30 September 2008
28 September 2008
Once more unto the breach, dear friends…
Yeah, I’ve been slacking off keeping you apprised of the goings on here at the Haven. Truth be told, I’ve been a bit under the weather of late. I caught a nice little cold from a friend’s two little incubators. He calls them his children, but I know that they are just little weapons of mass destruction. Especially the little boy, the one I call the Wreckin’ Ball.
I wasn’t able to sleep through the night. I’d wake up hacking and wheezing every hour or two. It’s really is quite bothersome. I’ve been getting over this thing for the last week, and believe I’ve got it about licked now.
Of course this has cost me valuable training time, and seeing as how we are only a couple of days away, I fear that I will be in less than peak form for the event. I wish this cold had not set in during training camp. As it stands, I haven’t been able to participate in two-a-days, or do any type of serious capacity training. For this event Strength and Endurance is comparable to Tolerance and Capacity.
Oh I will still go, and you can rest assured that I will do my best to hold up the good name of the Haven, and make you all proud of me. I should still on the starting team; I don’t think I’ve been put on the bench. I’ll have to talk to the coach before the bus leaves Wednesday. In any case, I will be present at the 2008 Oktoberfest in München this Thursday. I’ll be in a box in the Hofbräu tent, in case any of you feel like stopping by. Wish me luck.
The picture above is from last year.
About two weeks ago I spent the week in Heidelberg at a training class. I didn’t get to see that much of the town, but we were able to eat in two different Korean Restaurants. The Kimchi Chigae (Kimchi Soup) was so good that I got me a hankerin’ to go back there for a spell. Korea, not Heidelberg. Of course I wouldn’t mind going back to Heidelberg either, as it is a nice place and has a neat castle that we were only able to explore a little bit.
Plus there are two Korean restaurants (maybe more) in Heidelberg and none in the area where I live. I would assume that they have some good Korean restaurants in Korea, but their beer is definitely not as good as it is here.
Why must my life be full of such quandaries?
There are more pics of the castle on the flickr site.
I realized that I haven’t posted anything about the Belgian Beer Fest either. Well, it was a pretty damn fine event. A friend of mine was already in Belgium, so we met at the train station in Brussels on Saturday morning and trekked into town. The fest was in Le Grand Place, and our hotel was about 2 city bocks away. This is the view from the hotel window.
That is not Le Grand Place … by the way.
This is Le Grand Place…
The picture above is the Brewers Guild building.
The hotel was inexpensive, and although it doesn’t look like much from the outside, it was clean and a comfortable place to crash.
At the fest we met this guy, who it turns out, is a beer writer from Norway. We talked to him quite a while and ended up getting quite a few free beers from the brewers he knew there. Sunday it was a bit rainy, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves. We tried many good beers there and even brought a few home with us.
This one beer in particular caught my eye because I liked the big glass it came in. My friend and I were each drinking one when I tasted something familiar. It was something in the background. It wasn’t another beer, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I asked him what it was, but he didn’t know either. It was a good beer, but it had a somewhat strange finish to it. Now Belgian brewers are known for adding anything from candi sugar to fruit to spices and herbs to their beers. I thought it was probably a familiar spice or a combination thereof. I put my nose into the glass and took a big whiff – it was definitely familiar. Something comforting, like a smell from my childhood. I took another sip, swirled it around in my mouth.
There it was…
I figured it out!
This beer tasted like…
Bologna!
I told my friend what I thought. He laughed, but said that since I mentioned it he was tasting a little bit of it too. Once I got back to my apartment, I looked in a charcuterie book and found out that bologna (or mortadella anyway – since it was the closest thing I could find) has the spices nutmeg, coriander, and mace. All of which are not unfamiliar ingredients in Belgian beers.
And yes, I actually bought a couple to bring home with me.
As I said it’s a good beer…
It just has a touch of Oscar Mayer to it.
I wasn’t able to sleep through the night. I’d wake up hacking and wheezing every hour or two. It’s really is quite bothersome. I’ve been getting over this thing for the last week, and believe I’ve got it about licked now.
Of course this has cost me valuable training time, and seeing as how we are only a couple of days away, I fear that I will be in less than peak form for the event. I wish this cold had not set in during training camp. As it stands, I haven’t been able to participate in two-a-days, or do any type of serious capacity training. For this event Strength and Endurance is comparable to Tolerance and Capacity.
