Wisconsin…More than Just Farts and Beer

Tony would like to delight your Tuesday morning with a guest post.  Take it away Tony!

While watching the Packers go down in flames over the weekend (They were humiliated 31 to 45), I remembered back to the days when I lived among them.

The company I worked for wanted to open an office in Wisconsin. I was newly married (first wife) and we looked around the Sheboygan area. We settled on an idyllic home a block from Lake Michigan. In those days the lake levels were very high, so storms would claim a house or two a year. It was near a little town, and that town hated us, so we shopped in the next little town over. They seemed to enjoy our money.

I then went out among them. They seemed friendly enough, but they spoke oddly. They had a different accent that was new to me. It is now immortalized in the movie Fargo. I slowly got to know more of them. We made friends with a Chiropractor and his wife who shared my office. We learned new words like bubbler (drinking fountain) stop –n-go lights (traffic lights). We learned that if you wanted a cola you did not ask for pop, soda is the correct word. I was quite often referred to as a FIB, I suggest you look it up in the urban dictionary, as unlike Biz, I won’t use such language, my Mommy reads this!

I don’t mean this is an insult to all of the Wisconsinites, but some were a tad….slow. I actually had to call the library to prove to my secretary that Sheboygan’s name was not an Indian Chief’s reaction to having another male child.

It was a simpler life, no traffic but to my first wives horror, no Marshall Fields. The malls largest store was Sears. They did open a Wal-Mart right as we left; it was big news in town.

Parties always and I do mean always included bratwurst. I don’t mind brats, but after a while c’mon, daddy needs a friggen Italian beef! Pasta was not widely understood. I learned that ordering it was suicidal. Pizza, oh don’t get me started on the pizza. Also, my Chicago connection automatically made me a mob member. I went to a few Brewers games, and was introduced to tailgating. This is where you bring a grill and drink so much you really drunk before you get inside the stadium. Also, fires rage all around as people dropped their hot coals into trash bins. This was before they spent over $300 million to build Miller Stadium.

My son Joey was born in Sheboygan. We got out pretty quick after that, I was afraid the boy might grow slow. This could cause him to like the Packers. This is not something I could live with. Sexual orientation, hairstyles, whatever makes him happy, but I will not have a Packer fan spring for my loins!

To the Wisconsin readers…I will type very slow now…I HATE THE PACKERS!

Also, to Louise. I know the Packers utter destruction at the hands of mere children must hurt. In my house it was awesome!!

Ha – thanks Tony!  Seriously though, even though I’ve lived in Chicago pretty much my whole life, I had never been to Wisconsin before meeting Tony.  We’ve been up several times and Hannah and I even made a trip to Milwaukee when she was getting in miles practicing getting her drivers license.

And I’ve had the pleasure of meeting blog reader Mel twice – hi Mel!  Congratulations on getting engaged!

Yesterday was the first test run of my new blender!

I will eventually take the stickers off, but I thought it was funny.  I made another Almond mocha green monster.

It worked great!  The best part – having the perfect size travel mug, with a lid!  I do need to get new straws though – the plastic ones kind of never get really clean after a while.  It was nice not having to chew the apples and almonds in my smoothie!

Pinterest was the inspiration for my workout yesterday.  I decided to do the following:

I cannot do bench lifts for my life – my shoulders have no flexibility whatsoever, so I ended up doing 3 sets of 20 tricep extensions.  This surprisingly took me 20 minutes to complete, so I had to reduce the time on my next exercise to 25 minutes:

And for the last two minutes, I had the incline on 20% and the resistance at 8 – I was sweaty when I got done!

Over the weekend I made two point naan bread.  It’s really super easy, you just need to plan ahead – because it does need to rise slowly for 3 hours.

Naan Bread

makes 12 naan – each one:  107 caloires, 3.4 fat, 16 carbs, 1.6 fiber and 8.3 protein.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• pinch of baking soda
• 3 tablespoons almond milk (you could use 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt)
• 2/3 cup tap water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda and yeast together.  Stir in the almond milk, tap water and olive and mix well.  Put on a floured counter and knead for about five minutes.  Let rise for 3 hours.

Using a bench scraper, separate the dough into six pieces, then in half again for 12 sections. Heat up a non-stick skillet over medium-low heat.  Brush just a touch of the dough with the melted butter, and cook each side for about 2 minutes – you’ll know it’s time to flip when you see the bubbles on the top of the bread – kind of like when you are making pancakes.

I love the little charred marks on the naan!  I marinated some chicken breasts in a touch of olive oil, lemon juice (with the lemon rind) and some Greek seasoning and left it overnight.  It was super lemony!  I made a Greek chicken naan sandwich with carrots and apple on the side – with tzatziki sauce for dipping.

And dinner was super quick – easy to do on a weeknight – my Cincinnati chili.  Kim recently made it with ground turkey (and green onions!)

Mine had sliced jalapenos!

Do you notice something that might be missing there?  Kidney beans! While I leave Tony’s bean free, I always add them to mine.  Sadly, they were in the microwave and I forgot, yet I took insulin to include the beans.  I was moping the kitchen floor after dinner and I could start to feel the sweat pour down my back – my blood sugar was 48 – fudge.  So I ate a banana dipped into my granola as my “dessert.”  Crises averted!

Sadly, my jalapenos tasted like and apple – not spicy at all.

I wanted to give a shout out to Jacky who PR’d in a polar half marathon in Chicago over the weekend – way to go!  She was home with her son who was sick yesterday – best line her son said?  “It’s kind of like your my butler for the day!”  Hope he’s feeling better today!

Alright kiddos, you know the drill, off to put my shit together – I have black bean and roasted red pepper breakfast wontons on tap for breakfast – be sure to come back tomorrow for the recipe.