Saucy

We like to eat. Whether it is trying new recipes or enjoying old favorites, the one thing our food has to have is flavor, and I don't think there is a spice out there that we will not try. Bland simply does not make the grade in our house.

James tried out a new recipe for barbecue sauce back in May when we had our Derby de Mayo gathering, and it was delicious. When the employee activities committee at his company announced a barbecue sauce competition, he was happy to have an excuse to make it again. The recipe is Bourbon Whiskey BBQ Sauce and it calls for almost one full cup of whiskey, so you know it has to be good. While it is not at all (to us) spicy, it does have a bit of a tang but mainly, it just has a nice mix of flavors.And don't forget the 3/4 cup of whiskey!

Since James used the last of our Jim Beam Devil's Cut bourbon to make the sauce, he decided to put the finished sauce back into the bottle:

He had to get it to work SOMEHOW.

The sauce competition was yesterday after work, and the company brought in some pulled pork (and sides) so employees could taste the sauce on meat. There were five entries and when the votes were tallied, James' sauce came in...dead last. He was quite surprised, especially after tasting the winning sauce, which he said quite bland. Another sauce that he thought was quite good received only a few more votes than his, and many people said it was too spicy.

We have learned over time that most people have very different palettes from us; we like depth of flavors and we definitely like spice. Not always hot spice, either, but rich and complex spices. So a sauce that tastes delicious to us may just be too much for many people, as evidenced by James' last place showing.

His sauce may not have won the work competition, but it is a prize winner at our house - bring on the pig!

The Famous New Yorker Wax Museum

The fourth graders at Aidan's elementary school present a famous New Yorker "wax museum" each year as part of their history studies. Each student is assigned a person, researches that person, writes a short bio and then portrays that person in a presentation to their fellow students, friends and families. Aidan's class portrayed people from government and local history, another class portrayed people who changed history and the final class portrayed assorted famous (and presumably infamous) people.

Aidan was assigned the role of DeWitt Clinton - you know him, right? When Aidan started to tell me about him, I realized that I did know one fact about him, that he was one of the main forces behind the creation of the Erie Canal and the first version of the canal was often called "Clinton's Ditch". He was also governor of New York, a U.S. Senator and the mayor of New York City.

We had to provide Aidan with a costume or props for his presentation. Since I am not an expert in historical clothing nor am I a seamstress, we decided to work off the Clinton's Ditch portion of the bio and outfit Aidan with a shovel. We also pinned a "I LOVE NY" button on his shirt, since Clinton had served our state well in his lifetime.

Last Thursday afternoon the wax museum opened. Aidan and his classmates were arranged around the classroom with red circles in front of them, which were pretend buttons that the viewers could press to bring the character to life. Aidan did a marvelous job of remembering his lines and delivering them in a clear voice:

I also viewed our neighbor, Bailey, as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and heard the bios of Mayor Bloomberg and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then I popped next door to see some of Aidan's Cub Scout friends. Most of the students did an excellent job of remembering their lines and I learned a bit more about some of the interesting people in our state's history. It was a better experience, I am sure, than going to the wax museum in Lake George.