Antwane Beefcakes and the Red Beans and Rice

Want to make some good eats on a crap weather day? Make some red beans and rice. I used to live in New Orleans. If you haven't been there you need to go. I've never been to another city in the country that has such a unique flavor. It's not like many other cities that in my opinion could exchange names with another city and still be the same place. Maybe it's the age of the city, the culture, the food, the history... the smell. Whatever it is- it is its own and I loved it when I was there- except for being sick all winter every winter.

My family and I ate a lot of good unique food while we lived there. Champagne brunch at what used to be the the Hilton on the River was one of a kind. I doubt the Hilton is there today after that bitch Katrina came through. I'd like to go back and see what it's like now. Back to the point.I think I will have posted after this post one (if not the only) recipe for red bean and rice that includes photos of the process- and aren't you lucky to have found it. So let's get it on! First you need a helper. This is my helper for the day: Ziggy

He gets really excited about red beans and rice.

Step 1: Get your stuff:

1 lb. red kidney bean (dry- not in a can dufus)

1 thing of celery

1 big onion

1 or two bell peppers (color doesn't matter- unless of course you're "that way")garlic- use as much as you want- I get mine from a jar minced- sorry, I'm not cool enough to chop it up myself. But like the Beastie Boys say, "If you don't like it, then hey fuck you"

1 lb. smoked sausage

few bay leaves

Some thyme leaves- maybe a teaspoon or so.

Worcestershire sauce- some (a few dashes)

hot sauce- I like Frank's or Red Hot or Crystal or Tabasco if you've actually got some down there (and no I'm not talking about your country region- look in your pants)

First you need to plan this meal for the next day. Soak the bean overnight in enough water to cover them. The next day they will look different. Yeah.

Drain out that nasty water and refill it with enough to cover the beans.

Boil the beans for about an hour. Watch out for boiling over.

When you're getting close to the bean getting done, saute' the chopped up onion, pepper, and celery until the onion is just about getting clear. Don't overdo this because you'll be killing the flavor and forever be hated by the vegetable gods who WILL visit you in the night.

Throw all that vegetable stuff in the bean and add the rest of the seasoning. You really need to season it how you like- some like it hot and nasty, some like it smooth and easy. I'm a hot and nasty guy just in case you were wondering.
Add the sausage that should be sliced in about 1/4" pieces. Man, that's some good looking sausage.

Bring it all to a boil again and then turn the heat down to a simmer. There should be movement in the pot while cooking- not a rolling boil by any means, but it should be mixing around. I call it "socializing" It's like, "Hey man, I'm sausage, who are you? Oh I'm bell pepper and I think I like you and your meat." That's nasty, but you're at least smiling now- right?

Now, here's the deal, you need to cook this party for at least 3 or 4 hours. If you don't have that kind of time- wait until you do because it will be better. It will be even better than that the next day after it's all been cooked and cooled down in your fridge. When you are ready to serve it you need to have white rice (or some kind of rice) to put it on and French bread. You put the rice on your plate and ladel the beans over the rice. The bread goes on the side dummy. I really need to apologize for not having a picture of the finished product but by that time Mizzou was about to have their butts out of the NCAA tournament for this year and I had family over and I had a few beers in me. But if you put it all together and it tastes good- you done right. Cheers!

Ghost Bird

The other day in class- actually it was at least a month ago, things were as normal. I was telling all the students how they'd never amount to anything and have a life full of disappointment and regret. All of a sudden Mr. "B", the special ed teacher that claims to work in my class this particular hour, and the rest of us jumped. There was a loud bang and it startled us all. Just a few minutes before I heard pigeons cooing outside. In five years there have never been pigeons on or around the rooftop that is outside the windows of my classroom. Today there were. It made me think that maybe I should put a bird feeder on the roof so when they came to eat we could observe them. Wouldn't that be touching? "Oh look Jimmy, it's a bird at the feeder. Maybe you can talk to it and finally have a friend."

After hearing the birds, things went on as normal, "No goddamnit! I said cross-multiply not divide you fool!" Then was the bang. None of us actually saw it happen, but the results are still there today. I'm not sure what the results are made of, but obviously something was left behind to let us remember the day by.

F'in Old Man Winter

Gawd! Go away. Enough already. Winter needs to end. This has been a crap winter. Almost no snow, very cold for the most part, and boring. I just walk around my house going, "Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored." Freakin' sucks! I'm not built for this. I'm built for heat. I'm like a heat sink- long and slim. I disperse heat. Short round folk keep it in. Everything is dead. I like things alive and green. Winter has it's place, but it's worn out it's welcome. Beat it deadbeat!

