Black Hand Productions

Pig Roast at The Southern

January 21st, 2012 comments: 0

Today I headed over to The Southern to partake in their weekly Pig Roast. All through January The Southern has been doing Pig Roasts at 3pm each Saturday. For $12 you get all you can eat roasted pork and sides until it’s gone. For a winter day with 6 inches of snow on the ground it was a great crowd and quite possibly the best deal in town. The setup was great, they pushed together two hightop tables and Chef Cary Taylor carved the Pig as everyone in the bar formed a line. The bartender said last week had a bigger crowd (less snow) but it seemed like everyone had a chance for a seconds.

I can’t stress how amazing this was for only $12.

Pig Roast at The Southern

Side Notes:
* Julie and I stopped by The Southern on Wednesday night for some live music and that’s how we found out about the Pig Roast. That night I had the Fried Chicken Dinner and it was also great.
** The Southern will do a pig roast to order for groups of 10 or more. I’m looking for 10 people right now.

New Years Eve 2012

January 3rd, 2012 Comments Off

We decided to stay in for New Years Eve with a couple friends and I made a valiant attempt at cooking a Prime Rib Roast we picked up at Paulina Meat Market. Long story short, it worked out pretty well. I think it could have been a little less done but nonetheless it was good.

Roughly following this recipe I set the 6 lb. roast out to rest for about 3 hours, then preheated the oven to 500°F. The roast was rubbed with kosher salt, pepper and butter on the sides and then put it in the oven. The roast sears at 500°F for about 15 minutes and then finished at 325°F for about an hour and a half. I let the roast rest for about half an hour and then carved away.

Side Note:

* We also made a Jameson caramel sauce to pour over brownies and ice cream.

5th Annual Santa Pub Crawl

December 19th, 2011 Comments Off

This past Saturday the big man hit the streets for the 5th Annual Santa Pub Crawl. We updated the route this year by avoiding Southport and instead made a trip around Wrigley Field. Everything was going great until our crawl crossed paths with the 7th Annual Sweatpants Crawl at Bernie’s. At that point we were surrounded by lame people in sweatpants. A girl proposed to purchase my Santa suit for $100 (I found this highly insulting). We moved on to Murphy’s Bleachers where unfortunately the Sweatpants people where already there. At Murphy’s an evil wench tried to rip off my beard and some kid tried to steal my hat.

Regardless of these outbursts we had a good time and the more limited crawl kept me functional throughout. We took time for photographs outside of Wrigley, and Sports Corner and Goose Island were great starting points for the crawl.

Side Notes:

* I might have hit the end of the line when it comes to Santa Pub Crawls.
** Previous Santa Pub Crawls: 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.

Philadelphia Hockey Trip

December 12th, 2011 comments: 2

This year for our annual Hockey Trip we headed to Philadelphia for the Flyers – Penguins game. This was supposed to be the most ‘hostile’ environment we’ve yet experienced, but oddly enough it was the most subdued crowd we’ve seen yet. I’m sure this had a lot to do with it being a Thursday night and the entire row of Eastern Europeans who sat behind us but nonetheless it was a manageable crowd experience. Also Crosby was out so Flyers fans didn’t have anyone to boo.

The Pens started hot for about three minutes and then they basically didn’t compete until the third period. With that being said, we were one lame three-bounce-goal from pulling even in regulation. Malkin looked good but held onto the puck too long, Letang is sorely missed and Jagr looks like a 40 year old hockey player.

After the game ended we all headed towards the mens room which once again attests to how placid the crowd was. While waiting in line we learned that Ben Roethlisberger had torn his ACL and was down for the year. Moving forward I will try not get my news in public restrooms.

Nodding Head Brewery

Nodding Head Brewery as you would assume is filled with wall to wall bobbleheads, kind of reminded me of home. We ended up catching the tail end of the Steelers – Browns game and to our surprise Ben was still playing. I tried the Sled Wrecker and then moved on to the 3C which was one of the better beers I had all weekend.

Cheese Steaks

As the night came to a close we soldiered on to partake in cheese steaks. We grabbed a cab and headed over to Pat’s Cheese Steaks and Geno’s Steaks. I wasn’t aware they were both 24 hour establishments, so we were able to have sandwiches from both to compare and contrast. There were only three of us for this part of the trip so we ended up ordering two sandwiches from Geno’s and three from Pat’s. To say Pat’s is better than Geno’s would be a major understatement. Either way we suffered ‘Geno’s Revenge‘ the next afternoon.

DiNic’s

After we got up and moving around Friday morning we headed over to Reading Terminal Market to checkout the shops and then to get a DiNic’s Roast Pork sandwich. I have to say this sandwich was much better than the Cheese Steaks from the night before.

