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Missing

I’m here. Sorry. I really only check the blog at best once a week on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Nick ties up the computer most of the rest of the time. I hope to be setting up a home office in the near future and should be on more often. I think I need to get a digital camera so I can participate in some of the mundane.

Anyway, Chris is now off to college. Started at ISU this past Tuesday. We drove him there on Friday 1/13. He is staying in Hamilton Hall. Man, I forgot how small a dorm room can be.

Yes, Larry I am jeolous of your little golf weekend. Looks like fun. I’m looking forward to the end of March whh I have plans on going to Mesquite, NV for a week with a group from my golf league. Anyone care to join me?

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One of my favorites


Shannon’s 21st birthday. Gary and I flew in and teamed up with Ron and Steve to surprise her. We just walked into the bar where she was celebrating the birthday with her girlfriends. When she saw us, she did this double take that was almost as amazing as the look we got from Kenny when we surprised him for his birthday (or the look I got from Marilyn, Mary, and Mary Ann the time I surprised them at a Chippendales show). She then let out a scream and ran over to hug us. I’m sure her girlfriends didn’t have a clue what was going on.

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More Halloween Moments

Natalie was exactly four and a half that Halloween. As cool as trick or treating was growing up in Chalfont, the block we lived on in SLC was a kid’s dream come true.
60 houses in a 2 block area…all lit up and well stocked with goodies. The kids made a huge haul in under an hour. But Larry ate most of it.

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Another niece (real type) photo


Kenny’s right, I have been neglecting the real nieces, so I’ve been scrounging around trying to find photos. I’ve found a couple of interesting ones which I’ll post over the next few days starting with this one of Charlotte and I. I think Charlotte is just a little over two months old at the time. I was living in CT then so I just buzzed down one day to visit. Charlotte and I are obviously quite comfortable in each other’s company. 🙂

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Did I ever tell you about Halloween 1992?

I haven’t just recently started dressing up for Halloween – I’ve been doing it for years. One of my favorites was a road trip to Utah in 1992 (Penn State/Utah football game). Niece Natalie (the real one) and I got to go trick or treating. I think we made quite the pair – Little Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks.

The trick or treating was easily my fondest memories of that weekend. Since then I’ve tried to block out any memories of the pasting the Utah handed the PSU football team. And I’ve also tried to block out memories of my feeble attempts to make a move on the newscaster at Ken’s station – she was a former Utah homecoming queen if I remember right. I tried to get her to make a bet on the game with me – when she blew me off I suggested a simple bet, maybe a coke or something – she declined that. Of course, I felt like a total idiot when Ken pulled me aside and said “Mormons don’t bet and Mormons don’t drink caffeine”. How was I to know?

However, Natalie saved the weekend. We had a blast going around the neighborhood. Who do you think is the cutest?

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1st Grade Art


I was going to post a shot of my new coffee-maker (it grinds beans automatically on a timer and has a very fresh pot of coffee waiting for me in the morning), but Charlotte brought this home from school today and I thought you’ld be more interested in it.

Click on photo for larger image.

She calls it “Space”.

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UncleLar’s Food Specialties

Ok – here’s another side of me that you all have probably never seen. I have a couple of legendary (pun intended) recipes that I usually break out for special occasions (usually called football tailgates) but that I am willing to share here.

First of all:

UncleLar’s Killer Kreole Kornbread Sausage Stuffing
(served when we deep fry a turkey at our tailgate)

Ingredients:

  • box of cornbread mix
  • 1 cup minced onion
  • 2 tablespoons chopped green basil
  • 4 teaspoons cayenne powder (or cajun seasoning)
  • 2 teaspoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons ground white pepper
  • 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 4 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 2 teaspoons dried thyme
  • 1 chopped green onion
  • 1 cup chopped parsley
  • 2 cups chopped red bell pepper
  • 2 green chili peppers, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (Tabasco)
  • 8 oz butter
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1/2 lb spicy Italian sausage (casing removed)
  • 2 cups evaporated milk
  • 7 eggs, beaten

Directions:

