Fireworks

Andy and I have been busy this summer and it's bee a lot of fun. Here are some highlights, from oldest to newest.

Fireworks are more legal in Tennessee than they are in Minnesota. Which I feel makes my neighborhood feel like Kabul on the 4th of July. I've never heard so many explosions before without the sound of police sirens immediately after. In the spirit of this new found ability to set fire to large explode-y things, Andy purchase a couple of large fireworks. I went for the traditional sparklers. Video to come.

Many of you may know that Andy and I enjoy cooking, and cook we will! But did you also know that we now make beer? So far we have 2 bad batches and one going to be good batch currently carbonating. I thank my brother for passing his great beer making desire on to me and hopefully one day we will be able to reward you with a beer that won't give you lead poisoning! It takes a lot of time to make beer, but it's interesting when you do stuff. My favorite part is capping the bottles. Crimp crimp! I could do that all day and not get tired of it.

This is our set up for boiling the beer.

The Natchez Trace is a super long roadway that brushes up to the Nashville area, and it's really good for bike rides. Andy and I thought it'd be a great idea to drive out there and ride around at noon when the temperature was about 100 degrees. It was a short ride. There is a super pretty bridge that we rode over, which gave us an excuse to stop and rest.

The Nashville equivalent to St. Paul's Science Museum (The Adventure Science Center) had an evening where adults (21+) could enjoy the exhibits... free of small children. I had a blast, as this sort of event has been a dream of mine for a long time. I ran, I climbed, I pulled levers, I learned how blood flows, and when I got tired, I drank free beer. It was awesome.

Recently Andy and I have been canning a lot and one of his coworkers invited people over to his farm to pick wild blackberries. Small fruits, such as blackberries and raspberries, are quite expensive at the market; and I've been wanting to make jam ever since we got our canning cookbook. So this was the perfect opportunity to collect enough (free!) blackberries to make an inexpensive jam.

As a Minnesotan (I think that's my excuse) I didn't realize that one can get chiggers from picking berries. I was under the impression that chiggers were in weedy parts of lakes (and so agrees everyone from MN that I've talked to about it). That is wrong. Chiggers are horrible. I wanted to scratch my skin off for three days straight. Plus, it's been over a month now and not all the bite marks are gone. Lesson learned, wear bug spray when going into tall grassy places.

White water rafting seems like something people put on "bucket lists" and if I had such a list, it would now be checked off. We went rafting with a group from Andy's work and it was loads of fun. My face hurt from smiling so much, it was that fun. Andy was a little nervous about it, but I didn't think it would be dangerous until we rode up the route in the bus to get to the launching point. Then I didn't understand how we'd get back down the river all in the raft. We managed and no one fell out! I highly recommend this activity (with a properly trained guide of course).

That night Andy and I stayed in Blue Ridge, GA and saw the sights the next day. It was really pretty in the mountain-y area.

In addition to all this good clean fun I went to the Nashville Brewer's Festival. I've never been to an event like this before and it was super fun. We got to try all sorts of beer. The worst part of it was that I couldn't try all the beers I wanted to, and I kind of forgot a lot of beers that I tried. But if you talk about them, then I remember. There were a lot of good beers there, local and national kinds. I learned a lot about the benefits of having a a refreshing beer in 95 degree heat!

More to come! Andy and I have also taken in a stray kitty we call Buster. And since people talk too much about their pets, there's another post to come about the joys of having a kitty. Also I have ideas for a book post, kind of like my brother. But my books are different!

The Life and Times without Cheese

I've never had a test that said I was lactose intolerant. But my brother might be. And one of my most popular blog entries includes the very searchable phrase "horrid farts." I know, this isn't what you want to read about while you snack in front of the TV. So I'm warning you now, it doesn't get better.

In that blog post in September 2007, I decided to lay off the milk products for awhile. Well, I can guarantee you that didn't last long. Andy supported me while I purchased something strange like almond cheese, which was a disaster in making cheesy chips. The almond "cheese" solidified so hard immediately after coming out of the microwave that we had to bang the chips on the plate to get them apart. Cheese substitutes just don't cut it. Much to the detriment of my bowels.

I've since realized that I'm addicted to cheese. I LOVE cheese, cream, butter, yogurt, and sour cream. Somehow, I have managed to put soy milk instead of regular milk in my cereal and my mornings are much more manageable. But I haven't gotten to the point where I don't eat cheese. It's too hard. Everything delicious has cheese on it. Here is a list of delicious things that are best with cheese/dairy: sandwiches, pasta, tacos, cheesy-chips, yogurt with frozen fruit, salads, toast (including garlic cheesy toast), pizza, eggs (and egg sandwiches), corn on the cob dripping with butter, lefse, and ice cream.

Recently though I've been getting terrible stomachaches and they're distracting. I can't concentrate at work and I hold my breath while walking around. And that's no way to live. So with Andy's prodding, I've decided to go cheese free and keep a food journal with my symptoms. Hopefully in 2 weeks I'll be able to not eat dairy and feel like a million bucks. I vowed last night not to have dairy and so far today I've eaten buttered popcorn and had four cheese sauce on my pasta for dinner (though no cheese on top!). We'll see how this goes.

To get my encouragement up, I will make a list of delicious things that don't include cheese/dairy. Help me out if I've missed something: fried rice, noodles (like for holidays), cranberry sauce, sliced pears, olives, applesauce, salads are OK without cheese, beer, whiskey, chicken, bacon, tomatoes (are still delicious without mozzarella), carrots, green beans (French cut!), tea, tofutti cuties are good, and actually tofu ice"cream" in general is good.

Here goes!

Food and Fun!

Yesterday I made the most delicious lunch that I probably have ever made. Check it out:

It is prosciutto wrapped asparagus with focaccia, olive oil dipping sauce and some Honeyweiss! I've never had prosciutto before and it's delicious! It's like very thin bacon without being fried. It was really peppery and had more flavor than a little strip like that should.

Andy has been doing some cooking as well. He's become our bread master and we rarely buy packaged bread anymore. Here are some of his delicious creations:

Braided bread and pretzels! They were delicious.

We've also been planting stuff and it's been growing. Here is what our parsley seedlings look like:

We also went to the Green Expo last weekend and had a lot of fun! We tried out segways, looked at wind turbines and electric cars. We saw a demonstration for very expensive pans but ate lots of delicious food. It was a fun event. We even saw Don Shelby! Without his pinstripe suit, he looked sort of grumpy. I was awestruck anyway.

I'm a wind turbine, love me!

Andy is a wind turbine too.

An array of home-use wind turbines in front of Sweet Martha's cookies.

Trying out the segway. I didn't fall flat on my face like our former president.

Andy on the segway. He was a pro, but still a little stiff.