My Bucket List of Golf Courses for the Next Ten Years

If you come here for food, I'm afraid today you are going to be a bit disappointed because today's post is all about my other passion, golf.

This past weekend was one of my favorite tournaments of the PGA tour season, the ATT Pebble Beach Pro-Am, also known as the Crosby Clam Bake, after Bing Crosby who was instrumental in bringing high profile stars to Pebble Beach to play golf with the Pros in the 30s.

The scenery along Monterey Bay, where Pebble Beach, Spy Glass and the Monterery County Club, the three courses that are played during the ATT are located is legendary and even non-golfers enjoy walking these courses. For the serious golfer, getting a chance to tee it up on any of these courses is a treat but playing at Pebble Beach is like visiting the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo for the painter, baking alongside Julia Child for the baker, having a private driving lesson with Mario Andretti for the lead foot, and winning the lottery all rolled into one.

Watching one of my favorite players, Phil Mickelson, win this past weekend in that fabulous setting, got me to thinking about my bucket list of golf courses I want to play before I hang up the 5 iron for the last time. More importantly, it got me to thinking about the courses I want to play in the next five to ten years with my father before he is too old to travel and enjoy playing them.

So, here is my bucket list of the courses I want to share with my best partner on the course, my dad.

1. Pebble Beach - Pebble Beach, CA
2. Cypress Point Golf Club - Pebble Beach, CA (This was my father in law's favorite course of all time too)
3. TPC Sawgrass: Players Stadium Course - Ponte Verde, FL (Most famous island green in golf)
   
4. The Jewel - Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, MI
5. Wawashkamo Club - Mackinac Island, MI (Gem of a little course, still use sand tees)
6. Royal St. George's - Sandwich, Kent England
7. Old Head Golf Links, Kinsale, County Cork Ireland
8. Carnoustie, Scotland
   
9. Seaside Course, Sea Island, GA
10. Retreat Course, Sea Island, GA
    
11. Oakland Hills Country Club, Bloomfield Hills, MI (Walter Hagen was the first head pro)
12. Forest Dunes, Roscommon, MI
13. Harbour Town, Hilton Head Island, SC
    
14. Spyglass Hill - Pebble Beach, CA
15. Links at Spanish Bay - Pebble Beach, CA
16. Lakewood Shores Resort, Oscoda MI
17. Elk Ridge Golf Course, Atlanta, MI
18. Magnolia, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL
19. Sun Valley Resort, Sun Valley, ID
20. Black Lake Golf Club, Onaway, MI (15 minutes from my folk's home in N. MI)
    

Where in the World is

Breadchick?

Well, I haven't been traveling like I was the last three months of 2009 but I have been out and about at least two days each week since my last post. When I've been home, I've been at the office burning the candle on both ends.

This weekend though I get to spend it at home and no packing/cleaning to take of until next Thursday.

So, there is going to be some baking going on in the form of King Cakes to take to two different Super Bowl parties and I'm also thinking that the Thai Chicken Pizza that the gals in the Test Kitchen at King Arthur Flour have on their blog today.

So look for some food here this weekend!

Ringing in the New Year and New Decade with...

The flu.

I returned home from Florida and a wonderful visit with my folks on Wednesday evening last week feeling not so hot. It started somewhere around Roanoke, VA with a weird nagging cough that I thought was the last bit of the sinus/ear infection I took to Florida, thanks to six continuous weeks of flying, but by the time I hit Winchester, VA and had ringing in my ears, a craving for orange juice, and a dull thudding headache, I knew I was in trouble. Since I drove to Florida and had a rental car due back Thursday morning, I had no choice but to keep going.

I got home at 9:30pm, took a shower, took my temperature,101 degrees thank you very much, and fell into a coma in bed. Poor LB barely got a hug and pat.

After returning the car early thirty on Thursday morning and finding that my everyday car's battery was dead, dead, dead (I have two, my every day car and my fun car, a 1991 Mercedes 350SD Turbo Diesel), I had to uncover the fun car, unplug it from the engine block warmer, start it up, let it get warmed up, and drive or rather slip and slide my way to the grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread, some soup, cough medicine, orange juice, and some ginger ale before returning to bed where I have been for the last four days.