Liberty Bell

After lunch we continued on our walk of Philadelphia checking out the Liberty Bell. The display has recently gone through a renovation and the tower it used to be housed in at Independence Hall can be seen through the screen in the photograph above. I think it is a really unique way of displaying the bell and once the renovations of the bell tower are complete it will be a stunning setting.

Yards Brewing

After another epic Furman March which took us under three highway underpasses and a series of block houses that were transplanted from Belfast we ended up at Yards Brewing. The majority of our party was not too high on making this trek but I think we were all pleased we did. In addition to Yards’ regular beer line up they had the ‘Ales of the Revolution’ beers which is where I focused my attention. I had General Washington’s Tavern Porter and Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale.

Craft Ale House – Limerick, PA

The Craft Ale House was a late addition to our itinerary by Josh’s mom who clearly knows a thing or two about beer selections. Craft has one of the larger bottle lists I’ve ever seen and it’s basically a liquor store as well where you can create your own six packs. I had a Wipeout IPA and the Jai Alai IPA. This was one of the highlights of the trip.

Victory Brewing – Downingtown, PA

In addition to the Hockey game, stopping at Victory Brewing Company was a priority destination. Their brewpub is a large warehouse type building with a couple large dinning halls and a good size bar. We ended up getting a drink at the bar and then grab a table for dinner. The food was as good as the beer. We ended up getting three growlers filled for the road. You can see the amazing sophisticated growler filling station in the photograph above. I’m pretty sure it was from the future. With dinner I had the Donneybrook Stout, a Storm King and the Victory Lager. It was the first time I’ve seen either the Lager or the Donneybrook Stout which was about the smoothest stout I’ve ever had.

Side Notes:

* The View From My Seat.

** Kyber Pass is an intriguing place to say the least.

**** For some reason these are the standard growlers people on the East Coast use. They look more like artillery pieces the beverage containers if you ask me.

***** Most likely my 2011 4th of July card.
****** Past Hockey Trips: Boston – 2010 and Washington – 2009.

BIG TEN Championship Game: Wisconsin – Michigan State

December 5th, 2011 Comments Off

On Friday we drove down to Indianapolis for the inaugural BIG TEN Championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium between Wisconsin and Michigan State. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen a Football game indoors. That stadium was great, though I would prefer an outdoor game. We had decent seats in the upper level and I don’t believe there’s a bad seat in the house.

The crowd was evenly split between Michigan State and Wisconsin fans and there were a good portion of other BIG TEN fans throughout the stadium. To start the game they had both bands merge and play the National Anthem which was a nice touch. I’ve never been to a bowl game so this was a unique experience to see this many fans from different teams at one game. With the game going back and forth throughout, the momentum of the crowd would shift accordingly. I liked how they set the bands up near the corner of opposite end zones.

Wisconsin took an early lead and then Michigan State rallied by way of going for the two point conversion and carried the lead until late in the game. Wisconsin converted a 4th and 7 and then went ahead for good. Michigan State attempted a late rally but took the penalty you can’t take just as they were about to get the ball back. Wisconsin held on for the won 42-39 comeback win.

The inaugural BIG TEN Championship game had an attendance of 64,152. The other championship games had the following attendance:

ACC - 73,675
PAC 12 - 59,376
Conference USA - 32,413
BIG 12 – 58,141 (defacto title game between Oklahoma State – Oklahoma)

Considering Wisconsin and Michigan State aren’t quite the ‘marquee‘ teams in the BIG TEN I thought it was a great showing and an amazing game atmosphere. I can only imagine what an Ohio State – Michigan Title game would be like.

Side Notes:

* The View From My Seat.

*BIG TEN 2011 award winners: Marvin McNutt – Iowa, David Milk – Michigan, Brett Maher – Northwestern, Braxton Miller – Ohio State and Devon Still – Penn State.

* Gatorade Shower, Coaches Handshake, and Trophy Presentation.

*This was the scene before the game in the Men’s Room. Clearly this Wisconsin fan was a little concerned about the badgers chances.

* This young man just finished punching the blue plaque behind his seat approximately 20 times after Michigan State was flagged for ‘running into the kicker’ to effectively end the game.

Kansas City: Steelers – Chiefs

November 30th, 2011 Comments Off

This past weekend we took a road trip Kansas City for the Steelers – Chiefs Sunday Night Football game. During our time there we managed to hit a couple of BBQ joints, the National World War I Museum and we experienced one of the best tailgating scenes in the NFL.

This was the third Steelers road game (2007 & 2009) I’ve attended and the first Steelers victory. The game wasn’t exactly an example of stellar play by either team but I’ll a take road when when I can get it.

Arrowhead Stadium was all it’s been made out to be. The atmosphere was exciting, the Chiefs fans were great and the wind wasn’t too bad. We had good seats and as usual were around a decent amount of Steelers fans.

