I Still LOVE Not Camping

In a few days The Big Guy and I taking our "camper" and going on a little vacay.  Because I am what you would call NOT "campy", I am going to re-visit a blog that I wrote a couple of years ago. You will then understand exactly why I love NOT camping. 
     Usually wherever we go shenanigans are sure to follow so hopefully we will have some excitement on this trip and I will have something to write home about.  

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Back in the early days of our married life The Big Guy and I lived in a Sheep Wagon. What’s a sheep wagon, you ask? (See picture above—shake head in disbelief then GASP!) Well, it’s kind of like an old time camper, only smaller…with fewer amenities…and less square footage.
    Inside this little house on the prairie was a bed (slightly larger than twin size), a table that slid out from underneath the bed, a small cast iron stove that had been retrofitted with propane, one small cabinet and one shelf. We also had a tea kettle, a dish pan and a bowl. Water was hauled in and stored in cream cans and rationed as if it was gasoline and WW2 was still going on.

This photo is of the actual sheep wagon that we lived in.

     The summer of ’82 we slept with the door thrown open and the one and only window propped up hoping for enough of a cross breeze to cool off this little easy bake oven that we were calling home. In the evenings we bathed in a nearby creek, and then afterwards had the romantic task of picking leeches off each other. We went to the bathroom anywhere we felt like it. Not having a pot to piss in took on a whole new meaning. In place of TV we watched nightly lightning storms and the rain was our radio. Life was simple. I needed my head examined.

     We spent one winter in the sheep wagon too, which was not so serendipitous. Baths were taken in a dishpan and we literally froze our butts off when having to go outside to use the “facilities”. I was stuck inside the 7' x 12' box, 24-7 and my days were spent painting ceramic mice, which would become Christmas ornaments once I stuck a metal hook through their heads. (This was after my lobotomy, by the way) The up side was that the sheep wagon was so small that it could be heated with the strike of one farmers match. Two matches and we didn’t need sock hats in bed. The propane stove was only used for heating water because when we fired it up the sheep wagon was turned into a sweat box in about thirty seconds.

     I know what you’re thinking…we don’t seem like the type of people who would live like that. Well, all I can say is that we were young and dumb and broke and actually liked being together in small spaces. Also, it was the furnished housing that came with the job. The Big Guy was operating a dozer and scraper and working for a guy who was paying him THE BIG BUCKS! We were practically rolling in dough! So much that we likely could have afforded an actual pot to piss in. Think of it like a year long camping trip—with fringe benefits.

     The job ended a year or so later but the repercussions have been life long. To this day I hate camping, I’m terrified of mice, I have an aversion to arts and crafts and, not surprisingly, I refuse to pee outside. However, this whole experience was a lesson in reliance and commitment. Most young couples develop a trust—meaning that the one in the bathtub isn’t worried that the one with the blow dryer is going to toss it in the tub with them. Ours was different. When one is picking leeches off of the other one’s backside and takes the extra time to double check, it brings a whole new meaning to knowing that your mate “has your back”. We have known that about each other for over thirty years now.

     Those days are now long behind us and no way in hell do I want to spend another night in a Sheep Wagon. Not even for old time sake. There are some things you just don’t have to do twice in your life to be sure that you don’t want to do them again, like poking a hibernating grizzly, juggling chainsaws or bathing with leeches.

     Big and I spent the next 25 years without pitching a tent or unrolling a sleeping bag. We kept the girls a safe distance from s’mores, hotdogs, campfires and any movie that glamorized camping, like The Parent Trap. 

     The thought of sleeping anywhere other than my own bed (or a hotel room) hadn't crossed my mind in years when The Big Guy got a wild hair and decided that we should buy an RV.  I reminded him that I'M NOT CAMPY!  "It won't really be camping," he said, sounding somewhat convincing.  "We'd have a bed and AC and a TV," he continued to sell me the idea. 

     

Our "camper" today....yeah, it's just a wee bit nicer than the sheep wagon of yesteryear.

Ok, so I may have softened a little when I saw the push-button flush toilet and the computer desk. For a moment I thought I heard the chorus of Kumbabya playing in my head, Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya. The heated marble floors were a nice touch, someone’s singing Lord, kumbaya, but I still had my guard up. The two burner gas stove and convection oven made me think, "Yeah, maybe I COULD be campy!" Someone’s laughing Lord, kumbaya. Then I saw the dishwasher! Someone’s smiling Lord, kumbaya. Yeeesssss! THIS is my idea of roughing it!

