punkerdoo

The Ultimate

  Well we are definitly making progress on our front flower bed. Yesterday and today we tilled up the entire bed and then incorporated 4 cubic yards of top soil, along with 120 lbs of compost and some fertilizer. We planted some coreopis, rubdekia, and some ross moss. We also replanted four lantanta camera plants that survived the uprooting and transplant process. Tommorrow we wokr on the irrigation and finish the mulching. Hope you like.

 
We have been working on the flower bed in front of the house. When I say flower bed, I don’t mean a 5 foot circle of flowers around some tree. I mean a 10 foot swath of 8 foot slope, some 40 feet long. When we first moved into the house the woods ran right up to what should have been the lawn. I started clearing brush. I should have pictures from that time, but I couldn’t find them easily. We planted six small Crape Myrtles, some flowers, and covered the rest with mulch. Only the trees, Creeping Phlox and the Lantana grew with any success. The slope was so steep that you could not work in the bed and the mulch was slide off the hill in the slightest rain. The bed was edged with rotting railroad ties. It was constantly looking bad.
So we decided to try to upgrade it. We built a foot high stone wall around the edge. A job I don’t want to repeat for some years. We then got some boulders and placed them on the slope which I dug out a bit. Our next step is to get some plants in there (Now that it is the hottest part of the summer) and mulch.
I will post more pics when the next phase has been completed. Click on the pictures for the full slideshow.

RETROPOST:This last weekend Husband and I drove to Dayton, OH for my Cousin’s (read: SonofSisterofMother) wedding. Google told us it would be a 9 hour drive up I-75. We decided if we were going to spend 9 hours in the car is was not going to be on the Interstate. Googlemaps has a great new “drag-your-route” feature. I drug our route up to route 441, which runs into Athens. In a vain attempt Googlemaps kept trying to make us get back to the highway as quickly as possible. We were having none of that so we purchased a GPS, which we named Guy. (say Gee, as the French might, …long story ask HusbandofSister) Of course, our newly purchased GPS told us that it would be wise to take I-75.
We decided to take 441 to the Smokie Mountain National park and then veer west on 129. (Cor, staying on 441 would have lead us straight to Gatlinburg) We did not realize at the time that this section on 129 is known as Tail of the Dragon by Biking enthusiasts. It involves 318 curves in 11 miles. What a wonderful drive!! After the fact, we became aware that it took us 2 hours to travel 40 miles. This was due to the fact that it constantly felt as though I was driving much to fast for the road.
Once out of the Smokies and back on the highway, we made a detour in Cincinnati. My Aunt (Groom’s Mother) sent an e-mail listing interesting places in the area. She mentioned Jungle Jim’s as a place that my Aunt and Uncle visit and that my Grandmother uses to procure her cow kidneys and brains. Of course, an enormous grocery store filled with unusual items would entice the foodies within us. That is not even mentioning, the huge wine & beer selection. We stopped in and purchased a few items that are hard to find in our neck of the woods, a few Greek beers, and dinner. The Greek beers we Marathon (don’t recommend) and Mythos (do recommend). Dinner was Prosciutto di Parma, Sopressa, French cheeses, and the obligatory baguette. (Yeah I know French cheese and Italian meat. It was good)
Finally I come to part of the story that you have been waiting for, the part were you might actually be involved. On Saturday morning Mother, Sister and I went to Grandmother’s room for a quick visit before she had to get ready for pictures. We then got ready ourselves and head out to the church. What an absolutely wonderful place to get married. The ceremony was held at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Dayton. I had never been to an Orthodox (Greek or otherwise) wedding and it was beautiful.
The reception was held at Beavercreek Golf Club, a lovely setting where we were first treated to hors d’oeuvres and drinks. After the wedding party arrived, the best man recognized the Bride and Groom with a wonderful speech. After which we were served a delicious dinner and then came the dancing. Even the least experienced dancer could help but want to give it a go. If you sit and watch Greek dancing for any length of time you definitely get the feeling that you are missing out on the fun.
Feeling caught up in the moment, I asked “Where is all the Ouzo?” Before I realized the ramifications of my question, eight shots miraculously appeared on our table. “Kids, thank your Uncle. ‘Thanks Uncle Phil!’” Needless to say, it wasn’t too much longer then that the lights came on and it was time to leave.
What a completely enjoyable weekend we had. We want to send our best hopes and wishes to the Bride and Groom and thank them for including us in their celebration.