Needless to say, my resolution to be a better food blogger this year has started out not so good. I didn't do a year end wrap up post, look what I got for Christmas post, what I wish for you and The Sour Dough in the New Year post. I haven't even opened the mail from my vacation where a "Blogging by Mail" package sits and waits for me to open!

Bear with me for a few more days. I'm not 100% yet. Heck, I'm not even 30% yet. But with a little more rest and more watching Miami Vice, the Complete Series (Thanks Bro!), I expect to be back up to snuff very quickly.

Hope your New Year was safe and fun and see you in a few days.

Pasta and Par

You've probably noticed the long lapse between posts here lately.

Normally, I would blame that on my job and my business and personal travel schedule but that just isn't the case this time around. You see, I've been bit by a bug; the golf bug.



I used to play quite a bit in my late 20's. I was never any good. I'd write "10" on the scorecard for each hole and be on my way, hacking and slashing my way through nine or eighteen holes. It wasn't that I couldn't putt the ball into the hole, I just couldn't drive the ball off the tee.

It would take me six or eight shots to get the green. Once I got to the green, I could normally get the ball into the hole in two, must have been all that putt-putt growing up. My score didn't matter because I enjoyed getting out and walking the course.

When I was home in Michigan two weeks ago, my dad and I played nine holes and all the fun I used to have when I played came rushing back. I couldn't wait to get home and start playing again. Once home, I scoured Craigslist for a set of woman's clubs and found a barely used set of Square Two ladies clubs less than two years old



and promptly hit the driving range.



I've decided to take lessons with a pro to get help with my swing, grip and generally not develop any bad habits. That way maybe, just maybe, I can hit the ball further than ten feet off the tee.

I somehow suspect that is going to take lots and lots of practice with quite a few balls.



Last night, after work, I played nine holes at a local public links course. I was paired with two other single players, both pretty good golfers, one who had a 12 handicap. I warned them both that I was just learning and if they wanted, I'd drive, pick up my ball, take two strokes, and play long ball.

They said not to worry. That everyone had started out "hacking" their way around a course and since we were the last group starting that unless I got really frustrated, to just play my game. They were patient when I shanked the ball at the first tee, helped me find my ball when I put it in the deep rough, and applauded me when I two putted the par 4 third hole.

I only had to play long ball on one hole and even had some pretty decent drives. When we ended up at the clubhouse after nine holes, I bought them both a beer while we tallied our cards. Much to my surprise, I broke 70!

I had a 69 on the nine holes. I even had two pars, the 4th hole where I made a great putt and the 7th hole where I drove the ball over 80 yards straight down the fairway. Both the guys were great and even said that they'd play with me again. I left the course with a smile a mile wide. It was the best round of golf I've ever played.

I got home after dark, and even though it was a bit late, I decided to celebrate my great nine holes with a pasta dish made with five simple ingredients: penne, turkey Italian sausage, pasta sauce, cheese, and fresh basil from my garden.



I washed it down with a nice red wine from Spain.

Sitting down to watch a reply of last year's US Open on Golf Channel while I ate my dinner, I realized that while I may never break 100 on eighteen holes of golf, I was glad I had picked the game up again.

Mark Twain just might be wrong about golf being a good walk spoiled...

Par Five Pasta

1 cup penne or ziti
1 1/2 links of Turkey Italian Sausage, sweet
1/3 cup prepared pasta sauce
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup shredded cheese

Bring to boil 2 cups of salted water in a 2 quart sauce pan. Add penne and cook for 12 - 14 minutes or until al dente.

Remove sausage from its casing and while pasta is cooking, in a non stick skillet, break up and cook sausage throughly.

Drain pasta, reserving about 1 oz of the pasta water. Return pasta to the sauce pan, add pasta sauce, cooked sausage, and enough reserved pasta water to thoroughly coat the pasta with sauce.

Place pasta and sausage in a pasta bowl, toss with chopped basil and top with shredded cheese.

Looking for fun and feelin' groovy...

I know I owe you a review of last week's cookbook and the menu for this week's cookbook but when I looked into the freezer and saw all the freezer containers full of leftovers from the last two months of the Cookbook Casting Call.



