A Poor Excuse

Two months to go...

For my three followers who actually read CDS for the articles, many apologies.  I've been busy, and we all know that my concept of the passage of time is foggy at best.  Recently I was reminded of just how old I'm getting when someone I don't remember posted the entire yearbook from my senior year of high school, and I was looking at the skinny, pasty-looking kid with the bad haircut.  It took me back to my past laziness, when I ended up taking my own photo a week before they were due since I never bothered to have senior portraits done. 

I feel guilty for not posting much of late.  It's been a very busy 2011 so far and often I write half a post that never gets finished.  New, completed posts are coming, though.  We here at CDS Enterprises (A Division of NFG Worldwide, Ltd) have been thinking hard, making sure nothing but the highest quality drivel is made available for your reading pleasure.

For the 95% of you who just come here looking for semi-naked pictures of celebrities (and what was up with Tatum O'Neal last month?  2800 hits on one post? Did I miss something?), continue to be disappointed.

Nah, just kidding.  I figure if Danica McKellar and Natalie Portman get me hits, how well will the CDS skyrocket to popularity with a little Diane Kruger?

Or a little more Diane Kruger...

Let's find out.

Winning isn't everything

But I would be remiss if I failed to mention how proud I am of the Packers this morning. 

"Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another." - Vince Lombardi

The Doob-la-vay Say

We have a Wisconsin Connection, and that's a good thing.  Despite Cleveland feeling much like home, the people and the climate and the environment so similar to Wisconsin it's comforting, we find that the few things we miss outside of family and friends are certain foodstuffs specific to America's Dairyland. 

When our friends Bob and the lovely Mrs. Bob made the trek across timezones last weekend, they offered to supplement our food supply with fine Wisconsin comestibles.  It seemed unfair to send them all the way to Oconomowoc for Hungarian bratwurst from the Sausage Haus, so I'll get those at Thanksgiving.  However, Lori is hooked on Widmer's brick cheese, and no other brick cheese will do.  In addition to that, Bob took it upon himself to bring us Usinger's summer sausage and Nueske's thick-cut bacon.  Mmmm, bacon.

In return, we headed off to the Westside Market after lunch at Melt Bar and Grilled, and took a brief tour of the city, both the hifalutin' and downtrodden areas.  For the record, I have yet to find a sandwich that hasn't been improved by the addition of fried eggs when the option is available.

Sunday, we hit Bob Evans, since it's Ohio-based and therefore relevant.  And because I'm an adult, I had pie before my breakfast.  Then Diane and I toured waterfalls and Amish country while Bob and Lori waited in line for roller coasters.  We were denied Amish baked goods, since the Amish don't work on Sundays, but I did get a 45-pound pumpkin (and a few others) at the roadside market, and we saw snakes and vintage cycles in Chagrin Falls.

And last night I watched Alton Brown make pralined bacon, so I think we know what's going to happen with the Nueske's. 

Remember, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Behold, the power of cheese!

It's hard to keep a good blog down, my friends. All your well-wishing has been appreciated as we worked through the trying times of the last few days.Of course, we know how patient I am (not), and yet I actually managed almost two hours of experimentation until I was able to identify the weakest link and remove it from the equation.

We're back in business. Good thing, those news crews were wreaking havoc on my lawn.

To pay tribute to the glorious caseic delights, I felt it only proper to share with you James McIntyre's finest poem:

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese

Weight over seven thousand pounds.

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,
Or as the leaves upon the trees,
It did require to make thee please.
And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.

May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to to send you off as far as
The great world's show at Paris.

Of the youth beware of these,
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek, then songs or glees
We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.

Who said we're an uncultured lot around these bloggy parts?

Cheeselessness - the crisis continues

Here we are in Day Two of the Great Blog Format Crisis of 2010 - I feel like we need Charlie Gibson reporting live from my front lawn, and a special ABC News theme song just for the crisis.

I also feel there needs to be some sort of 'Cheese Dance'. Like a rain dance, with a sideways half-step every third shimmy, and spontaneous hokey-pokeying. As part of our ongoing educational services, and in an effort to call on the great cheese (or, as I prefer, El Queso Gigante), I thought we would create a chant that can be shared the world 'round. Initially, I was just going to translate cheese for you in the languages of the world, but Google, being ever helpful, suggested the phrase 'Your head is a block of cheese'.

How apropos. Now you can attempt, in rudimentary local tongue, to describe your favorite blog (this one...what?) to strangers around the world as you travel this fine planet.

