Ciao, mia famiglia estesa. I really didn't want to get pulled into this blog spot thang, but my "voice" is a bit different than Lori's and since I do the cooking, picking and brewing around here, I guess I'll throw my two cents in occasionally, even if it's not worth that much. What's new? Summer has been busy so far-we ran to FLA twice in June, once to drop Mykhaila off at her grandma's and then back to pick her up 3 weeks later and celebrate my friends JP and Angel's marriage. They ran off and got married in Jamaica and then had a very fun shindig at their home. We drank some great Eastern European beer (there's a great market 2 blocks from their house, Gigi and Bubba have been there- real pierogies!), talked politics and music under the huge oak tree in their backyard, and pushed the kids in the skychairs hanging from said oak tree. I sure miss a lot of things about St. Petersburg, especially all the great friends that we were able to see while we were down there. The newly formed Kiesels (JP and Angel) came up for the weekend of the 4th and were here for our Inaugural Independence Day Patriotic Pig Pit Party, also known by IIdPPPP. Maybe we can come up with a more clever title for next year. It was pretty amazing. My friend John came up with the idea-"you mind if I bring a whole pig over?" and we went running with it. Brad and I built a cinder block pit in the backyard, with a big ol' iron grate his daddy and granddad cooked pigs on. Now there's some tradition for ya. I got some advice from my boss, who is Cuban ('nuff said), and came up with a plan for the pig. John brought it over on the 4th, we brined it with apple juice, cider vinegar, shallots, onion, garlic, fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt (ironic, huh?) for a day and started getting ready at 7a on the 5th. The pig went on just before 9a, and was ready by 3 or so-we had a full appreciative crew. We also had a deep fried turkey breast, a couple of pork roasts and tons of sides. The guys pretty much just ate pig. Brad manned up and not only ate one of the eyeballs ("tastes like smoked pig") but some brain as well. Yes, I did too. Texturally, it lacked something, in the kind of way that makes you want to lose the contents of your stomach just trying to swallow it. BUT we're MEN, so we did it. Brad also wore the snout as a disguise, which was extremely, and disturbingly, funny. We had about 20 people in the pool and 4 generations of Flemings there-Brad's Grandparents, his parents, his wife and his child. Pretty amazing. In beer news, I tapped my Groundskeeper Willie's Wee Heavy Smoked Scottish Ale-It's pretty delicious, I also have a keg of cider on tap and one in the wings. I just brewed a Rye Pale Ale on Friday, which is happily fermenting away in the garage. I'll be brewing a Golden Gingered Ale shortly. Should be delicious. Y'all stop by sometime, ya hear?