Monday, July 6, 2020

Frogs legs, artichokes, and buffalo milk... memorables on the menu




HALLIE EPHRON: A few weeks ago I wrote about the Giant Artichoke t-shirt my husband used to wear that so embarrassed our daughter. Julia found a photograph of the Giant Artichoke restaurant, still operating in Castroville, California, about 50 miles north of Monterey. In the front, still standing is the 20-foot tall artichoke featured on the t-shirt.


A good portion of the menu featured artichokes. Stew. Soup. Salad. Dip. Their fried artichoke hearts were delicious with a lemony mayo.

Behind the restaurant is a warehouse where you can buy humongous artichokes that looked like the plaster model out front, along with an eye-popping variety of canned and marinated artichokes (as well as t-shirts).

The town is the self-proclaimed “Artichoke Center of the World,” and has been growing and processing them since 1922. It holds an annual Artichoke Festival--Marilyn Monroe was the first artichoke beauty pageant queen in 1948. Sadly this year’s artichoke festival has been cancelled due to covid-19, but it’s scheduled to make a comeback June 5-6, 2021.

What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever eaten and do you have a t-shirt to commemorate the experience?

JENN McKINLAY: I do not have a T-shirt but by far the strangest place I’ve ever eaten was
in Coopertown, FL (an unincorporated area with a population of 0008, if I remember right). We took the famous airboat ride into the Everglades, fed the alligators marshmallows - hey, it was 1984, we didn’t know any better - and then retired back to the cafe to try frogs legs.

Yes, they taste like chicken. What I did not expect was that they came attached, as in it was the frog, battered and fried, from the waist down. Naturally, my brother proceeded to pick one up and hop it across the table. I laughed so hard, sweet tea came out my nose. I highly recommend a visit to Coopertown if you find yourself on Route 41 in Miami-Dade.

RHYS BOWEN: I have eaten in several questionable places: in a Bedouin house in the Atlas Mountains (where the home made bread was delicious) and I’ve drunk buffalo milk in a Toda dwelling--a mud structure about four feet high and maybe eight feet long with a hole in the top to let the smoke out. Todas are an indigenous people in the mountains of South India. They didn’t allow outsiders but we got an introduction through a Toda woman who had married outside the tribe. Quite an experience. Alas they do not make T-shirts!

On that same trip we had our worst meal ever--in the primitive overnight lodge of a game park--it was the oldest chicken who had died of questionable causes (probably run over by a truck) and cooked in grease with so much grit from blowing dust that we gave up after a couple of bites. Also no T-shirt available.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:
Oh, gosh, the weirdest. Well, it might have been the restaurant in Florence, Enoteca Pinchiorri. Imagine elegant, then increase ten fold. Gorgeous, spectacular, five stars. The exclusivity is off the charts.
At the next table, the ugly Americans. Mom and Dad, and the two most entitled California (we heard then refer to it) blonde teenagers you can ever imagine. Don't even bother imagining, your brain does not need the sludge. Anyway, they blithely ordered, the fish I think, and proceeded to tell the waiter (who might have been John Gielgud), that they wanted the sauce on the side and no butter. And double vegetables, no butter. Without a glimmer of a response, he took their order. Very good, he said.

Five minutes later he came back.

The chef says he cannot prepare the food your way, he will prepare it his way. And furthermore, he said in perfect English, he says he cannot cook for you, and we cannot serve you, and he is requesting you leave.

They did! They slinked out, and it was all the rest of us could do not to cheer. I endlessly wish I had a t-shirt. I wonder where those people are now.

LUCY BURDETTE: This isn’t about a weird restaurant, it’s one that will linger in my mind forever. About six years ago John I attended a family wedding outside of Salt Lake City,
Utah. We took a few extra days to cruise through Utah and see a couple of the wonderful national parks in that state. I, of course, was in charge of where to eat.

In between our two days of driving and gawking at the astonishing scenery, we stopped for a night in Boulder, Utah, to eat at the legendary Hell's Backbone Grill. I made reservations months in advance for dinner. They serve exactly the kind of food I like, delicious but not fussy. I ordered a spicy meatloaf and John had a chicken quesadilla casserole that was hot, cheesy, and addictive.

Of course we had to have breakfast there the next morning, too. I chose blue cornmeal pancakes, which they served with cinnamon butter and syrup. The pancakes were sprinkled with little purple flowers. Oh, and we ordered a box lunch to take with us the next day too. Three meals in less than 20 hours – that's a great restaurant. Now the chef/owners are finalists for best chefs in the Mountain Region by the James Beard Foundation for the 2020 season! (And ps, I don’t have a tee-shirt but I did buy the cookbook.)

Here’s my rendition of Hell’s Backbone Grill meatloaf recipe.




JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Gosh, let me think about this one. Most, I guess, exotic would be the dinners we had while on safari in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Five-star gourmet meals served communally so we had a chance to talk with the most interesting people, in open-air tents that could have come straight out of Isak Dineson’s memoirs. We dressed for dinner! (The travel agency gave us a heads up, so I had a skirt and a couple of scarves that looked good over anything.) Truly different than any other experience, before or since.


The dining spot that seemed farthest away from anything else in the world: the Three Chimney’s Restaurant on the Isle of Skye. Ross and I went on our honeymoon, and it wasn’t nearly as famous as it is now - it had only been open a couple of years - but already had a reputation as a destination for foodies. We walked from the farmhouse we were staying at, and I’ll never forget the contrast of eating in this tiny stone crofter’s cottage (this was years before it would be expanded and have an inn added on) and being served the most amazing food and wines.It was utterly dark by the time we left, with nothing but the starlight and the occasional bleat from a sheep to guide us as we wended our well-lubricated way back to our B&B. Heavenly.

Worst dining experience ever: Chuck E Cheese’s for the Sailor’s 7th birthday. Greater love hath no parent than to dine on that flabby excuse for a pizza while an animatronic band lays waste to the very concept of music.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  No one can compete with Rhys's memorable meals! But the place that popped into my mind was a little restaurant bar in the wilds of central Florida. I was on book tour with Charles and Caroline Todd. We had several book festival events over a couple of days, so our publisher put us up in the most central location, a very (very) basic Holiday Inn that seemed literally in the middle of nowhere--it was just plunked down on the highway. There was no coffee shop and there were no restaurants except for a sort of bar shack across the motel parking lot.

With no choice, we ventured over for our first dinner. A raised walkway crossed over the shallow end of a lake and when we looked down, it was full of alligators! Big ones, little ones, all cruising lazily below us. Our hopes did not go up. But we were seated on a big open deck, and the food turned out to be delicious! Charles and I had fabulous oysters; Caroline and I stuffed ourselves on the best whitefish dip I've ever eaten. We ate every meal there over the next couple of days and at the end of the event we were sorry to go!


HALLIE: UGH, Chuck E. Cheese. And I was sure Debs was going to tell us that the featured items on the menu were... alligator!

Aren't we all yearning for a great restaurant meal, something we'd never make at home?
What are your uniquely memorable restaurant meals?

74 comments:

  1. When our daughter was at the Air Force Academy, she took us out to dinner at a restaurant in Colorado Springs where you could make reservations to sit at the table in the kitchen. We watched the chefs cook; they brought us dishes to sample and showed us the dishes they were sending out to the dining room. It was amazing. Sadly, I have no T-shirt and the restaurant is no longer in business. But it was a fun evening . . . and the food was great!

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    1. I *love* to sit where I can watch the kitchen at work. It's always amazing to me the way they can churn out one gorgeously plated meal after another. Though I suppose it helps if you're not also the sous-chef AND dishwasher.

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    2. I had another memorable meal outside of Abidjan in Ivory Coast. It was a restaurant ON the beach run by an Italian woman married to an Ivoirian. I watched through the open kitchen door as she made my gnocchi. I've never had better ones.

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  2. My unique meal was also eaten in Colorado, specifically at famous Buckhorn Exchange in Denver, CO. I was in my carnivorous eating phase back then, and ordered an assorted grilled plate of rattlesnake, ostrich and elk. The ostrich and elk were tasty but sadly the rattlesnake just tasted like chicken.

    No T-shirt but I do have photos of the restaurant since there were mounted heads all over the place of every animal you could think of eating!

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    1. This is reminding me of a restaurant we used to pass on our way to and from delivering our daughter to college in upstate New York: The Road Kill Cafe. I'm pretty sure it's gone now.

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    2. The Buckhorn Exchange has been in business since 1893 and is still going strong. Not sure if I would go back again, though.

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    3. Grace, I am not that adventurous! Hallie, the Road Kill Cafe????

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    4. Lucy, it was a pretty exotic meal to have in Denver (in the 1990s). I wanted something more interesting to eat than a Colorado steak and got it! My eating tastes have gotten more eclectic and adventurous since then but that was my most memorable meal in North America.

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    5. You have to hope that was just a funny name, not that they actually served road kill!

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    6. The Edible Ottawa Gardens FB group has jokingly posted several squirrel stew recipes. I have eaten squirrel stew once...it was called Brunswick stew and was actually quite tasty. Not sure whether the squirrels were road kill victims or just captured and killed for the meal.

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  3. RE: Deb's 'bar shack' ... reminds me that in some parts of the world where I've ended up overnight, the gas station turns out to be the best (and only) place nearby to get a meal. Warmed in their microwave. Some writers travel with a box of cereal just in case.

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    1. Oh, yes, it can be pretty bleak...when a Wendy's seems like Mecca...

