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And Now, The PB&J Hot Dog

2/29/2024

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In my previous post I wrote about Tap That Glass, a pizzazy little restaurant and music venue in Newark, Ohio where Tom and I recently spent an evening listening to the terrific Old Timey/Bluegrass music of Caleb Powers and Matt Hopper (see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/an-evening-of-music-at-tap-that-glass),

...and sampling a couple of the tamer menu items, among which were a variety of outré hotdogs, including one that caught the interest of at least a couple of readers:

Until I saw it on that menu last week I'd never heard of a hotdog topped with peanut butter and jelly, nor could I have conceived of such a culinary weirdity.
And yet one reader commented on Facebook that they kept seeing this item on menus lately. This bit of information, that peanut butter and jelly on a hotdog wasn't just some out there idea cooked up by the hot dog artiste of this eclectic little eatery, but an actual thing, kind of blew my mind, though I guess it shouldn't have. After all, this phenomenon has been preceded by such unholy amalgams as the donut burger,

...chocolate-covered bacon,

...grape jelly meatballs,

...and my personal entry in the hall of edible infamies, the turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich.

Now, the reason the mixing of turkey and cranberry sauce is a personal issue for me is because, of all the strange Frankenfoods under the sun, this one is the only one I ever let myself get talked into putting into my mouth.
"You've got to try a turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich! It's awesome!" said everybody I knew shortly after T&CS became a thing a couple of decades ago.
"But I don't want to," I'd always reply. In truth, though I love both turkey and cranberry sauce, I don't want them anywhere near each other. I can't have them on the same plate. On Thanksgiving my place must be set with an extra bowl for my cranberry sauce, and it's only after I've finished all the items on my turkey plate and that plate has been cleared away that I can dig into my bowl of cranberry sauce, which likewise must be cleared away before I dig into my pumpkin pie. For me cranberry sauce is sort of a sui generis thing.
And yet somehow I once let myself get talked into taking a bite of a turkey and cranberry sauce wrap. (Obviously, I still haven't gotten over it).
And now, not content with all the disrepute that's already been inflicted upon upon the gustatory ecosystem by rogue food combinations , they've created the PB&J hot dog!
Another Facebook friend, after reading the previous post, made the observation that I am not a culinary explorer.
Alas, this is true.

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An Evening Of Music At Tap That Glass

2/25/2024

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An Evening Of Music At Tap That Glass

A couple of weeks ago one of my fellow members of the Licking County Ukulele Club,

...Matt Hopper, ukulelist par excellence, dulcet-voiced tenor, and master of the banjolele, which is a cross between a banjo and a ukulele,

...shared with the club that he would be performing an evening of music with Caleb Powers, singer and gifted player of numerous instruments with the Virginia bluegrass/folk band Hackensaw Boys,

...at Tap That Glass, a bar and music venue in Newark, Ohio on Thursday, February 15.
And so on February 15 Tom and I drove 29 miles out to the Columbus exurb of Newark where we sought out Tap That Glass, only to be initially confused, as the place apparently also goes by the name Franks & Sammies.

However, once we got ourselves sorted out we were able to find our destination,
a cheery place with a fun rock and roll motif,

...and a stage at the front of the room, as there's live music here every Thursday night.

The music was to start at 7 pm, but we arrived at 6:30 to to snag a good spot close to the stage, which we were able to do, and also to have some dinner beforehand.
The menu was, as suggested by the Franks and Sammies reference in the name of the place, a vast variety of boutique hot dogs,

...and a plethora of intriguing sandwiches, many of them sausage-based.

I played it safe and went with the Gyro Sandwich Meal served with fries and macaroni salad,

...though I traded the macaroni salad for baked beans, which I subsequently gave to my mate, who ordered the Meatloaf Sandwich Meal.

My gyro was first-rate, thanks to the tasty meat and outstanding tzatziki sauce. Tom, sadly, was less enthusiastic about his meatloaf sandwich. But here's the thing: Tom is always on the prowl in search of meatloaf such as his mother used to make, but though he's tried the meatloaf in restaurant after restaurant, no restaurant meatloaf has ever come close to the quality of his mother's.
So anyway, if anyone knows of a restaurant that serves a primo meatloaf, please share. Or I'd even be appreciative of a terrific meatloaf recipe, if anyone has one. I've never succeeded in making a decent meatloaf, either.
By the time seven o'clock rolled around the bar was full almost to capacity of folks who'd come to hear the music,

...which was wonderful.
Matt and Caleb's voices and instruments blended harmoniously in an engaging program of bluegrass, folk, country and traditional tunes, most of which they'd been hearing, singing, and playing all their lives, having learned these songs from their dads' band, The North Fork Rounders.

