For Christmas, I want....

And, this spurt of three sudden posts after months of nothing wouldn't be complete without ridiculous trucker's hat that are seemingly quite popular here:

What does that last one even mean? And, why does the desk say "truck"?

Okinawa

Well, I don't have a ridiculous range of experiences here yet. It's very, very hot and humid pretty much all the time. My main experiences off-base thus far have been snorkelling, going to a teppanyaki restaurant, and doing some shopping in a "mall", where they sell some interesting things.

I don't have a car here (many servicemembers people buy them cheaply, even if they're only here for six months, like us), so I was kind of limited where I went to snorkel. However, only one of the many little bases here is actually on the beach, so myself and another officer I work with went up there a couple of weeks ago with our cheap snorkelling gear. It was fun to try, but we didn't pick the best spot, as there were no colorful reefs, etc. in the area. Maybe next time.

OK, I know this picture is ridiculous. Why the thumbs-up? Not sure--it wasn't like I was about to undergo the countdown as pilot of the space shuttle. I'll have to work on that.

Teppanyaki is what many of us call "Japanese barbecue" or "Japanese grill" in the U.S. It's style of cooking where so many people can sit around one cooking area and the chef comes out and cooks your meal for you, right in front of you, usually with quite a bit of flair. Three of us went to a place that was pretty good. The highlights for me were trying beef sashimi, raw, thin-sliced beef that you dip in some kind of delicious sauce and trying the kobe beef. Kobe beef is from one certain part of Japan, and it is extremely marbled (high fat content), which makes it very tender, as long as you don't overcook it. I agree that it was very tender, but it was just way, way too rich (and expensive) for me to try for a very, very long time.

Beef sashimi:

Kobe beef:

For those of you who are squeamish about the raw beef (sashimi), it could have been worse. Some of my friends went to a sushi place, where one guy ended up with thinly-sliced horse meat. Sounds good, no?

Summer things....

While I'm in Okinawa and then touring around SE Asia (more on that later), Tally got to spend some time back home with her family. They rented a lake cabin for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I have already deleted most of those pictures Tally sent me. However, I'll slap up a couple.

I guess Savannah's a pretty big fan of the lake in general and everything that goes with it: grilled meat, boats passing by, dead fish to sniff, grilled meat, etc. She managed to find her way down to the water to check out the situation:

Also, even though the dogs DO swim (and, quite comically, I might add), their favorite mode of shore patrol is on a mesh floatie. Sophie will do it, but I think Savannah would stay out there all day. (Note: Yes, Tally, I'm sure you didn't want me to put a picture of you in your polka-dot swimsuit on here, but it's the only other one I have. I'll make up for it by putting one up of me in my snorkelling stuff in the next post.)

Maybe I'll finally be "non-deployed", and I can get back to the lake next summer.....

Shedding Wars

Wow! It's been a long time...sorry for no posts for Tinjblog's 2 1/2 loyal readers. I'll have to get some updates on things that I've missed, such as: taking a 'tour of California' with Tally's parents, Tally and John running a half-marathon in wine country, going to Kauai, going to the MLB opening day game at Angels' Stadium vs. the Twins, the Temecula Wine and Weiner Dog Festival, Las Vegas (again), and probably a bunch of other stuff.

Anyway, this post is short and ridiculous. This morning, it became readily apparent to me that the dogs have entered "shedding season" since the weather has warmed up, as all kinds of little hairs were showing up in my hands when I was petting them. So, I decided to see who would win by producing the amount of hair that would make the bigger pile. The verdict?

You be the judge. Whose pile is the biggest? The first correct answer gets a 1/2 off "Tinjblog" temporary tattoo (the kind little kids get at fairs or in 25-cent machines at the grocery store).

