The Muted Guerrilla

Hmmm...

2012-05-24T18:15:00.000-04:00

Wait, it’s May!?! Where have I been? For all my lofty aspirations of internet fame and global recognition, I’m not helping my cause with my frequent prolonged absences. Not one bit! Before I make another hollow commitment to continue gracing you, the reader, with my, the writer of all things good, with my virtual presence, I need to backtrack a bit.

I hit a block in my blog a while back when a few things happened at the same time. I will present them to you as they happened without any tomfoolery because I hope to get on to my next hollow commitment in the near future.

First, I wrote a piece about my Grilled Cheese Chase to Perfection calling for an end to this grill-conceived plan with good reason. I just backdated the post here for yesterday, but I mention my now 8-month old kid as a 6-month old. I never posted it because the day that I wrote it the mailman became one of my favorite people.

The mailman, you see, made a speedy delivery of assorted cheeses, a gift from my brother-in-law. It was an awesome gift of fancy Spanish cheeses that I have never even heard of. Thanks, Matt! My grilled cheese desire was rekindled and excitedly flamencoed my way into these new cheeses the following weekend.

I began with the one with the best name, Drunken Goat, and it was fabulous. It has been a while now, but I remember it being both sweet and clean. I know “clean” is a weird way to describe cheese, but I’m not sure if cheese can ever be “refreshing” or “invigorating.” “Refreshing” should be reserved for a grilled cheese sandwich that is dripping with condensation on a warm summer afternoon. Continuing with the lemonade comparison, “invigorating” might be the early morning run to be the first in-line to the grilled cheese stand in a near-by park. I imagine the run home would be something other than invigorating.

The next day, I dove into another of the cheeses, the sharp Garrotxa, and this is where things went all wrong. Here’s a video:

I had all but forgotten about my cheddar-induced sweaty cheek syndrome. I always thought of it more as a party trick that I bragged about in college. I never considered that it could be the sign of something a bit more menacing, but after this video was shot my tongue and throat started feeling funny as well. While it was nothing a few Zyrtec couldn't fix, this event brought memories of scarier incidents and left me wondering if I had eaten a whole bunch of cheese that fateful day in 2008.

My attitude towards the new cheeses waned a bit after that, but I did try them in the coming weeks. The Iberico cheese was my favorite of the bunch. It was pretty good on a grilled cheese sandwich, but was excellent on homemade pizza.

A third, even more, troubling event took place that next week. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it, but I hope to explain it in the next day or two… before I make my next hollow commitment to blogging excellence! May your anticipation always grow!

Wait Weight, You’re Gaining On Me & The Ultimate Grilled Cheese

2012-05-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

It has been some time since I referenced my New Year’s Resolution directly. My Grilled Cheese Chase to Perfection began as a resolution and has been featured somewhat prominently. The focus on this one item on my list of resolutions, which I trumpeted as being “two typed pages, single-spaced,” has clouded another resolution: to lose weight.

With a top-secret target weight in mind, I set out to lose between ten and fifteen pounds. I have been carrying around these extra ten or fifteen pounds for years now, and it is high-time that I say good-bye. Unfortunately, so far this year, I have gained between ten and fifteen pounds and now look to lose between twenty and twenty-five pounds. It seemed much less daunting before.

I have taken a hard look at different parts of my life, deciding where to place blame. Could Red Box be the culprit? Perhaps my sweet tooth is finally catching up with me. My office life behind a spreadsheet could be the problem. Maybe I should replace my Grilled Cheeses with carrot sticks.

I’m still unsure how best to tackle this issue, but I feel I should begin by not glorifying grilled cheese sandwiches, so it is with some sadness that I post my last Perfect Grilled Cheese attempt.

It features delicious Oatnut bread with a combination of Havarti, Mozzarella, and a touch of good ol’ American Cheese. What makes this sandwich unique however is the outside. Instead of using butter to grill up the bread, I coated the slices with mayonnaise. The result is excellent. It not only adds a different taste, it looks wonderful as it toasts the bread very nicely.

I got the idea from a recent list of the Top Ten Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in America published in Food & Wine magazine. Roxey’s in Boston is famous for their use of mayonnaise, so I cannot take credit for it. The list is another reason I’ve grown weary of the project. Like the name of my 6-month old, it suddenly seems trendy.

Shopping Wizardry and Grilled Cheese Magic

2012-02-28T22:18:00.000-05:00

My local grocery store of choice is Giant. Most folks go to the trendy new Wegman’s with their oversized cheese shop and sushi bar and movie-night and … well, I could go on and on, but what Giant lacks in glamour and chic, it more than makes up for in a little something I like to call being-a-grocery-store. That’s right. It’s a grocery store, not a destination. But, with their new shopping tool, it offers quite the entertainment.

The tool is a wand that lets you scan in and tally up your products as you shop. The one I used had a core of unicorn hair... it really was quite magical. When you are done, you just hand the wand to the cashier and pay; there’s no lines, no conveyor belts, no bagging, no awkward small talk. It is wonderfully easy, especially with U-Go bags which are reusable bags that clip onto your cart. (Note: not all small talk is bad, but good cashier small talk is hard to find… and always appreciated.)

