Its been awhile since I’ve grilled fish so I asked Holly to pick up some marlin steaks while she was shopping at Meijer. I found a great recipe on allrecipes.com, really it was the only recipe on the site for marlin and amazingly I had all the fresh ingredients so I decided fate must have wanted me to make this dish.

If you’re interested - here is the recipe:
Rosemary Marlin with Roasted Corn and Tomato Relish

Besides the marlin steaks you’ll need corn on the cob, cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh rosemary, and of course something green for garnish. Here is what mine came out like:

In case you’re wondering…it was awesome. I made some sage stuffing (stovetop) and threw some garnish on the plate for the picture. Holly was laughing the whole time but this might be one of the best meals I have made in a long, long time. I wanted to take the picture to add to the allrecipes.com site…so why not put it on the blog as well?

While at the cabin I got a chance to take a picture of the new tree I planted, and my fancy watering device (patent pending). I selected a flowering pear tree on the advice of the helpful staff at the nursery, and based on the size the tree will reach at maturity. I needed a tree that wouldn’t grow so tall that it would over-shadow the cabin, something that would get about 20 feet wide and tall. While looking one of the associates told me not to worry…the sizes listed wouldn’t be reached for at least 15-20 years. She seemed sure of herself as she gave me this advice until I told her that I think the cabin will still be in the same spot 20 years from now.

We planted this as the “Ed Rapin Jr. Memorial Tree” with some of the donations given to my mom after my dad’s funeral. We had a surprising amount of money donated, most of which went to Lenawee County Hospice.  Next we made a donation to the the Parks & Rec department of Raisin Township and used the remainder to plant this tree up north. Hopefully I did a good job planting this so it takes off and grows big and tall.

Submit your orders now for the watering contraption…I know you want one!

On top of a already tense week Friday brought a couple webcasts for the President’s office. Helping with webcasts has always been in the category of “other duties as assigned” or a result of being too quick to volunteer to learn something new…in other words it is something I have to fit in on top of an already packed schedule. I don’t mean to complain though - it is something I enjoy, especially when the football season starts. Friday’s webcast included President Haas’ Faculty/Staff address followed by the 2008 Convocation. The best part of the back to back schedule was that I got to drive around a golf cart all morning, all around campus. Nothing says big pimpin’ like hijacking one of the Meadow’s golf carts to commute around campus!

The other highlight of the morning was running across this office at GVSU. I feel bad posting this as I am sure this professor has had to put up with jokes ever since Walker, Texas Ranger (or any of Chuck’s earlier accomplishments), but I couldn’t pass it up. If the real Chuck was a professor of Music I am sure he would pick GVSU too.

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress and a strong critic of the Iraq war, died Wednesday after a brain hemorrhage, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Tubbs Jones, 58, died Wednesday evening of a brain hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm that burst and left her with limited brain function, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic, which owns the Huron Hospital in East Cleveland where Tubbs Jones died.

I wasn’t really shocked by the news, but rather that the only reason I know of Stephanie Tubbs Jones was because of her appearance on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.  This reminded me of a conversation I had with a coworker once who got most of his news via John Stewart…  I wonder how many people are like him - relying on comedy central for news, or like me - retaining more information from these shows than I ever would have expected.  Anyways, just thought I would share as I found this interesting.

Maybe it is my mischevious look, but two parent’s made sure to tell me to not look through their daughter’s boxes and one parent followed me to their kid’s room to make sure I delivered the items to the room promised.  I will work on looking more trusting next year.

We also got a look at the newest dorms on Grand Valley’s campus and they are nothing short of spectacular.  The honor’s dorms have air conditioning, individual bedrooms with a huge living area and a dishwasher.  Compare that to my experience: sharing a walk-in closet sized room with a friend who’s bunk was 3 ft above my head, and we washed out shared hot-plate in the drinking fountain.  We also had to walk up hill both ways when going to class.  Good thing we only stayed there half the year!

I’m not sure how much I really helped with the garden - I think I just made more work for us since I wanted to take some vegetables home. The project turned even larger when I decided I wanted to can corn and carrots in addition to the normal corn for freezing. One trip to the store later, for the pressure cooker, we have the final product:

I started canning salsa last year and now I have the bug…I think I am going to try to advance my skills next to include spaghetti sauce and chili. I’m not sure why this appeals to me - it is really more expensive than buying stuff at the store; I suppose I like knowing what I put in the jar.

While I was home I also helped my mom fill the water softener with salt - the water softener is in the basement under the original half of the house. The original farm house that we added onto toward the end of my stint in elementary school is over 150 years old. I’ve always been fascinated by the old Michigan basement as you can get a real sense of how homes were built then. Notice the logs that are used as floor joists and note the bark is still attached all these years later. After that I am struck by the stone walls…

]]> http://www.benrapin.com/blog/2008/08/17/an-august-weekend-in-tecumseh/feed/ http://www.benrapin.com/blog/2008/08/17/update-on-garden/ http://www.benrapin.com/blog/2008/08/17/update-on-garden/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:06:08 +0000 Ben http://www.benrapin.com/blog/?p=72 I’ve been meaning to post a couple pictures of my salsa garden for a while - you may recall the great flood of 08 nearly wiped everything out very early on.  I’m starting to get a ton of tomatoes, but they’re all still fairly small and green.  To catch everyone up, here is a quick history in pictures.

Here is a shot after first planting everthing

After the flooding, we thought all was lost

After all that, the garden flourishes

I hope that everything continues to go well so that i can make loads of fresh salsa!  I’ll keep everyone posted as the saga continues.

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A Central Illinois woman is in hog heaven. She won the top prize at one of the Illinois State Fair’s most popular events. Doris Probst whooped, hollered and oinked her way to prize in the hog calling competition.