Put your Fire Out - Chili Beer

The desert, home of lizards the size of beagles, hard rock, and grit, all baked up to a crisp 130 degrees. Home to hardy people, an assortment of F-16 parts and a a couple dozen million rattlesnakes. A place where beer is pretty important.

Chili Beer.

For a man named Crazy Chilleen of Cave Creek, Arizona (Population 1328 which is said to include coyotes and cattle) beer could not be trusted to outsiders. So in 1989 he started brewing his own beer. As the story goes, the town was suspicious. And became even more so when an entire brewery arrived in crates at the foot of Black Mountain, along with a German named Arnold.

But apparently people were sold after the first batch. Enough that the yuppies started driving in from California to try the stuff. Then one day, one of them whined about no lime in their beer, and got a hot Serrano chili pepper in it instead. Amazingly, someone liked it. A number of people did, the idea was born, and as their website states "the 80's were officially over".

That brewery is now closed but the beer lives on, brewed in Mexico for an American beer company. I found it in the wide open spaces of Indianapolis at World Market.

I bought it as a novelty. But with a bowl of fresh tortilla chips to munch on it was damn good. It's a light, lager type beer, not a lot of head to it. Corona is sort of how it looked and I expected it to taste. But the pepper taste is clean, hot and pronounced, as in after you swallow it sneaks up into your sinus's and makes your whole head wake up.

Wow!
With chips and some sliced sliced, sharp cheese, it was the perfect snack.

I purchased some extra for Tam and Bobbie to try next time I see them, the fire extinguisher and extra chips will be ready. The online beer reviewers didn't like it, but I did. It was like biting into a crisp cold jalapeno with my chips. Then again, I'm the one that asks if there's something hotter than "Thai Hot". .

If you see some, try it. If you don't like, I'm sure there will be some takers for it.

Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid (just add weed)

Cast Iron Kitchen - Deep Dish Pizza

Craving deep dish pizza but don't want to leave the house.

You don't have to. This makes the perfect, flaky, buttery tasting crust.

Cast Iron Deep Dish Pizza

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 cup and two Tablespoons warm water  -  110 to 115 degrees F (43 to 45 degrees C) 
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup corn oil  (do NOT use butter or olive oil)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 
1/2 teaspoon Penzey's Roasted Garlic Powder

Directions

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water in a bowl. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam.

Combine yeast mixture, flour, corn oil, sugar, and kosher salt and garlic powder in a large stand mixer with a hook attachment  and knead until dough holds together but is still slightly sticky, about 2 minutes. You can also use a food processor with the cutting blade, pulsing just until it forms into a sticky ball. The secret to a buttery flaky deep dish pizza style crust is not to overwork it.

Form dough into a ball and transfer to a buttered bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with a towel and allow dough to rise at room temperature until double in size, 6 hours. Punch down dough, give it a couple of gentle kneads, then let sit for 15 minutes.  Press dough into a 10-inch deep dish pizza pan or a 12 inch oiled cast iron skillet (my preference).

Top with  a thin layer of pasta sauce, cheese and toppings of your choice

Bake in 450 oven, 20-23 minutes.

This is also great made ahead, and frozen before rising.  Take it out before you leave for work, put it in an oiled bowl with a clean dish towel over it and let it rise in a warm place.  When you get home for work it will be good to go.

pepperoni on my side, bacon and an extra layer of cheese on Partner's

Top with  a thin layer of pasta sauce, cheese and toppings of your choice

Bake in 450 oven, 20-23 minutes.

This is also great made ahead, and frozen before rising.  Take it out before you leave for work, put it in an oiled bowl with a clean dish towel over it and let it rise in a warm place.  When you get home for work it will be good to go.

Note:  The pizza pictured is NOT traditional Deep Dish Chicago pizza.  That has a TON of cheese and then is topped with the sauce, eating more like a casserole.  This is just thick crust but it has a nice bite to the outer crust with just enough softness to easily consume.

E-postal - Going in Circles

It's E-Postal shooting match time again and Partner in Grime has this month's challenge up.

Cut and paste in your browser  (updated - there was a problem with the earlier one)

• http://engineeringjohnson.blogspot.com/

With the major house  plumbing and kitchen renovation we've not had much time to get to the range in the last year, other than my basic proficiency shooting, but this one looks like fun.

