Monthly Archives: June 2008

Roasted garlic spread

When I stopped my Monument cafe for lunch one day, I noticed someone selling locally grown produce. I wanted some heirloom tomatoes. But they didn’t have any. So I bought a half of a pound of garlic for a buck. Mmmm, the smell they made while they sat in my truck was divine.

So today, I roasted them. But first I had to take a picture of my self taking a picture. I think that I need another tripod and camera…

It is a real pain to get the right balance between steaming the garlic and browning the garlic. Not only did I fail at that. But this batch of garlic acted weirdly. They secreted some protein like scum (such as floats to the top when making soup stock). Of course, this browned nicely. But it tasted bitter. So I left it out.

And, of course, after I cooked the garlic I had an idea to cook them confit style in some duck lard. Gah! Next time…

Disc Golf 06/21/2008

I went to Old Settler’s park today after my morning bike ride. And, as luck would have it, I met a new player. His name was Chris and he was visiting from Tyler (who’s wife was attending a party in Round Rock and he took the opportunity to play a new course). He had mistakenly parked at hole 14 when he turned in after seeing a basket. I can understand that since I do that all the time.

He asked if he could join us and we agreed. He also suggested to play skins for a quarter a hole to make it interesting. This is not something I would normally do, but I agreed. Wow, was it a total slaughter. He is by far the best player that I have come across. He birdied something like ten of the holes. He was able to throw his Star Destroyer and his Star Excaliber perfectly stable. And long distance too. He threw it consistently underneath the basket from 400+ feet away.

It looks the the dam construction has removed another hole. Those bastards! It looks like they removed the small hill in the background and replaced it with an identical one made from fresh dirt. Of course, they forgot to replace the basket. (I hope that they don’t lose it).

Disc Golf 06/20/2008

The Wilco’s Tennis shop has some weird hours. So I went to stop and buy another year’s pass during lunch. And played a round of disc golf of course. I threw three birdies.

And had a good first throw on hole 3. I don’t know why that hole is so hard for me. But when I have a good throw like that one, it makes the day better.

Game Day 06/19/2008

Pilliars of the Earth

Ed and Susan brought over the new expansion for Pillars of the Earth (the game based on a book). I think it worked well with five people. And the expansion seemed to fit the same style and theme of the game.

Ed and Susan also brought some muy spicy WAAASSSAAABI nuts (four versions. and yes, the product is actually named that). Two thumbs up!

Big Three

We ended the night with a few hands of Big Three. In the hand that you see, Doug bids three before I get a chance. And here I am sitting with all four of the three cards! We shall see, Dougie. We shall see about that!

The picture was also quite technically challenging. I must have taken a number of different photos. It is hard to light the picture based on the cards in the foreground compared to Doug in the background. Of course, I focused only on the cards leaving Doug a little blurred out. There is only so many attempts that you can make…

Bridge 06/17/2008

We played bridge again. This time, I played 4 out of the 5 hands. Woot! Sometimes I was wild and crazy. Sometimes my partner (Nick) was wild and crazy. We had one amusing moment. The dummy has AQJxx in diamonds and I have matching low diamonds. I tried finessing my Queen. I led a low diamond. Wayne ducked it. The dummy played a Queen and John ducked it as well. I knew where the King lay. I transferred control back to my hand again and led another low diamond. Finally, after the third diamond play goes around and my dummy’s Ace is still sitting on the table, Wayne gets frustrated and throws his King down. We all had a good laugh.

In the hand above, I went a little crazy and overbid four hearts. How often do you get a hand containing seven hearts and void in one suit? My partner made it easy by showing a strong supporting hand.

Still don’t know about the score keeping…

Tichu and Texmex 06/15/2008

Thanks to Jon, we were able to make for for Tichu at Chuy’s. Our server was pretty bad. She messed up almost every order and the final bill. But it was still fun. After all, how can you complain about Friends + Tichu + Chuychanga + Margarita + Hatch chili sauce + Creamy jalapeño + Chips?

06/15/2008 The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed
GT/T	Team #1	GT/T	GT/T	Team #2	GT/T
GT/T	MarkH & Nick	GT/T	GT/T	Jon & Stephanie	GT/T
	50			50
	95		T+	205
	275	T+		225
	475			225
	475			425
	550			450
	625			475
	660			540
	690			610
	720			680
	765			735
T+	1065			735

Chipotle flourless chocolate cake

I came across this recipe and had to try it out. I only had one six inch springform pan. So I poured the rest of the batter into another baking dish. Note to future self: pour only half-way up the pan! This cake will expand quite a bit from the steam generated. It looked like a soufflé in the oven.

I also experimented a little bit. I used one teaspoon of Chipotle chile power instead of the recommended 3/4. And I also added one teaspoon of Ancho chile power as well. I wonder how it will turn out…

Disc Golf 06/14/2008

I woke up early enough this morning to go biking for 25 miles before disc golf. Since the meetup group has now moved to 9am, my options for finding someone to play disc golf were rather limited. Fortunately, Nick was up for a game. We played “skins”. Not to escape this brutal heat, but only to record who won which hole. Sadly, Nick was nigh-invulnerable.

Some stoopid tagger wrote this on a couple of the benches. Grrr! Probably some crazed vegan dissatisfied with supermarket vegetables…

Disc Golf 06/13/2008

A quick round at Wilco today. I wanted to renew my season pass, but the tennis pro shop was closed. Sigh. At least I got three birdies.

Game Day 06/12/2008

Locomotive Werks

I was happy when John Bohrer offered to sell me a copy of Locomotive Werks. It is a train themed game where you invest in train producing factories. Dice will determine the market demand. But you can moderate their impact by diversifying and moving production capabilities around. It was an interesting game. Marty was the run away leader.