Food

Fuddrucker’s For Dinner

Way back in the 80’s when they first started appearing on the landscape, Fuddruckers were the be-all-to-end-all of hamburger places. I remember when the first opened a store in New Orleans there were signs posted outside that said, No Photography Allowed, so no one would steal their decorating idea of leaving empty food cases arranged around the place.

Well it is twenty years later and the bloom is off the rose. The burger I was served was good, but not up to my memory and certainly not the “Worlds Best” with which they billed themselves. Which is why perhaps some truth nazis made them paint over that particular phrase on the awning outside the door.

If you click on the link to the company’s site you will find that they still use the slogan “Worlds Best Hamburgers” in their logos and I presume advertising. The one we ate at in Columbia, SC looked way run down and probably hasn’t been changed or updated since it opened. Makes me want to go to a different one and see if perhaps it was just this particular restaurant, but I probably won’t as there is usually plenty of other places that I would rather eat.

Now That’s Italian

On our way up north to meet sis and hubby in North Carolina. The most interesting thing of the whole drive occurred just outside of downtown Aiken on Laurens Street. Just as we were passing the post office a small gray object fell rapidly from the sky above us and hit the road a few inches in front of the nose of the car with a splat. As I looked in the rearview mirror I could see the squirrel dash towards the side of the road. I guess he missed a branch. Just imagine if I was 2 secs earlier leaving home or a light changed on a different schedule or the squirrel paused a beat longer thinking about the gap between those branches? I wonder what kind of havoc a squirrel landing in the cockpit of a moving convertible might cause? Would not be pretty!

In our increasingly harder to accomplish task of finding a different way north we crossed into Georgia for a bit of our trip. As luck would have it we were in the small burg of Clarksville, GA around lunchtime. We stopped in the center square and walked around looking for like candidates for a nice meal. We ended up going into the Zanzo Side Door Deli. It was on one side of a building and the regular Italian restaurant was on the other. Donna had a chicken salad plate on some greens with fruit on the side and I opted for the lunch portion of baked ziti. Man it was good. Almost worth the 100 mile drive it would take just to go back. This food was so Italian good and we were so in the middle of nowhere, backwoods Georgia that the folks running the place had to be witness protection relocatees.

Purchased Today: $26 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started down, went up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 130

Eating Lawn Clippings

Half-Day-Friday. We met Donna’s mom downtown at Malia’s. Donna loves this place because Donna loves salads and Malia’s is the king of salads. I eat there because I get brownie points for taking Donna and they have a manly steak salad there so I can still feel like I’m on top of the food chain while eating lawn clippings. Afterwards we came home and started the back deck cleanup. There must have been a 1/32 of an inch thick layer of pine pollen coating every surface on the porch area. Donna washed this off while I hit the front porch. Tomorrow I will attack the deck area with some cleaner to rid the thing, hopefully, of mildew.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 50

Extruded Potato Flake Mush

Had the April Master’s Miata Club meeting tonight. In our never ending quest for just the right combination of food, price and privacy we ventured to the S&S Cafeteria in North Augusta. I don’t remember who suggested it, but I hope they don’t read this blog – the food was terrible. The trout was cold and the coating too thick, the green beans were bland. The succotash was so over cooked that you couldn’t tell the difference between the corn or the lima beans except for color (barely.) The “cheese” potato was extruded potato flake mush in a tin foil oval with a bit of cheddar like coloring on top and the deviled egg had so much pickle in it that it overwhelmed any egg taste. If I never eat there again it will be too soon. On the bright side we had 22 people in attendance, a record.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 50

Mint Oreo Blizzard

A little background – Donna’s favorite Girl Scout cookies are Thin Mints. Her favorite ice cream treat is a scoop of chocolate chip and a scoop of mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone. Every time we go out to eat Mexican food she always gets one of those peppermint patties for a dime at the cash register. She keeps a stash of mint lifesavers in the door pocket of the car, her purse and lunch pail. I on the other hand hate mints, I like the taste, but if I get one little bite of a York peppermint patty it keeps repeating on me all day.

After our lousy dinner, Donna and I stopped at the Dairy Queen just down the street to split a blizzard to cleanse our palettes. There was a sign for a Mint Oreo Blizzard that even looked good to me. I asked if she wanted one of those, and Donna said sure. After it was made and she took one spoonful, she turned up her nose and said, “I don’t want anymore.” Great, I was stuck eating it while she went back inside and got a vanilla cone. Fortunately we’ll be going to sleep soon and I won’t have to put up with the mint burps for much longer.

Flash Our Tits

Made it back from the Crescent City. Kind of weird being a tourist in a tourist town after living there a while and then leaving. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse and of course some things never change. We stayed at the French Market Inn and the web site makes it look a lot nicer than it was. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice and the location was excellent, but it really fell short of the mark in a lot of ways.

We did the touristy things – rode the St. Charles Street Car to the zoo – took the Natchez steamboat ride – went to the Aquarium & Imax – had coffee & beingets at the Cafe Du Monde (3 times) – wandered up & down Bourbon Street – browsed the antique stores on Royal Street – ate seafood – ate “cajun” food and read The Times-Picayune on the Moonwalk listening to jazz and watching the barges go by.. We did *NOT* flash our tits for beads – get our palm read on Jackson Square – take a carriage tour – buy a T-shirt with a dirty phrase on it – get drunk on Hurricanes at Pat O’Briens or take a Voodoo Walking tour.

As Glenda told Dorothy, “There’s no place like home.”

Purchased Today: $18.00 in pizza
(Not actually Miata related so I’m not adding it to the total)
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 48

Hibernated All Day

Yesterday it rained in the morning, but cleared up later in the day. For the first time in a long time both Donna and I decided we didn’t want to do a Master’s Miata Club event. We went out to lunch (while it was still raining) to check out a place for a possible Club meeting in a town that is halfway between the two “big” towns that members come from. The food was good, but the atmosphere of the place was just so dumpy that we are thinking of other alternatives. When it came time to go out for the MMM…Time we just didn’t feel like it, even though the rain had stopped.

Today was a normal Sunday, the Miata sits. Hibernated all day except for a quick outing for lunch at Moe’s. They have been open here in Aiken for a while but we like to give a new place about a month or so to settle in before trying it. Not bad, but not so good that we will be hurrying back.

Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 25