See Slideshow of Wedding
See photos on a map
See the photo album

If find it really strange that while most resturants have names that do everything to hide the fact that you will actually be consuming food (and probably food that is not good for you), BBQ joints go out of their way to remind you that you are going to eat PIG. As someone once said, “pork fat rules!”

Punkerdoo and I had to head to Ohio to attend cousinofpunkerdoo’s Big Fat Greek Wedding (no relation to the aforementioned fat pig.) We had just purchased a Mio C220 so we thought it might be fun to drive by a completely ridiculous route just to piss off the GPS. We decided to call our GPS “Guy” (Think French..Ghee).

We were going north on 441 and wanted to do whatever was necessary to keep from driving through the Park and into Gatlinburg. When we hit Franklin, NC we decide to have lunch. We asked Guy about where to eat some Q and he started spouting directions that led us through some residential section of town, down what looked like an alley and suddenly we were in the back lot of a strip mall. About the time Guy said, “you have arrived”, we saw the sign for Fat Buddies. Guy rules!

Anyway, being the suspicious and doubting type, I try to avoid stipmalls in practice and stripmall BBQ on ethics. However, we were here and we were hungry, so we went in. The place is big and was very busy. We noticed when walking up that there was no tell-tale scent of hickory or oak in the air, so my alarm bells were going off.

We were seated immediatley and looked at the menu. This place has many things other than Q, but they also seemed centered around ribs (as if the t-shirts stating “I sucked bones at Fat Buddies” didn’t give that away). They did have several options on “smoke cooked pork” so we went for the standard pork plate (.50 extra for pulled rather than chopped)

Husband had pork plate with slaw and potato salad (no stew on menu)
Punkerdoo has pork plate with fries and potato salad

HEY! The meat tasted like smoke cooked pork. Wood cooked BBQ that actually has some essence of smoke in it! Weird. Then I remembered that we noticed no signs of a pit. Maybe this Q was cooked in an oven that had a sawdust smoker attached….. The purist in me hopes not, but damn the meat was proper.

At any rate, give Fat Buddies a try, they have 3 locations.

Ambience rating: 3 Squealers

(Nice, clean, many “country” and NASCAR things on the wall. Looks just like a BBQ place in a NC strip mall)

Food rating: 4 Squealers

(good smoke, several sauce choices, meat moist)

Beer rating: 3 Squealers

(Beer & Wine)

Tonight's Dinner

Dinner @ DePalma's

 Husband’s family invited us to a condo that they had rented in Ormond Beach, FL. So, we put the dogs up at doggie daycare, juiced up the convertible and headed out. We got started early on Tuesday morning, and stopped at BJ’s Biscuit Barn for breakfast. I had the Ham biscuit and Husband had the Chicken Biscuit. There is a proper breakfast. Although I would like to try eating there earlier next time, the biscuits were a bit dried out. (It was 10:30am they close at 11AM) After breakfast we started our drive through the rolling hills of Route 78 and then Route 22.
Beautiful weather, great music, top down, police car…. Just as Husband says “I never see police cars on this road”, I am hitting the brakes hard. Too late! I look in my rearview to the police car turning around and then turning on his lights. I was so busted. “What’s the Hurry?” I say, “I’m sorry, no hurry”. “Just driven?” “Yessir” Because I spend most of my life racking up Karma points, he gives me a warning. Whew!
A nice slow drive after that, finds us in Ormond Beach some 7 hours later. We get settled in the condo, catch up with husband’s family, and head out for dinner. Upon a recommendation from SisterofHusband’s neighbor we queue up at Charlie Horse. We are told that the wait is 45 mins. HusbandofSisterofHusband scopes out the near-by restaurants, only to find out that they do not have Crab Legs on the menu. SisterofHusband had her heart set on crab legs (I too am hoping the decision lands on the side of crab legs). We wait it out, not for 45 min but for an hour. The crab legs were worth the wait. The food was great!
The next day we hung out on the beach. We swam, boogie boarded, and played some catch. If you ever stay at Casa del Mar be sure to try the Mango Margaritas in the lounge. Later that night we went to Inlet Harbour Restaurant. They serve seafood and plantation-style food. I had the Salmon Oscar. It was wonderful. The restaurant was festive, with live music in the bar area. (The musician played calypso when he saw SonOfSisterOfHusband’s Hawaiian shirt.)
On the way home husband’s family are picking up their new American Hairless Terrier. I look forward to the pictures.