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    2. I'd have added a photo if I remembered what the place was called--and I'm not at all sure that alligator wasn't on the menu! I just wasn't that brave.

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  4. I've eaten at the giant artichoke restaurant, Hallie! I was raised on really good artichokes, as you probably were, too.

    I've eaten the best roast chicken and french fries in open air restaurants in Bamako and Ouagadougou. Delicious (and massive quantities of) grilled meats in a southern Brazilian churrasco eaten with salty fried manioc meal as a garnish. Just off-the-boat fish in southern Portugual. Noodles, vegetables, and Kobe beef swished in broth in a communal pot with a family in a mountain farmhouse in western Japan, sitting at a low table over a pit with a charcoal brazier in it. And many more memorable meals around the world. Thanks for bringing up the memories!

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    1. I have enjoyed similar tasty meals in Portugal and Japan, Edith!

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  5. Sounds fantastic, Edith - reminding me of the "doubles" we ate in Trinidad. Street food, hawked by street corner vendors throughout the city. It's a fragrant mash of curried chickpeas served with delicious pocket bread.

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    1. Street food is the best! I also had my first fish taco from a street vendor on the Gulf of Baja California in 1974 - to die for.

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    2. Yes, street food around the world is cheap and very tasty.

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    3. I knew what street food I was eating in Japan (e.g. takoyaki, yakitori) but the grilled mystery meat from stalls in the open markets in Beijing and northwest China (Gansu province) were also very tasty.
      (Blogger kicked me out mid-reply above)

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    4. LOVE fish tacos, Edith, and Hallie, the curried chickpeas sound wonderful.

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  6. I ate alligator when I was in New Orleans. And frog legs does taste like chicken.

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    1. I have eaten both alligator and frog legs several times but not in NOLA. I wonder what NOLA will be like for the 2021 Bouchercon? The wonderful food there was a highlight in 2016.

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    2. Love the food in Nola- beignets! Bananas foster! Jambalaya!

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    3. Yes and Po-boys, gumbo, etouffee, pralines and more eats in NOLA!

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  7. Oh, Chuck E Cheese. I thought myself so fortunate that my kids never wanted to eat there. Then one of them was invited to a birthday party and OF COURSE it was a friend whose birthday they COULDN'T MISS.

    I think my most memorable has to be Court of the Three Sisters in New Orleans. The dining area was technically outside, but the entire space was covered by a magnolia tree that was over 100 years old, with little lights strung in the branches. It was like eating in a fairy garden. Of course the food was divine.

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    1. We used to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant in Ougadougou, Liz, with a similar feeling to it - plus fruit bats chirping high up in the trees. Delicious light food amid the disjoint of eating an Asian meal in West Africa!

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    2. (By feeling I meant outside under big trees and tiny lights...)

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    3. Liz that setting sounds magical

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  8. Great topic today, Hallie.
    We have definitely had some super meals over the years, some surprising like Debs, some with foods we didn't want to try (which I won't go into since everyone has something they love that I would not eat). Loved all of your stories and think that Hank's "Ugly American" family needs to be in a book sometime.
    For me, it is always impressive when a chef will go out of the way to accommodate an allergy. I am very allergic to honey. Yeah. Honey. My husband's and my very first cruise together was on a Silver Sea ship. The Maitre d' met with me an hour after we boarded to discuss my allergy. He double checked every meal and absolutely was my advocate for the whole trip. The same happened when we cruised with them in the Galapagos Islands. There, the young Ecuadorian Maitre d' was on the spot every time I ate whether it was meals, snacks, or desserts. You'd be surprised what people put honey into...ceviche. The food has been exquisite each time we've gone with them.

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    1. I love honey! The good news it's easy to substitute something else for it. I have a friend who's allergic to corn. Corn! Corn oil, corn meal... surprisingly common ingredient that you'd never know is there until you're in anaphylaxis.

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  9. Alligator has a metallic taste to me. And bear is just disgusting.

    Some of my more memorable meals: at the home of a Peruvian family in Urubumba, where we sampled the national dish, guinea pig. On the ship where we slept four nights in the Galapagos, every meals included fish and fresh local fruits. A luncheon near Sydney Harbor where I chose roast kangaroo with plum sauce (very similar to venison). A lovely dinner cruise on the Seine during a three-generation visit to Paris.

    But I think the most unusual meal was in Tanzania. Our guides hosted us at two very different meals. One was in the bush, with out groups, at long tables under the stars and surrounded by torches to provide the light. The other was on our way back to Arusha to take our flight home. Our guide, and the couple who own the tour company, hosted the four of us at a traditional Tanzanian "restaurant". We sat in a beautiful garden, and while drinking Tanzanian beers the waiters brought roasted meats--chicken, goat, and something else I've forgotten, and poured it into piles on the table. They brought each person a bowl for washing our hands, and then we each helped ourselves using our fingers to eat. There were other groups, including a family celebrating a graduation. The meats were accompanied by slices of roasted potatoes and another side I've forgotten. Delicious.