On Limitations

Planting some Hope - A Chapter From the New Book

Friends - I'm going to dive into the next book, of which 20 some chapters have been written or outlined. So although there will be regular posts of food, fun and the occasional firearm over the summer, I'm going to concentrate my "serious" writing on finishing the book. I needed that time but I'm ready to give it a try.

It is fiction and follows a young female police officer that moves from a busy, upscale metropolitan area condo to a tiny house in an even smaller town in the Midwest, to live in the house her late Aunt, and her only remaining family member, left her. The story will be some vignettes of her thoughts as she adapts to life in a tiny town and those of some of her neighbors, until a tragedy shatters the peaceful safety of their town and shows them just how strong these small roads make people.  I will publish a few snippets when I can.

A Chapter from "Small Town Roads" 

Spring has come to the land as an elderly silver-haired woman stands upon her porch in this small town. The driveway is glistening from a recent rain shower, as brief as it was warm, the cement assuming a patina that is mirrored by the hand-plastered walls of her home. Sunlight strikes the trellis in a dazzling splash and then darts over the colorful flowers that stand at quick attention waiting for the sun's acknowledgement.  On the porch, a white-muzzled retriever sleeps beside her, lulled by a gentle breeze as a solitary car drives by, almost in silence, as if respecting this peaceful time. She has no desire right now to disturb her faithful companion, her own joints tired and aching with arthritis, even as she admires the muscular definition of arms still strong from working in the earth.

She's lived here what seems a lifetime, staying after her husband passed, no desire to move closer to the big city, no interest in downsizing, which can be done by her children when she is gone.  All she has asked of them is that they leave the flowerbeds as they are, so the cycle of flowers continues long after she is part of the earth.

Each year the flowers return, whether the winter embraces them, or neglects them, making a statement of endurance too abundant for the limits of human speech.  Then, on one of those lazy weekends, she takes to the planting beds, removing weeds and overrun, finding the lawn by evening time gaudy with the dead and the dying. With the expired shoots of the previous year would be the errant plastic wrapped flyer or empty can, tossed with careless hand only to reappear with that first shout of warmth, released form the cold and the dark only to be resigned to it again, there in the recycling bin.

It's a tradition and it's a cycle, these little rituals of tending to her home, there in those days where doors still stand closed in the morning chill, the flash of a fire's hearth only a forgotten gleam on the window. As the flowers come out and grass is cut for the first time, other things emerge from the neighborhood. Small toys and bikes show up in yards as if left there in the night by some spaceship from another planet. Flags are carefully hung, down the street, a clothesline is hung.

The neighbors yards here in this small town are much the same, even the overgrown corner, which the homeowner and the city are in a permanent state of detente as to who really has to mow it, is dotted with colorful wildflowers splashed on the ground as if flung up by the spray of water a passing car would create. There's an old mailbox in the shape of an old car, several statues of Mary, Mother of Jesus, looking across the yard with eyes that are either laying a blessing upon the land or provides gentle rebuke to a yard gnome that moons another flowerbed.

She watches her new neighbor leave, a younger lady with strawberry blond hair who has just moved here, She heard she's the niece of Ruby, the lovely lady who lived there that passed away and hopes she will stay rather than sell it or rent it. But living in a town of a few thousand people can't be too exciting for a young person after what was likely the bustling adventure of universities and bigger towns. The young woman seems intent on just getting her car on to the very narrow street and does not notice her. But as people in this the village do, she lifts a weathered hand and gives the young woman a friendly wave, one that startles a bird perched on a shrub, it's sharp, tiny cries falling away like flung confetti

As she turns back towards the house to brew tea, she realizes she has watched these flowers come up for fifty some years, those planted by herself as a young bride, and those added by her sons, still maintaining that childhood picture of color and brightness that she has looked at through years of weary and years of joy, a picture that on the threshold of her final years she sees no means to alter. God willing, she will be here after that ancient trellis has fallen to ashes, no desire to spend her end days in assisted living with a tiny cement patio and a garden beyond that is so ordered and sterile there is no room in it for man's curiosity.