  1. Make the cornbread following the recipe on the box.
  2. In a small bowl combine the salt with the white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, onion powder, oregano, thyme, basik, and bay leaves.
  3. In another bowl, combine the minced onions, green onions, parsley, red/green peppers, chili peppers, and garlic
  4. Melt the cup of butter in a large fry pan. Add the spices and cook for a few minutes. Add the vegetables and cook about 5 minutes. Do not allow the vegetables to brown.
  5. Place the sausage in the skillet, crumble and cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain.
  6. Add the chicken broth and the Tabasco. Stir and cook 5 minutes more.
  7. Crumble the cornbread into the skillet and mix.
  8. Add the evaporated milk and eggs off the heat. Make sure to stir when adding the eggs. Return to a low heat and cook, stirring, for about 2 minuts.
  9. Remove the bay leaves. Place the stuffing in a bowl and cover. Cool before stuffing turkey (the stuffing will be plenty HOT without needing any external heat) if serving with regular turkey or serve on the side with a deep fried turkey.

If you like spicy food, this recipe is a killer (hence the name). It’s great for tailgates because it warms the body.

Next Recipe:

UncleLar’s Chili Extraordinaire
(haven’t tried this in the crockpot yet)

Ingredients:

  • 3.5 lbs sirloin steak
  • 1 lb pork sausage
  • 3 medium white onions
  • 4 dried red New Mexico chiles
  • 4 chilpotle chiles
  • 2 7-oz cans chopped green chiles (optional)
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp ground comino (cumin seed)
  • 1 tsp Mexican oregano
  • Mesquite seasoning
  • steak rub/lime juice/soy sauce
  • 4 10-oz cans diced tomatoes
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 3 fresh chopped sage leafs
  • 1/4 cup chopped celery
  • 1 tsp thyme
  • 6 pack of beer

Directions:

  1. Cut off the tops of the dried New Mexico chiles to remove the stems and seed and to expose the interior, leaving them as whole as possible. Cut the tops off of the Chipotles and cut them lengthwise to extract the seeds. Set all of the chiles aside steeping on a small saucer in hot water (just enough to cover).
  2. Dust the steaks with the Mesquite seasoning, then marinade in the lime juice and soy sauce after a little fork-poking. Pop a beer and grill the steaks over hot goals until medium, then set aside. Set aside a 1/2 lb to snack on while you finish the cooking.
  3. Get a big oven ready pot. Add the pork sausage, onion, garlic, and saute until the onion is soft.
  4. Chop the steaks into 1/2 inch cubes and add to pot. Add a beer of your choice (and probably time for another one for yourself).
  5. Back to the chiles. Remove the New Mexicos from the hot water and cut them in half, length-wise. For each half, carefully scrape off the inner pulp with a flat knife, angled away from the scraping direction. Then scrape the pulp off the knife into a blender. Add the water and the chilpotles, and blend into a sauce. Keep your face away from the sauce DO NOT try to smell it, it’s deadly on the eyes. BTW – if you have to go to the bathroom at any point in time I suggest using gloves – eyes aren’t the only thing that’s sensitive to the sauce.
  6. Add the ground comino, oregano, paprika, sage, celery, thyme, and the optional green chiles to the pot and add about half of the sauce. Pour in a bottle of beer and pop another for yourself.
  7. Put in a 300 degree oven for an hour. After an hour test for spice and moisture. Add more or all of the sauce, if you like. Consider adding another bottle of beer if the things appear to be drying out too much. Put back in the over for another hour.
  8. After the second hour, check for doneness. The sirloin should come apart easily and the gravy should be thick not water. Cooking another hour is not out of the question.
  9. Serve in bowls with cheese or use as a dip for tortillas.
  10. You might consider having milk, sherbet, ice cream, and/or cold cucumber slices handy because someone will need them. The chili has an extraordinary afterbite – hence the name.

Another excellent tailgate recipe, the chili keeps you warm just like the stuffing.

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Anyone have CSTV?

