Mo-Cali Connection

My grownup ice cream float

2009-09-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Forget root beer. Try this instead:

French Vanilla ice cream
Hansen's Cherry Vanilla Creme natural soda
Splash of Chambord liqueur

Just got back from: Visiting my favorite places in Missouri

2009-08-10T16:40:00.001-07:00

The City
Flying in to St. Louis means a host of wonderful times with friends and family is in store. The excitement really starts to build as I spot the muddy, muddy rivers and green, green trees from the air. This is why I always want a window seat!

My list of must-see faces and must-visit places in St. Louis is delightfully long. My typical agenda includes sharing Saganaki, or flaming cheese, with one of my oldest, warmest and most treasured friends at Olympia Kabob House & Taverna on McCausland. The hummus is also to die for! Also on my usual itinerary is meeting up with a few former coworkers from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at Arcelia's Mexicana Restaurant in lovely Lafayette Square.

A few surprises:
· Having a pint of #9 Ale by Magic Hat Brewery at Blueberry Hill in the Loop.
· Catching a glimpse of the Loop's new Moonrise Hotel, beautiful in every detail…except the rooftop bar doesn't open until 5 p.m.!
· Trying the just-released and very tasty Explicit APA from Charleyville Vineyard & Microbrewery in Ste. Genevieve. Brewed by the beau of one of my high school friends!
· Spending an evening relaxing and catching up with a few faces I hadn't seen in four or so years at the Missouri Botanical Garden during the outdoor summer concert series.
· Getting pulled over by the South County police for speeding and, due to an epic DMV mix-up, having expired license plates that were registered to another car. Apparently, my dad's light-blue '94 Buick is a cop-magnet! I quickly returned the keys.

The College Town
Returning to the site of much mischief and good times, I squeezed in a rare visit to my alma mater. Though I caught only a glimpse of the University of Missouri-Columbia campus and managed to catch one of the best college-town pizza establishments, Shakespeare's, on a bad night, I did get to see some wonderful peeps. Lucky for me, some of my Columbia friends show up in California from time to time either on tour with the Foundry Field Recordings or simply for pleasure.

The Country
The Missouri countryside, thankfully, is real, genuine countryside where hillside after rolling hillside packs in more trees than you could imagine and where a girl can really let her unwashed hair down. From the family farm south of St. Louis to Table Rock Lake, the most magical place I've ever been, I was happy to take in a healthy dose of this natural tonic. Though it's highly debatable whether you can ever really get enough of this beautiful land!

Highlights:
· Getting up on a slalom ski for the very first time! This included several wipeouts, as I am very new to this. I've been skiing on two for so long and can only go such a short distance that I usually throw the rope in the air when I'm done and glide, sometimes gracefully, down into the water. Thus the wipeouts were a blast from the past from my more reckless days bouncing around the lake on a tube.
· Reuniting with one of my early elementary childhood friends, who informed me of the unique reason we became buds in the first place. She trapped me in a seat on the bus and threatened to beat me up if I wouldn't be her friend! I have no recollection of this, but it continues to be one of her favorite stories to tell about me, as far as I could tell.
· Seeing some extended family, including my soon-to-be 94-year-old grandma, my aunt and my cousin and her two kids, one of who used my propped-up leg as a road for his truck. The other told me of her summer fun in sweet, garbled toddler speech that I could hardly understand.
· Driving around the farm with my Dad during a thunderstorm in an old Chevy pickup with a passenger's door that barely closes, an 8-track player that doesn't work and an ignition that doesn't even require a key.
· Enjoying a Steak 'n' Shake grilled cheese, cheese fries and strawberry shake with a high school friend who used to waitress with me at this very fine 1950s-style diner.

Overall, an excellent and exhausting trip that left me wanting more!

Red, white & juiced

2009-07-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's barbecue time, party people! So just in time for the Fourth of July, here's a how-to guide you won't find anywhere else: Old Cadet Redneck BBQ Recipe, straight from Old Cadet Road in Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Now the term "redneck" may bring up some negative connotations. But, we don't want any of that here. Just crack open a can of beer, feel the love and get in touch with your inner hillbilly. Ready y'all?

Here's what you'll need to party in the backwoods . . . Missouri-style.

THE GUESTS

· Plenty of good old boys of all ages who like to talk about tractors, trucks and other things that get muddy.
· Plenty of good old gals of all ages who like to talk about tractors and babies too.
· Newlywed couple – a favorite among the good old gals, who all want to know, "When are you having a baby?"
· Openly disliked cousin of so-and-so who enjoys mind-numbing conversations about, well, does it really matter?
· DJ Trucky, someone appointed to spin CDs from the dashboard of a 4x4. Tip: DJ Trucky doesn't take requests. When he's not looking, switch the CD yourself.
· Onlookers who get wind of the party by driving by. If they've brought their own beer, let them stay.
· Assholes who didn't bring their own beer and just won't leave.

