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We all know that wines smell and taste much better when served in the proper stemware. But what about Root Beer? Let's find out...
Jeff pours himself two glasses of a fine root beer.
The first glass, a Spiegelau white wine glass, shows off the beautiful brown and red tones of the root beer.
The second, a Spiegelau Burgundy glass, allows the root beer to effervesce, releasing powerful aromas of, well, root beer.
A taste of each, and a good slurp of air through the root beer from the Burgundy glass, carry the flavors and aromas to the olfactory bulb in the back of the throat.
The final results - hands down, the Burgundy glass. Pronounced aromas in the glass from more surface area for fizzing resulted in more flavor on the palate. Check back soon for another comparison, pitting the Burgundy glass against the infamous "mug".
P.S. This is what happens when you don't wash your stemware for a few days after using it, and it sits quietly on the countertop, waiting for mischief to be made upon it.
We spent the weekend with Michelle's mom at her house in Hays. We got there Friday night and stayed through Sunday afternoon. Mom wasn't doing so well on Saturday - she was dealing with a lot of nausea and a fair amount of pain. The pain medication she takes makes her nauseous, so about half an hour before she takes her pain meds, she's supposed to take her anti-nausea meds. Well, Saturday morning, she just couldn't get the nausea under control, so she didn't take her pain meds on time for fear that they'd just make her feel even yuckier. She eventually got it all under control, but she was pretty much wiped for the day after all that. We just sat around with her and read our books for much of the day. We also rented a movie, Night at the Museum, and watched that with her. Michelle's brothers joined us for dinner that night, and that seemed to cheer Mom up to have most of the kids there with her.
We all got up and made it over to early church this morning, and then had a little cookout for Mother's Day lunch. Mom was feeling noticeably better today, but she's almost always showing signs of being terminally ill now. She sleeps a lot more than she used to, which we hear is to be expected. Oh, and she says her "innie" belly button is slowly turning into an "outie" belly button from the tumors growing in her abdomen. We had a good laugh about that!
Jeff and I made it back home in time to make a quick stir-fry for dinner. It was one we hadn't tried before, and we were pleasantly surprised at how good it was. The recipe is in the post below.
12 oz boneless, skinless chicken, cut into thin strips
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
3 oz snow peas
4 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tbsp dry sherry
1 tbsp tomato paste
finely grated peel and juice of 1 orange
1 tsp cornstarch
2 oranges, peeled and segmented
2 cups bean sprouts
cooked rice or noodles, to serve
Heat the oil in a large preheated wok. Add the chicken and stir fry until sealed and lightly colored on all sides (2-3 minutes). Add the onion, garlic, red bell pepper and snow peas to the wok and continue cooking until the veggies are just tender and the chicken is completely cooked. Mix the soy sauce, sherry, tomato paste, orange peel, orange juice and cornstarch in a separate container. Add to the wok and cook, stirring constantly, until the juices start to thicken. Add the orange segments and the bean sprouts to the wok and heat through (about 2 more minutes). Transfer the stir-fry to serving plates and serve immediately with cooked rice or noodles. Makes 4 servings.
Recipe from "Greatest Ever Wok and Stir-Fry"
Michelle’s mom came in to town for a quick visit last night. We took her over to the zoo to check out a new penguin exhibit that is being sponsored by our company. The zoo opened up for the evening from 4:30 to 8:00 and gave employees and their families free admission. Mom gets quite a bit of pain in her back when she stands or walks for a long time, so we rented a wheelchair for her and Jeff pushed her around all over the zoo. We got to see most of it – the bears were swimming and climbing on their rocks, the giraffes were trying to pluck leaves off the trees in their enclosure, the elephants and hippos were out and about, the gorillas were climbing their trees. I think it’s really fun to be able to go to the zoo in the evening when all the animals are being active after the heat of the day wears off. I don’t know why they close our zoo at 5:00 each day, because it’s so much cooler to see the animals at night.
Anyway, the best part of this particular visit to the zoo turned out to be the lions. They weren’t moving around, but we have a lion cub right now, and he was sitting up on a rock with his mom and dad, posed just perfectly for viewing and for pictures. Very cool.
The penguins, on the other hand, were a bit disappointing. They didn’t move the whole time we were there watching. I think they’re in shock from being placed on exhibit for the first time. At least they held still for the camera! It was nice to spend time with Mom out and about. I don’t think we’ll get to have many more opportunities like this before her body gives up and she goes on to heaven.
Here's Fang, who has snatched up all three of his Nylabones and is busy playing keep-away from Errol.
So, it turns out that this weekend wasn't so bad after all. Michelle's sister and brother-in-law, along with his mom, arrived at their new house just as we were getting home from work on Friday. We went over to help them unload their moving truck, then we all came back to our house for takeout Chinese. They spent the night and left the next morning to go back and work on their house some more. My sister must have recognized that we needed a break from everyone else, and she said they didn't need any help unpacking or hanging blinds, so we ended up with the weekend mostly to ourselves. Yay!
Most of the rest of the weekend was spent running errands, doing laundry, and watching the weather. We had some pretty crazy weather here in tornado alley this weekend. We're safe (so far), but there are a lot of people in nearby communities that were hit really hard. One town was completely wiped out. Please pray for those people that lost everything they own in the storms.
Anyway, we also made it out for a really nice lunch at a local restaurant yesterday (appetizers for lunch, anyone?) and we spent some time this afternoon cooking. We made Provencal-Style Chicken and Couscous (recipe in previous post) for dinner, and Jeff made his famous chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Yum!
boneless skinless chicken, cut into bite size pieces (we use 6 tenderloins or 2 breasts to serve 2 people)olive oil1 medium onion, chopped1 teaspoon minced garlic1 can (14-15 oz) of diced tomatoes, with juice1/4 teaspoon cayenne (optional)1/2 cup dry white wine, chicken or vegetable stock1 cup Nicoise olives, whole or chopped1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme, or 1/4 teaspoon dried thymesalt and pepper to taste1/2 cup couscous, prepared with butter and chicken stock
Add olive oil to a saute pan and cook the onion over medium heat until it begins to soften. Add the garlic, tomatoes (with juice in can), cayenne, if desired, and raise the heat slightly. Cook until some of the tomato juice bubbles away. Add the wine or other liquid and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the olives and the thyme, along with some salt and pepper. Cook 1 minute. Add the chicken to the sauce, submerge the chicken in the sauce and cover the pan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through. Serve over couscous with a drizzle of olive oil.
Makes 2 hearty servings.This recipe was adapted from a recipe in "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman.
It’s been a crazy couple of months for us. We’re normally stay at home, keep to ourselves people and pups. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been working out so well for us lately. First, Michelle’s mom was told that there was nothing more to do to keep her cancer away, and then Jeff’s parents decided it was time to sell his childhood home. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Jeff’s car fell apart and Michelle’s sister and brother-in-law started the process of moving to our city. So, for the last five weekends, and for at least the next five weekends, we have been or will be traveling away from home or having houseguests. It’s been just nuts: a weekend at Michelle’s mom’s house, a weekend in KC to buy a new car, another weekend at Michelle’s mom’s house, then a weekend in St. Louis to see Jeff’s parents and say goodbye to his house, then the brother-in-law came to stay with us for a week, along with the sister on the weekend, and now the sister, BIL and BIL’s mom are coming to spend the night tonight. After this weekend, we’ve got two more weekends in Hays, another trip to KC, and then a wedding in New Mexico to go to. Will it never end? Will the boy and girl ever be able to sleep in on a Saturday again? Stay tuned…
