Icewind's Ramblings

There is many times that something triggers our imagination back to something and recently it was one of those times for me.  I saw something that triggered a memory of story telling and great music with friends.  It was a time where I spent many nights listening to music and stories with my friends that played in Atlanta at the time in a band called Cullowhee. One of the stories told was the difference between Heaven and Hell, told by my friend, Terry Edwards.  With his customary southern drawl and laid back style he painted the picture to all of us in the audience listening. Terry would tell the story about the man who died, and when he arrived at the "Pearly Gates" Saint Peter told him he was going to take him on a tour of heaven and of hell.   First, they took a tour of heaven. St. Peter and the man arrived just in time for dinner . . . it was in a huge banquet hall and the tables were sagging with the weight of the sumptuous entrees.  Eve...

Here is a turkey recipe that also includes the use of popcorn as a stuffing ingredient -- imagine that. When I found this recipe, I thought it was perfect for people like me, who just are not sure how to tell when a turkey is thoroughly cooked, but not dried out. Give this a try: 8 - 15 lb. turkey 1 cup melted butter 1 cup stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is Good) 1 cup un-popped popcorn (ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S LOW FAT IS BEST) Salt/pepper to taste Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush turkey well with melted butter, salt, and pepper. Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn. Place in baking pan making sure the neck end is toward the front of the oven, not the back. After about 4 hours listen for the popping sounds. When the turkey's ass blows the oven door open and the bird flies across the room . . . it's done. And, you thought I didn't know how to cook... Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Ice

Many days at work I take my lunch at the Applebee’s down the street from my office.   It is a nice place and the staff treats me and my co-workers great knowing what we usually eat and as we walk in the order is put in so we have our meal fast. I walked in on Valentine’s Day and the two high top tables that we normally sit at were full and I was by myself my waitress asked me to sit at the bar.   I said ok and as I walked in noticed this old man with a walker making his way slowly from his table toward the bathroom.   I did not think anything of it other than I noticed him and also a lady on the other side of the restaurant who was trying to get her small child to stop throwing his napkin and spoon on the floor. I was talking with the waitress for several minutes while I waited for my salad and soup to come out and she was telling me about a couple of things happening at Applebee’s and with a couple of the staff she worked with. The woman finally had her son under c...

It was many years ago since the embarrassing day when a young woman, with a baby in her arms, entered a butcher shop and confronted the butcher with the news that the baby was his and asked what was he going to do about it. Finally, he offered to provide her with free meat until the boy was 16. And she readily agreed. The butcher had been counting the years off on his calendar and one day the teenager who had been collecting the meat each week, came into the shop and said, "I'll be 16 tomorrow." "I know," said the butcher with a smile, "I've been counting too. Tell your mother, when you take this parcel of meat home, that it is the last free meat she'll get and watch the statement on her face." When the boy arrived home he told his mother. The woman nodded and said, "Son, go back to the butcher and tell him I have also had free bread, free milk and free groceries for the last 16 years and watch the statement on his face . . . !"...

Great news in Alaska, Burger King has just announced that I can have it my way . . .   finally.   It was debuted today the left-handed Whopper. It’s the same sandwich . . . with the condiments rotated 180 degrees for all of us ‘lefties’ in the world. I hope this will spread like wildfire all over the world. Ice

I hope everyone’s tummy is full with turkey and stuffing and you’re forced to spend the rest of the weekend on the couch from the delicious food coma. That’s the holiday season. This year for the first time we did not cook a turkey or holiday dinner.   There was no one here to enjoy it so going through the motions of fixing all the trimmings was to no avail.   We hung out watching the snow falling all day long as the one to three inches of snow turned into almost a foot as the weather system stalled out over Anchorage. Overnight the skies cleared and today it is bright, sunny, and not a cloud to be seen.   Whiteness returns and everything is covered with a fresh coat of powder.   There is no left over food to munch on or find space for in the refrigerator and all of the paper plates from yesterdays ‘meal’ have long since been thrown away. Missing is the kids and grandkids this year and my father in law who decided to become a snowbird this winter and headed fo...

During the bathroom remodel as I bored of working on it in what seemed like all of my free time I decided to build an outdoor kitchen area.   My brother-in-law Mike and I had talked about it since last summer when we were always cleaning and processing our fish on coolers in the driveway. At the time he was working out at the end of the world on Shemya Island which is on the far western end of the Aleutian Islands.   His work schedule had him working for three months at a time on the island with two or three weeks time off.   He has worked out the schedule so he could be home for the beginning and end of the fishing season. I needed a break from the bathroom work and headed to Lowe’s to grab some lumber.   Mike had bought a new stainless steel electric smoker over the winter and I wanted to make a place where we could smoke our fish out of the weather as many times it was always raining while we would tend the smoker for 6 to 8 hours. Things I wanted to include...

