Yesterday I was out in the windy cold of another northern Maine winter, standing behind a Craftsman snowblower and
asking myself for the umpteenth time, “What the heck were you thinking when you decided to come up here?”
I mean, whenever any of us turns around, we have to go outside to kick around a couple of tons of snow before we've
barely had a chance to drink some coffee. And if you don’t forego that morning coffee, the kids rush outside to play in this
winter wonderland, packing the snow down so hard that you’re convinced that Spongebob Squarepants came by during
the snowstorm, fell flat on his face, and, as the snow covered him, froze to death on your front porch.
So, yesterday I grabbed my handy-dandy snow shovel, which I learned to keep near the front door after my first three or
four snowstorms, unless I wanted to end up with snow jammed down my boots and frostbitten toes. And I started digging
into the snow and tossing it on the pile that has been growing for the last month. My kids have hollowed out the icy pile
into a fort, and the walls of this fortification have become so hard that it would make a terrorist just shake his head in
defeat and keep walking.
To make the time pass and to keep my spirits up, I sing a little song that I call the “I hate snow” song. I’d sing it to you,
but the lyrics all go something like “I hate @#$% Snow!” But I keep scooping and tossing it over to the left, or over to the
right, creating a path that leads me to my destination - the shed.
A shed, or a garage, is where most of us keep that labor-saving device known as a snowblower.
When I first moved to the far north, I spent $50 on this great pull-start snowblower. I’d purchased it in the summer, and
that baby would start up if you just pretended to pull the cord.
But in the winter, I have to haul on that cord for so long that I could go inside the house and give the furnace a rest because
of all the heat pouring off my body and sweaty coat.
Once the blower shudders and roars to life, I have to deal with all the cantankerous and broken doohickeys that I should
have fixed during the summer, but forgot to do as soon as I could put the darn machine back in the shed.
My blower has these two triggers on the handlebars. If you pull the left trigger, the snowblower turns left. Pull the right,
and it goes right.
Only problem is that my snowblower only turns left.
Also, the blower thingy that directs the snow away from the machine doesn't stay pointing in one direction, and it keeps
flopping up and spraying the snow in a huge fan that causes all the ice and snow to blow back in my face.
Man, when I see those guys with their snazzy snowplows on the front of their four-wheel-drive trucks, or those guys with
their tractors that just scoop up the snow, and my machine is blasting a jet of ice crystals into my face, I just want to
scream.
I follow my snowblower, singing the “I Hate Snow” song in time with the flooding of the engine as it roars and peters out
and roars and peters out. We go around the driveway in a convoluted pathway determined by the dimensions of the drive,
the depth of the snow, the strength and direction of the wind, and the fact that I can only turn left. Sometimes I wonder if I
am doing a chore that is going to let me get out of my yard, or if I am just preparing my back for the next trip to the
chiropractor.
And my sons are no help. They aren't big enough to operate the dang thing, and all they can do is run alongside the jet of
blowing snow and ignore my pleas that they get away from the darn blades.
And the really sad part about all of this is that, up here, nobody gets to stay home on snow days. When I lived in the
south, we’d get a quarter inch of snow, and people would hunker down in their homes like they were Latvians living on the
steppes of Siberia in the dead of winter.
But when it snows in this part of the country, and I’m staring out the window at two feet of freezing white crapola, do I get
to think, “Oh, happy day! After I clear this snow, I guess I get the rest of the day off.”
Nope.
People around here just shrug it off and look at me like I’m some sort of lazy jerk.
Travis Blade dropped by and listened to my complaints after I was done with the job, and he had the obnoxious gumption
to look all disgusted. He said, “Chef, if we stopped doing things around here because the weather was bad then we
wouldn't get anything done.”
Which on one level sounds like good-natured advice from someone living in the rugged north lands of these here United
States. But on another level I just want to tell him to take his dang tough-guy snow-dude attitude and go jump in a snow
bank.
WHAT YOU NEED
10 cups dry milk powder
4 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups powdered non-dairy creamer
Butterscotch Schnapps
WHAT YOU DO
1. Okay, this is the standard hot cocoa recipe that your mom used to make. But I’ve added a few twists to make it work
better. First, run the powdered milk through a food processor to make it into a fine powder.
3. In a really large mixing bowl (by large, I mean something that will hold a gallon of powder), use a big spoon to stir
together the dry ingredients. Stir it all up until it is completely mixed together. Put the powder into a large sealed
container. You now have enough mix for about forty cups of chocolate.
4. To make 1 serving, take about 1/3 of a cup of the cocoa mixture and pour it into a coffee mug.
5. Add one shot (or more) of butterscotch schnapps.
6. Add boiling water to the cup, and stir it until the powder has dissolved.
Copyright 2007
www.MachoChef.com
Macho Chef is a registered trademark
asking myself for the umpteenth time, “What the heck were you thinking when you decided to come up here?”