I look forward to hearing the peep frogs peep. A true sign of spring. Soon enough I guess. March starts tomorrow and with that it's my birthday month and the month spring begins. Bring it. I wish you well on the ides of March.

P.S. Brady, your prize for GCF and LCM is on it's way. Took me a while to collect. You'll get it this week. Yeah!

Winter Float Pictorial

Did my first winter float on the Current River a couple of weeks ago. It was a unique experience. The weather was actually really warm for February- in the 60s during the day and the upper 30s at night. I got kind of cold sleeping but nothing awful. The fishing on the day of the float was bad. We didn't catch a thing and neither did anyone else we came upon during our eight mile trip from Cedar Grove to Akers Ferry. We had a good time and seeing the Current in the dead of winter is very interesting. You can see the hillsides and the way the land lays with the absence of leaves. It's dead quiet too. I didn't take any pictures on the actual float because it was just too risky having the camera out while trying to steer around all the rootwads. I think we saw close to 15 armadillos during the float and pictured below is one that visited our camp the day we got down there.

My Superbowl pick (just so it's in writing ahead of time)

Cardinals 21-17

I burn my arm (or is that my calf)

Can't tell since they are about the same size. Thanks alot fireplace!

Winter is kind of slow around here.

Didn't seem like much at first. One of those burns that doesn't really hurt. That's because it freakin' killed all the nerves in it's path!

On the heal and looking forward to a cool scar. Way better than a lame lightning bolt on the forehead. You've got nothing Harry...nothing.

Profanity in Fiber

Catchy title. This is my third year being the breakfast supervisor at my school. Basically, my morning consists of making sure I'm in the breakfast/lunchroom every morning by 7:35 when the students are allowed in. Then I get to watch them eat and hopefully clean up any mess they make. You'd be surprised how often they want to leave without cleaning up their area. It's really frustrating. It's like, "Why would you want to leave a mess? That's like taking a crap in the bathtub." So I'm like the breakfast cop. It's not all bad though. Lots of kids come tell me things they otherwise wouldn't since it's an odd time of the day. School hasn't started but they are there and a little more relaxed. Or maybe it's me who's a little more relaxed at that point- not sure. I also get free breakfast everyday and I get paid a whopping $50.00 a month for the job which is about $5.00 an hour.

So we have a big menu at breakfast:

Monday: Pizza

Tuesday: Sausage on a stick wrapped in a pancake (a breakfast corndog! Are you fucking kidding me? No. They even have syrup to dip it in.)

Wednesday: French Toast sticks (holy shit- this is a deep fried heart attack)

Thursday: Biscuits and gravy (THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK FOR BREAKFAST)

Friday: Sausage egg and cheese biscuits (second best day of the week for breakfast)

Now, you must understand this isn't the full menu. There is also a wide variety of juice and cereal. The continental school breakfast if you will. Thrown in with the mix we also have cinnamon toast, yougurt, bagels, oatmeal, and some other better choices.

It's not all as bad as it seems, but I often opt for the cereal with skim milk and a couple of juice cups. So this brings me to my main idea. This morning I got the Raisin Bran. I like this cereal. It's the most healthy of the ones they offer and a guy needs his fiber. So I open the cereal which conveniently comes in it's own bowl. All you have to do is pour on the milk. Well, on this particular day, they should have just called it "Bran". There wasn't one goddamn raisin in the whole goddamn bowl! It was weird and I took it as a bad omen for the day. A day I was giving a test. Fortunately, the test actually went better than expected. So let's see what you know about 6th grade math. I'll send a prize to the first person who can define "GCF" and "LCM" correctly with an example in the comments section. Good luck. This is not a joke- I'll really send you something. You have to say what the letters stand for and give an example of each.

Coach "K" on the track

I was just informed via email that I "got the job" for coaching track this year. My reply, "Wow! Well, I knew it was a close race." I thought that was appropriate since I was the only one in the race for the job. The high school has been lacking a full coaching staff for the past several years. Last year I was asked to coach, but I really didn't want to since I was already the cross-country coach. Not to mention the fact that the principal here at the time told me, "If you coach anything else it has to be at this school- not the high school." I was fine with that but the superintendent wasn't and ripped the principal a new one. Then he asked me to coach and I still said no. This year I decided to give it a try because they drastically changed the meet schedule and I also figured if I coached I would take the summer off completely and not work like I did last summer doing construction work.

