Chicken Practice

Last weekend I decided to practice on a few chicken thighs. The goal was taste and skin texture, so I didn't take time to trim the skin. I cooked the chicken hot ~325-350, indirect with the smoking plate and some pecan chips. The rub was a mixture of Lawry's Chicken Seasoning from Sam's and dry mango jello mix found in the mexican section of the grocery store. The rub was excellent. I glazed it with a mixture of 3 Little Pigs Competition Blend sauce and peach nectar. The end result was a good tasting product.

Southwest Airlines Customer Service

One of the interesting parts of this blog is definitely going to be the stupid stuff that I do or that happens to me. My flight last week to Chicago is a prime example of some of my genius...and fortunately very good luck...

When I fly, I always put my moneyclip/wallet in the front zipper pocket of my backpack. I was seated in the next to last row on the plane, so as everyone began exiting, I put up my iPod and grabbed my money clip and put it in my pocket. As I left, I looked back at my seat to be sure I hadn't left anything (OCD at work here) and exited the plane. I went to get my rental car at Hertz and as luck would have it, Hertz didn't have my name listed on the "board" outside, so I had to go into the desk to get my car. The nice lady at the desk asked for my driver's license and credit card so I reached in my front pocket...and to my dismay...no money clip...so know I'm starting to panic...I looked in the backpack...even dumped it out on the couch in the Hertz lobby. I called Southwest, knowing that the plane was very close to leaving for Detroit! Meanwhile, I have a meeting downtown in 45 minutes and find myself unable to rent a car, get a cab, check into my hotel room, buy a meal and get on the plane to return home! Once on the phone with the airline, the customer service agent gave me the name of the local baggage desk at Midway. While on the phone, I was running toward the baggage claim area. Once at baggage claim, the one of the ladies at the desk said, "I'm working on it"...she said to the person on the phone, "you've got it"..."and the money is there too". Relief! She told me she had to go to the security checkpoint to retrieve the money clip...I asked if I should go...and she looked at me and said, "Sir, I think you should sit down and relax"...

A special thanks goes out to Nakesha at the Southwest desk and the crew of flight 424!

Bob Chinn's Crabhouse

On Monday in Chicago, I was able to make it to Bob Chinn's Crabhouse, which is quite an experience. The King Crab Legs were very good and the signature garlic rolls were great as well. Chinn's is a great place to visit if you are up in the North suburbs of Chicago. This is a huge restaurant, seating 650 people and the volume of food and drinks they serve are incredible. Here are some of the stats:

• An order leaves the kitchen every 9 seconds


• Chinn's serves 322,400 Mai Tais each year


• 3000 guests visit Chinn's each day


• 1500 pounds of shrimp are eaten weekly


• 500 pounds of garlic are used weekly

Insulated Meat Handling Gloves

I recently tested these lined nitrile gloves from Grainger for pulling pork and shredding chicken and they work great. Unlike other PVC gloves I've tried, these gloves allow surprisingly good dexterity. They washed up quick and I highly recommend these gloves for handling meat and other hot foods.

The King of Sting

Today I finished an awesome book. It is called "The King of Sting". It is the true story of the life of Craig Glazer, who owns Stanford's Comedy Club in Kansas City. I listen to the Johnny Dare Morning Show in KC and Craig is a frequent guest and "friend of the show". I use that term loosely, because they are usually busting Craig's balls and he is affectionately known as "Guido Libido", a ferrari-driving, womanizing slickster. The book begins as he and some friends in college are broke and put in a bunch of money to buy some weed to resell (its actually Craig's last $300). The drug dealers take all their money and beat the hell out of Craig. His plan to get them back results in a series of more than 30 "stings" where he and tough guy Don Woodbeck steal money and drugs from drug dealers over a period of years. After the stings run out, he returns to KC, only to be chosen to become an agent for the KS Attorney General's Office...taking down big drug dealers...so it was the same gig...only the badge was legal. An interesting personal aside, one of the other agents Craig worked with and was named in the book, Jerry Federgreen, worked (in his retirement) at Lake Shawnee Golf Course with me for 5 or 6 years in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Jerry was a skinny little jewish guy with thick glasses...from New York...kind of a grumpy little guy...I never pictured him as a cop...turns out, Jerry was one of the agents who ended up "arresting" Craig, who was just doing what he did...setting up drug dealers. Craig moved to Hollywood, stole from more drug dealers and eventually did a couple stints in prison...but the theme of the book was that his life was basically like a staged movie, with him as the director and a crazy cast of characters around him, including movie stars, drug dealers and lots of women. I'm really not much of a reader, but I finished the book in only a few hours. This book is a must read and I give it a 5 on a scale of 1-5.

Baltimore Restaurant- The Rusty Scupper

This past tuesday, Jim Aiken and I were looking for some good food on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and across the bay, and as we walked past all of the chain restaurants, I saw the huge sign for The Rusty Scupper . We made our way over to the restaurant and were seated quickly. We ordered coconut butterflied shrimp as an appetizer, which was served with a pepper jelly sauce and they were awesome. They were sold out of the special which was blue softshell crab, so after much scrutiny of the menu (yeah, I know, if you've been out to dinner with me I always take a while to order), I ordered the Seafood Fra Diavolo, which turned out to be an excellent pasta dish packed with seafood and spicy sauce. Jim had the crab cakes, which were also very good. The Rusty Scupper is a great choice if you're spending some time on Baltimore's Inner Harbor.