Oh I will still go, and you can rest assured that I will do my best to hold up the good name of the Haven, and make you all proud of me. I should still on the starting team; I don’t think I’ve been put on the bench. I’ll have to talk to the coach before the bus leaves Wednesday. In any case, I will be present at the 2008 Oktoberfest in München this Thursday. I’ll be in a box in the Hofbräu tent, in case any of you feel like stopping by. Wish me luck.
The picture above is from last year.
About two weeks ago I spent the week in Heidelberg at a training class. I didn’t get to see that much of the town, but we were able to eat in two different Korean Restaurants. The Kimchi Chigae (Kimchi Soup) was so good that I got me a hankerin’ to go back there for a spell. Korea, not Heidelberg. Of course I wouldn’t mind going back to Heidelberg either, as it is a nice place and has a neat castle that we were only able to explore a little bit.
Plus there are two Korean restaurants (maybe more) in Heidelberg and none in the area where I live. I would assume that they have some good Korean restaurants in Korea, but their beer is definitely not as good as it is here.
Why must my life be full of such quandaries?
There are more pics of the castle on the flickr site.
I realized that I haven’t posted anything about the Belgian Beer Fest either. Well, it was a pretty damn fine event. A friend of mine was already in Belgium, so we met at the train station in Brussels on Saturday morning and trekked into town. The fest was in Le Grand Place, and our hotel was about 2 city bocks away. This is the view from the hotel window.
That is not Le Grand Place … by the way.
This is Le Grand Place…
The picture above is the Brewers Guild building.
The hotel was inexpensive, and although it doesn’t look like much from the outside, it was clean and a comfortable place to crash.
At the fest we met this guy, who it turns out, is a beer writer from Norway. We talked to him quite a while and ended up getting quite a few free beers from the brewers he knew there. Sunday it was a bit rainy, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves. We tried many good beers there and even brought a few home with us.
This one beer in particular caught my eye because I liked the big glass it came in. My friend and I were each drinking one when I tasted something familiar. It was something in the background. It wasn’t another beer, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I asked him what it was, but he didn’t know either. It was a good beer, but it had a somewhat strange finish to it. Now Belgian brewers are known for adding anything from candi sugar to fruit to spices and herbs to their beers. I thought it was probably a familiar spice or a combination thereof. I put my nose into the glass and took a big whiff – it was definitely familiar. Something comforting, like a smell from my childhood. I took another sip, swirled it around in my mouth.
There it was…
I figured it out!
This beer tasted like…
Bologna!
I told my friend what I thought. He laughed, but said that since I mentioned it he was tasting a little bit of it too. Once I got back to my apartment, I looked in a charcuterie book and found out that bologna (or mortadella anyway – since it was the closest thing I could find) has the spices nutmeg, coriander, and mace. All of which are not unfamiliar ingredients in Belgian beers.
And yes, I actually bought a couple to bring home with me.
As I said it’s a good beer…
It just has a touch of Oscar Mayer to it.
04 September 2008
Where there is smoke…
Well here at the Haven anyway ...
where there is smoke ...
there is pork*.
And where there is pork,
there is …
well …
more pork!
I smoked a pork shoulder, a chicken, and ten racks of baby-back ribs this past weekend.
It was the End-of-Summer/Beginning-of-College-Football/Opening-Day-of-Training-Camp-for-the-Oktoberfest Blowout Bash here at the Haven. We must have had 30 adults, and a passel of kids running around my backyard. It was quite a party.
And while we didn’t finish all of the pork shoulder, we certainly went through all the ribs, the chicken, several salads and dips, a 12 pack of bottled water, seven bottles of wine, a pint of bourbon, and at least three cases of beer.
I think I can consider myself and some friends officially “in-training”.
The only problem with having a party like this is…
And this is after we went through about 35 paper plates! And don’t get me started on the number of glasses I had to wash…
And even though I’m still cleaning up (on Thursday), after all was said and done, I think I’d have to call it a success.
This weekend?
Well, since I will need to be in Belgium for work on Monday and Tuesday, I thought I might as well catch an early train Saturday morning and go to Brussels for the weekend.
Weekend de la Biére that is!
I mean … I am in training, after all.
* I mean unless, of course, I have horribly burned something on the stove**.
** and there is probably pork in whatever is being burnt anyway.
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