Next week we start running "open track". Basically, I go run and if any other runners want to come out and run with me they are welcome to. It's basically preseason training. We'll see how it goes. I'm cautiously optimistic. It's going to be a lot of extra work of course, but the money is good, I like running with the kids, and I have a summer totally off to look forward to, and the kids want me to coach- so that makes me feel good. I was told that until I agreed to coach that several kids weren't going to run track because they didn't think it was worth it. I'm not bragging, but it's a pretty cool thing when a kid will come out for a sport just because you're the one who's going to be coaching them.

What's new?

Wow! Just made my way back from falling off the earth. It took a lot to get back. Space is big and cold and the lack of gravity takes some getting used to.

A list of events:

Hunted and killed deer

Went to see the Tigers' first loss of the season

Finished another cross-country season

Seduced by brother-in-law's Honda Ridgeline

Traded Element for Ridgeline

Went fishing in Arkansas with Fish and Feather

Caught zero- but still fun

Visit from Santa

Cut and split firewood

Loaded firewood in the Ridgeline

Got Ridgeline stuck in mud and had to get help from a farmer with tractor

Signed up for track coaching

Wondering how that's going to turn out

Currently trying to stay warm

Early Season Hunting

Went down to the Lake area last weekend and spent some time at the McNally Farm- beautiful. Killed some time and beer- no deer. Although, on Sunday morning, I walked out to my vehicle and 50 yards away a big doe stood looking at me from the yard. I didn't even have a shirt on at this point- so no shots fired. Early bow season is for the birds. But here's a nice picture from the farm.

music therapy

When I was really little- like 4, my dad bought a guitar. It was a Yamaha acoustic electric. My dad is not a musical person. He loves music (as long as it's "uplifting"), but he's not a musical artist by any stretch of the imagination. In fact he's a real bad singer. I can't count how many hymns I suffered though as a teenager at church listening to him sing off key- and then off key in another key. I'm still embarrassed. But that's not the point. The point is he had this guitar and started taking lessons. He never got good and quit taking lessons. I used to mess with that guitar and I thought it was pretty cool I guess.

Years passed, now I'm like 9 or 10- you know, like first grade age when you're home schooled. And I going to this elementary school in Miami, where we lived and the music teacher thinks I'm real good. So I take these tests to go to this special school for the performing arts- and I get accepted. Pretty cool, I could grow up to be a rock star. BUT... it's in kind of a bad neighborhood- so my parents decide not to send me there. I was bummed, but I didn't protest. Besides, you don't have a lot of pull when you're 9 or 10.

More years pass, I'm in high school (before I dropped out), and I'm taking this guitar class. It's a total blow off class, but it's cool and I learned some cool things, met some cool people, and had my first chew of tobacco. I met this guy Bill Kays and he could already play any song by AC/DC. I took my dad's guitar down to the sort of local music store and traded it for a piece of crap electric guitar and a tiny little amp. We lived in Osage Beach, which is part of Lake of the Ozarks, also known as the White Trash Riviera, and there wasn't much to do there through the school year. So I played guitar a lot and stared figuring some things out.

1993- I start college in a wanna be branch dividian cult school also known as "AU". And that "U" should really be in quotes all by itself since that place was anything but a university. I have a dorm make named Scott. Never before and never since have I played guitar with someone more talented. I never learned more either. We would play for hours on the weekends and more than once Scott fell asleep while playing late into the night. We played a talent show once. It was a instrumental I wrote.

The next year Scott moved back home and I got in this little group and we played at a coffee house in Longview, TX, a couple of times. It was fun. KAL remembers I'm sure since he was there with a HUGE mixing board and pro level speakers. We called ourselves "Little Brother". It was fun, but never as good as in practice since we were always nervous.

1995- I move back to Missouri and now I live in Columbia, since my parents moved there. I'm going to Columbia College and I don't know anyone in town. So I start spending a lot of time playing guitar. I'm playing 3 or 4 hours a day and I start getting really good. I'm not trying to brag, but I knew I was making some crazy music. Sometimes I would quit playing because I would get scared from how good the music was. It was coming through me. I would occasionally play with other people when I'd get invited to play in party/jam session situations, but everyone would always start asking, "What's that chord?" or "How are you doing that?" but I didn't know since I was just going by sound instead of knowing names for it. I wasn't having to think to do it. I was just feeling it, and it was happening. I could never record what I was playing because when I would try, I would think about it being recorded and it never turned out as good.

