MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Make sure you eat something good today! :D

Survey says...

...nothing right now. I busted out a solid 88% on my final (crazy) Kitchen II practical, but it remains to be seen if I will finish the class with a 'B' or perhaps creep into 'A' range. Either is acceptable. Math is an 'A' for sure, so hopes of making the Dean's List again with a 3.5 GPA+ are high. More details tomorrow...

UPDATE: Another month down, 'A's across the board in my classes. The 4.0 GPA is alive and well... Bring on Proteins!

RECIPE -- Pasta Carbonara

This has been my favorite thing we've made in class thus far (if you couldn't tell from my gushing in the previous post when I first mentioned it), so I thought I'd finally take a few moments and post the recipe:

8oz Pancetta (sub. Bacon if you want)

10oz Onions, julienned

3oz White Wine

15oz Heavy Cream

Lightly brown the pancetta over low/medium heat until 3/4 cooked. If you want more texture from it, than crisp it up. I'd recommend the latter. Once you get the pancetta to the consistency you like, add the onions and saute them with the bacon until they're cooked through. The add the white wine, and reduce it 50%. That shouldn't take very long since the portion is small...maybe a minute tops. Add the heave cream and bring to a gentle simmer. DO NOT LET IT BOIL/BEGIN TO REDUCE! You want to preserve as much sauce as possible, trust me!

5oz Heavy Cream

2 egg yolks

This mixture is called a liaison, a finishing technique that brings a richness and shininess to a sauce. Mix the egg yolks and heavy cream together with a whisk, then place it in a big enough bowl to be able to add all of the sauce you have on the stove into it. You need a big bowl to be able to incorporate all of the sauce into the liaison. Do this by adding the hot sauce slowly into the liaison, maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of the total volume at at time, whisking all the while. This negates the eggs ability to cook (it heats evenly, slowly). Once everything is together, you're set to add it to your cooked pasta!

1 lb Cooked Spaghetti
4oz Fresh Parmesan (sub. pre-grated if you want)
2 T Italian Flatleaf Parsley, chopped (sub. parsley if you want)
Black Pepper to taste (I recommend a lot)

The sauce may seem a bit runny at first., but get it on the pasta and let it sit for a few minutes and it'll thicken up to a nice, creamy consistency. Sprinkle the Parmesan and Parsley on top (if you want more of either ingredient, I say go for it-- this is all to taste really). A popular finishing technique is covering the top of your pasta with black pepper. I mean A LOT of pepper, at least more than you think you would usually use, and here's why (story time!):

Apparently the sauce is indigenous to a region in Italy with a majority of it's population working in coal mines. The dish was inspired by the local workers and the generous use of pepper across the top of the dish is an homage to them (coal dust = pepper...get it?). Again, this is to YOUR taste, but I was shocked at the amount of pepper Chef had us put on...and how delicious the dish remained. It just works. If you can grind fresh pepper, obviously, use that. There's no substitute there.

Enjoy-- perfect "make for a date" food due to the classy, pleasing flavor, and that remaining wine has to be drank too. Looks great on a plate and reeks of effort, but it's simple...just the way I like it!

Where's the beef? Oh...right there.

Less than two weeks of class remain in my second month of classes at *the* PCI, and I have still yet to cut myself (for those of you I've kept in suspense since my last post...waaay too long ago). I have burned myself a few times though...whoops.

That's to be expected in soups, stocks and sauces, I suppose. You're swirling around boiling liquids, fussing with combinations of flour and hot fat that can reach 400 degrees plus. And it's amazing how quickly you forget a pan that was just in the oven is indeed still hot. You probably just judged me...but believe me-- when it's hectic, hot metal = hot just doesn't click in your mind sometimes.

Also, people who put dishes near the sinks to be washed while they are still scalding hot should be executed immediately. That's what got me once. FAIL!

Waaay late-- hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was enjoyable in the sense of getting up early for once to help my mom cook. I stuffed my first turkey! We went organic this year too and it was delicious. Other than that I did some miscellaneous chopping and took over the mashed potatoes. Next year will be a bit more epic, probably. There's only so much you can do with knife skills and a loose take on a few culinary basics.

School has been delicious as of late. We're onto brown sauces (namely espagnole sauce). Espagnole takes around an hour and a half to do properly, but is well worth the wait. The demi glace that can be reduced from it is pretty epic taste-wise as well. Some of the small sauces derived from espagnole sauce are tasty too...namely Diablo. Even simply reducing by 50% and adding a bit of wine (we used port) can really change the taste in an awesome way.

With the brown sauces comes beef. Roasts, flank steak, swiss steak...omnomnom. Breakfast continues to be my best meal of the day, for sure. We've done spaetzle, risotto and duchess potatoes on the side-- mmm...trust me. De-licious.

Grades through 25% of points in Kitchen has me at a 96%. I'll take it. The big week (worth like, 66% of my grade) full of practicals and the final is next week. That will be interesting. Other than that...Math is still Math. 2+2=4. 2+2=4. It's the Barney fun-time hour. I think we're up to multiplying/dividing fractions? Fifth grade...good times.

Pens are getting healthy, and they're still near the top of the Eastern Conference/NHL. My first chance to see them live is fast-approaching. Dec. 15, Pens/Flyers. Can't wait.

There's a ton of people in town this weekend. Should be a blast. I'll get back to you about that...soon. I mean it. Really. Not almost a month later. I will post on the blog. Honest.

OK, later on.

Makin' da' pasta...

I know, I know-- I've been slacking on the postage. I'm here to remedy that right now...

It was a stellar week in kitchen. We made pasta from scratch, an experience that has convinced me that dropping $40-60 on a pasta roller could be a fantastic idea. A few simple ingredients in a food processor and you've got your pasta dough. Five or minutes of production after that and you've got your pasta. There's no comparison between dry and fresh. It's night and day.

To go with the pasta we made marinara from scratch. A few additional ingredients later and we had Mafalda sauce, which went great with the fresh pasta (it's a runnier tomato/cream sauce that, once added to the fresh pasta, is absorbed and tastes great). The next day some of the groups made versions of marinara (Ragu Bolognese, Puttanesca, Arrabbiata), while our table made Cabonara-- a white wine, cream sauce that involves bacon, parmesan cheese, parsley and pepper. It was AWESOME! Easy to make and utterly delicious. I will be making it again.

(Ragu Bolognese...meaty and delcious...)

Funny side note-- Puttanesca literally translates in Italian as "Whore Sauce," an homage to its humble beginnings in the Italian red light districts. You learn something new every day...

We made garlic bread to accompany the pasta as well. The recipe is banging-- so enjoy:

4 oz softened butter
1 T minced parsley
1/2 t lemon juice
3/4 oz minced garlic
1 T minced shallot
1/4 t worechestershire sauce
1/4 t red pepper flakes.

Mix all of it together in a bowl, spread onto some French bread and bake at 375 degrees to your liking. Should be enough for an entire loaf. Very tasty.

The week also included mac and cheese (needed more cheese, in my opinion, but still good), sole vin blanc, minestrone soup (VERY GOOD!) and Hollandaise Sauce.

Boy do I hate Hollandaise. It's like mayo-- simple to make, simple to ruin...and not fun to shove down your throat at 7am, despite it's critical part in Egg's Benedict. Spoonfuls of Hollandaise make the medicine want to come up...that's my feelings on it. Also the whisking effort to make it, and fix it (Chef made us break it so we know how to fix it...all that means was more whisking) takes its toll on the wrist. Ugh...

Alrighty, I have to run and get the apartment cleaned up because Molly is coming in town from Cleveland for the weekend. Good times a'hoy! :D

PS-- Thanks for the birthday wishes all. My 25th will be far from my favorite (how special can it be on a Monday anyway?), but it was nice to hear from all of the people who helped get me to where I am today. Much love and respect...now to start aging gracefully (and rent a car!)...

Quick update...

The first month of classes concluded last week-- I rocked out the 4.0 GPA and got my ServSafe Certification...pretty much the most I could get out of my first month of classes at PCI. It feels great to be off to a good start, but this coming month is going to be a challenge.

As for the new Kitchen class (Soups, stocks, sauces), it's much higher tempo, much more demanding, and the Chef is going to bust your balls if you're screwing up. I'm OK with that, if only because that's a bit more like the real world, but the pressure is higher. As hard as it can be to be on your toes at 6:30am, it's going to be a necessity. We're busy from start to finish, multi-tasking like crazy and we have more personal responsibility-- whew. Crazy change of pace.

The new class (Math) may be the biggest waste of time in my academic career. Tasks thus far have included simple addition/subtraction...balancing a checkbook, rounding decimals to different places, and naming places in a number (5,022...what place is the five? THE THOUSANDS PLACE! DUH! ARGH!). Seriously, this is college. I know Math can be difficult (I'm not great at it or anything), but good lord really!?

What makes the Math class worse is that apparently there was a chance to test out of it...a chance that was never brought to my attention otherwise I would have pursued it in a heartbeat. I guess I will just have to tell myself this class will be an easy 'A and balance my GPA with however I do in Kitchen. Who knows, it could be a blessing...

Either way I'm done with classes by 11am every day. Homework is either nonexistent or very low maintenance. I'm starting to feel the itch of waaay too much free time. Coupled with the crappy events of this past weekend (I am single-- nothing else/fun to say about that), and I'm finding myself thinking too much and far from busy enough.

Sigh...seven more months until the externship. Graduation is a little less than a year. Time is passing so quickly, but slowly...if that makes any sense.

It might be time to go after a job...

The (first) home stretch...

Twenty-four days down......I'm still Cutlass Supreme. Get it? Well...Ludacris would get it.

Well, it's the home stretch of the first month of classes. You are reading the words of a PCI student currently rocking a 4.0 GPA heading into finals, and I couldn't be happier about that. Soon my world will revolve around soups, stocks and sauces, but for now four days of MOD 1 remain between me and sweet-sweet, three-day weekend glory.

But enough about the future-- let's talk about the previous week.

Tailgating a Steelers game is near a religious experience. Only in parking lots at 7am on a Sunday morning can you find homemade red wine two coolers down from a grain alcohol concoction that tastes like flat root beer. Mix with Steelers fans, who I quickly learned are some of the nicest, down-to-Earth people I've ever met, and you've got a recipe that leads to nap time by noon. The Steelers took out the high-flying Vikings, so obviously people were celebrating hard all day. My neighborhood, with it's proximity to the stadium and all, is an intense place to be on game day. It's fun to be immersed in such a solid sports culture...if not a little awkward to be *that guy* not wearing Steelers gear. Oh well. I can't like all things Pittsburgh...

As for the week of classes...it was pretty low key, but illuminating as usual.

I've come to the conclusion that my hatred for coleslaw and potato salad may be based on the American versions of the dishes. American meaning mayo-injected. The French version of potato salad we made in class (with vinaigrette, not mayo) was just amazing. I will make it again, for sure. I've also had my first Primanti Brother's experience (life-changing), and they rock a vinegar-based coleslaw on their sandwiches. While it's probably more accurate to classify it as more of a cabbage mixture, and less of a coleslaw (that's not as redundant as it sounds, I promise), it's still changing my mind on things. Vinegar is becoming a staple of delicious cooking in my book. There's just so many ways to use it with food.

Other salads prepared this week included chicken (pretty standard), Caesar (our dressing from scratch was stellar), chef (meat on salad never goes out of style), and a fruit salad (balsamic is a superior flavor to mint when paired with fruit...believe it).

I didn't get in much on the fruit salad, as I was making pancakes for the class. A conversation early in the week with Chef brought to light our shared love of everything butterscotch. In response she brought some butterscotch chips for pancakes. I mean it doesn't get any better than that-- ask and you shall receive. And any chance to touch on pastry under Chef is a valuable experience too, because it's far and away her forte in food (her brownies will change your life). More importantly, you learn amazing little tips...like buttermilk can be replaced with a milk and lemon juice mixture. Little tips like that (which could save your ass some day) are invaluable.

Wednesday was Huevos Rancheros, French Toast and bacon. What's not to like there?

Huevos Rancheros may be my new preferred way to eat eggs. Take that same pan you would scrambled eggs in...put some butter down to grease it up, add salsa, add two eggs, cover and allow them to poach. Put it on a tortilla (or toast), add some cheese...man-- just delicious. And honestly, I think it's the first time I've ever had a poached egg. I'm a fan.

The week was capped off with Root Vegetable Hash (carrots, potatoes, parsnips) and a Corn and Pepper Pudding. The hash was awesome (pretty sure it included my first experience with parsnips...tasty). I could go for some meat in it though. That's just how I like hash. Easily could be done, of course. The pudding...meh. Cheese, eggs, peppers...all good...but it just didn't do it for me. Was good spread on toast, definitely, but I don't see myself making it just to make it.

After a long week, a few guys from work, CP, and I met up at Mullen's last night for the Pens game. Nice to get to know some people from class better, outside the classroom setting. Also was great to see the Pens rally from down, 3-1, against the Blue Jackets to tie the game in the final two minutes. Pens ended up winning in the shootout.

The Pens are 11-2. What a season so far. And this is with injuries to Malkin, Gonchar, Talbot and Kennedy...yeesh. Wings are injured too...and playing .500 hockey. Beautiful.

OK-- that's it for now. Can't wait for next weekend! Heading to Cleveland!

"It's a party in Pittsburgh, PA!"

Today marks the completion of MOD Day No. 19...and my hands are still finger-licken' good. Here's to hoping there never comes a day where I describe my hands as stump-licken' good.

Well, whew-- what a week. Let's rewind to this past Friday to get the ball rolling as we're about six hours shy of the one-week anniversary of, "Yay! CP and Mark Didn't Die in West Virginia!" Day. It's not that we were in any real danger, it's just that we got lost en route to OU Homecoming in what can only be described as the butt crack of American states.

West Virginia at night has to be every horror writer's default setting for shenanigans. You're in a place you don't want to be. You don't want to be stuck here...but you're stuck here...so go check out that abandoned barn to see if they have a phone. And don't mind the cackling gas station attendant, or that brawny fellow who looks like he's on the way from a hockey game. They just live here.


Seriously-- West Virginia sucks. "The Mountain State." "Mountaineers are always free." Thanks for the visual...now roll up the windows, lock the doors, and step on the gas... Deuces.

OU Homecoming was a nice change of pace. It was great to see a lot of old friends, the Bobcats beat up on the RedHawks, and Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" played numerous times. Seriously, no complaints there...other then I came down with a bit of a cold later in the week due to lack of sleep and the recent (RIDICULOUS!) temperature changes.

The past few days in the 'Burgh have been pleasant though. Twenty-degrees on Monday flourished into 70-degree beauties by Wednesday. If not for the threat of rain for this entire weekend, it may have been the best weather week in Pitt since I got here. At least it feels like Fall again. I was a bit worried we had skipped the season entirely and jumped into Winter. I like kicking multi-colored leaves around on the way to school in the morning in boyish glee...

School was busy this week. We got our Safety/Sanitation midterm test back Monday, then had our kitchen midterm yesterday. We then had a practical in kitchen this morning, and another test in Safety/Sanitation to wrap up the week. It's almost like we're trying to accomplish something in a 28-day period...who would have thought? The pace is definitely fast and furious now for sure...and the tests are getting a bit more difficult. Oh well...this *IS* school I heard.

Cooking...cooking-- well, we transitioned into salads after heart attack Friday last week. We learned how to prepare a bunch of different greens and started the week making our own vinaigrettes. We made mayo on Tuesday (what is "Something I Don't Want to Taste at 8am" for a billion dollars), and then used the mayo to make emulsified dressings like ranch and blue cheese. Thursday was fantastical, in the sense we made a Middle Eastern "sampler." Hummus, falafels, tabbouleh and baba ganous. DE-LICIOUS...and easy to make!

So that's the week in a nut shell. I may tailgate the Steelers game with CP on Sunday, and I'm meeting up with some friends from school tonight to teach them a lesson in the art of NHL 10. I'm sure I will squeeze some laundry and grocery shopping somewhere in there.

Speaking of the NHL-- Pens are 8-1...and the Red Wings are still failing. Chris Osgood let in one of the most embarrassing goals I've ever seen to allow them to lose in OT to Phoenix the other night. The "end of the dynasty" talks are beginning, and it couldn't be sweeter...

Nine days of the first MOD remain. Whew-- where did the first month go?

Death by deliciousness...

I am 14 days cut free. That's a fortnight to you Lincoln lovers.

Well, I'm about to have a heart attack. If for some reason this post cuts off mid-sentence and my face slamming into the keyboard somehow publishes it-- don't say I didn't warn you. Why you ask? Today was essentially Fry-Everything-Friday in kitchen. If you've ever ordered some Super Sampler appetizer, chances are we cooked a product found on the plate. The rundown:

Fried provolone wedges, fried pickles, fried sweet potatoes (yams actually), fried red peppers, fried mushrooms, fried zucchini, onion rings, fried broccoli, french fries, home fries...and Chef made pumpkin pancakes and some bacon. Take THAT arteries!

We ate all of this at 8:30am. What did *you* have for breakfast?

The pumpkin pancakes were AMAZING! Best pancakes I have had --ever-- hands down. A fried surprise included the broccoli (great with ranch), but I mostly gravitated to old favorites (mushrooms, pickles and cheese).

This entire week has been pretty edible. Eggplant parmigiana-- delicious. Collard greens and ham/bacon-- delicious. Cheese grits-- delicious. It's like being in kindergarten again, only snack time has evolved into something much more appealing. It isn't milk and cookies, that's for sure. Now all we need is nap time...

The broccoli practical was Thursday. I got an 'A' on it, and that's 10% of my grade. No complaints there. I have another test today in Sanitation that will be obnoxious (memorize the minimum internal heat all foods must be cooked to and for how long to be safe to serve-- go!), but doable. All in all, it was a pretty great week-- cook a ton of delicious food, do some homework, rinse and repeat.

My parents were up yesterday, swinging through on the way to visit friends in New York. They dropped off some miscellaneous supplies and essentials I missed. We did lunch, and squared away the title for my car (The Cookie Monster/Big Papa Smurf is officially out of my hands...sigh). It was a nice break in the routine.

This weekend will be another. OU HOMECOMING!!! I can't wait to fall into the OU routine a bit and see some great people I haven't seen for a few years. Should be a great time!

Aside from that I've secured tickets to Penguins/Flyers for $20 in mid-December (a steal because a local guy in class has a brother who pawns off season tickets...SCORE!). Speaking of those Pens, they're 6-1 to start the season. The Red Wings are 3-3, HA!

OK, time to get back to class...

GO BOBCATS! GO PENS! GO ARTERIES!

What are you doing at work/school tomorrow?

Because we're doing this:

Yeah, that's eggplant parmigiana...be jealous.

Nine days unscathed...

The title of these blog posts might as well become a tracker of a (hopefully) Brett Favre-ian streak of me not shanking myself with my knives. It may seem like the simplest goal in the culinary world-- point knives away from the soft, fleshy mass that is your body-- but week two in kitchen class proved it to be a seemingly monumental task.

Three jabronies cut themselves this week. There was a casual nick, another girl lost her fingernail when she sliced through half of it (yes, the knives are *that* sharp), and we had another guy take a hunk out of his thumb. The last was the most interesting, as the day ended with him passing out in the back of the classroom. We're all watching the chef show us how to cut a green pepper and BOOM-- a giant crash. Apparently he was walking around the back of the room and just toppled right over. Like-- tiiiiiiiiiimber, straight over/header into the floor. Obviously, once we realized he didn't smoke himself of the (very unforgiving) stainless steel prep tables, or land on a knife...and he woke up...it went from horrifying to hilarious.

It only became more hilarious when a couple other guys in class and myself went to take all of the product we cut that day across the street to the school cafeteria. As we presented the chef with our day's successes, the chef inquired where our garlic and parsley was. We explained that we didn't get to that because of the incident in class. Chef was sympathetic:

"Oh, I see. Well make sure to tell him to put his hand in his pants and find his..."

You get the idea.

Anyway, class was fun this week. A lot more work on our cuts (the knife and cuts are beginning to feel very natural), and we actually cooked a few things. It's been awesome because the advanced classes around us are also cooking more (and not just vegetables). There's nothing like pork chops, homemade spaghetti, or mac&cheese at 9am. Breakfast never tasted so good...

We made cauliflower polonaise Friday (and sauteed some broccoli-- but you all know what that looks like). The gist of the dish is you boil cauliflower, top it with a breadcrumb/parsley mixture and also whites and yolks of a hard boiled egg that have been passed through a strainer to become very fine. I'd say this pic above looks 95% like the stuff we made...so I will take this moment to add that I will start posting general pics of the food we make in class daily so you can be jealous. Cauliflower polonaise is easy to make, and pretty delicious (for cauliflower).

I'd say the most interested cooking event of the week came Friday when we were charged with cooking vegetables in a bunch of different ways to prove how conditions can affect the appearance of food. We cooked things like broccoli, carrots and red cabbage in normal fashion, in water with vinegar (acid) in it, in water with baking soda (alkaline) in it, and we also just overcooked the product. Until you've seen red cabbage turn BLUE...you don't appreciate the science that happens in the kitchen. It's even weirder to see that same disgusting blue mass turn red (and edible-looking) again when you add a bit of acid back into it. It's real Bill Nye kinda' stuff.

Other event's of the week...uhh...I have official Internet and cable. The Pens beat the Flyers. I cleaned the apartment, and I think I need to go shopping today. Pretty standard stuff.

Alright-- the weekend's here and already off and running (it's sad when sleeping in until 7am is sleeping in...but it's not 5:30am I guess). Mary's coming to visit today so I see a tour of the downtown area, Primanti Brother's and a stop out to my favorite bar to catch the Pens/Leafs game in our future. Should be a good one!

OU Homecoming in a week! Hope to see you there! I think both Shugar brothers will be there!

School, hockey and knives, oh my!

A quick breakdown of my first week in the 'Burgh.

*The Apartment/Neighborhood. The (one-bedroom) apartment is fantastic, considering it's cheaper than a (much smaller) studio in the same building. Great deal from the renter for sure. Plus I'm close to the Internet lounge so I haven't had to pay for Internet...yet. It's a bit blah at times, but it's working well enough that I can do most of my Internet tasks with ease. As for the neighborhood...well...it's a bit sketchy. I feel like I've seen worse...but it's sketchy. Thankfully no problems (or really people out on the streets) when I'm making the walk at 6am to class. The good news is PNC Park and Heinz Field are 10- and 20-minute walks from my apartment, respectively. I've already found my Pens bar ($2.50 Labatt's on game day), and there's good food surrounding both stadiums. I got to watch the Pens '09 Stanley Cup Banner get raised...with other Pens fans...last night. It was a glorious change of pace. Pittsburgh really feels like home when you've been being blasted by Detroit fans for most your life.

*School/Class. No complaints here. I can leave my apartment at 6am and easily make the walk to class (located in downtown Pittsburgh) in about 20 minutes or so. That's good because I have a 1.5 hour gap between my morning kitchen lab and my ServSafe class, which means I'm making the walk several times a day. Judging by how much my legs hurt right now, it's probably good exercise. Kitchen lab has been slow so far (memorizing quantities-- how many quarts in a gallon kind of stuff-- learning about kitchen equipment, etc). The food safety/sanitation class, while making you never want to abuse food again in fear of death or wiggly little worms in your bloody diarrhea (sorry to be crude, but it's in the book), has been interesting. Scary...but interesting. Did I mention scary? COOK FOOD PROPERLY! THAW FOOD PROPERLY! Eek if you don't...

*The Uniform. No issues with the pants or jacket (it's kinda like wearing pajamas to school), but I'm a bit blah about the 'beanie' and kerchief. The beanie obviously serves as a more professional-looking hair net, and I'm fine with wearing some kind of hat instead of worrying about how my hair looks all day. I wouldn't say I look cool in it though. The kerchief really seems to serve no purpose other than to make us a bit more French in this whole ordeal. Picture wearing a tie that ends at the knot. Pretty stylish-- I know.

*My Knife Kit is amazing. We're talking around 50 kitchen tools in one handy-dandy tri-zip bag. You name it, the kit has it. Obviously the pride and joy is a 9" Chef's Knife (high-carbon stainless steel with full 'tang'). Truth be told, it was a bit intimidating to pick up and go on some zucchini the other day for our first cuts...mostly due to the fact that there is an incredible difference between a proper kitchen knife and what's sitting in the average silverware drawer right now. Thankfully the grip/cutting motion is feeling pretty natural so far, and I've still got all my fingertips.

Mix all of this with about four days worth of rain and that's the gist of my first week in Pittsburgh. These posts will no doubt become more exciting as I progress in not only my current classes, but the program as well...so bear with me.

Also, thanks to all of the people who have made phone calls or promises to come visit as some point. You're all welcome to come, and I've got plenty of room to spare. It all makes the transition to a big new city smoother, for sure, so never hesitate to contact me.

Welcome to the "City of Champions"

Yep, the old blog is back with a whole new flavor (culinary pun intended). Be sure to check back!