Nothing better...

There's nothing better than sitting on a porch, when the temperature is "just right", and it rains, and you're in a rocking chair, and you can smell the fresh rain, and you can feel the temperature drop, and you can hear the birds, and you've got a little jazz playing.

And, a little beer helps.

Goolsby's Sausage Patty Melt

Man, oh man, do I love a good Sausage Patty Melt!

My wife, The Queen, made me great one today!  I've just finished it, and it's better than any I've ever had at Waffle House!

In case you aren't happily familiar with Sausage Patty Melts, it consists of fried sausage, on toast, with a thick slice of onion, coated with mustard, along with a dash of Tabasco sauce, and topped with cheese.  Man, oh man...

Today she made her's with Goolsby Sausage, which has become our favorite sausage, bumping out previous first place go-to sausage king Jimmy Dean Sausage.  See my other Goolsby's Sausage recipe here.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 patties of Goolsby's Sausage.  We buy ours at Costco.
• 1 thick slice of onion
• 2 pieces of bread, preferably thick slice Texas Style, but any will do.
• 2 pieces of sliced, extra sharp cheddar cheese
• Mustard
• Tabasco
• Cooking pan with lid

Cooking Instructions

• Cut a thick slice of onion.
• Use cooking instructions on box for Goolsby's Sausage.  These sausages are preformed and frozen. 
• Once sausage is done, reduce heat and remove sausage from pan.
• build up the patty melt
• Place slice of bread onto plate.  
• Place all four pieces of cooked sausage onto bread.  Some overlapping may occur, but that's OK.
• Cover sausage with mustard.
• Add any desired Tabasco sauce.
• Place onion onto mustard
• Place cheese onto onion
• Cover with remaining slice of bread
• Transfer back to pan
• Set temperature of pan to medium.
• Cover pan with lid.  This will help the cheese to melt.
• Cook until toasted on first side.
• Flip to other side
• Cook until toasted on second side.
• Remove and serve with strong, black, coffee.

Enjoy!

Banjo Cooks Breakfast with Goolsby's Sausage

Goolsby's Sausage, Stone-ground Cheese Grits, Eggs, Sausage and Cheese Stuffed Puff Pastry (like Hot Pockets).....OMG!

Note: for my Sausage Patty Melt using Goolsby's Sausgae, go here

This is a great breakfast!  It's big enough that it's breakfast and lunch!

Total Time: 45 minutes - 1 hour.

This recipe uses Goolsby's Sausage (frozen), which we obtain from Costco.  We used to cook with Jimmy Dean sausage, but after 36 years of happy marriage, we've switched to Goolsby's!

We particularly like this sausage because:

• It taste great!
• It's already formed into patties.
• It doesn't need to be thawed before cooking
• It's inexpensive - we are able to purchase 24 preformed patties (2 lb) for $7.00 at Costco.
• We can just take out the number of patties we want to cook for that meal and return the rest to the freezer.

This recipe is assuming you will be cooking for two servings.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb (8 oz) Extra Sharp Cheese
• 2 eggs (or more if you desire)
• 1 sheet of Frozen Puff Pastry Sheets
• 4 servings of stone-ground grits (see instructions that come with your grits)
• 4 sausage patties (the times here are assuming you will be using Goolby's frozen sausage patties - if you use different, then you'll need to make some adjustments for your sausage cooking time.  Goolsby's takes 8 minutes to prepare).