She hopes that she will enjoy these blooms until they fade one final time -her bedroom window open to the garden, taking in her final breaths as the infinite air calls in the calming scent of blossoms.

As her new neighbor's car fades in the distance, she is simply going to  sit and enjoy some tea on the porch, looking at her bounty of blooms on this first Friday in June. She hopes that she is here on the First Friday in June next year, and the year after, living fixed in the monotonous repetition of the flowers, the garden's living symbol of hope.

Bright Spots in the Day

 I normally do not post music video on here, but  local resident Laura Bretan  13 years old, auditions on  America's Got Talent and slays it. This just makes me smile again and again.

Rimworld - Stranded - Old NFO's new short story is published

I'm a bit under the weather today, so I'll just send out a shout out to my friend of over 20 mumble mumble years. Jim Curtis, otherwise known as

• Old NFO

His first military science fiction short story is out on Kindle and it went #1 in Genre within days. Go to his blog for the details.

It's a great read and priced at just 99 cents.  Congratulations to Jim, his illustrator Tina Garceau, and editor Stephanie Martin!

Not All Girls

 Not all girls are made

 of sugar and spice,

 and everything nice.

Some girls are made 

of adventure, fine beer,

brains, and no fear.

Last Thing - Words for Memorial Day

The last thing I saw was the a disk of golden sun through a haze of smoke. In the few months I've been here, the sun and duty's risk are the only constants.

The last thing I heard was the report of fire.  Just one last wild spurring of colors made sound, shaping the hot blind earth into darkness.

The last thing I felt was an intake of breath, air drawing in deep. It lays warm in me, then stills. I thought nothing could reach me.

I never felt what hit me. 

I think that was close, surrounded by the savage heat that no longer burns, the fecund odor of sand and earth that reaches not my nostrils, the incredible silence. Oh God, why is it so quiet?

I look down on my form from above, whole but without body, thinking I must have a concussion, as this vision could not be real.

I close my eyes and recite the steps to field strip my AR.  Bolt fully forward, remove the bolt carrier and the charging handle, and will unblinking eyes to clear my sight.

 But the vision didn't change.

They knock on my front door, with words that my wife's ears and heart will have to accept without proof, but for their sound.

They watch her search their words for anything that can hold sanity together, with language that is within her understanding.  But with the words she hears, she crumbles like fragile paper.

They gather up my things for her, a comb, a ring, a broken blade, a wallet photo of my Mom and Dad, their hair singed with ashen grey, where none before existed.

They send me home in a box, draped with a flag, in clothing I had never worn.

 

My body is buried in the late summer, the corn in fervent zeal, bowing before behemoth combines that will pull it into an oblivious end.

My name is spoken reverently, soft force that drowns out the protesters.  It takes everything my Father has in him, not to confront. They  know not what courage and duty really mean, their nothings as irremediable as my everything.

My wife says my name silently over and over, until it takes shape and form, then falls into a sob as taps are played.  The sounds drifts up to echo in heaven.

But sometimes an echo is heard

My gravestone sits as if listening and waiting, the cemetery vacant. The trees have long since turned gold.

My wife sits with my last letter, worn from the many times she's read it, sun slanting through  trees, quiet light upon the dying leaves. She reads of the restless moments of every last memory, taking what comfort she can from my words.

My words to her, of my love, of my fears, of the child she carries. The more she reads, the less she sees, as the writing becomes fainter, words wet with tears, until the paper itself crumbles away.

The paper is as fragile as she has become strong.

The cemetery is old now, my grave now surrounded by others, so many others. My eyes live on in a child I never met. My name lives on, on a stone in a place forever solemn, in a picture, in a flag.

I am everywhere, in memorial. I am here, in a tombstone, in the flag I hope you salute more than once a year.  I am part of  the earth beneath you, of the wild, strong blood that formed this land, of all that lived, and should live, in freedom.

I am dust in the wind, the hard roots of the past, the sound of earth as it falls on a pine box, the broken body of the past, the invisible footprints of  patriots.

I am your father, your son, your daughter, your mother.  

I gave my life in service to my country. I am a memory that begins and ends with what is left, stakes in the hard ground on which to peg our history.

When the last thing you see is that disk of golden sun in the sky, remember me. Remember my sacrifice.

