Pig Roast in Illinois

At the beginning of October, Chris and I flew out to Urbana-Champaign to see the Penn State vs Illinois football game. WOOHOO!! But wait...why Penn State vs Illinois again? Well, Chris's brother is a junior at UIUC, and some of Chris's relatives went to/grew up near Penn State, so it was a darn good excuse to have a family reunion. (Convenient that Illinois is in the middle of the country – we had representatives from Maryland, Texas, North Carolina, and California.)

Key stats for me before this trip:

1. I'd never been to Illinois (outside of O'Hare).
2. I'd never gone to a college football game.
3. I'd never gone to a tailgate.

Let me start by saying that Chris's uncles and their friend Loren did a professional job at tailgating. They got a 110-pound pig (that's 110 pounds AFTER gutting) and they started roasting at 6am (or something crazy early like that).

At first, I was imagining that there would be a pig rotating on a stick over an open flame (like Chris's frat did one year, with fairly gruesome results). But this was, I believe, Loren's SIXTH pig roast, so he knew what he was doing. He brought something called a "China Box" to slow-roast the pig:

The pig is inside the box, and those are the coals on top. I still don't quite understand how the heat went down (heard mumbles about the metal conducting the heat), but here's us enjoying the warmth, the delicious smell of roasting pig, and the beer at about 9:30am. (And yeah, my Advantage Federer shirt was the closest thing I had to orange.)

More pictures of the star:

We had fantastic sides like potato salad and this really great dish of beans, all thanks to Loren. The pig got the only piece of fruit we brought to the tailgate:

And it was soooo tender and yummy. Mmm! I didn't even mind smelling like pig smoke for days after we got back. We invited all the nearby tailgaters to come grab some, since well, we had 110 pounds of pig, but still had three or four gallon bags full of meat by the end of the day. Awesome.

At about 2 o'clock, we all headed over to the Memorial Stadium to see the game. The game itself wasn't particularly competitive, but I enjoyed the marching band:

Oh, and here's my obligatory picture with some corn. We drove by a lot of corn on our way from O'Hare/Midway airports to the university, but this is UIUC's experimental cornfield; apparently it's the "oldest experimental cornfield" in the United States.

Other tidbits from the trip:

• We saw Zombieland, which I was initially very skeptical of, but actually it was a lot of fun!
• We stayed at a bed and breakfast called Akademika, which was excellent. Big comfy room, yummy breakfast, and walking distance to campus, if you're ever in the area and looking for a place to stay.
• We pre-paid for a tank of gas at Enterprise, and brought the car back with the empty light on. Aww yeah. Getting our money's worth, haha. So now you know that a trip from Chicago to Urbana-Champaign and back is one full tank of gas in a Chrysler 300. (Btw, the Chrysler 300 is a terrible car.)

Last weekend, we tried out Loren's bean recipe. It turned out lovely, and we had enough to last us all week! Here it is if you'd like to try it.

Steve's Beans

1 (1-pound) tube regular or spicy Jimmy Dean sausage

4 (15- to 16-oz cans of different types of beans (drained) (dark red kidney, black beans, navy beans, pinto beans, Great Northern beans, etc.)

1 (31-oz) can pork and beans (drained)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup barbeque sauce

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 large onion, chopped

1 (10-oz) can regular of spicy chopped tomatoes, drained (I use Rotel diced tomatoes and chilis)

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

1 teaspoon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

6 to 8 strips of bacon

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large skillet, brown the sausage, breaking it up into pieces as it cooks. When cooked through, remove from skillet and drain fat.

In a very large bowl, mix sausage and remaining ingredients (except bacon). Transfer to a 9x13-inch or other large baking pan. Place bacon strips on top and bake for 1 hour. If necessary, run under broiler to crisp bacon before serving. Makes 15 servings.

Chris had to go to three supermarkets to find Jimmy Dean sausage, though to be fair, he started with Whole Foods and Mollie Stone's, and I don't think that stuff is full of local or organic goodness... Anyways, Safeway was the winner; they had an entire aisle dedicated to Jimmy Dean sausage, haha.

That's about it, but here's all the pics from the trip, if you want to see more!

US Open!! Aw YEAH!