There are a couple of downsides to these shopping wands. First, they are located to the side of the entrance, so they are easy to pass as your mind is busy focusing on either the mental grocery list that is too large to remember or on the front right wheel of your cart that is already driving you crazy.

Secondly, it really tests your good behavior. The wand operates on an honor system similar to the self-checkout lane. The only thing stopping you from taking the five-finger discount is that little voice inside your head. The two are different however as there is some face-to-face time before you leave when using the wand. Whether that is enough to deter vile miscreants from taking advantage of the system, I’m not so sure.

I should say that many of the self-checkout lanes around where I live have reverted back to the manned lanes. Presumably, the honor system had some flaws. Low-lifes… ruining it for the rest of us.

Not entirely unrelated, after my first time using the wand, I excitedly rushed home to continue on my Quest for Grilled Cheese Perfection. This time I used thickly sliced “Texas Toast” bread and two pieces of haughty Jarlsberg cheese. The results were delicious:

Jarlsberg Grilled Cheese sandwich with Spicy Mustard

I had thought Texas Toast was a brand of frozen garlic bread, but it is a thick soft white bread that other breads should emulate. I think the only way to improve from Texas Toast would be to use birthday cake for slices of bread. But let's don't be silly.

I had high expectations for this pricey Jarlsberg cheese, being featured in a movie and all, and it did not disappoint. Jarlsberg cheese melts up and becomes the right amount of gooey for the perfect grilled cheese. In fact, where other great grilled cheeses (mainly Cheddar on Rye) have slipped is in their melted-gooey levels. If we were measuring on a scale of 1 to Awesome, this sandwich would be Stupendous!

The flavor of Jarlsberg is unique but reminded me a little bit of Swiss cheese, so instead of ketchup, I went with a dijon mustard knock off. It was a great choice.

Long Live the Grilled Cheese Sandwich!

Leo Screams

2012-02-27T22:13:00.001-05:00

Here's what I have of Leo from yesterday. It's similar to a previous video where he is laughing, but instead of laughing it is more of a scream. I think he's having a good time though.

Oh... and before you silently judge me, I got a haircut as soon as he went down for a nap. Here's the new me...

I'm going for the Leo look - really short on the sides and thinning on top. I have to do what I can to recapture some of the limelight and attention in this household, and it's like they say, if you can't beat your child, you should try to look like them.

That didn't come out right. Okay, now you can resume your judging.

Car Charger Station

2012-02-25T23:13:00.001-05:00

This is pretty cool:

Electric car charger.

Today, for the first time, I saw an electric car charger. It was in front of the Manassas Museum in downtown Manassas. It's pretty crazy looking and I had to do a double-take in the form of a second, and third, drive-by in my old-fashioned gas-powered engine car. I finally stopped to get a closer look:

Five-month old Leo was asleep in the backseat, so I did not take the time to get a good picture or really look into how it works. I assume there's a card swiper somewhere on it. I did watch the electronic message long enough to learn that each charge is $5. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but if it fills up your battery and then you can get 100-miles plus, it's a heck of a deal. $5 in gas would take my car about 40 miles, and I have a Honda Civic, a pretty fuel-efficient car.

Anyways, this wasn't intended to be a save-the-world, go-green post, but I do really like the idea of rethinking the car. A recent post about how much I spend on gas going to the Lake Where I Eat Lunch Often got me searching for how much I spend on my 50-mile daily commute to and from work. With current prices at $3.65 for my area, I spend over $6 a day on gas... almost $7 if you include my lunch break.

Electric cars have always been neat inside my head. They somehow were always in the distant future, though... alongside space elevators and helicopter hats. But now that I've seen a handy-dandy charger in a nearby small-town, they seem much more real. The future is here.

Red Box

2012-02-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

Hold the phone, because in the past two weeks, I have rented three movies! While unfortunately none of those movies were Captain America , all three were very good. Better yet, thanks to the next generation of home movie viewing, these three movies cost just $1.50 each! Life has never been so good! So I would like to send a big Thank You to Red Box!

Ahh… I remember the good old days when a gallon of gas was just $1 and you could rent a movie for just $4. Well, today, gas costs $4 and, with the conveniently-located Red Box, movie rentals only cost $1! It is so cheap that I don’t feel guilty upgrading to blu-ray for an extra $.50. That is however a per night price, which is fine by me. It wasn’t like I was going to Blockbuster and spending $4 with the thought, “Oh, this will be great to watch three nights from now.”

The other side of this per night pricing is that you have to get back to a conveniently located Red Box to return your movie the next day. So if you are like me, it becomes a problem as you rent a movie on a Friday night and then don’t go anywhere the next day because of this:

It suddenly is 7 o’clock on Saturday night and you still need to return the movie, and more importantly, find something to do that night, so you rent another movie. In this way, you kill two birds with one conveniently-located-Red-Box-shaped stone! How great is that? Oh, but it gets better, as I can kill a third bird with Red Box! Do wonders never cease!

You see, at 7 o’clock, I still haven’t eaten dinner. There’s a chance I haven’t even had lunch! My stomach’s growling, and since I am going out anyways, thanks to Red Box, I pick up some tasty take-out for dinner. Luckily, there’s an awesome Italian place right next to our conveniently-located Red Box! To say the least, my wife and I have been eating well the past two weekends. All thanks to a box full of movies.

