It's Wednesday already? Wasn't it just Wednesday last week? Man, someone should do something about these calendars.

So last weekend was halfway stress-free. On Saturday we had takaza's family over to celebrate his mother's birthday, albeit belatedly. We all went together and bought her a Wii. She's a big fan of old-school games like Zelda and Final Fantasy stuff, so the online purchase thing is nifty for her. Plus, we played Boom Blox and I think we sold his mother on the game as well as his brother on buying a Wii period. The damn game is like a virus, I swear.

On Sunday I carpooled with roho and genet down to meet with a prospect for our charity for Midwest FurFest this year (Dan went to see The Dark Knight with his family and worked on Anthrocon tax stuff). The meeting went extremely well and I hope to have an announcement on that front later this week. They're very excited to work with us and I think we're going to have a lot of fun and make them a lot of money. From there, we drove over to linnaeus's place where we were joined by siriuswolfstar, simbalion, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. We all enjoyed an excellent dinner of burgers and tasty sausages (mmm, andouille!) and some excellent beers. It was a very enjoyable evening!

Work has been more than a little crazy of late. I just wrapped up a big project yesterday which is a big relief, though I've got another project next week that will take up all of my time for the first three days of the week. We've also had a slew of new hires and I'm helping out occasionally to get them settled as well.

This weekend should be fun - I'll be at LAFF softball on Saturday to hang out and chat with folks. Not a lot of plans on Sunday, but we'll wing it and see how things go.

I'll leave you with two interesting links: If anyone is in Los Angeles and likes food and The Amazing Race, well, the Food Network is looking for you! Granted, being the Food Network, I'm sure they'll take a good idea and screw it up royally.

Also, it's about damn time. Anthony Bourdain has been touring around Chicago as he finally films an episode of No Reservations here. I don't know most of the places he mentions, but I'm glad to see that one of the highlights will be Hot Doug's, a true Chicago original. (Though I wonder about his choice of local guides. Mancow Mueller? Really?) Anyway, it should be a great episode when it airs.

Before the craziness of this week's preparations for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, we had a very nice weekend. On Friday we met up with linnaeus, roho, and genet for dinner in Antioch. We had originally planned to try out a BBQ joint I had read about, except we found that it was not only closed, the space was vacant and available for rent. Well. Instead, we walked down to the little Italian place a few doors down, Petrucci's. As we were standing outside debating, one of the employees came out to cajole us into coming in. After she went inside, Linnaeus took a deep whiff and said, "Smell that? That's Calvin Kline's Desperation." We shrugged and went inside.

After being seated, the waitress asked what we wanted to drink. I asked what beers they had on tap, and she...didn't know. The manager came over and told us the beers they had: Michelob, Heineken, and Moretti (sure, they had a Peroni neon sign out front but they didn't actually, you know, carry it). Evidently the three-beer beer list was too much to remember. Drinks arrived, and many giggles were had as we admired the Dunkin Donuts straws we were given. That was when I started pushing for just getting appetizers (a selection of fine frozen, fried cheese sticks, onion rings, etc.) and getting dinner elsewhere. I got outvoted, but we ordered the simplest possible thing we could: one sausage pizza, and one pepperoni pizza. To their credit, the pizza sauce wasn't bad, and the toppings were OK. The crust, though, was terrible. It reminded me for all the world of cheap frozen pizza. Needless to say, we won't be going back.

Saturday saw me at work in the morning while Dan slept in. He was awake and showered when I got home, and we headed out to run some errands. We happened upon a local coffee house now in its third incarnation since we've been in the area, and had a very tasty lunch there (they carry Intelligentsia Coffee! Yay!). Then it was up to Antioch Packing House to gather information on buying a side or quarter of a cow to fill up our freezer. We also picked up some excellent bacon and a couple of fantastic steaks. Once we got home we were joined by tozier_wah for the evening, and introduced him into how we have a small dinner for company: grilled NY strip steaks, baked potatoes with Monterey Jack and Parmesan, and grilled asparagus with rosemary and goat cheese, all accompanied with an excellent Australian shiraz blend. The evening ended with me nodding off on the sofa while Dan and Toz played Mario Kart Wii.

Sunday was the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. It was lightly-attended, as expected, but we got some good stuff done. perro has done a great job of fitting all the major events into the allotted space; now he can start thinking about the smaller panels. Afterwards we went over to Cafe Mistiko, a curious "European sports bar" that I really wanted to like more than I did. They made killer smoothies, and the saganaki was quite tasty. My crepe, "The Zembekiko" (Loukaniko [Greek sausage], tomatoes, peppers, and feta cheese) was only so-so, though. I'd be willing to go back and try something else on the menu, though. And lest you think of crepes as dainty little things, these suckers were huge, taking up three-quarters of the plate. I did also pick up a copy of the menu for the Japanese sushi joint next door and it looks like that may be next on the list of places in the area to try.