     “Honey”, I said, “I’ll get the s’mores going while you go turn on that outside flat screen TV.” Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya.

     I love NOT camping!  

 Sitting around the TV, which I gotta admit, kind of resembles a campfire. Is it just me or do you see the resemblance too? Kumbaya, my Lord....

 Here is a link for some gourmet S'more recipes. Break out your old sheep wagon, light up a camp fire and indulge in the goodness of camping! 
 

Bon Appetit Throwdown: Round 7

I know I have totally bypassed Round 6, which is the amazing ribs, but I am going to get on that...and soon.
     In the meantime the August issue is here with a super model on the cover. Well it's really more like a glamor shot then it is a recipe, and in my food obsessed minds eye this is summer perfection.

I've already admitted my tomato addiction and recently I've had a feta fetish so this is like a food fantasy for me. Feta fetish food fantasy, say that three times fast.

Buy this feta cheese if you can find it. It is the best I have ev-ver had. I'm talking so good that I have been buying it in bulk and on a daily basis I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator with a fork in my hand and the door open, eating it right out of the can. If a fork isn't within arms reach my fingers will feed my fetish.

A few days prior I had bought some heirloom tomatoes at the Whole Foods in Colorado and I have fresh oregano in my herb garden, so I put this together minutes after pulling the issue out of my mailbox.
     The cover photo shows it on white bread but I don't stock that exotic ingredient in my kitchen and since I'm thirty minutes away from the grocery store I put it on what I did have on hand and that was a roasted garlic sourdough bread, which I toasted and drizzled with olive oil.  

  
The Lowdown on the Throwdown:

I FREAKIN' LOVED IT! Here's the facts friends; It fueled my feta fetish, fed my tomato fixation and I found it to be fast to fix . It's fresh and fabulous and frankly, I'll probably be force feeding my face all the way to the fat farm!
     

The Liver is Evil and Must Be Punished

I'm not a bartender and I don't play one on TV, but I do love to make cocktails! Wait, I take that back. That's not me. I love to drink cocktails, but really I like someone else to make them for me.

It's hot out and a girls gotta have some cool refreshments if she's gonna knock out a killer dinner every night, right?  And summer is all about cool cocktails so I've spent a fair part of it trying to make a great Key Lime Martini. 

Oliver's Bar and Grill, here in Podunk makes the best one ev-ver, so I asked nicely and the bartender supposedly gave me the recipe but I think either a.) he must be one of those if he told me he'd have to kill me types or b.) he takes his craft very seriously and has already killed a large number of his own brain cells and can't remember the recipe off the top of his head, because mine does not taste anything like his and I've gone through a lot of vanilla vodka trying to replicate it. Douche bag!

      I finally said screw it and began experimenting with my own concoctions, meaning I bought an obscene amount of flavored vodkas, like Key Lime, Wedding Cake, Madagascar Vanilla Bean, Whipped, and on and on, and have been mixing up my liquors like I'm an old lady with dementia and a whole lot of prescriptions. 

I also have a ton a mint in my herb garden so my Wednesday night drinking buddy and I and have been knocking back the mojitos.  My favorite Lodo restaurant, Zengo, makes a killer cucumber mojito, so I got all creative and made a cucumber simple syrup, thinking that had to be the secret. It's not, I know this now because I have since found Zengos recipe, so we will be back on the Mojito train!

And why not take advantage of all the great summer fruits and veggies? The possibilities are endless! The picture above is of a watermelon mojito that Blondie and I recently had at Olivers, and I will say this about it: Do try it at home!

And what about Sangria, you ask?  I'm all about Sangria in summer, and the very best I've ever had is at Firefly on Paradise, in Las Vegas.  They do a red, a white and a sparkling and they are ALL worthy of a teensy case of  cirrhosis.

More later...I just heard the buzzer on my dryer go off and my liver is in there so I better go get it out in case I need it later.

If you are going to punish your liver, may as well do it with Zengos Cuzco Mojita. Check it out under the "Misc. Recipes" tab.


Note: Key Lime Martini and Watermelon Mojito pix are my own amazing photos; Mojito and Sangrias are not. I got them off the net.

The Big Guy Got Crabs

The Big Guy had a birthday a few weeks ago and leading up to it I was racking my brain, wondering just what do you get the guy who has everything?  Well, one of his (and my) all time favorite restaurants is Joe's Stone Crab in Miami, and because we loves us some Stone Crab, I made him up this pretty fabby, artsy-fartsy looking gift certificate.