An argument could be made, in fact, that conveniently-located Red Boxes are the great savior to the local economy that will rebuild the American dream back into American hearts. Of course, with the convenient solution to dinner these movie rentals cost about $25 a pop, which is neither saving my economics nor building any of my dreams. And, that tasty take-out can’t be very good for my heart either.

The Blog-O-Matic

2012-02-22T21:59:00.002-05:00

Once again, it's been awhile, as I have been selfishly hoarding my ideas for what to write about. I could blame my busy schedule full of most-important activities that prevent me from writing anything down, but then I would have to make up activities that sound “most-important,” which is easier said than done.

Instead, my great and wonderful ideas find the same end as say “the best Christmas tree on the lot” that breaks free from its precarious ties atop the family car and crashes and rolls haphazardly along the road. It’s pretty badly beaten up, but you still stand it up in your living room. Eh, it’s good enough.

What I need is a machine where I insert a good idea and it spits out a blog post that is good enough to post. What I need is the Blog-O-Matic! A handy device for any casual blogger, the Blog-O-Matic would look like something out of a Dr. Suess book that shakes and quakes with hiccups and burps as it beeps out a blog that will probably work! I’m excited about this idea. I hope it has to be operated by the fur-covered Neeps from Nemacapoo that are excellent operators of O-Matic products.

For instance, I would like to write about renting movies from Red Box. So into the wondrous machine, I would drop a handwritten note that reads “Red Box” and with some whizzes and boinks, the fanciful contraption would spit out something equally as impressive as this post. (Perhaps, the Blog-O-Matic would take about 24 hours to work.)

Leo Reel Quick

2012-02-20T21:20:00.003-05:00

It's been awhile, so here's a quick post of baby videos.

He's grown so much in the past few months. It's been a couple of weeks now that he's been sitting up on his own:

Watch him go! He's only face-planted a few times.

Here's one from today. There's a phone conversation in the background, but Leo doesn't care...

Again, why does YouTube darken all my videos?

And because everyone loves a laughing baby...

If anyone is interested, we take a lot of videos of Leo. The best of the best make it to YouTube, and with my blogging having cooled a bit, not all the videos get to the blog, so keep an eye on his YouTube channel. Of course, if you only read this blog to see videos of Leo, then ignore everything you just read.

A Boy in His Throne

2012-01-29T21:56:00.001-05:00

I haven't written anything for a while now... so I just published a catch-up video and back-dated it. Leo is returning to this blog's spotlight as I have another video to share. I am fully aware that I may be oversharing with the amount of videos of my son. In my defense, if you don't think he is the cutest thing of all time, something is clearly wrong with you.

I should figure out the lighting situation for future videos as it is pretty dark, but it cracks me up. I wanted to get a video that shows how much he likes his bumbo seat, but I think it does a better job showing how much he likes putting things in his mouth.

Catching Up: Leo and Grilled Cheese

2012-01-25T21:18:00.003-05:00

I think it’s time for an obligatory catch-up post.

Leo has been up to his tired old act of being cute. Here’s video proof:

That boy is a genius! Just don’t ask him to open any of the others. I really need to figure out how to edit videos, because you really just need thirty seconds of this.

And from last week, I should get a video of him actually in his exersaucer, which he got for Christmas and absolutely loves, but this is much better:

For the record, he did this for at least five minutes straight and I took several videos, but none are timed right… you see, the chameleon only has three colors, each with their own tune, and then a fourth compilation tune worthy of The Monkees from back when psychedelic movies made sense. I went with the shortest one, because they all are pretty anti-climactic. The most anti-climactic is on YouTube.

I also ate another grilled cheese sandwich! Here’s a video:

It wasn’t that it was a bad sandwich; it is just that it was far from perfect, and perfection is what I seek. It was a learning experience, though, as I think it failed in one key area: gooeyness. Gooeyness is an important factor. The macaroni filling might be worth revisiting, just with more gooeyness.

I did not use any ketchup though. Despite my earlier suggestions, ketchup might be obligatory. (You see what I did there?)

YouTube Treasures

2012-01-20T20:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my YouTube videos netted me $3.58. Today, I am feeling rich.

$3.58 might not seem like very much, but in the world of Google AdSense, anything more than a few pennies is cause for celebration. Recently, I have actually been doing very well and have already earned over $18 this month... and the month is far from over! In fact, after years of waiting before getting my first $100 check from Google this past July, I am very close to earning my second $100 check.

And what exactly did I do to "earn" this money? Oh yeah:

That video has over 118,000 views! That number boggles my brain.

There are, of course, a few other hand selected videos that I have put advertisements on that are boosting my totals, but nothing close to that. I imagine that pretty soon, Leo will be giving me a run for my money pretty soon, as all his videos have ads attached to them, and he is much cuter than I am! Speaking of my boy, here's a special Friday edition of Thirty Seconds with Leo that is closer to Ninety Seconds:

Isn't he talented? So the last three videos of Leo have all featured him rolling. In the next episode, we bid farewell to Leo as he leaves to join the circus. The circus, it turns out, pays more than $3.58 every day!

The Grilled Cheese Taste-Off

2012-01-16T14:30:00.000-05:00

Gooey goodness.

This weekend, my wife and I played host to a couple of her old college roommates. I seized the opportunity by forcing them to participate in the first grilled cheese taste-off of the year. A taste-off is a great way to experiment and test out grilled cheeses on my pathway to perfecting the grilled cheese sandwich. Here's a little starter video:

What that video lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in charm. *emoticon smile!*

I was surprised with the results, both in my favorite and in how varied the opinions were. Each sandwich was rated 1 through 10 in four categories, overall taste, presentation, bread, and cheese. Here is a rundown of each sandwich and how they fared.

Four sandwiches, ready to be judged.

Grilled Salt & Pepper Cheese

This grilled cheese is simple American cheese on the whitest white bread imaginable with a bunch of salt and pepper added to it. The results were mixed. Three out of four judges rated this the worst of the bunch, but the fourth judge considered it the favorite due to its "classic" nature. Speaking as one of the judges, this was terrible. There was way too much salt and I was left with a dry mouth for hours after this competition. Cheese, I'm learning, has some salt to it, but I believe this sandwich bore the blame for my dry mouth.

The Cinnamon Sugar Grilled Cheese

This is the same concept as the salt and pepper sandwich, just with cinnamon sugar instead of salt and pepper. I also covered the top of the sandwich itself with a light cover of cinnamon sugar as a final step. I was excited about this one as my wife usually puts cinnamon on her grilled cheeses, a trick she learned from her grandmother. Speaking for myself, this was an excellent sandwich despite the fact that it rated last by three of the four judges, despite strong numbers and good comments from all. If anything, it was hurt by the other sandwiches as it was definitely the only sweet option available. Don't be fooled by the numbers... it was good sandwich.

The Double-Stacked, Double-Stuffed Cheesey Grilled Cheese

So this is a big sandwich with big ambitions. It has plain white bread on the outside, with the inside being layered like this: 1 American Cheese, 1 Muenster Cheese, 1 American Cheese, 1 separately grilled slice of Potato Bread, 1 Muenster Cheese, 1 Cheddar Cheese, 1 Muenster Cheese. It was pretty good, and a lot of fun to make. That being said, I can't help but blame it for the constipation that followed me for the rest of the day. The judges all agreed that it was not their favorite, but it did rate as the favorite if you only look at the numbers. This is because in my scoring system, presentation was equally waited with taste, which you have to admit, this was pretty impressive looking.

Our new camera helps its on-line presentation.

Cheddar on Rye

I have to give credit to my wife's aunt for this sandwich. I have been wanting to try it since she mentioned it was her favorite, and... oh my god, it was so good! I would never have thought to use rye bread for any sandwich before this Perfect Grilled Cheese Adventure began, but now I want to try it for all my sandwiches. It sounds totally gross but I can't wait for tomorrow's return to work with a Peanut Butter and Jelly on rye. Three out of four judges rated this very highly, even though it wasn't much to look at. The only complaint was the two pieces of cheese didn't melt together very well, which was kind of weird, but that is cooking error and only makes me wonder how good this sandwich could be.

The simplicity of this sandwich leads me to think that the best Grilled Cheese will be the easiest to make, cheese, bread, butter, heat. None of these sandwiches though had any crunch to them, which I hope to add in soon.

All in all, it was a fun event with pretty tasty results.

Leo Keeps on Rolling

2012-01-15T20:28:00.001-05:00

Last week, I finally got Leo rolling from his tummy to his back. This week he mastered the roll in the other direction. Bedtime is now so much fun... (sarcastic eye roll). Here's him in action:

He is a rolling fool now and does it just for the hell of it. I put him on the floor for maybe five minutes here. He happily rolled back and forth and back and forth almost non-stop, until he knocked his head on the coffee table and cried for the next hour and a half. (Most of that crying was just him being tired. He fell asleep as I was putting him in his swaddle.)

Here's another video. He isn't doing anything here, but it is the first video of Leo that I tagged as "the cutest baby ever." The keyword there is "first". Here it is:

For some reason, YouTube darkens everything... that's a shame, but I think it still holds up to its tag as the cutest baby ever.

Improving the Blog Would Be Difficult

2012-01-11T20:19:00.001-05:00

This is the third part of a 43 part-series on ways to improve my blog. Improving this blog seems like an easy task as there’s nowhere really to go but up… and no one to really impress. The series, like the blog itself, might be best summed up as delusions of grandeur.

A couple days ago I posted about my travel time to and from the lake where I eat lunch often. It was a pretty good addition to the virtual treasure trove of excellence in fine writing found within this website. It did however have its flaws.

I have already had to make one correction. I probably could make many, many more.

I mention at the end of that post that the main point I wanted to convey when I began writing was not the one that I stressed the most. In writing the thing, I had a realization that changed my perspective on the issue. I feel like a true writer would have at that point scrapped what they had already written and started over.

I typically don’t do that, but a better blog needs that. A better blog needs someone to give it the old once-over to make sure it makes sense and is focused and on-target. Posts should be easy and enjoyable to read, but I freely admit that sometimes these posts can be a challenge to read. (Heck, more often than not they are a challenge to write.)