Yup, Chris and I went to New York for two weeks to watch the 2009 US Open!! There's no way I can do justice to the whole trip, but here's an attempt some highlights, at least. We got the Night Plan, which means we got tickets to every night of the US Open, plus all the finals.

Before we went, everyone asked, wouldn't we get tired of watching so much tennis? (That is, everyone except Coach Rick, who was bummed that we "only" got the night sessions.)

Answer: Nope. Loved every minute.

This was the view from our seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium (Section 325, Row W, Seats 9 and 10, our home away from home):

We were pretty far up, but sometimes people left early and we snuck down to take their seats. Here's the closest we got. (See Federer in the background?! This was after he won against Soderling.)

The best match: Dent vs Navarro; not one, but TWO serve-and-volleyers, playing five full sets. What more could we ask for? And Dent is American so the crowd got really into it.

The best drink: The Honey Deuce. Grey Goose + lemonade + Chambord + three honeydew melon spheres on a toothpick (for the tennis balls, awww). Chris has been making these for himself ever since we got home.

The best song: I Gotta Feeling, by the Black Eyed Peas. They played this *every* single night as the players were warming up, and now I can't listen to it without being totally pumped to watch some tennis.

The best shot ever: We were there for Federer's self-proclaimed "best shot ever" and the entire stadium went totally crazy.

Over Labor Day weekend, my blockmates came to New York and got in on the fun!

Since most of us play some tennis, we were psyched to try to get some courts and hit a few balls together. Alas, it's insanely hard to get courts in Manhattan, with the cheapest private courts being $65/hour, and the lines for public courts being over THREE HOURS long! I've never even seen a line for tennis courts before, much less one with 17 people in it.

So instead, we took a stroll along the High Line, which I thought was really nice, but...

Best quote: "Okay, we have these in Alabama too, but WE call them weeds." –Phyllis.

Together, we explored Queens, ate at Katz's, ate Kati Rolls, and played Rock Band. They insisted that I sing...but after one song, I never got the mic back, hrm... :-)

My blockmates got the Holiday Twilight Plan, so they got to enter the grounds earlier (4pm instead of 6pm) which gave Chris and me a chance to wander around taking pictures (and eating more).

Best treat: Lemon Ice King. I never had Italian ice before, so thanks to a co-worker for the suggestion! On the way, we walked past the Queens Zoo and the most packed park I have ever seen; practically every square foot of grass was being used, seriously.

Best landmark: The Unisphere.

As I wrote earlier, this post doesn't do justice to all the awesome things we saw and did (and ate), but come talk to us, and we'll be happy to rant. And we have about 200 more pictures if you want to see them!

Tahoe Hiking Convoy

I wasn't going to blog about this, but then I saw the pictures and decided they were too hilarious. At the end of August, my team got to go on an awesome three-day trip to Lake Tahoe, and we had one morning where we were supposed to plan an activity on our own. Of course, everyone procrastinates like crazy and tries to join someone else's activity when it's clear that it's too late to plan anything.

This left us with ONE activity and NINETY-NINE (99) people. That's right, 99 of us went hiking around Mt. Rose, in what can only be described as a friggin' convoy.

Look carefully at all the little heads disappearing behind the bend. I didn't even catch everyone on camera.

Fantastic few days, plus I won at poker for the first time ever! I keep trying to remind myself that anybody could win with the ridiculously good cards I was getting (I think I got dealt ace-king and then pocket aces in two consecutive rounds at some point), but nonetheless, I am totally hooked.

Chris didn't get to come to Tahoe; poor guy was playing tennis in beautiful Carmel instead. We lead a tough life.

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District Champs!

Congrats to Chris's tennis team, for winning at Districts last weekend in Alameda! The Santa Clara "Bravehearts" dominated the USTA 3.5 men, going 14-1 in their matches.

Chris and his partner Rob won all three of their three matches, and all three were full of nervous moments, with two mini-tiebreaks and two super-tiebreaks. Official scores for the weekend here. I also have a few pictures from Sunday's match and the delicious sushi at Sushi House afterwards.

Next weekend, it's onto Sectionals at Carmel! (And then, to the US Open! Albeit as spectators.) Coach Rick says that Sectionals are even tougher than Nationals, because other NorCal teams are so strong -- especially Sunnyvale. So wish them luck!