This week, we're cleaning and shopping in preparation for the coming weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing some of our out-of-town friends, and hopefully repeating the fantastic time we had last year. Never a dull moment!

What a great weekend! The skies were sunny, the temperatures were above 60 degrees (F), which made it cause to at least open a few windows and air out the house a bit to celebrate the impending spring (geeky meteorological note: This was the first weekend in Chicago in six months where the highs on both Saturday and Sunday have been over 60 degrees, according to Tom Skilling).

As I mentioned on Friday, takaza and justincheetah attended the Cubs game while I slaved over a hot computer at work (there's some neat tales to be told from that, but I'll let Dan tell that story). After work, I drove down and met them and calapurr, then from there we met up with perro and darkwolph, then headed over to kodi_pup's swanky new digs, where we were joined by invncble.

After some hemming and hawing (and being assisted by Cheetah's forethought to bring his EVDO-equipped laptop with OpenTable bookmarked), we decided to head down to Emmett's Ale House. Tasty beer was had, and my burger with portabellas, sautéed onions, and Boursin was divine. The company was excellent as well! Afterwards we retired back to Cheetah and Cala's to watch Ratatouille, but Dan and I had to bow out early due to the long drive home. What a great evening, though!

On Saturday we celebrated the weather by getting out and indulging in some retail therapy. Highlights included some wardrobe expansion at Berman's, some tasty ice cream, picking up some lovely rosemary-mint bath products, finally spending my Williams Sonoma gift card (thanks colliedoc!), and making our second round of purchases for a certain party next weekend. Oh, and getting sleazed on by the used car Sleep Number bed salesman. I'm afraid it will take more than just sweet-talking to get us to buy at $2,500 - $3,000 bed.

We were tired after all that running around, so we opted to go home and crash in lieu of further socializing. Thanks to tozier_wah and Perro for the invite, though!

The weather on Sunday was every bit as lovely as Saturday's. Following a nice and relaxing morning and a quick grocery run, roho, genet, and linnaeus came over for some very enjoyable grilling. Nothing complicated, just burgers and brats and grilled veggies, but it was all delicious. The evening flew by and we had a lot of fun. It's so nice to know that the grilling season will soon be on us. My to-do list for smoking includes ribs, pork shoulder, brisket, and chicken or turkey. I can't wait!

This week is going to be pretty low-key. Since we're heading out to Ann Arbor on Friday, we're going to stay in, keep costs down, and get ready for the weekend. I've got a couple of statistics classes on Wednesday and Thursday, so this is effectively a two-day work week for me, which is quite lovely. I've got a rather extended to-do list of stuff for MFF tonight, though, so there's plenty to keep me occupied at work and at home!

This afternoon the temperature soared into the mid-fifties, which means that it was time to roll out the grill for the first time since last fall. takaza picked up a couple of excellent steaks and I made foil packets with thinly-sliced potatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sprigs of fresh thyme. I grilled it all up over charcoal and it was absolutely fantastic. Sure, there may still be more snow coming and the temperatures are going to drop back down, but it's a nice reminder of warmer days and fun times ahead.

So, a few months back, we cooked up some burgers after a LAFF Softball game. It was a lot of fun and my loving husband takaza and I started to think about what we could accomplish if we really wanted to do it right.
( Menu Preparation )
( Logistics )
( Execution )

Mission accomplished. And the big news? We're doing it again! Saturday, July 19, 2008 at the LAFF Softball Ninth Anniversary Game and Dinner, at Belvidere Park in Waukegan, Illinois. It'll be $10 per person, and be prepared to eat very, very well :-)

Recipes to follow in my next post!
Crossposted to fursthatcook

Edit: I almost forgot - there's pictures! Here's pictures courtesy of dexcat, and also pictures by artyskox.

So we're a few weeks out from LAFF Softball, which is on Saturday, October 6 at Madison Meadow Park (Madison and Ahrens Ave, Lombard, IL). As many of you already know, takaza and I will be grilling up steaks (NY strip steaks, baby!) after the game. We will also be serving apple pie and some delicious side dishes as well (possibilities include grilled asparagus with a lemon-rosemary dressing, grilled potato packets with fresh herbs and butter, or something similar, depending on how I can work the budget). All this for only $10! This is going to be a whole lot of fun and even if you're interested in playing there will be good food and good company. Yes, even at a LAFF event. Trust me on this.

So, who's interested? If possible, we'd like to get RSVP's by noon on Friday, September 21 (this Friday), though if you decide that you're interested after that you can let me know and we can probably squeeze you in. If you've already RSVP'd to steviemaxwell or on laffsoftball you don't need to RSVP again, but otherwise you can either leave a comment here or e-mail Stevie at his account at gmail.com with the username steviemaxwell@. When RSVP'ing, please respond with: attending softball or not, attending picnic or not, wanting steak or not. Any response of "N, N, Y" will earn a boot to the head. The final deadline for RSVP's is Friday, October 6.

That was the weekend that was. On Friday, takaza and I went out after work for a quick trip to Sam's Club to price out some shelves that he had his eye on so we could bring some order to our garage (and hopefully other areas of the house as well). We didn't buy anything while we were there, but we had some better numbers to work with. On the way home, we decided to try one of the family restaurants in Grayslake, the Hillside Restaurant. While Dan's meal was pretty blah, my Reuben was excellent, with some of the better corned beef that I've had in a while. Afterwards, we stopped by the Prairie Croissant Cafe and picked up some coffee beans (they get theirs from Metropolis Coffee in Chicago, my second-favorite roastery there :-)

On Saturday, Dan had to go over to his mom's place to hook up her new DVD recorder and show her how to use it. I struck off on my own and joined roho, genet, feren, lady_curmudgeon, and colliedoc for brunch at Las Vegas Restaurant in Antioch. Afterwards we walked around downtown a bit to fight off the inevitable food coma and we were joined by linnaeus. The lot of us headed north to Brightonwood Orchard, home of Aeppeltreow Winery. We sampled some of the new wines for 2007, but I wound up buying a bottle of the very tasty Appley Doux sweet sparkling cider and a bottle of Pommeaux apple dessert wine (fortified with apple eau de vie). Then it was over to the apple barn where we checked out some of the wonderful heirloom varieties. My favorite, Northern Spy, wasn't in yet, but I picked up some Northern Greening and Gravenstein apples.

After returning from the orchard, Straif and I headed south and picked up Dan, then stopped at Garden Fresh to get some dinner fixins before returning to Antioch. Roho grilled up some delicious burgers and sausages from Antioch Packing House, then I went to work on the grill, test-grilling a couple of different things to see how they might work for the upcoming picnic. The verdicts:
Grilled Butternut Squash: Delicious, very potatoe-y when grilled. This begs the question, though, why not just grill potatoes, which are easier to deal with in quantity?
Grilled Honeydew Melon: The grilling didn't really add much to the flavor. Maybe good for a garnish in a salad? Probably won't pursue this for the picnic.
Grilled Honey Crisp Apples: Excellent! Nicely caramelized, very tasty. Might be a bit too expensive, though (there's a reason the orchard nicknames them "Money Crisp" apples)
Grilled Nectarines: No verdict, since the coals were dying and I never succeeded in doing much more than warming the nectarines.

Sunday got a lot crazier than expected. First, we were surprised by a call from our landlord wanting to come in and change the furnace filter (read: "I want to come by and make sure you guys aren't destroying my place.") That's cool, though - this was the first time he's been out since we moved and, and I can understand his concern. Fortunately, we're good tenants and he seemed happy with what he saw. We also talked about re-upping our lease and he seemed very amenable to that, so we're covered for next year, it appears (thank heavens!). After he left, we drove back to Sam's Club and bought the shelves we had looked at on Friday. We rearranged some of the stuff in the garage and put the shelves together, then Dan started replacing the various boxes on the shelves. Dan's mom showed up to start work on a slipcover for our sofa, and I went to work in the kitchen making the aforementioned Apple Slab Pie. That sucker took seven pounds of apples and four pie crusts, but it came out well and I'm very happy with the results. In the midst of the chaos, luckytheevildog showed up and Dan helped him install a new hard drive on his computer. I whipped up dinner for everyone, a simple fettuccine with a modified pesto consisting of olive oil, garlic, fresh herbs (basil, oregano, and parsley), and Parmesan cheese. I cooked up some Italian sausages to serve on the side, and I was very happy with the results. The pie definitely passed muster; I'll be posting the recipe in the next few days, since Dan's mom wants a copy.

The alarm went off far too early this morning, and I'm dragging a bit now. Coming up this week...um, beats me. I know I have a lot of work to do for Midwest FurFest, though, so that will probably be my primary non-work focus. For now, though, I'm going in search of caffeine!

Now that was an entertaining weekend! First off, the week was instantly made better on Friday afternoon when takaza returned from the wilds of Indiana. Of course, not an hour after he got home we had to leave again, but it was for a good cause: dinner with friends at Bombay City Indian Restaurant. We had a lot of fun seeing familiar faces and meeting some cool new folks too (who I hope we'll have a chance to see more of!). The food was, as always, fantabulous, though I have learned my lesson: while tandoori stuff is tasty, the sauced dishes are where it's at. Fresh naan dipped in the chicken tikka masala sauce...heaven! Unfortunately, we've been there three times and each time the service has been sub-par. This time we waited about 30 minutes for our check once we were done. It might be time to investigate other Indian places in the area, sadly. For dessert, we went to Marble Slab Creamery with steviemaxwell, roho, genet, and linnaeus, which was a perfect capper for the evening.

