I’m Back!!

Sailor Rick ♦ January 5, 2015 ♦ Leave a comment

After a very long hiatus from writing about my adventures on Explorations with Sailor Rick I am turning over a bunch of new leaves this year; in fact there is probably an entire tree of new leaves but the ones you are most likely interested in are:

• Writing regularly on this blog.
• Making cheese on a regular basis. I went about 10 months without directly making cheese; although I did assist my friend Ian over at Much To Do About Cheese with one make a couple of months ago.
• Continue developing and perfecting low carb recipes with the end goal being the publication of an e-book of my original recipes that I have been working on for more than a year.
• Smoking a wider variety of food items.
• Start working with charcuterie again. My friend Gunther has recently taken this up and with his German background he has been making some very intriguing things.

I would also like to thank some of my co-workers who continued to talk about my blog and whenever they introduced me to their new staff they would mention my blog and the unusual things I was up to; you guys are part of the reason I am firing this up again! I truly appreciate your support!

So what has Sailor Rick been up to since his last post?

I have been incredibly busy! Some of the highlights included:

• Traveling to China in September 2013 for work as part of a Canadian mission working through SIDA in conjunction with the Chinese government. I completed a presentation on Occupational Health & Safety in Alberta; including an overview of our system and how we implement the system in the field. The Chinese government is rewriting their laws and delivery structure regarding health and safety (among other areas) and in particular in regards to their migrant workers. China has about 265 million migrant workers (workers who travel from their place of birth/residence to work in construction or factories for example). This is the largest movement of humanity in history by far! I plan to write a post in the future about my trip in greater detail, I have some amazing photos. Here are is sample!

Off to Meet Our Chinese Counterparts For The First Time

Presentation Day

Big Pants in Beijing,Yes that is Air Polution

It’s True, There are Lots of People and Construction in China!

Shanghai Skyline

• Traveling to Scotland in August 2014 with my son’s pipe band, Edmonton Youth Pipe Band for the World Pipe Band Championships. With a side trip to Iceland.

The Wilds of Iceland!

And The Luxury!  Blue Lagoon

• Posting photos of a middle of the night brisket smoke last winter in -28 degC temperatures on Twitter resulted in an opportunity for me to become a Kansas City Barbeque Society certified judge and then to judge a bbq competition in Edmonton that attracted the top competitors from Western Canada. This certification will allow me to judge KCBS sanctioned events around the world. I am already lining up to judge at a competition in Leduc, AB in May and may become part of the organizing committee to start a bbq society for the greater Edmonton area.

A Practice Plate

• We were also fortunate to be able to do a bunch of other traveling that I won’t bore you with the details of unless they are more food-gastronomy related which was the original intent of this blog.

oh and I baked a ton of Low Carb Bread

 and grew a beard twice!

So that’s an update for now. There will be a post very shortly on a Stilton style cheese make that I am in the middle of right now.