I decided I had to do something about it. So, this week is going to be a week of eating leftovers from the freezer and cooking/baking for fun.

Tonight, when I got home from work, I didn't open mail and I didn't turn on NPR or the nightly business report to find out exactly how many more years I'm going to have to work before I can retire to Paris. Nope, instead I gave LB a belly rub



and a big peck on the nose, changed into my jammies and cow slippers, tossed some toe tapping tunes into the CD player and got down to having fun in the kitchen.

I prepped a picnic shoulder with dry rub for some good Tennessee pulled pork BBQ for sandwiches that will be a dinner on Thursday for a friend whose wife just had some surgery. I also made some buttermilk coleslaw to go on top the pulled pork. Tomorrow morning, the picnic shoulder will go in the slow cooker and I'll put dough to go through its first rise for some homemade rolls to serve the pulled pork on.

I also made some dessert for them too.



Now don't those brownies look fantatasic?!

Want to know a little secret about this whole meal?

It is gluten, dairy, and nut free from beginning to end. My friend's son is allergic to all that and seafood too. But I didn't want that to mean they couldn't have a great meal meal. My good friend, Natalie at Gluten a Go Go gave the recipe for the brownies. I'm telling you, they are fantastic tasting.

Because we're having fun at The Sour Dough this week, I'm going to share my playlist from tonight (CD changer on random).

I stood in the kitchen just singing along with the tunes at the top of my lungs. I won't be trying out for American Idol anytime soon but I had a blast puttering around in the kitchen belting out some of my favorite music; even if the neighbor's didn't enjoy the floor show...

Breadchick's Bad Ass (To her anyways) Baking Playlist

California Dreaming: Shaw-Blades(Influence)
Seek Up: Dave Matthews Band (Live at Red Rocks)
Crazy Mary: Pearl Jam (B Sides)
Don't Lay Down: Catie Curtis (My Shirt Looks Good on You)
Ten Cent Wings: Jonatha Brooke (Live)
Your Move: Shaw-Blades (Influence)
Driver: REM (Eponymous)
Lover: Dave Matthews Band (Live at Red Rocks)
So. Central Rain: REM (Eponymous)
West Point: Jonatha Brooke (Live)
The Long Road: Pearl Jam (B Sides)
Leaving Here: Pearl Jam (B Sides)
I Am a Rock: Shaw-Blades(Influence) Note: This is the most rocking version of one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs I've ever heard!
Kiss that Counted: Catie Curtis (My Shirt Looks Good on You)
Summer Breeze: Shaw-Blades
Radio Free Europe: REM (Eponymous)
Watchtower: Dave Matthews Band (Live at Red Rocks)
Alone: Pearl Jam (B Sides)
Sugar Cane: Catie Curtis (My Shirt Looks Good on You)
At the Still Point: Jonatha Brooke (Live)
Lucky Man: Shaw-Blades (Influence)
Your Move: Shaw-Blades (Influence)
Elderly Woman Behind the Counter: Pearl Jam (B Sides)
In the Gloaming: Jonatha Brooke (Live)
Two Step: Dave Matthews Band (Live at Red Rocks)

Further because it is fun, here is a gratuitous picture of early spring flowers, crocus



And finally, here the recipe for Natalie's fantastic fudge brownies.

Have fun out there this week!

Gluten, Dairy, and Nut Free Brownies

3/4 cup gluten free all purpose flour
1 Tb nut & gf free unsweetened cocoa powder
good pinch of salt
1 tsp gf baking powder
3/4 cup soft light brown sugar
1/4 cup dairy free spread or vegetable shortening
2 Tb water
scant 1 cup (3 1/2 oz) nut & gf free semisweet chocolate
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 7 x 11 baking pan with parchment paper.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder into a bowl.

3. Put the sugar, butter/dairy free spread or vegetable shortening, water chocolate, and vanilla in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring, until melted.

4. Pour into the flour mixture, add the eggs and beat until smooth.

5. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes or until firm to the touch and slightly crusty on the top.

6. Let cool for 10 minutes then mark into 15 squares. Cool completely before removing from the pan. Store in an airtight container.