On Saturday, after a very quick follow-up visit with the doctor about my toe (it's healing nicely, thank you), I returned home and Dan woke up not long after. I knew that I needed to go to LAFF Softball to drop off the badge holders for Mephit Furmeet to ramalion, but it was up in the air if Dan would be joining me. Between a couple of calls to Stevie, making some lists, and having some cool ideas for grilling, it suddenly transpired that he had talked himself into going and we were going to be grilling for the picnic after the softball game. We stopped by Sam's Club and picked up a huge amount of food (as well as a nifty new portable table) and then headed over to the softball game. aeto was kind enough to make a quick store run for us for a few things we couldn't get at Sam's Club and to lend us the use of his cooler - thanks, Aeto! We watched some of the game and chatted with the various folks who were there (too many to name!). At about 4 PM we took all of the supplies over to the cooking area and fired up the (one, very small) grill and set to work prepping the food. Dan and I had agreed that we were going to make "Jucy Lucy" burgers (sic), and we set to work making the patties. perro and darkwolph let us store some of the perishables in their refrigerator, which was a huge help! I learned that the grill didn't put out as much heat as I had hoped as I limped along with the first batch of bratwurst, but once we got a handle on it (and added another chimney full of charcoal!) we got things working properly. We wound up feeding 25 people or so, and even managed to break even in costs! Dan and I are kicking around ideas for the end-of-the-season picnic, possibly including steaks. We'll see if we can make that work, though.

After grilling, we were both drained, so we drove home and crashed. We were both silly and didn't put on sunscreen (not too bad - we were mostly in the shade) or bug spray (bad - I've got multiple unpleasant welts!), so we've got some tokens of the day to remind us to properly prepare next time!

Dan's sister came over Sunday afternoon and they worked on her computer for several hours while I puttered around the house doing laundry and cleaning. That unfortunately meant that Dan had to stay home to work on work-related stuff while I headed out to have dinner with Roho, Genet, chebuytkin and CAJones at Dave and Busters. The company was excellent, with much smoffage and comparisons of conventions (I like the idea of road-tripping to Minneapolis next July 4 for Convergence!). The food was surprisingly good as well, as was my strawberry margarita. The games afterwards...not so much. If you like shooting or driving games, D&B's is the place to go. Unfortunately, shooting games have zero interest for me and my passion for driving games is limited at best. I left with credit still on my card, but the night was getting late. I got home just as Dan was wrapping up for the evening, so it all worked out.

It's a new week now, and it looks like it'll be a busy one at work. We don't have much planned during the week, though at the end of the week is the Chicago Air and Water Show. Also, keep an eye out here because plans are in the works for another game night at our place next week!

The past few days have been something of a mixed bag. We didn't do much on Friday, but on Saturday I got up early to head off to the doctor. As I had in April for my other foot, I had to go in for a matricectomy on my left foot. ( Click for potentially squicky medical details. ) One nice thing this time around: last time I had this done I had to soak my foot twice a day. No, I just have what is essentially a medicated Band-Aid I put on the toe after showering each day. Much easier!

So anyway, I got back from the doctor's office at about noon and pretty much sat and stayed on the sofa. Poor takaza was a whirlwind through the house, cleaning the place up single-handedly in preparation for his family coming over to celebrate his mom's birthday. After a bit we went out to run some errands, though I pretty much stayed in the car with my foot propped up. We did go into Tony's Butcher Shop in Grayslake, since it took less time than going all the way up to Antioch Packing House. This was the second time we've gone there, and we won't be going back. Between the surly service ("What kind of hot dogs are these?" "The best ones."), high prices, and low quality (bones in the ground beef, cartilage in the brats). We got home just in time for Dan's mom to show up, then after a while his sister and brother (and his brother's sister-in-law) arrived. Dan busied himself playing host and grilling up dinner, and was pretty much consigned to the sofa. Since the anesthetic had worn off by then, I was quite OK with this, though I felt kind of useless. We played some games later in the evening, which was quite fun, though by 10 or so everyone was worn out. After we saw everyone off, I popped a Tylenol 3 and we went to bed. I slept quite poorly, waking up every time I moved my foot.

And on Sunday? On Sunday we didn't do diddly, and it was great. We watched a whole lot of Tivo and relaxed, and didn't even leave the house.

So here we are at Monday. My foot isn't hurting too badly, though I'm propping it up at every opportunity. The boss is out this week, so there's a corresponding lack of immediacy pervading the office. Dan is going to be off in Indiana for a few days this week, so I'll be on my own for at least one night. Then this weekend there's Indian food on Friday (om nom nom!) and LAFF Softball on Saturday (yes, I intend to be there, though not play). But for now, back to work!

So besides the weekend's technological trials and tribulations, what else happened?

