Cookbooks

I have been on a big cooking trip lately.  Mainly to support my Primal habits and increase the overall healthiness of my diet.  I have concentrated on grilling/BBQ and vegetable dishes.

Wild About Greens: 125 Delectable Vegan Recipes for Kale, Collards, Arugula, Bok Choy, and other Leafy Veggies Everyone Loves by Nava Atlas - a good starter book on cooking greens; a lot of recipes what have grains but plenty of basic dishes

Fruit Trees in Small Spaces: Abundant Harvests from Your Own Backyard by Colby Eirman - more of a zen book on trees than a how-to guide

Beer-Can Chicken: And 74 Other Offbeat Recipes for the Grill by Steven Raichlen - am looking forward to trying a few of beer-can chicken recipes

Sausage: Recipes for Making and Cooking with Homemade Sausage by Victoria Wise- after reading this book, I decided that buying good sausage is easier and just as wholesome as making it

Raichlen on Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs by Steven Raichlen - the ribs bible from the BBQ king

The 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth: The Surprising Unbiased Truth About How to Make Nutritious and Delicious Meals that are Ready When You Are by Jonny Bowden - grabbed some great slow cooking recipes out of this one

Primal Backpacking

Since I migrated to a fully Primal diet a few months ago, I found one of the biggest challenges was developing menus for the camping and backpacking.  To help out, I recently got a dehydrator and vacuum sealer to prepare and package my own meals.
I have been making batches and batches and of beef jerky.  I get Mendenhall beef from Whole Foods.  It is pastured, grass-fed, local meat, not to mention delicious.  I make different flavors depending on what I have around.  Jerky is a fabulous snack for my treks.
If I have extra veggies around, I have been dehydrating them as well.  They take quite a while to dry.  I have zucchini, bell pepper and onion so far.  I also have dried chicken breast and ground beef (both pre-cooked).  My plan is to make soups and stews using vegges and meat and some seasoning.
On my last trek, I took a stew with ground beef, veggies and some left over ramen mix.  It was pretty decent.  The key was the flavored oil from the ramen pack (I ditched the noodles).  For the veggies, the zucchini seemed tough and bland while the bell pepper was vibrant and very tasty.
I will continue to experiment with different ingredient and combos.

Nation of Pansies

Why didn't anyone fight back?  Have we abdicated all our "security" to the government (which is incapable of performing such duties).

Books

• Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlett – a series of lessons on free market economics (only got through the first half before I had to return it)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie and Associates – updated version of the classic; a bit heavy on the blog quotes
• The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival by Craig Childs – couldn’t finish this one, I wanted more on the adventure and less on how their lives and the world was a bad place
• Eric Sloane's Weather Book by Eric Sloane – a fabulous reprint of an old weather book

Camp Osten

We had by brother's kids in town for Camp Osten 2012!

• Cirque du Soleil at the Kodak Theater for the girls
• Knott's Berry Farm for the boys
• Perfect Encinitas Days: bacon for breakfast, Moonlight Beach, Rico's Taco Shop
• Fireworks in Santa Ana
• Pool time!
• Epic water fight with the neighbors
• Rock City gym
• Lot's of bad-for-you-food