Scouting


Scouting
	I was recently invited to see a presentation at Troop 400's Court of Honor. Don Pannell put together a monologue and presents it from the 1st person as Lord Baden Powell. It is one of his tickets from the Wood Badge advanced leader training. He tells the story of his life and how he came to be the father of Scouting. Unfortunately, there was a technical issue with the video camera and it required a second take for the first minute of the video. I apologize for the audio quality during the opening segment as there was a lot of background noise but it gets much better very soon. The Scouts really enjoyed the presentation and sat enthralled. The video is about 100Mb so you might want to right click on the video and "Save as" rather than trying to watch is streaming unless you have a decent high speed connection. Click here to see or download the video.
	Here is a picture of an alcohol stove made from a single soda can in about 5 minutes. The performance rivals small white gas stoves but only weighs 1/3 ounce. A half pint water bottle will carry enough denatured alcohol for a single hiker for about a week of hot meals. Click here to download a PDF of the instructions I created for our Scouting units. The design is a compilation of several others on the net but modified for easy construction by our younger Scouts.
Killer Shrimp Recipe By request, I am posting my recipe for the Killer Shrimp we serve at our annual Venture Crew Shrimp feed. The following recipe is an approximation. I measure by handfuls and adjust to taste, your mileage may vary. The last batch I made was about 100 pounds of shrimp, 15 gallons of broth, and served about 80 people. You may need to adjust the amounts slightly ;-) This recipe is for a five gallon batch (hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with us having 5 gallon kettles?). 30 pounds shrimp (30 count is a good size) ½ gallon sauterne (cooking wine) 4 gallons of water 1/3 pound clam base 12 ounces chicken base 4 six ounce cans tomato paste 2 pounds butter 1 cup minced garlic 1 cup rosemary ½ cup thyme ¼ cup celery seed ¼ cup coarse ground black pepper ¼ cup crushed red pepper flakes (more for spicier broth) 1/8 cup fennel seed Tabasco (or similar) pepper sauce to taste Put all ingredients into a large kettle and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce to a simmer and simmer for at least an hour, stirring frequently. Just before serving, add shrimp to broth. The shrimp will cook quickly, about two minutes. Serve the shrimp in large bowls with a generous portion of the broth. The shrimp are eaten with your fingers. Soak up the broth with fresh French bread. Update 12/13/06 - I've just heard that adding Safeway's Tomato Bisque soup to the shrimp boil results in a "sum greater than the parts" dining experience. If you get a chance to give it a go, drop me a note on the Contacts page with your review.