Guy Night!

And so it happens that a pretty good day ends with "Guy Night!"

The pretty good day consisted of spontaneously joining a Wisconsin Society for Ornithology field trip to Horicon Marsh and adding four five species to my Life List. (Yay!)

That was followed with work. You, know, "work" as in doing my job, just like I did yesterday afternoon. Never mind that it's the weekend. There are crises to avert! At least today I worked at home.

Having accomplished two missions and with a special dinner in mind, when Happy Hour arrived I shook up my own Vesper Martini with slight modifications for what I had on hand. Then I made dinner. The main course was something I'd been looking forward to all weekend--corn dogs from the "The Man Food Show" Episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown.

Man, they were good!! I had to add more flour than the recipe calls for to get a good coating of batter on the smoky all-beef franks. I also skipped the canned creamed corn and used the fresh, locally-grown sweet corn I purchased yesterday at the West Side Community Market. On the side? Baked beans, naturally. The dogs aren't pretty as is obvious here, but the taste more than makes up for it. The breading puffs up light and airy with a crispy crust. Even with a healthy coating on each weenie there was a lot of batter left over. I dropped some spoonfuls into the fryer and discovered it makes a danged tasty jalapeño corn fritter.

Could things be any better? Yes, of course. When I flipped around the channels to see what was on TV to watch while I enjoyed my guy food I came across a James Bond movie. Yeah, life is good.