I was born to be an evangelist. Look at me. Those were the first words out of my mouth. I’m sure of it. I love to talk. I love to be engaged. I love to interact with other people. Over here. That was another big one. Come look at this. I’m full of them. I’ve…
Southern-style pinched biscuits: trial and error
All of my adult life, I’ve been a bit phobic about making the pinched biscuits my mother made at least daily when I was growing up. She showed me her process (there was no recipe) repeatedly, and every batch I made was a crushing disappointment (to me, anyway). Fast forward thirty years, and I’ve been…
Pesto Vegetable Pasta with Grated Incanestrato
I drove into Rockford to visit Valli Produce and picked up some small (roughly racquetball-sized) eggplants along with a jar of prepared pesto. I also got several cheeses including one that I’d never heard of before: incanestrato. Today for lunch, I cooked one of the eggplants sliced with a handful of sliced mushrooms and halved cherry tomatoes,…
The Plural of Phoenix
I have had the great fortune of falling many times over the course of my life. The knees of the soul I walk around in are scarred and more than a little swollen. I’ve been known to use a cane, and frankly, it’s a very good thing that there are friends beside me to keep me…
Recalculating…
With considerably more time on my hands than has been usual for a while, I’ve been able to kind of splash the road grime off my brain and look around a bit. Man, have I been doing stuff wrong or what? First off, let’s be straight. I hate sales. Or perhaps I should say that…
Empowering Biz Yarnies
Believe it or not, over the years I’ve encountered a business advisor or two of various stripes, denominations, and levels of personal understanding of how to implement their own advice. That said, I’ve picked up some interesting tidbits of anecdotal evidence that, as self-proclaimed pundit, I believe point in an interesting direction. A SCORE counselor…
Changing of the Guard
I have a literary question particularly for those of you who have small children in this age of iPads, but first, I have an announcement to make. The Technicolor Ram has turned in his resignation. No, no. Not me. The graphic that I’ve used on this site, my business card, vendor line sheets, newsletter, and…
But what about Matt?
Ok, ok. So what am I doing now? Well, I’m currently officially unemployed, but as a dear friend and fellow entrepreneur commented to me recently, entrepreneurs are never unemployed. Thankfully, I’ve found that to be true. I’m working on a major “saw-sharpening” project that will hopefully pay off in a marketable skill in the near…
Addressing the Silence
I suppose it was inevitable that I’d restart the Crowing Ram blog by writing about ThreadBear. Really, it would be sort of silly not to, right? I mean really. Bottling things up is a bad thing. One should talk about things that affect one’s life and livelihood. And I didn’t for a long, long time.…
Happy New Year
It’s odd, I think, that we talk about coming to crossroads. One of the things that becomes clearer to me with each passing year is that each moment is a crossroads. We choose in each moment what and who we will be. We choose where we put our energy and attention. We choose to dedicate…