Culinary Creativity.

Culinary creativity is something that I have always been interested in, since that fateful day in the early 1990's when I decided to add peppermint extract to a $17.00 batch of cookies. I thought it would provide a nice aroma for the cookies, but thought nothing of what it would do to the taste. The cookies were destroyed and I was forced to eat them, with a friend, until they were gone. This past Labor Day, while at my dad's house, I had an idea for a peach dessert. These sliced and sauteed gems were fruit bliss. As I was looking for something sweet in the kitchen yesterday I decided to try the same technique I had implored on the peaches to some Minnesota apples. So this is what I did...

Sliced the apple into seven even slices horizontally with the stem. I then cut out the core that remained in each section. Each slice was dusted with some cinnamon and sugar before being placed onto the hot cast iron that had been brushed with butter.

Once the sugars had began to brown and the apples began to soften I flipped the slices over. As the apples neared the end of their time on the skillet I dump a splash of cider into the pan to soften the apples just a bit more. Once they were evenly browned and nearly soft I removed the slices to a plate and went onto the granola.

I added some more butter to the pan along with some walnuts, old fashioned oats, and brown sugar. I added some cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt to the mix and sauteed it atop the stove for a few minutes until it began to brown. I again added a splash of cider to the pan to loosen up some of the bits off of the cast iron and provide a bit more flavor to the granola.

To finish off this dessert I stacked three of the slices on the plate and filled the center with the granola mixture. I then added the top four slices and filled it with yogurt and granola. This flavor bomb was finished off with a dusting of cinnamon and enjoyed with a fork and a knife! What a treat on a cool fall day!

Give it a try!

Parental Double Standard

This past weekend was the "gun" deer opener here in Minnesota. Although I did not go hunting myself, I know a number of people who loaded their camo, doe urine, ammo, and various firearms into their manly vehicles and headed out to their favorite hunting spots. I was not one of these men, but in fact had the privilege of staying at home with my two wonderful children so that my wife could have a weekend away at a mothers retreat. As I was outside with my kids I was questioned about, "how things were going with Nikki being gone?" This was not the first time that I have been at home multiple days with the kids and will certainly not be the last. However, it did motivate me to write this post to all those men who are unwilling to stay at home with their kids alone or simply see it as their God given rite to simply leave on a man trip while their wives stay at home time and time again.

I am aware of the number of stay at home dads there are today, but this number pales in comparison to the number of stay at home moms. Men are equally as capable and need to be equally as responsible for the rearing of their children. The break that men can give their wives through time away cannot only act as a refreshing boost to their parenting, but can pay dividends to your future plans for your next "man trip." Since when is the wife/mother to be handcuffed to the home or the children? We all need breaks from our children and our day to day duties. Staying at home with your kids for a weekend or even a week may provided you with some extra stress, but will also provide you with countless memories. The joy found through time that I spend one-on-one with my kids is something that I cannot purchase in any store or find in a tree stand. So fellas, ask your wife when she would like to find a weekend away and help her make it happen. Clear your calendar and fill it up with daddy time. Forget about the game you might miss or the poker game that might go on without you. Enjoy those kids and bless your wife with an escape that does not require your in-laws watching the kids. (That is a different post all together.) You will not regret it and you will survive it!

Farewell Milwaukee has arrived

Last night I had the pleasure of taking in the Farewell Milwaukee show down at the Fineline in Minneapolis. This five member band brings raw emotion and passion to the stage as they seek to do more than simply entertain those in attendance. Their smooth and relaxed folky sound draws you in and their rockish tunes keep you wanting more. Although the band harkens the name of a Wisconsin city, this group of bearded men's heart is here in Minneapolis. Having started playing together as a worship band, the bond these guys share is clear through their music and interaction with one another. Even with some sound difficulties the band brought it last night to the excited Fineline crowd last night. With the recent release of their debut album, the radio waves will certainly be full of the addictive sounds of Farewell Milwaukee in no time. If you have been looking for some new music that you can connect with and will entertain while moving you, Farewell Milwaukee is the up and coming band that you have been looking for. You can listen to these guys while drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, a glass of wine in the evening, or while at your next house party. Trust me, once you listen to one of their tracks on their website you will be hooked.

