Smoking and Super Heroes
December 27, 2008
Yesterday I put my new Christmas present, a smoker to the test. We also decided to have a Super Hero movie marathon to watch three relatively new movies that we hadn’t yet seen.
I spent a fair amount of time yesterday getting the meats ready to smoke. I had decided to smoke a top loin pork roast, some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and some pork baby back ribs. I prepared a cure or a marinade for all of them and let them sit over night.
I decided to smoke the meats with apple wood. After warming up the smoker, in went the pork. I had planned to smoke the pork roast for 6 or 7 hours. A couple of hours later, the ribs went in, followed by the chicken a couple of hours later. All three were smoked at a temperature between 200 and 220 degrees F.
A fair amount of smoke was thrown up throughout the day and it sure smelled good. We had a mixture of rain and snow throughout the afternoon and the smoker did fine holding the temperature of the inside. And the taste of the food???
The food tasted wonderful. The pork was just absolutely perfect. It came cooked to a very nice white with a nice smoke ring around it. The taste was my favorite of the three. The ribs and chicken were also very good. We now have enough food to eat for a week. Everyone, except for Sean, really liked the flavor of the meats. He was a bit less enthusiastic. I now look forward to using my new smoker to try a bunch of other things.
During the evening and night, we enjoyed three recent super hero movies. The movies were Batman – Dark Knight, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Of course, all three were Blu Ray versions of the movie. The hands down winner for our family was Iron Man.
All three movies make you suspend belief and reality. While the Academy Awards are likely to disagree with us, Batman was the least enjoyable of the three. Also, the movie just seemed too long and could have ended at several points along the way. Heath Ledger was very good as the Joker, but the movie was not quite as good and seem fixated on him. Iron Man was just more enjoyable and kept you fixated on the storyline the whole way through the movie.
It was kind of funny to see The Hulk feature a few moments of Iron Man in it. I think the two movies may have set themselves up to do a combined follow on movie that features the two super heroes from it.
We had a forth “super hero” move, Hancock, but ran out of energy before we could get to it. So, we will view it later this weekend.
Barcelona and Transatlantic Cruise 2008 – Day 4 – Barcelona
November 29, 2008
Today was our last full day in Barcelona as tourists. We planned to sleep in again if necessary and then tour Montjuic, a coastal mountain fortress with spectacular views and wind up the night at the Magic Fountain, a water and light show near the Museum of Modern Art.
As usual, I awoke earlier than the rest, about 8. It was 10:00 before everyone else was up. Savannah and Suzanne decided to go shopping while Sean and I enjoyed another movie. This time, Savannah got the coat she was wanting.
Both kids had worked fairly hard throughout the year to earn money for the trip. We had told them after the Alaska cruise last June that we were not going to buy them a single thing on this vacation/cruise. We gave them plenty of opportunities to earn allowances and additional money for chores and tasks. Both kids earned and saved almost $200 to bring with them for souvenirs.
A bit after noon, we headed out for Montjuic and lunch. After wandering around aimlessly for a couple of hours, we ended up another Tapas restaurant that her cruising friends had recommended. It was a decent lunch, but generally I have been underwhelmed with the food here compared to Germany and Italy (more on that in a later post).
We then grabbed a taxi and headed up to Montjuic. The cab took us to the cable car to complete the ride up the mini-mountain. It was a nice little scenic ride, but a bit short for my liking for $40. The time spent at the fort was fabulous. The views were absolutely stunning. On one side, you could see the Barcelona harbor and the Mediterranean. On a couple of other sides, you had the most scenic views of Barcelona that you could imagine. Still yet, on the fourth side you could see the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. The views were quite breathtaking and the couple of hours spent up there were the best of the trip thus far.
We had planned to spend the evening at the magic fountains. They are at the bottom of the mountain/hill that Montjuic is on. We decided to walk on down and end up at the fountain show. However, we again ended up again walking around aimlessly without really seeing anything of interest. It was Suzanne’s first failure as tour guide though not nearly as bad as it probably sounds here.
We ended up at the fountains about 90 minutes prior to the show. Both Suzanne and the kids were feeling pretty cold as this was the coldest day for us in Barcelona. Both kids voted to head back to the apartment and forego the magic fountain display. So, we grabbed a cab and headed back.
After getting home, everyone except me was feeling pretty puny. They all decided to forego dinner and hang in the apartment. I decided to venture out and get some food. I returned back to the apartment about 2 hours later after a nice, long walk and dinner in a local establishment. After returning home about 9:30 pm, we enjoyed another movie and a couple of glasses of Catalunya white wine to close out the day.
Tomorrow, we board the Celebrity Summit to start our cruise.
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