We Have a Five Time Pell Cup Champion!
Behind Aspen’s international skiing luster lies a deep, competitive hockey culture that makes for a tough beer league. A drive to win the bragging rights to the battered Pell Cup turns architects, bartenders, contractors, lawyers, teachers, ski bums, and friends into fierce, fist-throwing rivals…former pros, Division I college players, and old goats—or, more accurately, has-beens and never-weres—battle away for what may be the hardest-earned, least-known trophy in nonprofessional hockey: the Pell Cup. Named after longtime Aspenite Peter Pell (a notoriously sharp-tongued player who never won the cup himself), this dented piece of pewter is a horrible, miniature replica of the Stanley Cup, the National Hockey League’s holy grail. If you look past the beer and whiskey stains, you will see nearly a half century of Aspen’s history etched in the names of its hockey clubs, sponsored by bars, camera stores, laundromats, and other long-gone businesses. Is Aspen a Hockey Town at Heart? – https://www.aspensojo.com/travel-and-outdoors/2019/02/is-aspen-a-hockey-town-at-heart
Image: Courtesy: Pete McBride author of Is Aspen a Hockey Town at Heart?
2026 Pell Cup Champs!
And here’s what ChatGPT said about this post
Here’s the key thing about that post:
It’s not really “reporting news”—it’s more like an insider nod to something meaningful within a very small professional circle.
🏆 What the post is actually about
The “Five Time Pell Cup Champion” refers to the Pell Cup (not the sailing trophy you’ll see if you Google it—that’s unrelated (Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias)).
In this context, the Pell Cup is:
- An insurance underwriting competition
- Known mainly within groups like underwriting societies
- A test of evaluating complex insurance cases (medical + financial risk)
Winning it multiple times = elite-level reputation inside that niche
🧠 How to interpret the post
👍 What’s likely accurate
- The achievement itself is probably real
- These competitions are:
- small
- community-known
- hard to fake without being called out
So when the blog says “five-time champion,” it’s very plausible.
⚠️ What’s missing (and why it matters)
The post likely:
- Doesn’t name or fully identify the winner (or gives minimal detail)
- Doesn’t link to an official source
- Doesn’t explain the competition structure or verification
That’s typical of this blog’s style:
assumes the reader is “in the know”
🔍 Trustworthiness (specific to this post)
✔️ Reliable for:
- “This happened” (industry milestone)
- General significance (“this is impressive in underwriting circles”)
❌ Not reliable for:
- Verifiable sourcing
- Complete context
- Independent confirmation
🧩 Bigger picture (important)
This post is a good example of how the blog works:
- When it talks about industry culture or people → usually credible but informal
- When it talks about health, science, or big conclusions → much more questionable
✔️ Bottom line
The Pell Cup post is probably accurate—but not independently verified.
Think of it as:
- ✔️ an insider shoutout
- ❌ not a formal or authoritative record
An insurance underwriting competition…HAHAHA
Lessons Learned From a Lifetime of Cooking #13
Over the years when I invited friends over for dinner they got pretty excited. One day I asked a guest what’s with all the excitement?
Chinese food! They were expecting something I really sucked at making. To this day I don’t make much Chinese/Asian stuff. I’d rather go out and eat something someone actually knows how to make.
So Lesson #13 is this: technique. This is the how and why a dish, despite following the recipe exactly, tastes better than yours.
I found this video and I now know why my Chicken and Broccoli never tastes as good as the restaurant versions.
Who says you can’t teach an old trick new dogs?
Memo to Self – Don’t be discouraged to learn there are Chinese Americans out there more Chinese than you.
Becoming an Artist
When I finished reading The Writing Life by Annie Dillard I realized my writing will never achieve the level of the great ones. But I am OK with this just as I was OK with deciding not to pursue writing for a living. Too hard, too demanding, too much time spent writing words into the universe where no one reads what you’ve written. Maybe if I took this writing thing seriously I could have gotten a lot better. Maybe if I had become a better writer the angels above would have tossed me a bit of luck. Maybe it’s not too late to start writing better. It’s always easier to work tirelessly on your art when you don’t depend upon it to put a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes on your back. The Artist must start somewhere.
Mimi and Papa by Madelyn. I’m the one on the right.
“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”
Steven Pressfield from The War of Art – https://stevenpressfield.com/2020/10/the-unlived-life/
Oklahoma !
Today
Monday earlier this week
Monday
Breakfast 03.19.26
For breakfast I had a strawberry.
The banana is small 4-5 inches and in the picture to demonstrate the size of this thing.
Spring Roll Dipping Sauces – (another) Electronic Sticky Note
Spring Roll Dipping Sauce https://thewoksoflife.com/spring-roll-dipping-sauce/
For new readers an electronic sticky note is a reminder and pointer to recipes from other websites that one day I might try.
