The little tyke is a you tuber

Who would have thunk it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUMwu_gXK7Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgfZVNv6w2E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynjIoymWHvU&feature=related

Its strange because these are the only things that he'll watch...

Mesa Grill : Blue and Yellow Corn Muffins

I tried to cook Mesa Grills blue and yellow corn muffins and I have to say they tasted pretty good. The recipe is pretty painful to follow, although I have to admit that the recipe itself says you can speed it up if you only use blue corn, which I tried for the second batch and it is indeed quicker.

They taste pretty good although my ones certainly do better with some butter and so I used some toasted pecan and honey butter. A recipe I ad-libbed from the same Mesa Grill cook book ( the actual recipe is toasted pecan and maple syrup butter ).

I would humbly suggest only doing the blue corn batter and perhaps double the measure of sweetcorn -- I liked the sweetcorn in the muffins and originally I thought there were too few... ( because of course the measure is divided into 12 when you make the muffins ).

I just now found a link to roughly the correct recipe...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/blue-corn-muffins-recipe/index.html

He's Walking!

The big news around the ranch is the little man is walking! It ends up being a controlled stumble but he makes it work. It has changed things although not in the way that I expected. He is more mobile but not really that much, once he started crawling you had to keep a serious eye out. But now seeing him walk, makes him look like a real little man... a very interesting phycological difference.

Of course now that he can walk he does tend to pick things up and move them. Taking them from one place to another. Luckily the most interesting things he still can't reach. Interesting times!

Fingernails

This a post-pre post as it were -- in that I'm trying to talk about what has happened -- but trying to think about it as it happened.

One thing that surprised me when the baby was delivered ( other then the fact that the baby was coming this second ) was that he was born with fingernails and toenails. I know that doesn't seem surprising to most people - but at the time it seemed so detail oriented that I was just surprised. I mean what happens if the baby cooks too long -- can they scratch themselves? isn't that a little bit of bad design ? why not grow them after birth and save yourself the trouble?

anyway of course in other ways the delivery was quite amazing.

Our son was born by C-Section and I was allowed to watch -- which is quite an awesome experience -- I didn't know if I was going to be able to look -- but I found I could -- much credit here must go to the doctors as a lot of the gore was carefully shielded -- which was pretty decent of them... but it was amazing to see our son literally pulled peeing from within his mother... I'm not an overly spiritual person and of course I understand the science behind the creation of a baby... but once you see a real baby really crying it does raise questions about a spirit and a soul and life.

I was I confess incredibly nervous about this little new bundle of joy -- which was whisked quickly away! ( I was immediately and forcefully directed to follow that baby ).

He was examined and poked and prodded by the nurses for around ten minutes while I watched and of course they were all using gloves and precautions and stuff  -- which was quite intimidating -- I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to touch him -- but eventually I just got too curious. So I asked if I could -- and the nurse said "The dad is always allowed to touch the baby".

I couldn't resist -- I put my finger in his extremely tiny fist and he grabbed it! incredible!! 

9 Months old.

As you can see there hasn't been much action on this blog.

The little gem to blame ( at least thats what I tell myself ) is my new son ( Zeke ).

However he is now 9 months old and I'm starting too get into the swing of things ( although there are always surprises ). 

He is babbling freely -- "MAMAMAMA" , "DADADADA" and he is crawling like a maniac! he can also climb the stairs -- which is a problem since he hasn't worked out how to scuttle down the stairs yet... no doubt he is working on it.

Although I admit that he can be hard work at times, especially at 2am in the morning when he has decided to wake up and demand a bottle. It has to be said that it is totally amazing when he smiles at you or giggles... it gives you a real visceral thrill and I definitely don't think that can be overstated!

I will try and post some previous stories about his/our adventures -- in a sorta retrospective way -- hopefully that won't take too long...

seeya later.

Mesa Grill

The Mesa Grill is located in Ceasars palace in las vegas. Menu and information can be found here.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm a big fan of bobby flay's and have cooked quite a few recipes from his cookbook "boy meets grill".

Having said that I think the people who enjoyed the food with me would agree that it is absolutely fantastic. I had the pork tenderloin which was spiced and cooked to complete perfection. The ambience is moderately upscale but not off-puttingly so. The wait staff are very friendly and knowledgeable about the entire menu.

I would recommend the place without reservation!

My only nitpick is when you make a reservation you need to pledge 50 bucks a head if you cancel -- which seems pretty harsh... do they have that many walk aways...?

anyway -- go there NOW!

TumbleWeeds.

Stimulated by the vicious, and sadly accurate assertion that tumbleweeds have been allowed to seed,grow,and even reproduce on this blog. I decided it was time to post again. I can only beg forgiveness -- the presence of a new baby has altered my calendar a little. Indeed it seems to bend the space time continuum but thats another story.

Anyway without further a due -- the first post of the return will follow.

Baby Shower On Steriods.

Last weekend we hosted the baby shower at our place. This is a distinctly american tradition. Usually its given by a friend of the mother to be and its a strictly women only affair. We decided to break with a tradition a bit and just use it as an excuse to have a big party. We in fact ended up with 60 people ( 50 adults and 10 kids ).

The preparation started the day before with some serious cooking -- 27 pounds of meat were bought and 22 pounds ended up being cooked... I manned the smoker and the grill for around eight hours. Although once the smoker was finished it was plain sailing as I have a wireless temp monitor. When things are on the gas grill under indirect heat I can just go inside and drink wine. Which is what I ended up doing as some of our friends came over that night and we played a few games of clue ( cluedo for the brits )! great start!

