BBQ sauce winner; ME, an Award Winner and VIRGIN ISLAND UPDATE

The EXCELLENT folks at ArmadilloPepper.com provided me a wonderful bottle of BBQ sauce to giveaway. They are those folks that offer a wonderful last minute (is it too early to mention last-minute gift ideas) gift idea for the griller/smoker... COOK in all of us, their GOURMET SAUCE OF THE MONTH CLUB! The club provides not only 2 bottles of unusual regional BBQ sauces/rubs/hot sauce or jelly each month, but it also allows the recipient to pick his favorite out of dozens and dozens of possibilities. I LOVE THE IDEA OF THIS CLUB! I was gifted this club, and I happily contacted them and arranged for this giveaway.

The winner gets a bottle of...

BRANDY MANDARIN - ORANGE Sauce from R.P.Hill Exotic Sauce CO. "Gourmet Sauce ~ With a Little Kick". Advertised as All Natural, NO FAT sauce, 2007 Flavor of Georgia Winner! The ingredient list is a joy to read... Almost no salt (a small amount in the Tomato Paste, but no additional salt added). And, very low sugar. I was very excited to give this a shot.

AND, the winner is... MARTHA from MENAGERIE Blog. Martha is a regular contributor to OUR KRAZY KITCHEN. She has a terrific blog, and I urge you all to take a look at her site... Martha, drop me an email with your mailing address, and I will get this sauce to you in time to use on your Christmas Turkey leftovers!

And Martha, I see you live in Florida... That's only a hop skip and a jump (and a couple hour plane ride) from the US VIRGIN ISLANDS. A few days, I cryptically mentioned that at the beginning of the month, there was a 2% chance that I would be spending 6 months or more on ST. Thomas in the Virgin Isles (and no Chris, the Virgin Islands is not a penal colony where other nations send their bad virgins). That percentage has been moved up to 51% percent yesterday. Still not certain, but it has moved up to more likely to be making the change in my life than not.

I still don't know if I can buy Cuban cigars there...

And if I go, I will probably live in a multi family home with a communal kitchen. I will have to live with only two suitcases worth of clothes and necessities. Fortunately half a dozen (one for each day of the week, including a weekly trip to a nude beach) pairs of SPEEDOS do not take up much room in luggage, but it does beg the question... What are the cooking utensils that I can not live without??? I considered how to get my grill through airport security, but truth is, when you are a live fire cook, it is easy to set up a grill...

Could be a couple more weeks before final decision is made... It is even possibly I will be spending Christmas as the Baby Jesus spent his first Christmas (nude with sand). Shouldn't really go into the specific details, but it has to do with my wife's inconvenient day job. Which begs one more question...

Ladies, which would piss you off more...

A lazy good for nothing husband laying around the basement watching TV while you go off to work every day...

OR

The same lazy good for nothing husband laying around the beach every day while you go off to work???

Will keep you all informed...

And finally, NAT from NAT Heart's BAKING IN NYC (which used to be GIRLS ARE MADE OF...) Has passed on a wonderfully fun award...

The rules for the award are that I reveal 7 random facts about me...
OK, here goes...

1) When channel surfing and I stumble across an old Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon beach movie, I always watch em. Even when I was 3 years old, I knew there was something about Annette that stood out among the other mousketeers.
2) When my marriage collapsed (not Jackie, a different wife), I ran away to New York City... Everyone should live in NYC for a year.
3) I once had dinner with a NASA Space Shuttle pilot (he flew three missions) sitting to my right, and a 90 plus year old lady who flew in a bi-plane before World War I (yeap, WWI, the first war to end all wars) sitting on my left. Now that was dinner conversation!
4) I can only remember being speechless once. I was in the same room as Nancy Sinatra. I could not say a word. She was not wearing the boots though. If she had been, I would have sucked it up.
5) Counting paper routes (where you are technically an independent agent, not an employee), I have been self-employed for 40 years. Possibly because I am self motivated, possibly because I don't work well with others.
6) My hobby is garage saleing. Cheaper than playing golf, and every week you come home with a car full of crap that you can then sell at your garage sale.
7) I play poker every day

Thanks for the award NAT. I am supposed to pass this on to other bloggers. That is either easy to do, or difficult... You see, I love bloggers! To only mention a few of my favorites would be difficult to do. But I do have an easy cheat way to name a few. Starting on New Year's Eve, I have been asked to be a regular contributor to OUR KRAZY KITCHEN, a group of six fellow bloggers that post once a week on this site. I am very excited to be a part of their club, and even from the Islands, I will honor the commitment that I made to them (I wonder if I can get a Wi-Fi signal from the beach). So, I pass this award on to these six colleagues from OUR KRAZY KITCHEN. I know all six of you have been given award after award, and you are probably bored with the whole thing (??? Really, can you ever get bored of hearing the sound of your own name???), But I do hope you fill out the 7 items.. i want to get to know my new best friend better...

• Tamy ~ 3 Sides of Crazy
• Martha ~ Menagerie
• Pam ~ Screaming Mimi
• Joy ~ Joy of Desserts
• Kristen ~ Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker
• girlichef ~ girlichef