- I went a little overboard cooking my turkey this year, but that’s part of the fun. For you Food Network fans you know that Alton Brown says there’s no other way to cook a turkey but to brine it first, and you Bobby Flay fans know that he prefers to just butter a turkey, so I decided to do both! My brine consisted of the usual water, salt, broth, and various seasonings, but I decided to add both brown sugar and maple syrup. After brining I added butter between the skin and meat and threw it on the grill and added some mesquite wood chips for some smokiness, and it turned out great. I may have overcooked my bird a bit because I undercooked it a bit last year, I just need to practice my thermometer placement. For the last two years I used the thermometer in which you keep it in your bird while cooking and it will beep when it reaches the correct temperature, only problem is I’m not placing it in quite the right place. Next year I’ll probably take Buddy’s suggestion of spatching the bird to cook faster, but this time I wanted the presentation of a whole bird.
- For pictures of my grill set up as well as some other weekend photos check out this Flickr set or the slideshow at the bottom of this post.
- The Cowboy game started with a narration from the late Pat Sumerall, I hope CBS keeps that tradition. It’s hard to believe he was last with CBS 19 years ago.
- We got off to an unusually quick start to Christmas this year. This weekend we put up the tree, decorated the house, put a poinsettia on my father’s grave, and I completed my Christmas shopping when WifeGeeding went to a play on Saturday.
- That Alabama/Auburn game was fantastic to watch. I thought Auburn was making a mistake after their last offensive touchdown by kicking the extra point and sending the game to overtime instead of trying to go for two and winning it, especially since they were playing at home (even though that didn’t work for Michigan that day against Ohio State). But I did think Saban made the right decision to kick the 57-yard field goal at the end of the game even though it was returned for a touchdown. The blame for the failure of that particular play for Alabama lays at the feet of their special teams coach not prepping that unit for a possible return. Auburn had a player waiting to catch and return it, and after Alabama kicked that field goal you can see all their players just standing upright watching the ball instead of getting into position for a potential return. It’s the little things that matter.
- Bama’s kicker is from the rough streets Southlake and as you can expect is getting a lot of threats through the ‘big muscles’ of social media for missing three field goals.
- The biggest punk of college football this season has to be Baylor’s Ahmad Dixon, without question. He was arrested at the beginning of the season for assault and the classless Art Briles didn’t have the balls to suspend him, against Oklahoma he was penalized for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct on one play, and on Saturday he was ejected for targeting and walked off the field blowing kisses to the crowd. On top of that, he had the gall to tweet an insult at TCU’s quarterback. Dixon first got my attention against Oklahoma with his “me first” attention seeking attitude when he was busy communicating with the crowd when a play was run behind his back. Some folks point at the NFL for this sort of selfishness, but you can’t deny it happens in the NCAA as well.
- TCU’s Gary Patterson questioned Briles’ class. Patterson has enough to deal with getting past the drug bust scandal a few years ago among a few other things. But I don’t understand why Briles’ coaching staff didn’t remove an ejected player from the sidelines and why his defense (or defensive coordinator Phil Bennett) this year continues to take cheap shots at defenseless receivers. Those players being targeting aren’t making an NFL income and if they get injured, they have nothing to fall back on.
- Hardin-Simmons played Baylor in basketball and got beat 104-59. I know in football small programs play big programs because of money but I don’t think that’s the case in basketball and makes me question why such a game is scheduled, especially when you take into consideration that Hardin-Simmons doesn’t even offer any athletic scholarships.
- Tips For Jesus – An Instagram of people leaving ridiculously large tips in the name of Jesus.
- I can’t stand Dave Ramsey for a plethora of reasons, and Rachel Held Evans recently wrote a critique about him. I get her overall point, but I think she was a little off target and as an author, I expected her to frame her argument better.
- ‘Orange is the New Black’ is much better than I thought, and my readers were right in pointing out how interesting the back stories of each character are. But I was blown away to see how much Captain Janeway has let herself go.
- Something for you ‘Mad Men’ fans, his hair is actually brown and maybe has a bit of a perm – 1980s Sports Illustrated TV Commercial featuring John Slattery
- I heard that John Boehner has a really good turkey brine recipe and when looking for it, I found he has two different government websites. One is for his Ohio congressional seat and the other is for his position as Speaker. This is a critique, just an observation as I thought he’d just have one. Here’s the recipe if you are curious, it’s the maple syrup that caught my attention and it’s where I got the idea for my brine.
- I never heard of Paul Walker until this weekend.
- I find it interesting that Mooyah’s has changed this business model. Usually these sort of businesses have a certain schtick and stick with it. You use to go use pieces of paper to select your order and hand it to the cashier, a regular burger was two small patties, and food was always served in a paper bag. Now you just order at the counter, instead of two small patties you get one third pound patty, and if you eat it there, food is served on a metal rectangle tray.
- Vietnam Announces Fines for Citizens who Criticize the Government on Social Media
- I bet this $5 bill circulated in the South, but I could be wrong.
- ’60 Minutes’ had two great segments last night. It started off with a profile on Amazon.com and showed how they plan to use drones to deliver packages that weigh less than five pounds to your front door. That makes me wonder how many kids with sling shots and BB guns are going to take aim at those things. The show also had a great segment on the construction of the U.S. Capitol and Scott Pelley actually got to go to the very top of the dome which I’m sure was a breathtaking view of D.C.
- I thought the idea of the U.S. and Canada merging was far fetch and ludicrous, but this article about the idea made some good points.
- If you caught ‘The Amazing Race’ last night you got to see someone who never boiled an egg and attempted it by holding the eggs over the steam instead of placing in the water.
- ‘The Walking Dead’ talk:
- I think we all knew Hershel has been on his last leg for a while now.
- I guess the actor that plays Hershel can play a mall Santa for the time being.
- It’s a show about zombies, so you have to take the real of believably out of a lot of it, but even the Storm Troopers in Star Wars are better shots.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
