Category: Memoir

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Lessons Learned From a Lifetime of Eating #1

I was in St. Louis on business. One day these things showed up at the office.

I had one (OK, two) after breakfast. Yes, they are that good.

Memo to Self – Don’t get depressed that you only learned about this delicacy in your 7th decade. I wonder if they deliver to Oklahoma.

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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

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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.

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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/

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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.