Friends of mine have “Fun Friday’s” on their blogs . . . does this one count? I returned home tonight from a long road trip in the Alaskan bush to find out there had been another bear incident, which is not all that uncommon in the summer months. This incident happened just a couple blocks from my house and with this tale it is oh so sad but funny as hell.  I have to look at this with that slightly off kilter approach since it is another one out of the bizarre pages from the long list of Anchorage happenings over the years. Officers say they responded to the 200 block of Yellow Leaf Circle just after 10 a.m. when neighbors called to report a woman was chasing a bear down an alley. This is where the story starts the unusual twist.  Almost every other story about “bear attacks” involves bears having contact with humans and sometimes there is a mauling or even death.  It is not common to hear of someone ‘chasing’ a bear.  But in all honesty, this was the middl...

Summer is a great time for grillin’ keeping the heat buildup out of the house and fishing season is upon us so I thought I would put this one out there for everyone. 1/4 c pineapple juice 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice 4 (6 oz) salmon fillets 2 tbsp brown sugar 4 tsp chili powder 2 tsp grated lemon rind 3/4 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp cinnamon Cooking spray Lemon wedges (optional) Combine first 3 ingredients in a Ziploc plastic bag, seal and marinate in refrigerator 1 hour, turning occasionally. Before we start grillin’ let me give you a few tips on barbecuing salmon recipes. Make sure that the rungs on the grill are clean.  There’s nothing worse than old bits of food burnt on the grill bars, not only does it leave a horrible taste but it will make the Salmon stick. Get that barbeque really hot.  Depending on charcoal or a gas grill use plenty of charcoal to build a really good fire that will retain plenty of heat. Let the flames die down until you can see...

Tomorrow is Bike to work day and my company is hosting a BBQ for our new interns who come in to work with us during the summer months.  The combination bike day and a welcoming BBQ will make it a fun time and the weather is looking great for the event.  I was volunteered to help cook and people were bringing side dishes and deserts.  I figured I would give everyone a treat with my slightly different baked bean recipe. Baked beans are a favorite side dish in the South.  It's rare to go to a barbecue or to a pot luck dinner and not see a baking dish with baked beans. Some baked beans are a whole lot better than other baked beans . . . it takes some "doctoring up" to make the really yummy baked beans . . . the kind that means you come home with an empty casserole dish or crock pot.  If you’re really lucky someone will take the cornbread and lap up the juice in the bottom of the dish. There are probably as many baked bean secrets in the South as there are South...

Four or five days ago there were some changes coming to the Anchorage area which gave us our first real glimpse of summer.  The clouds parted, the sun continues to give us the sunlight lost during our long winters.  We are up to about 17 hours now with sunrise around 5:30 am and sunset around 10:30 PM so you can still see it light outside to the west after midnight. The city is in that period of time when everyone comes together to walk the roadways picking up trash that has either been dropped or blown around the streets.  Everyone has the opportunity to clean up the debris and limbs that were blown down in your yard.  The City of Anchorage opens up the two landfills for a couple weekends for those that want to clean up and drop off their debris.  For those two weekends the do not charge so the lines are long but it makes a big difference in how the city looks during the summer. With the sun out in force giving a sense of warmth at about 60 degrees it wa...

Birthdays are good for you; the more you have, the longer you live. As one approaches sixty it’s funny the things you think about as the day approaches for the next birthday. I was blessed to be born on my mama’s birthday and with it came a special bond between us even across the miles in our lives.  Happy Birthday Mama, I love and miss you big bunches.  I spoke with her and my sister this afternoon and my daughter called me this morning from Iraq just before we had a 4.6 earthquake just north of Anchorage near Palmer.  A little five second shake to start the morning. I did not think I would see snow on my birthday but it happened this year Anchorage got about 3 inches yesterday and another inch or so early this morning but by late afternoon the sun was out and things were melting again.  We had gone through breakup over the last couple of weeks and most of the snow had melted before this latest dump. Work was busy but productive today and when I came home d...

Last Saturday I made my way to Costco for my normal stop after breakfast for next week’s staples.  I make my way around the store in a clockwise direction which is against the normal flow of people within the store. I do this for several reasons which are logical to me and that is I head to the areas where I have the heaviest items to place in my basket or underneath so as not to crush the lighter or smaller items to be placed in later. I can get my firelogs and my wife’s case of Diet Pepsi and the weeks where I get toilet paper or paper towels they can go underneath the main part of the cart. As I decided if I had an extra gold bar available to buy fresh fruit since it is so expensive here I made my way around to get a few fugi apples for my lunch.  I also grabbed a bunch of bananas for a peanut butter and banana sandwich which is still one of my favorites. I stopped by the large case which had grapes and plums on it and stopped to figure out if I should get a few....

