i will be the biggest loser

My last blog mentioned my purchase of a George Foreman Grill from Goodwill. With three large chicken breast in my freezer, I thought I would experiment with some sauces and marinades. Sgt. Pepper's Yellow Jacket First is your typical lemon-pepper chicken. It was quick and easy. Pour some lemon juice in a Tupperware container. Shake in some pepper and salt. And allow your chicken cutlet to soak up the goodness. Chopsticks II The next flavor was a little more bold. I combined:

• House of Tsang Original Stir-Fry Sauce
• Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
• soy sauce
• sugar
• salt

Drop (Your) Top Chicken Cutlets While cooking the chicken marinaded in the Chopsticks II sauce, I opened a Drop Top beer and decided it would be awesome to have a chicken marinaded in your favorite beer. So I mixed together:

• Drop Top beer
• cinnamon
• pinch of salt

Out of all of these flavors the Chopsticks II marinade was the best. The worst? My Drop (Your) Top Chicken Cutlets marinade. Shocked? I hope not. It was a bad idea but I can at least say I tried. One of these days, this will be a successful marinade but I have a feeling it'll take some time. Here's to a good night of experiementing in my kitchen. [takes a swig of Drop Top]

recycle your treasures - part one

As the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." This couldn't be anymore true when it comes to shopping at Goodwill.

Growing up, my grandma and I would scope out the newspaper for good garage sales and hit them up in hopes of finding some treasures. Before I even stepped foot on the A&M campus, I had the best vintage A&M collection. Of course, this got lost in the mix when I had my short love affair of the University of Texas.

When I got in college, I shopped the local Goodwill stores looking for vintage t-shirts. As I got older, my dad and I braved the county flea market in hopes of finding cast iron skillets and other goodies. Who am I kidding? We still do this. So it only made since that I would be a fan of Goodwill when I moved to Portland. And I have been.

My first purchases were kitchen items. It was plain white plates and bowls. Revere Ware pots and pans. Basically, your mom's kitchen items. I like copper bottom pots and pans for some reason. The look clean to me. So I bought them, cleaned* them up and proceeded to cook some delicious meals.

Over time, I've bought glasses and pints of some of my favorite beers. Instead of paying $15 for my favorite pint glass, I can usually pick them up for no more than $1.99 around town.

Goodwill is great for making quick purchases. You can usually find a really nice casserole dish for the time you have to make dressing for Thanksgiving. There's usually a bunt cake pan or two. And for those who are more daring, they have a ton of flatware.

I've laid off the kitchen items until recently when I had to fully supply my kitchen. Once again, Goodwill has not let me down. Within the racks of Goodwill are items that have never been used. Take for instance, my IKEA dish rack. Another poor item bought from the store, never used and then taken to Goodwill when someone was either cleaning or moving. By purchasing it at Goodwill, I've saved some money and supported a great organization.



How do appliances hold up? Not too bad - if you really do your homework.

My mom recently told me how she bought a used George Foreman Grill in really good shape and that her and my dad had been cooking their chicken that way. A couple of weekends ago, I ran across a small GFGrill at Goodwill for $4.99 in amazing shape so I thought I would try it out. This has proven to be a great purchase. It cooks chicken cutlets in less than 5 minutes and still keeps your chicken juicy.

Other than my grill, I bought a paper towel holder that I installed on the inside of my cabinet door. Since it was so cheap, I don't mind leaving it behind when I finally move out (ha! yeah right!)

*A quick way to clean the copper of your copper bottom pots and pans is to cut a lemon in half and shake some salt on the meat of the lemon. Rub this on the copper part and it'll clean right up. This same method of cleaning works for several other things. Here are some of those methods.

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Tonight for dinner:

• Chicken cooked on my George Foreman Grill and then smothered in Stubb's BBQ Sauce
• Corn on the cob boiled in a Revere Ware pot and then smothered in buttah
• Icy cold Dr. Pepper

kern[el]s of corn

My new neighborhood is proving to be the perfect match for me. Between its easy access to downtown, proximity to the grocery store and walking distance to many great restaurants, I feel as if I've finally found home here on the west coast. It's been a hard love to find but as it goes with anything great in life, sometimes it's best when you wait on it.

So here I find myself in the Kerns Neighborhood of Portland, OR. It's an odd shaped neighborhood that looks like the state of New York. We have VooDoo Doughnut Too, the Screendoor, Pambiche, & Ken's Artisan Pizza. If you're into music, we have Laurelthirst and the Doug Fir. Okay. That's a lie. A white one. The Doug Fir is across the street from the Kerns Neighborhood (it's in Buckman) but who's looking this stuff up? Bottom line, I feel like I'm in the middle of everything without having to live downtown. It's my "South End" of Portland. And if you know me, you know that makes me as happy as a warm kitten.

The neighborhood seems to be filled with young professionals. And yeah, there's the occasional family home but for the most part the area is flooded with apartments. What fills the apartments seems to be more of a treat than the spice cake you can pick up at Starbucks on 28th and Burnside.

Molly, my black lab, and I walked down to the park to play an early morning game of fetch. On our way back, we saw four individuals that reminded me of the crazy rednecks from my hometown of Belton, TX. They were hauling stuff out of an apartment into a 1978 Ford F-100 pick-up and looked to be in a chaotic rush to do it. Later on in the afternoon, I went for another walk and saw shattered glass all over the street. What were these people up to? Well, my friends, I had just witnessed hell's fury. Or shall I say...the wrath of a woman.

As I blog, you will hear a lot about the people at the Volvo repair shop. There's a couple we assume live within the shop and work during the day. Bill & Mary are simple people who spend their evenings sitting outside the shop, watching the world go on. They're nice enough to say hi to me when I walk by but grounded enough to talk to the rehab women across the street. So ...yes... the wrath of a woman.

Mary had informed one of the girls in my apartment building that a woman in a fit of rage had moved out of her apartment this weekend. Her boyfriend had cheated on her and within 14 hours, she had her stuff moved out. Fourteen hours is a short time to move out so you can only imagine the damage and junk left behind. The curb was littered with stuff she didn't take with her. And anything glass that belonged to her boyfriend (ahem....ex-boyfriend) now laid in shards in the middle of the street. She signed her Dear John letter oh so craftily. Among the cars parallel parked on the street was one that didn't stand a chance. Mary could only assume this car belonged to the cheater because, you see, the car now possessed a gruesome dent.

Moral of the story, don't cheat.