Archives for May 2011

How the Sausage is Made

May 22, 2011 by

As promised in my Porkapalooza V invite, I have been experimenting with making homemade sausage.  Today I made Spicy Chipotle and Cheese sausages and smoked them on my cabinet smoker for a few hours.  They were very good!  Tender, tasty and fresh!

Hopefully with this success I can start to make sausage more often.  It’s a great use of the meat grinder and sausage stuffer Amanda got me for Christmas.

Filed Under: Cooking Tagged With: ,

30

May 18, 2011 by

Time is an artificial barometer we use to indicate success and failure.  We draw a line in the sand and judge all of our achievements based on where we stand when we hit that deadline.  Meet your goal before the alarm goes off and you are considered a success.  Miss the deadline and you have either failed outright, or you have already adjusted your expectations to aim for something more realistic. Depending on your motivation and self worth, expectations can be adjusted indefinitely or forgotten entirely as time passes.

Today I turn 30 years old, and for some reason this has always been the age I have used to judge successes and failures.  I have no idea why, but I never set any goals for myself to be achieved by 40 or 50 or even 35.  I just never thought of life beyond 30.  The thought of getting this far seemed light years away, so most of my explicit goals were to be done by the arbitrary age of 30.

As long as I can remember, there have been two overarching goals that were centered around 30:

  1. To travel to 6 continents before I turn 30
  2. When I was 18, I told my Grandpa that I would become a millionaire by age 30

I wrote about the first goal of world travel extensively last month, having achieved the goal mere months before my self-imposed deadline.  I have written nary a word of the second goal in this blog or elsewhere, as to be so would likely create more negative reaction than I could fragilely handle at any point in the previous 30 years.

I write about it today only to share in my failure to achieve this goal.  I do not have $1 Million in US currency in the bank.  On the very date I was supposed to celebrate my financial achievement I am publicly admitting defeat.

Why am I doing this?

Because even while admitting failure, a failure I am not.  Setting a big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) and laying a foundation to meet this goal has mixed my lifes achievements into a cocktail of experiences and fiduciary responsibility.

Chasing my goal helped me get out of debt.  It allowed me to quit my dead end job and join Three Deep as a consultant.  It afforded me the opportunity to meet so many great people over the years and find my voice both personally and professionally.

It has humbled me as I watched a company I helped build make the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies, all while achieving the title of the 9th best place to work in the Twin Cities.  Creating jobs and watching Three Deep grow from 5 people to 35+ people in the worst recession of the past several generations.  This is worth far more than money.

Throughout all of this, money has really not factored into any of my career or personal decisions since I quit “working for the man” in 2006.   Its only influence has been in motivating me to quit in the first place.  That decision alone has put me in a position to someday achieve my arbitrary goal.

And the money will come.  I have just adjusted my expectations to something more realistic.

Filed Under: Random Tagged With: ,

Porkapalooza V or Jeff’s 30th Birthday Extravagana

May 16, 2011 by

40 years ago Jim and Fran Sauer set foot in America for the first time.  After leaving a war torn place called Loompaland, they were taken in by an eccentric confectioner and given well paying jobs in a factory.  At the time they only spoke in sing-song form, which was great for teaching lifes lessons to their young children.

7 years ago Jeff left the factory to start a new life in inner-ring suburbia.  The songs were growing tiresome and he just wanted to pursue his passion of cooking.

6 years ago he made a failed attempt at inviting a ragtag group of friends to his house to cook a feast of golden egg laying geese.  Things were going well until a little brat named Veruca Salt ruined it for everyone.  Also, it turns out that the meat of a golden goose doesn’t taste very good.

The next year Jeff decided to change things up a little bit and focus on cooking only the tastiest of meats of the porcine variety.  The smiles on everyone’s faces when eating ribs and pulled pork sandwiches were too much for Jeff; he cried for the first and only time that day.

Over the years this gathering of pork lovers has come to be known as Porkapalooza – a time to celebrate with friends and family, and feast on the expertly prepared pieces of pork.

With each year of Porkapalooza a new introduction is made.  Last year it was the bacon explosion, which was loved by those who lived to tell about their explosion experience.

This year Jeff has decided to take things to another level by grinding fine cuts of pork into sausage and smoking over fires of hickory and applewood.

As a friend or family member, you are casually invited to “see how the sausage is made” at Porkapalooza V or Jeff’s 30th Birthday Extravaganza.  We would love for you to attend.

Please reply to this invite if you will be able to attend.  It would be appreciated if you could bring a side dish or a dessert.  Alcoholic beverages will be available, but in limited quantities, so please consider bringing those as well.

If you weren’t already invited, I would love for you to join. RSVP here: Porkapalooza RSVP

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Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: