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Several days before the Superbowl I was reading the New York Times online and came across an interesting article about something called the bacon explosion. I wasn’t too excited about either of the teams in the Superbowl this year but I still wanted an excuse to hang out with friends and have some fun so I forwarded the recipe on to Dan Dunn, my partner in grilling crimes.

Dan has been making noises about getting a smoker for a few years now, but as of yet does not have one. So step one was to do some research about how to use a gas grill as a smoker. The simplest method seemed to be making an aluminum foil pouch to hold your soaked grilling chips and placing it directly on the grilling surface. Sounds good! Time to soak the mesquite wood chips!

I placed two handfuls of soaked beer chips in aluminum foil, folded it into a pouch, and stabbed the top with a fork so the smoke could escape. Then I put the pouch on the hot grill surface and waited. Sure enough, several minutes later the packet was smoking nicely. The thermometer indicated the surface of the grill at the lowest gas setting was 275 degrees. Since the pig loaf was only supposed to cook at 225 degrees we put the entire thing on an overturned aluminum pie plate to provide some more distance and an air gap between the flames and the meat. Miraculously, with the lid closed so the smoke would flavor the meat, the temperature of this arrangement was 225 degrees.

In the second picture note the marvelous ice flows and glaciation action in the backyard. We grilled in the garage since there was still 1.5 feet of snow on the ground.

Two and a half hours later the thermometer had the internal temperature at 165 which is good because I had just run out of propane in the main tank. All that was left was to cut, serve, and eat.

The best description I can come up with is that it’s like eating the toppings from the best meatza you’ve ever had, except it’s compressed and has more BBQ sauce. It’s definitely not for the weak of heart or of arteries. In addition to the food success itself I also learned how to make a gas grill an effective smoker.

As for the game and party, we also had Nate, Heather, and the dogs over which is always a lot of fun. The game itself was pretty lame except for the fourth quarter but much fun (and food) was had by all.

What happened to this week?  It has included a lot of networking, career pondering and research, and work work work for me.  A trip to DC on Monday, digging into a troubled project, and then attending an all-day off site management meeting yesterday were some highlights.  It was fun, but now I’m truly exhausted.  Even with my course of anti-biotics that returned me to my normal energetic self, this week was a doozy. In the mean time, Brian joined Facebook and Twitter, rocketing himself into techno-geekdom again (at least IMHO), an apparent result of attending a Bruins game with Dan.

Today was a welcome opportunity to not go anywhere.  I slept in and then took a mid-day nap (I needed it!).  I cleaned the bathroom.  I swept the stairs and living room.  I folded laundry.  I did the dishes.  Ahhh, the comforts of home.  I’ve got a plan to do 5 miles with Heather this afternoon.  My “reduce procrastination” tasks this week were to call my brother and Carolyn – still trying to connect in person with them, but I’m sure I will have more time next week.

While we were filing paperwork in the office, I thought I heard a singing or crying sound.  Brian identified the source as Slinky in the fireplace room, and here’s what we found when we investigated.

Slinky is a lot faster than he lets on.  He let it almost get away a few times, only to catch the little vermin again.  We didn’t know whether to let him eat the mouse or to take it from him, so we decided on the latter.  I’m sure he could have played with his little “toy” for a while longer, but we removed the intruder and gave Slinky a treat.

Good kitty!!

It has not been a banner month for following up on New Year’s resolutions, but it hasn’t been terribly bad either.

One of my goals was to combat procrastination.  I thought picking one neglected task per week would be a good goal.  Rather than dwelling on how long I’ve been thinking about doing something but not actually *doing* anything about it, I’d just go ahead and get it done, and be inwardly proud that it’s no longer a source of guilt.  The idea is to lose weight off my mind as the year progresses.

Here is this week’s example: I have an ice cream maker.  After working at Toscanini’s in college, not to mention many gallons of ice cream made in our garage growing up, I have a certain reputation for both making and eating ice cream.  Unfortunately, Brian has never eaten ice cream I’ve made.  Shortly after we moved to Newburyport, I broke the blade on the ice cream maker.  Since the rest of the contraption is in fine shape, I’ve kept it.  Today, I finally ordered the replacement part.  Now I can look forward to the day the part will arrive and we can enjoy making and eating ice cream (and frozen yogurt made with Brian’s homemade yogurt!) again, instead of kicking myself whenever I see the poor ice cream maker in the cupboard and thinking “I really should order a new blade.”

Other anti-procrastination activities have included putting photos in the cool 3D picture frames Leslie got us for Christmas more than a year ago, updating my resume (you know, the thing those career experts tell you do to every year, just in case, but I haven’t done in a really long time?) and getting on Facebook.