Perhaps, the blog needs someone else at the helm. This person would not only see my vision but mold it into a better vision. This means that they would appreciate my John Duffy-glorification and meaningless babble, maybe resulting in meaningless glorification of John Duffy babble.

A big problem is that too often I operate under a unique, self-imposed interest-crunch. Similar to a time-crunch, I try to write as much as I can about everything loosely connected to what I’m writing about until I run out of interest in it. Then I hit publish. While I try to catch mistakes as I go along, I hardly ever go back to edit any of the content in it. It would not be easy to put the extra time into it or to delete lines that I thought enough of to write down, but that’s exactly what I need to improve, editing the content.

If the aim is simply to improve the blog, however, perhaps I should begin by editing the small stuff. It wuold be nice not have any glaring errors like misspelled or dropped words.

For what it’s worth, I tried to rewrite this post from scratch after my first attempt wasn’t very good. They are quite different, but similarly uninteresting, as I follow the same path of stuffing each post with random thoughts of interest that I allude to in both. It can be seen after the jump if you have any desire to read it. I am impressed and grateful that you’ve read this much, so congratulations! You’re done!

For me, writing a blog is nothing more than a bad habit similar to model airplanes and origami. I spend all this time writing a post about whatever’s on my mind and, if I’m lucky, somebody might come along and think, “Oh that’s kinda cool,” and than go about there business. Meanwhile, all I see when I look back at any particular post are the flaws and errors.

I am sure everyone sees the glaring mistakes. The misspelled and dropped words are probably the easiest to spot, but I can chalk them up to honest mistakes. The many grammatical errors are pretty hard to read back through as I worry they make me sound a way that I don’t want to sound, to put it gently. The worst, from my perspective, is the excess words and garbled thoughts that clutter up so much of each post. Therefore, a big improvement in this blog would be to implement the edit.

My writing process with this blog usually consists of having a thought, begin writing about said thought, think of a clever line, abandon original idea to focus on clever line, remember that I had an original idea but struggle to remember it, write gibberish in hopes that it comes back to me, reread first paragraph and tie conclusion to something mentioned there. Then hit publish. Ideally, this would not be the case.

In a perfect world, I would have the time to submit my writing to someone who would read through it to point out the mistakes and offer helpful suggestions. In a truly perfect world, this person would be named Doug and speak in the third person. He would live in a small tent and I would barter goods for his advice. Even if the editor was myself, that would help a lot.

Often as I write, stringing along too many ideas at once, I am reminded of my 12th grade English teacher. Everything we wrote was graded on, I think, six factors, each weighted equally. I don’t remember any of them except for Conciseness, which was usually written all over my papers. It’s an interesting concept to focus on in writing and something I always consider.

I guess what I’m getting at is that in order to form a more perfect blog, I need to cut the boring stuff out, learn to let go of what doesn’t work. This post for instance should have just been about my high school English teacher.

Grilled Cheese: Round 2 - The Iron Skillet

2012-01-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

My grilled cheese adventure turned another page this weekend with the introduction of the long-awaited (by me) iron skillet.

A man and his skillet.

The iron skillet may look brand new, but don’t be fooled. I bought it over a year ago thinking my wife would love to have a hardy new pan. You would have thought by her reaction to this thoughtful, unexpected gift that pans and skillets are mortal enemies, and we, as by-standing chefs must choose a side. My wife never once used the iron skillet, calling it unprintable names, claiming it is dirty. All the while, I have never wanted to cook with something more.

My wife also says that it will absorb flavors as you cook, so everything would end up tasting like everything else. If this is true, it is a legitimate concern. You don’t want to be making pancakes that taste like fried onions. For this reason, the great grilled cheese adventure is a perfect fit for the iron skillet.

Mmm. Grilled excellence.

The first attempt with it led to mixed results. It may lend itself to picturesque cooking, but it heats up really fast and I burned my second sandwich.

Study this picture. There will be a test later.

As you can see, the two sandwiches are very different. In this process, part of me wants to take a gradual, organic exploration of what is out there, and part of me wants to go crazy and try wild things. I did a little of both.

The top sandwich here is simple American cheese on potato bread. Last week, I discovered that whole wheat bread is not suitable for grilled cheeses. It’s too hearty and substantial. I looked online for the best grilled cheese sandwiches and found recipes that call for “quality potato bread.” This is Martin’s Potato Bread and it makes a world of difference. This was a much better Grilled Cheese sandwich. (Unfortunately, the potato bread replaced the whole wheat bread on the grocery list and today’s lunch of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich took a hit. It’s going to be a long week of lunches.)

The bottom half of the picture is a blackened sandwich of American cheese on Pan de Leche, or milk bread, which my wife bought off the reduced rack. The price was right. We’ve toasted this bread up to go with pasta dinners and it really is delicious. As a grilled cheese it did alright. It was a bit sweet and almost chewy. Its downfall was user-error as it bore the brunt of my skillet inexperience. For one thing, it cooked too fast for the cheese to get good and melty.

Another problem though wasn’t with the skillet at all, but that it did toast evenly. I should have expected this though as it isn’t cut into flat slices. I don’t want one mishap to rule all rolls and buns out altogether, but it is something that I’ll need to figure out a solution to.