For I am everywhere, in the trees, in the wind, under your feet in a land that's still free.

 You never knew me but remember me always.

LB Johnson - author    http://lbjohnsonauthor.blogspot.com/

Memory Day Weekend - What it Means

It's not a day off from work.

It's looking at history, and what has withstood time and conflict.

It's not meeting friends for a meal and fun.

It's not ice cream and a barbecue.

It's not sitting in  your lounge chair.

It's raising your flag, remembering what is important as you look hard at everything.

It's stopping to be grateful for the men and women who paid for your joys and your freedoms with their lives.

It's remembering brave sacrifices.

It's putting your pride in your country out  for all to see, not on this weekend, but every day of the year.

It's  remembering duty and courage and the willingness to defend. 

It's honoring the memory of all of those brave men and women who gave their life int he service of this country, so you could live, here today, in the safe place they made for us. 

Friday Night Bucket Lists

If you are on Facebook with me, one of my female shooty friends gave me  this "bucket list" of things one may  wish to do in a life lived fully  I've amended it slightly to make it shorter as Abby Normal the Lab wanted to add HER bucket list to the end.

Feel free to cut and paste and add your own "X's" for those things you've done.

Barkley - Lavatory Retriever

Shot a gun. X (well duh!)
Gone Camping. X
In Bear Country. (Bonus Points) X
Gone on a blind date. X He thought LEO was my astrological sign, he was on house arrest , it didn't end well.
Skipped school. X  Went to the park to read.  My whole class showed up on a field trip right where I was sitting.
Ran a Marathon.
Been to a foreign country outside of those that neighbor yours. X
Seen one of the "Seven Wonders of the World". X
Flown in a helicopter. X
Been on a cruise.  (I look at cruises like Abby does at Thunderstorms - we'll be in the closet)
Served on a jury. (called, always disqualified)
Been in a movie.

Played in a band. X  Clarinet, high school.  No groupies.
Sang karaoke. X  In Florida, alcohol was involved.  Sang Willing Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" as "Blue Hairs Driving in my Lane".
Made prank phone calls-before caller ID, of course.  X Called the dog tattoo place (before microchipping) and told them Barkley wanted one of Cher on his butt
Had more pets than humans living in your house.  X
Went sledding down a big hill. X. And over a culvert...

Been downhill skiing. Does tumbling down a pretty good drop withOUT skies count?
Been water skiing. X
Rode on a motorcycle. X
Jumped out of an airplane. X
Been to a drive-in movie. X
Rode an elephant. (when I was a kid the movie DUMBO scared me!)
Been on TV. X (many times)

Been on the radio. - The Book of Barkley has been read on the radio.  I haven't been on it.
Been in the newspaper. X
Donated blood. X  Regularly, as I have O blood.
Gotten a piercing. X--See "Cruises"
Gotten a tattoo. 

Driven a stick shift. X
Driven over 100 mph. I plead the Fifth.
Been scuba diving.
Rode in the back of a police car.

NOW for the INTERESTING Life Activities by Abby Normal the Labrador retriever

Ridden in a Four Wheel Drive. X
Puked in a Four Wheel Drive. X
Pooped in the car. X

Pooped on the only rug in the room. X
Hidden in the closet during fireworks. X
Had your own birthday cake. X
Hidden one of your Mom's shoes just before she goes to work. X
Eaten your family's dinner off of the counter. X

Pretended like the cat did it.  
Worn underwear on your head. X
Been on a sleepover at another dog's house. X
Climbed over the furniture blockade. X

Begged for a single kibble when your bowl is full. X
Gotten stuck carrying a long stick up the narrow back steps.
Asked to go out, ask to come back in before even stepping off of porch. X
Gotten expensive dog bed, prefer floor. X

Beg to throw toy, won't let you have it to throw again. X
Swam in a lake.
Refused to go for a potty in the rain unless your Mom holds an umbrella over you? X
Eaten a bug. X

Liked it.  X
Found the only mud puddle within a mile right after being groomed. X
Aggressively bark at large scary animals in the wild, but afraid of bicycles.  X

Place head on Dad's leg at dinner.  When he won't give you food, move to other side. X
Drops tennis ball in Mom's glass of wine. X
Found your furever home. X