Another goal was to have more people over for dinner and to see friends more often in general.  We really enjoy entertaining and cooking, but months can easily go by without hosting a dinner party.  The SanClementes came over to sled and have dinner last weekend, and the church music committee had dinner and met here last night.  In addition I got to see Ab and Dave + prodigies, we went to Foley’s birthday shindig, and I’ll be going to Autumn’s housewarming this weekend.  We enjoyed watching football in Quincy last weekend, having a great time with Amory, Mike, Austin, Chuck, Tracy, Nate and Dan, and finally seeing Mike’s “new” (ok, it’s been ~3 years, I just hadn’t been there to see it) 3rd floor renovated digs this month.  It’s good to catch up with friends and not let it be quite so long between visits.  We’re working on our February plans now, with the hope of some out-of-town guests being added to the schedule.

As for exercise, that could use some work.  I’ve gone snowshoeing each weekend except last week, and that was due to feeliing lousy with what has turned into a sinus infection. (I have antibiotics.)  I do love playing in the snow, and snowshoeing is the best outdoor cardio I can do when there is so much snow on the sidewalks.  I have tried out the new yoga video and mat, I’ve been on the bike a couple times, and we’ve done a few Martina workouts, but it hasn’t become quite as regular of a habit as I’d like – it is still a struggle to get in more than one workout per week.  I guess not all resolutions take off in January, and luckily each day is another opportunity to do better.

As many of you have heard the weather has been cold and snowy with enough warm days to cause some melt before refreezing at night. This has caused some spectacular icicles to form. Yes, they do reach from the roof to the ground (8+ feet.) At what point does a roof become a glacier, anyhow?

Monday’s commute was pretty good.  Not too much traffic, a few snarls at merges, but I still made it in under an hour each way.

Tuesday’s commute was better.  I picked up Brian Hone – by driving over the Rte 1A bridge!  It’s open!  I forgot how much I enjoy that route to Ipswich.  There are some lovely old cottages.  It’s a smooth and well-paved road, where I can drive 50 mph.  It’s direct.  The salt marshes are really pretty in the morning.  Plus, carpooling is far superior to solo driving.  It helps me leave work at a reasonable time, and the commute flies by when there is someone to talk to.  We had a particularly good discussion yesterday, covering current projects, Pranksy-in-a-nutshell, the thing I do that is really annoying (ok, it makes people want to give me the finger – it takes a good friend to tell a person that!), and how fun it is to have a baby girl.

Today’s commute, however, took the cake.  Due to the impending ice storm, we cancelled our business trip and scheduled a webex.  Hooray for technology!  My commute consisted of walking downstairs.  Actually, I usually walk downstairs anyway to get coffee.  In that case, my commute was the 20 steps from the kitchen to the couch.  I set up my phone on speaker mode, logged in on my laptop, got out my crackberry and notebook, and was set for the day!  I was on the phone a lot, and on the computer even more, but I was just as effective as being at work.  As a bonus, I also got a load of laundry done this afternoon.

Karma says tomorrow’s commute is going to be incredibly lousy.  I’ll enjoy the week so far though.

Brian and I collaborated on a delicious dinner.  I requested the barley salad from 500 Best Healthy Recipes, and salmon for dinner.  Brian did the grocery shopping for all the ingredients.  He started the barley salad, I finished it and did the salmon.  I plated dinner, serving salad and salmon over a bed of greens.  Voila, great dinners at the Juddmansee B&B, suitable for any season.  We thought it was tasty as a warm meal, but would be equally good chilled as a quick summer lunch.

At the moment, I am watching the Colts/Chargers NFL wild card game, and alternating to Sleepless in Seattle on the commercial breaks.  Hey, if they want to pit these somewhat gender-typical favorites against one another, I can view them both at once!  I guess it is a bit of a chick thing to be sitting under my new fleece blanket (thanks Barb!) with Slinky on my lap, but I’m also puttering around doing work on the laptop which seems more common around my male colleagues.  Go figure.

And wow.  I’m from Indy.  I wanted to root for the Colts.  They just didn’t want the win as much as the Chargers, who pushed for a first down at every opportunity.  Sproles (5’6″, 181 lbs) is my kind of guy!  It’s weird to not have Pats or Colts in the playoffs now.  For whom shall I cheer?

Given that it’s a clean slate and a whole new year, we should start out with a blog update and hopefully post a bit more regularly in 2009.

We enjoyed our traditional vowel state road trip for the holidays, this time adding a visit to the Sheldons in Chicago to our itinerary of Toledo (Brian’s family), Fort Wayne (my family and friends), St. Marys (Grandma and Sue), and Indianapolis (Rich & Sarah).  We missed seeing Brian’s Grandma and sister in FL and a few friends along the way we’d hoped to visit, but it was a full trip already for 10 days and three states.  We hope to host more visits at the Juddmansee B&B here in Newburyport this year and see some other family and friends on our summer trip.