The other dishes were brought by the guests on the day - pot luck style - and that worked out great -- I was very impressed -- there was certainly an amazing gauntlet of deserts!

On the day things went swimmingly! -- the weather was kind ( especially considering that the day after it rained cats and dogs ) -- and the atmosphere festive. I personally had a great time playing the whole social butterfly role -- meeting and greeting as many people as I could! while imbibbing as much drink as possible -- I think/hope everyone else had a good time too -- I'm certainly thankful for the attendance level as I don't know what we would have done with all that meat:-)

Lastly I would like to thank everybody for there generously provided gifts! -- I'm sure they will all come in handy and they are certainly very appreciated -- its great to know that we have so many good friends....

Batali Vs Oliver

Ihef ron Chef America recently hosted a battle between the english chef Jamie Oliver and Iron Chef Mario Batali. I have to confess to liking Batali but when I saw a fellow country men in kitchen stadium I was eventually driven to cheering for the brit... of course it helped that he had quite a character for a sous chef and that he cooked fish and chips! He had even brought a copy of the Sun to plate the fish and chips on -- very cool.

Sadly Oliver's Kung Fu was not strong enough and Iron Chef Batali came away victorious!

The vegatables.

I realized something.

I'm going to be an example to somebody. Thats going to be really strange. All of a sudden it's more important that I do the right thing. Its funny how if it's just you, then doing the wrong thing can be less of an issue.

I'm gonna have to eat more veggies. For a while now I have to confess that I have eaten far to few vegatables, but now what if my son copies me! That might be a little problem, thats hardly the right thing.

Now I start to wonder how many times my parents did something because it would be the right example. I mean surely there are parents who would just love to have a nice McD's but they don't because they want their children eating the rabbit food....

Naturally it becomes even more interesting if you think about other choices that you make, smoking, drinking, etc -- amazing...

Happy New Year

Best wishes to all! Good luck in the new year. Don't forget to keep me up to date.

No Country For Old Men.

I saw this in the theater just before the holidays. I have to say it is outstanding! very involving and very well put together. It is pretty violent (again) but the violence exists to serve the story. It was made even more interesting to watch by the fact that I was watching it in texas and it takes place there. I would recommend the movie -- and interestingly the screenplay is available online because the movie is under oscar consideration.

The Kingdom

I watched the kingdom on video over the weekend and was impressed. It is a serious actioner with some pretty hard core violance. Significant blood is spilt and I suppose it could be quite shocking. But I was pleasantly surprised with the plotting and even a few "deeper" points. Don't expect an Opus but its certainly worth a look, especially with Jamie Foxx's assured presence.

31 Weeks On.

31 weeks and things are moving on nicely. The baby is really showing and really moving about. He looks quite relaxed and serene in the 3d picture... doesn't know whats gonna hit him soon.

My denial has been severely damaged by the preparations in the babies room -- the crib, changing table and accessories are all place. It seriously looks like this is gonna happen. I must admit its getting a little exciting, although of course the terror is a significant factor as well.

Its funny you start to wonder how you can avoid mistakes -- how you can nurture a "good" kid... all very confusing.

Happy Christmas (belated ) and New Year

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the belated best wishes. My wireless router blew a gaskett or perhaps a circuit board. Anyway Me and mine extend our best wishes for the season to all of you and yours.

Enjoy 2008!

Le Broken Clock Parts 1 and 2

Shameless plagiarism of one of my favorite blogs -- Josh Friedman at "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Although his malady was much more serious then mine.

I hurt my ankle last week, hurt it badly enough that I had to limp to the doctors and get it X-rayed. Fortunately the ankle wasn't broken, merely serious soft tissue damage, 1-3 weeks recovery time.

Of course being a complete Muppet I started to get quite cavalier about the limping as the week wore on and finally on Sunday night while leaving a party I didn't notice a step and screwed it again.

Needless to say I'm now limping about with a brace and regularly icing the thing. What a pain in the ankle!

Stella One Week On.

Stella seems to have recovered nicely. She has been off the painkillers for some time now and is walking and begging for food very nicely. It's not all together clear what went wrong with her, hopefully it was just a stomache ache. We will be watching her carefully, but for now the good news is, she is looking reasonably chipper.

Sunday Night At The Vet

Its clearly been along time since I contributed to the college fund for the vets kid. We have just spent an hour or two and 100 bucks at the Vet.

One of our dogs "stella" is feeling quite poorly, she's walking gingerly and breathing heavily. Unfortunately for the 100 bucks the vet was unable to tell us what the problem is -- we have been given some pain killers and instructions to check back if things don't improve. We are hoping that it is some kind of muscle strain ( we went to the dog park this morning ) or allergic reaction which will pass in a few days. We shall see and fingers crossed...

The First "Onesie".

We bought our first onesie ... even I got a little cuted out by it, as it has "I'm new here" written on it. It just had to be bought.

Fortunately for the pocketbook alot of the other ones had christmas messages written on them which wouldn't quite be appropriate for our little one.. he's gonna be a little late for that..

Moving My Study.

I've nearly finished moving my study. I've setup the laptop and moved almost everything. I've just got to clear out one more closet and then setup the server. I guess things are humming along nicely.