So my in-laws are visiting. This is the first time my father-in-law has left Japan so evidently he REALLY liked Sean when they visited. First let me pretext by saying my father-in-law grabs the bull by the horns when it comes to trying new stuff. He loves to try things and have a good time. I bet he would have been a good friend of mine if I had met his younger self at college. Anyhow we are visiting my parents this weekend. On Saturday we went fishing. He was amazed my folks owned a boat because in Japan you have to be pretty dern rich to own a boat. We fished and he caught 2 blues, a croaker, and various bait fish. Dad caught a skate (not a sting ray) and some bait. I caught 2 I threw back because we had enough bait, and a crab.
Today we shot the gun. He had a hunting license before Mayumi was born and had let it lapse since having a hunting license in Japan is a major PITA. Mayumi, Father-in-law and I shot. Mayumi has a natural shooting ability. Her groups were consistantly tight with the odd stray bullet. She didn't miss the target once out of three boxes of 22 shells. I did fairly well. My groupings were good, I didn't miss the target and I was consistantly high and to the right. Part of this was because I misunderstood my dad when he told us it was shooting a little high and aim low, I heard aim high. Anyway I was to the right. Her dad wasn't bad. He missed the target a few times. Groups were OK with more odd shots than both Mayumi and I together, but hey, he is a little older. Mayumi mentioned that maybe we should start looking for a place for recreational shooting. I love my wife :)
For dinner tonight we were going to go to my parent's favorite BBQ shop. Unfortunately they close early on Sunday and were already out of BBQ when we called. We went to this other place that Mom had been told was good. The Q was... well.. fair. Her parents just picked at it and obviously didn't care much for it. Neither did Mayumi, Mom, Dad or I. I did, however, enjoy the collards. I got a side to go because it isn't every day I get to eat collards. Tomorrow we go to Beaufort/Morehead city. I will be taking them to El's for a shrimp burger, hit the Sanitary for lunch or something, and show them around the old hunting grounds. Look here is where I used to live. Ok, it is actually the corner lot three houses north in that pic. Here is the pizza hut. That is about it. I'm sure we will drive around some and look at boats, houses, front street and such but overall that is what Beaufort was to me. Not much excitement left in that little town for me at this stage.
I am enjoying this trip much more than my Mother-in-law's last trip. If you recall she and Oakel got in to a little misunderstanding and it just seamed to stick the entire trip. This time they seem to be getting along nicely. Oakel has been hugs and kisses the entire time. Sean is, well, 6 months so he is full of other juices as well. Here is to hoping that everything holds out until Friday.
I made pie. Generally I don't bake but I have been wanting to cook recently and a recipe caught my eye. Generally I'm a cake guy with the exception of pumpkin pie. I will eat apple pie from time to time but given a choice I go cake. Well I recently stumbled across an interesting southern fact I didn't know about. Confederos. Well I posted on a forum and someone posted a recipe for vinegar pie. Well, I thought to myself, that sounds nasty enough to eat. So I went to the store, bought a pyrex pie rest, and pie crust (not gonna make that from scratch yet) and cooked. Overall it tasted mostly like a lemon meringue pie without meringue, and something else. I used apple cider vinegar which may have affected the taste, but overall I enjoyed a slice of it. I don't think I could each much more at a sitting but one slice was all right. Here is the recipe as well as the comments I left on the board.
4 eggs beaten
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp flour
1 cup cold water
2 1/2 tbsp butter (warmed to liquid)
5 tbsp vinegar
Sift flour and sugar together. Add water while stiring the mixture.
Add the butter and mix. Spoon in 1 tbsp at a time of vinegar until mixed.
Stir in the beaten eggs.
Put on stove over medium to slightly below medium heat stiring constantly until about the consistancy of batter. pour into pie crust and bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes. The pie crust will turn golden which will indicate that the pie is done.
I am not a very good baker and my custard wasn't perfect. Little bits cooked into scrambled eggs so I used a skimmer to pull out the cooked parts when I poured the custard into the pie crust.
I think I would like to make some savory pies. I've never had meat pies or the like so I think it would an interesting flavor and an interesting new hobby.
I'm also going to start cooking pear preserves. I'll post about that as I do it.