Cooking instructions

1. Note time now; you will base some steps as elapsed time from now.
2. Start cooking stone-ground grits.  They will require about 45 minutes to cook.  Follow instructions that come with your stone-ground grits.  Make enough for 4 servings and some will be left over....they get better tomorrow!
3. Remove puff pastry frozen sheets (1 sheet per 2 pastries) and place where it can thaw.  It will require about 40 minutes to thaw.
4. Grate 1 lb of  Extra Sharp Cheese.  Set aside 1 cup for cheese grits.  The rest will be used in the stuffed puff pastry.
5. About 30 minutes after start: Set oven to 400 dF and turn on.  Place a rack towards the top, maybe 3/4 up from bottom. Not critical, but placing it towards the top will help with not burning the bottom of the puff pastries.  Continue with rest of steps while oven comes up to temperature.
6. About 30 minutes from start, heat pan to point where drops of water will rapidly sizzle.  If you have an electric skillet, place it for 375 and allow to come up to temperature.
7. Place 2 of 4 sausage patties into skillet and cook, 4 minutes per side (for Goolsby's).  After 4 minutes on a side, flip to other side.  Total cooking time is 8 minutes.
8. When pastry sheets have thawed, open up and cut in half width and cut in half length.  This will give you 4 equal size pieces.
9. Place a large helping of shredded cheese onto 2 of the squares.  Heap it up.
10. When sausage has finished cooking, place each sausage onto the cheese on a pastry square.
11. Add lots of cheese to the top of the sausage.
12. Place remaining 2 pastry squares onto tops of cheese-sausage squares.
13. Crimp the edges together on each puff pastry.  
14. Place into greased cookie tin and place into 400 degF oven.  Cook for 15 minutes.  Watch last 5 minutes to ensure you don't burn, as all ovens cook at different speeds due to differences in temperature controls.
15. Stir cheese into grits, and recover.
16. Take remaining 2 sausage patties and cook in skillet, with 4 minutes on the first side, then flip.
17. Different step for cooking on the 2nd side of the sausage.  After flipping, cook 2nd side for 2 minutes, then reduce heat to 300 or moderate.  Sausage should still gradually sizzle now, but not a 'hot' sizzle.
18. Open 2 eggs into skillet onto sausage oil.  
19. Cover and let eggs and sausage cook until your desired level of cooking is achieved.  Using the cover will help the eggs to cook on top without burning the bottoms.
20. When the puff pastries are ready, everything should be ready.
21. Plat and serve!

We like to serve with: 

• Chipotle Tabasco 
• Orange juice
• Strong, black coffee.

Carolina Oyster Roast

This weekend we had our "annual" Carolina Oyster Roast.  I put it in italics because, due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the difficulty in getting oysters from the Gulf, we had to cancel our 2005 annual oyster roast.  And once it stopped, seems like we would never think of it again in time to get it all together!

But this year is different!  We had been to Charleston SC back in January 2011 in order to attend the Boone Hall Plantation Oyster Roast, and that got us geared up to start back up this year!

We sent out the invitations about a month in advance.  Per the RSVP, we planned on 22 guests showing up, plus my wife and I, for a total of 24 people.

Previous roasts indicated I would need about 5 cases of oysters.  I ordered them from Whole Foods a week in advance (per their instructions), the same place I've been buying them for years.  They do oysters a little odd around here (Atlanta) - they sell them by the case, instead of by the bushel.  Anyway, a case is about 35 lbs of oysters in the shell.

On the day before the party, the manager at Whole Foods called to say they weren't going to be able to provide us with the oysters!  They offered me 1 (one - one little lb) lb of shrimp for my trouble!  Quite generous of them, considering they were putting us out of business with our guests!

I located another seller - Bufford Hwy Farmer's Market.  They had plenty, so I took a ride down to have a look at the quality.  They looked great!  I picked up 5 cases and returned home with them.  These oysters were from New Zealand, instead of of the Gulf of Mexico - they were in bigger shells, and the shells were thicker.  However, the oysters themselves were larger.

Once I unloaded them, I realized the yield from their cases were less than Whole Foods, which accounted for the price difference (the cases were a lot less expensive), but now I was going to be short of enough oysters.....but that is what Son-in-laws are for - to go get more oysters!  He returned to the store and picked up another 3 cases

With a total of 8 cases, we examined each oyster for breaks or open shells before washing them under a hard spray of water, then transferred them to a large plastic tub, where I then covered them with ice to hold them over to the next day.

BTW - we do not serve any raw oysters at our parties; all are cooked.  Our favorite method for cooking oysters is to steam them. This is a superior method for cooking oysters.  The heat of the steam is lower than that provided over a grill, so it allows you to cook the oyster slower and more precisely to the desired amount of doneness.  We like ours to be hot and full of liquid, not shriveled up little homeless creatures!  And steaming them allows you to provide just that amount of doneness.

