Fried Food and Farm Animals

Last weekend I experienced my first state fair. I had heard a number of different things I was to expect, though mostly people talked about fair food.

The Wienermobile was what greeted us upon entering the fairgrounds. I got to taste the new brand Oscar Mayer Wieners and they went down pretty well.

Compared to prize-winning jam and banana bread the title of best brillo pad artist was.... not quite as keenly contested, but a whole lot more fun to look at.

We made sure that we got in early for the pig racing, almost getting a front row view. There were four rounds, the final one pictured above featuring not the fastest pot bellied swines.

I was told to catch the butter cow. We did. We were impressed. We wondered what becomes of the butter when the fair comes to an end.

We decided against a donut burger. Just in case you were wondering, the meat between those donuts has never been frozen and there is lettuce in there somewhere....

These guys were the undoubted highlight of the petting zoo.

I got some lemonade from here. I didn't get any cheese on a stick.

Fireworks, Guided By Voices and a Bear

This blog entry is a bit late in coming, but it seemed necessary to share my first 4th of July experience and all that it entailed. We decided we would travel back to Pennsylvania to see Kristen's family and because there was work to be done on the freezers at Jenis, I wouldn't have been able to work anyway. We had one of our more pleasant drives east this time, helped by stopping a couple of times; in Zanesville and in the PA state capital of Harrisburg. The trip was, though, even more exciting for the sighting of a black bear on the PA Turnpike. He seemed pretty unconcerned with the speeding traffic alongside him, as he just watched it go by and then scooted off into the woods.

Come the 4th of July, we decided that instead of heading downtown to the main Bethlehem fireworks display we we would drive over to see a more intimate display courtesy of friends of Kristen. PA law states that you are not allowed to launch fireworks that leave the ground and so all the fireworks we had the pleasure of seeing were "grounders". As much as the noise and colors they gave off was fun, even better was the introduction we were given to each by name, before they were lit. Examples included: Wrath Of The Beast, Moonlight Madness, Frog Prince (the one shaped like a frog's head in the picture above) and my personal fave, "One Unbelievable Fountain". The display was a fun time, enlivened by some sort of spinning effort that sent a few rockets towards the crowd of neighbors sat a good distance back on lawn chairs.

Another reason for heading back to PA was to get to see Dayton, Ohio's Guided by Voices... in Philadelphia. Around 10 years ago when I picked up a used copy of "Do the Collapse" in the Replay records in Bedminster I didn't really know what I was starting. I also didn't know that they were about to break up and stop playing together a couple of years later.... and then a few years later that Kristen and I would be living in Columbus, OH an hour or so away from Dayton. After gathering a mere fraction of their back catalogue I was pretty excited that they reformed a year or so ago and waited for them to come over to England. They never did, apparently Robert Pollard isn't too keen on flying. Finally they re-united and started playing shows a couple of years ago, and this year started in releasing new albums, two of three so far.... this year! There seemed no reason not to see them when they announced a summer tour, even if we couldn't make it to any of the three Ohio dates they were due to play.

Even with them playing a bunch of songs from the two of their three new albums, there was still plenty of room for them to play "the hits". Shocker in Gloomtown came early and made me very happy indeed. They came back two or three times, and played something over 40 songs which is certainly value for money. Even though he's pushing 55, Bob still busted out a good few high kicks (here at 1:33) and put away a fair amount of Miller Lite. One thing he couldn't keep up with though was Mitch Mitchell's cigarette smoking ability. I didn't try to keep count, but that he had a cigarette roadie to supply him between, and sometimes during, songs might give an idea of how many he got through! Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we see them again.

The Power is Out, Save the Ice Cream!

We were making the best seller, Salty Caramel on Friday and our supervisor had just commented how quickly we were going and how this should always be the way it is. Then the lights went out. The power didn't come back all night. In between a lot of sitting around and waiting, people that get paid more than me tried pretty hard to come up with ways of saving millions of dollars worth of "artisan" ice cream. There was a freezer team and a number of refrigerated and freezer trucks and we tried pretty hard to load them up as quickly as possible. I got off about 1am and found out that the power returned the next day and the ice cream was saved, excellent. 

Houses and businesses either side of the ice cream kitchen were fine and it was only when I got home and had to pull a huge branch from our parking spot that I realized the storm might have been quite a big deal. It transpired that the storm winds had hit heights of 80 mph. On the Saturday morning we went out for a walk around the neighborhood. Some streets not even a few hundred feet away from us had huge trees down and here and there a few crushed cars too. While walking around we talked to more people than we have in the 8 months since we've been here. We stopped by one of the record shops (the sign above) and we stopped by a store with one of the owners standing on the street corner advertising the free (melting) ice cream, we both picked up a Twix. We continued stepping over branches and crossed different streets, and turned around in a few places as we couldn't get around the 100 year old fallen tree. We eventually got to Lost Weekend Records and had a good long chat with the owner. He seemed to think that it was only him, the Hustler Store and the supermarket that had power in their section of High Street. As we walked towards home we said hi to a load more people in a sympathetic kind of way and overheard the two men with chainsaws being offered "cold ones" by some chap on his porch watching the clean-up.

