New Year’s Eve Bash in the Skull

A lot of you have been wondering what’s going on down at The Redneck on New Year’s Eve. Well, I going to tell you right now.

It’s our first annual New Year’s Eve Bash in the Skull. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we’ll be having a bar-room brawl tournament. It will actually begin on Sunday night (Dec. 30th) with preliminary rounds, then continue on Monday night with the finals. Tammy and Gerri, our current tag team champions, will have a bye in the first rounds. They will be defending their titles on Monday night. We will also be awarding a singles championship; so everyone rust up your knives and practice your drop-kicks (maybe you should even watch a Jean Claude Van-Damme movie to pick up some new moves).

I will be opening up the kitchen and anyone who wants to can come in and make their own Gingerbeerbread. We’ll see how closely you paid attention to the video. The tiger torch will be set up out back for those who are adventurous enough to bake in the Alberta Oilfield Style.

Also on the menu with be a buffet of some of Tim’s and my favourite gourmet delicacies. Fruit from the spiny poplar tree of the Forest of Ubangme, breaded wrapped rhinoceros pizzle, ox strawloin, and minced gut-worms from the Gobi Desert. We have imported these items from various locales around the globe just for you, our loyal patrons.

As for entertainment I have managed to book the popular local band, White Noise. They will be performing all of their hits and I heard that they have been working on a new one, “Computer Keyboard Clacking”. I have no doubt that it rocks.

Naturally, the will be a vast supply of Blue Beaver Beer on tap and some of the Blue Beaver Girls will be on hand on the celebration. Plus there will be one or two other surprises that I am still working on lining up. Tickets are free, however you must R.S.V.P. in the comments section below. I suggest you don’t delay, people will be coming in droves for this one.

December 29, 2007 | | 5 Comments »

Homemade Gingerbread Ice-cream Sandwiches: Gingerbread Recipe With Beer

Here it is, a video demonstration of Ernie’s world famous Gingerbread with Beer, or Gingerbeerbread. Ernie slaved away for minutes to bring you this dish! If you ever wanted to make your own Homemade Ice-cream Sandwiches, this should give you all the info you need. Most of this video is in the making of the actual gingerbread, since most people can figure out how to cut bread and put ice-cream between two slices.

The recipes can be found on the original entry, What’s On The Menu. That is where you will find the actual Gingerbread Recipe with Beer, as well as a Rum Sauce Recipe.

One step that isn’t in the video, but will help a lot, is to chill the bread thoroughly in the fridge or freezer before attempting to slice it. Gingerbread can be pretty crumbly when warm, and you can end up with a lot of crumbs real fast. Another thing Ernie mentioned that he likes to do, is to use multigrain or whole wheat flour, and this gives a little more firmness to the bread as well.

If you are making your own beer gift baskets from scratch, and you plan on chilling the beer for immediate drinking, these ice cream sandwiches would make an excellent gourmet addition to your gift.

And now a word on Tiger Torches. These handy items were used in the Forest of Ubangme to burn out tiger dens, and the best ones still come from there. Here in Alberta, they have become a common oilfield tool used widely for ‘shrinking sleeves’, heating metal, thawing frozen things in the winter, and cooking. You can heat a can of soup, roast hot dogs, you name it. Caution must be used around flammable objects when using one of these units! The temperature can be hard to regulate, so be careful. Warning: do not cook indoors with tiger torches! We will not be held responsible if you die in a freak cooking accident, or if attacked by a tiger outside his den. Ernie uses the tiger torch for several applications at the Redneck Bar and Grill.

Hope you enjoy the Gingerbread Beer Recipe and the Homemade Gingerbread Ice-cream Sandwiches! Click this link if there is a problem viewing the video : Gingerbread Ice-cream Sandwich

December 28, 2007 | | Tags: , , , | 26 Comments »

The Origin of the Christmas Tree-Urine/Water

Okay; so recently Gerri, over at Absolutely True posted the following:

Dairy farmers have long known that adding one part bovine urine to 25 parts fresh water and two parts maple syrup will generally extend the life of a Christmas Tree by as many as five days.
To this I responded:

How long did it take dairy farmers to determine the exact ratio of urine to water? And how did the maple syrup get involved?

Gerri became, justifiably, curious as to why I would be the one asking questions; then she suggested that I may wish to answer myself. Now this is a bit of a departure for me. After all, why would a person write an advice column if he/she is just going answer his/her own questions. That seems quite senseless. However, just this once I will make an exception.

How long did it take dairy farmers to determine the exact ratio of urine to water?

First of all, it took many long hours of observing wild Christmas trees out in the pasture. And as you know, many dairy farmers are also botanists. These dairy farmer/botanists studied the trees when the cows urinated on them during a rain shower. Then they took note of which trees were thriving and which one were not doing as well. Next they had to calculate the volume of cow’s urine in relation to how much rain water was being absorbed by the trees. The final step was to perform the experiment on the domesticated Christmas tree. It took a little over five years, but they finally came up with the ratio of 1 part urine to 25 parts water.

How did the maple syrup get involved?

Well, I’m sure we all recall the origin of the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. There was some guy walking along eating a chocolate bar and he ran into a robot eating peanut butter right out of the jar. The two foods came into direct contact and both parties agreed that the result was very tasty. It was a similar situation with the Christmas tree-urine/water. A robot was walking through the lab carrying a jar of maple syrup over to it’s human masters (because robots don’t care for maple syrup on their pancakes) and it accidentally tripped and spilled exactly 2 parts of the syrup into the urine/water. A few days later the dairy farmer/botanists noticed that this new mixture had a positive effect on the tree. They published a paper on the subject and ended up winning an Ig Nobel prize. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of not crediting the lab robot, which then became incensed and led a robot uprising…but that’s a different story.

| | 9 Comments »

Belated Holiday Wishes To One and All

The Redneck has been shut down for a couple of days so that staff and management could enjoy the “holiday season” with our loved ones. I just had to stop by tonight to grab some more Blue Beaver; I was starting to run low at home.

I should like to take a moment to wish all of our Beer Buddies and our other loyal patrons a; Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Fun-filled Festivus, Kwazy Kwanzaa, Warm Winter Solstice and a very merry, happy whatever other holiday that you might be celebrating at this time of year (I hope I’ve covered them all, I try so hard to politically correct).

If you happen to find yourself with a little free time, my comic-book-guy, Dave, sent me this link to a really demented fun Christmas game. You should try it.

And stay tuned, in the next day or two we will be posting details about the upcoming New Year’s Bash in the Skull. Merry Boxing Day to all, and to all a good bargain.

December 26, 2007 | | 4 Comments »