We setup the party in the garage - seven (7) 6-foot tables, arranged in a "U" shape - with one end accessible from outside (where I was cooking) and the guests lined up along the outer edge of the tables. We provided gloves to protect our guests' hands, and an oyster knife for each guest, along with beer and wine, as well as Low-Country-Boil for our guests that didn't like oysters (this is shrimp, sausage, potatoes, and corn-on-the-cob).

Outside, I set up three 'turkey fryers', which are sold here in the USA.  These consist of a large propane burner, a 20 lb propane tank, and a 5 gallon pot with a large basket strainer.  I poured a couple of inches of water into each of the three pots, then lit burners.  Three burners going at the same time produces quite a roar!  While this was coming up to heat, we filled each basket 1/2 way up with oysters - this is important, because we will be lifting these baskets up and over the pots, then into the garage, where we will go along the tables pouring out a stream of oysters.  If we were to fill the baskets up, they would be too heavy for us later in the night (this goes on for a couple of hours), and also it would be too many oysters at once for the guests, so they would cool down.

There were three of us cooking this time - me, my son-in-law, and a friend.  It takes this many people to feed 20 people with hot oysters!  It takes about 20 - 30 minutes for the first batch to be ready.  You know they are ready after it comes to a boil, the froth from the oysters will rise up all the way to the top of the lid.  So it's past the point of boil, but waiting until the froth hits the top, tells you they are ready (per the temperature and doneness we like to serve ours).  We made sure the oyster tub was set up on saw-horses at waist high, as the first year I had them on the ground and filling the baskets all night with 500 oysters left me crippled with my back from stooping - so now we set the tub up at waist high, put the basket in the waist-high tub and fill them up.

Once we start delivering oysters to the tables, our goal is to keep a steady stream of oysters going to the guests.  In order to do this, we've got one person filling the baskets and lowering them into the pots, then another person monitoring the pots, then a third person pulling the basket and pouring the oysters out along the tables, then returning the basket to the oyster-filler.

We keep this assembly line process going, switching off each job among ourselves, as the oyster basket-filler person will get numb fingers after a while, and the person doing the delivery will need a rest for his arms.

While we are doing this work, we don't stop for anything - we don't eat oysters, and rarely drink a beer, as it's just too busy.

Later, when the last batch of oysters are in the pot cooking, we'll start on our beers and our dinner.

Afterwards, we sit around a 'pit fire' that we place onto our driveway, smoke cigars, have Lemonchellos, laugh, and just visit with each other.

The party starts at 6 PM, and usually the last guest has left around 2 AM.

Banjo Remembers Attending School...

What I remember about attending school - the short version.

When I was three, my parents split, after a big argument.  I remember my mom telling me to run to my grandmother's.  It was dark outside; I remember hiding under the bushes for a while before making my way to my grandmother's, about a block away.  It was a pretty violent argument.  I was later told, as an adult by my aunt (who was my mother's twin sister), that my mother was running around on my father at that time.

When I was four, my parents got a divorce; my mother moved away, I stayed and lived with my grandmother.  I once visited my mother, who was living in Charleston SC at that time.  I remember catching fish, which my grandmother flushed down the toilet, and drinking my first beer that my mother gave me.

When I was five, my mother moved us (she and I) to Myrtle Beach to live with my mother and my aunt, her twin sister.  I remember my mother crying for days, if not weeks, because the man she had been dating broke up with her.  I don't remember him, but I do remember that he was in the Air Force, and was working on an underwater camera so he could recover treasure.  Funny what's important to remember when you are five!

When I was six, we moved to 31st Ave North in Myrtle Beach, where I attended first grade, just a block or so away.  While there, a boy a couple of years older and bigger choked me, trying to kill me, in a wooded lot.  He had me on my back, and was sitting on my chest, choking me.  Just before I passed out, I remember the dark closing in from the sides - it was tunnel vision from lack of oxygen, but I didn't know it at the time.  Something made me throw my legs violently upwards, and it threw the older boy completely over my head and shoulders and into the bushes behind me; I jumped up and ran home.  When I got there, I was unable to talk because my throat was crushed; all I could do was cry hysterically.  My mother was unconcerned - she said it was just boys playing; my grandmother, however, went ballistic, and went to the boy's house and confronted them.  I remember her screaming and yelling about "that son-of-a-bitch" boy.  The people at the boy's house were scared of my grandmother!  I don't know what they did to the boy, but he would see me at school and go the other way.

