Food I shouldn't be eating

Ramblings Post #196 
Things in motion, and while there is motion I've been seriously slacking on the old diet. Now I still buy the watermelon slices and grapes, eat mostly chicken and drink that Crystal Light faithfully, but the gaping holes in my eating habits may be starting the catch up with me. And since I have yet to find my way the gym (it's over there somewhere), I need to get a grasp on this before it comes an issue.  In the past two weeks I've eaten two meals that might be considered noteworthy.

Last week I rode down in the middle of the week to see the folks.  There was a job interview too, but that's a whole different story. Anyhow, when I head that way,  there are a number of places the bring back the feeling of home, that strike that mental comfort trigger.  Oddly enough, all of them seem to involve food.  Places like the The Brown Derby. Earl Dukes BBQ. Biddie Banquet. The House of Pizza. But the one I have to go is the one and only Dairy - O.

In my little hometown, the Dairy - O is legendary. It is a little restaurant on the main drag, in a nondescript brown brick building. The interior is bereft of decoration, featuring maybe ten hard plastic booths and a counter where they serve food. And this is the upgrade. It used to be a even smaller nondescript roadside stand with no interior at all. That said, it is a bad habit of mine that whenever I slide back through the homestead, I stop in and get a burger, fries and the vanilla malted. Or at least a chili dog.

When I was younger, I worked in my father's dry cleaners which was just up the street, and on Saturday mornings I worked from 6am to 10am on the front counter. The Dairy - O was my late breakfast or early lunch spot, depending on how you look at it. A couple of sausage biscuits with mustard or a quick burger were the norm. The taste just brings back that feeling of home. It might be the only hamburger I can eat without putting fries on it.

The burger itself, when I think about, is an oddity. It most resembles the more well known Whataburger, as the sandwich isn't fluffed up but apparently cooked in a two sided press, which mashes the bread down firmly onto the meat. Same for the sausage biscuits. And the meat tastes odd as well. Not an all beef patty but one with obvious filler. Unless of course it is an all beef patty and everyone else has filler. Or meat from SC just tastes different. In any case, it's in my opinion ...a very good burger. And not just because it evokes in me a taste memory of my teenage years. 

If perchance you ever end up in my hometown...and are hungry...and want something good, you might want to swing by the Dairy - O. Good stuff.

I like to believe that meal was an aberration. After all, my mother, who stopped cooking regularly about 10 years ago because "she's tired, and we're grown" baked a chicken and made some green peas (no seasoning). So I ate properly for most of the time. And my car doesn't have that AC thing, so my pores were nice and open when I got back. So I vowed to continue eating better...again. Again. Unless of course, I was back in the homestead.

Which brings us to Curly's Fried Chicken.

I don't remember the first time I saw the spot. It is a walk up stand (how throwback ) on the now trendy end of Howell Mill Road in Atlanta, over by the spot where Spanky went on her furniture shopping spree that time. Across from the original Chow Baby, or at least where it used to be, I'm not sure, I just realized I didn't see the sign (but then I didn't really look either). It's in a little white building, with four parking slots up front and a large wooden sign and it is the antithesis of the upscale modern design of area, including the Spanish restaurant next door with the cool floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the supply yard.

But something about it said stop, it will be good. So, the other day I stopped. 

To say it was like being back in the homestead would be silly, but here I am. The smell of the fried chicken was ...different, not the factory smell you get from some places, but a aroma of spices that took me back not only to the homestead, but back to the small town where my grandmother lives. I don't know if its the spices, or a brine they might soak the chicken in or what, but that smell hit my sense memory like a hammer. I scanned the combos, which had the most ethnic names I've every seen, and I got a tender basket so I wouldn't waste too much if wasn't good. I thought it would be a off - brand Zaxby's or maybe even Guthrie's, but I was wrong.

The chicken tenders were large and tasty, with that dark brown hue from the breading all over that you expect from the larger chains because that's what the commercials tout, but never actually shows up in your order.  And they were cooked all the way through, not that extra greasy feel you get from some chicken places. To dip I got the house sauce, which was good although a little thin, but I'll have it again when I go. Now, if you make it over that way, get the Cajun Rice as one of your sides, because I don't think they realize there isn't supposed to be that much meat in dirty rice you don't make yourself.  It's a thick rice mix.  Now this was the small meal, not one of the larger combos, and it almost put me to sleep.

That used to mean a lot, now...it just means there was a little bit more food that you would think.

