Embracing New Veggies

Posted inColumns, Family, Food

As a kid, I had a tremendous advantage. My parents had already raised seven kids so they didn’t have much willpower by the time I came around.
I didn’t grow up without discipline, but it seems as if they simply gave up trying to maintain an advantage in certain areas of life.
One of these was certainly vegetables. I really had no fear of having to eat my vegetables if I didn’t want to. I don’t really know how all of this developed. It just did. I said I didn’t want to eat peas or corn or anything like that. They didn’t have the energy to fight it. My siblings protested.
As far as I’m concerned, I was merely getting some sort of karmic payback for all the torture I endured from my older brothers. They may have had to eat lima beans, but I got wedgies. Lots of them.

Visiting Washington, D.C.

Posted inFood, Tennis, Travel

My wife and I have had a tradition of traveling for our wedding anniversary. We have had some really great trips, but fell off the wagon the past few years. Since our 15th anniversary is this October, I wanted to resume the fun.

Luckily, we have had a very flexible definition of when an anniversary trip can take place. We headed up to New York in 2007, the last time we took one of these trips, to see a couple days of U.S. Open tennis action. Maria loves tennis, and we had a great time. I thought about repeating that trip, but then we came up with another idea.

One of the tournaments preceding the Open takes place in Washington, D.C. We have never made it down for that event, the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, so we set our sights on making that our 2010 anniversary trip.

We got tickets for evening sessions on Friday and Saturday, booked a hotel room and planned for a little sightseeing. Since D.C. is just about a two-hour drive from our house, it made for a nice little getaway.

Details after the jump

Simply A Burger

Posted inAmerica, Columns, Food
I have a problem. Well, I have a number of problems, but one of them is with my health. Things like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease run…

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Posted inColumns, Food

All good relationships have to come to an end. I know this is for the best, but I thought we had another five to 10 years to go before things fell apart.

I remember how one word came into my head when we first met – hot. I was unsure at first, but eventually managed to learn how to live with the good and the bad.

Like a lot of heartbreak, the end came suddenly. I wanted to try and drag things out, but I knew it would only cause me pain in the end. I had to make a horrible decision.

A Futile Quest

Posted inColumns, Family, Food

One of my biggest problems is that I don’t always learn from my mistakes. Generally this doesn’t affect anyone else, but I inconvenienced the rest of my family on Labor Day when we decided to go out for lunch.

Holiday weekend really provide ample opportunity to do whatever you please. We had already put together a nice weekend of fun, but had done a bunch of it separately.

I thought a nice lunch together would give the three of us a chance to wind down the weekend together. We didn’t see each other much on Sunday so we could spend the time catching up on what happened the day before.

Buffalo Soldier

Posted inFood
Every day on my commute, I drive past a farm in northern Maryland. You can't miss it. It's the one with all the buffalo. Twin Springs Bison Farm not only…

Stop the Madness

Posted inColumns, Food

Sometimes, I don’t know what to make of what goes on in this crazy world of ours. Things just keep heading in the wrong direction.

This has nothing to do with the economy or pig flu or anything like that. I’m talking about chicken here.

Did you hear that KFC has come out with a new ad campaign? They have a new product and want everyone to know about it.

They don’t just want you to know about their new chicken, they want you to know that it’s good for you. Yep, they are advertising Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

I don’t know how to process that information, especially when they have an ad campaign built around the word “unthink.”

Unity Cake

Posted inColumns, Food

With a new administration in place in the nation’s capital, we have heard a lot of talk about unity in recent weeks.

I hope everyone joins me in trying to make this a reality regardless of what political party you belong to or who you chose on Election Day.

And I know just the way to get the unity train started.

Dessert.

Uniting People

Posted inFood
We witnessed a very special piece of history on Tuesday with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the Unites States. He spread his message of change…

Orange Juice Danger

Posted inAmerica, Columns, Food

Maria left for work the other morning, and I had the house all to myself. As I prepare to start a new job and end my short sabbatical, I wanted to do something special.

So I cooked up some turkey bacon. Actually, I just heated up bacon I had cooked and frozen several weeks ago. I knew I would have time to enjoy the food and get the offending smell out of the house before my wife returned at the end of the day.

Something happened, however, after I chowed down. I still felt like something was missing. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed something else to satisfy me. After a minute or so standing in the kitchen and thinking, I realized the answer.

Orange juice.