THE ESSENTIALS

· A big yard where people can park their big trucks.
· A big bonfire that might darn well be seen from outer space. Tip: Collect your own firewood. You don't want to get caught carrying a bundle from 7-11 with the price tag still on.
· Piles and piles of meat. You can never have enough until you have way too much.
· One grill on the patio, one on the tailgate of a pickup, one on the ground. Tip: Express your creative side by making a grill out of an old kitchen sink you just happen to have laying around.
· Beer.
· Beer.
· Beer.
· Beer.
· Beer. The bottom of an empty cooler is an ugly place, my friend.
· A game with a hidden agenda: encouraging your guests to toss empty beer cans into the trash.

THE CONVERSATIONS

Tip: Most conversations sound more like an argument at a Redneck BBQ, so be sure to puff up your chest and play along. The polite response when someone states their opinion is, "You're crazy." Follow it up by repeating what you just said before. The other person obviously didn't hear you correctly.

· Tractors, tractors, tractors.
· Trucks, trucks, trucks.
· Inquiring about where you put your beer.
· Marveling over any unusual beers (i.e. not Bud Light) that end up at the barbecue.
· Family or neighborhood gossip, especially topics that have the good old gals saying, "I just couldn't believe it."

Tip: Enter your own topics into the mix at your own risk.

Now that you have some tips and guidelines, it's time to get that party started! Don't worry if you don't have everything on the list. Making do with what you have is essential to the redneck lifestyle.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!

Huh?

2009-05-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

Traveling with a sinus infection doesn't exactly give you the clarity to figure out where you are at any particular moment in time. This conversation happened just yesterday:

Airport employee: Where are you heading?
Me: St. Louis.
Airport employee: What's your final destination?
Me: St. Louis.
Airport employee: Ma'am, you're in St. Louis.
(Finally, brain waves fire. Light bulb moment ensues. Fog lifts. Oh crap, I'm leaving St. Louis. That sucks.)
Me: Oh yeah, Orange County.

I can't deny it. My preferred destination is always St. Louis – even if I'm already there. Feel free to write a country song, but don't make it too douche-y.

Grilled cheese of the week . . . or month

2009-04-21T11:52:00.001-07:00

Provolone cheese with artichoke antipasto, olive tapenade and cucumbers.

UPDATE: This is only a test

2009-02-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

Thankfully, I can continue defining myself by my favorite possessions and have them in-sight as well. As it turns out, our storage space is subject to water leaks, so the dining room table stays where it is. Final answer. A wonderful weekend of rain ended with the discovery of several boxes of ruined items at Stor-It Self Storage in Aliso Viejo. My table must not endure the same fate!

Grilled cheese of the week

2009-02-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

Mozzarella and kasseri cheeses with pesto and black olive tapenade.

This is only a test

2009-02-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting experiment when you have the semblance of an adult life (a husband, a dog, a washer and dryer, a 50" television) and you try to cram it all into an 800-sqaure-foot condo. I can't say I've been very successful, especially considering I am currently unemployed and nearly have an upside-down mortgage.

Anyway, I'm cheating by renting a storage unit to hold all of the leftovers from what I consider to have been a more appropriate adult life. That was in a 1,600-square-foot townhouse in St. Louis. That townhouse was built in the late 1800s. This condo is from the early 1980s, not to mention located in the middle of overly manicured suburbia. Which life would you choose?

It's hard for me to remember the faults of anything, anyone or any situation given enough time. But I still have to remind myself that the water pressure in that townhouse was very, very dismal. A lukewarm trickle does not do the job when the temperatures outside the drafty windows are below freezing. Hey, sometimes you have to dig deep to find the faults.

But, inside the townhouse I actually had SPACE, and outside there was a sense of PLACE. A restaurant right across the street, the Anheuser Busch brewery stretching out in all directions and a great dive bar at the end of the street. I've agonized over whether I made the wrong move countless times.

Now that I'm doing a bit of freelance work from the confines of this condo, the place seems even smaller. The problem is that my office is now in my bedroom, and now I'm not sleeping very well at night because, well, my bedroom is in my office. The smartest solution is to move my computer into the dining room. That means moving the dining room table into storage.

It's a simple and effective solution except that I LOVE my dining room table. Seriously, it's a huge slab of dark, beautiful wood, and even though we don't use it for dinner, it makes me feel like an adult. It's the last shred of adult dignity I have left living in a too-small condo I paid too much for in a location I don't particularly like. So I'm fighting myself on putting this table in storage.

But, let's face it, the damage has already been done. The historic townhome has long been sold. The papers on the condo have long been signed, and in this real estate market and economy, you have to make the best with what you have. I'm really going to miss that table. It adds quite a bit more to the room than computer desks from Ikea.

Really, it's a matter of choosing a good night's sleep over my sense of adulthood. But, of course there's more. The lack of temperature control in the storage unit could warp my table and my fragile sense of adulthood as well. I'm okay with my adulthood being out of sight but not ruined.

These economic times are scary enough, and I'm not looking forward to waiting it out without my favorite piece of furniture. Sometimes, sacrifices just have to be made. At least I can be thankful that my job and dining room table are the biggest sacrifices thus far.

Eventually, I'll get my table, my adulthood and hopefully some additional square footage back. That is, if I ever work up the nerve to put the table in storage in the first place.