When I was in second grade, my mother moved us to a different school in South Myrtle Beach.  I attended there for a few months.

While still in the second grade, my mother moved us to Palm Beach Florida, where I attended the remainder of second grade.  This was the third school I attended in second grade.

When school got out for the year, my mother moved us back to Myrtle Beach, were I started the third grade.

Sometime during the third grade, my mother moved us to Jacksonville, Fl, where I finished the third grade.

I started the fourth grade in Jacksonville Fl.  Sometime in October, my mother moved us to mother's hometown in NC, where I attended school for a month or so.

My mother then moved us back to Jacksonville, Fl, where I finished the fourth grade.  I remember her going out at night on dates, leaving me alone.  I remember being scared in the trailer and hiding outside in the dark until she came home.

At the end of the fourth grade, my mother moved us back to my mother's hometown in NC, where I started the fifth grade.  I attended school here the whole year.  I lived with my grandmother while my mother went places I don't know about.  My grandmother was home every day and looked after me.  I remember this as the best year I ever had.

At the end of the fifth grade, my mother got married, and we moved to Charleston SC, to West of the Ashley, where I started the sixth grade.  The first day there, my step-father , who had mental issues (I remember my mother telling me she was going to marry him, and was going to 'heal him' because of her knowledge of Christian Science) due to brain injuries suffered in WWII, told me he almost broke up with my mother the night before because of me.  He stood there rocking on his feet, clicking and moaning with his face twitching, scaring the crap out of an eleven year old before my mother told me to run to school, while my mother stood behind holding him, telling him it would be all right.  (Interesting twist isn't it; 45 year old man is comforted, told "it will be allright" while an eleven year old is expected to fend for himself).  I remember not knowing what they were talking about in English, because I hadn't had the previous English lessons.  I remember the teacher pulling my desk out of line from everyone else, like I was stupid.  I remember she wouldn't let me got to recess.  That was bad, because that was when she would let us go to the bathroom.  She wouldn't let me go to the bathroom until we all went again at lunch time.  That meant I was unable to go to the bathroom from 7:30 AM, when I left school, until 12:00 noon when we went to lunch - I had to sit through lunch until 12:45 when we finished lunch and made the bathroom break.  That was my first opportunity to go the bathroom.  I remember peeing in my pants in class, because I couldn't last for five hours without going to the bathroom, terrified that someone would find out.  It would fill up my shoes.  I remember her name was Ms. Johnson, at Orange Grove Elementary.  I would knock her on her ass today if I could find her.

During that year, we moved to downtown, so that I changed schools.

I attended the whole of the seventh grade at the school downtown.

I was promoted to the eighth grade, which meant a change of schools to the high school.  I attended the whole year at this school.

In the ninth grade, we moved to West of the Ashley, where I started the ninth grade.  I attended school here the whole year.

In the tenth grade, we were rezoned for schools, so I started at a different school.

Midway through the tenth grade, I was sent to live with my grandmother, where I attended the remainder of the tenth grade.

At the end of the tenth grade, my mother returned me to Charleston, where I started the eleventh grade.  I attended here the whole year.

My senior year, we were rezoned, so I attended a different school.  On the night I graduated, I packed my car, drove to Atlanta, arriving about 6 AM.  I never lived with my mother and her husband again.

And that is what I remember about growing up and attending school!

My mother died when I was 34.  I had to sell all of my stock in Apple and Microsoft in order to pay off her debts so they wouldn't foreclose her house; I would have been able to retire in 2 more years on the stock appreciation of Apple and Microsoft.  She cut me out of most of the inheritance in her will; there wouldn't have been anything to inherit if I hadn't bailed her, and her husband, out.  I don't miss her.

My mother's twin sister is 92 and in bad health.  She can be a bit of a pill - bless her heart.

Whatever God's purpose was in this, he made up for it in giving me my wife, my grandmother, and my mother's oldest sister.

I thought my grandmother walked on water.

My wife floats above it.