On Saturday we decided that since roho, genet, and colliedoc were coming over, a tasty grilled dinner would be in order. We laid out where we needed to go, but the circle slowly got wider. See, we needed some really good corn on the cob, and while Garden Fresh Market's isn't bad, I think the best corn around is from Stade's Farm Market, so a detour to McHenry was added. And heck, as long as we were going that way, if we want really good steaks, we were going to need to go to our favorite butcher at Antioch Packing House. The farm stand was delightful, as expected, and we picked up some fresh peppers, beefsteak tomatoes, and some delicious apple-cinnamon bread along with the corn. And Antioch Packing House always has good ground beef and bacon, so we had to get some of those while we got the 1.5" thick New York strip steaks. Stopping by Garden Fresh, I got some asparagus and some other goodies. Once the Tivo was up and running, I fired up the grill and I grilled the asparagus with a garlic-rosemary-lemon vinaigrette that was divine. The steaks cooked up perfectly, and the rest of the meal (as well as the company) was excellent!

On Sunday we unfortunately had to bow out from magicpaw's birthday shindig (we'll make it up to you, we promise!). While we were out picking up the networking gadgets we needed, I wanted a quick and cheap lunch. Hey, there's a White Castle! I haven't been to one of those in over a decade. And after having eaten there, I can safely say it'll be at least another decade, because that was just plain nasty. Once we got everything up and running, the rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around relaxing, and scheduling our Tivo to fill up with weird, random programming.

And now it's Monday. It should be a quiet week, though it looks like Dan will be working late on Thursday and Friday. Hmm, maybe I'll actually get around to start that Harry Potter book this week (sorry Roho! :-)

So I suppose the last substantive post I made kind of left things off around the middle of last week. The rest of the week was pretty quiet; honestly, I was so darned tired all week long that actually doing anything would have been difficult. Also, it didn't help that the cough that lingered through Anthrocon continued to haunt me, waking me up a couple of times each night and making catching up on sleep difficult.

Saturday we finally got around to being social again, catching Harry Potter and the Moneymaking Juggernaut on Saturday afternoon with roho and genet. Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book, between Harry's pubescent whining and interminable scenes at the Order headquarters filled with talking, talking, talking. The movie cured a lot of that by cutting out great chunks of the story (which was needed, I think, if only to make the run time manageable). For that alone I would have liked the movie, but the casting was fabulous as well. I always adore Emma Thompson, and her depiction of Professor Trelawney is always great. Evanna Lynch wasn't quite the way I was picturing Luna Lovegood but I thought she was a good choice. And Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was just delicious - how she gives you the willies with a girlish giggle. All in all, a good movie, and one I enjoyed a lot.

After the movie, we retired back to our place where we were joined by colliedoc, who was crashing with us between weekend shifts at Bristol Renaissance Faire. Fajitas were consumed, as well as yummy artichoke dip and a caramel apple pie that was just divine. We watched some Flip This House and World Series of Pop Culture, and everyone had a great time.

Both takaza and I woke up before 8 AM on Sunday (!), so we saw Straif off for the day. After relaxing a bit and catching up on some Tivo, we headed out to meet up with justincheetah for a Top Secret Project. Not much I can say except that it was a pleasure to Mike (Calla), Cheetah's boyfriend. Afterwards we headed home and had a quiet evening in.

On Monday, I finally got tired of the wretched cough and went to see the doctor. I explained that I had tried taking Tussin AC (guaifenesin + codeine, left over from a prescription from last year) but it didn't really seem to help. She prescribed another cough syrup and told me to call if that didn't help. I left a bit disgusted, hoping to have a bit more help than that, but oh well. I got out of the doctor's in time to catch Dan on the way home on the train, so I picked him up at the Mundelein station (yay for Google Maps on my Motorola Q!) and we went shopping for the week's groceries at Target using the $100 in gift cards we had gotten as thanks for helping out at Dan's company picnic. While we were there, I had the cough syrup prescription filled, to the tune of $0.69. The groceries were a lot more, though we went a little nuts and bought some stuff we probably wouldn't have otherwise, just to try out new brands and such.

That night, I took the cough syrup before going to bed and...I take back everything I said before. The doctor had prescribed Hydromet, which I thought was more of the same but is actually hydrocodone and homatropine. I knew hydrocodone affects me a lot more than codeine (following some fun in college with an abscessed tooth and Lorcet Plus; "Whoa, I think I'll sit down now."), but the homatropine is some serious stuff as well. Since I took that first dose I haven't coughed. At all. Holy cats. And this after I was wracked a couple of times each day and night with a nasty, rasping cough. I took it again last night (earlier than I had Monday night, which was good since I didn't feel quite as dopey this morning), but I'm thinking that should be all that's necessary.

As for the rest of the week, there's not too much going on. I have the Midwest FurFest registration database up to date now, and while we're ahead of last year's registrations I'm not seeing any insane explosions of growth. The fact that we're selling out the Hyatt in July (as opposed to in October last year) is more a reflection of the fact that it costs nothing to reserve a hotel room, but actually costs money to register :-) Anyway, now that everything is caught up, I have about 70 or so confirmation postcards to send out, which I hope to do tonight. I don't think we're doing anything Friday night, but Saturday night we're going to stay at the Amerisuites Schaumburg (thanks again, r_bear!), then on Sunday is the Midwest FurFest board meeting at 1 PM then the staff meeting at 2 PM. Lots to do before those meetings, so off I go!

