Tailgating at home

I don't envy folks who braved the weather and attended the UF and UT games today. It was raining in Gainesville, and it's warm up here in Knoxville. I love the energy of attending games, but I hate the heat and humidity.

Today, we've sat inside our comfortable home and watched both games. We also decided to boil some peanuts...a food I could live off of if necessary. They are so good! My dad boils them in a pressure cooker, which takes a lot less time. It took us almost six hours before they were done, but they are delicious. I like to eat them when they're fairly hot, and I have fond memories of my dad and I eating them just after he'd boiled them. They're also good once they've cooled.

In keeping with the tradition of football Saturdays and tailgating, we're grilling some hot dogs tonight, and I made some homemade potato salad. This recipe calls for peas, which is different than what I've made before, but we're always up for trying something new.



Hope you're having a great weekend! Next weekend will be interesting when the Gators play the Vols in Gainesville!

It's Football Time!

College football has started again, and while I don't attend the games in Knoxville, I enjoy watching them on television. We also were able to watch the Gator game last night on television. Both teams scored more than 60 points and defeated their opponents.

UT recently completed a stadium expansion, and I snapped the photo above last week. It's not the greatest angle, but it shows the new expanded front.

Some much better photos are from our very talented UT students who covered the game against Western Kentucky yesterday. Ben has great shots of the players, fans, cheerleaders, the band and more. Visit the Tennessee Journalist at tnjn.com/2009/sep/06/ut-vs-wku-photo-galleries/ to view them. Great job!

Go Vols! Go Gators! (In two weeks, they play each other, so I'll just make sure I'm wearing orange!)

Fall Weather and Football

It's been really warm in Knoxville during the past few weeks, but today is truly starting to feel like fall weather. It's been cloudy and windy, and I don't think the temperature has climbed much past 72 degrees. I'm looking forward to the seasonal changes. It's one of the main reasons I enjoy living in East Tennessee.

With fall, comes college football, and this Saturday will be an anticipated match up between my alma mater and my soon-to-be alma mater, UF and UT. My Gator friends can't seem to understand how I can live up here with all this orange and white, but when in Rome...so when in Knoxville, I'm a UT fan. We're not going to the game since it will be a crazed event, but we'll definitely be watching it at 3:30 Saturday afternoon. May the best team win! Go Gators! Go Vols!

By the way, for the first time in history, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has five teams in the top 10. (For those of you in other conferences 5 is half of 10 or 50 percent, which is a really good statistic). No other conference has ever been able to boast about this accomplishment. Florida is #4, Georgia is #3, LSU is #6, Alabama is #9 and Auburn is #10. I hope Florida destroys Georgia this season and inches closer to the top spot!