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We swear we followed the directions. 

One of our favorite restaurants is in Denver Colorado called Vesta Dipping Grill.  Not only do they have a wide selection of proteins; seared tuna, grilled lamb, smoked duck, of course chicken, and my favorite madras grilled venison.  They have vegetarian choices as well. *suppress yawn* 

What makes Vesta Dipping Grill unique however is, you guessed it, the dipping.  My G’d the dipping.

To accompany your entrée you select three dipping sauces from over 36 dipping sauces (37) in three categories: Sweet, Savory, Spicy with names like Blake St. BBQ, Wasabi Cream Sauce, Steuben’s Chimichurri. 

Each dipping sauce, and they make pairing suggestions for you if you’d like, creates a completely unique experience for every bite. Many times the dipping changes your meal into a completely new dish.

The reason we bring this up is because one dipping sauce stood out from the rest.  The almighty “Black Pepper Aioli.”

Just hand us each a spoon.

And so we set out.  The directions were easy enough.

• six cloves garlic: pressed.  
• two yokes: yoked.  
• olive oil: half cupped.
• pepper
• simple - blend garlic and yokes. drizzle oil.  constant beating until thick.  Add pepper

What’s to mess up?  ’Parently plenty.

All we could taste was the burn of raw garlic swimming in a mess of a mayonaise.  Our Aioli sauce had an outcome that the recipes didn’t mention.  It sucked balls.  We added more oil. Wrong.

We wish we had a better outcome to report. We did try again and simply cut the garlic in half. Nope.  Still sucked.

The only thing we can think of, cuz we’ll be trying this again, is our choice of olive oil.  We think we bought a cheap brand.  Garlic is garlic.  Egg yoke is egg yoke.  But oil… there’s the rub.

We went with Extra Virgin First Cold Press.  For those that make this well (and you’re probably not reading my post about it anyway) you may recognize this as my mistake.  To be determined.  For we are determined.  To make my Black Pepper Aioli Sauce NOT blow.

Wine was good – that’s what’s really important. 

We want to hear from you! Tell us how it went for you on making a restaurant favorite!  

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No secret here who we voted for! As we have with every single debate, we are going over to a friend’s house for the election today. Being big on “theme night,” I looked into what Obama likes to eat. Now, there wasn’t too much out there, so what I found could have been all lies. Anywho, here is what I found: favorite restaurant is “Italian Fiesta Pizzeria” in Chicago and his favorite food to ‘make’ was chili. 

So, it was pizza or chili for us. From the title, you can see the final vote on food was CHILI. We slow cooked it in the crock-pot for 8 hours and served with cheese and sour cream. 

It was yummy. I usually will post a picture of the dish we make, but Chili is never a pretty picture. It just is not. I won’t say what I think it looks like, but it is the reason you hold a girlfriends hair back for her. 

Now Barack Obama on the other hand is very easy on the eyes to say the least and makes for a great picture. Don’t even go there and say that I am voting for him to gaze at his hunk-ish mug for four years. It is just the cherry on top of the white house. Mmmmm…cherries

I did a search recently for “sear oven steak.” (Wow. Fascinate me.) Top Chef made me hungry for a thickass cut of steak that I just couldn’t shake. I’m not a huge fan of reality shows per se, but watching people revel in their element… always captivating and inspiring to me. Anyway, this past season one contestant, we’ll call him Spike, made this incredible looking tomahawk steak, so called. I’d never heard of a tomahawk steak prior but now its forever branded on me brain.

As I remember he prepared it over an open flame. We’re in a condo so… open flame not really an option. But some of the others put a rippin’ pan sear on their cuts of beef and placed it in the oven. I’d never seen that technique before. I’d always thought the best way to cook a steak was open flame grill style. Maybe it is, but without that as an option, I recalled the top cheffers.

So, “sear oven steak” turned up CHOW.com Food. Drink. Fun. I gotta say, I liked it right out of the gate. We’ve got big print. Big illustrations. Short. Sweet. Exactly what you need when you’re under the gun time-wise. Or adult A.D.D..