Over time, as I got busier and eventually got a job, I started playing less and less and the guitar I've had since 1993 isn't sounding very good to me. For the past few years I've hardly played. I've had moments of inspiration, but they went out fast. I kind of felt like that time was over.

But remembering back to that music teacher who thought I had some talent, and banging out tunes with Bill and Scott, and playing in my parents basement (my bedroom) for hours at a time, and remembering that feeling that I got when I knew I was really making music, and feeling like I need a creative outlet, I decided to get back into it. I never quit loving music, I just quit cutting out my own little spot of it. I heard this interview with jazz guitarist, Stanley Jordan, and his musical philosophy was so inspiring I almost went out and bought his newest album. As it turns out, I'm not that big of a fan of his music- but I really, really like what he had to say. So I got a new guitar. We'll see what happens. It's really just about how it makes you feel. Express and release.

Why did you turn off the jazz music?

John Coltrane. He got in my head and I didn't need to blog for about three months. Then I went back to work and I need a ventilator. Now I think Butthead is in my head and I have lots of hate. More angry teaching. "No damn it! I said do the exponents before the multiplication!"

It was a good summer. I started riding bikes again. I even raced three times so far this year. I'm racing Gary Boring this weekend in Jeff City. I'm going to whip his old ass! Then I'm going to sell my bike and quit again. I built a wood shed with the dude. Then he drank my beer and left. I have no wood. Weeds grew in our flower beds as I worked for the one they call Barry. Things got built, weeds got big. Less free time = more weeds.

I don't work in ISS anymore, so no more funny stories from there. Fine with me. Nothing worse than being stuck in a room with pissed off middle scholars who didn't do it. I don't have much free time these days. Let me rephrase that. I don't have much time these days that I fill with doing what I choose. Even my dog is laughing at me...

Summer Break is 1/2 day away!!!

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em!

Time Revisited

I think the last post like this had somewhere around 28 days to go before school was out. Now it's 7.5. Not bad at all, but I get more anxious as it gets closer. It reminds me of getting ready to go on an exciting trip. It's really bizarre having time off in a big chunk like a summer. Not many jobs like it.
Plans for this summer: Part-time job, maybe a couple of bike races, couple of float trips, read a book. Outside of that I intend to play it by ear. I'm going to try not to drive much and either walk or ride as much as I can. A trip to Dallas, and Austin may require some time behind the wheel though.
With the end of the year coming up I think I'm going to try riding my bike to and from work next week after 4th quarter grades are turned in and I don't have anything to teach. I've done the ride home before a couple of times, but I've never done the ride to work. I'm planning on leaving my house about 5:30am. We'll see how that goes. Should make for a good post.

2008 First tirp to the Current River

If you're into the outdoors and "floating" in Missouri, (by canoe, raft, or tube) you've probably been to or at least heard of the Current River (info) in southern Missouri. The Current River is a spring fed river with headwaters starting at Montauk State Park (info) and moving south towards Arkansas. This area is part of the Ozark National Senic Riverways. There are a lot of small rivers to float in south Missouri, but the Current is my favorite of all the ones I've floated over the past 20 years or so. Clear cold water, excellent landscape scenery, and lots of trout to fish. At the headwaters at Montauk there's a fish hatchery run by the state where they raise trout. It's amazing seeing these trout in the tanks. They're separated by size and eventually released into the Current River to go where they please. When it's feeding time you can't even see any water between the fish because they feed so aggressively. I read somewhere that trout were first introduced to the Current by railroad workers coming from the west. From what I understand, most trout in the Current are from the hatchery and not "wild", but that some decendents from the original stock may still be reproducing outside the hatchery.

One of my best friends of more than half my life, Morgan, and I headed down two Fridays ago for the earliest float/camping trip I've ever done in Missouri. The weather can be very volitile this time of year and a strong storm can change things for the worse very quickly when you're around a river. Flash floods are a real concern- it rains heavily upstream, you're downstream where it may not be raining at all. The runoff water from the rain upstream builds and a wall of water heads downstream while you sit on the bank considering your next trip to the cooler for another "coldun" (cold one) with your fishing line in the water. Next thing you know the river seems to be getting strangly bigger and you move back a bit to keep your feet dry. Suddenly you realize what's going on as the river rapidly rises and you grab your cooler to head for safety. You make it to higher gound as the rest of your belonging are swept downstream along with trees, brush, cattle,and the occassional human.