So when the bots come back (see The Recipes in This Blog Are Being Stolen by AI) they’ll be stealing someone else’s copyrighted material.
Scary Charts 01.11.26
Source: Food Inflation: The Price Spikes of Beef, Coffee, Eggs, and Dairy – https://wolfstreet.com/2025/10/24/food-inflation-the-price-spikes-of-beef-coffee-eggs-and-dairy/
I decided I would try to collect data online from the largest supermarkets in the country, and I pretty soon realized that the numbers I was getting were two or three times higher than the official numbers for inflation. Alberto Cavallo, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School – What happens when no one trusts a country’s economic data – https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-happens-when-no-one-trusts-a-countrys-economic-data
I do the food shopping in my two person half retired household and my eyeballs tell me weekly our government inflation statistics do not match reality.
Aldi was very busy today.
Common Food Preservatives Linked to Higher DM2 Risk
Over the study period, 1,131 cases of type 2 diabetes were identified among the 108,723 participants. Compared with people who consumed the lowest levels of preservatives, those with higher intake showed a markedly increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Overall preservative consumption was linked to a 47% higher risk. Non-antioxidant preservatives were associated with a 49% increase, while antioxidant additives were linked to a 40% higher risk.
INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale). “Common food preservatives linked to higher risk of type 2 diabetes.” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260109080211.htm (accessed January 10, 2026).
Type 2 diabetes has a stronger link to family history and lineage than type 1, and studies of twins have shown that genetics play a very strong role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Race can also play a role. Yet it also depends on environmental factors. Lifestyle also influences the development of type 2 diabetes. Obesity tends to run in families, and families often have similar eating and exercise habits. Genetics of Diabetes – https://diabetes.org/about-diabetes/genetics-diabetes
Remember this:
Stay as thin as you can as long as you can – https://lifeunderwriter.net/2022/04/05/stay-as-thin-as-you-can-as-long-as-you-can/
And watch out for those preservatives.
What Grok Thinks About This Blog
garyskitchen.net is a personal WordPress.com blog (also referred to as a “food memoir”) authored by Gary, the same individual who runs lifeunderwriter.net under the handle SupremeCmdr.
The site’s tagline/subtitle is: “A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, digital cookbook and nutrition information for family and friends”.
Key aspects include:
- Core focus: Personal stories and reflections on significant weight loss (Gary describes losing around 200 pounds from a peak of ~370 lbs and maintaining a stable ~168 lbs at 5’10” for years), strategies for long-term weight maintenance, occasional family-style recipes (e.g., variations on “Badass Black Eyed Peas,” Texas Corn Bread, baked oatmeal, overnight casseroles, sweet potato dishes), and curated commentary on nutrition research/topics (gut microbiome benefits from coffee, probiotics, organic vs. conventional produce debates, ultra-processed foods, food subsidies’ links to obesity, etc.).
- Content style: Informal, anecdotal, and memoir-like—mixing personal experiences (family cooking traditions, cooking for one, pandemic pantry improvisation), recipes (often with tweaks or stories behind them), nutrition insights (frequently citing studies or news), cooking tips, and occasional broader thoughts (e.g., on food policy, health trends, or random life observations). Posts can include photos, ingredient lists, cooking instructions, and links to related research or external sources.
- Author background: In his “day job,” Gary is a life insurance underwriting professional/expert in mortality risk assessment (cross-referenced directly to his other blog at lifeunderwriter.net). He emphasizes he’s not a credentialed nutritionist or diet expert—just sharing what has worked for him personally. He’s also self-described as an amateur philosopher, good cook, bargain shopper, dad (“professional Papa”), blues guitarist, and published writer (mostly via his blogs). The blog is free (WordPress.com basic plan with ads), earns nothing, and includes no endorsements or monetization beyond that.
- Connection to lifeunderwriter.net: Explicitly linked by the author—posts on one site often reference the other (e.g., nutrition/mortality overlaps like longevity, obesity risks, or health factors). The two blogs complement each other: one leans professional/insurance/mortality/underwriting, the other personal/food/weight/nutrition.
- Activity: Active with irregular but ongoing posts (examples from recent years include 2024–2025 entries on black eyed peas for luck, oyster safety, gut bacteria from coffee/cheese, egg prices, etc.). It dates back at least to 2017 (older recipe posts) but serves as a living “digital cookbook” and family archive.
Overall, it’s a niche, opinionated personal blog—great if you’re interested in realistic weight-loss maintenance stories from someone in the health-risk space, home cooking with a practical bent, or casual nutrition commentary through a non-professional lens. Not a polished recipe site or strict diet blog, but more of a thoughtful, eclectic food-and-life journal.
Thoughtful AND eclectic!
garyskitchen.net 