I also found another great blog post “How to Turn Cheap ‘Choice’ Steaks into Gucci ‘Prime’ Steaks.” from the very funny SteamyKitchen.com. I found it to be a terrific method to use during the “before you grill remove the chill” time when you let the cut sit at room temp for a bit before you actually cook it.

The hybrid of these two ideas made for a great meal and I didn’t have to shell out for a pricey Dry Aged Long- Bone Ribeye aka tomahawk steak.

Walking to the grocer with two bunched up empty canvas bags under your arm is a kind of uncool only surpassed by walking back with two full canvas bags one of which has a floral print on it. See figure A. It’s just plain unsightly. I thought “there must be a more masculine, less humiliating way to stop wasting plastic grocery bags by the hundreds” (300-700 per average US citizen – that means you too buddy). “Blam”! It’s a thunder bolt of genius at the crosswalk. What if we designed an exact replica of the standard plastic grocer bag out of a lightweight ultra compatible nylon?!

A guy could shove a few in the pocket. Head off to the store. Everyone would be none the wiser as you stroll in empty handed. Do your thing. Then saunter out with your foodstuffs stuffed into a regular looking bag that just so happened to be made out of reusable nylon instead of waste-able plastic. Brilliant! A million dollar Donny Deutsch big idea!

A couple of half attempts at doing a google search for “reusable grocery bag”s later and we’re off to, sorry gents, Joanne Fabrics to find some Nylon. All I could really find in the search was the oversized canvas tote type bags that are really cumbersome. At the fabric store, turns out Rip Stop Nylon might make for a good reusable, easily condensable grocery bag. Maybe make the tag out of an elastic to wrap the whole thing up when it’s condensed.

Head home. Break out the wifer’s sewing machine. Take a regular plastic grocery bag. Cut it carefully apart to make a kind of pattern for the nylon. Cut the nylon accordingly. First road block. How does a person sew this thing together so it’s strong enough? Maybe have to hire someone. Mmmmm, that might start costing some real money now. Perhaps I aughts to do a little better search for my “breakthrough” idea before investing more.

That’s when the wind came out of the sails. I think the first time around I really didn’t want to find anything like it so I made it so. However, this time around I found allotta options. Ugh. Shipwrecked. To make matters worse the wifer came home and said there was pretty much the exact design at the end of each checkout that stuffs neatly into a pouch. It has a handy dandy clip too! Again, selective eyesight. it’s the grocery store we frequent.

So anyway. I’m way late to the party. But here are a few of the many folks already there:

Granite Gear – Air Grocery Bag

ACME Bags™ – Workhorse Style 1500 Reusable grocery bag.

ChicoBag™ – The Original ChicoBag

Baggu – Reusable Shopping Bag

Here’s what led us to onramp the InforMEtion Superhighway.

Everybody else’s blogs got all up in our faces. “Blog” this… “blog” that. Blah, blah, blog. How about blahg? That’s what all this inforMEtion seems to be at times. We wanted a way to document our life’s goings on. Not so much day to day what-we-did lists, but what’s crossing our minds at what points in time. Also, we, or at least I, want to learn what the all the fuss is about. Blogging doesn’t seem to be going away. Seems a growing beast.

Clearly I don’t know too much about it. There are the blahgs that are about nothing but “Hey this is how I spent my time in uzbekisganza. See my hair is braided with shells!” Cool. It’s like an online scrapbook for friends and family. Fair enough. Then there are the blAHHHgs. Those blogs that make a positive impact on society with their in depth news gathering and reporting. The fact that someone’s blog has exposed this or that politician or brought light to this or that issue and bettered peoples lives. This amazes me. Truly power of people.

Then there are the really cool blogs that simply share great ideas and tips on life and living. They make this wide world seem like a little community. It’s like having some really smart neighbors from whom to learn.

I’m not sure where this puppy will wind up. Yet. I hope to learn a bit; have a laugh; lighten up; and drink some great wine through it all. And stop watching so much G’d damn TV.

Jack & Jill…and Spot will be with you shortly! Just getting our pales of water in order.

Jack & Jill…& Spot