I dunno what they are doing in Knoxville, but I thought I’d make my own obit with some photos to stand as a permanent post for my father, Richard Andrew Pratt.
Since there will be no services for him, I felt I should make sure that there was something coherent written about him that google would find if someone searched.
The obituary and a small slide show of photos is permanently located on his page here.
I ran across a sweet potato chile soup recipe online and I liked the idea, but not that particular recipe. So I made my own! This soup is luscious and sweet with the potatoes, but has a nice smokiness with the chile – a very nice combination. This recipe makes about a quart. If you want more spice, use a couple of serrano chiles rather than poblano.
Angela’s Sweet Potato Chile Soup
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 med onion, diced
1 medium poblano, fire roasted, seeded and diced (poblano is not spicy, but adds nice smokiness)
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbl butter
1 tsp cumin
about 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper
~2 cups stock (veg or chicken)
~3/4 cup heavy cream
zest and juice of one lime
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
sour cream for garnish
Put a 2 qt or larger pot over med heat. Add butter to melt. When hot, add in onions, garlic and the chile and sweat (do NOT brown). When onions are translucent, add in the sweet potatoes, lime zest, cumin and salt and pepper. Cook a couple of minutes then add in stock to cover veg by about an inch, about 2 cups +/-. Bring to a simmer and cook until the sweet potatoes are cooked through and soft; about 15 minutes.
Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender (or move to regular blender). Check seasoning then add in the cream – use more or less, as you like it. Add in lime juice and cilantro and check the seasoning again. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.
WE’RE BACK!!
That is the overall feeling of this con for us. We hung out with new peeps (Deb! Andy! Brian! et. al.) and we reestablished bonds with old peeps. It was GOOD. For the first time in years, we feel like we’re back into the social world! We were fat and depressed for many years. Now we are NOT. And that, my friends, is an amazing feeling. I need to throw a party!!
Friday was our big night. We hung out with Debbie et. al., for most of the evening, then our cutie TayTay showed up and the shenanigans began! Tay and I took a ride while Nick took care of us. We were back and forth between Hyatt and Marriott a lot, but ended up mostly at the Marriott motor lobby smoking area. The weather was beautiful with a nice breeze, so it was nicer outside than inside. Nick and I finally got to the truck at 1:30am, then promptly got locked into the damn pay lot on P’tree Center. The stupid gates were not working!! No attendant!! No phone numbers listed to call for help!! Calling for help on the ticket machine didn’t work!! GAH!! So I figured I’d at least try to push up the gate by hand – and by some miracle, it worked!! We thought we’d have to disassemble it. I found that if I pushed up on the gate, it would raise for about 4-5 seconds – long enough for one car to zoom through. By this time there were two more cars trapped with us, so I did the gate for Nick and the other two cars to get us the FUCK out of there. I hope the other ppl in that lot figured it out, too. Yes, I wrote a scathing email to the Lanier people about their shitty deck. Hopefully I’ll get a refund, but I doubt it.
We skipped Saturday at con, but did take Ted out to dinner at Pig & Pearl at Atlantic Station. I like that place! As we were driving Ted back to con (I took Romeo out so Ted could meet him!), we witnessed a head on collision at an intersection. It was slow speed, no airbags or any of that, thankfully. Dumb girl turned left in front of oncoming traffic, then almost hit me. We were not amused. I called 911 to report and of course the idiot operator began grilling me about the accident: What kind of cars? What colours? How many people? I’m like, “What part of I AM DRIVING do you not understand?? I’m just REPORTING the accident so you can dispatch some cops!!” She kept on so I hung up. Of course she called back and I didn’t answer. It is SO annoying to be grilled for info by the 911 operator when you’ve already said you’re DRIVING AWAY. It’s like they want you to turn around and go interview everyone for them. Yeah, NO, how about you send a COP or two to do your damn job? UGH.
Sunday was a HUGE day for us as well. We had to walk everywhere to do things, then handle the panel for Billy Mitchell and Walter Day. I’m happy to say that the panel went extremely well! About 3/4 full, lots of questions, A/V ran fine. Got to meet Kevin the Video Gaming tracklord and it turns out we’ve a common friend from back in the Derrydown days! LOL SMALL FREAKING WORLD!! Then we took Billy, Walter and Brian out to dinner to White Oak Kitchen – another place I highly recommend. It’s right across from Hyatt. It ain’t cheap, but it’s reliably good. We dropped about $350 on entertaining guests this con, but dammit, it’s our last hurrah before unemployment, so I think it’s money well spent. No regurts. ;)
Yesterday was con wrap. Had to get the rooms handled and paid for, then cruise the vendors and small press areas. Said HI to our comics buddies and said goodbye to Ted. Then we came home, got in our baskets, ordered pizza and watched stand up and movies the rest of the evening. It was glorious!