Because he's a guy, he just looked at the picture and didn't bother to read the fine print to see what it actually said, so he thought we were going to Miami. I know this, not because I'm physic, but because he said, "WE'RE GOING TO MIAMI!?!"  
     "No honey, Miami is coming to us," I told him.

Joe is pretty proud of his Stone Crab and charges about twice as much as the next guy, so I found a company called Incredible Stone Crab and placed an order with them, for ten pounds of delectable jumbo claws.

I then got busy on line and found some of Joe's "secret recipes" for things like their mustard sauce, which is a must have for dipping those claws into. We also love their famous garlic creamed spinach so I found that recipe too, and even Joe's special "Jennie Mashed potatoes." 

(Authors note:  I'll point it out here: Take a look at the picture below; it's from food.com and it's supposedly the recipe for Joe's garlic creamed spinach. Yeah right. There is NO WAY that spinach there came out of a box of "frozen chopped spinach", like the recipe calls for. That is FRESH spinach if I ever saw it! Bet me!)

 

Then I figured out Joe must be a asshole because he is withholding at least ONE MAJOR secret ingredient from his recipes. I know this for a fact because the mustard and the spinach did not taste the same at my house as they did at Joe's. Not one to be out smarted by someone with a degree in assholery, I adapted the mustard sauce and the creamed spinach recipes to make a passable resemblance of the originals. (Take that Joe!)

We then begin to poke Stone Crab down the ole pie holes like we were in a contest or something. I guess because we only had ten pounds of it and a free Key Lime pie to boot, the four of us wanted to make sure we got our fair shares. And boy did we! Mike, Karen and I were also glad that we made the cut on Big's "Three Favorite Peeps List."  Sorry suckers!

I'm not trying to wish you into old age honey, but I can't wait for your next birthday to get here...we might just have to do this every year!
     Whatcha think?
     Looks like a "yes" to me!

♥   Happy Birthday Big Guy!   ♥

By the way, here is a picture of my garlic creamed spinach and you can see it looks NOTHING like the picture of that fraudulent recipe.  I know...I've been to Joe's and in real life his looks much more like THIS, than that photo above. Click on the link above for Joe's recipe, then go ahead and stir in a package (5.2 oz.) of garlic and herb Boursin cheese, the missing secret ingredient...I'm sure of it.

My Death Row Dinner Choice

A few weeks ago I promised to share this recipe for Thai Sweet and Spicy Lemon Shrimp because it is THE BOMB BABY! Ask anyone who has eaten it and they will vouch. I can name names, have my people call your people, whatev, but not since wasabi beurre blanc have I had the urge to hit my vein with a sauce filled needle.

I recently made this for my Thai cooking class "kids", and honestly we could have just filled up on it and been perfectly happy and skipped the other three courses. I know this to be true because the "kids" were face planted in their bowls.

I went all out and had The Know-It-All hit up the Ft. Collins Whole Foods store and Fed X me kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and Thai basil, which are fresh ingredients that I can't get here in Hickville. Those little herbal delights elevated this dish right up near the top of my list ~ you know "The List" ~ my Death Row-Last Meal-Wish List. That one.

NOT on my last meal wish list! I don't even know what all that shit is, but I'd inhale death row gas on an empty stomach before I'd eat that. And what is that funny green, fish head looking thing on the left?  
(FYI, this was my dinner plate at an Island BBQ. It looked like this when I dished it up and I was pretty sure it would look like this when I threw it up, so I did what I do when food looks like zoo animal poop... and that's drink my dinner.)

Oops, sorry about that digression folks....back to my death row dinner story...I'll tell you what else I LOVE about this recipe is that is goes from appetizer to entree with one simple pot of boiling water. And fast! Marinate those shrimp, pop 'em a pan for about two minutes and serve them with a loaf of crusty bread and you'll have an app that will leave you lickin' the plate.

OR...make a little extra of that wonderful sweet and spicy sauce/marinade and cook up some rice or rice noodles and pile it right in the middle of that bowl and ~ waaaallaaaa ~ you have dinner.

Oh...stop it some more...you really don't need to put me on a pedestal/pray for me/send me money/shoes/pay for my botox/tummy tuck/vet bills...Just make the damn dish and tell me you LOVE it!
     Oh, and I ask you...looking at those two pictures, which one do you want to eat if you're about to pass through the Pearly Gates?

Click on the "Seafood" tab at the top of this page to see the recipe and then click on THIS LINK  or THIS ONE  or maybe THIS ONE,  to send me a lovely thank you gift for giving you this wonderful recipe. 

Now, can I get a nurse? I need an IV, stat!