A lite Wednesday morning turned into a hectic Wednesday morning, and so now it’s a little less hectic Wednesday afternoon. No major news here, and believe it or not nothing special about Bastille Day, just some “Stuff” to pass along and ponder…
Another Link in the Food Chain
I accompanied a friend down to Circle C Oyster Ranch yesterday morning. He was going to get some oyster floats to raise the little bivalves in anticipation of dinners to come this fall and winter. Circle C is nestled down in Ridge on St. Jerome’s Creek. Although “ranch” sounds exciting, there is very little “ranching” to be done with oysters, mainly to flip the floats once in a while. No roundups, herding, branding, roping, just a general pastoral scene. I have not heard the caretakers called “oyster pokes” or “oyster boys”. A pretty benign existence.
Each of the floats contains about 600 oysters in various stages of growth. We hoisted three in the back of the pick-em-up truck (appropriate for ranching), and eventually put them back in the water in a creek near Clarke’s Landing. After a hard morning on the range, a thirst developed. And, as it happened we were passing the Hole in the Wall bar. I had never had the courage to go in there, but with assurances from my friend that it was okay, we stopped and went in. BAM! that time warp thing again! Like Courtney’s I suspect that not much has changed (well, there is a flat screen over the bar, BUT there is also the requisite Keno machine) in the last few decades. It is a huge room (which you wouldn’t expect from the outside) with a U-shaped bar and a couple of the requisite customers that looked very much at home perched on stools with a stack of bills in front of them. The room has a a few pool tables and many chairs and tables. And, do you remember the Bowling Game where you slide a little puck like affair along the wood, and the plastic bowling pins fold up into the top? Seen one of those in a while? Quite the place…
Sauce
I got the July issue of “Sauce” a freebie newspaper/magazine that is distributed in St. Louis yesterday. I have mentioned it before, but if you’re at all interested in the “food scene” in St. Louis, it’s a must have. This issue also includes an insert called “reader’s choice” which lists favorite this and that. Greek, German, French restaurants, wine shops, cheese shops, bistros, late night, you get the idea. I did note that Niche seemed to gather a lot of accolades. Next trip. They always have refreshing well written reviews of restaurants old and new, wine recommendations, etc. I thought this was a very nice (and true) note in the “Drink This” column for a central coast ’08 Domaine Alfred Chamisal Vineyards Stainless Chardonnay: “It’s nice to see more unoaked Chardonnays being produced for people who like to have white wine with food without dealing with the “buttery” that basically ruins any chance of the wine actually complementing the food”. Nicely said.. Pick up a copy and keep the insert for reference..
A lost art form
Last night was the annual American homage to the Boys of Summer, the Baseball All Star game. It probably is the best of the “All Star” games, the others are pretty lame. At least these guys try. Anyway, it provides a forum for displaying one of the (IMHO) great art forms left in sport. That would be the ritual of “hat tipping”. Before the game, they line up the participants on the foul lines, and introduce the individual participants and what team they are representing. As this is going on, the players generally ‘tip” their hats in appreciation. I need to write a hat tipper’s manual. The very ultimate tip is when the player just puts thumb and forefinger on the bill of the hat (toward the side, NOT the middle), not disturbing it’s fit, and just briefly nods. Beautiful. A little less elegant is the same procedure with just a little lift of the hat, or motion of the hand. At the other end of the scale is the complete removal of the hat, the arm extended completely, exposing whatever dome the player has. Not good. Doing nothing is also probably not acceptable, although it avoids a poor performance. I think I noticed that the players from the Toronto team seem to have received proper training..
I suppose they also get trained in
DFD
bon appetit!!
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