Beverage du Jour - 12 February 2015

What could be more Canadian than this?

Imagine, if you will, a Soda Stream machine, and freshly carbonated litre bottle of cold water, and a bottle of delicious pure maple syrup.

What happened next can only be described as delicious.
Maple pop.
Yes, maple pop.

Maple syrup has about the same sweetness as the various flavoured syrups made for the Soda Stream (I tasted a bit. You're welcome.), so I simply added the same amount as would have come from one of those bottles and, voila!

Tasty good and quite Great White Northern.

Cheers!

The FCC Stole My Broadband!

All of a sudden, my internet connection seems so slow.
Until recently, I was thrilled with the speed of my downloads, the steady streaming of audio and video, even the speed of ftp uploads.
Now, I'm relegated to the other side of the digital tracks, the digital boondocks as it were.

Of course, nothing has actually changed.
The FCC has simply decided that "broadband" means 25Mbps and higher, and I'm no longer on the broadband side of the digital divide.

Fortunately, I'm happy with what I have, and I'm even happier not to have to pay for what they think I need. I can't imagine why I'd need 40Mbps unless I were hosting websites at home in violation of my TOS.

25Mbps? Really? That smacks of creating a controversy where none exists. What are they, political appointees?
Oh. Never mind.
Grr.

Kindle-age du Jour - 24 January 2015

Well, imagine, if you will, my surprise to find that I had neglected to create Kindle versions of two of the books I've published. Perhaps there was even a bit of disappointment mixed into that surprise.

Happily, I've now remedied that situation, and there are Kindle versions of both Bytes Akimbo - Cybersleuth and An Adventure with Guerrillas available for purchase at Amazon (they're also included in the free borrowing program through Amazon Prime).

Please feel free to take a look at them - and perhaps even to purchase one or both. I won't mind at all.

Enjoy!
Charlie

Happy Birthday, Richard Dean Anderson!

Yes, it's the birthday of the man who portrayed everyone's favourite secret agent - Angus "don't call me Stacey" MacGyver.
A great show (despite the laser error in the pilot), and one that still holds up.

How fun was it to see RDA as Jack O'Neill on Stargate SG-1 when Sam told him they had to MacGyver the stargate to get it to work.

It's only a couple months until it's MacGyver's birthday, so make sure you're carrying a paperclip and a Swiss Army Knife on March 23rd!

Carnage du Jour - 24 July 2014

This time I don't have to share credit with my normal flavour consultant.

Christian was over for dinner, and there were steaks in the fridge, so it only made sense to fire up the Weber and cook them.

As sides we had a mess of kale (fresh from the garden!) with bacon, shallots, and a few peppers, and then a nice pot of yellow rice with some caramelized onions.Both sides were excellent.
 
As to the steaks, they were nice thick strip steaks, so while the coals settled in, it gave them a nice dose of salt and pepper, seasoning the second side as the steaks hit the grill seasoned side down.
I'm not sure whence the inspiration, but I was thinking about oranges and lemons as they cooked. Well, there were a couple nice lemons in the basked, so I got my microplane and as the steaks finished up on the second side, that nicely seared first side received a dose of lemon zest. It smelled great, and the zest seemed to melt into the juices collecting on the steaks, so they didn't really look very different from any other steak.

However -
Both Heidi and Christian are likely to add some steak sauce when enjoying a steak, but both tasted first and then totally refrained - the steak needed no enhancement.

I still think I'd like to try this with orange zest, but the lemon was so delicious that I can heartily recommend this to any and all.

Enjoy!

Carnage du Jour - 17 July 2014

Chicken.
Boneless breasts and thighs.
What to do with them to make them delicious on the grill?

How about this:

• Salt and pepper all around.
• A glaze made of spicy sweet mustard, maple syrup, Colman's dry mustard, and a bit of hot sauce.

 Smear that glaze on and grill, smearing more as they pieces turn.

Well, we'll say this about that - it was beyond tasty. It got the "you can make this any time you want" seal of approval from Heidi.

Enough said?
Highly recommended - please enjoy responsibly.

RIP Ollie Fretter

You may not remember him, but Ollie Fretter was the king of appliances back before the "big box" stores took over.
Fretter v. Highland Appliance was the big time - I remember an RA in college walking back and forth between the two with competitive quotes for his stereo rig until one of them couldn't beat the other and sent him back across the street to make his purchase.

Thanks for the memories (and the first colour TV we bought to outfit the library at Bob).

In honour of the "I'll give you five pounds of coffee if I can't beat your best deal" tagline: