Golda, The Amazing Dog

The local animal shelter may only keep animals for 3 days and after that they can be subjected to euthanasia. This particular dog was given a couple of days reprieve from that fate because the people at the shelter liked her so much. Jayna had looked at her one day and took me there the next day to see if I would like her as well. We got to walk her around the yard for a bit and, yes, I was immediately sold on her. We named her Golda. We were never real sure exactly what breed she was. The people at the shelter thought she was at least part Australian Shepherd, but not sure what else. Others thought that there was some Brittany Spaniel in her. It didn't really matter. She turned out to be a great dog. She was about a year old when we got her and she lived to attain the ripe old age of 15 years.

Here's Golda (on the right) with her other two cohorts in crime getting ready for a ride in the famous Canadian Subaru. Madeline, in the background, is a 14 year old german shepherd/husky mix. We found her (or should I say she found us) one very cold winter night many years ago. Sophie, the chow, with a slightly confused look on her face, is on the left. She seems to always look a bit confused and we found her (she found us) on Christmas night almost 2 years ago

The night we got her, we got on the internet and tried to find out more information about Australian Shepherds because neither of us knew much about the breed. We read some interesting "stuff" but one story we read captured our fancy. It seems that one couple that owned an "Aussie" had an outdoor party at their home with food and drinks in their back yard. At one point in time during the evening they noticed that all the people at the party were sort of centrally located in the middle of the yard with the dog walking in a circle around them. The damn dog had gently, but firmly and effectively herded everybody into a circle so that he could keep an eye on everyone.

Golda always seemed to have a grin on her face, especially at snack time after a walk.

I still laugh about reading that story even though Golda didn't always display traits like that. But she was such a friendly and social dog. She always wanted to be near you, at your side. She always wanted to help with whatever you were doing especially if barbecue was being cooked. She would always protect our kids who were aged 11 and 16 when we got her. She would always greet you with a smile and a friendly wag of her tail.

Here she is supervising the barbecue. The coffee can catches drippings from the cooking process and she is always and forever interested in that.

And she loved to run!

And what a runner she was! She never seemed to tire and if she did, she'd never let you know it. Our son at the time was running a lot of cross country and track. Golda loved to run with him. It was not unusual for her to run 2 or 3 miles with him. She even ran with the team a few times and everybody thought that was "pretty cool". It was the members of the cross country team that invented the phrase that became the title of this post. They actually turned it into a little song. She also loved to go for a walk with us in the evenings. We did this almost every night. After dinner, when we maybe had settled down to relax and watch a little television, she would nuzzle up against one of our legs, or look up at us with those smiling eyes of hers, as if to say, "Come on, let's go for a walk". We were hard pressed to resist.

Oh, such a sleepy dog!

It was not unusual for a neighbor to see Jayna or I walking with her and say something like "Who is taking who for a walk?". She always wanted to be in front, leading the way. There were always things she wanted to check out like that little rabbit hole down by the creek or that funny smell next to the fire hydrant. She occasionally caught rabbits and possums and was always proud when she protected us from something that she might have considered a threat to us.

At the same time she always had a sense about her to know what our mood and feelings were. There was one time that I had been suffering from some serious back pain. I wanted to take her for a short walk, thinking that the exercise would be therapeutic. I was a little concerned that she might pull too hard and I would end up hurting myself. But somehow, she sensed my feelings and knew I was hurt. She was incredibly patient with me as I hobbled along at a pace much slower than what she was used to.

As her life progressed she developed many little symptoms of what happens to everybody as they get older. Arthritis and other little problems started to take a toll on her physical capabilities. She became unable to really run like she used to, and we knew that frustrated her. But even with these difficulties, when the evening walk might be ready to start, she would try to be the first dog out the door and ready to go. Eventually even the walks became more and more difficult for her and sometimes were only a short jaunt to the end of the block and back. But it was always special for her, no matter the distance.

Jayna and I like to imagine that she is now running in some kind of afterlife with a lot of her old friends and some cross country runners.

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We know that is really what she loved to do. .

Golda, We love You! We miss you! .

Go have a good run!

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Pizza on the Grill

I have cooked a lot of different foods on our grill, but not pizza. But my son had found a recipe for grilled pizza and tried it our on his grill. So on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, he offered to cook up a feast for us. We didn't object even if we thought this might be sort of unusual. I was placed in charge of starting the fire and drinking a beer or two, a job which I took with utmost seriousness. The other preparations for various ingredients were done by my son and other family members.

There is no such thing as a recipe card. A laptop displays the recipe and the other toppings are in various stages of readiness.

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He prepared the crust from scratch. A litle flour, yeast and water. He carefully kneaded the dough and used a rolling pin to create the pizza crusts.

We covered the grill grates with foil. The idea is to cook the crust for a few minutes on one side, then turn them over, place the toppings on and cook to the finish.

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You are supposed to turn the crust over after it begins to bubble a bit. All went according to plan. I just watched, my son did al the heavy work.

The crust is bubbling. A little extra virgin olive oil helps keep the crust from sticking to the foil.

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After turning the crust over, the first step is to put on the sauce. We just used a mixture of organic tomato paste and sauce. To the sauce we added some herbs from our herb garden, oregano and basil primarily.

The placement of the sauce done with great care.

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The other ingredients go on next. In this case pineapple, ham and sauteed mushrooms. Each person got to put on their own ingredients.

We sliced up a fresh pineapple for one of the possible ingredients.

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After the main ingredients are placed on the pizza, the final ingredient was some very nice mozzarella cheese. I think a few people added in some feta and parmesan cheese as well. I'm not sure because I was in charge of drinking beer at this point.

Cheese is good, Cheese is fine, we like cheese all the time!

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Some others, me included , opted for a more pepperoni type pizza. I added in a bit of fresh pepper from the garden. We have been disappointed with the production of peppers on our plants this year, but what peppers that have been produced have tasted very good.

A veritible plethora of pepperoni.

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Ready to cook. It doesn't take long. The first pizzas produced were placed in the oven to keep warm. We did two at a time on the grill.

Ready to close the lid and cook.

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We ate like little pigs, drank a little more beer and generally had a great day.

The pizza was fantastic!

Near Panic on the 4th of July

But after much stress, it turned out to be a wonderful day!

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It appeared that the entire weekend would be a wash out. On Friday I got in a short ride to go to the gas station and fill up the gas can for the lawn mower. That was the extent of the riding for the weekend unfortunately. I did get the lawn mowed Friday morning. Then it started to rain.

And rain.

And rain some more. Not heavy or with lots of thunder and lightning, just real steady and absolutely boring. On the 4th, people were going to come over to help grill some hamburgers and maybe shoot off some illegal fireworks after dark. But the forecast was crappy at best.

It rained all day Saturday. Sunday morning, too, and part of Sunday afternoon. But eventually that Sunday afternoon, the radar started to look like this.

The storms were all north and east of Wichita and moving away. There was hope that the evening festivities could still occur as planned.

We started the cooker and hoped that the weather would hold.

The kitchen was a beehive of activity. A cake was being baked for dessert. Potato salad finished up and beer consumed. Burgers were formed into patties for grilling and baked beans were heated up in the oven.

The burgers eventually made it onto the grill. More beer was consumed. Conversations were lively and the night looked like it was going to be a major success.

As I was getting ready to turn the burgers over on the grill, I heard that my daughter, who is getting married in November, could not find her engagement ring.

My initial thought was that she had just set it down someplace and it would quickly turn up. As I supervised and observed the cooking of the burgers, I could hear people inside the house asking questions like "Where did you last remember having it on?"

Pretty soon thereafter I saw my wife and daughter painstakingly looking through the trash in the kitchen. To no avail.

Later I observed people on the floor looking into every nook and cranny such as behind the refrigerator and other places where the ring could have escaped to.

The situation was starting to get really serious. My daughter had been responsible for making the burger patties, so the thought occurred that I might actually be cooking the ring. I looked rather closely as I turned the burgers over on the grill, but did not see any evidence. She had also been working on the baked beans so I spooned through the bowl a bit, again to no avail.

She was crying, Tyler was very supportive. But we were all starting to get a bit worried.

No! A lot worried.

But then again, it isn't the magic ring of power from Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" It can't have a mind of its own. Or could it.

We decided to start eating and maybe somebody would chew into it and find it. Well, I'm kidding about that. Sort of.

After we had been eating for just a minute or two, my son went back into the kitchen to get something from the fridge and heard a little tinkling sound on the floor as he retrieved whatever it was he was getting out of the fridge.

Yeah, the darn ring was in the refrigerator on top of a packege of aragula. Darn good place to hide.

My son, the hero of the day, getting hugged by may daughter after locating the missing ring.

The ring back in its proper place. Sauron is defeated. The power of good triumphs over evil once again. People thought I was crazy to get a picture here, but this is actually a fantastic picture of our 2 kids. To me it shows in a way how close they are to each other.

It was time to move on to other parts of the agenda for the evening.

SMORES!

The toasting of the "mallow" is a fine science developed by much experimentation through the centuries. We had two kinds of chocolate, dark and milk chocolate, and the cheapest graham crackers we could find. Tyler here is demonstrating the ability to put numerous marshmallows in his mouth at the same time. Check out his shirt.

More heating of the "mallows"

Some people prefer to burn the mallow a bit. Others try for a light browning. Each has their own tastes and desires.

Above is my rendition of what I consider to be perfection in the art of making Smores. Note there is no burning, just light browning. Mmmmmm! The perfect combination (to me) of graham cracker, chocolate and mallow

Then it became time to make some noise. The scene was set. The weapons lined up for display.

Fireworks!

Sedgwick County, this year, relaxed some of the fireworks ordinances, but they are still more restrictive than the neighboring counties. No bottle rockets or roman candles or big mortars are allowed. But lots of people ignore this anyway. It's only a 10 minute drive to the next county where you can get almost anything you might want.

Now, you might consider this a bit crazy, but a tradition has developed in our family recently to "blow up " cake on the 4th of July. Yes, cake.

The cake has taken various forms over the years, this year in a pan. Cupcakes have been used in the past.

The firecrackers are ready to be lit.

Tyler is making this year's first attmept at cake destruction.

You may ask why. There is no reasonable answer. It's just fun!

The results of the first explosion. Some damage, but not as impressive as we were hoping for.

It became time to get a little more serious. An old cooking pan that was to be thrown away became part of the methodology of destruction.

Loading the pan.

The placement of the pan on the cake with about a bazillion firecrackers underneath.

Woa, Nelly!

The resulting destruction. The cake is in smithereens.

The it was time to break out some sparklers. One of the neighbor kids joined us.

Sparklers for all!

After the sparklers, an appetite was developed and we went back inside to actually eat some cake. Laura made pound cake topped with blackberries and frosting. Delicious!!

Then we were back outside. Pretty dark now and a good time for some fountains.

I usually have a terrible time trying to take pictures of fireworks.

But some of these didn't turn out too badly.

We shot off what we had. Some of our neighbors shot off a few and we sat outside and watched the sky for awhile. We stayed out until about 10:30 or so.

What a great day it turned out to be.

About midnight that night, it started to rain again.

We didn't care!

Brisket

One of our cats, "Mo", looked up at me from his sleeping place on a couch with an expression on his face that said, "What the heck are you doing? It's not 6:30 yet!" All the animals in our "pack" know that 6:30 am is the appointed feeding time. It is hard coded into their psyche to wake up at this time and expect food from their "human" providers. Alarm clocks are not generally needed in our house. Today, though my cell phone notified me it was time to get up and start "smokin'".

At 4:30 I was tested by my photographic ability to take a picture in almost no light. I used the flash. It was easier, and I wasn't real awake yet.

In fact it was 4:30 am and still very dark outside. I was captivated by the smells of the air on a lazy Sunday morning: The meat was drunk after spending a night bathing in a copious amount of Jack Daniels. The aroma of the alcohol was present as I put on a rub of fresh grown herbs (from our garden), salts and sugars. The smell of the oak and mulberry starting to burn in the firebox of the smoker was somehow sort of sensual.

The drunk meat is placed on the cooker after a generous application of a rub.

Then there were the sounds. The birds were starting to chirp. I wonder what they actually say to each other at this early time. The neighbor's outdoor fountain was making its usual sounds. They have a tall privacy fence. We can't see the fountain, but can hear it. An occasional car would go by on Woodlawn Ave just a couple of houses away. The neighbor's yippy dogs were asleep. No complaint about that. It was very quiet.

There is something very primitive or tribal in nature to the process of burning wood. A charcoal base is used just to get things started. All wood fuel thereafter

The sky was just barely starting to turn lighter as the sun neared the horizon. It would still be awhile before the sun made a blazing appearance. The full moon bathed the yard in a soft light as only the moon can.

Crappy attempt to get a shot of the barely light sky, but you get the idea.

Eventually, as time marched on, the dogs let me know what time it was. I had just put new wood on the fire and went back into the house to feed them. Later today it would get hot, maybe with some thunderstorms, but this morning I was enjoying the cool air and being outside in it. It could only have been better if I was out riding on this absolutely beautiful morning.

A shot toward part of the garden as the light continues to slowly invade the back yard

I went back outside. I got out the laptop and finished up a couple of scheduled posts to the blog. The sun eventually made its appearance and the newspaper arrived. I picked up a few "dog bombs" from the yard knowing that other humans were coming by today and wanted to be sure that there were no "hazards" in the yard.