Spanish - su cabeza es un bloque de queso

Norwegian - hodet ditt er en blokk med ost

German - Ihr Kopf ist ein Block von Käse

French - votre tête est un bloc de fromage

Romanian - capul este un bloc de brânză

Polish - głowę jest blok sera

Italian - la tua testa è un blocco di formaggio

Dutch - je hoofd is een blok kaas

Greek - κεφάλι σας είναι ένα μπλοκ του τυριού

Swedish - huvudet är en bit ost

Russian - ваша голова блока сыра

Portuguese - sua cabeça é um bloco de queijo

Behold, the power of cheese! Use it in a sentence today! And we thank you for your support. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Picture if you will...(updated)

A man, frustrated by technology. A man whose dominion is no longer held over simple, two-dimensional space. In a place we call 'The Cheesehead Zone'.

I'm having some technical difficulties that go beyond loss of power over my vertical and horizontal controls. (And yes, I know that's from the Outer Limits. I'm mixing creepy early sci-fi television shows. Get over it.)
This should be the background you see when you visit us here at CDS Industries. Instead, you get brown. And not even an appetizing shade of brown. (update: at least the gray isn't nauseating...)

We are hoping matters are rectified shortly. Until such time as this issue is resolved, please picture the above fromage du jour in your mind as you read our posts.

Thank you for your continued support and optimism.

When in Rome

Way back in 2002, Lori and I made our first trip to Rome. It was a whim, conceived and booked inside of 24 hours, scheduled a mere three months in the future.

And it was exquisite. The flavors, the sounds, the smells, nothing could have prepared us for this journey. And it would seem I'm on a quest lately to recreate those flavors. Several weeks ago, the carbonara, Rome's signature pasta dish. Freshly made, hand-crafted pizza on Superbowl Sunday.
Last night? Bruschetta, toasted over hot coals, rubbed with garlic and covered with a beautiful mix of grape tomatoes, arugula, basil and fresh mozzarella tossed in olive oil with a little S&P. My taste buds were awash with the flavors of that first trip, of lunch at Florian's, on the Piazza dell'Indipendenzia where we could watch the cook practice his art at the wood-fired hearth. The picture is not my creation, we consumed it far too eagerly to wait for photographs.

Even last night's porterhouse, purchased on sale and grilled beautifully rare, couldn't erase that flavor from my head. Though it certainly tried. Good food feeds your soul as it nourishes your belly, and it shouldn't be any other way.

On a slightly related note, despite the hell that people gave Google when they created 'Street View', I love that I could go out and capture that first shot for you.

On a completely unrelated subject, my parents informed me that a new record sturgeon was caught in one of Wisconsin's larger lakes. Two hundred pounds of sturgeon. Speared and reeled in by one man. To give you an idea of what that might look like, the fish in the photo below weighed in at a mere 100 pounds.
Caviar, anyone? Perhaps on toast?

Several food notes. First, it's pronounced 'broo-SKET-eh', not 'broo-SHET-tah'. If you have to, go watch some Giada DiLaurentis videos to get the inflection down. Or to check out her boobies.

Second, bruschetta is the bread itself, toasted and rubbed with garlic. Anything else you add, oil, tomatoes, basil, cheese, mushrooms, those are all toppings. It bugs me to go to the grocery store and see a jar of chopped tomatoes swimming in oil labeled as 'bruschetta'.

You can have your soapbox back now, thank you for listening.

Fun Fact Friday - Getting some culture

I don't know why we haven't discussed this before. Certainly, growing up in Wisconsin, I'm predisposed toward dairy products. Then last week, someone suggested I go into the caseic arts professionally.
And I do love me some cheese. Fat Guy, remember? It seems only logical that Fun Fact Friday should be full of melty goodness.
Cheesemaking fascinates me, and I love the concept of terroir as translated from winemaking to the science of cheesy comestibles. That all cheese comes from the same basic ingredients - milk, rennet and salt - yet maintains a worldly variety of flavors and textures, the idea kicks ass.

If you've never had a fresh cheese curd, you haven't fully lived. The sweet, salty, squeaky goodness is heaven. Batter them and deep fry them and it just gets better. Blue cheese on steak or in a Cobb salad? Yes, please. And what are carnitas without a little queso fresco?
And the nerdery of cheesemaking? Endless. There's so much involved in just adding the rennet enzyme (mmm...stomachy!) to milk, at the right temperature, treating the resulting curd to arrive at a soft or hard end product. Then there's aging, monitoring moisture content, adding flavors like horseradish, dill, caraway or wine, that make cheese so versatile.

And then there's dealing with the waste...er...whey. Whey can be used as fertilizer as well as a food additive, and I've known people who drink it for the protein. Somewhere down the line, nutrition stores caught on to this, and started isolating and powdering whey protein to help weightlifters bulk up.

Me, I prefer to bulk up the old-fashioned way.

By eating cheese.

Because there are times when my simple, country nerdiness isn't enough, go check here or here to find out the details of cheesemaking, and go here for a great interview about the modern science behind it all.