My Bad...Grilling Update

So I know I have failed to update in a long while, please forgive me. We have been busy, and Audra does such a great job on Zane updates, that I have not had the desire to blog... Until today. Audra is working, so Zane and I have been hanging out, watching OU beat up on Texas. I just put him in his gym (which he loves) and he is really close to rolling over, he can get all the way on his side with one leg on top of the other, I think if he would just kick his top leg over and push his head back, he would get it done. He is too big.


Audra does such a good job of describing Zane's activities, and Fatherhood has not changed much... so how about some grilling updates.


For the first Tiger game (killing of Illinois); I smoked up some ribs. Now ribs are probably my favorite thing to smoke. They don't take a terrible amount of time - 5 hours or so, they are very delicious and everyone loves them. You can also have a lot of variety in the same bunch by seasoning the racks differently. I had four racks for this bunch, two I seasoned with Pearl St. Plank Rub (courtesy of Able) and two I seasoned with a generic rub that consists almost completely of brown sugar.
Going back a bit; I had the butcher remove the membrane from the ribs. I have attempted to do this myself in the past, and did not do nearly as good of a job as the expert. This is key to ribs, many people do not do this. Not only will the membrane make each bite difficult and chewy, the flavor does not get into the meat nearly as well. I let them sit and come to room temperature prior to putting the rub on.


Here is a picture of the ribs, post rub.





















As usual, I used the Hickory wood from down home. Smoking temperature was about 250 degrees F; time was about 4.5 hours.

After the game, the Kingrees stopped by to visit and enjoy some ribs.

Funny boy

Audra, Zane and I had a wonderful family laughter time this evening before bed (Zane) and P90X (Audra and Zach.) Little Zane is starting to smile and laugh in more situations, not just when he sees Audra and I for the first time in a while, but when he sees something funny or we have a funny conversation. We learned this evening that we must keep the flip handy at all times, the attached video is only the end of our silly little evening. Zane is laughing pretty hard in this picture to the left, but on the one below, he is just trying to talk.

Here is the video that we made, enjoy!

Salmon on Cedar

I have been wanting to try grilling salmon on a cedar plank, and today was the day.


For starters, I could not find a cedar plank at the store. It is important to use untreated wood for anything to do with food. I was able to find cedar wood sheets. I assume these work the exact same, only these are not reusable. I soaked the sheets in a 5:1 water to apple juice mixture with a pinch of salt. Total soaking time was about one hour. I used the first thing I could find to hold the sheet underwater, it happened to be a wine glass, pretty classy. I timed all of my cooking based on this one hour soak. Personally, I could not taste any apple flavor in the food so next time I think I will either leave it out or halve the ratio of water to apple juice.



I got the salmon at the store. Per the fishmonger, my choice was between steelhead and Norwegian salmon (both farm raised.) I chose the Norwegian for no particular reason.

For seasoning, I chose as simple as possible, sea salt and and cracked pepper. Both of these are from Penzey's Spices. I liberally applied four peppercorn blend for the pepper and just a pinch of the salt. There were plenty of different suggestions online for rubs, but in-general, I find that simpler is better. This is especially true when trying something new for the first time. I did take some of the suggestions on the web and put some sliced onion and lemon on the top. I used lemon that we got from the farmer's market in the Soulard (2 for $.50) and onion from our little
failure of a garden. I started the seasoning part about half way through the soaking process. This let the fish come up to temperature a bit before going on the grill. I let everything sit while I prepared our side dish, grilled asparagus. Pretty simple preparation on this one: sea salt and lemon pepper (again from Penzey's.)
By the end of the hour of soaking, everything was ready and the grill was hot and ready. I took the cedar sheet out of the water and put it on the grill. The sheet was left on the grill for five minutes, then flipped to the other side. At this point, I put the salmon on the plank and closed the lid. The grill temperature was at about 325 to 350 degrees with the coals all the way to one side. The salmon was just barely over the coals. I left the lid closed and did not open it until the 15 minute mark. At this point, the asparagus was put on, right above the coals for a quick sear. After the asparagus was done, everything was take off the grill, roughly 30 minutes total grill time. I brought the salmon back inside for a five minute rest before cutting and plating.



