Happy 36th Anniversary

my Laura in San Luis Obispo

Happy 36th Wedding Anniversary! I am not so impressed that we are still married as I am that 36 years have transpired. It can’t be because I’ve gotten older when you still look the same?

We had the most unlikely of weddings. The wedding at Los Angles Superior Court in front of Judge Xenophon P. Lang ( yes, I remember) along with many other young people married during his lunch hour. We had a single ring ceremony… as I admit… left my ring at my folks house being only 20 and a bit excited.

Dad cooking something... what else?

Thank you for everything.

Love,

Roger

Got Beer? No? Brew Your Own!

this here brew has earned the Captn Roger seal of approval!Well, I always wanted to know how one of my favorite sets of grains were treated when I wasn’t using them in bread and elsewhere? I have always had some fondness for beer and if the truth be known… I have enjoyed them everywhere … from the Hofbrauhaus to turning my ‘glass upside down’ in a Sidney bar.

All great fun. I have to confess to wondering what it would be like to brew my own.
Laura’s cousin Pam and her husband seemingly enjoy the effort required in home brewery and with a little prompting consented to provide a step by step look into the home brewery process!

Here’s how they do it!

Hopefully the hurricane will miss them in Houston or the storm is a bit merciful.

All I can say from the galley of Captn Rog, “Drink up me hardies!”

Roger Freberg

Sarah Palin, Bikinis and what is Not an Ak-47

That's a Vice President worth fighting for!Now, I will confess that I have never been a fan of CNN. Lord knows I have already given their icon Ten Turner the coveted ‘BIG WEENIE AWARD’ at least once. This week was a big one for all the unbelievably stupid comments out there… but CNN falling for the old ‘photoshop’ ploy was probably in a league of their own. They so obviously wanted it to be true!

Now, their stupidity would be bad but it doesn’t stop there! Here’s how the story was covered by others on the net:

“But Lola Ogunnaike, entertainment reporter for CNN’s American Morning, seems to believe the image is authentic. Yesterday she told Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz that Palin should maybe avoid posing with guns like this, because it might come back to bite her in the ass: I mean, McCain has been really good about painting Obama as this lightweight, using the word “celebrity” as a pejorative. They don’t want to have a boomerang effect. They don’t want that to come back on Sarah Palin, and people say, yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an  AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?”

Is this the same gun? Nah!

Do you see what I saw? There is a problem with this. Read what CNN allegedly said and look at the picture again.

I have been told this is Joe Biden in a swimsuit!Holy NRA!  That’s not an AK-47 ( a famous Russian ‘assault rife’… whatever that is supposed to mean). So it appears… at least – according to this popularized snippet – that CNN doesn’t really look very hard at their pictures. Just when you thought they couldn’t be dumber.

As for me… call me ‘old fashioned’, but  IF  this was Sarah Palin… I’d be i-m-p-r-e-s-s-e-d NOT offended. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d want to see Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton in a swimsuit…  not a pretty site.

BTW, Isn’t that Joe Biden?

CNN thought they’d offend folks… funny how out of touch they are.

Roger Freberg

How I remember the Twin Towers

Remembering the New York City Twin Towers

2001 was quite a year that started a series of events that has changed the world and how we Americans tend to view it.

Besides 911, it was the year my eldest daughters Kristin graduated from the Unted States Military Academy at West Point and Karen graduated High School.

It was also the time of a most cowardly act.

For me, the “Twin Towers” holds some fun memories. Of course, the viewing area on top of the building and the touristy ‘Windows on the World’  restaurant were fun destinations… but what I remember best is the old Shearson-American Express office up in the 100’s level floors somewhere. I remember making ‘calls’ ( we called it ‘dialing for dollars’) and watching the planes fly below us. As a stock broker, it was exhilarating.

The view was uniquely spectacular!

I remember my daughter Karen had a ’email pal’ with one of the commodity brokers who was a sports enthusiast… he perished along with thousands on 9-11.

September 11th changed how we view the world. It was the ‘Pearl Harbor’ for our generation. The Twin Towers celebrated America’s economic might, but also our innocence. We are only beginning to awaken now.

The world may not have changed, but we have. Let’s hope our leaders haven’t forgotten… we need to remind them.

Roger Freberg

remembering those who serve and those who have fallen

Jaw Breaker Bread for Laura Ann

Grainy Bread for Laura!
When you cook, requests usually are to be expected. It is part of the fun.

I don’t know why people expect that ‘healthy food’ should taste bad and that ‘healthy bread’ should be unpleasant. It’s as if someone has taken a page out of the pharmaceutical recipe book that reminds us that “good medicine tastes awful!” My experience is that good, healthy and wonderful food… tastes… well… delicious.

However, I know the need for so-called ‘health enthusiasts’ to self flagellate themselves, wear bike helmets and eat bread that resembles a Brillo pad. So I set out to come up with a ‘healthy’ bread that offers some of the expected ‘crunch’ of the more nastier versions of choose your descriptor: natural, organic, healthy, or earth mothery.

So, what’s in this bread?

I’ve thrown just about everything you can imagine: whole wheat & bread flour, millet, flaxseed, whole oats, oat bran, soy, rice, corn, barley, wheat germ, sesame seeds, molasses, honey, eggs and gluten. Okay, the purest will have some problems with some of these ingredients… but I wanted it to taste good, too!

Anyway, toasted with cheese and with 2 oz. of meat it is very  Jenny Craig  compliant… and Laura likes it, too… so that’s cool.

Roger Freberg