I put this on FB earlier, but it really belongs here:
I am happy to report that my body did GREAT this weekend! I got a couple of mild blisters from the massive walking on Sunday (not a shock, the Doc Martens don’t fit well), but overall, I’m not sore and I didn’t really need to rest much all weekend. Guess all the exercise is working! I even did a LOT of stair climbing w/out muscle failure! The scale says I “lost” 4# and am back to 179, but a lot of that is likely dehydration (despite my best efforts). My weight had crept back up to 184, but I lost a jeans size (to 12), so I guess I’m finally building some muscle. Whew, thank gods, I was sick of being weak! I did walk a SHIT TON, tho, so hopefully I can stay in the 170s! My big goal is to hit 170 even – I’d really like to achieve that! I can see size 10 from here! W00t!!
Now shout outs to everyone who made our con amazing this year:
Taylor
Heather
Russell for the treats
Randyyyyyyy! We look forward to talking about that project! Call me!
Debbie and co.
Brian H
Andy
Allen and co.
Ted Naifeh
Billy Mitchell
Walter Day
Kevin the Con Tracklord
Ben from Derrydown!!
Steve the EMT who helped the drunken boy get home
Amanda Oh! Great to see you!
Anna great to pass you in the street!
Lewis, as always
Robert from Imperial! We’ll come see you soon!
Shell and co.
Suzann – sorry we missed Pet!
And to everyone we missed: we’ll keep trying! Any of y’all going to Momocon? We can see you there!!
We will be doing Momocon in May 2018, so plan to hook up there if you’re going! We’ll also be doing Southern Fried Gaming Expo in June 2018. Find us! Site, FB, Twitter, IG.
This is a lovely Mexican pork dish, traditionally a shaved meat akin to shawarma. I made it like carnitas, but with pastor flavours. I do not crisp mine up, but it would be excellent crisped up if you feel like the extra step. I skimmed a few recipes and came up with this one. You’ll want to marinate the pork for at least 4 hours – I did mine overnight. You could do this in the oven at low heat (325F) if you don’t have a crockpot.
Crockpot Al Pastor
~2# Pork Loin Roast, cut into chunks (if you get a big 4# one, double the marinade)
Marinade
1/2 white onion, large dice
1/2 can pineapple chunks, reserve juice (in juice NOT syrup)
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tbl apple cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1 Tbl chiles in adobo (I really like La Costeña diced chipotles in adobo. They are med spicy. See photo.)
In the crockpot
1/2 white onion, large dice
1/4 can pineapple chunks, no juice
2 bay leaves
2 guajillo chiles, dried
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 c chiles in adobo
big splash pineapple juice
big splash orange juice
S/P
remaining pineapple chunks
1/4 c cilantro, fresh, chopped
Instructions:
Unwrap and cut up the pork loin roast, season with S/P. Put all marinade ingredients into food processor and pulse until you get a thick loose paste. Put pork and marinade in a plastic bag and let it sit in the fridge for at least 4 hours (I recommend overnight).
When you’re ready to start the crockpot, turn it to HI and spray with nonstick spray. Add onion, pineapple, bay leaves and guajillos to the bottom of the pot, then layer in the pork, try to keep it one layer. Put next 5 ingredients over the pork, then add in the marinade. Cook for about 5-6 hours.
When the pork is done, it will pull apart easily. You’ll need to skim off about 2/3 cup of liquid from the pork once it’s cooked, or your sauce will be too watery. Skim off as much liquid as you can, check S/P, then pull the pork apart. Remove the bay leaves and guajillos. Add in the cilantro and crush up the remaining pineapple into the finished pork. You’ll need to adjust salt and you may want to add more chipotles if the spice level is not to your liking. I like my pastor to be mostly citrus rather than chipotles and adobo.
Serve with tortillas, black beans, sour cream and salsa.
I think I’ve found a trick to keeping intake down with VSG (aside from the obvious restrictions). If I have breakfast then fast until late afternoon (or until I start to feel hungry – which is a different feeling than it used to be, FYI), I can’t really eat much after that. It’s sort of like, if I eat bigger meals, I can eat more at a sitting than if I just eat snacks. I’ve got no scientific evidence of this, of course, but it seems to be the rule with me.
Yesterday I was busy and didn’t get a chance to eat until after 3pm. I’d been feeling that weird hurty/hunger feeling that you get after VSG, but didn’t have time to eat until I got home. When I did finally eat, I could barely get a chicken wing down. About an hour after that, I had some crackers. The restriction even went through dinner at 6:30, I had a very small portion, but was hungry again at 8 – which seems to be normal for me.
So, for me, the trick is to graze all day rather than attempt “regular” meals. I try to keep to low carb for the most part. I’m also trying HARD to get my protein intake back up. My snacks right now are: nuts, lunch meat, cheese sticks, salad, soups and crackers. Plus dinner. I’m also trying to have one Protein Plus bar a day, which is 20g of protein in a small snack.
I’m upping my exercise to 4-5 days per week, so getting in that protein really needs to happen. I’ve been very lax about monitoring what I eat, because that was the reason to do VSG in the first place: NO DIETING. But I need to build muscle, and the only way that will happen is if I get more protein, so I gotta do it.
I’ve heard some VSGers worry that grazing will end up with a higher calorie intake that trying to have regular meals, but I don’t think so. I think it’s better to nibble and keep your blood sugars steady than to try to exist on the standard 3 meal a day plan. It seems to work for me, so I thought I’d share. :)
