Restaurant Review - Lovey's BBQ

Whenever I am driving down Marion, I would always notice the new (and only) Southern BBQ place in Winnipeg, Lovey's BBQ. Always thinking to drop in and pick up some pulled pork, or some ribs, I just never did. I would always be driving home for supper after work, and there would usually already be a supper plan, so my desire for delicious BBQ meat would go unfulfilled.
Finally, one night last week, I had my wits about me enough to call ahead to Tannis to arrange that I pick up some wood smoked bovine and ovine delicacies. As well as enough slaw and beans to make sure our intestines didn't shut down completely.

I was impressed by the decor. It is not at all spectacular, but exactly what I would expect from a BBQ joint. Sheet metal siding wainscotted walls, chalk menus on the walls, pictures of other similarly named and and annointed BBQ establishments that were obviosly taken by the owner during his fact finding tour prior to opening his own joint, and the requisite effigies of the source of the raw materials...pigs.

Although it was the supper hour, I had my order taken quickly. After looking over the various choices (ribs, chicken, brisket, sides) the proprietor and I decided that the 3 meat combo would be the best bet. For 30.00, I had 6 ribs, about a half pound of pulled pork (or option brisket), a half BBQ'd chicken, a couple small squares of corn bread (option was bannock), fries, beans, and some slaw. There was another potato option, I think mashed, but I can't remember.
While I waited, I wandered around the restaurant looking at the various photographs and kitcsh that festooned the walls. My final read was the restaurant reviews by the Press and the Sun. In my opinion, Marion Warhaft is inconsistent with my tastes, and the girl that does the review in the Sun must be either poisoned or clubbed by the waiter before she does a bad review. But as I read these reviews, especially the Free Press one, I noticed how...well...shitty it was. Even though, as I said, Marion and myself are often at odds, I was hoping for something more encouraging from her review. You see, BBQ is basic, primal food. Most of the menu items are prepared well in advance of serving. So, it's not as if you have the same order freshness management concerns as, say, Oriental takeout. Most of the items in my order were put on the smoke 3-10 HOURS before I ever darkened the door of Lovey's. So it would seem to me at least that so long as you have solid proven recipies for the preparation of these dishes, you're golden.

Not so.

I'll truncate the pliagiarism of Ms. Warhaft's review to say it was non-complimentary on most every count. Not to be discouraged, when my order was ready, I excitedly grabbed my two sacks of meat and sauce and headed for the car. I felt my biggest challenge now was getting the works home without eating half of it on the way.

I somehow managed to make it in the house with the original fold still in place on my paper sacks. The family wouln't be home for an hour, so I decided now was the time to sample the wares at their freshest. The following are my findings in the order of their ingestion:

1) Corn Bread - It was definitely NOT my intention to sample the corn bread first, but I had little choice. It was packed on top of the menu item I was originally going for, but more on that later. As I lifted it up, it crumbled to pieces. I caught as much as I could, but it got pretty messy. I decided that the best place to store the remaining pieces was in my mouth. The taste was too spicy for my palate. I was hoping for a sweeter product. Instead, I got savoury. And dry. Like a dusty corn fart.

2) Chicken - Looked wonderful. The texture was good. Nice and tender with a slight crust. The meat was well seasoned, not at all salty, and the smoke flavour had made it all the way through. I did note, however, that this was not the meatiest of birds. Perhaps she was raised on the corn bread, and like me, never developed a taste for it.

3) Fries - Wanting to cleanse my palate of my first meat sample of the night, I decided to dig in to one of the side dishes. What do you want me to say here? They're fries. Real ones, made from potatoes. Good.

4) Pulled Pork - It is pretty damn hard to screw up pulled pork. And they didn't. It was good. I prefer mine a little less pulled than what I got. It would be nice if a few half-inch sized pieces were in there. They would stay a bit moister. But the flavour was very nice.

5) Beans - More palate cleansing. Although after trying a forkfull of these, I was regretting not having chosen to lick the dog. These beans were barely a step below crunchy. And the flavour was far too intense. This was evidently a new batch. Perhaps a few more hours in the crock and some molasses. Yes. That is all I will say about that.

6) Slaw - In an effort to get past my relationship with the beans, I jumped right in bed with her best friend. This is one dish that could have used a bit more flavor. Salt. Corriander. Malt vinegar. Something. But pretty good.

7) Ribs - Cue the trumpets! I left the ribs till last in the hopes that...well...they were yummy. Flavour - good. Texture - poor. Value - meh. I prefer my ribs to be able to be removed from the bone. And if you need to err on one side or the other, a slightly overcooked rack is better than a tough one. And considering the tenacity with which these sinewy morsels were clinging to the bone, I was left wondering if this animal, too was raised on the aforementioned cornbread.

So that covers it. Overall, the value would have been OK if the food had been a bit better. It's not BAD food. But ... ok here's the deal: If you're going to run a BBQ restauant, you really only need to do one thing right...BBQ. Everything else is details. And my ribs are better. It's hard for me to see past that. Maybe I should look at opening my own place...naw, people are to critical. ;)

Valentine's Party - Follow up

Someone took a grapefruit

Wore it like a hat

I saw someone under my kitchen table

Talking to my old tom cat

They were talking about hockey

The cat was talking back

Long about then every-thing went black

Wasn't that a party

That is what I was expecting. And I'm pretty sure I'm thankful that none of that took place. The only activity under the kitchen table was retrieving dropped candies from the ice-cream sundae making.

We shipped Mitch off to Doug and Lor's place. That was a very good idea. He would have gone nuts. After an hour or so, I was kinda wishing I had gone with him. Not that the party wasn't fun, but it was a GIRL party. I felt rather out of place.

Supper was fun. We made pizza dough and had a ham pizza and a cheese pizza. Tannis and I made a more deluxe artichoke, ham, feta, mushroom pizza. That was tasty.

I can't say much more about the party goings-on. I did the 23 skidoo up to my bedroom after supper to watch a movie - Mirrors. Kiefer Sutherland rocks. I have really got to catch up on my "24" episodes.

Brooke's "friend who was almost not invited" showed up. Along with a bunch of medications one of which is to "help with the night terrors". Um...what? 8 girls sleeping on the floor of the family room in sleeping bags one of which is prone to something called "night terrors"?

Turns out she is a very sweet girl. I'm sure she has her issues. Hence the meds. But from where I sat, everything looked peachy. She was certainly more well adjusted than the twins. Holy mackerel! These girls, or at least one of them, are Brooke's best friends at school. And they are complete maniacs. They seem to have developed a desire to stand and scream right in your face. They also have this maniacal laugh that chills me even now.

Quite to my surprise everyone was asleep by about midnight, despite the accellerated sugar intake. And there appeared to be no issues through the night. At least none that I am aware of. If someone crapped in the corner beacause they couldn't find the bathroom in the middle of the night, the dog must have found it.

The next morning was pancakes and bacon. It was a big hit with everyone. Shortly thereafter appreciative parents started picking up their kids and before long, life was back to normal.

This could be an annual thing for the next two or three years. I think it would be fun for the kids and rewarding for Brooke socially.

Brooke's Valentine's Day Party

My daughter is having a valentines day High School Musical sleepover party this Saturday. She is inviting a bunch (read: all) of her female classmates over on Saturday for pizza and...well, as little girls do...screaming.
Until last night, not every one of Brooke's female classmates was on the invite list. I found out that one of the girls in the class was not invited. Hmmmm.....Now I'm not a proponent of the "blanket invitation" method of inviting your entire class to each one of your birthday parties. I think that's ridiculous. But to have a girl party, and to invite ALL but ONE girl in the class....well, that's just gonna give someone a complex.
So I decided I needed to get to the bottom of this. So I sat down with Brooke to help her do her Valentine's cards and ask some leading questions.

"Why did you decide to not invite her to your party?"
"Because she's mean to me"

"What, does she say mean things to you?"
"Yeah. LOTS."