Now, this doesn't mean that I'm going to give up the ghost or my Oak Hill shirts. I've found that although tasty, I feel better when what I eat is mostly the stuff off my old diet. They tricked me I tell you, they tricked me!

Oh, well. Barkeep. Since I'm eating what I shouldn't be eating, I'm going to drink what I shouldn't be drinking. Let me have a milkshake!

They got me...

Mental Rehab Post #22
I believe I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew. Or want to swallow. Or something. There are times in your life you get overwhelmed. And at those moments we have choice. We can a) cower and fret and accomplish nothing or b) we can grin like we know what we're doing, give the crowd a wink and go at it like there's no tomorrow and the clock says it's 11:59.

Guess which camp I'm in?

There is no weekend recap this weekend because my weekend while emotionally fulfilling was a educational disaster.

Saturday and Sunday, at the behest of my junior partner and erstwhile chum Schmoopy I marinated about 24 pounds of prime chicken and slaved over a hot stove using my Grandmother's recipe to make Sweet Potato Pie. The chicken I parted out into two pound bags, drenched in Soy sauce, this yellow stuff, some other stuff and then a broth and stuck in the fridge and then the pies took like forever. Measured wrong then other stuff, and I also figured out why my pies never quite taste like my grandmothers. Now all have left is the get the crust like her's and then I'll make them and she can eat.

We all got together for the final cooking. After we'd spent all day in a very nice house in Sandy Springs drinking wine and fretting over minor stuff, myself and the rest of the aptly named Team Rafiki (I may not have spelled that right) drove our dinner of chicken w/gravy, mashed red potatoes, corn, mixed veggies and salad down to this house near Grant Park for families in transition, people who've been dealt a bad break and are working to get back onto something. I loathe to say homeless because they're just folks who for a bit of whatever could have been me.

See, old Schmoopy is all into giving back, and since I support her 1000% that means I am too. Lucky me.

It was emotional. One girl got a little teary in the kitchen. We held babies and I cracked jokes and served food and I felt bad because the cake we got had nuts in it and the little guy who wanted cake couldn't have any. I may have to do that again because I think I owe that kid a dessert.

And all this emotional uplift was buoyed by Sporty's response to her birthday words. She said they were more important to her than the oft desired "three words." Okay...that's a little scary really. But I'm not asking no questions.

But as an educational situation, I blew it. My second memo is due and I've only skimmed the cases. My class preparedness has to get done, so everything else slides to the back for a minute. The simple assignment I thought we had one of my classmates said took him an hour for the first of 12 of the 30 questions. And I'm behind on the digital lessons too.

And I'm sitting here writing this.

I gotta get some sleep. And get it going. Be caught up by Friday. Watch me now, smile, wink at the camera. Here I go.

Barkeep. Let's get some!

The Ghost Orderer

In a rush as work was a piling up, I popped around the corner into Popeye's Chicken to grab a two piece and biscuit.

How black is that?

Anyway, I get in line and there are three people in front of me. But I'm wrong. I only see three people in line, but there are in reality nine. There were the three people actually there, and the six other people this "fat chick" ordered for that basically held up production. I hate that, I mean I took the time to come down here and place my order, doesn't that deserve a little respect?

I have the same issue with cell phones on dates. I explain it like this: I get dressed, burn up gas and choose a nice spot. Pay for drinks, an appetizer, two entrees and dessert. I've given you my undivided attention to learn who you are and what you're all about....and if the phone rings you want to spend twenty minutes talking to some dude in his draws on his couch half watching ESPN who would ask you to bring something if you were headed over that way instead of me. And you expect another date?

Women who know this irritates me have been known to ask permission to answer their own phones when with me.

But back to my chicken. So at one point as the sole little chicken order assembly person puts together order after order - for one person - the rest of the orders back up. At one point there are twelve people waiting as this one lady gets her food. And I can see the tensions rising. Odd conversations started up between strangers. People who ordered before the chicken lady started to wonder why they weren't getting served first. I could feel revolution in the air.

I was about to suggest that this manager institute a two meal per person maximum. To write my state representative and offer the idea that a state law be passed to put in a bulk order lane. To call the president and not only have him pardon Ronald Isley but fix this growing "Chicken Inundation Situation". To start a grass roots movement to have the constitution amended to include speedy fried bird as the inalienable right of every man, woman and child in this great country!

Then I got my chicken and I was out. So like whatever.

Barkeep...you got sweet tea, right?