College Sport TV that is. CSTV is an all college sports TV cable network founded by a friend of mine, Chris Bevilacqua. I have some legend stories to tell about Bevi such as why Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s high school gym coach was named Mr Bevilacqua or how I met William Baldwin through Bevi, but they will have to wait for another day because this story is about – surprise – an UncleLar niece, Stacey Wild (just an FYI, I didn’t take the photo, it came from her Facebook profile – unfortunately, I think the link will only work for my Facebook buds, Chris and Elliot)

Stacey is a Penn State freshman who is majoring in journalism – she also swims for Penn State’s water polo team. About two months ago, CSTV canvassed Penn State’s journalism department looking for students to co-host a TV show that CSTV broadcasts called Total Access. Total Access is weekly show that takes place on various college campuses around the country (this month the show features Penn State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Stanford). It’s a TV magazine style show that tries to show you a little bit of the personal side of college athletics. While the show has a studio host most of the on campus segments are hosted by a local student (usually an athlete). Stacey was fortunate enough to be selected to be the host for CSTV Total Access Penn State Orange Bowl special. So she got to travel all over South Florida in the days leading up to the Orange Bowl showing folk all the normal pre-game hype that precedes a bowl game – pep rallies, night life, beach bashes, tailgateing, etc. (worked out to be a pretty nice gig for a kid just a few months out of high school). The show will broadcast on CSTV on Thursday night at 10PM EST (9PM CST time – the Utah folk will have to check their local listings) and I thought she did a very nice job.

Stacey relationship with me is similar to Natalie Berrena’s (they’re not just any old UncleLar nieces). I have a special affection for Natalie because I used to date her mother. And I have a special affection for Stacey because I used to live with her mother. She loves to introduce me to people with the comment “Larry could have been my father”.

When I moved from State College to Pittsburgh in 1977, I moved into a two bedroom apartment in Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh (13 miles closer to State College – I lived there so the trips back to Happy Valley would be shorter). I had only been in Pittsburgh for a few weeks when I ran into an old acquaintance, Pat Fagan. Pat had been a member of the Pi Beta Phi sororiety at PSU and I had gone out with a few Pi Phis (actually too many – it seems a friend of mine and I once made a bet about how many Pi Phis we could get a date with – unfortunately, they found out and we paid a bit of a price for our little indiscretion, but that’s another story for another day).

Pat was getting her MBA at Pitt and was due to graduate soon. She was lamenting to me that she had just gotten a job with IBM in Pittsburgh and would be going through six months of training to sell copiers and typewriters (for you next generation Falls who have never seen a typewriter this is what one looks like – think of it as your computer keyboard attached to your computer printer minus the middlemen of the computer processor and display 🙂 ).

Pat was a little frustrated because she was going to have to move out of her apartment in Oakland (where Pitt is located) and find a new place to live yet she had no idea where her territory would be once she finished training (it could have been as far south as West Virginia). She said she was having an impossible time trying to find a place with just a six month lease. Since I had an extra bedroom, I just suggested that she move in with me – which she obviously did.

Pat lived with me for about a year and, while Stacey likes to joke about me being her father, there wasn’t much chance of that because Pat and I had a very much platonic relationship. We did sometimes have trouble convincing people of that because in that day and age guys and girls didn’t live together platonically very often (for that matter, they didn’t live together non-platonically that much either then).

The reality of the situation was that there wasn’t much opportunity for us to get involved anyway. I had a girlfriend that I would see almost every weekend (Joanie, the girl I mentioned in a previous thread – she was still in school and I would spend most weekends back in State College). And Pat, well she had TWO boyfriends, so there was definitely no time for me. I have to give Pat credit for ingenuity the way she juggled the two guys. Eric, the one in Pittsburgh, didn’t know about Fritz, the one back in State College. Fritz, however, did know about Eric. Pat was from State College so she simply convinced Eric that she was homesick and had to go back and visit her family all the time.

I could never understand why Fritz would put up with the arrangement but I guess he knew what he was doing. After about a year of living this dual life, Pat dumped Eric, quit her job with IBM and moved back to State College and married Fritz. They’ve been married for well over 25 years now so I suppose things worked out well in the long run.

That’s my Legend story for today. Hope it was mundane enough.

PS – check Stacey out if you get the chance Thursday at 10 EST (or set your TiVo – you all do have a TiVo don’t you?)