I enjoyed a nice lunch on Thursday with several friends at The Peppermill restaurant.  Several of us used to work with one another and one is my new sales guy for an equipment rental company.  It was nice meeting him as my former salesman is working out of a different location so it was one of those quickly planned lunches that are usually made within the hour of everyone meeting. This day the morning started off with snow coming down on top of the semi breakup melting that happened the day before.  The water runoff had refroze overnight as the temperatures dropped and once the snow hit this morning it turned all of the roads into a slick mess.  There was a couple inches on the ground by the time I left the house and the short drive to my office found several vehicles in the ditch or others involved in a crash with someone else or into an object. By lunchtime another three inches or so had fallen and with the compaction of the vehicles the roads were in sad shap...

I need to come clean since I pretended to be asleep last night after “The Incident”. I would like to give you a little back story before I confess.  This past weekend was one of those times where there were multiple things going on and everyone is required to give way from the normal routines and go into that feeding frenzy mode that comes during these times. We had the start of the Olympics with the athletic competition getting underway on Saturday.  Then add to that the happenings in Daytona with auto racing which included Danica Patrick’s debut in the Nationwide Series 300 and the running of the 52 nd annual Daytona 500 NASCAR race and you have the makings of a stomach disaster. To properly watch any of these events you have to prepare for them.  The Super Bowl has its ‘must haves’ to do it up just right.  There is always chili, hot dogs or hamburgers, nachos, and the chips & dip that set the mood for the afternoon.  Mine was no different where you...

Sorry this is not another tasty treat from my Alaska Road Kill Recipe book but one you should really like. Here’s a little holiday recipe to serve your houseguests who drop by.  If you are lucky and no one comes by feel free to enjoy these with your favorite beverage . . . it leaves more for you to enjoy while kicking back on the sofa. Crab Nachos 2 packages Hollandaise sauce (made as directed on the package – with milk, not water) 1 pound lump crab meat 4 tablespoons cilantro, chopped 4 tablespoons green onion, chopped 4 pieces bacon, well cooked & chopped 4 teaspoons pickled jalapenos, chopped (for that little extra bite) 1 package shredded cheddar 1 package shredded Monterrey Jack Tostitos Scoops Prepare Hollandaise sauce according to package directions; reserve. Preheat broiler. Mix crab meat, cilantro, onion, bacon, cheese, and jalapenos in a bowl.  Add hollandaise sauce.  Generously spoon mixture into Tostitos Scoops and place und...

Alaska has been sensitive to Oil spills especially after the Exxon Valdez incident over twenty years ago.  I think things have moved past the anger and aggravation dealing with the Exxon now that they finally settled the law suit brought against them . . . it only took twenty years and many people have grown old or have died before Exxon paid a dime.  Lawyers . . . kept playing ping pong within the court system even after being fined postponing having to cough up the money. For many years there were many protests about the environment and how things were going, especially here in Alaska with all of the “tree huggers” and environmental groups going on and on about one cause or another.  Things have calmed down somewhat now and seem to be a little easier to deal with when things go wrong. There recently was a small oil spill in Alaskan waters and you could see in the response that those earlier feelings had mellowed a bit.  People were now saying that a little...

Winter is almost here even though we have had an “Indian Summer” lately, not the same as other places where they get to 70 degrees . . . ours in Alaska is more like 50’s which is not bad at all.  Hunting season is quickly coming to an end for most game and people have filled their freezers with moose, bear, caribou, and other game.  Fishing has for the most part also finished so my gear is stowed away now until next summer or the occasional ice fishing trip.  Fly rods neatly placed in their holders . . . creels and waders hung for the winter. I went on two hunts this year and my moose hunt left much to be desired.  There was all of the preparation . . . going out for the hunt . . . the tracking which is my favorite part of the hunt . . . only to find no legal moose lurching about anywhere.  I came back somewhat dejected not to kill food for my family.  It’s a man thing I guess, wanting to provide.  It dates back centuries and is a way of life in...

On Aug. 15 to 17, 1969, (and into the 18 th ) hundreds of thousands of people, me among them, gathered in a lovely natural amphitheater in Bethel (not Woodstock ), New York . It was the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in upstate New York officially billed as “Aquarian Exposition” in White Lake , NY . New York was foreign to me at the time, worlds away from a typical southern boy’s existence growing up in Atlanta during the 60’s civil rights movement and all of the national chaos going on around the country during those times. I was just a funny kid with places to see and things to do in what I now, years later have jokingly called the series of my travels, “Looking for America ”. Gasoline was cheap back then at fifty cents a gallon so three boyhood friends were going to make the trek from Atlanta , Georgia to a farm in New York State . Steve Nash, Stuart Morris and I planned to leave three days before the concert started s...