Short Buses

I’m not sure why but Kansas City fans prefer short buses when it comes to their tailgating vehicle of choice. More short buses in one place than I would have imaged possible.

National World War I Museum

Since the game was a night game we had the better part of the day to check out a couple of places in Kansas City and the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial was on the top of my list. I can’t remember how I found out that the museum was in Kansas City but it’s only about a mile from the center of downtown. It was well worth the five minute cab ride.

The memorial site was dedicated on November 1, 1921 (the planning began within two weeks of the Armistice being declared to end the fighting in World War I) in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 people. In attendance were the Supreme Allied Commanders during the war: Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium; General Armando Diaz of Italy; Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France; General John J. Pershing of the United States; and Admiral David Beatty of Great Britain. The memorial sits on a hill across from downtown and if you travel to the top of the monument you have the best view in Kansas City. The museum actually sits under the monument and is really well layer out. The exhibit hall is set in chronological order in a circle and then on the outer wall are artifacts from the war that correspond to the timeline.

Union Station

On our cab ride over to the WWI Museum our driver mentioned checking out Union Station to see the bullet holes that are still there from a shootout in the 30s. I think we found the bullet holes on the east side of the station but Julie disagrees because we didn’t see the plaque. The shootout is referred to as the Kansas City Massacre which occurred on June 17, 1933. Several gangsters, including Pretty Boy Floyd, were attempting to spring their recently captured colleague Frank Nash who was in the process of being transported back to the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth.

Arthur Bryant’s

Before the game on Sunday we headed over to Arthur Bryant’s for some Kansas City-style BBQ. I thought the pulled pork was solid but I’m more a fan of ribs in Memphis.

Side Notes:

* In suburban Chicago we came across the Scottish Plumber, if you look closely in the photograph you can see he’s giving me the bird.

** The Sprint Center where the Kansas City Penguins play in a parallel universe.

*** The View From My Seat at Arrowhead Stadium.

**** Ed Hochuli was the head of the officiating crew.
***** Most of the game photographs were taken by Julie and are on Flickr.

Thanksgiving 2011.

November 25th, 2011 Comments Off

Yesterday we cooked our first meal in the new place which happened to be Thanksgiving. Like in years past (2009) we fried the turkey but this year we used my new Masterbuilt Indoor Electric Fryer. The indoor fryer is by far an easier way to fry a turkey. Same cooking time, less oil, equal amount of danger and I can’t stress this enough: dishwasher clean up.

The bird turned out great along with all the other food. We also finally got around to trying a couple pies from Hoosier Mama Pie: Apple and Hoosier Sugar Cream.

Atlantic City

October 25th, 2011 comments: 2

This past week Julie and I headed to Atlantic City for a wedding which we turned into a long weekend. Neither of us has ever been before but we’ve heard a lot about it. As usual with our travel plans we decided to stay an extra day (Thursday) instead of a dealing with the traffic and hanging out in New York for a night. During our time in Atlantic City we tried to stay out of the casinos (neither of us really gamble and a smoked filled room full of zombies is not my idea of fun). The plan was to see the actual city so we mostly checked out places we read about in this article from the New York Times: The Atlantic City the Boardwalk Emperor Knew. We managed to book a night at the Chelsea Inn Bed & Breakfast for $60. The place was perfect, if not for the hassle of canceling the other hotel the day of I think we would have just as soon spent the whole weekend there. They have a 24 hour pub that serves food throughout the night. The bartender and the locals were great for conversation. The Inn gave us two free drink coupons and we ended up finishing our night there at around 1am with some great fried chicken. It was really one of the better bars we stopped at the whole trip.

After checking in we drove around town for a little bit and then checked out the boardwalk before heading to dinner at the Knife and Fork Inn for dinner. The food was great and it reminded me of the Library Restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We ended up watching all of our sports at A Damn Good Sports Bar at the Tropicana. It by no means was great and at 10pm Saturday night it turned into a dance club. That being said they had $5 Yuengling 40s so it worked.

On Saturday we spent our morning hitting up the wide selection of outlet stores and then checked out the rest of the boardwalk on the way to the Irish Pub at St. James Place. The highlight of the walk being the giant Monopoly Board (the game board for Monopoly is based on the streets in Atlantic City). We stopped at Farlinger’s saltwater taffy and avoided being hit by seagulls for most of the walk. The Boardwalk reminded me of Coney Island in Brooklyn sans the guy fishing with chicken leg bait and a lot more massage parlors.

We stopped at Dock’s Oyster House with the plan of grabbing a drink and a bite at the bar before heading back to the Tropicana for football. The bar only serves food from the Raw Bar so we asked about getting a table in an already packed dinning room. The hosted squeezed us into the first table outside the bar and in the main walkway but it was fine and everything worked out. I’m pretty sure they keep that table open for people such as us. The waitress was great and the food was good.

