Mission BBQ

Mission BBQ opened its doors for business on September 11, 2011, the brainchild of two friends who are patriotic for Our Country and passionate about BBQ, on the tenth anniversary of our world changing forever.  Sandwiches include the Pulled Pork shown below, brisket, chicken, and sausage.  Baby Back ribs, chicken, and salmon headline their smokehouse selections.  The children's menu includes smaller, slider versions.  The food is great and the service top top-notch.  You can view the rest of the menu for the Dayton store at the following link.

https://mission-bbq.com/locations-and-menu/dayton

Cast Iron Griddle

We've upgraded the griddle on our GE Cafe stove with the cast-iron version you see below.  The one that came with the stove was a coated aluminum version, but after making our weekly Oklahoma Onion Burgers, that coating is just about gone.  This griddle was seasoned several times by heating it up, applying oil, and letting it cool down.  It's about twice as heavy as the old one, but it's worth it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJV1GNB7

ThermoPro TP50

We needed a second thermometer and found the one you see below on Amazon for $12.  I like the humidity sensor, and while you can barely see it in the photo in the upper-left-hand corner, it displays a smiley face when it's comfortable.  It also displays the range of temperature and humidity, which is useful if you are trying to see how it varies across a hot summer's day.  They also make a model for $36 that includes WiFi connectivity, which would be very nice if you're away from home often.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H1R0K68

Wall Of Tomatoes

Just down the street on Marshall Road is the house pictured below.  It's kind of genius to use the south-facing wall of your home, with just a foot of dirt between the house and the driveway, to grow tomatoes.  I don't know the variety, but growing plants over six feet tall is pretty amazing.  

The Practice Center

The scenic golf course picture below is at The Practice Center (TPC) in Franklin, Ohio.  It's an executive course (i.e., par 3s) and a great way to practice your short irons since most holes are less than 130 yards long.  It's not tour quality, but again, it's meant for practice, not tournaments.  And, unfortunately, the geese find it a pleasant place to gather.

So if you're traveling south on I-75 and notice a very large driving range on your right, you've found TPC.

http://www.tpcgolf.com

Original Jerk BBQ Sauce

Gourmet Chef Elaine picked up the bottle of jerk BBQ sauce at Dorothy Lane Market and used it to kick up our evening meal of sautéed Kielbasa, and it was a delicious choice.  The sauce is both spicy and sweet, and would pair well with chicken or other types of sausage.  If you're looking for something a little different, this sauce, or any jerk BBQ sauce, is something to try.

Lock Your Phone Number

A recent Clark Howard article (link below) discussed scammers who attempt to transfer your SIM card identification to their phone.  If successful, they can use that to bypass any two-factor authentication that involves sending a text message to your phone, since it will go to their phone instead.  Clark goes on to strongly recommend you lock your SIM card with your cellular provider.  The procedure varies by carrier, but I was able to quickly find it with my provider, Google Fi.  Still looking into how/if I can do this on Total Wireless for Gourmet Chef Elaine.

https://clark.com/cell-phones/why-you-need-to-lock-your-phone-number-today

Farmer's Market

The picture below is just a small portion of the Farmer's Market located at 4404 Wagner Road, which borders Kettering and Beavercreek.  Map it out before if you pay them a visit, as the entrance will sneak up on you if you're not prepared.  It's very quaint, laid back, and their prices seem much better than other options.  When you get there, if no one is around, just wait a little while, and someone will wander down from the house to help you.

Twenty-Seven Cents

Martinis and Oklahoma Onion burgers have become our Monday cocktail and dinner combination, and the biggest mess is the splatter from the burgers on the uncovered sides of the gas stove.  I solved that by using a sheet of aluminum foil on both sides of the grill, as shown below.  That has saved Gourmet Chef Elaine the time it takes to clean that up, but I wondered whether it was really worth it.  So I did the math.

The 2.5 square feet of foil times the cost of $0.11 per square foot equals $0.27.  

Definitely worth it.

HEIC Viewer

Gourmet Chef Elaine received a photo with a ".HEIC" (High Efficiency Image Coding) extension, presumably a picture sent from an iPhone or iPad.  Her Windows PC (I love her anyway) could not open the file, so I had her send it to me, figuring my Mac (I love my Mac) would handle it, which it did.  For the more technical types, a HEIC file is typically half the size of JPEGs for the same image quality and offers additional features (e.g., multiple images) that make it superior.

It figured that somebody somewhere had created a solution for Windows, and sure 'nuf, the free (I love free) HEIC Viewer is available on the Microsoft App Store.  It's from Duckhead Software, and they offer a range of useful image and video converter software. However, only a few are free, with the others ranging from $0.99 to $9.99.  Find the HEIC Viewer at the link below.

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n490gv4j2xl

Awesome Cheesesteak

This cheesesteak you see below puts all others I've ever had to shame.  Expertly cooked on a Blackstone grill, the onions, multi-colored peppers, very thinly sliced steak, and melted cheese on a soft and hearty hoagie bun delivered the taste.  