I mean, whenever any of us turns around, we have to go outside to kick around a couple of tons of snow before we've
barely had a chance to drink some coffee. And if you don’t forego that morning coffee, the kids rush outside to play in this
winter wonderland, packing the snow down so hard that you’re convinced that Spongebob Squarepants came by during
the snowstorm, fell flat on his face, and, as the snow covered him, froze to death on your front porch.
So, yesterday I grabbed my handy-dandy snow shovel, which I learned to keep near the front door after my first three or
four snowstorms, unless I wanted to end up with snow jammed down my boots and frostbitten toes. And I started digging
into the snow and tossing it on the pile that has been growing for the last month. My kids have hollowed out the icy pile
into a fort, and the walls of this fortification have become so hard that it would make a terrorist just shake his head in
defeat and keep walking.
To make the time pass and to keep my spirits up, I sing a little song that I call the “I hate snow” song. I’d sing it to you,
but the lyrics all go something like “I hate @#$% Snow!” But I keep scooping and tossing it over to the left, or over to the
right, creating a path that leads me to my destination - the shed.
A shed, or a garage, is where most of us keep that labor-saving device known as a snowblower.
When I first moved to the far north, I spent $50 on this great pull-start snowblower. I’d purchased it in the summer, and
that baby would start up if you just pretended to pull the cord.
But in the winter, I have to haul on that cord for so long that I could go inside the house and give the furnace a rest because
of all the heat pouring off my body and sweaty coat.
Once the blower shudders and roars to life, I have to deal with all the cantankerous and broken doohickeys that I should
have fixed during the summer, but forgot to do as soon as I could put the darn machine back in the shed.
My blower has these two triggers on the handlebars. If you pull the left trigger, the snowblower turns left. Pull the right,
and it goes right.
Only problem is that my snowblower only turns left.
Also, the blower thingy that directs the snow away from the machine doesn't stay pointing in one direction, and it keeps
flopping up and spraying the snow in a huge fan that causes all the ice and snow to blow back in my face.
Man, when I see those guys with their snazzy snowplows on the front of their four-wheel-drive trucks, or those guys with
their tractors that just scoop up the snow, and my machine is blasting a jet of ice crystals into my face, I just want to
scream.
I follow my snowblower, singing the “I Hate Snow” song in time with the flooding of the engine as it roars and peters out
and roars and peters out. We go around the driveway in a convoluted pathway determined by the dimensions of the drive,
the depth of the snow, the strength and direction of the wind, and the fact that I can only turn left. Sometimes I wonder if I
am doing a chore that is going to let me get out of my yard, or if I am just preparing my back for the next trip to the
chiropractor.
And my sons are no help. They aren't big enough to operate the dang thing, and all they can do is run alongside the jet of
blowing snow and ignore my pleas that they get away from the darn blades.
And the really sad part about all of this is that, up here, nobody gets to stay home on snow days. When I lived in the
south, we’d get a quarter inch of snow, and people would hunker down in their homes like they were Latvians living on the
steppes of Siberia in the dead of winter.
But when it snows in this part of the country, and I’m staring out the window at two feet of freezing white crapola, do I get
to think, “Oh, happy day! After I clear this snow, I guess I get the rest of the day off.”
Nope.
People around here just shrug it off and look at me like I’m some sort of lazy jerk.
Travis Blade dropped by and listened to my complaints after I was done with the job, and he had the obnoxious gumption
to look all disgusted. He said, “Chef, if we stopped doing things around here because the weather was bad then we
wouldn't get anything done.”
Which on one level sounds like good-natured advice from someone living in the rugged north lands of these here United
States. But on another level I just want to tell him to take his dang tough-guy snow-dude attitude and go jump in a snow
bank.
- Snow Shoveler’s Relief
WHAT YOU NEED
10 cups dry milk powder
4 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups powdered non-dairy creamer
Butterscotch Schnapps
WHAT YOU DO
1. Okay, this is the standard hot cocoa recipe that your mom used to make. But I’ve added a few twists to make it work
better. First, run the powdered milk through a food processor to make it into a fine powder.
3. In a really large mixing bowl (by large, I mean something that will hold a gallon of powder), use a big spoon to stir
together the dry ingredients. Stir it all up until it is completely mixed together. Put the powder into a large sealed
container. You now have enough mix for about forty cups of chocolate.
4. To make 1 serving, take about 1/3 of a cup of the cocoa mixture and pour it into a coffee mug.
5. Add one shot (or more) of butterscotch schnapps.
6. Add boiling water to the cup, and stir it until the powder has dissolved.
Copyright 2007
www.MachoChef.com
Macho Chef is a registered trademark
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