Indiana or Bust

Whew! That was tiring! I spent 14 of 30 hours between Wed & Thur driving through the middle section of Illinois and northwestern Indiana. Its 6+ hours each way, so I asked my NBF if I could borrow some books-on-tape from her officially “in storage” library. I selected “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Tracy Chevalier, and “About a Boy” by Nick Hornby. I was really looking forward to them, but the rental car only had a CD player. Drat. I had to content myself with a rock-n-roll retrospective instead.

( This was my playlist )

I have decided though, that I’m going to need new road music, because there is a very good chance I’ll be making this trip monthly. Of course, I’ll still attempt the audio-books thing, and who here doesn’t think that Billy Crystal reading Christopher Moore’s “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” would be the most perfect entertainment EVAH?! (Except for the part where you'd drive off the road into a ditch and land upside down because you snorted Red Bull out your nose - Again!)  I wonder how you can make requests for these things? But really, there is no substitute for good road music. Unfortunately, after 20 yrs or so, the shine has kinda worn off of “Bat Out of Hell.” And while I love Elvis to death, I’m thinking The Clash might be more my speed this year. Also, some Blue Oyster Cult (Mirrors), maybe some AC/DC to replace Meatloaf, definitely need to replace my long-lost Donnie Iris (Back on the Streets). Some Rush would be good. And there’s always my Beach Boys anthology. And some Go-gos to mix it up a bit. Also, The Mavericks. Some of these are already on my amazon wish list, but I usually put the more mellow stuff there. I tend to forget to add music to the list anyway – I use my list as more of a “reading” list. But really, it’s time for new music in the car. 

Stay tuned for more observations and thoughts from the road...  I've got stuff about food, and small towns and life and and and... truly, you should all be glad I don't make voice posts, LOL.

Father's Day Menu

Yesterday morning, I heard DH say, "I found our next brunch."  He'd found on food_porn, a recipe for carrot cake pancakes with maple cream cheese spread.  Yum!  So we read the recipe, and made sure on our shopping travels that we acquired whole wheat pastry flour, neufatchel, maple syrup and walnuts.  We also planned for bacon and sausage. ::g::

So this morning, I'm sitting here getting hungrier by the minute, when I finally say, "are you going to make those pancakes?"

DH:  I have to make my own father's day brunch?

Me:  oh shit.  

Talk about a faux pas.  But we worked it out together.  I collected up ingredients, made the spread, separated eggs, toasted walnuts, cooked the meat, and made OJ, garnished with chunks of fresh pineapple and paper umbrellys.  DH assembled the batter, and fried up the cakes.  We called the hoodlums in from their respective beds, and had a very fine meal TM.  We learned that Mavis had scary cheerleading dreams (basing a chunky girl), Rupert learned that an "x" at the end of a word pluralizes it, and DH had 2 sausages and 3 pieces of bacon.

The dinner menu:

Pork ribs rubbed with DH's fine chili rub, and liberally mopped with a tequila/lime/mesquite sauce.  Potatoes - I'm thinking Yukon golds roasted with EVOO and rosemary, and salad fresh from the garden.  There's a fudge marble ice cream for dessert.

Bonus menu:  Saturday dinner - Grilled Andouille sausages, black beans & rice, garden-fresh rainbow chard cooked in rice wine, rice vinegar, balsamic, etc. and finished with a drizzle of truffle oil, and a sliced cucumber and vidalia salad dressed with tarragon vinegar and black pepper.  The boys garnished their plates with louisiana hot peppers.  That was "a meat and three" at its finest.  Funny how the longer I live here, the more appreciative I become of the southern menus.  Silly me.

Snacking like Divas again...

barley52 & I made a raid on Whole Foods yesterday, so today's snack went something like this:

Country style pork pate' with peppercorns
Van Gogh (Wisconsin) Aged Gouda
Comte le trois semi-hard cheese - it's hard to describe other than sin melting in your mouth
Green olives marinated in sea fennel
Oven-roasted tomatoes in olive oil
Breton crackers
Sourdough bread
New Glarus "Naked" beer

I know feel ready to enter the kitchen and begin working on the roasted garlic aioli for the potatoes I'm making for dinner.  The ribs are on the grill for at least the next 2 hours... Margaritas are in the offing.  Just in case you don't realize it, the "snack" was our 2nd meal of the day, so it's not as bad as it sounds.  Although we just realized we've been going through some sort of pork renaissance this week/end.  Pork shish kebob with peppers and fresh pineapple on Thurs.  Andouille Sausage on Sat.  Breakfast links and bacon this morning.  Ribs tonight.  Pork fat rules, babyees!!  We also stuck 3 very large and meaty ham hocks in the freezer. hmmmm.

OTOH, I can't wait for tomatoes to start ripening in the garden.  I'm totally learning to roast my own this year.

And a warning - We ate at the Cousin's Subs on Odana for a quick lunch Friday.  I'd had a poor service experience there a while back, but thought it would be fair to give them a second try.  We were the first of the mini-rush they had while we were there. The service was better, but the table I picked was quite sticky, so DH wanted to move down one.  That one wasn't as bad, but I offered him a Wet Wipe anyway, thinking he'd use it to clean his hands (we don't go anywhere without wipes and hand sanitizer anymore).  He used the wipe to clean the table, and came up with an almost totally green wipe.  Can you say "fungal?"  So he went up to the counter and said to the manager, "I don't mean to be critical, but I just wiped this off my table."  The manager promptly sent a young lady out to clean our table for us.  I said, "this one is clean now, but that one is really sticky."  She cleaned it and decided to do all of the tables.  I was watching surreptitiously, and every table she sprayed down returned a very black paper towel.  She kept balling them up in her other hand, so you couldn't really see how bad they were unless you were watching.  Then DH observed her wiping down the soda machine and napkin dispensers.  Everytime she'd wipe something off, she'd make a disgusted face at the paper towel.  In light of all this, I won't be patronizing that location again. 

Overheard in IN

I got to Logansport, IN about 9:15 pm local time on Wed, and by the time I had checked into my room and headed back out and across the parking lot, the Bob Evans was closed.  It was 9:35 and they close at 9:30. ::sigh::

I hopped in my car and headed down a couple of blocks and luckily found an Applebee's that serves until 11:00 pm.  A glass of riesling and a plate of coconut shrimp later, I'm paying my tab and sort of overhearing the folks next to me.  A new guy has joined the group, and apparently has a new job.  This is where I became conscious of the conversation - 

"... and it's kind of like being in the Mafia.  But the money's good.  And it's not too far - only about 45 min from Ft. Worth."

I don't know about his pals, since they all seemed to be congratulating him on his new job, but they must not have been as nonplussed as I was.  I could feel my eyebrows climbing into my hairline.