50!!!
whoo whoo!!!

I am on vacation at Seagrove Beach Florida with wife Katie and having a mellow birthday!!!

Perfect weather, ahhhhhh…

What a beautiful day at the beach.
It doesn’t look like a hurricane could be brewing down south…does it???

You have noticed that I have not been posting as frequently as usual lately. Well last week we put a boy in college, hosted blur of events and caterings, and now I am on vacation in Florida with Katie.

Actually, I thought it would be another week before I would be able to post. The real estate company told me there would be no wireless internet in the apartment we are staying. Well, when I turned on my laptop, somehow, I have wireless internet and am not asking any questions.

We are staying between Panama City and Destin Florida at a place called Seagrove Beach. Tropical depression Fay just moved through and there is Hurricane Gustav south of Cuba that may hit the gulf by Sunday. The good news is we will probably have a good weather “window” from now ’till then. As a matter of fact, the weather is already looking a lot better than our arrival late yesterday.

The view from the balcony at the one bedroom apartment we will be “chilling out” for the next week…

More to come later…

Until Brent, our older son, leaves for Ball State. We are sending him up Thursday so he can move into the dorm with us following up Friday with more of his belongings.

We are close to our boys, very close. We live, work, and play together. I am afraid when Brent leaves in a few days a part of us is going to leave too. This house will not be the same with out Brent here…

If you would ever visit our house I would bet you have never entered a home with a family that is less interested in organized sports than ours. Not a single piece of sports memorabilia anywhere in the entire home. None of our family have ever been on a sports team, none of our televisions have ever been tuned to a sports channel. We don’t know the names of any of the sporting teams or even know or care which sporting season we are in.

But when it comes to the Olympics…

We can’t keep our eyes off the games. Katie and I are becoming sleep deprived staying up late to watch the events.

It is hard to put into words why we find the Olympics so different than organized sports, but a few thoughts do come to mind…

To watch the cumulative life efforts of these amazing athletes; all their hopes and dreams, realized in a few moments, in front of the world, brings tears to the eyes.

The world coming together and putting aside political differences in celebration of these magnificent young people; mankind in it’s finest hour.

A line in the Jaycee Creed comes to mind when I think about the Olympic Games:

“That the brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations”

Wednesday The Pines hosted the One Chamber Square Picnic in downtown Seymour. The free picnic lunch is provided for Chamber of Commerce Members. Different business sponsors or “hosts” volunteer to provide the food and service for the picnic for business recognition. The One Chamber Square Picnic is held on Wednesday Noon during the warm weather months at the One Chamber Square, Downtown Seymour.

The Pines had been contracted several times in the past to cook for hosting businesses. Being Chamber of Commerce members, we felt it was time for The Pines to host the event ourselves. We wanted a menu that would give our local business people a chance to taste some different flavors from our usual buffet selections we offer at The Pines and The Evergreen Room.

The menu was as follows:
Teriyaki Skewered Chicken
Smoked Pork Ribs
Greek Seasoned Char Grilled Chicken Breasts
Pasta Primavera
Grilled Pineapple Spears
and for dessert: Persimmon Pudding

Everything (except for the dessert) was cooked on site, in the street in front of the Chamber of Commerce Building.

The weather was beautiful, and the food was excellent; everyone loved the variety of flavors. We served 285 guests, a large event for the One Chamber Square. All the tables were full and people were eating their lunch sitting on the steps, the benches, and the sides of planter boxes.

We brought our camera and took several pictures of the event.

Here is a picture of the cook team, myself in the middle with my son, Brent to the left and Charles to the right.

Here are some shots of us in action cooking in the street:

Teriyaki Skewered Chicken

Pineapple Spears on the grill.

The serving team, left to right, Kimberly, general manager of The Pines (Charles on the cook team is her husband), Becky, our food banquet and catering manager, and Brenda, the Evergreen Room manager and event Coordinator.

Mom and Cinda, our office manager, were checking people in:

My sister, Mary Beth, says I never put her picture in the Web Log entries, well, here you are, MB !!!

Brent looked like a model for “Happy Chef” chef attire.

A few candid pictures of the day… (click on them for a full sized image)

That’s right…there is some of the world’s greatest corn out there at the road stands just a few miles from you house. (if you live in Indiana).

Everyone has a way to cook corn. Actually, fresh corn is really hard to screw-up. It tastes so good that all you really need to do is apply some heat, some butter, some salt and you have some great tasting corn.