They also played some old-timey fiddle tunes,

...among them this one called Katydid.

And so the evening was a delight. As were the two musicians who gifted us with their music.

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The Rise And Fall Of A Brunch

2/22/2024

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The Rise And Fall Of A Brunch

Along with the axiom "Pics or it didn't happen" goes the corollary, "If it didn't happen then there are no pics," which applies to the event chronicled in the following post, for which there are no pics. Because it didn't happen.
What did happen, was that last Friday it occurred to me that it had been some time since Tom and I had our son Tommy and daughter-in-law Emily over for weekend brunch. So on Friday night I invited them to come over the next day for a Saturday brunch. I figured I'd just throw together the usual for the four of us: scrambled eggs and French toast.
"Sure, we'll come," said Tommy. "But cousin Kevin is in town. Can we invite him, too?"
"Certainly," said I, figuring brunch for five wasn't much more than brunch for four. "Oh, but wait," I said, "since cousin Kevin is in town, we really should invite Randy and Anusha." Now were up to seven.
"Oh, and what about Theresa?," said Tommy.
That made eight, until Tom said, "If we're inviting cousin Kevin, Randy, Anusha, Theresa, Tommy and Emily, then we should ask Uncle Donald and Aunt Mary." That made ten.
"Oh, sure, we'll come," said Uncle Donald. "But how about Madelyn, Brady and Archer?"
Now we were up to thirteen. My dining room table only holds twelve.
But no problem! We'd seat the younger folks in the dining room, the older folks in the kitchen, and serve the food buffet style.
Which brought me to the issue of food. I didn't have sufficient provisions to make scrambled eggs and French toast for thirteen, and even if I did, this was no longer a mere eggs and French toast brunch. With cousin Kevin in town and all the relatives coming over, it would be an event calling for a more sumptuous repast.
I came up with a menu:
Scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and peppers
Tater tots
Sausage
Rolls
French toast topped with berries and whipped cream
Fruit salad
Coffee, tea, orange juice, iced tea, sparkling water
Of course I didn't have most of the ingredients for the feast on hand, but again, no problem, I'd set the alarm for 6 am, zip out to Meijer's first thing in the morning, pick up the supplies, then I'd hurry home and hit the ground chopping, whipping, and sautéing while Tom cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom and set up the dining room and kitchen tables and the whole thing would be no sweat.
The following morning at 6:01 I lay in bed sweating ever so slightly, going over in my head one more time the menu, the grocery list, the cooking, the food set-up, and the seating arrangements, when Tom, a much earlier riser than myself, came into the bedroom.
"I have the worst sore throat," he croaked. "My muscles ache and I'm all congested. I think I'm running a temperature."
And in that moment my towering brunch plan came tumbling down.

   Epilogue
Tom is feeling much better. It wasn't COVID, just a miserable cold that appears to have almost run its course.
I swear someday the Saturday brunch will rise again. And when it does, there will be pics.

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In Search Of A Sunrise And The Graveyard Of The Trees

2/22/2024

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In Search Of A Sunrise And The Graveyard Of The Trees

...Continued from previous post:
Early riser that I'm not, still I'd been hoping that during our visit to our friends' beach house in Jekyll Island, Georgia, I might be able to gather the fortitude to get up out of bed in time to catch one of the spectacular ocean sunrises I'd heard tell of in these parts. And from our friends' balcony I'd have a ringside view.

The first morning, Wednesday morning, I missed the sunrise show by, I don't know, minutes? Seconds? Anyway, by the time I schlepped myself out of bed and onto the balcony, I was barely in time to catch the closing credits.

However, once the sun got itself settled into a good spot in the heavens, there was a nice, sparkly patch of sunlight on the water.

The second morning, Thursday morning, I had considerably more success dragging my tired tuchus out of bed, and was rewarded for my effort with a considerably more striking sight than the morning before.

As this day was to be our last day on Jekyll Island visiting our friends Mike and Dayna,

...what I most wanted to see, next to a pièce de la résistance sunrise, was...well, I wanted to see our old college friends again, which we did that night when they invited us to their beautiful home for a wonderful dinner.

And I wanted to see more live oaks, as I'd become fascinated by those massive island trees whose long, serpentine limbs support whole ecosystems.

