Baldwinsville Memorial Day parade 2011

I had the best seat possible for yesterday's Memorial Day parade. We are on the parade route and I was able to sit in shaded comfort on the porch, cool beverage at hand. This year's parade did not disappoint - there were veterans, marching bands, kids in wagons, a red white and blue dog, politicians, firefighters, bagpipes, awesome vintage cars, community groups. But once again I wondered, where were the beauty queens?

James and Aidan marched with the Cub Scouts again. Aidan rode part of the way in one of the Cub cars - he is waving at me in this photo:


Apparently I was so excited to see James carrying the flag that I jostled the camera when I snapped his photo:


Enjoy the parade!

Shrimp and grits

Once upon a time when I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, I used to go to a restaurant called Glenwood Grill. It was a small restaurant located ITB (Inside The Beltline of Raleigh) and was the only place I ever saw men of a certain age wearing blue seersucker suits a la Ben Matlock. I can't tell you anything about the items on the menu except their shrimp and grits, which was the only item I ever ordered. It was delicious, spicy and mellow all at the same time.

Since moving away from Raleigh, I have tried every variation of shrimp and grits I could find, vainly searching for that same delicious flavor combination. In both restaurants and home cooking attempts, I came up short every time. Tremendously short. As in "how can this even have the same name" kind of short.

Last summer, I finally sent an email message to Glenwood Grill and pleaded for the recipe. Here is the kind (and completely unedited) but vague response I received:

"I would be happy to share the recipe with you. you will need some really nice sausage (chorizo), Leeks, cremini mushrooms, fresh oregano and parsley, larger the shrimp the better, and of course butter (unsalted). For the grits you need some coarse ground grits (or nice quick grits) pepper jack cheese, cream, salt and pepper, and of course more butter. There is a theme going on here, butter is better. mmmmm! I hope you enjoy, Chef J"

Today I finally got around to trying the recipe. With James and Aidan at a Cub Scout camporee, today was the perfect opportunity to experiment with only me to disappoint. Before I began cooking, I googled "Glenwood Grill shrimp and grits" and came up with a link to the recipe, which was added after my email exchange with the chef. Interesting that Chef J gave me a slightly different ingredient list! I had already bought the leeks and did not have any red or yellow peppers, so I used his original list of ingredients but followed the directions in the newspaper recipe, except that I subbed chicken stock for lobster and used Penzeys dried parsley and oregano.

I made a smaller amount than the recipe, so I fudged the amounts, but the end result was quite delicious. I will make again following the newspaper version, because I think the red and yellow peppers would be a welcome addition. I always make my grits with either cream or milk so that was no big revelation, but the pepper jack cheese in the grits was yummy. And while I did not consciously remember that the grits had a kick, I remembered it as soon as I started eating.

Funny, when I looked at the menu on the restaurant web site, it states "Shrimp & Grits: Pamlico shrimp, sweet peppers, Andouille sausage, lobster jus, cremini mushrooms over Pepper Jack grits."

Andouille sausage, not chorizo? Hmm. I really liked the chorizo but can see that andouille would probably be just as good.

I am glad to finally have a good shrimp and grits recipe, even if the chef played games - intentionally or not - with the information he gave to me!

All weather grilling

Our fondness for food from our grill is fairly well known among our friends and James does not need ideal conditions to fire up the ol' Turbo. He has grilled hamburgers in the rain and boneless beef shoulder in the snow. Last night he cooked another boneless beef shoulder, this time in the pouring rain:


Dinner was delicious. I made twice baked potatoes and tossed a salad to go with the perfectly cooked beef, and a great meal was had by all.

A celebration of life

Despite grey skies, yesterday morning was beautiful. The Central New York Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure took place at the New York State Fairgrounds and it was, as usual, a time of joy tinged with sadness. I was a volunteer this year, and had the great privilege of working in the survivors tent.

According to The Post-Standard, there were 8,000 registrants and 2,000 supporters, sponsors and volunteers, and $800,000 was raised. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never attended a Race for the Cure just how amazing the event is. Yes, it is a fundraiser but it is more: it's a time for education, a time for remembrance, and, most importantly for me, a time to celebrate life.

Here are images that remain in my memory from yesterday:

- The young woman whose bald head was wrapped in a Ford Warriors in Pink scarf, walking hand-in-hand with her husband, whose head was shaved, perhaps in solidarity;

- The woman wearing a custom sweatshirt with "In Memory" photos on the front, and "In Honor Of" photos on the back;

- The man with two small children, one in a stroller, who told me that his wife is a recent survivor but was too weak to attend;

- The teenage boys wearing pink t-shirts, totally unconcerned and unembarrassed that they were wearing a color that many people deem as a "girl" color;

- The man wearing a grey survivor t-shirt, a good reminder that breast cancer is not just a women's disease; and,

- The Girl Scouts who had made 600 "I am the Cure" pins for survivors. They stood at the entrance to the tent for the entire morning, tirelessly handing out the pins.

