Once the chicken was done, Liz sliced it into nice little pieces. I plated some sweet baby lettuce, put the chicken on top, added some shredded romano cheese and then drizzled the dressing over top. One of the better things I’ve made this year. Bon appetit!

And then we took our vacation to Barbados, I started my new job, and we’ve spent our weekends since then apartment searching.

But finally, we’ve found an apartment. Ironically it is the same complex that Jason was living in when we first met, and we’ll be moving in the weekend before Thanksgiving. Around the same time, we’ll also be picking up the newest addition to our little family.

For a while, Jason and I had tossed around the idea of getting a puppy, but it was never really possible because of schedules. Once we move though, we’ll have the time and the energy to take care of one. So for the past few weeks we’ve been looking around for the perfect one. And then we found her.

Waffle is a rat terrier, born September 27th, and when we bring her home she’ll be just 7 weeks old.

We visited the breeder up in Kentucky today (just an hour and half drive from Columbia), met Waffle for the first time, and got to see all of the other types of rat terriers. It’s easy to see how people have a hard time having just one.

And her name? We came up with it on the drive up to visit her. We were tossing around names from characters in books and movies, city and street names, types of cars, things of the back of trucks, and finally signs off billboards for casinos, stores and restaurants.

Waffle House, anyone?

Barbados is the southern most island in the Caribbean and is actually a part of the British West Indies rather than the American side. You can tell because they like cricket there, a lot, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. The accent, however, is not British, but something else entirely. It took me days to finally successfully understand what people were saying.

Comparatively, Barbados a large island, but you can still make the circuit of it in a relatively short amount of time, barring traffic in the capital city, Bridgetown, or along any of the smaller roads. The Bajans don’t seem to to have much stock in highways or even particularly well-paved two ways.

Our hotel was just a few minutes ride from the Airport and we had arranged transportation through one of the local tour companies, Johnson Tours. We had gotten rooms at the Crane Resort, one of the oldest hotels on the island. Normally an obscenely expensive resort, our stay was made reasonably because of extensive construction on the property. Fortunately, little of it detracted from the beauty of the grounds, the pools, or the private beach.

After checking in, we were taken up to our room in one of the buildings, on the fourth floor. When the porter opened the door, and we walked in, we stood in awe for a few minutes before finally tipping him and sending him on his way. The suite was incredible. Ceramic tiled floors, white washed coral brick walls that lead up to vaulted white wood ceilings where a single ceiling fan blew in the breeze if you had the balcony doors open. There was a full kitchen, jacuzzi tub, and a four post bed. The mahogany trim, furniture, and doors stood out against the clean white of everything else. And it was ours for a week.

Except for two days when we had tours planned, we split our time between the private beach and the pools that were on the cliffs above the ocean.

Walking through the Azure restaurant and down a narrow, long flight of stairs that lead you down the vertical cliff to the beach. The ocean was as impossibly greenish blue as the pictures you see in magazines. As waves crashed onto the beach, they picked up white sand and tossed it back into itself, giving them a dusty, translucent look. We lounged on chairs spread out across the beach by the men who manned two little booths, with large blue umbrellas to protect us against the equatorial sun.

Behind us, a coconut grove hung over the beach. We watched one of the guys from the booth scale a palm tree close to the beach with just his bare hands and feet. It seemed so improbable, and yet he made it look easy. A few twists of the coconut, and they were dropping down to the sand below with a soft bounce and roll. He shimmied off the tree with effortless grace and cut up the coconut to offer to the guests, spending a few minutes eating and talking with each person he offered some to.

At the end of the day, guests retired for afternoon tea, or for an early dinner and there was more than one time when we were left almost alone on the beach, making footprints that washed away as soon as we had passed.

One of the harder decisions of the week there became whether or not to stay on the beach or to lounge by one of the half dozen or so sparkling blue pools that were on the cliffs above the beach.

Most of the time, we found ourselves on one of the lounge chairs around the infinity pool, the top most pool in the small complex. Swim over to the edge, and you could look out at all the other pools and down across to the ocean in the distance.