Overall, not a bad effort, but as you see in the picture, I was generous with the ketchup. As my wife says, a great grilled cheese sandwich won’t need any help.

Leo Rolls in Thirty Seconds

2012-01-08T21:47:00.001-05:00

As a parent there are milestones that you look for in your child. I have been trying to catch as many of them on film as possible for my weekly Thirty Seconds with Leo, but as its usually a new skill, I end up holding the camera in front of him for a long, long time. The Hello Hands video, when he first started playing with his hands, stands out in my mind cause it took nearly an hour to get a good one... albeit it was a very fun hour.

This week's Thirty Seconds with Leo features my boy rolling over. He's been rolling from tummy to back for awhile now, but we have never been able to catch it on camera. Today I was determined to finally get it regardless of how long it took. It took thirty seconds:

I think last week I said that I've been trying to get him laughing on video too. Last week's video was a pretty good example of this, but I'm still hoping to get a better one. Here's one from Thursday when my wife was at the store:

Leo is cracking up at me dropping a pink sheep stuffed animal from way up high and catching it before it hits him. It's a pretty good video of him laughing, but with that description you can probably guess that the funniest part of it is an outtake from a different angle:

Totally unrelated, but yesterday I found another video on my computer from New Year's Eve of Leo being amazing. My boy's so advanced.

Corrections

2012-01-07T20:16:00.000-05:00

In a January 6 story about a couple’s resolution to reduce their carbon footprint, the Muted Guerrilla incorrectly reported that the two had been married for three years. The couple have been married for four years.

My Lunchtime Footprint

2012-01-06T19:44:00.000-05:00

Another item on my annual to-do list is to reduce my carbon footprint. While it is a noble cause that does concern me, I should admit that the only reason why it was included as a New Year’s Resolution was a random comment that my wife made last week. “Do you think we could reduce our carbon footprint?”

After three years of marriage, I know better than to guess at my wife’s inner-thought process, but I believe it was an earnest question. We don’t travel much. We don’t consume very much. We very rarely eat meat. Our biggest offence is arguably having a baby, who goes through a lot of diapers. Plus, I’m guilty of taking long showers… the water just feels so good.

I’m sure once I take a better look at my life I can make meaningful changes to reach my goal, but that’s not what today’s post is about. Today, as I often do, is about my lunch by the lake. Today’s Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich was surprisingly good despite my bread being the heels of the loaf.

This is my stock picture of the Lake Where I Eat Lunch Often. It's not so green this time of year.

The Lake Where I Eat Lunch Often is a daily sanctuary away from the fluorescent lights and cubicled computer screens of my office. There are many days that I spend my morning working towards my lunch visit and spend my afternoon reminiscing about the glorious tastes of my peanut butter and jelly that linger in my mouth. It is however about two and a half miles from my office. That doesn’t seem like very much, but like everything, it adds up fast.

Let’s do the math: 2.5 miles each way makes for a 5 mile trip. I work a compressed schedule 4-day work week, with 52 weeks in a year for a total of 208 work days, but after factoring in holidays and vacation days and days I don’t go to lunch for whatever reason, let’s say I make the 5 mile trip to the lake and back 150 days each year. That makes a grand total 600 extra miles each year.

600 miles! 600 miles for a trip that I don’t even think about. That is a staggering amount… even to my 33 mpg Honda Civic eyes. Going further… 600 miles at 33 mpg is a little less than 20 gallons. A gallon of gas currently is a little over $3, so I’m looking at a $60 expense each year to go eat a lousy peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Woah.

I don’t even want to think about my 25-mile commute to work each day.

I suddenly feel the need to defend my daily visits to the Lake Where I Eat Lunch Often, and I can’t stress enough the need to remove myself from my workplace to recharge for the rest of the day. In my head, I have justified my lunch locale as simply enjoying nature. I have felt some guilt about the travel distance in the past, which I notice as I’m rushing back each day after my hour is up, but I tell myself that sure I’m hurting the environment a tiny bit, but otherwise I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.

When I started writing this, that last line was going to be the central point I was trying to make, that I am all for saving the environment, but not at the cost of not enjoying the environment. That $60 expense, though, is nagging at me. And that’s just the cost to get there. If I were giving the park $60 to spend an hour a day in their peaceful environs, I would gladly pay up. Instead, I’m burning $60 of toxic fumes into the atmosphere each year.

I may have some more thinking to do on this subject before I do anything rash… I know the perfect place I can go to mull it over in peace.

Grilled Cheese: Dreaming the Impossible Dream

2012-01-05T20:32:00.000-05:00

With just one attempt so far, my Grilled Cheese Quest is off to a slow start, but don’t fret the epic journey will continue soon with attempt number two. In fact, it is likely to be principally a weekend effort. That being said, it is with great anticipation that I await the weekend.

Part of me truly want to believe in the power of intention, so it did not surprise me that the morning after announcing my grilled cheese ambitions that a grilled cheese recipe sat atop a pile of scattered recipes on the conference table at my office. A coworker must have gotten a one-a-day Food Network calendar recently and left it out for folks to sift through.

This is a picture of a recipe!