The Crew game was delayed by an hour while they tried to get power to all parts of the stadium, much to the chagrin of one caller to a local radio station we were tuned to. "Why do they have power crews at the stadium?.... 85% of Americans probably don't even care about the game on the pitch (as they call it)..... there are old women without power..... it's wrong I tell you....." Or another caller; "this storm is God's wrath on us for the decision of the supreme court to uphold Obama's health care decision...."

Back to the game and the guy above was doing his best to be a part of military appreciation night, or just a bit early on the 4th of July. Real (ahem) Salt Lake looked much the better team and passed the ball really well, but failed to convert any of their chances and before they knew it they were 2-0 down to the Crew. That was how it stayed, the fireworks went off and we walked home in the rain, thankfully without the 80 mph winds.

Becoming a bit more American and Making Ice Cream

Finally we are on the way to becoming a bit more American. Firstly, we enjoyed our first Memorial Day weekend in 90 degree plus heat stood on a friend's porch drinking beer and eating BBQ. It helped that the hosts were grilling aficionados and slow-cooked two massive lumps of brisket for something near 16 hours. I may or may not have suffered from something called the meat sweats. I definitely suffered from being bitten by bugs.

As you may guess from the picture above we have also gone a long way to fitting in here in the midwest by becoming owners of a 2003 Honda Civic, with an amount of miles one might laugh at back in the UK. 144,000 sounds a lot, but when people don't consider driving a few hundred miles for an afternoon out a big deal and still try and sell stuff with over 200k, hopefully it'll see us through our next two years here in Columbus.

In the last couple of weeks I have graduated from the labeling department into production at the Ice Cream kitchen. The handmade nature of the product even extends to taking a pint of ice cream in each hand and "tapping" them on an upturned cooking pot. Tapping is important as it gets any air bubbles out of the ice cream. One of the more unpleasant side effects of tapping is the danger of getting ice cream in your eye. You certainly get it in your face, depending on how quickly it is melting will determine just how much of your face and glasses are splattered.

Since tapping, lidding and boxing (the latter two probably not needing too much explanation), I have moved onto "machines". The machines make the ice cream and you (the operator) give it the ingredients to do so. Even though it is pretty hard physical work, the process is relatively straightforward. Basically, pour a bucket or two of ingredients in and tell the machine how long to churn away. What makes this task a good amount more challenging in certain flavors of ice cream is the presence of flecks of white chocolate that have a habit of clogging the machine. Also, making "White House Cherry" involves hand mixing "sugar syrup-plumped cherries" and "roasted whole pistachios". While mixing, though, you need to be sure that the ice cream isn't melting and that it is staying white and not turning purple as a result of the cherries. Fortunately this is a limited editor flavor and will be done with when the president is inaugurated in the fall.

Nuns and Breck Shea's Hair

Call for the Nuns; our home record is pretty poor

Saturday saw us make our way down the road for our first game of this 2012 MLS season. The Crew hadn't given too much reason to be hopeful of three points so far this season, beating two pretty poor Canadian teams and either drawing or losing the rest of their games. After paying $10 last season and enjoying our $5 food voucher, it seemed only right that this season's student tickets were available at $8.... still with a $5 food voucher, can't be bad. The signs were good upon entering the stadium, in that the first people we saw were the ladies above. 

As the teams got around to lining up for the anthems, our buddies in the Nordeke got their various banners in place. It took us until after the game to work out what all the LH's were about. Lemar Hunt passed away a couple of years ago, but a bit of (Wikipedia) research confirms he was a pretty important chap in US sports. As well as coming up with the idea of a "superbowl" he set about founding the NASL in the late 60's, which his Dallas Tornado team won in 1971. After playing his part in setting up Major League Soccer, he took ownership of the Kansas City and Columbus teams, a few years later he bought Dallas too. Think there are probably rules against this sort of thing in most countries. The section of fans near us seem pretty grateful for him and his creating their team and the stadium we were standing in.

Have some of this Brek Shea!

K and I were accompanied to the game by two of our friend's that had never been to a soccer game before. They loved it. And exclaimed, "It's like the fans do the job of the cheer leaders!" I think I was struck anew this time by just how positive the Crew fans are. Overhearing the lady behind me telling her friend why Emilio Renteria was her favorite player: "He just really hustles and tries his hardest, and I just really like him." What didn't seem too important to her was the fact that as a striker he hadn't scored in all nine games this season and could probably have had a hat-trick before he was subbed off in the 83rd minute.

Brek Shea?

Rooney Mara?

At Half Time they were probably lucky to only be one behind. The defenders were pretty much all over the place and with better finishing from Dallas it might have looked a bit gloomier. Brek Shea and his hair were looking lively, but not long into the second half Dallas had a man sent off and the momentum shifted and it was all Columbus. After a great finish from outside of the box to draw level, there was a pretty remarkably headed goal from about 20 yards out, kind of think the keeper needs to take some of the blame for being beaten from that far out. But we didn't care. The Crew closed out the game pretty well and we came home to an ice cream feast.

Jeni's and Working There

I have started work. It's taken me a while, but I finally have a full-time job. For now I have given up on the idea of continuing to mess about with maps and I'm fully concentrating on helping to make the best ice cream in Ohio, and according to a lot of people, the USA. When I was interviewed I knew I would be getting myself into working 3pm - 11.30pm Monday to Friday, but I've been not working for too long to be fussy about such things.

My training started on Monday and we learned a bit about the company and a lot about health and safety. We also learned about their many different flavors. These included a special limited edition selection for the royal wedding last year. One of the four flavors they created was Eton Mess. Our trainer Steve told us that someone had incorrectly labeled it as "Elton Mess", which has maybe a few unpleasant connotations if you think about it too hard. All new recruits start in the labeling department. It became pretty clear that I was in the minority of 30-something year old men. After reading the Employee Manuel I learned that: ...music is an important part of the kitchen.... for that reason the production manager will oversee music selections...  I had read about Miami rapper Rick Ross before, but I can now say that I know him and his (pretend) drug dealing tales of life very well. I'm also pretty familiar with a good deal of other rapping gangsters that I previously hadn't been introduced to. What I wasn't braced for, though, was our early 20's supervisor taking the day off and leaving the one 50+ lady of the kitchen in charge of the iPod. I like some country, but not 8 hours of bad country (songs about Chevy's and how great America is) interspersed with choice cuts of Nickleback, Korn and Metallica.

Even if the majority of my colleagues are at least ten years younger than me ("You're 32?, that's the same age as my step-dad.. though my mom is a bit of a cougar...") it's been a pretty fun first week, sweetened by the fact that we get to take home ice cream that didn't quite fill the whole pint (our now fully-stocked refrigerator, pictured above). My new fave is Whisky and Pecans; really very, very creamy indeed. Also, I can cycle home in about 20 minutes, which can't be bad.

The Obamas and KBS

On Saturday I attended my first political rally. I thought I'd start big and go for the leader of the free world and his wife. Along with K, her friend S, and 14,000 others, we headed down to the Shottenstein Centre on campus to witness what was some sort of strange cross between a pantomime and an evangelical crusade. We arrived fairly early to be sure of getting in (it later transpired this was never in doubt) and waited in line for a little over an hour. When we got inside the arena (shows coming up there include Van Halen and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and through the airport style security, we quickly tried to get as close as possible. We realized that it wasn't going to be all that close. Rumor was that you needed a pass to stand on the floor right up close, or sit much closer than we got, as you can probably make out in the picture above.

There were quite a few warm up speakers before we got the president and the first lady. These included  a couple encouraging us to phone our friends (like, right then, as they waited) to make sure that they were going to vote democrat in November (yes, November is when the election is, this was his first campaign event); I "forgot" my phone. We also got John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the earth and third American in space. He is also a former Ohio senator. The mayor spoke, a minister  prayed and we were getting closer. Blue Obama signs were handed out to those that were going to be behind, or at least within camera shot of the world's media. We didn't get a blue sign. Finally the time came and Michelle bounced on stage to the funky bass line of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." People went a bit crazy. She said a few words, spoke about how hard her parents had worked to give her the chance in life she got and then introduced her husband. The place went crazy again and we settled in for Barack's 40 minute speech. I say speech, but it seemed to be more of a series of statements with pauses left for the appropriate response. Either cheers, for the good that has been done so far and the planned good to come, or boos for any Romney/ Republican related fact/ sentiment. Michelle returned briefly, there was more cheering and we were on our way. One of the stranger ways to spend a Saturday morning.

Having previously mentioned Founders brewery here, I had the chance to sample one of their rarer brews this last week. One of my "ping pong" buddies had managed to secure a four pack of the latest release of Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS) from Founders. People go a bit crazy for this stuff, so much so that they line up around the block in Grand Rapids, MI hoping to be able to hand over $114 for a case. People went away disappointed this year, even after the brewery decided to sell only 1/2 a case to each person waiting. They have, as a result, tripled their output this year. The beer is aged for a year in bourbon barrels and stored in gypsum caves under the city. It seemed that there may be the danger that the story and the limited quantity of the beer goes before the taste, but fortunately this wasn't the case. It really was a proper stout, poured like molasses, tasted like vanilla and caramel to start, with chocolate and coffee flavors coming through at the end. I was still tasting it hours later.