Mausts On Toast

Charleston’s WSAZ news has this stereotypical story about West Virginian dental hygiene:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Researchers found advanced gum disease in 80 percent of adults studied for a major oral health study in Appalachia.

The project by West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh tracked 445 families in both states.

Richard Crout, associate dean for research at WVU’s School of Dentistry, said the study shows rampant periodontal disease in adults, with signs of bone loss in 85 percent of subjects.

Left untreated, periodontitis can lead to bone destruction, tooth loss and even heart disease or stroke.

West Virginia has the highest rate of tooth loss in the country, with a third of residents 35 or younger having lost at least six permanent teeth.

Crout wants more resources for early dental treatment to instill good oral health habits.

Quite comical are the follow-up comments left by disheartened West Virginia natives below the news article at the web site. Don’t miss ‘em!

Last weekend we headed up to Beckley to help my parents rid their soon-to-be-for-sale home of any left over junk of mine and to help them get ready for their move to Pennsylvania any way we could. My dad and I chopped down our old wooden play jungle gym dealy (video of the chainsaw action on the videos page). Justin mowed the grass (video of him acting simple on the videos page). My mom cooked up whatever she could find in the freezer. And Emily, well, she lounged on the back deck sipping ice tea! Though she did eventually pick up a broom and get her sweep on.

The Mausts to Pennsylvania

It’s an odd thing to have both our parents moving at the same time and both farther from us. My parents are migrating north to Pennsylvania where my dad has taken a new and exciting job as a land agent for a gas company. I think they’re really looking forward to the move; well, maybe not the actual move, but the being in a new locale will be a refreshing change. They’re hoping to move over Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The Hayes’s to Namibia

Emily’s parents are also moving as of today, September 5th. They’re migrating south to Namibia where Georgina will serve with Voluntary Service Overseas as a volunteer and will be working with visually and hearing impaired children in Rundu in the north of Namibia. See Georgina’s Got No Hair for more info. Once they’re on the ground, we can expect to find regular updates on Nigel and Georgina’s blog at Hayestack.co.uk.

Pictures and Videos

As I mentioned above, I have added two new videos to the videos page. Further, I have added a bunch of new pictures, some from our weekend with my parents in Beckley and some from our lovely friend Fontaine’s fiesta mexicana which she kindly hosted at her house. Here’s a foretaste, but as always, the money’s in the photo gallery.

I guess now that our family’s have abandoned us in both northerly and southerly directions, we’ll need people to come visit us in Wake Forest. You might have to entertain yourselves because school’s in full force right now, but, hey, come on down and we’ll work something out. Maybe you can cook and clean for us, eh?

As it was raining yesterday, and I mean really raining, I decided it was due time for me to try to whip up the selfsame dish which I was served upon my very first visit to the home of Emily’s parents: leek and potato soup.

Knowing the competition, I scoured the Internet for the perfect Nigel-beating leek and potato soup recipe. When I happened upon one hosted at bbc.co.uk, I looked no further. Fight English with English.

If you’ve taken a peek at the recipe by now, you’ll notice that it’s really straightforward. Leeks, onions, taters in a pot. Add veggie stock. Simmer. “Whizz” with hand mixer. Add heavy cream (or crème fraîche). Heat through and serve with crusty bread.

“How does this compare with your Dad’s, baby?”

“Not quite as good I’m afraid.”

“Really?”

“Yeh, I don’t think he adds cream to his.”

“I like the cream.”

“Me, too; but I still think his is better.”

I beg to differ. =)

Sir Nigel D, you are hereby challenged to a leek off.

PS. Do you add cream (or crème) to yours?

This week I’ve been hanging out at Union View Baptist Church in Franklinton and helping out with a free soccer camp put on by the church and some of my (new) friends. This picture is of my squad, the green dots. Myself and coach Lindsey (far right) led this team of 6 and 7 year olds through drills, trials, mini-games and full-blown matches every night this past week in the church’s field. You can check out tons more pictures courtesy of Lindsey.

By far the highlight of the week was sharing Jesus with the kids. We told them of Jesus’ great love for us and that he’s always with us. “When you’re happy, you can sing to Jesus. When you’re sad, you can cry to Jesus. He’s always with you.” May these youngins grow into kickin’ soccer players and radical followers of Christ!

Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky, has posted a cute little ditty on his blog outlining a proposed repossession of America by Britain. Read it here.

When pressed for comment, Sir Nigel D concluded, “Quite right and jolly good show.  Let’s bring back the British Empire while we’re at it, eh, old boy, what, what?”

I don’t know about the Empire business, but Emily is most certainly my queen.

It was kind of a last minute decision to go see Armin van Buuren dj in Charlotte; not because we knew about it and were putting it off but because I found out only a week in advance. We were fortunate enough to get tickets and find a decently priced hotel in downtown Charlotte (a three hour drive from Wake Forest). I’ve just added about 100 pictures from our time in Charlotte at the club (called The Forum), at our hotel (The Blake), and a funny little place we played around at on Friday the day after, before heading home, called Discovery Place (we saw the crazy Pompeii exhibit). There are cool pictures and funny pictures. The cool ones for us might be the funny ones for you. Oh well.

Below you’ll find three fresh videos, two from our time with Armin and one as me acting a weatherman at the Discovery Place. The thumbnail at the top left links to the club promotional poster for Armin.

Who says you have to go out to an Indian restaurant to have an Indian meal. Last night we ate homemade tandoori chicken with jasmine rice. Was it authentic Indian and as good as you would find in a restaurant or as we had in Morocco? Nope, but it did do the trick with a colorful array of delightful flavors playing off one another. The biggest difference is that we don’t have a tandoor oven at home, or in fact anywhere for that matter. (I tried pricing them online a while ago and it seems you can only get industrial grade, restaurant style tandoors, none for the home.)

I found a little bottle of Punjab Red Tandoori spices at the World Market on Sunday (see UrbanAccents.com) and, after looking at the recipe on the side of the bottle, decided that this was something I could try making. The chicken marinated overnight Sunday to be ready for last night’s meal. The marinate consisted of the tandoori spices (which includes red pepper, paprika, turmeric, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, mace, anise, cloves, fenugreek, and fennel seed), lemon juice, plain yogurt, vinegar and oil. You can see judging by the ingredients in the tandoori spice that this is one instance where its best to just buy the spice already together instead of trying to collect each individually, even though I had many of these already.

Since we don’t have the best of grills (and I’m out of gas) we didn’t grill as recommended but baked for about 20ish minutes, turning once. This was just enough time for our rice maker to cook up a perfect batch of rice for two. We’ve been experimenting as of late with spicing rice while its cooking. Last night I sprinkled some of the tandoori spices and some garlic powder which in the end didn’t give a powerful flavor but added a little touch. Once coupled with the tandoori chicken the rice was overshadowed by its dominating spice and heat. We had no trouble scarfing this down and would definitely make it again for something less typical. Fantastic flavor, the right amount of heat, and the perfect portion size with the rice (no side dishes).

Respond

Have you made anything daring lately? Tell us about it. We might just try it out if you pass us the recipe.

Two weekends ago my parents gave my siblings and me something we really needed: a vacation. Why go to the beach or on a cruise or out west when you live in West Virginia? Thus, we went to Ansted, WV to the Country Roads Cabins. I hope this post doesn’t end up with a bunch of hits of people looking for the Country Roads Cabins in Ansted, because you’re not going to find the information you’re looking for here (but you might at their website). Anyways, from that weekend I’ve just added 80ish pictures to our photo gallery which presently gives us over 6000! Raise your hand if you’ve looked at all 6000 of ours pictures? (No one raises hand). I reckon I have. I mean I’ve added them all.

We had a great time spending the weekend with Matt & Christina, Justin, Lexie (my mom and dad’s poonum dog) and my parents. Shame you couldn’t have come along with us.

Actually, she does have hair, but-and this may be a first-my mother-in-law and I have the same haircut. While people are fond of saying that a shaven head is “you don’t any hair,” Georgina and I will insist that we have just as much hair as anyone else; ours is just shorter. Check her out and head on over to her JustGiving.com page where you can read about what she’s up to and why she shaved her head. Crazy!

I’ve switched things around a bit here at MOT.

Consider this a test.