For new year’s we returned to Red Bones for delicious BBQ.  Emily Kubec was visiting from London, so we got to spend the day and ring in the new year with her (yay!) along with Dan, Nate and the Kennealys.

We’re pretty typical in looking at new year’s resolutions.  We need to get in better shape, so we did a Martina workout today and signed up for a race with Heather in Vermont in June to keep us motivated.  We want to clean up a few of the household messes, so we tidied up the Rumpus Room and got some boxes put up in the attic (sorting the attic is a task for another day!).  We’re trying to keep on top of our correspondence, too – New Year’s day seems like the perfect time to kick around the house and get to some neglected tasks like emails and to write thank you notes.  Our calendar may never be so open as it looks today, as we turn the page (well, flip the Google calendar view) to a new year!

We’re also looking at another year of eating local.  This year’s canned peaches and homemade cheese were big successes, so we’d like to get started earlier in the season this year.  We got the sign-up form for a Community Supported Agriculture share to provide fresh veggies all summer, to supplement our little plot and the Tendercrop farm.

Who knows what 2009 will hold?  We hope to ejnoy another wonderful year of good friends, supportive family, health and fun experiences.  Stay tuned!

It really is winter.  Even though we got our first snow on the ground just this week, and then it’s been 60 degrees and rainy the past two days.  And in fact, not only is it winter, but it is also the season of Advent.  Even though the limited holiday preparations I’ve conducted are: decorating the tree at church, singing in the Christmas Cantata, putting up the “Welcome Snowfolks” sign and hanging two stockings by the fire, shopping for me (thanks Dad!) and my “Adopt a Family” kid, and starting on the Christmas cards (the most admirable part in my book).  Carrying Abigail’s shopping bags for 2 minutes does not actually count as Christmas shopping progress for me, unfortunately.

This was just the start of Christmas preparations. Until Tuesday night.  Then, the cookies started. Now, it really is the Christmas season.

I love making Christmas cookies. I always enjoyed making cookies with Mom, being funny with the sprinkles or an elaborate frosting scheme.  I have fond memories of making snickerdoodles with Grandma Woodmansee, too.  I have the nice airbake cookie sheets, my grandmother’s rolling pin and nifty stacking space-saving cooling racks.  I have a Cookie recipe book, a gift from Arley Kim that has continued to offer new baking adventures for almost 15 years.  And I have a really top notch taste tester and shopper.  All the right ingredients for baking success.

The catalyst this year: caroling at church.  We’re going tomorrow, and that means we need cookies!  This year is all new recipes: Lemon Bars on a shortbread crust, which were made Tuesday; Gingerbread dough that was made Tuesday but cut-out and cooked tonight; and Cinnamon Diamond dough that was made this morning and cooked tonight.  In retrospect, the Lemon Bars are good for a “one fell swoop” cooking event, though I have to disagree that they are as “easy” as the recipe suggests.  The Cinnamon Diamonds (or any refrigerator cookie that you put in a log of wax paper and slice later) are the more time-efficient choice, if you can split the dough-phase and the cook-phase with sufficient cooling-and-butter-solidifying-phase time.  But who can resist Gingerbread with 5 spices? (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice and white pepper – the secret ingredient) There are now dozens of tasty treats downstairs, waiting to find new homes on Purchase Street tomorrow.

Regardless of whether Advent is a time of reflection, a time of celebration, a time of preparation or an annual rollercoaster of stress and excitement (which do you think I tend toward?), it is here!  And tomorrow we’ll share some Christmas spirit with the neighbors.  Bon Appetit!

We are thankful for good friends, with whom to share a holiday meal.  Dan did an awesome job on the turkey and hosting, and let us join his family for the day.  Uncle John brought pate’, Aunt Ellen brought hummus and raw veggies and cranberried items, Mom Dunn brought green beans, squash and pies, Jeremy brought beverages, Paul brought his good company and the Juddmansees brought starches.  It was a terrific day, and a wonderful way to “warm” the new house and ensure many happy meals will continue with the Lawler’s dining room set.

It was one of the most enjoyable and least stressful Thanksgivings in recent memory.  Dan’s house rocks – he’s way ahead of the game to have the first floor unpacked and furnished only 3 weeks after moving in.  The weather was clear and reasonably sunny.  The food was delicious, from start to finish.  We had a wonderful time.

Dan’s motto was “Adapt and Improvise” and it suited us well.  For example, to handle a lack of corkscrew, a wood screw and Leatherman will work fine.  Plates and silverware can be easily borrowed. There’s a reason we have creativity, and no one was too uptight about the details.

PS: Yes I got in my annual “guilt” run.  I’ve lost track of how many years, but it’s been at least since 1993. A good tradition.