Right next to the pools, the Carriage House served up an assortment of drinks and a select menu of lunch/dinner. We spent many happy hours each day reading in the sun, sipping Pina Coladas and sampling almost every menu item. Ironically, they wound up having the fastest service of all the restaurants in the Resort and so rapidly became our favorite.

And when the sun started to go down, we switched to the heated Jacuzzi that was in an ancient Greece-like open stone room just a few steps away. We would stay there until the evening chill or afternoon rains sent us back to our room.

I remember most the ebb and flow of the days; the slow easy pace of everything. I remember riding in vans converted to people movers on the days we took tours; crammed in with Australians and Brits and Americans… pasty white and distinctly out of place riding down streets where everyone was dark skinned. I remember the small wood buildings scattered around on almost every street - brightly painted with ads of various alcohol brands. These were the Bajan versions of pubs or bars, and they were so prolific you’d think that drinking was a national pastime. Maybe it was, Rum had flowed through the veins of Barbados for centuries.

I remember the Bajan hot mustard, a staple condiment at our hotel and around the country, I suppose. And seeing the two American food chains that seemed to have made it over the ocean: KFC and TGI Fridays. It was a strange site to see a small KFC on the beach as we drove by on the way to Bridgetown.

But neither were any competition for Barbados’ largest fast food chain, Chefette. We ate there during our last day in the country, while we waited for our flight and had their Rotis. It’s something I will make here at home.

After our lunch, we wandered around the airport waiting for the announcement of our flight. It looked like they were planning to add displays for inbound and outbound flights, but they hadn’t gotten around to it. Instead, someone would call over the intercom when flights were starting their boarding calls.

In theory, it would have been a perfectly acceptable substitute, but you could barely hear or understand anything the announcer was saying. The volume was too low, and the woman sounded like she was talking around a huge ball of cotton. Our only indication that our flight was in was a garbled string of words of which we could only make out: “… flight… Charlotte… “.

Barbados was hard to leave on that last day. The country and it’s people were amazing, the ocean and the rhythm of life there, intoxicating. The only consolation was the little bottle of hot mustard in our luggage, and the fact that we could always come back.

This tip works for snack machines and soda machines of the digital era. This tip mostly involves soda machines as you can usually see the contents of a snack machine thus making it less useful for those. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen walk up to a soda machine and avoid using this tip, but I can safely say that 9 out of 10 do not do what I am about to tell you.

First let me say that despite what you may think, the engineers that designed your digital soda machine, did design it with the user in mind. Most people approach a soda machine hoping that their favorite soda is held safely within the cold environs of the machine. The put their money into the machine, push the button emblazoned with a likeness of their chosen soda and are horrified to see the small digital screen scroll the dreaded words, “SOLD OUT”. They then groan as if only the magic eight ball could have predicted this event. They then choose a second or third choice and meander back to their cubes.

Little did they know that the engineers built something to notify would be customers of their lack of soda X. That’s right, all one needs to do is approach the machine and push the button of your favorite soda and the little digital display will show one of two preprogrammed messages. The first, if you are lucky, will show you the price of your soda. This means that in the arctic confines of this machine there rests a can of your favorite soda. The second message says, “SOLD OUT” and as you have probably guessed, this means that it is indeed sold out. Soooo, from this short exchange with a seemingly mindless machine you can determine whether it is even worth your time to get that change out of your pocket.

It may not be the magic eight ball, but it can predict the future of your favorite soda better than Miss Cleo could. Until next time, enjoy that soda (or pop if you are from Michigan).

First the visual of the plating:

Now for the ingredients:

3x Boneless Chicken Breasts
1x Package of Almond Slices
1x Package of Mixed Salad Greens (One with baby spinach for optimal taste)
3x Large Eggs
1x Bottle of Naughty Olive Oil (Not Extra Virgin, just regular Olive Oil)
1x Jar or Can of Mandarin Oranges
1x Package of Italian Bread Crumbs (Original should work fine)
1x Small Bottle of Soy Sauce (4oz or so)
1x Small Jar of Apple Butter
1x Small Bear of Honey (You know, the bottle looks like a bear)
1x Small Jar of crushed garlic

Let’s Cook:

First, heat the olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat (use a pan that has a top to prevent popping of oil later on). Cut the Chicken breasts into 1/2 inch wide strips. Next find three medium size bowls. In the first put half of your bread crumbs. In the second, put your almond slices. Crack open your eggs and put them into the third bowl. Now we need to break the almond slices into smaller pieces. Liz and I have one of those nifty hand powered slicers that you simply push down on a plunger type thing and it magically slices whatever is beneath it into tiny pieces. You could do this instead by hand or simply use a fork on its side. Take a fork and beat the eggs to break the yokes. With that prep work done, we can move on. Take a handful of the chicken breast strips and put them into the bread crumb bowl. Turn them until fully coated, next move them to the bowl with eggs in it, lightly coat the chicken with egg then move the breasts to the almond chunks, coat them and move that first handful into the frying pan. Let them fry up for a while, then turn them when you think they should be turned. Grab another handful and repeat the process using our assembly line (Wouldn’t Henry Ford be proud?).

While our chicken is frying let’s make a little salad dressing. In a small bowl mix the bottle of soy sauce(if you couldn’t find a small bottle, use 20% of a big bottle), three huge spoonfuls of apple butter, enough honey to empty the head of your bear bottle of honey, and a small spoonful of crushed garlic (This stuff goes a long ways). Now use a whisk and beat the dressing until it gets to a nice saucy consistency. You can taste this and make adjustments if you like, but I didn’t because I wanted to be surprised. Now sit that aside.

Back to the chicken. Remove finished chicken from the pan and place it onto a plate covered with a double layer of paper towels. This will draw the oil from the chicken. Once all of the chicken is done, let them cool to just higher than room temperature. Take salad greens and place them into bowls. Open your jar/can of Mandarin oranges and remove half of the juice. Drizzle some of the remaining juice onto the bowls of greens, then split the oranges among the bowls until all are gone. Now take our slightly warmer than room temperature chicken and place them onto our bowls of greens making a flower type shape. Drizzle some of our dressing over each chicken piece and over our greens and enjoy.

Found in the classic toys section of F.A.O Schwartz on our recent trip to NYC. They float above our hallway bookshelves.

The older guy, having decided that we weren’t going anywhere for a few minutes piped up, “So, where are you from?”
“Huh? Oh, Italy.” His English, though accented, was clear.
“Where?” The older guy asked, squinting.
“Italy.” This time with a little more enunciation.
“Israel?”

At this point, the young guy had started to acquire the look of someone trying to teach a small child, “Italy, It-a-ly”

“Ohh, Israel.” And there was a pause… “What part of Israel?”

The Italian’s eyes started darting around as if looking for an escape and he checked his watch. “Rome. Rome, Italy” he said.

The older man looked puzzled for a second. “Rome? I’ve been to Israel before, but I don’t know where that is.”

• 3 Cans of Beans (I get a mix of Red, Black, and Dark Red ones as my mood requires)
• 2lbs of Ground Beef (97% fat free is my personal favorite and requires no draining of grease)
• 2 Packets of McCormic’s Chili Seasoning
• 2 Jars of your favorite salsa
• Some salt and pepper
• A pack of graded cheese (4 Cheese Mexican works great here)
• An 8oz container of Sour Cream

First brown the meat. Add your Chili Seasoning and continue to brown until the meat becomes coated with peppery goodness. Next add Salsa and Beans to the mix. When emptying the beans into the pot, fill each can with water once and add it into the mix. This will give us some extra liquid for when we let it simmer down. Now you bring it to a low boil and then turn it down to low heat and let it simmer for a few hours. While you are waiting, you may want to make a nice batch of corn bread muffins. They are the perfect thing to crumble up in your chili. As the hours tick by, stir the chili and add salt and pepper to taste. Now that it is ready, ladle up some chili loving and sprinkle some cheese and lay a dallup of Sour Cream on top and you are in for a treat. Until next time… Enjoy.