Well, none of that stuff happened on this trip- although we were very aware of the possibility. In normal conditions the Current runs about 2' to 2.25' above Akers Ferry (One of the landmarks of the upper Current). 4' is considered "flood stage". On April 10th the Current was at 12' at Akers Ferry. That's a lot of water. Luckily, the water was pretty much back to normal when we got down there. We camped right near the river at a federal campground that is not widely known. I hope it stays that way because it's much better than most of the outfitter campgrounds which consist of a big field that's been overused. At those places you tend to be surrounded by people, loud music, yelling and cigarette smoke. This federal spot is pretty much hidden, quiet, senic, and non-comercialized. No one even works there. You just put $5.00 in a box and choose your spot.

We arrived about noon and set up camp. Morgan likes to really get things set up quickly when we camp. He says it bothers him until it's all done. I think that must be some primative instinct. We knew the possibility of heavy storms was in the forecast. Luckily, Morgan brought his weather radio. After setting up we headed to the river and started fishing- no luck- the water was still too high in this spot and fast with no cover for the fish to hide behind. Morgan tried to start a fire by rubbing sticks together for about 10 minutes. Then I got out the firestarter block and got the fire going. We were visited by our neighbors from about three camp spots over. They were a couple of guys from Kentucky visiting for turkey hunting. I only have two things to say about their visit. One: First impressions make a difference and the size of one of the guy's shirtless beerbelly was enough to worry me a great deal- it was awful. Two: When I say, "Well, we better get dinner started." that's your cue to bug out instead of poaching another coldun. Anyhoo, Thunder began to rumble in the distance and drew closer. We cooked dinner, (chicken with tomatoes and black beans) and just as we sat down to eat- it began to rain. Luckily Morgan has set up a lean-to with an extra wall blocking the direction the wind was blowing from so the rain couldn't blow in on us. It turned out to be a full on storm as we sat under our lean-to staying dry. As we listened to the computerized voice on the weather radio warning of the severe weather headed our way we came up with an emergency plan that consisted of Morgan running for higher ground and leaving me to grab what gear I could since it was pretty much all mine- bastard. Luckily, the storm came and went in about 20 minutes. After the storm, Morgan thought we better put a water mark stick down by the river so we could see if it started coming up. He notched it for reference and we felt slightly more secure. Turned out to be a nice evening and the sky even cleared. It got calm. But still I wondered if the river would come up and get me in my sleep.

The night was filled with me waking up thinking I could hear the river roaring as it rose to drown me. It turned out to be the wind blowing through the trees that surrouned us. It got fairly windy since a cold front was coming though. And as it does when a cold front comes through- it got cold. Down to about 40 degrees. I got up once to check the stick and see if the water on our marker was coming up. As I peered down the beam of light from the mag lite onto the stick I could see I was worrying for nothing and slept better the rest of the night- until our neighbors rolled in from a nearby bar at about 4:00am. They kind of hinted at us joining them on a trip to the bar, but I didn't bring my banjo and this wasn't Deliverance.

We got up the next morning and got the fire going again, ate a pound of bacon, and broke camp. We saw one of our neighbors staggering to the outhouse about 8:30 and I was thinking he didn't make it up for the morning hunt. Morgan also discovered he had a tick on him in a real bad spot. I'll let you use your imagination on that one. We drove to Akers Ferry, about 9 miles away, and got picked up for the float by the outfitter. We were the first customers of the year. We put in about 9:30 and started our float by going right by the place we had camped before. Luckily, the river never came up whatsoever. It actually dropped a little. So much for the lost sleep over worry of a flash flood.

Something to keep in mind when going on a float. There are two kinds: Kind one: Float, drink, swim, and be rediculous. Kind two: Float and fish, have a couple but keep your wits about you for when you snag your line in a tree while getting turned around in a riffle. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's either a fishing float or not. Don't try to mix a couple of people wanting to fish with others who don't. It just doesn't work- sort of like socks on a rooster.

Turned out to be a great day for a float- sunny and 70 degrees. The trout were very active too. I think between the two of us we caught close to 10 fish. It took us a while to find out what they were hitting on, (rooster tail) but once we did it got pretty fun.

So to make a long story a little longer, it was a good first tirp of the year. I'm planning on heading down at the end of this month to do it again. It's good for your mind. Kind of clears your head. Here's a shot of Morgan reeling in a trout. Next trip- more pics.

Gardening at Night

We've been very busy in the yard between cold spells, planting, trimming, and mowing. It kind of becomes a part time job this time of year. That's alright though, it really beats winter.

Leslie just had to get the pots done on Thursday evening. Then it became Thursday night. We needed light and it made for a couple of interesting shots.