Oh dear, a meme. I'll get that out of the way first, and I blame skorzy and atara for it:

Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about - it can be anything from the house I live in to my favorite shoes. Leave your choice here as a comment, and I will reciprocate by taking the pictures and posting them as an LJ entry. That way you get to know a little bit about my life!

Please note that it may take a few days to get to all of the requests (if there are any), but I'll do my darnedest to accommodate them all. Now, I reserves the right to interpret any and all requests however I like, though ;-)

Now that that's out of the way...Yesterday was rather busy. I slipped out from work a little early (considering I get into work each day 20-30 minutes early, this is no big deal) and ran up to Lovin' Oven Cakery to pick up some tasty stuff for a certain panda's birthday. On the way, I got a call the my new glasses were ready, so I stopped by the opticians in Grayslake (navigating through the weekly Farmer's Market) to get them, then raced home and did some last-minute cleaning. Dan got home a little late (he'd had to drive in due to a little problem that Metra had), and were then joined by steviemaxwell, magicpaw, midwestcougar, nymphara and her new squeeze, Nick, and roho and genet. While the crowd played a couple of rounds of poker, I busied myself grilling up a multitude of brats and hot dogs and hamburgers. Everyone had a good bit of fun, and Dan had fun making appletinis. Genet and I elected to chat while everyone else played games, and that was fine - I wasn't much in a poker mood. For dessert we had a couple of monstrous éclairs that we cut up for serving, as well a couple different kinds of strudel. Yummy! We didn't get to bed until after 11 PM, though, and both Dan and I are dragging a bit today as a result.

Not much going on today, though I do have my annual checkup with my doctor right after work today. Tomorrow we'll be heading up to Antioch to stock up on some important items for Anthrocon, and I may see about taking Dan's car in for emissions testing as well.

Yep, it was a weekend so big it's going to need two posts!

Going into this weekend, both takaza and I were somewhat disappointed. For the past two years we have hosted Wuffmeet on Memorial Day weekend, a gathering of 30-or-so friends at a local hotel for a weekend of hanging out, good food, and lots of fun. This year, between conflicting schedules, lack of money, and general lack of interest (perhaps it was too soon after New Year's?), Wuffmeet just didn't come together. So we went to Plan B: Hanging out at Duncan and Takaza's. We spent a good bit of last week cleaning the house, shopping, and making plans. I'm very pleased with the way things turned out, and I think Dan is too.

On Friday, after a few last-minute cleaning tasks in the kitchen, I joined roho, genet, midwestcougar, and nyuni over at The Firkin for dinner. It was a pleasure to see Nyuni again (who apparently I had met at MFF a few years back, but it was during one of the "Chairman's Receptions", so I was a little hazy on that :-) He's a fellow homebrewer and has a fine appreciation for beer, and The Firkin is the perfect place for that! Dinner was tasty and the beers were plentiful. It was quite enjoyable. Once I got home, I put the pork butts in to brine and put a nice, spicy rub on the beef brisket and put them all into the fridge.

On Saturday morning, I woke up unconscionably early. This gave me time to make coffee, catch up on e-mail and LJ, and generally enjoy a quiet hour, before going to work on the smoking. We had two eight-pound pork butts and a nearly-nine-pound beef brisket that needed to be smoked. After getting the charcoal lit and well-stoked in the firebox, I added chunks of hickory and apple wood. After a few hours, it looked like this:

As you can see, it was a bit rainy, but fortunately I had positioned the grill under our balcony and covered the balcony with a tarp, so the grill stayed nice and dry. I put the meat on to smoke at 8 AM and was able to follow the temperature of both the meat and the smoking chamber using a handy gadget I quick-ordered from Amazon on Thursday (bless you, Amazon Prime - I {heart} $2 next-day delivery). At 1:30 PM, I pulled everything off the smoker and wrapped each one in foil and put them into an over at 300 degrees F to finish off the cooking. After re-rigging the grill a bit, I started up a couple of charcoal chimneys in the main grill portion and then used those coals to grill 30 hamburgers and 16 bratwursts.

As expected, most of our guests showed up after the projected 2 PM lunch time, but over the next few hours we were joined by (big breath here) roho, genet, midwestcougar, nyuni, serinthia, todd_riverden, linnaeus, siriuswolfstar, simbalion, wyldekyttin, uncle_vlad, datahawk, foxish, steviemaxwell, magicpaw, rcking, nymphara, rustitobuck, Dan's mom, luckytheevildog, and quasiskunk (I think that's everyone).

In an additional bizarre and random occurrence, I got a call from my sister that my mom, who was flying from Portland, Oregon to Greenville, South Carolina via O'Hare, was going to miss her flight and probably be stranded in Chicago for the night. Right after we had finished slicing the brisket and pulling all the pork and we were about to start setting the food out, I got the call from Mom that she was at O'Hare. I jumped into the car and about the 90-minute round trip to the airport and Mom got to hang out with some of the folks who were at the party (she mainly stayed in the garage "smoking lounge"). So it was a weird twist, but it was a real pleasure to see her again.