The recipe in question looked delicious from the picture in the corner. It called for a grilled sandwich with Portobello mushrooms, scallions and manchego cheese. Now, the mushrooms raise a question of how much extra stuff can go into a grilled cheese before it becomes something else. This is something that needs to be addressed soon, hopefully after I decide where to draw the line. This post though is about the mysterious second ingredient, the manchego cheese.

Manchego cheese is new to me, and everything about it intrigues me. As my wife can attest, I love saying it – Manchego! – because it makes me feel a bit like a Spanish bull-fighter. Wikipedia tells me it comes from La Mancha , Spain , home of the legendary quest-goer Don Quixote, and is usually sold with his picture. It is made of the milk of sheep. Mmm.

At lunch today, after a delicious Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich by the lake, I escaped the cold by going on a cheese hunt at the grocery store. There are a lot of cheeses, and manchego I found way off in an easily over-looked corner of the cheese display. I can only assume that the manchego cheese at this grocery store was aging nicely.

It is only sold in wedges, which I was expecting, but means it is not very grilled cheese friendly. It bore the seal of the Man of La Mancha and was wrapped in tinted cellophane that sharpened its red exterior. Surprised how hard it was, I turned it over in my hands, looking for a soft spot that would make me believe it could make a good grilled cheese. That’s when I saw the price.

Admittedly, the first number I saw was the price per pound of $17, but the unit price was still close to $9. I had seen the prices of some of the other cheeses and was already feeling discouraged about my Grilled Cheese Quest, but this was truly disheartening. This resolution suddenly appeared to be much more expensive than I was prepared for. Perhaps with this resolution, I'm just tilting at windmills.

Long story short, while there are many types of cheeses and breads, I predict the bulk of my search will deal with cooking techniques and garnishes. Maybe if I get another check from Google this year I can try to be a little more adventurous, so remember to support our sponsors... or at least click on their ads, often.

Leo Video Bonus

2012-01-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

In my ramblings from my earlier post today, I mentioned sweet potatoes, so I feel like this video from today is somewhat on topic:

This sweet potato trial run was deemed a huge success and there are several videos of it on Leo's youtube page.

Organic by Nature

2012-01-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

Recently, I found myself at a natural foods market. My wife and I gave the gift of Spicy Hot Relish this year, which is surprisingly hard to find and can only be found at such places. We considered ourselves lucky to buy the last jar.

It was my first time at this particular store, and after finding the relish that had brought us in, we spent some time perusing about the store. Despite the full shelves of jars and homemade dips and soup packets, the stacked crates of fruits and vegetables, and the humming refrigerators along the back wall, the store felt oddly barren. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I felt like I was shopping in somebody’s cellar.

The store did hold some pretty cool stuff though. There were side-by-side crates for sweet potatoes and yams, which could never be mistaken for one another. I’ve been using the two terms interchangeably, but the sweet potatoes had a purple skin whereas the yams looked more familiar. (Wikipedia says the two are the same thing. What do they know?) I would have gotten a few each to test the difference had I not just bought ten pounds of “Sweet Potatos” from CostCo for $7. Maybe another time though.

In the ten minutes or so that we were looking around, there were two shoppers. A man bought a huge amount of meat. They sell local organic meat, which is noticeably more expensive, and I am pretty sure the man spent close to a hundred dollars on ground beef. That’s a lot of beef! And a woman came in to buy four gallons of local organic milk. That’s a lot of milk!

A quick note about organic beef: I have had two organic hamburgers in my life. One of them was the best hamburger I have ever eaten and the other is the best hamburger I have ever cooked. It is expensive, but it is well worth it.

The milk lady though sparked my imagination. She came in with four empty glass bottles in a convenient carrying case, handed the bottles to the cashier and went to fill up her carrying case with four more glass bottles full of milk. Only after she left, did I go check it out. The milk is not only organic but has a hand-written note saying which local farm produces it. I’m half surprised it didn’t mention the individual cow’s name… now that would be something.

I can just imagine… “No, I had the Suzy milk last week. It was good but I think I’ll go with Bessie this week.” That would be farm-fresh. Next, they could bring the actually cows to the store to promote their milk over their competitors. “Moo,” Suzy would say enticingly as I would be clearly impressed with Bessie bow.

(Did I take that too far? That’s what happens when I try to post regularly.)

My wife and I buy organic milk, so this local organic milk in glass bottles interests me. I even like the idea of the two dollar deposit attached to the glass bottles. It just adds to the organic-ness of it all. A while back, I was at a supermarket buying milk among other stuff. I was looking through the expiration dates on the milk cartons, when a boy maybe 8-years old ran up beside me and grabbed a carton of organic milk. The father, a big man with scruffy beard, grabbed the carton of milk from his son's hands and simply said "no." He put it back and then explained that there is milk that doesn't cost so much.

Perhaps I silently judged him at first, but the part of the story that I keep thinking about is that I soon found myself asking why I buy the expensive milk. The answer, it turns out, isn't so much in my disgust of animal cruelty or distrust additives and preservatives but lies in how much milk I've thrown out in my life. Organic milk lasts for like two months without going bad. It's the closest thing to a miracle of modern milk that I've discovered since strawberry powder.

For me, milk is more of an ingredient than a beverage, so it needs a pretty long shelf life. Quality ingredients are important to any dish, and for quality ingredients, I choose my local natural foods market.