Lazy Saturday Morning in the Sun

As you are probably well aware from all the whining I've been doing on this blog instead of cooking/baking, I've been working lots and lots of hours these past few weeks. There hasn't been a weekend in over a month that I haven't at least spent half a day doing some work. Even if I was at home puttering around in the kitchen, I'd bring a job folder home and do some work.

Not this weekend! I left all job folders at work tossed on the desk in my office; which looks like a bomb went off on/in but that is another story. I didn't even link to the job folder to make it available "off line" so I could open it this weekend. Instead, I'm taking the whole weekend off to sleep in late, read a few books I'm in the middle of, and especially bake and play in the kitchen.

I have Sara's BBB Challah on the baking plan (I had to sit out that month and have felt awful about it since, especially as I love Challah) as well as Packzi to take into work on Fat Tuesday. There is this certain item that I have to make for that HUGE group of bakers I belong to that I really need to tackle this weekend too otherwise I'm going to have to take a pass, and, as a really, really good blogging friend is one of the hosts, I don't want to be a loser. Plus I have a Cookbook Casting Call menu to plan as well!

Both LB and I have spent a rather lazy Saturday morning so far. I got up late (9AM), made myself a pot of French press coffee and the last of the BBB five grain bread with Fortnum and Mason's orange champagne marmalade for breakfast,



and spent a very enjoyable hour chatting on Skype with my online wife, Sara.

Now, showered and awake, I'm sitting here waiting for my hair to dry to before I head out and take care of a few errands, like picking up the perscription of antibiotics for my sinus infection that has been ready for pick up for oh I don't know... a week now, before I head to my coffee shop and wile the afternoon away with this month's issue of Cooking Light, Gourmet, and the cookbook for next week's Cookbook Casting Call figuring out the menu.

LB has had an equally lazy morning. He has taken to chasing the winter sun around the living room; starting out propped up against the VCR/Playstation/Subwoofer where the sun touches the room first



and ending up at the foot of the couch doing "cat things".



This morning was no different and now he is curled up taking an early afternoon nap and proving he is the "Alpha" of the house by doing it in my spot on the couch where the sun will make it's last appearance before drifting to the other side of the house.

While I haven't been able to cook and blog about it much lately, I have paid a little attention to the layout of this blog. Probably the most noticable change it the lovely new header for The Sour Dough!

You may recognize the artist's work from other blogs like my good friend Veronica's. The artist is the super talented Ximena of Lobstersquad and if you aren't familiar with her work, you should go read her blog. She not only cooks and writes about her food but she is an illustrator as well. Thanks Ximena, I've never been so chic!

I also moved the rss feed subscriber buttons to the sidebar. They had been hiding at the bottom and, since I had to move my blog back to blogger after shutting down the servers for The Sour Dough after Wren's passing, I have received quite a few emails from folks wondering how to re-subscribe to The Sour Dough. If you haven't updated your feed readers to my new address, feel free to clicky-clicky over there on the sidebar! Or you can manually update your reader by typing the url breadchick.blogspot.com.

OK, my hair is dry and the last of my coffee is gone. Time to get out in the sun, take care of those pesky errands, and then go laze away the afternoon!

Right after I let LB's good friends at CatSynth, Luna and Amar, know what he's up to. They are hosting this week's Weekend Cat Blogging and we haven't been very good about participating lately.

I'm Not Dead....

yet. But it sure feels like it!

Still working those God awful hours so there isn't a whole lotta cooking going on right now. Thank goodness Whole Foods is open late and keep their salad bar fresh at all hours of the day.

We're going to delay this week's planned cookbook for the Cookbook Casting Call one week. With a little luck and if AutoCRASH (aka AutoCAD) will behave it's self, I should be back to normal working hours next week.

Until then, enjoy this little gem of a scene from my favorite Monty Python movie, The Holy Grail. I know just how he feels...

Exiting 2008 With As Much Grace As I Can Muster...

Last year I wrote a post that called 2007 "my personal 'Annus Horribilis'". Looking back now, 2007 seems like a dream year compared to 2008.