* Side Notes:

*Before and after the reception we hung out at the Tun Tavern Brewery which had a pretty solid selection of beer. I was a fan of the Leather Neck Stout.

** On our way to the wedding we swung by the grave/tomb of Nucky Johnson which is the person the Nucky Thompson charecter is based on in the Boardwalk Empire series.

*** $5 Yuengling 40s. It’s hard to explain my astonishment when the bartender offered this as a special.

**** These photographs don’t quite do the hairdo justice. Not to mention the guy spent the evening with his elderly parents playing video poker at the only sports bar in the city. All very weird.

***** On Sunday we hit the trifecta. We spent the day in Queens, heading over to our hold neighborhood where we scored pastries from Gian Piero Bakery at 1pm (unheard of), tracked down Piazza Pizza for a slice (which changed locations) and then headed out to Strawberry’s Sports Grill for the Steelers game. Where as you can see in the photograph above that Julie found the trip worth while.

2nd Annual Lobster Bake

September 13th, 2011 Comments Off

To mark the end of summer we had our Lobster Bake this past Sunday. We used basically the same process as last year but on a smaller scale. Since there were only six of us (and five lobsters) this year we opted to go with smaller lobsters so everything fit into the single pot with just the propane burner. No need for two pots or any boiling. I set the single pot up on the burner, filled it with about an inch of water and a good amount of Kosher salt. I have a steamer rack that fits the base of the pot, on top of that I added the seaweed, then the corn and potatoes and then the lobsters with the clams and sausage going in last. The entire cooking process only took about 15 minutes and everything was good to go.

This year we pushed everything back to mid September so that it would hopefully be cooler out. Last year it was closer to the end of August and it was still really hot, plus there were a ton of flies as the shells started to stack up. Also, we moved to a Sunday evening instead of an all afternoon/night affair. Everything turned out really well and it seemed to be very simple.

Side Notes:

* In the bag of seaweed we used for steaming I found this tiny crab. He was let go in the backyard to fend for himself.

** We made smores on the grill for desert.
*** Much like last year’s Lobster Bake we got all of the seafood from Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet Shop.
**** Most of the awesome food photographs were taken by Bedford who moonlights as photog for Town & Country.

Year of Baseball Concludes.

August 11th, 2011 Comments Off

My Year of Baseball has ended. I started out on this journey as a way to give Baseball as a sport more of a chance and to put Football out of my mind for 4 months. It worked in both regards. I attempted to keep score during each game to varying degrees of success which kept me much more involved in following the game play by play. It was fascinating to see a couple of the newer ball parks in contrast to the two oldest. It’s also interesting to see how each area/neighborhood around the park is setup. All the while I ignored the NFL Strike/Insane Free Agency.

Year of Baseball by the Numbers:
Being that it is Baseball, I kept my own stats throughout this experience. I’ve seen seventeen games in seven different stadiums with an average ticket price of $36. The most expensive game was Cubs – Yankees ($80) and the cheapest was the Sea Dogs – Mets minor league game ($9).* The farthest I traveled for a game was 918.9 miles (Coors Field), the shortest was 0.7 miles (Wrigley Field) and the average distance was 227.5 miles. The oldest ballpark I visited was Fenway Park in Boston at 99 years, the youngest was 2 year old Citi Field in New York. The average ballpark age was 48 years. On this odyssey I had a total of 49 beers (averaging a mere 3.3BPG*). The highest temperature game was the Boston – Mariners game at 100°F, by contrast the coldest was the third Cubs – Mets game at 42°F.

Here’s the complete list of games I attended:

Nationals – Mets in New York on April 8th

Cubs – Rockies in Denver on April 17th

Twins – White Sox in Chicago on May 3rd

Rangers – White Sox in Chicago on May 17th

Indians – White Sox in Chicago on May 19th

Dodgers – White Sox in Chicago on May 21st

Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 24th

Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 25th

Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 26th

Tigers – White Sox in Chicago on June 4th

Mets – Pirates in Pittsburgh on June 11th

Yankees – Cubs in Chicago on June 18th

Mets – Sea Dogs in Portland on July 19th

Mariners – Red Sox in Boston on July 22nd

Red Sox – White Sox in Chicago on July 30th

Yankees – White Sox in Chicago on August 3rd

Yankees – White Sox in Chicago on August 4th

Throughout all 17 games Julie and I kept score with the Eephus League scorebook, always adapting our methodology and penmanship. At many times it made the game go faster and more enjoyable.

Side Notes:
* BPG = Beers Per Game
** The least expensive Major League game(s) were all four White Sox games in May ($14).

View Year of Baseball in a larger map

*** With more than 3,868 miles traveled these are the stadiums I visited.

Recently on Twitter
Nik Bronder on Twitter
Currently Browsing
Currently Reading
Links

Recently on Twitter

Currently Browsing

Currently Reading

Links