"Are you mean to her? Do you say things back?"
"No. I tell her to stop."

"Is she mean to the other kids in the class."
"Sort of, but mostly to me."

"Do the other kids join in, you know, back her up?"
"No. I like them, and they like me. It's just her."

Turns out that this little kid is quite a bitch to my darling girl. After further probing, I have found out that she has also kicked Brooke in the stomach on a couple of occasions. This simply will not do. After making sure that she understanded that she needs to involve a teacher when this happens, I talked to Brooke about how, although fighting is wrong, defending herself is completely necessary. At that point I remembered that Brooke is taking Tae Kwon Do. So I elaborated on what I meant by "defending yourself". I don't need to come home one day to find out Brooke has ripped out some kid's jugular. Move out of the way, use your low blocks, whatever. She'll probably take one shot, and then after she sees that you can handle yourself, she'll back down. If she doesn't, well, she was asking for whatever she gets.

After much consternation, she decided to invite her to the party. Brooke decided it would be the right thing to do. I told her I was proud of her. I also told her that if this girl gets out of hand at the party, she would be escorted home. That seemed to appease her.

Tannis promptly called the mom, and left an awkward message in Yoda-speak. When the mom called back, she confided in Tannis that she was surprised that her daughter didn't get invited to more parties. Go figure. Tannis told the mom what Brooke had said. So I guess we will see if things get better. Sure hope so. In any event, the kid is coming to the party, so I guess we'll see.

Recipe - Molten Chocolate Cake

I have stolen this somewhat from Michael Smith. But, I'm pretty sure he doesn't read my blog, along with the rest of the world. So I should be safe posting it here.

4 oz Chocolate (Whatever your taste. I like 70% myself)
1/2 stick of butter
2 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tbsp Maple Syrup
2 tsp sugar (white or brown)
1/4 cup of flour
2 eggs

Oven to 350.
Melt chocolate and butter in double boiler or microwave. Be careful if you use the microwave. Don't overheat it. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the Vanilla, maple syrup, and sugar.
fold in the chocolate and flour. Don't worry about using all of the flour. The mixture should remain pudding-like.
If you have ramekins, great. Otherwise, you can use coffee mugs. To prep these, coat them with some melted butter. I use a pastry brush. Then sprinkle in some white sugar and shake it around to coat the butter. Divide mixture into your prepped vessels. You can get 2 tall cakes or three squat ones.
Place ramekins (or mugs) on a baking sheet and place on a middle rack. After 15 mins, they should be done. A toothpick inserted to the CENTRE of the cake will come out gooey. but what you want to do is pit a tooth pic into the top 3rd of the cake. It should be clean.
Turn out cakes onto serving plates. Add some ice cream and renew your gym membership.

Vacation!

Well, here it is. I am taking my first 2 week vacation ever. I have never been in a position to take 2 consecutive weeks off of work. When I was younger, it never occurred to me and I took my holidays whenever I could. A day here and a day there. Then I started working in computer sales. Then I was terrified to take even a single day off. You're so worried that the second you spent any time off the sales floor, one of the customers you had spoken to previously would come in and be "scooped" by another salesperson. I remember Boxing Days where I considered wearing a catheter to prevent having a return customer (we called them "be backs", as in "I'll be back after I talk to my wife") stolen by another salesperson. Now that I think back, I remember how much of my fantasy time was spent thinking about the busload of "be backs" that I was waiting for.

I was particularly worried about 2 other salespeople; Terry and a girl we called "B.R.".

Terry was an exceptional salesman. Extremely aggressive and very smooth. A formidable combination. On a slow day with no customers, we would all hang out together and wait for the next customer. As we watch the next few people come into the department, I would often be shocked by Terry's choice of "prospect". He would often pick the most unlikely of candidates. Like guys carrying motorcycle helmets. Now I'm not saying that a guy who rides a motorcycle is not likely to own a computer. I'm just saying that the likelihood of him taking one home on the back of a motorcycle is fairly remote.