Big shout-out to our friends Dan and Kim for this delicious dinner!

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

For the last 3-4 years, my favorite bourbon, Buffalo Trace, has been on allocation, meaning it has been very hard to find.  It's now, finally, off allocation, and while I find it at my local liquor store more often, nothing beats a trip to The Party Source in Bellevue, Kentucky, and finding the display you see below.  These stacked cases brought a tear to my eye (and 2 bottles in my shopping cart).  Glorious!

https://thepartysource.com

Flagpole Fix

We love flying Old Glory, but our biggest problem was the flag wrapping itself around the pole.  It had pole rings that were supposed to allow the flag to spin tangle-free, but they were not doing their job.  The biggest issue was the screws that held the pole rings in place being too big.  I found new pole rings at the Amazon link below that work much better, and added some WD-40 lube to decrease the friction on the pole rings.  It's 99% better, and when it does wrap around, a light tug on the flag quickly puts it back in place.  

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2PKJ5VW

French Doors

We replaced the French doors from the dining room to the deck in 2019, and I'm surprised I didn't blog about it at the time.  We love having our windows open and getting a breeze through the house, and we tried a couple of different external screen options on the previous doors, but neither worked well or lasted very long.  I searched for quite some time until I found the Venting Patio Door you see below at Home Depot.  The bottom glass panel on each door can be raised, and the fixed screen behind it lets in the breeze and keeps out the bugs.  Unfortunately, Home Depot no longer carries this door, so I hope this lasts a long, long time.

Planter Selections

Gourmet Chef Elaine likes to try something different in her tall planters, and this year's selections resulted in the stunning splashes of color you see below.  The purple flowers are Aria Blue Angelonia, the orange flowers with green leaves are Glorious Orange Celosia, and at the small cluster at the bottom right are Golden Oregano.  It's tolerating the day-after-day scorching temperatures and occasional downpours this summer has brought.  

Chipped Ham and Egg

Our Pittsburgh family likes to bring us a pound of their local chipped ham (i.e., very thinly sliced) when they visit.  They mentioned how good it was grilled, so for lunch, I created the seared chipped ham, fried egg on toast sandwich you see below.  It was really good and a pleasant change from my normal routine of bologna sandwiches and leftovers.  

Peach Milkshake

When Gourmet Chef Elaine saw that Chick-fil-A had peach milkshakes on the menu, yours truly just had to go and drop $5.15 for the bundle of joyness you see below.  It's a combo of Chick-fil-A Icedream dessert, chunky peach puree, whipped cream, and a cherry.  It was so chunky that I had to replace the straw with one of my wider-diameter straws.  It's a limited-time summertime menu item, so don't wait to treat yourself.

https://www.chick-fil-a.com/menu/treats/peach-milkshake

Riley Green

We saw country music star Riley Green at the Fraze, and as you can see from the photos below, it was a sold-out, packed house.  Everyone stood for the entire concert and the energy was electric.  It was one of the nicest weather evenings we've had this summer, adding to the enjoyment.  Country music is alive!

https://fraze.com

Adding Debit Card to Apple Wallet

I appreciate the contactless feature on credit/debit cards, where you simply need to place the card on the reader, eliminating the need to figure out which way to slide it or locate the chip reader slot.  But our Universal 1 debit card doesn't have that feature, but you can go contactless by adding it to your Apple Wallet.  Now our shopping trips to Meijer can be done entirely with Gourmet Chef Elaine's iPhone.  While this feature is also available on Samsung Pay, Google Pay is not supported for payments, so I'm out of luck on my Pixel 7.  Drats.  

How to set up is at the link below.

https://www.u1cu.org/digital-wallet

Cook Mode

For those of you who use your iPad while cooking to display recipes, the Cook Mode feature found on some websites, such as Food and Wine, shown below, is a welcome addition.  It simply stops your screen from dimming or turning off while it's enabled.  You can achieve the same effect by going into your settings and turning the battery-saving feature off, but it's much easier to simply click the checkmark.  

Being the curious techie type, I wanted to know how Cook Mode works.  It's accomplished by using the Screen Wake Lock API (Application Programming Interface) that's available in relatively recent versions of all the major web browsers.  Not that any of you really care about that...

https://www.foodandwine.com/cook-mode-recipe-feature-8713147

The Food Dude

I wrote about The Food Dude last year on a blog with their lemonade, and this year they get another mention for their fully-loaded Smashburger.  Two patties topped with cheese, bacon, pickles, jalapenos, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce between a pretzel roll bun.  The potato chips were appreciated, but frankly, there was no room left in my tummy to eat more than a couple.  Check out their Facebook page at the link below to find when and where they will be making these beauties near you.

https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Food-Dude-Street-Eats-and-Catering-LLC/100091404420448