Here is a close up of the finished product. You can see some of the fat has bubbled up to fill the middle crevice. You can tell that the fish is done when you can flake off pieces easily with a fork. I went for a split down the middle to give Audra and I a nice healthy piece. For plating, I surrounded the fish with the asparagus on three sides. The lemon was absolutely delicious on the asparagus and the fish, giving both a nice, light citrus taste. The salmon flaked apart nicely in perfect, fork sized portions. The asparagus was very flavorful, but could have used a bit more pepper and more of the bottom trimmed to keep it soft and easy to eat.
Overall, salmon on a cedar sheet with grilled asparagus was one of the tastiest and easiest thing I have grilled in a while.

Little Guy/Rambling late at night

Well the little man is up late tonight, having some difficulty with the shots. He has a little bit of a fever that Tylenol is taking care of. He does not really want to be held so he is alternating between the swing and bouncy seat (thanks Grandma Korenak).
This makes me very concerned for the upcoming post-surgery. If he has trouble with four shots, how bad is it going to be with his sternum split in two?
I was unable to make it to the last cardiologist appointment and was very surprised that they moved the probable surgery date up so soon. Oct.-Nov. seems like a year away, but Mid to late September is very very soon. I honestly don't know how we are going to get through that day. We may have to have a mass sedating of everyone.
Anyway, here is my take on Zane's first two months. Audra has taken care of most everything, but from my point of view I am amazed how much he changes everyday. He seems so good at holding his head up, just a few weeks ago, he could only do it for seconds at a time. (I think he may have fallen asleep, cross your fingers.) He also recognizes me, which is amazing. He is usually crabby and needing to go to sleep, but he still smiles and laughs when he sees me (most of the time.) We have invented a game where he lays in my lap and I put my thumbs over his face and he works on trying to grab them. We have played this a few times and he is getting better each time. He likes to have his nose and cheeks tickled.
I love the weekend mornings. I get up with him when he wakes up at 5ish and make some coffee and breakfast (for both of us.) We sit on the chair and drink and eat and if it is early enough we watch the sun rise. Zane snoozes and I can look at him be peaceful, enjoy my coffee and let Mommy sleep in a bit.
I am ready to get this surgery over with and get him recovered. I am tired of constantly tamping my happiness by thinking of this difficulty ahead. (He made a noise, but still asleep, I think.)
We appreciate the prayers and words of encouragement. I am getting tired (Plyometrics was tonight) so I am going to try and lay him down.

Back to the weight loss journey

Back in April/May I began a diet/exercise program from Men's Health called 'Belly-Off 2010'. I also added in 'Three Weeks to a 30 min. Running Habit'. I had some pretty good results, losing about 15 lbs. Well then I took a trip to see my brother Adam and the wheels fell off. I kept up a bit of the running, then Zane joined the party and the diet and exercise completely stopped (understandably, I hope.) Well now that Zane has begun at least a bit of a schedule, in that he is typically asleep by 8:30, I have started a new program P90X (I dont want to miss any time with little man, so I will only work out after he goes to sleep). This has both a diet portion and an extreme exercise portion. I purchased a pull up bar and some resistance weight bands to use. The exercise is on average one hour per day, six days per week.

I had my first work out yesterday, Chest-Back and Ab Ripper X. This was the hardest workout I have had since sophomore year in HS when Chad Allen made us do so many pushups that I could not lift my arms for days. This evening was Plyometrics, lots of jumping around, I had to crawl upstairs. I am not quite able to do everything for the entire time of the DVD, but I will get there.

I know I am going to be challenged by this and I struggle with motivation. But I will keep with it, because I feel so much better the next day. It is amazing how much more energy you have the day after a workout, especially a cardio workout like Plyometrics. I plan on keeping a fair log here.

More info on the Smoking

So there has been some desire expressed to know more about the equipment, condiments etc. used for the recent smoking extravaganza. We will start with the main component, the smoker.




I own a Char-Griller Super Pro with optional side fire box. My parents bought this for me two years ago for my birthday. I believe they got it from Lowes'. To the right is a picture. Now this smoker is not the greatest out of the box. The factory paint came off almost immediately. I had a cover, but it ripped up in some strong wind. The fire box drawer does not seal well with the box. However, after an easy paint job using CAT exhaust paint (grill paint with a CAT label on it), and some gasket rope around the drawer makes this a very great smoker. The next picture is the fix of drawer.

So for a very long time, I was a Kingsford charcoal and lighter fluid guy. I would not be swayed from this combination for anything. Until Schnucks was out of Kingsford one afternoon and I had to buy the store brand. I found that this worked just as well in smoking as the Kingsford. I have tried the lump stuff, but was unimpressed by the performance vs. the briquettes. See my previous post for how I was turned off of lighter fluid, never will I return. The chimney is where its at, especially for smoking.