And I also greatly wanted to see a stretch of island shoreline called Driftwood Beach.
And so we headed back out to the site of the old Jekyll Island Club, which was once the exclusive property of a small group of America's Gilded Age tycoons but is now open to the public as a state park (see post from 2/16/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-jekyll-island-club).
We spent the morning walking around the grounds among the live oaks,

...and the profusion of other flora and fauna.

Off the shoreline we saw communities of oyster beds.

I asked Dayna if these oysters were edible. She didn't know, but she informed me that once back in the old days of the Jekyll Club some of the residents ate the oysters from this water and there was subsequently an outbreak of typhoid, which oysters, if not properly raised, can carry. I took that as a no, and also enough to convince me that I would never eat an oyster from anywhere (though up until now I've never needed a reason not to eat one).
When lunchtime rolled around we tried a cute nearby Irish restaurant called Wee Pub Beach,

...where the food was great.
Among us we tried the Loaded Baked Potato Soup;

...the Drunk Chicken Salad,

...a Reuben with fries,

...and a round of Hush Puppies to share.

For dessert Tom and I split a dish of the out-of-this-world bread pudding topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel sauce.

After lunch we returned to our friends' house, and from there we walked about a mile to Driftwood Beach,

...passing on our way wetlands that we were told are home to alligators and turtles.

Driftwood beach is a stretch of shoreline that was once a forest of live oaks. But over time the ocean overtook the land and the land became sand and the trees died on the beach. Here they remain in a beautifully surreal graveyard where they resemble strange living creatures..

The next morning we'd be leaving Jekyll Island and, knowing this was my last chance to catch the sunrise, I finally managed to make it out of bed and to the balcony before 6 am.
My spectacular sunrise:

Then the sun was once again on its way across the sky,

...and soon after so were we.

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The Island Gilded Age

2/19/2024

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The Island Gilded Age

...Continued from yesterday:
On Wednesday afternoon, after our tour of St. Simons Island (see yesterday's post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/st-simons-island-shrimp-boats-live-oaks-and-a-bird-convention), we returned to Jekyll Island and headed for the historic district where in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the ultra-wealthy captains of American industry built for themselves an exclusive retreat that they called the Jekyll Island Club. The area is now a state park open to the public and site of the Jekyll Island Club Resort (see post from 2/16/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-jekyll-island-club).

We walked for a little while around the resort grounds, where we saw some magnificent old live oaks hung with Spanish moss and other plant life (see yesterday's post),

...alongside other beautiful indigenous trees.

We then walked to the clubhouse/hotel,

...where we took a tour of the reconstructed spaces where the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, and other elites of the American Gilded Age once roamed,

...dined,

...(or maybe just popped in for a nosh),

...convened,

...read,

...and otherwise hung out.

That evening Mike and Dayna took us to Tribuzio's Grille, where many of the Jekyll Island locals come together on Wednesday evenings,

...to meet, eat, and participate in the Wednesday night Trivia tournaments.

Here we met up with some old friends from college who are also part-time residents of the island and Trivia night regulars. They introduced us to some new friends, and soon Tom and I took our first fling at a Trivia night.

Our team did pretty well on the first two rounds,

...then we kind of plotzed on round three. But it was lots of fun, anyway, and one does pick up a good amount of interesting new (if trivial) information.
As we sat around the table and played in this room full of our fellow trivialistas, I found myself musing over what those old gilt-edge aristocrats who used to be the sole inhabitants of this charming island off the coast of Georgia would have thought if during their time they could have looked into a crystal ball and seen one hundred and twenty years into the future all of us commoners enjoying life on this piece of earth that they likely believed would belong to them and their scions forever.

To be continued...

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St. Simons Island: Shrimp Boats, Live Oaks, And A Bird Convention

2/18/2024

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St. Simons Island: Shrimp Boats, Live Oaks, And A Bird Convention

...Continued from yesterday:
Soon after our friends picked us up from The Golden Isles airport in Brunswick Georgia, an airport so small and bright and cute it almost looks like a toy airport (see post from 2/14/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-cutest-airport-in-the-whole-usa),

...we were on our way across the spectacular, mile-and-a-half long, 480 foot high Sidney Lanier Bridge that joins the mainland to the Golden Isles, as the four barrier islands off the coast of Georgia are called.

On the other side of the bridge we had our first view of beautiful Jekyll Island.

This was also the first time I ever saw Spanish moss hanging from the trees, as it does in this part of the world.