But Terry had vision. See, these biker types are a loyal demographic. Not only would he have harvested a good client and likely made the sale eventually, bikers tend to be a tight knit group. Once you have a trust with one biker, you have an assumed trust with ALL bikers. And as far as carrying the computer home? Well guess what a biker drives in the winter? That's right...a half ton. You can fit a LOT of computers in a half ton.

Terry was often fond of Hutterites. If you think bikers are loyal, try Hutterites. I bet you there are STILL Waldners and Geisbrechts pulling up to Future Shop looking for Terry. And one more thing; Hutterites drive 5-Tons. You can get a poop load of computers in a 5-Ton!

B.R. on the other hand had a different advantage. Tits. Now before you get all "high and mighty" let me say that she was also a good salesperson. But not great. Just good. But combine that with the other...fugeddaboutit. Don't forget, this was computer sales...in the early 90's. The typical client was, shall we say, not likely to avoid the salesperson with tits. So this worked for her. And I'm fine with that.

After that, I went to my current position where I was, and still am, the only on-site IT support in the province. It was simply impossible to expect to relax on holidays. Something was always broken. Always something to fix. Eventually over the past 10 years I have gone from taking NO time off (the first 5 years), to taking a day or two (the next 3 years), and then finally taking as much as 4 days at a time(the past year and a half).

I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Even though I can't go away anywhere, I hope I am able to get some R&R. It is getting overwhelming at work. I am constantly thinking of tasks that need to be done and priorizing helpdesk tickets. It will be nice to finally take a break from that. Today I went Geocaching for a couple of hours and then I went to Clay's office and set up RAS for them. That was fun.

Then I came home and made glazed salmon and shrimp canneloni with salad for the family. It was good. Tomorrow I will be heading to Home Depot to price out light fixture parts for the kitchen. Maybe more Geocaching....we'll see.

Nano-insanity

October the 28th in the Year of our Lord 2008 is officially recorded as the day I went a little bit insane. Or a little bit more insane.

It was on this day I decided to tackle all of the available ICU traditional nano-caches put out by "Eye of Sauron" (probably not his/her real name). Some 30 caches were placed at the base of the lights for the red light cameras all across the city. There was one disabled one, and one that hadn't been found for a while (even ertyu dnf'd a couple of times, and THAT's saying something). I ignored the disabled one, and gave a good effort at the other. Although I feel no guilt for not finding it, as EoS disabled it as well shortly after my efforts.

To make up for the 2 missed caches, I found 2 other ICU caches that were unpublishable due to proximity issues. So, I feel I'm ahead of the game. Mostly because it's MY game, and I tend to make up rules as I need to so I stay ahead of it.

I surprised myself by having a pretty good time doing these caches. I usually don't like nano hides because they often require alot of conspicuous searching. This tends to arouse the attention of people who may become motivated enough to look for whatever it was I may have been looking for and therefore compromizing the hiding spot, or the cache itself. Except for a few exceptions, the caches were is the same basic locations for all of the hides. There were a few that had lost their magnet and as a result had been relegated to cave-dweller status in a nook in the shroud. But for the most part, all caches could be found by a blind person provided his hand were to be guided to the correct pole. (There is a hilarious off-colour joke lurking in that last sentence, but it is to far in the shadows for me to extract).

It took me till nearly midnight to complete all of the caches, but I was only grabbing them quickly between work episodes during the day. And then I went home to make supper, and hit the road with the kids to grab a couple, then went out again later to grab the rest.

My original intent was to cookie-cut my logs. I felt this was the same spirit in which the caches were placed. But as with all things caching-wise, I ended up enjoying myself and wanted to tell my story at a couple of the ides anyhow. So I devised this hybrid log where I stated my mission for the day at the top, and then each cache got a personal note below.

So, thanks for the nano-adventure, EoS. I had more fun on this journey than I thought. One word of advice...silicone the magnet into the container. You'd have less lost magnets.

Test Video

This is from about 5 years ago. Brooke singing the ABC's and eating toast. She is truly multi-talented. I just wanted to try posting video to see how it looks. Verdict: Looks Good!