A bit more about the hickory. Real logs are the only way to go. I have used the bag stuff you get at the store; worthless. It has no good smoke, is way too dry and under performs even if you soak it in water for days prior to smoking. The natural moisture contained in real logs is the key to good smoke. If you do not have access to logs that you can split yourself; you should be able to buy some from restaurants and grocery outlets that sell house smoked meats. For those of you who live in the Saint Louis area Kenrick's will sell you 10 decent sticks for $10. This may seem expensive, but if used judiciously you can get about 8-10 hours out of them.

Finally, the rub was furnished by Able. He got them at Savory Spice Shop in Boulder, CO. We used two different kinds, one on each section. The first was Pearl St. Plank Rub; a very good rub, but after the smoking one could just barely taste it. I liked this because you could taste so much of the natural pork and smoke. The second was 'Team Sweet Mama's Kansas City Rub.' Now normally I am opposed to anything that has the word Kansas in it, but this rub is extremely good. It has a wonderful sweet beginning and a bit of kick on the back end. I think this was definitely the favorite. We served the pulled pork dry with some Head Country on the side if people wanted.

I hope this satisfies the curiosity of the group.

Big Blog of Smoking

Okay, so it has been a while since the last post, lots of company and very busy. On July 24th, the day before Zane's baptism, my brolaw Able and I embarked on an epic smoking adventure that this post will chronicle.


I started this outing with a visit to Sam's club. My boss, Jeff, knew about my goal for the weekend and took me to Sam's so I could take advantage of the great deal they had going on Boston Butt. I ended up with the largest one I could find; a 16.8 lb. beast. It sat in the refrigerator until Friday night. Able got in at about 11, I picked him up at the airport and we got home at about 12:30. We pulled out the pork and found that it was already split in half. This saved us quite a bit of work. Able had bought two different kinds of rub so we used one type on each part. By 1:30, we had everything rubbed up and ready to go. The pork was left out on the counter to come up to temperature.

We got up at 5:00 to get going. I made some coffee and started the fire. We debated a bit on how much charcoal to use to get started. Able's thought was to use more, and put it in less often. I, who enjoy the labor intensity of messing with the fire, had to come to terms with the fact that if we did things my way, we would go crazy since we were expect upwards of 20 hours. Here is a picture of how we had the charcoal chimney set up. Now this was key, since it was set off to the side and we could fill it and light it without having the chimney in our way.

The charcoal chimney holds the perfect amount of charcoal. You put the charcoal in the big upper portion and a few pieces of newspaper in the lower section that is sitting on the grates. You light the paper and all the heat energy is transferred up the chimney and into the charcoal. I am a late comer to this method, but love it and fully endorse using the chimney instead of lighter fluid.

Once we had the charcoal lit, the smoking was under way. We put the meat on the grill and off we went. I chose hickory for our wood. My father has an infinite supply and last time I went home, I split a couple of logs and brought it back. Here is a photo of the wood:

Our procedure for the smoking was pretty simple. We had the temperature set for 240-275 degrees Fahrenheit. We would adjust the air up or down depending on if we needed more or less heat; add a log if we need more smoke. When the air was all the way open and the heat was lacking, we would light up another batch of charcoal using the chimney, again showing how awesome it was to have the chimney set up beside the grill.

The lack of intense labor gave us time to create. I had bought a cheap horse shoe set that instantly showed its cheapness, so we decided to make a bean bag boards. We decided my mother should make the actual bean bags, so we began the boards. I made a quick trip to Lowe's to get the supplies (this also included a case of Bud Light.)

At 2:00 we flipped the meat. It smelled and looked delicious.

We completed the bags boards by about 5:00. At this point we began checking the internal temperature of the meat. About this time, the family discovered a missing bag, turns out it was left at the car rental place. Abbey and I left at about 6 for the 'port. We got the bag and were on the way back by about 7:30. Things were beginning to darken up, rain was on the way.

Our goal for the inner temperature was 190 degrees Fahrenheit. This is about 20 degrees more than I typically cook anything, but several websites I had read indicated that this would make it easier to pull. The inner temperature was at about 187 and the rain was coming so we decided to go ahead and pull the plug. At 16 hours 15 min. the meat was taken off the grill. We quickly got the meat inside, wrapped it in tin foil to rest. It was given hour to cool down before Able and Debra pulled it apart.

