Neanderpundit

No, this is not a post about Alton brown. Actually, I think Steve H probably can cook as well as Alton, if not maybe better. I know I can.
Actually, I’m talking about eating on the road- prompted by this post by Kim Du Toit.

I have been more or less living on the road for twenty years. I have had a bucketload of fast food- in fact, a lot of it is part of the reason for my swelling midsection. I have decided if I must eat another burger of any description I will scream.

Now, I don’t mean homemade burgers, but I make ’em good. I mean any chain food- including applebees, chilis, etc.

I want to eat at a restaurant that serves food. Not someplace that microwaves single serving pseudomeals.

Last couple weeks I’ve been staying in a suite with a kitchenette, and this week some damned trade show is in town so I can’t. Tonight I dug around until I found a little restaurant in a strip mall. A place where you can see the kitchen from almost every table. A place that has no microwave.

I ordered the Veal Marsala. It lacked toasted pine nuts of being absolutely perfect. it came with a fine salad and some fresh (still warm, in fact) bread. THis place is only open for dinner. I will be back.

Food- real food, I mean, should be cooked. THe ingredients should be fresh. The cooks should taste it. The staff should eat there. The owner should care how his food tastes. The customers should want to come back.

Consider yourself lucky if there are two restaruants in your town that are like this.

When Kim and Connie were gracious enough to stop by Chez Og on their trip back from Michigan last summer, I took them to Tiebels for lunch.

Tielbels has been a fixture of the town forever. I didn’t take the Du Toits there because I wanted to take them someplace elegant, I wanted to have them eat a good meal. They certainly made it seem like they enjoyed it- though they are far too gracious hosts and guests to say otherwise.

What decent restaurants are in your area? let me know, you never know when I might show up there.

I drove a couple hundred miles yesterday. Most of the trip, the needle hovered around 75. This was how the traffic was flowing. About once a mile, I would be overtaken by someone driving about 90, or come across someone driving about 45. Talk about delta V. SO watched my six, kept a good look out for morons. No surprise to anyone that ALL the fuckedup drivers were out of state, and no surprise that they were mostly bluehairs, but there were a few surprises:

Most of the ones going 45 were obviously teenagers going back to school.

Most of the high speed morons were older, some in some pretty fancy cars (bmw M5, Lexus, Porsche Cayenne) and while they could drive fast, they seemed incapable of accelerating- I got behind one at a rest stop, and it took him a full minute to get up to 60. As soon as I could I passed him, and in five minutes he was passing me going 90 again. And five minutes later, he was having a conversation with a nice policeman.

Oh, and as I know this strip of road is heavily patrolled, I decided not to get too carried away with speed; I didn’t see a single squad. I saw bike cops, and a LOT of them. Guess the boys (and girls) in blue wanted to get some two wheel time in before the weather turned.