It was my first time to volunteer but it will not be my last. Thank you to friends Betty and Kelli, and to my dear cousin Pam for donating to the event.

The best Mother's Day

I had a fantastic Mother's Day yesterday! I woke up much earlier than Aidan or James, so my day started with reading a book in the quiet house for about an hour, with Spenser dozing happily on my lap.

Once the guys got up and we had breakfast, we got ready for our day. I had chosen to spend the day at Green Lakes State Park, complete with picnic lunch, hiking and geocaching. The weather was fabulous: sunny, light breeze, temps in the low 60s. Green Lakes is a gorgeous park with two small glacial lakes that have walking paths around the shoreline.

We set off to find our first geocache. We were using a borrowed GPS unit and once we got accustomed to it, we found our first cache:


Woohoo! We were very excited to pull it from its hiding place:


We found the second cache rather easily, then took a break for lunch. After lunch, we walked around the perimeter of Green Lake first, then walked over to Round Lake to look for the third cache we had targeted. We had no luck locating the last cache; we have a good idea where it is hidden, but it was too muddy and too steep for us to get to the top of the ridge.

Instead, we enjoyed the beautiful views:




Spring is springing out all over central New York and pretty flowers are blooming everywhere, including what appears to be a purple trillium:


Our best estimate is that we walked at least three miles, so we were a bit tired when we returned home. I received my Mother's Day present last week, which was two rose bushes. With a new to us house, we have a lot of landscaping to do so I wanted a present we could plant and enjoy for years.

Thank you to James, Aidan and the gorgeous weather for the best Mother's Day ever!

Rifles and caches and frogs, oh my!

Yes, that is me in the colorful cap and Carolina Blue sweatshirt, firing a rifle!

I spent all day Saturday at the Women in Nature Outdoor Skills Workshop at the Bridgeport Rod and Gun Club. Sponsored by the Onondaga County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, the purpose of the workshop is to involve women in outdoor sporting activities. I learned about the workshop from a woman with whom James works and I will admit that I was hesitant to sign up at first, but my friend Jennifer told me that I was crazy if I let a free opportunity such as this one slip away. So I sent in my information and I was fortunate to be one of the hundred women who were registered.

The weather was gorgeous, particularly welcome after so many days of rain. Almost everyone there was friendly and pleasant, even the few scary looking outdoorsy type women! Most of the participants, however, were average Jills like me and there were a good number of teenage girls. Among the volunteers there were lots of old codgers, mainly doing the rifle and muzzleloader, and several big belly bubba men.

My first session was rifle shooting and I am pleased to say that I did fairly well. It seemed very awkward to me but I managed to hit the target most of the time, a few times close to the bullseye:


The targets weren't too far away, but far enough:


After rifle shooing, I went to a session on geocaching. The geocaching was tremendous fun and we are going to have to do it as a family; even me, who can't find my way out of a paper bag, was able to use the GPS and find the caches. The two college women who led the workshop cheated a bit and had the coordinates already entered into the GPS units, but even that didn't help some of the participants enough to find the geocaches!

Lunch was fascinating. Here is a photo of the menu:


I tried just about everything, except the Philly-style venison and the deep fried turkey - I was running out of room on my plate! While some items were better than others, I enjoyed it all. I couldn't believe the number of participants who wouldn't try the food, and ate the potato and macaroni salads almost exclusively.

After lunch there were demonstrations, one of which was a dog retrieving duck decoys (CNY Wildfowlers Association). Bella was a gorgeous black lab and did an excellent job of following her handler's instructions, both verbal and non-verbal. I couldn't get very close, but here is Bella bringing in a decoy:


I wandered over to the hatchet throw:


When the hatchet man said "Does anyone want to try?", I eagerly said "yes!" Out of three tries, two of the hatchets stuck! Not in the target, but on the stand to which the target was attached. Two big belly men who were instructors in other areas had tried before me and neither one got a hatchet to stick, so they were quite amazed.

After my success at hatchet throwing, I went to watch the muzzleloaders and, again, when one of the men asked if I wanted to try, I stepped right up. IT WAS AWESOME! It was loud, it was smelly, it kicked and I came damn close to the target. When I see all the steps and time it takes to load a muzzleloader, it is a wonder to me that wars in the past were ever won.

Then it was on to my last session of the day, reptiles and amphibians. Our instructor was a college student from (State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry) and she was adorable - so enthusiastic about her subject. She told us all about native New York frogs, salamanders, snakes, et al. We went out searching in the swamp and although we did not find much, it was fun to wade out in the mud and water.

I was exhausted and muddy as I drove home but I can honestly say that I had great fun and hope to attend next year. Both James and Aidan were eager to hear about my adventures, and were even impressed a little by my marksmanship!