Sorry Bobskoot, it's all in farenheit, but this is the ideal temperature goal for about 7 hours of cooking

The other humans were coming over today to sample some brisket that I was "cookin'". I had not done a brisket in the smoker for awhile. It is not a lot of work, but to do it right, takes a long time (at least 6 hours) at a low (225-275 F) heat. So most of the effort is just keeping the fire going and watching the temperature gauge occasionally.

The cooker in its glory. It's starting to get a bit lighter out.

About every 45 minutes or so I put a few more chunks of wood on the fire and check the temperature. Other than that, there is not much to it. There is much time available to enjoy being outside and enjoy the sights , smells and sounds of the early morning.

It bocomes time to create a "mop" for the meat to cook in after wrapping in foil. We actually didn't use the tequila in the mop. (The tequila was for later) I threw in a few spices in the mop as well, but not much, mostly pepper.

I was amazed to discover the origin of the lime juice. Conch, do you know Nellie and Joe? .

The sun started to warm the air as the smoke from the fire continued to bellow from the vent atop the smoker. I turned the meat over at about 7:30am and although it had a long way to go, it was starting to brown a bit and looked good.

The ceremonial wrapping of the brisket. A double layer of heavy duty foil with lots of the mop inside.

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To barbecue experts, the creation of a "smoke ring" in the brisket is a desired goal. A faint discoloration just inside the surface of the meat from the smoke is recognized in smoking competitions as a sign of quality cooking. It is not as easy to do as it sounds. I have had success at times, but not every time. The meat we bought came from a mennonite farm near here, not a huge industrial packing plant. No growth hormones were used and the cattle are raised on farms using time honored traditions. It is much more expensive than what would be in a grocery store, but amazingly well worth it.

A shot of the garden. Tomato plants on the right, some Anaheim peppers on the left, Cilantro, Lettuce and Spinach. We have had some awesome salads already this summer.

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I had to ask for a cut of the meat with the fat still on it, and the guy at the meat counter of the local butcher shop we like, seemed to sense immediately why I wanted it that way. They had some "in the back" he said. We smiled at each other as he put it on the scale (close to 9 lbs). He knew instinctively that I was going to smoke it and the fat would almost melt and disintegrate into the meat and provide the flavors desired by those familiar with the concept.

A shot of the herb garden. Basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano and lavender all fight for space in this little barrel. The oregano and basil are winning so far.

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My smoker is almost perfect for this purpose. There are many more revered types of smokers out there on the market but this one does just fine for us. The firebox sits to the side of the cooking area providing indirect heat and smoke to the cooking area.

After 7 hours I check the temperature with a meat thermoneter. I was aimimg for 160F. Turned out to be 190F. Very nicely done and very moist with the use of the mop.

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After close to 3 hours, with my hope for a smoke ring firmly in place, I wrap the brisket in foil and pour a mop of various fluids on top. Some experts don't wrap the brisket, but wrapping helps speed up an already very slow cooking process. After all, I don't have all day to do this. Humans are coming by between 12:00 and 1:00 pm and like the dogs at the 6:30 am feeding, they will demand to eat what by then will smell fantastic.

The first couple of slices are made. I am ecstatic. The smoke ring is almost perfect.

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We had a brief rainshower at about 10:30 am. It managed to make the air very humid. With a high temperature today expected to be in the upper 80's and a possibility for thunderstorms, this was bound to be a very sticky day. The sun came out with a vengeance after the rain making the air feel very heavy compared to what it was like at 4:30am.

Madeline, our Shepherd/Husky is always curious as to the droppings of liquids as they come out of the cooker. The little coffee can is supposed to catch them all, but a few drops were found to the benefit of the dog.

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I placed the last bits of wood on the fire at about 12:15pm. Except for a brief period of time during the rain when the cooking temperature dropped a little below 200, I was able today to keep the temperature between 225 and 275 most of the time. Aiming for a prescribed temperature with a wood smoker isn't always successful. Some woods burn hotter than others. It takes some experience with your equipment. I was happy just to stay close today.

More slicing ensues. It's hard not to eat it all right there, but others will be angry if we ate it all.

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I hadn't even opened up the oven portion of the cooker since I wrapped up the brisket at about 8:30am. You have to fight the curiosity to open it up and look at it. Opening it up can drop the temperature quite a bit and cause more cooking time. I placed my faith in the Barbecue Gods that all would turn out well in the end and a special nirvana would be created within the confines of the foil surrounding the beef.

Let the feast begin.