Chili Head

Yes, I am a Chili Head! I love it HOT! While my heat level is not as high as some people I've met, it is higher than most.

On this subject, I've made a couple of recent discoveries that have grabbed my interest, along with a chunk of my time.

It all starts with a hot sauce I discovered at the Pocono Garlic Festival this summer. It's called Salubrious Savina by Csigi Chili Sauce. I fell in love with it as soon as I tried it. It is hot and has a great flavor. I bought two bottles and I have one at home and one at work.

So I was surfing last week and went to their Web site again. I was immediately confronted by a new message: My Salubrious Savina WINS a 3rd place Scovie Award in the habanero hot sauce catagory...!

Cool. I would vote for this sauce!

So I followed the link...

to the Scovie Awards and to the review on HotSauceBlog.com.

Well, didn't those links just suck up all my free time! Hot Sauce Blog is great. It has articles and reviews and links to other blogs...

Enough for now. I need to go back to surfing!

Garlic Vinegar

I have fallen in love with Garlic Vinegar! Not only do I use it wherever I use vinegar, but I have started looking for new places to use it.

The best thing since Garlic? Yeah, I think so.

I discovered it at our local Farmer's Market and it is available from garlicvinegar.com.

Where is Bean Station?

I went on a business trip last week.

To Bean Station.

Tennessee.

Not only does this sound like a very small town in the middle of nowhere, it is a very small town in the middle of nowhere.

I enjoyed my trip to Bean Station, which is located about a half hour Northeast of Knoxville. The people I visited were very friendly and I learned a lot from them. But I also learned about this part of Eastern Tennessee.

Remember in grade school when we learned about the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)? Yeah, I remember. Barely. But when I got to Bean Station, TN, I got a quick refresher course. I drove past a huge lake that looked like it had lost most of it's water to a drought. What I learned was that it was part of the system of lakes and dams that are use to generate electricity. It is also part of tomato country.

In short, Bean Station is full of history that is still being made today.

And the lady at the car rental counter knew exactly where it was.

So, How was your day?

I just read a CNN Headline that said 18,000 people have died in the earthquake in Pakistan. I can't even imagine what that must be like for the people there.

How do you pray for 18,000 people?

It makes me realize how good my life is. How my problems are not such big problems.

So,

How was your day?

Wind Up

When my daughter was born, I knew I would want to teach her about God, Jesus and Church. So I knew it was time for me to start going to church again. Like many, I stopped going when my parents stopped making me go. I had always carried my belief in God with me but I did it without an organized religion. To teach my daughter, I knew I had to lead by example. So I wanted to go to church and have her see me be involved.

You see, as a kid, my sister and I were forced to go to church (and church school) every Sunday while my parents stayed home. I thought this was wrong but I couldn't put into words why I thought it was wrong. Then one day in 7th grade I found the words. And they came from an unlikely source: Jethro Tull.

Jethro Tull - Aqualung. You know, that loud, aweful music that is such a bad influence on kids? As I listened to the last song on the album, called Wind Up, I came across some words that have followed me for the rest of my life:

So I asked this God a question

and by way of firm reply, He said:

"I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays".

Yeah, that was the problem! We never talked about God during the week but come Sunday, I had to go to church. I felt like we were winding Him up once a week - like a clock, then forgetting about Him until the next Sunday. This idea gave me a lot to think about; like how was God with me during the week?

Many years later, when I became involed with St. Margaret's Church, I realized I wanted to share this story with the people at church so I went looking for the exact lyrics of that song. I found a wonderful Web site that is dedicated to Jethro Tull. It's called Cup of Wonder. It has a thorough analysis of Jethro Tull's ablums and lyrics, including Aqualung and Wind Up, by Jan Voorbij (IJsselstein, The Netherlands). The time I spent on this Web site was well worth it. It may be for you as well.

Where do I begin?

I guess I'll start with St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Emmaus, PA.

www.stmargaretsemmaus.org

I am the Webmaster for this site and an 8 year member of the Church. Creating and editing this Web site has been quite a learning experience. I still don't have everything figured out.

Now I am trying to figure out this blog stuff.

I'll get there.