Dreams are so strange.

Last night I had the most vivid dream. I was staying in a hotel room next to Bill and Hillary Clinton (and one of their mothers). The room I was staying in was very nice, but when I walked in there were a few things leftover from the previous guest (keys, watch, sunglasses, wallet). At this point I was suspicious. Checking the closet, it turned out that the previous guest had not checked out, and was missing. From here the dream got even stranger, with me hiding around the hotel from a guy was out to get me (not sure of me, or something to do with the previous guest). Occasionally I dream about elevators and going up and down, being very afraid that the elevator is going to crash into the first floor. This dream was no different. I saw the Clintons once during the dream (and their mom), but the dream wasn't really about them. I wonder where all this comes from?

We call him Duke - Part III

Based on some of the feedback I have received, I am going to start out by saying, no, we ultimately did not end up keeping Duke. But before you flame me, please read about how we came to this difficult decision. Part of me regrets even writing about this for other people to see, but I think it is an important lesson, not only for us, but for anyone who finds themselves in this situation...

I came home from lunch the other day and found Duke outside, fast asleep. Near him were the remnants of an extension cord that connects to our little outdoor beer fridge. I had no idea how he chewed that cord without getting shocked. He must have been shocked a little because the outlet had been tripped. I didn't blame him, since he is a dog and dogs like to chew things. Our dog, Millie, isn't interested in chewing anything that isn't food, so we didn't really have much in the way of chew toys. He ate his plastic food bowl, and I was fine with that. I felt bad that we didn't have more for him to play with, but saw this as a foreshadow of things to come. We would have a big problem if he started chewing the furniture, or as one friend told us, chewed a hole in the wall. This wasn't good.

Our hope was that someone would adopt the little guy. He is a wonderful dog and will make a great companion for someone who has the time to spend with a puppy. Steven and I split up a list of pit bull rescues and started calling. None had room for new dogs, but several recommended that we bring him to Animal Rescue and from there he would have visibility to the rescues and hopefully he would be picked up or adopted outright. The Humane Society of Broward County is a no-kill shelter (unless the dog is sick or a danger to other dogs and humans). We have both been to the location and felt that it was OK.

The next day I left work early and put Duke in the car to bring him to the HSBC. He rides in the car so well, unlike our Millie who is a basket case the entire ride. He just hung out and looked out of the window. I tried not to think about what was going to happen as we drove there. NPR had a very interesting story about books on during the ride, so that helped, but I kept looking back at him in the rear view mirror and couldn't help but feel sad. When we arrived at the HSBC, he jumped out of the car and we walked inside. Immediately I noticed a big sign that said they do not take stray animals. All stray animals needed to go to the county Animal Control. Ugh, that's just what we didn't want. The county Animal Control is so overwhelmed with dogs, that many good dogs are put down because they aren't adopted in time. Now I was torn.

The Broward County Animal Control office in Fort Lauderdale is literally at the airport. When you pull into their parking lot there are giant jets just feet away, getting ready to taxi for takeoff. It's cool and totally weird at the same time.  From the outside it looks like a run down building, but once you get inside, it is really nice. I walked Duke into the reception area and was immediately greeted by a woman who took my information. She came around from behind the counter and scanned Duke for a micro chip. He didn't have one, of course. Next, she pulled out a camera and took some shots of him. I told her about what we had done to treat him so far, and she took hold of the leash. At that point I turned and walked away. I knew I couldn't look back or I would have walked out the door with him. I heard her say to Duke "It's OK", but I didn't want to see his little face. I hope that we had him for a short enough time that he hadn't become attached to us, like we had to him. I focused on the jets as I drove away from the shelter and continued to listen to NPR.

That was several days ago. We wonder about him and hope he is doing OK. I don't know if we could ever foster a dog again. We're just not cut out for it.