The rest of the evening was filled with Apples to Apples, consumption of Beverages, and general merriment. Thanks to all the folks who brought side dishes (Robert's orzo salad was tasty!), desserts (Jaycee's ever-full boxes of cupcakes!) and drinks. That many people in our little townhouse gets a bit crazy, but we have so much fun hosting these parties and I hope everyone had as great a time as we did.

Next post: Sunday and Monday - Las Vegas, games, werewolves, and new addictions!

It's been a bit crazy this week as takaza and I make preparations for the weekend. Mainly just getting things cleaned up, etc. but also running errands. yesterday I stopped by our favorite local butcher to order some meat to smoke this weekend. We're going to have rather a lot of meat, since I wound up ordering two pork butts (yes, that's a pork shoulder, and no I don't understand the vagaries of butcher-ese) plus a beef brisket. Each butt is going to be 7-9 pounds and the brisket will be 8-10 pounds (with fat attached; probably more like 6-8 pounds of meat once cooked). If we see the 50% yield on the pork that I did the first time I smoked (this will be better quality, so I expect more like 75% yield) we're looking at putting between 13 to 17 pounds of cooked meat on the table. Hope everyone is hungry! :-)

The other big news on my mind is Anthrocon. Besides some slight changes to my staff (and welcome to woodychitwn as my second-in-command in Artists Alley/Con Store), I was taking a hard look at our travel plans. We typically leave the Tuesday evening before the convention, spend the night somewhere in Ohio, the roll into the con at around noon on Wednesday. First off, leaving Tuesday night after work means trying to leave town on the evening of July 3. I expect it'll take at least double the usual time if not more just to clear Chicago and surrounds. Which leaves us driving way too far too late at night, or having to drive further than we'd like on Wednesday morning. Plus, there's the expense of the gas (assuming $4-ish per gallon), the hotel Tuesday night, the tolls, the food along the way, and the parking at the Westin.

Then, the thought occurred to me: just how much is airfare? If we fly out from O'Hare Tuesday night after work, we can stay at the La Quinta near Pittsburgh International very cheaply due to Dan's points there, then catch the express bus downtown Wednesday morning. Monday morning, it's as simple as catching the bus back to the airport. And after totaling all this up, it's actually cheaper to fly than to drive. Couple that with the kind offer from linnaeus to carry a few other items in his car for us (i.e. booze) and flying suddenly becomes a very attractive possibility. Dan and I will talk this over tonight and probably have a decision in the next day or two.

So, to do tonight: install the new shower head (which, according to Amazon, is currently sitting on our front porch), clean both showers (we have a stall and a tub/shower in the master bath), then start in on dinner. Busy busy busy!

What a fantastic weekend! And yes, sumatrae, this is another post all about food :-)

On Friday, we met up with roho, genet, linnaeus, feren, lady_curmudgeon, and a host of other folks from R&G's gaming group for dinner at Bombay City Indian Restaurant in Gurnee. takaza was pushing his boundaries a bit, but I was really happy that 1.) he was willing to try it, and 2.) he really liked it! The restaurant manager(?) approached our group of 14 and suggested we try ordering family style, and since there were a number of neophytes he suggested a set of entrees, including chicken tikka masala, rogan josh (lamb in a tomato and onion sauce), lamb badam pasanda (lamb cooked in cream and nuts), chicken biryani, and saag paneer and mutter paneer (cubes of cheese cooked with spinach and peas, respectively). The nan (bread) was yummy, and I loved my mango lassi. It was a fantastic meal, and both Dan and I look forward to visiting Bombay City again soon. To answer your question from Friday, posicat, I definitely recommend this place! Apparently it's only been there for about a year.

The weather on Saturday was perfect. I had to fire up our new grill to season the inside of it. I figured that once we had it hot we might as well use it, so we invited Roho and Genet out to help us inaugurate the grill. They were kind enough to stop by Antioch Packing House and pick up some amazing 1.5" thick strip steaks. I picked up some yellow and red bell peppers, onions, and corn, all of which got grilled up with the steaks. I still need to work on my charcoal grilling technique (I'm sure the hair on the back of my hand will grow back eventually), but the nice thing is that the grill has enough surface area that if I keep the coals to one side, I can position the food at various distances from them to control the cooking. The steaks came out perfectly, and the entire dinner was delicious! Dan and Roho baked up some tasty puff pastry/peanut butter/chocolate thingies for dessert to cap off a great evening.

Sunday was the very-lightly-attended Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Before the meeting, though, we had to indulge in a bit of home shopping. You see, our pantry is nice, but I hated the way that our "liquor cabinet" looked - it was really just a collection of bottles that sat precariously on the wire rack. The bottles were prone to tip over, and it was difficult to see and access what we had. We also wanted to free up the space in the pantry, so we decided to go to Ikea to find a proper liquor cabinet. I'm pleased to say that we found the perfect thing. Dan did the assembly work and I helped secure it in place, and here's the finished product:

Here's the new cabinet. I wanted doors because I thought having all the bottles in plain view might suggest that we're complete lushes. I love all the shelf space on the bottom.