This was an epic and extremely fun experience for all of us. I always enjoy the relaxing smoking experience, not to mention the extremely tasty results. I had thought that we would have mounds of leftovers, but due to the unbelievable taste of the meat and the general lack of self control amongst the gatherers, most notably, me; we were left with only a large Ziploc bag of leftovers. This was quickly consumed the following day in the form of pulled pork Frito chili pie featuring my mother's most excellent baked beans. What a fantastic weekend!

Home Improvements

Please note that this will most likely be an extremely boring post:

There is nothing like the impending visit of tons of friends and family to inspire one to get to work on needed projects. Well with everyone coming to the house after the baptism of Zane, I have gotten to many of my projects. I started last weekend with sealing up the attic, see the previous post on the squirrels. I used some of the expanding foam, which is the greatest invention ever, thanks chemists. I then put some aluminum over this to seal it up for sure. I used the last of the bottle of foam to fill the gap in the back door that was letting water into the garage. This is a temporary fix until I can get up the moxie and cash to replace whatever needs to on the door.

I painted my grill and stained the boards. This is in preparation for the epic smoking event of this coming weekend. Able and I will be smoking a 16.8 lb pork butt for the main dish meat for the baptism. To date, this will be my biggest smoking undertaking of my career and I am looking forward to it. I have stocked up on charcoal, bought a chimney and even cut up and brought home some hickory wood from my dad's.

After painting the grill and sealing the attic, I began painting some other things on the outside of the house. I started with the fences on the side, since they were looking pretty rough. I then took a break from painting on Sunday and replaced the bottoms of the columns in front. This was really necessary and I had been wanting to do this since I moved in. They were rotting and falling apart, but now are new and painted and looking great. I finished up my painting with the front door, also looking nice. There are some imperfections in the door that you can still see, but overall it is looking much better.

Tomorrow night will be cleaning up the garage and mowing the lawn. We have gotten an unbelievable amount of rain the last few days (the seal is working on the door by the way), and the grass is long and ready for a mow. The little trees have finally stopped growing after a nice dose of roundup. This was applied to each tree individually by a soaked jersey glove on my left hand. I had a rubber kitchen glove under that for safety. Very tedious since there are about five hundred, but worth it (they were driving me crazy). My worst nightmare would be going into my attic and seeing a family of squirrels made out of hundreds of tiny baby trees.

First Month as a Father

So Zane will be a month old on Monday the 19th. I can't believe it has already been a whole month. Zane's condition aside, fatherhood definitely has its ups and downs. When little Zane came home, I had a week of vacation and with Audra's family in town, things were pretty easy. Audra and I had to get up at night to tend to Zane's eating requirements, but since we had so much help, napping during the day was no problem. I even go some projects done around the house. During this time I got to spend plenty of time getting to know my son and get more comfortable dealing with a baby.
After this first week, I had to go back to work. This was not fun. Firstly, I missed spending all day at home with my little family, but that is life. Secondly, I could no longer catch up on sleep lost during the night. Everyone knows of my boarder-line unhealthy love of sleeping, and even up to now, I am struggling with less sleep.
I really do love being a dad; having little moments with Zane (usually at 3:30 a.m.), seeing him smile and making him giggle.

Some things I have learned:

1. Put a fresh diaper under the diaper you are getting ready to change, especially if a poop seems eminent.
2. Sometimes it just takes the other person to come in and make Zane go to sleep.
3. Time really does go by quickly now.
4. The bottom pat is key to success.
5. The pee is coming, move quickly.
6. Man has yet to invent a bottle that does not leak on a consistent basis. I cannot believe this, but guess it is true. Come on other types of engineers, how have you not perfected this yet? Just make something that seals well, how hard can this be? All the anti-colic, mouth form fitting nipple technology is no good if it pours out five teaspoons every time you turn the bottle upside down. How about talking to the people who make 20 oz. bottles of soda, those bottles don't leak. Just because yours is of different parts and has to be able to be taken apart, doesn't mean that the feat is not possible. Use your brain and do it. I will pay extra, just make it work.

Zane teaches us new lessons on a daily basis and Audra and I are learning quickly.

On Zane looking like me

Though I could not love my family any more, being adopted is part of my identity. Part of this identity, and kind of a running joke is that I look absolutely nothing like my parents or family. In fact, some say I look more like Audra than any one else.

I always though how weird it was that Trina's kids look like her, since she is in the same boat I am. When Audra and I found out that we were pregnant with Zane, I had a not so secret panic attack that he would resemble me. I know that it is irrational, but I have never met anyone who looked like me, and thought it would be odd.

