The Handyman, not so handy?

The handyman saga continues. Last week I told you about the two new handymen I hired. I told the story of the puck light installation and how spending time with them, I thought, made them more precise in their work; how it appeared to me, that unless I invested that time with them that I would not get the quality I was looking for. Seems I was on target. I'm still loving the lights. No problem there. The problem stems from another project they were working on that only lasted 2 days before a quick demise.

The other project was a bit more challenging to describe, so I only relayed the puck light portion of the story. Now I'll share the other part.

I had asked the handymen to hang a shade sail for me on the back deck that's over the garage. It's basically a big piece of open-weave tarp. (I don't lay in the sun anymore so I need something to provide shade so I can go have coffee on the deck in the morning or read in the afternoon. I had one at my other house and it worked great.)

The deck is basically a big square and the shade sail had to be attached on two corners of the deck and secured at the third point of the triangle to a spiral staircase that goes up the back of the building. My idea was to put tall poles secured to the decking and then additionally secured with metal strips screwed to the brick up the inside of the 4' wall. The pole then would extend up to 8' where the sail would be secured.

Arturo had another idea. He wanted to mount shorter poles on the top of the 4' wall. He said he'd drill them securely into the concrete ledge that lines the perimeter of the deck wall. Arturo has experience pouring concrete, so I said I'd go with his plan. I'm no engineer, and if he thought that would be secure in a wind I was okay with it.

All was mounted, and it looked great. Next night we got a downpour. I would not call it a thunderstorm. No heavy winds but lots of rain. My friend Rachel and I were sitting on the 4th floor and had the door open; watching the rain and the news on TV. The rain wasn't blowing, so having the door open was fun and the floor was not getting wet. Then we heard a huge bang! We both turned to each other. I said, "Didn't sound like a gunshot. Didn't sound like a dumpster lid crashing either." It was raining too hard at that moment to go check but I did check later, looking down past the building into the alley that runs behind the building and all looked well, so I forgot about it.

Next morning I went out onto the deck to find an 8' section of the concrete that lines the top of the wall had been ripped off; right off of the mortar and bricks. My shade sail lay in "ruin"; (not that it can't be fixed,) but the concrete will need to be re-installed and another plan for securing the sail will have to be put in place. Somehow the wind (as little as there was) caught in the sail and pulled so hard, it pulled the concrete right out of the installation. Arturo was right. His pole stayed securely fastened to the concrete. Problem was the concrete was now laying on the deck in two pieces.

I was bummed. And frustrated.

Next step was not good either. I immediately went to my office to call Arturo and ask him to come back and fix our new problem. I dialed his cell phone and got a recording. It was disconnected. I had paid him for his work. It lasted less than 48 hours and now I was stuck. This is a week later and I'm still stuck. No Arturo. Rats.

Today I'm hunting for a new handyman. Go figure.

Glazed-pulled barbecue chicken sandwiches I'm so excited about this recipe. I love barbecue but I don't like goo. More often than not, a barbecue sandwich has so much sauce in it I can hardly taste the chicken. I fixed that with this recipe. It's zippy. It tastes "clean" (if that's a word that can be applied to barbecue sauce) and it super-simple. I can already envision serving these sandwiches at our 4th of July party. I hope you have time to enjoy them some day this summer. Have a glass of iced tea or lemonade handy to bring down the "fire".
Makes 4 sandwiches. Can easily be doubled or tripled.

1 cup of apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup of prepared barbecue sauce (I use Sweet Baby Rays. You can make your own choice)
1 Tbl of vegetable oil
2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of cayenne (or to taste, but this made it zippy enough for me)
3-4 cups of cooked chicken, shredded. (A note on this. You can use leftover chicken or two other options. Sometimes I poach skinless chicken breasts and then just shred them with two forks. This way I get all white meat. Or if I am in a hurry, another option is more expensive, but fast. You can buy a roasted chicken already prepped at the store. I just let it cool off, remove the skin and shred the meat from the whole chicken. This gives me about the same amount of meat).
4 buns. I use whole wheat hamburger buns for this recipe, but you can choose your favorite.

In a medium-large sauce pan put in the vinegar, barbecue sauce, vegetable oil, pepper flakes, salt and cayenne. Bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer just 2 - 3 minutes until it is hot. Stir occasionally to keep it from sticking. Add your cooked and shredded chicken. Continue to heat until the chicken is hot too.

Serve on the buns and you're set. I serve this with good old-fashioned baked beans and French fries. Comfort picnic food that's ready in a flash.

Cheers!
Enjoy,
Zola

Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.