In this Blog entry I would like to tell you the way I cook corn for The Pines (and our guests at home).

It is so simple. I get the fresh corn the way it comes out of the field, you know, husk on. I put it on the grill… that’s it…yup…right out of the bag onto the grill. Let the outside husks get blackened, turn it a few times, and now it’s done !!!

Put them in an igloo cooler off the grill and they will continue to steam and (if you want) will hold for HOURS !!!

Get a pair of farmer’s gloves, you know, those brown cotton gloves. Put them on and shuck the corn. Hold it firmly at the base with one hand and strip the husks and silks down the side. Many county folks leave all those shucked husks gathered at the bottom as a “corn handle”. If you don’t want to go that route just twist and snap all that off at the base of the cob.

Dip the corn in melted butter, sprinkle some salt and feast!!!

Now you may hear about soaking the corn in water, salt water, sugar water, etc, etc, blaa blaa blaa.. I have done it for years and tried these things; with good fresh Indiana corn, all that fuss makes little or no difference…trust me.

Now go get some corn, fire up your grill, and cook corn the way nature intended.

Corn on the grill, with ribs and chicken, of course!!!

Using gloves to “shuck” the corn.

Just got back from the Valeo Sylvania outdoor catering. The weather was great!!! It was a great success, everyone loved the food. We have done so much work for these people for so many years, I feel like part of them.

We (actually my son, Brent) forgot the digital camera so I had to take a couple of pictures on my cell phone. It only has about a 2.0 mega pixel so it is a little rough.

I would like to write more, but after a thirteen hour day on my feet going without a break, I am quite frankly, too tired to write in detail about the day. I want to fix my favorite beverage and take a shower.

So many things I want to write, so little energy…
(they told me I would start “feeling” these marathon catering sessions in my latter years,… I think the latter years are here)

Here is a picture of the set-up. Those pop-up tents sure are handy.

Here is the cook team. No, nothing is on fire. They have a batch of hamburgers on the grill and deep frying fish at the same time.

Valeo Sylvania…1,000 people to feed at Ceraland Park tomorrow noon.
Wedding Reception at the Evergreen Room for 350.
A class reunion catering at the Elks Club in Columbus for the class of ‘63 for 125 people.

Last year it was sweltering hot at the Valeo Sylvania picnic.

This is a picture of the cook team taking a break at last year’s picnic. We cooked fish, corn dogs, fried biscuits, and hamburgers onsite. We smoked a whole hog and cooked a variety of side items to complete the meal.

The whole smoke hog displayed on our older grill, “Blackie”.

Long buffet line-up.

Thank goodness it is going to be a pleasant day tomorrow.

April 8th I wrote an entry about a Backyard Barbecue. In this post I included a couple pictures of a loyal customer of ours from Louisville by the name of Mr. Tom Silver. Well, we had another Backyard Barbecue yesterday and Tom Silver came back to visit us again.

Tom took pictures at The Pines and sent them to me last night. I am glad since I didn’t have my camera with me yesterday.

Tom writes:

A nasty flu bug aborted out planned Goldies Opry & Moonliter Weekend. Fortunately, we recovered to 80% health by mid-morning today for a 54 minute dash to “The Pines” at Seymour, Indiana. We’ve critically Duncan Hines’ (taste tested) “The Pines” since mid 1970’s to help keep their Hoosier eats up-to-snuff.

Meet Katie Hall, cheerful Pines Owner & Greeter & Operator, with Third Generation Husband, Mike “Pines” Hall, a marvelous Professional Specialty Cook, Extraordinaire.

This is a picture of Tom Silver at The Pines back in April.

This is a picture Tom sent us a while back. This is what he is normally going to, or coming back from, when he visits us at The Pines.

Doesn’t that look like fun ???!!!

These are a few of the pictures that Tom took at The Pines when he ate there Sunday.

This is a picture of the carving table just after Brent carved for the onslaught of hungry customers that descended on the buffet.

(What makes everyone sooo hungry on a barbecue event?)

On the left you see our Top Round of Beef; cooked to perfection.

On the far right you see the Brown Sugar Glazed Ham; lots of fans of the Ham on Sunday!

In the middle is on of the featured Barbecue Entrees of the day, Texas Style Beef Brisket!

This is a picture of Katie at the hostess station.

Next week Catfish and Swiss Steak as the featured entrees !!!