the game but at half time I was pretty sure the game was going to get ugly and we headed off for the river. Bill had a nice bon fire going so we watched the parade in high style. There were maybe a dozen boats decorated this year, fewer than usual, but those that were decorated were really done up big time. There was one setup that was by far the best which actually had 3 boats hooked together, each decorated to look like a train car. The first the engine, then a passenger car, then the caboose. Since it was pitch black, they looked exactly like a train with the lighted wheels on each turning in sync. No sign that they were actually boats. The bon fire was a nice touch as we transitioned from fall to Winter last night.

As it turned out, we were destined to be at the boat parade. Another couple joined us who we had never met before. We got to talking and it turns out that the wife was an old childhood friend of the Robison’s – our hosts – and the guy was her second husband, a dentist from Michigan. The gal was originally from Daytona with connections in Cocoa and knew a classmate of mine, Wilt Wagner. Wilt and the Robison’s are cousins, something we learned after meeting the Robison’s a few years ago. We talked a bit further and she and her first husband had worked at the Cape for a while. I mentioned that I too had worked at the Cape for General Dynamics. Wow, her first husband, now deceased, also worked for General Dynamics but not at the Cape. She thought it was GD Casselberry. We corrected that to Longwood and proceeded to dig deeper since I worked at GD Longwood for 10 years. She said her husband Roger was an accountant so I figured he worked in the Accounting dept but she didn’t respond to any of the names I mentioned. She said he worked for an Englishman but couldn’t remember his name. Nancy suggested Dick Axtell and she lit up like a candle. That was him, that was him. At that point I very vaguely remembered her husband, Roger Griswold, He was not an accountant by title but rather a project planner which she confirmed. She had nothing kind to say about Axtell, who I guess drove Roger to eventually quit. So in the course of 20 minutes we found that our paths had loosely crossed in Cocoa during our high school years and again 15 years later in Longwood.

If the Gators had been ahead at half time, chances are we would have stayed home to watch the game and not gone to the parade so I’m sure this was destined to happen and I feel a little responsible for the loss. Sorry Tebow.

Well I guess we got a good comparison between the relative strength of the ACC and the SEC this past weekend. Florida was certainly favored over Florida State so that was no surprise but the two best teams in the ACC were matched up against two very mediocre SEC teams. Clemson was soundly defeated by South Carolina; ditto with Georgia over Georgia Tech. Sorry Utah.

Nancy made another loaf of the no knead bread. I mention this only because it ended up totally different than tries one and two. I think I had mentioned that the recipe called for fast acting yeast but in the first two attempts, she had used regular yeast. The first loaf looked like a pancake which she attributed to using outdated yeast; the second, which seemed perfect to me, used regular yeast but this time with a current use by date. The third loaf used fast acting yeast. You could tell the difference fairly quickly. After a few hours the dough had risen quite a bit higher than the earlier attempts; by the next morning it was way, way higher. We put this back into the iron dutch oven fearing it might rise over the top of the pyrex oven. It came out beautifully. Maybe 50% higher than the second batch. Taste and texture, perfect. Compared to the earlier tries, the bread was lighter and the crust maybe a tad thinner. I think over time we’ll play with other types of flour, maybe try for a whole grain wheat bread.

Another hurricane season ended this week – the wimpiest for twenty some odd years. I’m, puzzled. Clearly the warmer the climate, the more active will be the weather, right?? And I haven’t heard anything about global warming abating, have you?? hmmmm. What’s that all about? They said the ocean temps were slightly cooler which accounts for the modest storm season. So let me get this right, the earth is 2/3 ocean, they’re cooling but the globe is warming. Wow! Next thing will be hearing is that the Polar Bears are really not endangered. They were just hiding out on the other side of the berg when the census taker came around.

We’re getting the first warning shots that there is a winter in the offing. A couple of nights in the mid 40’s brings us back to reality. I’m hoping the winter ends up as passive as the hurricane season with a few hints of frost but none of the real stuff. Just to be on the safe side I planted some Brussels Sprouts this year. I hate them but they really love cold, cold weather so that takes the sting out of frozen tomatoes. Plus I spotted a recipe for Brussels Sprout casserole that shreds the little guys and loads them up with cheese and bacon. My theory is that with enough cheese and bacon, anything tastes ok. (A little side note, did you know that the correct spelling for Brussels Sprouts has the “s” at the end of Brussell. The spell checker kept telling me I was spelling it wrong so I went to the dictionary and sure enough, the “s” is necessary.) Wonder if we’ll have nice red tomatoes in late December or fried green tomatoes sooner?