We call him Duke - Part II

On Tuesday I had to go back to working in the office, so we were going to test out leaving Duke in the backyard. We hadn't had any problems so far. He did fall in the pool once, but so did Millie. We think it must be some sort of doggie right of passage they need to go through. We walked the dogs and put Millie in her crate and Duke out back. It is completely covered out there and he has a towel and water, so we weren't too worried. We have spent the day back there and if you're out of the sun, it's really not bad. But when I closed the door and walked away, he barked! We had never heard this dog utter a peep. I literally turned around and did a double take. This little dog could bark? I don't know why I was so stunned, but, for some reason, I just assumed he was a silent dog. Boy, was I wrong! This dog was fine if you were with him, but as soon as you walked away, he was barking. We knew it was because he wanted to play and was a puppy, but we have a dog that rarely barks. And, with him outside, we couldn't having him barking all day. The neighbors would kill us. Steven accurately pointed out that he was feeling better and getting his courage back, hence the barking. And he was starting to chew, too. First a garden watering jug. Next, an electrical cord. Uh, oh. We were in trouble...

Next, the final update on 'We call him Duke'...

We call him Duke

For as long as I've been an adult, I have wanted to foster needy dogs. Steven and I already have a dog, Millie, who is amazing and awesome in so many ways. But I thought that we could not only have a fantastic dog to keep, but also help other pups out in the process.

For a lot of reasons, we had yet to foster a dog. Both of us weren't on the same page about the whole "second dog" idea and our busy schedules got in the way of seriously talking about the idea and making any sort of plans. That is, until this past Sunday...

We were out and about running errands. As we walked up to the car, we saw a small dog run by. It was funny because not only were we in a very industrial area where one wouldn't necessarily see a dog running by, but this dog turned his head and looked at us as he trotted past us. It was very funny and cute, but you probably had to be there to get it. We called him over, but he kept on going and went around the corner of a nearby building. We shrugged and got into our car. As I was starting the car, I looked out of the window and there was the dog, standing at our car. So we got out of the car to say hello to this little guy. We immediately noticed that he wasn't in good shape. He was loaded with ticks and way too thin. But he was very cute and wagged his tail and let us inspect him. We decided we needed to take him with us. He wasn't wearing a collar and looked too sick to be someones recently lost pet. He let us pick him up and put him in the back of our wagon.

He rode very nicely in our car for the short trip home. He seemed happy, despite the many, many ticks on him. We didn't want him to interact with Millie at this point, since we didn't know his deal. We put him out back and immediately focused on giving him a flea and tick bath. He wasn't very eager for a bath, but let us do what we needed to do. He was a good little bather and let us pick at his ticks and prod him as we cleaned him up. This happened two more times as the night progressed. We don't know how many ticks we found, but we guess easily in the hundreds. There were everywhere. We gave him a heart worm pill  and some dinner and he passed out cold for the night.

On Monday I worked from home. My goal was to find out what we needed to do with the dog, whom Steven had started calling "Duke". I assumed that I would be able to bring him to the vet and have him checked out after I reported him missing to the local shelters. I also posted an ad for him on Craig's List, since a lot of dog owners post lost and found dogs on there. I spoke with our vet's office and told them what we had done so far. They suggested that we contact a place in Boca Raton that specializes in medical services for stray animals. We had no idea how much it was going to cost to have this little guy all fixed up with the puppy shots, spay, heart worm prevention, etc. We do all that for Millie, but we never calculated the cost to do all of that at once. It was a lot and it wasn't in our budget. So we decided to focus on getting all the ticks off of him and used a small dose of flea prevention medicine that we use on Millie, so at least he would be comfortable. When he first arrived, he was scratching and biting himself like crazy. That all stopped once we got rid of the fleas and ticks.

Duke slept pretty much the entire time for a day and a half. He would wake up if we came out back and play with us, but then he would go right back to sleep. He must have been exhausted from being on the streets, and was simply too tired to do anything else. We took him for walks (he walked great on a leash) and fed him and played with him, but we didn't let he and Millie meet. Millie could see him from inside the house, but we banned her from the backyard while Duke was back there. She is a healthy dog and we didn't want to risk her catching anything from him until we knew his health status.

While all of this was going on, we were trying to decide what to do with Duke. No one had called to claim him. One person whom I spoke with told me that she would be surprised if someone claimed him. She said there are so many stray dogs out there and people who can no longer afford their dogs oftentimes turn the dog loose. The problem with this is that then the dogs breed and more and more dogs are running around loose. A better alternative is for people who cannot afford to care for a pet to bring the animal to a local shelter. More on this later, but when the woman told me this, I was worried. At that point we weren't sure if we were going to keep Duke or not. We just wanted to get him off the streets and back to good health.