And here it is open, showing all the boozy goodness! And hey, it's not even completely full :-)

I like it because it is shallower than the cart we had there before and it provides a lot more storage space - I now can have all my cookbooks in the kitchen!

So now we're back to the work-week. We're in a frenzy of listmaking in preparations for our Memorial Day weekend gathering (post on that to follow). That should be a blast too!

And the week has thus wound down. Hooray! It's looking like we've got a lovely weekend coming up (well, Saturday, anyway - Sunday's supposed to be colder and stormy). I'm up in the air about going to LAFF Softball on Saturday; both cars need a thorough washing inside and out, and I still need to fire up the new grill and "season" the interior before we do any grilling or smoking. So, we'll see how things go.

Sunday will be the May Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Things are perking along there, and I feel better now that I've gotten the first of the confirmation postcards out. I need to sit down with neowolf2 and work out who's going to do what this year as well. Maybe we'll get some food afterwards, or not - we're playing it by ear.

I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. We're going to an Indian restaurant in Gurnee. It's been ages since I've been to a good restaurant, and roho and genet tell us that this is a really tasty place. I can't wait!

That's it for now. It's ice cream time!

It was such a great weekend, it took me a day to recover from it before I could write this! (Or I'm lazy. One of the two...)

We had a fabulous weekend, though! On Friday I picked takaza up after work and we headed north to Antioch to hang out with roho and genet. Traffic being what it is, our 6 PM arrival became 7:15 PM, but that's OK - we weren't in too much of a hurry and I always enjoy the time spent with Dan. We chatted a bit once we got there and then headed out to a Mexican joint that was...well, a wee bit underwhelming. We need to take R&G to the taquiera around the corner from our place for something a little more authentic. Following a stop by Armanetti's Liquors, we chatted for a while back at the house and tested some of the Tasty Beverages we had purchased. After a bit, I was shocked by the arrival of datahawk! Yeah, she lives there, but it's not like they ever actually see her :-)

The next morning was the usual slow start, but pleasantly so. Eventually we motivated enough to head down to BD's in Vernon Hills to meet up with linnaeus, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. Tasty stir-fried food was consumed and we had a great time chatting. Afterwards, we returned to Antioch for a quick stop by Antioch Packing House for dinner grillables, then a stop by the house for pit stops. As we were leaving there, I unfortunately managed to step approximately in the same place that Feren did and twisted my left ankle. I imagine I looked pretty impressive staggering around a bit before collapsing to the grass. Ack! I was still able to walk, though, so we pressed on, though somewhat slowly.

And press on we did, to Brightonwood Orchards! This fabulous place is just north of Richard Bong State Recreation Area and only about a 20-minute drive from Antioch. When we pulled in, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the orchard also had a winery! The winery made apple wines and hard ciders, and they had a tour - well, not so much a tour as one of the guys who makes the wines and ciders who just loves talking about it and showing off their shop. I took several pictures, some of which should amuse you homebrewers out there. After the tour, we had a great time tasting their wares and picking up a few bottles of the drinkable apple-y goodness. We were joined by grabstein_69, silverwind, and their daughter Chayla right around then, too.

We walked (well, I hobbled) over to the apple barn where they had a respectable variety of heirloom apples. I grabbed a variety of different apples, though of course now I have no idea which are which but hey - it should be an unusual eating experience. As we were leaving I remembered that neowolf2 had mentioned how good Northern Spy apples were. I hadn't seen any on display, so I asked the cashier and she said they had some in the cooler. I bought four of them and tore into one as we were hanging around while Giles fed Chayla. OH MY GOD that apple was so good! Slightly tart, slightly sweet, and nice and firm. Just excellent, and very flavorful. I'm glad I bought them!

After the orchard, we had a nice evening relaxing back at R&G's place, enjoying grilled meat, mojitos, and good company. We capped off the night by surprising Roho with a birthday cake I had made the day before. Yay for surprises! The cake was tasty, too, though a bit dry due to a little overbaking. The dark chocolate frosting made up for that though. Yum!

On Sunday Genet made a tasty breakfast for us, then we said our goodbyes. Dan and I headed south, all the way down to Glen Ellyn, where we helped crim_ferret and wyldekyttin move some of their possessions to their new place in Naperville (if anyone wants to know where it is: Conveniently located just south of The Big N). Unfortunately, between the fact that my ankle was shot and we had an online Midwest FurFest staff meeting that night. we weren't as helpful as I would have hoped. We got some of their bookcases over, at least. We returned to The City by about 5 PM, which gave us time to grab dinner from the taquieria before the meeting. The meeting was moderately useful and mercifully short, and we spent the rest of the evening working on con-related stuff.

And Monday? Th