More than meets the eye

When I moved to Calgary 3 1/2 years ago to take this job, I had a pretty tough go of it. The books were a mess, and my staff weren't taking to me very much. We went through a pretty intense 6 month period where I replaced some staff, worked others to the bone and pretty much just ran a stressed out freak show.

And at the end of that July the audits were finished; I could make heads or tails of the financial statements and I was starting to feel at home in my new job. I felt at that time we needed some way to relieve the stress and tension that was building in the office.

My staff were still getting used to my oddball sense of humor so the look on their faces that last day of July when I walked in with a pinata full of candy was priceless. I hung it from the middle of the office ceiling, moved the tables and brought out the blindfold. An office full of people ranging from 22 to 54 all lined up and had their turns being spun around and taking a whack at Nemo. It was the best way to break the ice with my staff and we started our annual pinata day soon after.

We have had Nemo, Sponge Bob and Lightning McQueen. And Friday was the day.......the day we had the ultimate pinata.

Optimus Prime. Yep, it's a well known fact around the office that their boss (me) has a strange attraction to this cartoon characters voice. Since I was a teen and my little brother watched the cartoon, this guys voice drives me insane. (One of my staff even got me the Optimus Prime Potato Head for Xmas one year). S regularly plays the part in the movie loudly for me......"I...Am...Optimus Prime" and I swoon. Although, he did draw the line at wearing the mask that alters his voice to sound like Optimus Prime (odd I know). This pinata was a hit as usual and we are now onto the back half of our year.

Now onto the food. If you get a chance to peruse Tammy's blog Sassafras Cafe do it. She has some amazing recipes and her cooking style is very much like mine. The other day she had a recipe for the Ultimate Barbecued Chicken. I was looking for a quick barbecue dish and thought I'd give this a try - it was a Tyler Florence recipe, so really, you knew it would be good.

I didn't have time to brine the chicken, and opted for skin on, bone in chicken thighs. They were moist and juicy (just the way thighs should be) and the homemade bbq sauce was out of this world. A real winner in my books, I'll be making this for company regularly!

You can find the recipe HERE.