Since losing Wren to suicide on September 28th, I have to admit I have been in a weird place both personally and professionally. There have days when I consider quitting blogging and cooking all together because he encouraged me in both endeavors. Other days, I consider quitting my day job as an audio engineer/sound system designer to make writing and cooking my full time profession. There have been days that have been near impossible to drag myself out of bed and other days that I wake up feeling like I did on September 27th, even though the person I was that morning no longer exists. Those days are starting to out number the former thankfully but it has been and will continue to be, as my therapist says, "a process" to figure out who the new me will be. I will be working on that "process" quite a bit in the upcoming year.

Originally, I wasn't going to write a year end wrap up post but as I thought about it, I realized that so much has happened that I couldn't not because there are so many people to whom I owe a "Thank You" (You know who you are), especially those of you have continued to read The Sour Dough during the past few months and written me with such kindess and support. Actually to ALL my readers over the years. I can't tell you how much it means to me to receive your comments and emails.

Did you know that 2009 will be the beginning of my sixth year of blogging!

I started The Sour Dough back in December 2004, at the urging of Wren, as a place to explore my passion for writing. Originally, The Sour Dough was a general topic blog that featured my hobby of cooking/baking but by May of 2005, again at Wren's urging, I made the shift to a single focus, cooking with an emphasis on baking, specifically bread baking.

In December of 2006, I registered "Breadchick.com" and in January 2007 I kissed Blogger goodbye by moving The Sour Dough to my new webpage, self-hosted on the Wordpress format. Breadchick.com lived on our server farm that occupied our front parlor in our house in Cambridge, MA. Unfortunately, in October, I had to shut down those servers as part of settling the affairs Wren's estate and moved The Sour Dough back to Blogger until I can find a new hosting company and take the time to re-setup my templates, etc. Which is probably why some of you are having some problems with your RSS feeds! (Note to those who have wondered why you don't get notification of new posts, change your RSS feeds to breadchick.blogspot.com)

As I move into 2009, I have a few things planned for The Sour Dough with the most important to get back to a self-hosting format. I also want to get the pictures to my older posts back up. I've been slowly uploading them to my Flickr page so I can go back into the posts and reset them. I also have a late February trip to Paris, a return to the Shenandoah Valley in May, and I'm quite sure some interesting business travel that always results in food posts.

LB , who's snoring so loudly right now I can hear him over the blower for the heater, will be back in 2009 as well. He'll be hosting Weekend Cat Blogging regularly and who knows, may even find the time to set up his own blog. He is becoming quite the feline computer expert and gets about half the "fan mail" sent The Sour Dough.

So, as 2008 fades into black and the curtain on 2009 opens, here is to greeting each day of 2009 as if it is the first day of a New Year.

May you and yours have a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year.

An Early Morning Christmas Walk

I took a walk in the snow this Christmas morning. The sky was just light and all around me the world was quiet.



As I walked up the road, the only thing stirring was the little red squirrel dashing here and there trying to figure out how to find his buried goodies and the lights of the next door neighbor's living room lights where their grandkids undoubtedly had pulled the family out of bed at 6AM.

Big fluffy flakes of snow drifted down adding downy puffs to the top of the birdhouse out back



and settling on the tree that most years my family decorates with popcorn and cranberries for the birds.




We didn't get around to doing that because the snow came so fast and furious this year we couldn't get to the tree before the snow was too deep.

Finally, after walking all around the lake I arrived back at the family cottage to a warm cup of coffee and to sit in silence and watch the snow drift down slow and straight; the last moments of Christmas peace before I leave for my parent's house down the road to our Christmas breakfast and the gathering of the family.




Later this afternoon I will return to the cottage to pick up the dessert, a trifle of last summer's berries lovingly gathered by my mother and a special dessert I can't tell you about right now. But, when it is revealed the eight hours I spent in the kitchen better have been worth it.

Best of all, when I return, I will take a few minutes to sit and ponder the lake, the snow, and most of all the cherished quiet that I always enjoy on Christmas day.

May you and yours feel peace and joy today.

Yes We Did!

(Food programming will return tomorrow)



Are you ready for change? I am. And so are 63,896,967 of my fellow Americans.

Now the real work begins for us all.

If we are to bring about the change President Elect Obama has been talking about for the past twenty-one months and that we elected him to start, then each and every one of us, regardless of which party we belong to, what our personal feelings are about those guys on the other side of the political aisle, and who we voted for yesterday, need to roll up our collective sleeves and be ready to help get the job done.