Running Refuge

I just finished reading an article in my most recent Runners World on a woman who found solace in running after losing a dear family member. She described the pain she felt while running through her grief, and the joy that she found in embracing that physical pain. When we feel anything, we know we are still alive. This article brought back a lot of emotions for me and even caused a few tears to roll down my cheeks. You see the night of my wife's grandfather's death I ran. I did not have a grandfather growing up and Grandpa Bob had become the grandpa I always wanted. I had always found refuge in my running and cannot count the number of times that I have been overcome by one emotion or another while logging some miles. Tears, laughter, anger, and confusion all have joined me along my running journey.

That dark, cool, wet night in August I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I thought I didn't have another tear in my body to shed. Vacation was awaiting me with the rising of the sun, but that night I had to run. I had to get out and move. I had to enter into the solace of a run where the movement of my body can bring some resemblance of focus. Silence surrounded me as I moved quietly along the lake. Crunch, skid...crunch, skid...crunch, skid went each of my footfalls on the gravel that lined the old highway. As I turned the corner and headed for the library I felt like I could have just kept running. I could have ran through the night and into my vacation. Grandpa Bob and I were together along that dimly lit street talking about the garden, fishing, hunting, the times we have spent together, the battle that just took his physical life. My breathing was relaxed and an afterthought as I was focused on something more important. The heartrate monitor was left at home with a sleeping wife and two sleeping children. This was not about training for Chicago, meeting my weekly mileage or staying in a target heart rate zone. This was about him. This was about us. This was about how much I was going to miss him. Although I wanted to extend my run as far as my legs would take me; I knew that I had to end it. I could not live in this run, but could hold firmly to future meetings along the road. People, memories, emotions await you along your runs. Although you can never predict where they may join you along the way, I can guarantee that they are out there. Running is about more than simply burning calories or achieving goals. It is about life, love, passion, and solace. We live to run because we run to live.

I would love to hear a story that you might have about a walk, run, bike ride, or just a stroll in which you were able to tap into some deep seeded emotions. The burning in our lungs and the ache of our legs assure us that we are alive and must recognize the blessing that is on this day. Run on!

Daylight Savings Dilusion

This past weekend was daylight savings time. I am aware that some states in the country do not participate in this brilliant tradition, but I happen to live in one of the forty-eight that does. It is really quite an amazing phenomenon where you go to bed one night and while you are sleeping you "gain" an hour of sleep. Do you really "gain" an hour of sleep? Can you really "gain" an hour of anything by simply turning your clock back by an hour? Next time you are talking about "gaining" or "losing" an hour in the Fall and Spring you should talk to the parent of a young child. Kids do not understand the whole daylight savings thing. They simply wake up when their bodies tell them to wake up and go to sleep when their parents tell them it is night time. Our two precious little ones awoke on Sunday morning at 6:00 am. Their bodies communicated to them that it was in fact 7:00 am, their typical wake up time. My wife and I had to gently educate them on the fact that it was still "nighttime" even though it looked exactly like it did the day before when it was "morning time!" Kids just cannot wrap their minds around such an obtruse concept. I am not attempting to dig up the history of this madness, just make a few passing comments about how this affects the majority of us who have children.

Sunday night I had the pleasure of working the 3:00 pm to 11:00 pm shift at work. Now I am not complaining about the fact that I missed out on the previous nights overnight shift where Stephen had to work an extra hour. I am however commenting on the fact that the day after daylight savings is always a difficult night to stay up, especially when you have kids. One of my duties at work is to lock up the tennis/soccer complex on campus at dusk. Well since we had rolled our clocks back it was prior to dinner that I had to make this happen. As I locked the gate I thought to myself, "my it sure feels like it is about 9:00 pm." I am really a fan of the extra hour of light in the morning, but the nights can become very long and depressing for those of us who live north of I-90. Since I am a morning person I welcome the extra visibility on my morning runs, but is there something we could do about turning up the thermostat along with the turning on of the lights? Just a thought!

Soon the whole time change will be a thing of the past and we will not even think about it, but in the week that follows it sure can throw your entire biological clock off. Well, just like any other changes that happen in our lives we must adapt, adjust, and just keep moving forward with our lives!

Relax, Halloween can be wholesome and fun!

