Monday, April 07, 2003

Gone to Carolina Archive: "Samaritan"

Rainy morning.
Last night I finished Richard Price's new novel Samaritan. It wasn't a fast read, but it was pretty good. I had heard Price on National Public Radio a few weeks ago and ordered his book from the library.
The book is about a guy who goes through a succession of jobs, the last of which was as a writer on a television series, and he goes back to his old neighborhood in New York and volunteers at his old High School. He is teaching kids creative writing.
But he gets beat up pretty badly in his home and almost loses his life. An old childhood friend of him tries to find out who assaulted him and he won't tell.
Good book.

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Gone to Carolina Archive: My First Pig Pickin'

Twins 3-3
Braves 2-4
Puckett acquitted.
What a busy weekend we've had! Yesterday was our "Day of Opportunity" at church. This was an opportunity to spent a long morning cleaning, painting, planting grass and just in general spiffing up the place.
But it culminated in a Pig Pickin'. Now THAT is truly a sight to behold. One of the members of our church as a trailer with 3 giant grills on it. He bought a whole pig, dressed to his specifications and cooked, for $175. Then he heated the meat a bit and de-fatted and "pulled" it...shredded it by just pulling at the meat, not cutting.
Then he laid the meat back in the skin and put that on his grill. He then dosed the meat with sauce and left it low for a few hours. Every once in a while he would douse it with more sauce. Now, this is a vinegar-based sauce that he makes. Not a tomato-based sauce.
At a real pig pickin', people will just go over to the grill, lift the hood, and pick meat off the mound on the pig skin with a tongs. But it was raining yesterday, and we really didn't have room for standing around out there, so he just brought it in to the fellowship hall in pans. MMMM doggie! What great stuff! We had slaw and fruit salad and beans and of course, copious amounts of sweet tea and desserts.
This morning we talked about Goodness in Sunday School. We pondered the question: Can anything good come out of a bad person, and can anything bad come out of a good person? We didn't really resolve that one.
This afternoon I worked on landscaping all afternoon. It was about 75 and sunny. It's clouding up now and will rain tonight. I sure do like the weather here!

Friday, April 04, 2003

Gone to Carolina Archive: Restaurant Inspections

Twins win, Braves lose
Twins are 3-0, Braves 0-3
Friday morning brings the E & T section of the Charlotte Observer. They have a pretty funny movie reviewer, Lawrence Toppman. He really excels at captions for photos. Most Fridays I first page through and read all the captions on the photos he's put in for each movie he reviews. Then I just glance through the review. He really doesn't like anything! Makes me feel a bit bad for him. Imagine a job where you have to see what you consider to be bad work day after day and then write about it.
After I look through the movie reviews, I go to the Food section of E & T. I love to read about food and places to eat. I enjoy reading the restaurant review. Today the main review was about a place called Presto Restaurant Bar and Grill.
Then, I finally get to the part I've been waiting for. The anticipation has been building since I picked the newspaper off the driveway. The Restaurant Health Inspections! We didn't have that in "The Red Star", as we so affectionately called the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
I get to the page. "Well, have I eaten at any of the bottom 5? Ever?" NO!
Good. I live to eat another day.

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Gone to Carolina Archive: Twins and Braves

Twins won, Braves Lost
That's Twins 2-0, Braves 0-2
This is going to be quick this morning. I have a lot to do today.
My first question is, why does the Charlotte Observer Sports Section have a picture from the Angels/Rangers game on the front page, and nothing about the Atlanta game? I mean, yes, Alex Rodriguez did become the youngest player to hit a career 300 home runs, and it's a good story, but couldn't they have at least mentioned the Braves game? Somewhere?
Most of the Carolinians I've met here are Atlanta Braves fans. Now, as a Twins fan, it could be stretch for me to end up supporting the hated Braves. I mean, we definitely remember them! And we chuckle....http://www.prime2ime.com/sept_2002/vault.twinsvbraves91.shtml
But really, if I'm to be brought over to the dark side eventually, you would think it would be from reading about it in the local paper.
That's it. Let's not talk about Kirby Puckett.

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Gone to Carolina Archive: Nathan's Hot Dogs

Tonight we are having hot dogs for supper. Our family likes hot dogs. Even though we do have fairly sophisticated meals most of the time, hot dogs are a "change of pace" meal for us.
When we first moved here, I went to all the local grocery stores looking for Hormel Wrangler hot dogs. Hormel brand items were in all the stores, just not the Wranglers.
This is a bad thing.
You see, when you have hot dogs only occasionally like we do, you want to go for the gusto...go for the juiciest, coarsest, fattiest hot dogs you can find. In Minnesota, that was the Wranglers.
I complained about it to everyone who would listen. And one day, my friend Dave said "Well, have you tried Nathan's?"
Oh. My. Gosh.
I think they're done. Bye.