This is too important for us to mess it up with the partisan bull-crap of the past eight to twelve years and I'm not just talking about the boneheads in Washington. I'm talking about how for the past eight to twelve years we have been so divided by the extremists of BOTH parties that we can't even have civil discourse or needed compromise on the floors of the Federal, state and local governments throughout our land, the school hallways, and even the Starbucks in Westport.

The world is watching but more importantly our children are watching. So, knock it off or all 63,896,968 of us who voted for change and hope are going to knock some skulls together.

Got it?! Good.

See you by the sign-up sheet!

I Voted Today. Did You?

If you are an American citizen, it doesn't matter who you voted for in the Presidential election. Really. I mean it.

All that matters if that you voted.

Because if you didn't, I don't want to hear your bitchin' and moanin' about the direction of the country for the next four years.

WCB: Catching Up and Catching Our Breaths

I'm back and, between my naps in the open window where I'm catching the last warm breezes of the fall,



Mom's letting me hog the computer this weekend. Well she isn't exactly letting me but she's so busy in the kitchen playing with dough



and other good things made with flour you humans like that she doesn't care if I download tons of kitty porn and order Hawaiian Katnip! She is working on converting some of her white flour sourdough recipes into whole grain recipes this weekend. She is starting with her sourdough cinnamon rolls and her baguettes.

I want to tell you how much Mom and I have appreciated all your cat hugs, purrs, and chin scratches the past month. Mom and I are very sad about losing my Dad but we are getting better. I'm so sad he left us the way he did and I wish he hadn't gone. He was the one who taught me to hop up on the bed to get my shot in the morning and was one of the best treat givers I have ever had. I hope he is finally at peace and he will have a pocket full of good tuna treats waiting for me when I cross the bridge (which won't be for many more years).

Even though Mom and Grandma were up in Massachusetts to take care of my Dad's affairs they did find time take a little break. They were staying in a hotel in Concord, MA. Concord is famous in the American Revolution as the place the "shot heard round the world" was fired at the Old North Bridge.



Concord is also famous for all the great writers who lived there in the 19th Century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. Grandma is a big fan of Louisa May Alcott's writing



and was excited to get to visit Orchard House, where she wrote her most famous book, "Little Women"



and Wayside,



the house were the events in "Little Women" took place.

Mom enjoyed visiting Concord again, especially in the Fall, which is her favorite season.



She spent a lot of time there when she lived in Clinton and Cambridge. I think running through leaves like a kid



helped her remember good things instead of being sad all the time. She told me it was one of the prettiest falls she remembered.



I'm glad Mom is feeling better and back in the kitchen and I'm sure that she'll be blogging more now that she is baking and cooking again. Which means you'll be seeing more of me on the weekends too!

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by the wonder kat, CeCe over at Mind of Mog! Go over there and see what all my cat friends and their humans have been up to this week!

Some Changes...

First, thank you everyone for your kind comments, emails and phone calls expressing your care, sympathy and concern about the loss of Wren. It has meant so much to me, my family and his family. Your support has been one of the rocks that we have clung to during this really difficult time of grief and now recovery.

I'm not quite ready to come back to blogging full time as there are still many things I have to do to finalize his affairs and the estate. But, very soon, I think I will feel the knead (yes, a little bread humour there) to come back to baking and cooking.

Unfortunately, one of the changes I have to make is finding a hosting service for the Sour Dough because this site has been hosted since it's inception on a server located in our living room. On this up coming Saturday, October 18, I will be shutting that server down for the last time and my breadchick.com site will go down until I can take a bit of time to move all the files to a new server.

So, I'm going to be redirecting breadchick.com to my blogger backup site for a bit starting tomorrow on Friday, October 17. Don't worry, you won't have to do anything drastic to find me because, if all goes well and I don't do a boo-boo on the name servers on Go Daddy, when you go to breadchick.com it should redirect automagically. It also means that my email address will be redirecting as well. I hope it won't take too long to catch up with me! But, if you don't get a reply back quickly, understand that there may be a little delay.

Again, thank you all for your care and concern.