Swing Dancing To a Plant-Based Beat

In this vegan journey over the last one and a half years, I have created some go-to dishes and spice mixtures that I make on a regular basis for those workday lunches that you are trying to prepare at 6 or 7 in the morning. The first one here is a Tex-Mex Pinto Bean pot that I cook up once every couple of weeks. It is a start to finish dish in my 6 Quart Presto Pressure Cooker . The Spices The spice mixture is the key, I make it in batches and store it in a container in the freezer and use 2 tablespoons per pot. It goes like this: Salt 3.5 Tbsp Cumin 4 Tbsp Chili Powder 2 Tbsp Garlic Powder 2 Tbsp Onion Powder 2 Tbsp Paprika 2 Tbsp Cayenne 1 tsp Thyme 4 tsp Oregano 4 tsp Sugar 2 tsp Buy good beans and give 'em a soaking bath The day before you plan to prepare this dish, soak 2 cups of dry pinto beans in 6 cups of water and 1 tsp salt. I source my organic pinto beans from a local healthy grocer, Ellwood Thompson's Supermarket in Richmond, Va. They have a great

Our family has been vacationing in the Myrtle Beach, SC area for about 55 years or so. During that time we have stayed in cottages, small hotels, big motels, resorts and rental homes. This year (2018) w hile visiting    Garden City, SC  , I had made it a point to get to two restaurants that interested me while planning the trip. On of them was   Pacino's  Mediterranean Grille , in a strip mall just prior to the entrance into the community of Murrel's Inlet . I realized, just an hour prior to creating the appetite, that a reservation was recommended. I called and they offered a 7:30 - 8:00pm time slot, being already hungry I asked was there anywhere where we could sit and sample some of their more interesting menu items. They offered a seat in the kitchen area and I immediately replied "We'll be there in 10 minutes!" and off we went. The very first dish that we tried was the Mujaddara. Not even knowing how to pronounce it, we ordered it to give it a try and we were

In 2Tbsp of olive oil, saute until soft: 2 shallots, chopped Add to that and fry 3-4 minutes: 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1-1\2 pounds mushrooms Add: 4 pieces sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped 6Tbsp dry white wine Salt and pepper to taste Stir in: 1 can red kidney beans Bring it up to temp, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the beans have warmed through. Serve over rice or pasta...Enjoy!

The Beginning (Lindy Hop) My wife and I have spent the last couple of years learning and exploring the world of Carolina Shag, the official dance of the state of South Carolina, and what a journey it has been! We started our dancing adventure a little over 5 years ago through some Lindy Hop classes in Williamsburg, thanks to Wendy Lang Craighill and the lindy101.org group. After traveling weekly over to Williamsburg each week, we moved a bit closer to home with what became the Jazz Dance Education Council (JDEC) in Richmond, VA. Although short-lived, this group had a great impact on the vintage swing dance movement in the greater Richmond-metro area by adding many classes and live band swing dances once a month, calling them the R-Town Strutters Ball! JDEC, as the group became known, held classes in several venues throughout Richmond, Va, and offers lessons in Lindy Hop, '20s and '30's Charleston, Balboa, and many other offshoots of swing dances originally performed in

Stopped by our local feed store, Heretick Feed & Seed in Petersburg, back in August to pick up a bunch of collard plants and found out that they would have 17-week old hens in September. So I had them put my name on the call list and began to plan and build the run first. Heretick has been a great resource for feed, straw, pine shaving, diatomaceous earth and many other items that you can use in your urban/suburban homesteading work. I already had the chicken wire at the house, so I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a couple bundles of  2x2's, SPAX screws and went to work on an idea that I had been pondering for a good while now. Instead of building a single box and encasing it in chicken wire, I would build frames and then connect them to form a box. I didn't know how it would work structurally but I was soon gonna find out. So I got to building the frames, two of them 2ft x 8ft and then built six of them 2ft x 4ft. As you can see from the photo, the pieces fit w

One of the great things about living in the Richmond metro area is the wide variety of high quality music available on most any night of the week. Spanning the genres of blues, rhythm & blues, country, rock, dance parties, grunge, hip-hop...you name it and it is available. I, along with my wife Denise, like to hone in on the blues and rhythm & blues bands and the venues that host them. We also, since taking up swing dancing just about a year ago, look for places that have some room to dance. We have found that dancing is a way to become engaged in the music experience and greatly increases our enjoyment of the performance. Because of this, I have set some criteria for planning an evening out and it goes something like this: The Band - If I have heard them before, then it is not a difficult decision and is predetermined. If not, I begin to search the web for sample music in order to gain some knowledge of the types of music they play and the quality of the performance. Take

My wife and I get out quite a bit and really enjoy good music of all types. There are those nights that are complete misses, where nothing clicks, you wrap up and go home after a short time out. Then there are those nights where the band, crowd and venue all agree and compliment each other perfectly. You find yourself immersed in an other-worldly experience. One that causes you to lose yourself in the moment and, many times, ending the night at an unusually late hour having had a completely wonderful time. Then there is the  RVA Music Trifecta ! A night when 3 great bands are playing at 3 great venues and are arranged in a way that you can get to see them all in the course of one night. This can be a truly fun experience and is what I refer to as an RVA Music Trifecta. We experienced our first RVA Music Trifecta was on a Friday night in February where we caught Andy Poxon ( Capital Ale House ), Doctors of Jazz ( Rose Marie Inn ) and finished with Barrelhouse ( Home Team Grill