I was quite enchanted.

Our friends Dayna and Mike,

...live on a street lined with palm trees and live oaks,

...in a cozy beach house.

...with balconies that look over the ocean.

Our guest room.

That evening we went to a local eatery called the Beach House,

...where the ambiance was quite beachy,

...and the food oh, so good.
Tom ordered the gnocchi with garlic bread,

...Dayna had the pulled pork,

...and Mike the breaded fish fillets.

I requested a mushroom and Swiss burger cooked as rare as was legally allowed, and was pleased that whoever cooked my burger probably cooked it to just that legal limit (I love me some rare meat!)

The crispy, curvy fries were also very good.
The following morning I hoped to get up early enough to catch a magnificent sunrise over the ocean. However I arrived on the balcony just as the colors were fading into the day.

Then, in spite of the chilly wind that was blowing, I decided to take a walk along the beach.

St. Simons Island off in the distance.

Our hosts took us for a visit St. Simons, the next island over, where we had a yummy breakfast at a little spot called Palmer's Village Cafe.

After breakfast we walked through the town,

...down to the pier,

...from where we saw ships,

...shrimp boats, which I found captivating,

...an intriguing bird convention,

...and, off in the distance, the Sidney Lanier bridge.

From the pier we walked for a while along the margin of the water,

...to the lighthouse,

...which was attached to the house where the lighthouse keeper at one time lived.

We then strolled around the town.

I was entranced by the live oaks that grew everywhere,

...with their snaky, spreading limbs,

...that sometimes grew into the ground then back out again,

...hung with Spanish moss,

...and provider for other plant life.

I asked Dayna why these trees were called "live oaks;" aren't all oaks "live?"
She explained that these were called "live" because they didn't lose their leaves in the winter.

I commented that in these parts it didn't look like any of the trees lost their leaves. We were in the first week of February and everything appeared to be live and blooming.
She then ventured that, well, there are dozens of different kinds of oak trees: red oaks, pin oaks, burr oaks...they must have just decided to name this one a "live oak."
Sounds kind of like a participation award to me.

To be continued...

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The Jekyll Island Club

2/16/2024

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The Jekyll Island Club

...Continued from yesterday:
Tom and I had been invited by some dear old friends to come and visit them at their wintering-over home on beautiful Jekyll Island off the southern coast of Georgia.

The island, we were to learn, was purchased in the 1880's by a group of ultra-rich captains of American industry, among them J.P. Morgan, William Rockefeller, Marshall Field, William K. Vanderbilt and Joseph Pulitzer, as a getaway from the travails of work and the city.
Seeking the pleasures of nature and the simple life, it was agreed upon by the magnates who purchased the land that the Jekyll Island Club, as they christened this endeavor, would be a haven of plain rustic living.
And so the men built for themselves humble island cottages:

However, if one preferred the experience of communal living, accommodations could be procured at the Jekyll Island clubhouse.

Jekyll Island remained a thriving respite for the richest until the Great Depression in 1929, when those members hit with financial hardship were forced to relinquish their island abodes. From there membership in the Jekyll Island Club declined, until in 1947 the state of Georgia purchased the island from the remaining members and declared it a state park.
Today the grounds of the original Jekyll Island Club is a historic district open to the public. Of the sixteen original Jekyll Island cottages, eleven are still standing and the restored cottages and the clubhouse are now hotels and event venues known as the Jekyll Island Club Resort. The clubhouse is also open for tours.

The Jekyll Island Club Resort clubhouse

The rest of Jekyll Island is a community of full-time and seasonal residents as well as visitors to the island, among whom for the next two days Tom and I would be.
To be continued...

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The Cutest Airport In The Whole U.S.A.

2/14/2024

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The Cutest Airport In The Whole U.S.A.

Me, I like airports, and over the years I've seen quite a few:
Visually striking ones,

...arty ones,

...pleasant ones,

...lovely ones,

...fantastic ones,

...user-friendly ones,

...and airports of all sorts.
Then last Tuesday my mate Tom and I arrived at the small county airport in Brunswick, Georgia. which has got to be hands down the cutest little airport of them all.
The interior of the Brunswick Golden Isles airport is light and bright with a fountain in the middle,

...airy plants and sconce lights,

...and wooden tables with upholstered chairs all around.

The spotlessly clean floors are partly carpeted in a pretty floral design,

...and partly sand-colored stone,

...edged with mosaic.

