Sunday, May 29, 2016

Boating and Burgers (and Royals Comebacks)

Just another day at the lake.

I decided the night before that I'd get up at 0530 so that I could make a time lapse video of the sunrise that would occur at 0557. During the night, I had a weird dream in which I dreamed that there were only 100 pictures left on my camera's memory card. Then I woke up, five minutes before my alarm, at 0525. I then started thinking that the memory card really was full. I took it a bit farther, and reasoned that if the memory card was full, there was no reason for me to get up, thus I could sleep in. I decided to check my camera, though, just to be sure, and...there were 1200 pictures remaining. With that, I drug myself out of bed and went outside and set up my tripod and camera in the direction in which I thought the sun would later rise. I set the intervalometer to take 300 pictures at 9 second intervals, pressed start, and that was that. Now it was a waiting game. Not much one for such games, I contemplated going for a run (what's wrong with me?). After about a second's deliberation, my feet started unconsciously moving toward the road. Before I knew it, I was running. It wasn't even 6 yet, the sun wasn't even up yet, yet I was running down the road. On a relaxing holiday weekend at the lake, there I was, hurdling myself down a gravel road at a pace that kills.

Nineteen minutes later, I had come full circle and was standing in the same place that I had those same nineteen minutes earlier. The difference was that I had just traversed 2.4 miles. Not being one to do or enjoy much running, I was quite impressed with myself and extremely sweaty. My camera was still snapping away, and still had another 25 minutes or so, so now I decided that waiting would be quite alright. After walking around in the yard for a awhile, my heart rate returning to a reasonable pace, I sat down in a chair and waited.

All said and done, the time lapse turned out nicely.


And I'm really glad that I got out of bed. Only about an hour after sunrise, I was treated to this beauty.


The deep blue sky, the wispy white clouds, the lush greenery, and the mirror smooth lake all made for quite the pleasing sight. It was an absolutely beautiful morning.

After several more people had awaken, and having run my tiny little legs off, I decided that it was time for breakfast. I needed some brotein to prevent my legs from utterly vanishing into thin air. So we got some breakfast sausages out of the freezer and into the frying pan. (That's how that goes, right?)


As these little guys cooked, quite a lot of fat cooked out of them. What a perfect opportunity to cook some eggs!


I ended up having 4 sausage links and a single egg.


But do not despair. A little while later, Sidney and I got hungry. Well, more so Sidney got hungry and I decided to eat (I'm always hungry). Not knowing whether or not Shakers would be open tomorrow on Memorial Day, we decided to go immediately. There isn't much more to say, as I got the same exact thing I always get.


This is just the perfect little meal. It tastes so good for some reason. I didn't, though, get any ice cream, as I knew that there would be plenty of sweets in store later.

When we got back, we went for a nice boat ride around the lake. It was windy, as it always is at the lake, and combined with the excess boat traffic this weekend the lake was rather rough. But it was still enjoyable.

When we got back, I had a small snack.


Pretty soon, dinnertime rolled around. We decided that it was a burger kind of night. Instead of our usual method of cooking burgers, which consists of smashing wads of meat onto a hot griddle, I wanted to try something slightly different. I wanted to pre-patty the meat and cook the burgers in a cast iron skillet on the grill. My mom seasoned the burgers perfectly with onion powder and black pepper. I heated up the skillet over medium-ish heat and dropped the patties in.


I cooked them until they got that perfectly crispy-ish texture.


I flipped 'em over, repeated the process, added cheese during the last minute, and BOOM!


I had a double (on a toasted bun, of course!).


Normally, I much prefer burgers that are smashed thin on a griddle. But these were really, really good. I have several ideas as to why they were so good. The first one is that they were seasoned very well. The second is that they were cooked very well (proper time and on a cast iron skillet). The third is that the cheese slices we used were Kraft Velveeta singles. And the fourth is that the buns were buttered and toasted to perfection. In reality, I think it was a combination of all of the above. 

We also had some sweet corn and chips.


Before I started eating, I reached for the cornbread. Now, I don't know what you think cornbread is, but I'm talkin' 'bout redneck cornbread! Redneck cornbread is where ye take a slice uh bread and put sum butter on it, then wipe it up and down on yer corn till the corn's all nice and buttered up!


For dessert, we classed it up a bit. We had all the fixins for strawberry shortcake.


Plus some other kinds of berries, like blue and rasp.

I started off with a somewhat traditional strawberry shortcake.


It was a slice of angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

I then decided to spice (read: sweet) it up a bit.


I added blueberries, raspberries, and chocolate syrup. That escalated quickly.

After this first serving, I went back for more. I wanted a slightly different dessert, so I omitted the berries.


Yes, I had cake with only whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

This was really good, but I had one more trick up my sleeve. Having been inspired recently by the turtle sundae I got at Sylas and Maddy's, I decided to create my own version using the shortcake formula as a base.


I grabbed a slice of cake, dumped some whipped cream on top, sprinkled in some pecans and chocolate covered almonds, and then doused it all in chocolate syrup. I didn't have any caramel, but oh well. It was very sweet, and verrryyyy good!

But being at the lake demands that a very specific dessert be made. It involved fire. Of course I'm talking about the venerable s'more. Being perhaps the most iconic dessert of all time, and one that is based in camaraderie, I could only hope that I could do it some justice with my interpretation.

My mom toasted two marshmallows. My dad was waiting ready with two graham crackers laced with Hershey's chocolate. When the marshmallows were cooked perfectly golden, they were expertly placed between the crackers and chocolate.


It was a proper ending to a day filled with good fun and good food!

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