Well it turns out that he actually looks exactly like me, with the addition of Audra's adorable chin. He has my eyes, nose, mouth and cheeks. He even has my feet with the big gap between my big and second toes. I had thought that this would be strange and creepy, I could not have been any more wrong. I really do love that he looks like me.

Squirrels Permanently Blocked

A few months ago, I started hearing strange noises in the evening and morning. It started with just some general moving around above the master bedroom. My initial thought was that it was a mouse. I proceeded to put some traps out above the garage. After a few days of continued noise and no luck with the traps, the noises began to get more and more aggressive. There began to be some gnawing, then some running and bounding. It became clear that there were squirrels in the attic. I proceeded to buy some strong pepper spray from Lowe's. I intelligently picked a random 90 degree day to spray this throughout the attic. No problems to start with, but as I got deeper and deeper into the portion above the garage, I began to get worried for my health. The pepper spray was unbelievably strong. I had on a safety glasses and gloves for safety. I got to the deepest part where there is a small opening between the two parts of the house. Just as I sprayed into this area there was a puff of wind that put the spray right back into my face. It literally put me on my knees (there is a hole above the garage door to prove it). I instantly began crying and snotting like never before, and had to belly crawl back out to freedom and fresh air. I then sprayed the main attic. This pepper spray did absolutely no good, as the squirrels just got more and more bold in their living above my bedroom. I finally found where they were coming in and promptly blocked it with a spare piece of fire wood. By the time I got home from work, they had chewed a hole in it. I then blocked it with some bricks and boards, and it has been this way ever since. Though this repair is in a place that I rarely if ever see, I know it was amazingly White Trash looking.
While at Ace Hardware today, I stumbled across the gutter guard section. I have been wanting to put some of this up ever since we moved in and jumped on it today. I went with the cheaper plastic model, $6 for 20'. While making my decision, I stumbled on a three foot section of metal guard for $3. This was perfect for replacing the bricks. I installed it this afternoon along with about 15' of the plastic gutter guard. The metal piece worked perfectly; it fit in and I bolted it to the house. It is completely covered by the other, plastic guard. This may seem very minor, but having the ridiculous looking bricks on the roof was really bothering me.

Update on Zane

Cardiologist appointment today:

"Zanes 'x' is getting worse.' is a phrase I am going to have to get used to. Today's 'x' is his pulmonary stenosis, the narrowing of the artery that carries blood to the lungs. The more I go to these appointments and see his heart on the echo, the more I understand what is going on. I took some time to do a drawing:

One of the biggest revelations of today is that he defect is already there and is not really getting worse, so much as showing itself more and more. The doctor explained that as babies there is quite a bit of resistance to blood flow in the lungs, this is represented by pressure three in the diagram. This pressure kept the valve more open and as his lungs fill out, the pressure will decrease and the valve will begin to open less and less. Since there is a connection between the two chambers, and a pressure differential, there will be flow between the two. Right now, the pressure in the right chamber, Pressure One, is less than that in the left, Pressure Two. This gives way to flow from the left ventricle to the right, such that the oxygen rich blood flows into the right chamber and to the lungs. As the defective valve opens less and less, Pressure One will increase and eventually equal and become greater that Pressure Two, this gives way to flow from the right to left. Oxygen poor blood mixing with the rich and sent out to the body. Once this begins to happen, we will see Zane's color become ashen or blueish.

We may not quite get to this point as they may elect to do the surgery before the cold and flu season hits the hospital. Audra and I do appreciate the thoughts and prayers that are coming our way, please keep them up.

Also, I hate Lebron James.

The Beginning of Blogging

So this is blogging eh? Seems easy enough. I am thinking this blog will be a bit of an outlet. I have always kind of enjoyed writing, so I hope to be able to do this on a fairly regular basis. I am a bit confused on the format. If I have different issues that I am thinking and wanting to share my opinions on, do I post separately or itemize one post. I think to start, I will go with the latter.

Events: Currently we are all excited that the young girl was found. Interestingly enough, she was found only a couple of miles from where I work. I literally drive by the place where she was found on a weekly basis, pretty crazy stuff. Just saw on the news that a 'Person of Interest' was approached by police at which time he shot himself.

Sports: Looking forward to Garcia's start, I read on SI that he is leading the ROY in their internal voting, he is BA. Looks like it is raining there so there may be a delay. If so, I think I may go run.

Zane: Cardiologist appointment tomorrow. I think he has to have an echo, which he hated last time. Audra and I have a ton of questions that we need to remember to ask him. I hope the answers are close to what I am expecting.