If you head south on I-95, you are bombarded by Sonny’s BBQ billboards. While they do tend to make one hungry, the thought of having to eat at one keeps us looking for local BBQ eateries. The problem with looking for M&P food while driving on an Interstate is that they tend not to advertise. As we were just about to cross over in Florida, I spied a small sign near Brunswick, GA “GA Pig BBQ”. We we got off I95 and turned left onto Route 82 into a swath of gas stations and fast food joints. We were encouraged by the sudden appearance of what looked like a large shack that had been ripped from its life in the swamp and deposited amid some weeping willows and pine trees. Perfect! The parking lot was dirt and gravel and there were no sidewalks other than pine straw. It was 3 in the afternoon, so the lot was empty; however the OPEN neon in the window was lit. Several signs on the outside warned against 4-legged animals on the porch and cameras on the inside. Better and better.
It was nearly 100F outside and not much cooler inside even though there was a window unit or two cranking away. Once inside, you realize that this shack had never been moved as the ceiling doubles the roof and the exposed rafters and beams were actual pine trees. Their open pit is inside and next to the counter which makes for a hot and smoky atmosphere. Enough about the building, on to the food.

Husband ordered a pork plate with stew and potato salad.
Punkerdoo had a pork plate with stew and slaw.

The pork plate is served open faced on toasted buns and is pre-sauced. Personally, I prefer to sauce my own food, so this was a strike against the pig. They did have an amazing assortment of hot sauces available, but the only BBQ sauce on the table was the same ketchup based sauce as what was on the plate. We also don’t really like ketchup based sauces, but when in Brunswick…..

We found it really amazing that there was so much smoke and flavor in the air but none in the pork. The meat was fresh and moist (we watched the guy chop it up), but the lack of smoke made us realize why they slather their sauce on the meat.

The stew was really good though, you could actually pick out recognizable vegetables such as lima beans and corn. So many times stew looks like it has been run through a food processor, so this was a treat. I guess if you want good Brunswick stew, you need to order it in Brunswick, GA.

I had ordered a bottle of water, but Punkerdoo ordered lemonade which was served from a communal thermos at a center table. There must be some heavy concentrations of sulfur in their local water supply because the lemonade smelled so much like rotten eggs that it was undrinkable.

We are not sure what the deals was with the meat, they had obviously been doing this for quite some time, maybe we just expect too much flavor? We would still pick it over Sonny’s though.

Ambience rating: 4 Squealers

(Looks and smells EXACTLY like a proper Southern BBQ shack

Food rating: 1 Squealers

(no smoke, no sauce choices, meat moist but pre-sauced, stew was excellent!)

Beer rating: 0 Squealers

(No beer, and stick to bottled drinks)

Air Quality rating: 3 Squealers

(if you are a piece of meat)

We spent this evening getting prepped to go to Ormond Beach,FL. Husband’s whole family are staying in a condo down there and we are going for a visit. SisterOfHusband has already told us there are plans for crab legs! Yummy!! This is the route we plan on taking. We are driving the convertible. Pictures later.