memorial day barbequed eggs

To lighten up the mood a little bit, 

this needed to be shared.  I truly cannot wait to try out these recipes.  Thanks NPR!  We are off to breakfast with our favorite family in chicago, Julie Ann, Dan, Nora and Levi.  And then my brother will arrive in town to commence the Chicago leg of his bachelor weekend.  Oh joys.  

A Vegetarian Barbecue

by MARK GARRISON

May 28, 2011

Here are two vegetarian barbecue options that go well beyond veggie burgers and grilled vegetables. Oddly, I first tasted both on a meat-filled trip to Argentina. — Mark Garrison, TheSporkful.com

EnlargeJason Gardner/TheSporkful.com

Yes, you can barbecue an egg.

Barbecued Eggs

Argentine engineering makes it possible to cook an egg over the coals without a mess, and you've never tasted eggs so smoky and delicious.

Ingredients

• 1 large bell pepper, the bigger the better
• 2 eggs
• hot sauce, salt and black pepper to taste

Directions

You'll need the bell pepper to sit stably on the grill, or else the raw egg will spill out and make a tragic mess. Place the pepper flat on your cutting board and slice in half parallel to the board. Scrape out the seeds and placenta (yup, that's really what it's called), being careful not to pierce the outer wall.

Crack an egg into each half of the pepper. Try to distribute the egg into the whole cavity.

Place the filled pepper over the hottest part of the grill. It tastes best with the pepper's skin charred. Close the grill. If you're going to eat it with a knife and fork, cooking it to over-easy is fine. But if you're going to serve it as finger food, cook it a bit longer, so you don't have a runny yolk. It's great on its own, but better still with hot sauce, salt and a little black pepper on top.

---

Grilled Provolone

Ingredients

• provolone cheese, sliced about 3/4-inch thick
• 1 tablespoons oregano
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• olive oil

Directions

Let the cheese slab sit and come to room temperature. Rub a thin layer of olive oil on it. Then press in oregano on both sides, adding red pepper flakes if you want a bit of heat.

The fastest and smokiest way would be to put it directly on the grill over the coals. But if you're a minute late pulling it off, you've got a gooey mess all over your grill. Best bet is to put a layer of aluminum foil over the grill, or watch it very carefully.

Cook it until it's a hot, gooey puddle of melty, cheesy joy. No need to flip it. Serve it hot with crackers, crusty bread or all by itself.

Grutz says, "If only St. Patrick was from Iowa." or "Marsha Blackburn is ruining my St. Patrick's Day."

On this wonderful day of St. Patrick's, let up begin with a poem by the late John O'Donahue, entitled "Beannacht", gaelic for "blessing".  Here's a link to a slideshow of western Ireland from NPR's Being, in which John O'Donahue recites his poem.

"Beannacht"

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak

to mind your life. 

Well if that doesn't put a warm ember in your heart.....may this blessing find you all.

And now, something completely different.

If Saint Patrick was from Iowa, I would be set.  Nothing against the home of my ancestors, Ireland, but this is a much more than petty whim.  Alas, traveling and moving so much has left me less than prepared for St. Patrick's Day, specifically, green attire.  Now, if the Patron Saint of Ireland were the Patron Saint of Iowa, I would be dancing a jig in black and gold.  I have more Iowa Hawkeye gear than you can shake a shillelagh at, which is a good, good thing, just doesn't help on St. Patrick's Day.  I lamented to my Aunt Jill about my black and gold heavy wardrobe while visiting in Denver and she felt my pain (both she and my Uncle Dave went to the University of Iowa).  She graciously sent me a University of Colorado t-shirt for my birthday back in October.  Oh wait, the Buffalo's colors are.........wait for it...........black and gold!  Oh the irony was not lost on me Aunt Jill!!!  Needless to say, it's the most comfortable t-shirt I've ever had, thank you so.

Ok, there has to be a solution for my green/hawkeye/St. Patrick's Day wardrobe malfunction........

BAM! Problem solved.

Now that that's out of the way, now there's this: House to vote on cutting off funding for NPR.  Hearing Rep. Mrs. Blackburn (over the chirps of bald eagles, of course) on NPR this morning started my day off on the wrong foot.  I do not even know where to begin on this issue (Let alone the John O'Donahue piece above was from Being, an NPR show!).  Oh yeah, I think I start and end with one thing: facts and news.  NPR provides news and facts.  What does most private "news" media provide?  Commentary and opinion.  End of story.  Contact your representative in the House vote down this bill.  I'm off my soapbox (for now).  

Have a wonderful and safe St. Patrick's Day.

Now for some info that you'll probably erase with green beer later today.  Birthday!!!

Paul Green (17 March 1894 - 4 May 1981) was an American playwright best known for his depictions of life in North Carolina during the first decades of the twentieth century. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Dram for his 1927 play, In Abraham's Bosom.

Blizzard 2011- welcome respite!

And there's the happy shoveler himself. 

This is right in front of our building- BEFORE....

And AFTER....

Pose for the camera.  You can see our car just behind him. 

And here's a view down 19th street, looking westward.  Our car is on the left. 

We’ve endured Blizzard 2011 with comfort food, Masterpiece Mystery videos from the library, and NPR.  The 60 mph winds elicited new and curious sounds from our apartment building, and our car has been fully and graciously insulated by several feet of drifting snow, but we remain relatively unscathed and well slept.  CPS has had an historical 2 days school free, and what a treat it’s been as Chicago looses its reputation of being so tough on snow days, and the blizzard breaks an impressive 12 year streak.  The core personnel were supposed to be at schools so that if children showed up they would be able to be fed, at least.  Since we’ve moved back to Chicago we haven’t yet gotten wireless in our apartment, neither did we bring movies or too many books, so our entertainment skills have been tested and we’ve been cooking, and eating and listening to the radio ALOT.   I would be a great candidate for the NPR news quiz right now because, it’s been on nonstop for the past few days.   Nick made a delicious bread, we made a soup of curried roasted root vegetables, I made cookies (with an improvised recipe because we don’t have the internet or any cookbooks), and we made awesome nachos with mango peach salsa, jalapeños and queso. 

Now we are contemplating leaving the apartment, braving -3˚F temps to bus it to Home Depot for some peaceful, sage green paint that will adorn my new desk that the house husband made.  

On a somber note, hearing about the struggles of the Egyptian people continues to bring home the extremity of our freedoms.  Our biggest daily complaint here is about how the side streets haven’t been plowed, and probably won’t be for quite some time.  Or, about how we have to walk to a coffee shop for the internet, and don’t have any good movies at home.  We operate on an expectation of entitlement, we deserve to have certain things, and yet the things that we deserve are luxury for so much of the world.  People regularly give their lives for basic human rights that we have often taken for granted in this country. 

The juxtaposition of prayer and rebellion is incredible: how such different feelings can be simultaneously so strong is really moving.  Yahoo image link

Irony of ironies.  It was too cold to walk to Home Depot, and we are at McDonald's again to WIFI and observe the legions of older men that are having social hour.   Nick makes a good commercial, he is hipstering up McDonald's!