Banjo Remembers 9/11

Please go to this page.  This page has been updated and includes additional stories from other family members.  I'm keeping this page here as some other sites have linked to this page.

I was home on 9/11 in order to change our cable TV over to a different service provider.  While waiting for someone to show up, my wife called from work to tell me that a plane had flown into a tower - she thought it was a traffic spotter plane; at the time, I understood that she was talking about an event in downtown Atlanta.  I said I didn't know if we had a TV signal yet, but would check...I remember wondering how a small plane could have flow into a tower in Atlanta, as the weather was pretty clear.

I checked the TV, and we had a signal!  Apparently, the cable company had been able to hook everything up from outside and never rang my doorbell.

I watched on NBC as Tom Brokow reported about the event of a plane flying into a tower in downtown NY.

I'm an instrumented-rated pilot, and the first thing I noticed, after realizing the tower was one in NY, not Atlanta, was that it was "severe clear" in pilot lingo.  Not much chance for a weather related visibility problem, so this was a real mystery....

I called my wife back to let her know that it wasn't Atlanta, but was in NYC, and explained my confusion about how this could happen with the weather being so clear...I was beginning to suspect the pilot had become incapacitated while flying.

While my wife was on the phone, I saw the 2nd plane banking into a left hand turn.  I thought I was seeing a replay of the original impact. I was truly stunned to realize this was a full size commercial jet aircraft, and that it was in a turn heading at the tower!  So that meant the impact had not been due to a pilot being incapacitated, so I was now doubly confused.  I watched as the plane impacted the tower and exploded through it....and I saw the first tower, and realized there were two towers involved, and this wasn't a replay, but was a new impact; two planes, two towers!!!

I thought "there's no way that second impact was a mistake", and I told my wife, who I had been giving a play-by-play, that she was to get out of the tower she was in and get home NOW, that we were under attack!  She later said she told her manager she was leaving because of the attacks on the towers, and that dumb-ass woman treated my wife like she was goofy, saying "it's just a small plane flying into a building for christ sakes", but my wife did tell her she was leaving and she was leaving now.  Bless my wife ability to take action when it is needed and override dumb-ass corporate managers.


So my wife headed home.  I called my office to let them know what I was seeing on TV, and that I would not be coming in.  My wife showed up at our house about a half hour later.

I called our youngest daughter, who was in college at Kennesaw State University, which is located next to an Air Force base, and told her to get out of that area now; if we're under attack, then that base may be a target.  I told her it was OK to bring her boyfriend home too if she wanted to, as he was from out of town and no way to get back to his home.  So she headed home with him.

My oldest daughter had just started a new job as a programmer the day before, on 9/10!  She was in training when they got the word, and all training was stopped and they were told to go home, so she came home as well.

We spent the rest of that day and the next several days watching TV and feeling sick - news accounts were saying the death toll could be as high as 30,000 people!

I remember one really different thing - everyone stopped blowing their horns at other cars - for weeks!  If someone was slow ahead of you, no one honked their horn.  If they made a mistake, they were just waved on.  Jay Leno canceled his Tonight Show appearances, saying this wasn't the appropriate time to be telling jokes.

And, for a while, we were all Americans, liberal as well as conservative, with a common, unified goal - get the SOBs that had done this to us.  And I remember thinking, as a Southerner - they've killed our Yankees, and I hope we bust their ass for it.

Atlanta's DragonCon - Steampunk

Dang.

This weekend (today is Sep 2, 2011) marks this years DragonCon.  I thought I would be ready for it with some Steampunk stuff, but I got sidetracked.

Dang.

Hope to make it next year!

Here's a picture from CNN and a link to the article...

Banjo does World's Longest Yard Sale 2011

Updated 8/26/11

TRIP RESULTS (images at bottom)
For some odd reason, I woke up about 4 AM on Friday, the weekend of the event.  So, after banging around quietly but enough to ensure the wife was awake, we got ready and left, ate some breakfast along the way, and arrived in Chattanooga TN around 8 AM for the start...only it wasn't because we forgot about the time change - it was really 7:00 AM local time!  We didn't discover our time shift until lunch, when we showed up early, just after the cafe opened along the route.

So we were early, but most places were already open.

After a while, we settled into a pattern that was right for us.