Who's ever seen such detail on an airport floor?
Or a check-in counter with colored tiles?

It almost looks like a toy airport.
And it's charming on the outside, too.

And though it's the smallest of airports, Brunswick Golden Isles has a very nice restaurant called Tipsy McFlys,

...where we had lunch with our friends Mike and Dayna, whom we'd flown in to visit.

The food was really good.
Tom and I split a Green Gobbler sandwich, which was turkey, guacamole and bacon with a yummy aioli sauce and a side of hot curly fries,

...while our friends had a club sandwich,

...and a house salad topped with chicken.

Now, if only the exterior wall of the restaurant hadn't been inexplicably hung with this old-timey-style sexist sign...

Oh, well, I guess even the best of airports, like the best of people, have their faults.

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What Joe Biden Was Probably Saying

2/8/2024

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What Joe Biden Was Probably Saying

Upon hearing the news leak that in private Joe Biden refers to Donald Trump as a sick f***, my first thought was that the leak was the doing of some disloyal aide or associate.
But then it turned out that the public got such a kick out of Joe Biden dropping the F-bomb on Trump that my second thought was that mayhaps the leak was a piece of political strategy.
My other second thought was that "sick f***" sounds like an STD.
Which then got me to cogitating...now, you'll have to stay with me, but I'm going to try and make this make sense:
Back in my day - which was also Joe Biden's day, more or less - those maladies that we now call sexually transmitted diseases used to be euphemistically referred to as "social diseases."
However, these days the term "social disease" doesn't only refer to those kinds of diseases, but to any phenomenon that brings harm to a society.

So, if one follows the logic of what Joe Biden was saying:
Donald Trump = a sick f***
A sick f*** = an STD
An STD = a social disease
A social disease = a phenomenon that brings harm to society
Therefore: Donald Trump = a phenomenon that brings harm to society. Which is no doubt all Joe Biden was saying.

Either way, a sick f*** by any other name is just as rancid.

References:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-private-comments-sick-trump_n_65bc4db5e4b0102bd2d896ae

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Thoughts On Elon Musk And Goodness

2/4/2024

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"Tropical Depression" by Patti Liszkay
0.99 on Amazon Kindle
February 1- February 7
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY

Thoughts On Elon Musk And Goodness

A friend made the following comment on my previous post on Elon Musk (see https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-paradox-of-elon-musk):

Much as I liked the video game quip, for me my friend's remark about Musk's "terrible sense of what actually IS good" hit a cerebral bullseye which got me to pondering that elusive abstraction that we humans call good.
Consider: Doesn't everybody, no matter how mean, unkind, cruel, greedy, self-serving, ungenerous, dishonest, judgmental, money-grubbing or irresponsible they might be; no matter how blind, insensitive, or careless they are regarding the welfare of their fellow human beings; no matter what crimes they may be guilty of, what evil they might have perpetrated, what damage they might have done to another person, a country, or the whole planet; no matter how bad any one of us has been, doesn't every one of us think of ourselves as good? Or trying to be good? Or at least - as my friend diagnosed Elon Musk - desiring to do good?
And yet doesn't it seem that it's the truly good people who are hardest on themselves, whose consciences punish them over the least infraction while others bask in self-righteousness in proportion to their lack of goodness?
Whoever wrote the Gospels credited Jesus with saying that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, which has been interpreted, among various interpretations, to mean a state of interior goodness. But if that's true, mustn't it be equally hard for the powerful, acclaimed, or anyone set upon a public pedestal, to hold onto a sense of what actually is good and to hold themselves to it?
Which I guess swings back to my friend's observation of Elon Musk, the richest human of us all, whose pedestal rises so tragically high.

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​And Now, The PB&J Hot Dog

​An Evening Of Music At Tap That Glass

​The Rise And Fall Of A Brunch

​​The Island Gilded Age

​St. Simons Island: Shrimp Boats, Live Oaks, And A Bird Convention

​The Jekyll Island Club

​​The Cutest Airport In The Whole U.S.A.

​​What Joe Biden Was Probably Saying

​Thoughts On Elon Musk And Goodness

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And Now, The PB&J Hot Dog

An Evening Of Music At Tap That Glass

The Rise And Fall Of A Brunch

The Island Gilded Age

St. Simons Island: Shrimp Boats, Live Oaks, And A Bird Convention

The Jekyll Island Club

The Cutest Airport In The Whole U.S.A.

What Joe Biden Was Probably Saying

Thoughts On Elon Musk And Goodness