Next, part II of 'We call him Duke'...

Brownstone Front Cake - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

Recently a friend told me about Brownstone Front Cake. It is a southern cake that his family made from time to time and it was a favorite. It sounded really good, with chocolate cake and a caramel icing, so I decided to make it. I had no idea what I was in for.

The cake itself isn't hard to make. In fact, the actual cake is delicious and very light and fluffy. But when it was time to make the icing, I knew I was in trouble. Unlike traditional frosting, caramel icing is poured over a cake. Also, this icing takes 45 minutes to cook on the stove, and you need to be near it to stir frequently, so it doesn't burn. There are few things grosser than burned caramel. Below is the recipe and some pictures of the fallout front he cake. As they say: if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again!

MAKE SURE THE CAKE AND ICING ARE COOL BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO ICE THE CAKE. SEE PICTURES BELOW FOR EVIDENCE OF THIS! You will be sorry otherwise!

**note - I found this recipe at BlairPeter, but there are many variations of this recipe.

Brownstone Front Cake

3/4 cup warm water 1 tsp. vanilla

3 Tbsp. cocoa 1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups sugar 1 cup buttermilk

1/2 lb. of unsalted butter, softened 3 cups all-purpose flour

3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cocoa in warm water and set aside. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well with each addition. Add vanilla to cocoa and water and add to mixture. (At this point, my cake batter looked curdled, but don't dismay, it will change.) Add soda to buttermilk. Alternate adding flour and buttermilk mixture to bowl, mixing only to combine with each addition. I ended with buttermilk, made sure all was mixed. At that point I has gorgeously smooth batter a beautiful golden brown color. Pour equal amounts into 3 buttered and floured cake pans. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before icing it.

Icing

3 1/2 cups sugar (I know!) 12 oz. Carnation evaporated milk

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (!!) 1 1/4 tsp. vanilla

Cook sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a heavy bottomed pot on stove top. Bring to a bubbling boil, then lower the heat to a bubbly simmer, stirring often and adjusting heat as necessary. Cook 35 to 40 minutes. Add vanilla, beat mixture in bowl of electric mixture until creamy.*This icing needs to cool down quite a bit before spreading it on the cake, so you could start it while the cake is baking. Spread a generous amount of icing between each of the layers, then spread the remainder of the of the icing over the cake. If icing still seems to be running, put everything in the refrigerator to cool down.

Hot dogs steamed in beer

We went to a little July 4th party yesterday afternoon (spontaneous, since the weather was lousy). I tried a hot dog steamed in Sam Adams beer. I think there should be a rule that all hot dogs must be cooked in beer. It was so delicious. You didn't even have to put anything on it (I put a little mustard, but wouldn't next time). The beer flavor comes out of the dog and it is so delicious and tender. I mean, this is a hot dog, but cooked in beer, it was a dog taken to the next level. I'd recommend a heavier beer (such as Sam Adams). Our friend cooked them in a crock pot, but I imagine you could just as easily boil them on the stove in beer. Muy delicioso!

Welcome Steven! stevencooks.com

Welcome to the blogosphere, Steven! Take a moment to check out Steven's new cooking/foodie blog at http://www.stevencooks.com/!

South Beach - Lincoln Road Mall

Our friend Kelly was in town this past week and we took a ride down to Miami to check out South Beach (it's about a thirty minute ride from Fort Lauderdale). We had been there once before, but we really hadn't much time to explore the Lincoln Road area and wanted Kelly to see it. It is definitely the place to see and be seen. The people watching is amazing. Everyone is dressed up, many women were wearing super high heels and even the guys were sporting Armani and all the expensive wear. One could just sit in a chair and watch everyone for hours, which is what we saw a lot of. I wasn't expecting this, and found myself literally staring at people as they walked by (so was everyone else). There are lots of shops and restaurants. It's easy and fun to make a day trip and at the beach is located at one end of Lincoln Road, so you can even catch some rays. Parking is a bit of a challenge, though. There are lots behind the mall area, but you might have to fight with other drivers to get a good spot. We went over our time on the meter and got a ticket, but it wasn't too much, so we didn't pout about it.

If you're in the area, check out Lincoln Road Mall. You won't be disappointed.