And for quality endings to meaningless posts...

2012: Grilled Cheese to Perfection

2012-01-02T17:01:00.000-05:00

I am a man brimming with unrealized potential. The possibilities that lay before me are limited only by my own imagination. I strongly believe that now is the time to test what can and cannot be done. I believe that now is the time to take hold of who I could become and become the man I want to be. I believe that now, 2012, is the year when the world bares witness that anything can be done, that anything is possible, that anything can be imagined. I believe that now is the time to begin my epic journey.

No stone will go unturned, no whisper will go unheard, no axe will go unground, for 2012 will be the year that the Grilled Cheese Sandwich is mastered. I will be its master.

I'm not sure where this year of gooey cheese will take me but let's begin with what we know.

A quick note about the video itself: All in all, I'd say it turned out well for only four takes... hence the crispy sandwich. Oh... and by "oven" I mean "stove top"... in all four of those takes.

To recap, the first grilled cheese sandwich of 2012 was a basic grilled cheese: Stroehmann's 100% Whole Wheat Bread, 2 pieces of Kirkland's American Cheese, and butter. The end product was admittedly not so great. The problem was the bread. It turns out that the best Peanut Butter and Jelly bread is not very good for Grilled Cheese as there was just too much of it. My wife actually ended up tearing off the crust which I don't think I've ever seen her do. So, a change in bread seems imminent.

In time, hopefully I can perfect my grilled cheese explanation posts as I work towards perfecting the sandwich itself, but I'll leave this be for now. One attempt down... so many more to go.

A Happy Leo New Year!

2012-01-01T18:20:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year's from Leo. I’ve sputtered a bit on my weekly installment of 30 seconds with Leo. He has had a great first holiday season though and there are videos of him from the past few weeks, including him opening Christmas gifts. Here's another one from today:

It's not the best of videos, but it catches him laughing which is very difficult to get a video of. Earlier this week we kind of caught him laughing at the television:

I have no idea what the guy on TV is trying to talk about. It was something about a cat sneaking into a house so you need to find a dog. Leo thought it was hilarious.

I say we kind of caught it on video though, because this video was actually taken after the fact and it wasn’t quite as funny the second time around, but he’s still smiling. Actually, I think it was probably the fourth or fifth time watching it before we got the camera out and started recording.

We were able to re-create the scene though thanks to the power of our DVR 30-second rewind button. I love that feature. Soon after we got it, I found myself frequently wanting to rewind the radio in my car… to the point where I go to reach for a button while I’m driving before I realize that it doesn’t exist. Then this weird wave of anxiety and shame washes over me for making the mistake that feels a bit like déjà vu. It’s true.

With Leo though, I have started wanting to rewind my life and relive the last thirty seconds. So often the best moments with him are frustratingly quick. The little expressions and sighs and streams of babble that make him so great never last very long and he’s back to staring at some inanimate object. His laugh is contagious but very hard to predict, as the things that make him laugh seem to change from one minute to the next. Hopefully we can catch him laughing facing the camera, because he really is pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself. (Oh... I should add that to my resolution list! Get good laughing video.)

And yes, it is scary that Leo is full-on watching tv and clearly paying attention, as he laughed at the same part each time. It might be time to turn off the television for the next ten years or so.

PS. I just posted another video of him laughing on Christmas Eve that my wife's aunt took. Check it out!

Happy New Year's

2011-12-31T17:50:00.000-05:00

It’s still the holiday season… or at least that’s what I’m told. Christmas is over. Our tree and decorations are down. Christmas carols seem to have disappeared overnight. Conversations are no longer about the warmth and goodness of Christmas but about how cold it’s getting. That conversation usually starts off strong: “It’s finally getting cold.” But ends pretty weak: “Yup.”

But the holiday season is not over and I have thoroughly enjoyed my empty commute to work this past week as New Year’s is about to roll around. The idea of saying farewell to one year and welcoming another is a bit odd to me, but the chance to start over or take on new challenges should never be wasted. Therefore, it is with great anticipation that I await the New Year.

This week, I have been compiling a list of goals and aspirations for the New Year… so far I have two typed pages worth, single-spaced. The list includes both simple tasks of a to-do nature and broad resolutions for vast self-improvement. In fact, there are quite a few things on my list that I didn’t put there, but were included by my wife (how else would “finish the basement bathroom” make it on to the list? I have no desire to do that.). I mention it here because I hope that it will help out with my number of posts as I cross out stuff on my list.

In fact, one item on my list that I am sure will help drive up my stock prices is to blog more. It’s a pretty frequent goal of mine that hardly ever gets realized, but I’m turning the page on the past and have high hopes for the future. In fact, "blog more” is also open to some interpretation. Posting some thought-provoking essay offering a unique and refreshing take on the American mundane every single day would be ideal, but posting anything at all just once or twice a week would be an improvement. In fact, if it sounds like good writing, but doesn’t sound anything like me, all the better… in fact, I am tempted to delete this whole thing and just post… “It is with great anticipation that I await the New Year.” End fact.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Eve

2011-12-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

Click here to view this video

Leo showed off on Christmas Eve for my wife's family. Our camera was low on batteries but my wife's aunt got a pretty cute video of him.

Merry Christmas!