Don Sutton

We were eating at a restaurant in Palm Springs this past weekend and happened to randomly be introduced to Don Sutton (Baseball HOF, 324 wins, 7th in strikeouts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Sutton) by our waiter. He was a little before my time as a player, but I did remember that he was in the Hall of Fame. I remembered him even more clearly, though, as one of the Atlanta Braves broadcasters for many years, as we had TBS as one of our cable channels He's a super-nice guy and took time out of his dinner with his family to talk to Tally and I about military things, as our waiter had introduced me to him as a military doctor.

One more good recipe to try...

I wanted to try a different kind of ribs recipe. This requires a little effort and waiting (allowing time to cook), but it was totally worth it:

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Make sure that the ribs are at least 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. If boneless ribs are unavailable, substitute 7 pounds of bone-in beef short ribs at least 4 inches long with 1 inch of meat above the bone. We recommend a bold red wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or roasted potatoes. Serves 6

3 1/2 pounds boneless short ribs , trimmed of excess fat (see note and technique below)

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 large onions , peeled and sliced thin from pole to pole (about 4 cups)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

6 medium garlic cloves , peeled

2 cups red wine (see note)

1 cup beef broth

4 large carrots , peeled and cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 teaspoon unflavored powdered gelatin

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until smoking. Add half of beef and cook, without moving, until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Turn beef and continue to cook on second side until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes longer, reducing heat if fat begins to smoke. Transfer beef to medium bowl. Repeat with remaining tablespoon oil and meat.

2. Reduce heat to medium, add onions, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. (If onions begin to darken too quickly, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water to pan.) Add tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until it browns on sides and bottom of pan, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium-high, add wine and simmer, scraping bottom of pan with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until reduced by half, 8 to 10 minutes. Add broth, carrots, thyme, and bay leaf. Add beef and any accumulated juices to pot; cover and bring to simmer. Transfer pot to oven and cook, using tongs to turn meat twice during cooking, until fork slips easily in and out of meat, 2 to 2½ hours.

3. Place water in small bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top; let stand at least 5 minutes. Using tongs, transfer meat and carrots to serving platter and tent with foil. Strain cooking liquid through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator or bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Allow liquid to settle about 5 minutes and strain off fat. Return cooking liquid to Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until reduced to 1 cup, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin mixture; season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over meat and serve.

Crepes

Delicious. I've never tried them before, but they were actually not that hard. I like Alton Brown, so I went with this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/crepes-recipe/index.html

Update...

OK, so a little behind. After the Vikings fiasco that (unfortunately) may carry into the playoffs against the Cowboys this week, Tally did a "sprint" triathlon in Hemet, CA the next weekend and I did just the 5K part because I'm a terrible swimmer (working on it, though). She did very, very well even though she didn't have some fancy bike with a ridiculous aerodynamic helmet. I finally squeaked out a 5K in under 20 minutes (19:59), so we were both happy.

We then headed home for Christmas, which was great, but got very, very cold near the end (low in Fargo was -33 F on New Year's Day). It was nice to fly back into Vegas!

Life is getting a little better for me now that we finally got another Medical Officer in my battalion. I'm actually getting home at a decent time (usually) and getting to exercise more.

On the cooking front, risotto is a new favorite for us. The combination possibilities are endless. The only trouble is that it is quite a bit of work, but it's delicious! One other thing I'll recommend are sweet potatoes. I was never really a big fan, based off of the old sweet potatoes and marshmallows that are often served at Thanksgiving. It was always just too sweet for me. You can simply bake them though (just like a regular potato), but we had mashed last night. Again, just boil them like potatoes, then add some milk, butter, and a little maple syrup (you could probably get away without this, but we tried it; we had some actual maple syrup lying around--not sure if the imitation kind would be as good: I'm really enjoying misusing punctuation and continuing this ridiculous excuse for a sentence) and salt and pepper. You should try it.

Coming up: three-day weekend for MLK day. Going to LA/Santa Monica--hopefully, I'll be able to meet up with Quinn and cheer on the Vikings to victory, not a 47-point loss (holding out hope that the old reverse jinx is on my side there).