Today is one of those days that can bring people together and also rip them apart. I personally find Halloween to be a great tradition in our country that provides kids an opportunity to have fun and live a little beyond their norm. I have very fond memories of Halloween and the various characters I was through the years. I do think that my favorite of all time was when my brothers and I were the California Raisins complete with insturments. Our mom went to great lengths to provide us with creative and cheap costumes that were outside of the traditional vein. The most memorable Halloween of all time though took place in the early nineties and will live in infamy among all those who were living in the Upper Midwest at the time. We received the snow storm of the century that night and the entire tri-state area (SD, ND, and MN) was blanket with feet of snow. Schools were canceled for the next day and kids could not have been happier. What is better than spending a night collecting free candy and causing mischief than having the next day off of school! I will never forget hiking through knee deep snow at the high school to get to another group of houses. I was about halfway through one of the practice fields when I decided to hunker down for a break and eat some of the booty I had already obtained from gracious residents of Yankton, SD. Everyone's costumes that year were transformed into Arctic Explorers or Eskimos.

One of the best things about Halloween for me was having two older brothers. We would always get home from trick-or-treating and dump all of our candy out on the floor. I liked to separate all of my candy into groups (candy bars, sugar candy, suckers, garbage). After dividing my wares into piles the trading would begin. The bartering and swapping would last for what seemed like an hour before we finally were told that we needed to go to bed. In addition to dividing and swapping, there was the inevitable toll that we had to pay to our parents. They would always request a few pieces here and there and it was never those nasty black and orange wrapped candy that everyone hated. It had to be the Crunch bars or the Milky Ways. Well I am in that position now where I need to, "make sure the candy is safe" before my kids can eat too much of it. I would hate for them to get sick!

Whatever you believe about the origins and background of Halloween needs to be placed into a little wholesome perspective. It does not matter what the tradition, event, or holiday is there will be people who will openly criticize and critique the quality of it for all people. We have gone from having Halloween and Christmas parties to "Fall Fests" and "Winter Celebrations." Halloween, in large part, is not about the demonic and ghostly traditions that radicals would like to make it out to be. It is about friends and family spending some quality time together. It is about letting loose with your kids and getting dressed up for one day of the year where you can be goofy. The vast majority of our population is afraid to get on a stage and act out a role in a play, but will dress up for one night to "play" someone they are not the other 364 days of the year. Where is the harm in that? Where is the harm in my buddy getting dressed up as an old lady and going to a party where no one knows who he is for the entire night? People need to simply calm down, relax, and enjoy the wholesome fun that can be had on this last day of October. If it makes you feel better to call it something other than Halloween you go right ahead, but that does not change the fun that you can have on a crazy night like tonight.

Midnight Madness

Last night was one of those nights where you wonder how you were able to function when your children were infants. Our kids have been fairly decent sleepers for most of their lives, but in the past month our son and daughter seem to take turns waking up in the middle of the night for one reason or another. Last night it was the fact that our daughter needed her sheets pulled up. After pulling up her sheets and flopping back into bed, she called out requesting that I turn on the bathroom light for her. (The bathroom light shines into their room.) When this request was denied, the waterworks erupted. You would have thought that we had thrown her favorite stuffed animal (Snuffy) out the window. Even though they have a great nightlight in their room, it was not good enough for her. There is a part of the request that is pointed towards wanting some more light, but the majority of it was focused on controlling the situation. She calmed down and fell back asleep, but it through me for a loop. When your sleep is interrupted in the middle of the night, you can never seem to get a quality night of sleep. It is one thing to stumble into the bathroom at 1:47 am to use the facilities, and it is a completely different thing to have to get up and do something that requires brain power. Sure I have had to wake up and change sheets, wipe up vomit, rub a back, and re-tuck in covers, but it never ends good the next morning.

This whole episode last night made me think of a couple of fantastic people that I know and knew who were late night eaters. Uncle Steve wakes up every night around midnight, eats a large snack and then goes right back to bed. Some nights it is a banana smothered in peanut butter, other nights it is all of the pecans off of the top of his mother-in-laws pecan pie. He doesn't discriminate against food. Our old neighbor was known to wake up in the middle of the night and wolf down a large bowl of ice cream. How does one wake up in the middle of the night, eat something, and then just fall back asleep? I would be dead if I woke up in the middle of the night every night to eat something. I have a hard time eating something after about 9:00 pm. Plus, are your tastebuds really functioning at their maximum capacity in the middle of the night?