The compost pile takes on different flavors in different seasons. Right now it’s getting a distinct citrus and cole mixture. Cole is anything in the cabbage/broccoli family. The citrus is mostly grapefruit hulls after the juice has been extracted and converted to greyhounds. I haven’t noticed that the garden does any better or worse based on the changing flavors. In a month or so, George will start dumping his fireplace ash onto the pile, no doubt giving it a hint of burnt oak. I can hear the worms now discussing it amongst themselves, reminiscent of people visiting a vineyard and talking wine. Ahhh, just the right blend of Ruby Red and ash with an undertone of Chinese cabbage. Pure delight.

Picked up something new this week. Tina’s parents visited for Thanksgiving and John brought a bread recipe with him. He made it for us last Sunday and we were making a batch within 20 minutes of getting home that night. It makes a really crusty loaf, ideal for dunking in olive oil. The beauty of it is that it requires no kneading – just mix the simple ingredients and it’s ready to cook; well, after 12-18 hours of sitting. Cooking is a bit different. You put the dough in a cast iron pot (Dutch Oven) with a tight lid and cook in a 475 degree oven. You can pick up a Dutch Oven at any good camping store – Bass Pro Shop, Gander Mountain, Cabelas. Our first attempt was a flop (literally) which Nancy attributed to using bad yeast but I think the problem was that the mix was too wet. The next batch used fresh yeast, a tad more flour and a pyrex equivalent of the cast iron pot – the recipe said that was OK. It came out beautifully and tasted perfect. I’m a crusty bread kind of guy and this met all my expectations and then some. Anybody that wants the recipe – google no-knead bread.

On the way to Thanksgiving dinner, Nancy decided that the green bean casserole needed more onion rings so we stopped at the Winn Dixie in Deland to pick up a can. I was dispatched in for that one item. The store was quite busy but when you looked around it wasn’t a typical crowd. Probably 90% of the customers were guys walking around hunting for one or two specific items and maybe half of them were standing in front of something talking on a cell phone. I understood immediately what was going on and could hear several of the conversations. One guy was saying he was “standing
exactly where you told me but the stuff was not there. No, I’ve not asked anybody”. Another was saying “the can says Beef gravy and it’s brown. I don’t think this will work, do you?” I scanned the signs over the rows looking for one that said onion rings. I found a sign that seem to come the closest and headed down, scanning both sides. Nope. Two more rows when I heard the guy confessing that he hadn’t asked for help. I went up to a cashier and asked her. She directed me to the row I had first traveled but gave me a hand motion of picking a can off the top shelf on the left side. I went back and only scanned the top row and sure enough, onion rings. The good thing is that because most people were buying one or two items, the checkout process was smooth. The clerk asked for my Winn Dixie card and I told her I didn’t have one – which was true, I didn’t have one. She then asked for my number. I asked her how I could have a number if I didn’t have a card. She gave me a look like she was talking to her 5 year old and said “phone number” and left off the dummy comment she wanted to add on. Sure enough, we have a Winn Dixie card and it knocked $1 off the $4 item. I really felt good when I got back to the car and was able to report that not only did I find the onion rings, but got them with a 25% discount. I know Nancy was sitting there thinking she was going to have to jump in and rescue the whole mission.

The dinner was everything you want in a Thanksgiving dinner – good food and good company. This was an extra special year because the holiday fell on little Tommy’s birthday.

Insofar as the food was concerned, in my opinion, there was one standout item, I’m not a dessert guy and almost always just skip it, but the apple pie caught my eye because it looked just a bit different so I decided to try it. Wow! It absolutely was different than any apple pie I’ve ever had and by far the best. Turns out it was made by Simon and Julia from an old recipe in her family. It was not as sweet as usual and not so wet and gooey – which I guess is what appealed to me. Seemed almost strudel like. I’m going to have to get the recipe and have Nancy try her hand at it. I’m guessing that because it was different, it will have folks that love it and others that will prefer the more traditional pie. They can just have smaller slices – that works for me.

And I’m a little biased but I think my cranberry sauce was exceptional this year. I added a few sections of Honeybelle orange this year to give it just that little extra zing.

Analyzing Tiger gate. I think they concoct a story about sleep walking or total memory loss after the crash. But what I see is the lady Wood, Tigress, taking after el Tigre with a 9 iron. He makes it to the car but she connects with the back window on the last swing. He’s big time escaping at this point and backs into the fire hydrant. She’s closing in again for the kill shot when he crashes into the tree. At this point she realizes that maybe she’s over the top and drags him out of the car and starts wiping up the blood. Frantic call to the lawyer and PR guy. Cops arrive. Now you see why I never took up golf.