Tommy and Tiffany's Wedding

Yup, my little brother Tommy got married last weekend!

Part of me still can't believe he's all grown up and moved out! My dad told a really funny story at the reception, about how Tommy never wanted to get married and move out when he grew up (despite how much I beat up on him, haha). But Tiffany looked gorgeous (in both her white and red dresses!), the church was beautiful, the reception at Ming's was delicious, and we had a wonderful time catching up with friends and family.

Want more pictures?

• Wedding weekend pictures taken by me.
• Wedding weekend pictures taken by my dad.

A couple other momentous events happened this weekend too, independent of my brother:

• We took my cousin Kasandra to an In-N-Out for the first time! Seems like it's famous, even in Georgia.
• Chris and his dad installed the projector on our ceiling! SOO AWESOME! Apparently our stud-finder had been making up lies, which Brian cleverly saw through.
• We hosted PEOPLE at our condo for the first time! Chris and I (mostly Chris) grilled up a spectacular feast for eight (our parents, plus Ayi and Kasandra). I think my parents in particular were impressed that we knew how to cook. :-)

Flatteringly, we got lots of requests for recipes, so I figured I would share them here! Most of them are pretty simple, but really yummy when there's fresh summer fruits and vegetables around.

Salads. We made two salads, both from Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads for the Season, published in the New York Times. We made the first two recipes:

1. Cube watermelon and combine with tomato chunks, basil and basic vinaigrette. You can substitute peach for the watermelon or the tomato (but not both, O.K.?). You can also add bacon or feta, but there goes the vegan-ness.

2. Mix wedges of tomatoes and peaches, add slivers of red onion, a few red-pepper flakes and cilantro. Dress with olive oil and lime or lemon juice. Astonishing.

The only detail that we changed was that we used fresh heirloom tomatoes instead of normal ones.

Shrimp. Chris's mom bought us our first cookbook when we first moved in together in Seattle. It's called How to Cook Everything: The Basics, also by Mark Bittman, and one of our favorite recipes is "Shrimp, My Way":

Makes 4 servings

Time: 20 minutes, plus time to preheat the grill

Be forewarned: This is the kind of dish that makes people eat more than they should. Make extra; I always do.

• 1 large clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon coarse salt
• ½ teaspoon cayenne
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1½ to 2 pounds shrimp, in the 20 to 30 per pound range, peeled, rinsed, and dried
• Lemon wedges

Start a charcoal or gas grill or preheat the broiler; in any case, make the fire as hot as it will get and adjust the rack so that it is as close to the heat source as possible.

Mince the garlic with the salt; mix it with the cayenne and paprika, then make it into a paste with the olive oil and lemon juice. Smear the paste all over the shrimp. Grill or broil the shrimp, 2 to 3 minutes per side, turning once. Serve immediately or at room temperature, with lemon wedges.

Preparation Tip: You might want to skewer these (or other) shrimp before grilling, either for appearance or ease of handling. Metal skewers, which get quite hot, are reusable. Wooden skewers, which are a little easier to handle and can be discarded after use, should be soaked in water to cover for at least 15 minutes before using, to inhibit burning.

Apparently even Kasandra, who hates seafood, liked these!

Wings. Chris says he "winged" the spice mix for the wings (yuk yuk yuk), and just threw together a mix of the following spices without measuring too carefully:

• cumin
• cayenne pepper
• black pepper
• minced onion
• paprika
• salt
• ground ginger
• ground mustard
• garlic powder
• habanero powder

We also threw some peppers, onions, zucchinis, and portobella mushrooms, on the grill, and made some tube-ready crescent rolls, but I doubt any of you need the recipes for those!

Later in the weekend, we went for a nice hike in the Portola Redwoods State Park with Chris's parents, which was great except for the mosquitos, who apparently have a "feeding frenzy" in the summer. Yeah, we should have read that bit before we drove out there without any bug spray, haha. But luckily, since bugs LOOOVE my sweet blood, I was effectively everyone else's bug repellent.

We're really happy that the weekend went so well, and congratulations again to Tommy and Tiffany!