• We only went to places that had multiple vendors ( a loose term - anyone selling is a vendor).  That meant we skipped all of the 'mom and pop' people in their own yards.  As the day wore on, and we got more and more tired, this was a big win for us.
• We wanted places with fairly good parking, however, we did pull off to the side of the road a couple of times.
• There are some sites that have a hundred or more vendors.  Those are pretty convenient, and we liked stopping at those. 
• We went from Chattanooga north on hwy 127 until we got to I-40, where we left the WLYS at Crosseville and headed west to stay in Cookeville.  We did this because the hotels in Crosseville that normally charged $100 per night had jacked up their prices to $200!  So, by driving about 25 miles or so west, we saved $100.  Plus we had a bigger choice of places to stay as well as eat.
• We covered about the entire state of TN, from south to north.
• It's an exhausting but interesting time.
• We shopped all day Friday; we had intended to do some more on Saturday, but bad weather made us change our mind and drive home.
• We had a great time, and will probably do it again next year.

So, what did we see, what did we buy?  

There is no limit to what you are going to see.  There's everything imaginable - from commodes to sinks, from doorknobs to hats, from bottles to stills.  If it's ever been made, by anyone, somewhere on this route, it will show up.  The prices are all over the place.  I didn't buy a single thing!  That's very unusual for me.  Some things that I wanted to buy, I didn't want to pay the price.  However, as the day wore on, I began to see that the prices for these things were fairly consistent, so I don't think they were overpriced, just I didn't want to part with my money at that price.  I hoped to pick some up on Saturday, but weather made us cut our trip short....so next year.  My sweet wife Pat bought a few small things - one being a dainty hand fan (the type you wave with your hand) to help stay a little cooler.  I wish they would move this to mid-late September; it was too dang hot!

Recommendations

• Some vendors will try to take advantage of you.  For instance, we saw many, many cast iron skillets, most for $30-$40 for a 10" skillet.  However, we saw some that had been shined up to look glossy black that were selling for $180!  That vendor travels from show to show, has a complete tent setup, sits back in a rocking chair and waits for suckers to come by.  Everything he had had been shined up, and was 10X what it should have been.  When I see that, I'm not willing to negotiate with a thief or someone trying to take advantage of someone.
• Shop around a little before buying, seeing other vendors' wares.  There are very few things that only appear at a single vendor.  After a while, you'll begin to notice that things have approached their own value, as you'll see fairly consistent prices from site to site.
• Friday's aren't the best day to negotiate, but you have the biggest choice.  As the weekend advances, some things will have sold and thus be removed from the sell, but the vendors will be more willing to negotiate on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. For some vendors, this is their best and only chance to sell; keeping it will mean retaining it for another year, or dumping it at a loss, so the closer you get to the end day and time, the more willing they are to negotiate.
• Common items, where you will see at every site, are the easiest to negotiate.  Don't be quick to buy these.
• A lot of vendors will pack up and leave by noon Sunday.

BACKGROUND
We've never been on the World's Longest Yard Sale.  This is an annual event that starts on the first Thursday of August, and runs through the following Sunday, and takes place along hwy US127.  This year, 2011, that means the event will start on Thursday August 4 and run through Sunday August 7.  Here's a Google link for more insight.

We plan on starting our trip in Chattanooga TN, and possibly (but not probably) going to Frankfort KY.

Here's a link to my personal map.  It shows places where we may bail out to head back to Atlanta along I-75.

This is the first time we are actually planning on going; we've missed it every year since hearing about it 5 years ago.

Images
I didn't take a lot of pictures because there was so much, and from a general standpoint, it was all the same....just different stuff.  I took these two pictures at the start, at the same place, just north of Chattanooga.  This will give you some idea of what it was like, but repeated hundreds of times.

Sittin' on my porch Wed June 9 2010

I just smoked a couple of piece of pork on my Webber Performer grill for dinner - dang, they were great! I had a couple (!) of beers - Steel Reserve High Gravity (6.0%). Buuuuuurp - excuuuuse me!

There is a lonesome Cardinal calling for a mate, sort of like "Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Hey Baby!") over and over and over. I hope he finds a mate soon or I'll have to abandon the porch!