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    1. Peruvian guinea pig (cuy) is one dish I definitely want to try when I go to Peru (one day).

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    2. We were there and I could not bring myself to try the guinea pig. I'd have a hard time with kangaroo, too.

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    3. Bear is just disgusting. I just burst out laughing. I've never heard anyone say theat sentence.

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    4. Laughing too! Imagining the blurb on the menu. Beat : Just disgusting

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    5. It was made into meatballs, and not even smothering it in sauce could make that bear meat palatable.

      In general, meat eaters (bear, alligator, big cats) have an awful taste. Herbivores taste much better (cows, etc.).

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    6. I’ve had kangaroo and camel when I’ve been in Australia. Both quite tasty

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  10. Chuck E. Cheese just filed for bankruptcy.

    I have to say, of all the places I took my kids for parties, etc., their pizza was not the worst.

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    1. That would be a good blog for someday--the worst pizza ever. Hmm.

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    2. Because you have to work really hard to make pizza taste bad!!

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    3. So many birthday parties...ugh.

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  11. Dat Dog, New Orleans. The kickoff evening of my son's wedding weekend in New Orleans included a hot dog buffet and beer on the patio at Dat Dog--alligator, Guinness, crawfish or duck sausage.

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    1. Sounds delicious! Though I’ve never had a decent Guinness in this country

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  12. I am from Louisiana, so I’ve eaten all kinds of weird stuff. Nothing is as good as roasted pork right off the pig. In the fall, people have a boucherie—a pig is slaughtered and cooked on a spit over a fire pit. It was a communal event that lasted all dy. Women collected the blood for blood sausage (which is yuck) and made sausage from the intestines, which were rinsed out in the bayou. Kids took turns turning the pig over the fire. The men cooked the fat for “gratons,” which are truly delicious. They’re also known as cracklings. A pirogue full of iced down beer and sodas. A boucherie might be the most fun a Louisiana kid ever had.

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    1. I love boudin, Ramona, and agree about roasted whole pork. Delicious. I had meat from a roasted whole goat in Mexico when I was in sixth grade and still dream of it.

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    2. That boucherie sounds amazingly fun and tasty!

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    3. Ramona, what a wonderful memory.

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  13. YOU have to admit --we've had some pretty wonderful experiences.. In Nevis, we have lobsters grilled on the beach, and a drink called a Killer Bee. The best.

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    1. Looked it up
      Killer Bee Cocktails - A Spicy Perspective
      killer bee cocktail from www.aspicyperspective.com
      Jun 16, 2017 · Instructions. Pour the rum, passionfruit, orange, and lime juices in a pitcher. Add Wholesome® Organic Stevia, nutmeg and black pepper. Stir until the stevia dissolves into the cocktail. To serve: Fill glasses with ice and pour the cocktail over the ice. Leave room at the top for club soda

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  14. Love reading all these experiences, one of the best parts of traveling close or far.This one is not about the food but the experience - we had a pretty perfect vacation in Scotland, including the food. There seemed to a a purposeful plan to raise the restaurant quality. However, in the smaller towns, locals always steered us to the fanciest hotel as having the only dining room impressive enough.We would have been happy with more relaxed places and casual,local food. So there we were in the Orkney Islands (highly recommendBTW) And we spotted neon! A restaurant called -wait for it!- Brooklyn Diner. (We actually live in Brooklyn)It was a 50's themed restaurant right out of Happy Days. In a city dating back to the Vikings, way out in the North Sea a 2 hour ferry ride off Scotland northern tip. So we had pizza and burgers and will never, ever forget it. Sadly, no T-shirt.

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  15. I certainly can't match your gastronomic travels, so I will try for historical. When I lived in Okinawa we dined at The Teahouse of the August Moon. I had sashimi for the first time. It was beautifully presented cut into the shape of a dancing crane. The entertainers were geishas; very old by then, and very talented.
    I too have dined at the artichoke restaurant in Castroville, and had a date milkshake from Hadley's Fruit Orchard. Never bought a t-shirt from Pedro's South of the Border, but did stop.

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    1. Coralee, wasn't there a play and/or a movie titled Teahouse of the August Moon?

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    2. Yes the novel by John Schneider was published in 1951, part of the post WWII literature. In 1953 John Patrick adapted it for a Broadway Play. He also was part of the creative process for making the film (1956). The film which satirizes the US presence in Okinawa is now famous for Marlon Brando appearing in Yellow Face. When we dined there, we were not sure if the tea house was from the film set, or was the actual tea house. Thanks for asking.

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    3. Date milkshakes! OMG, I'd forgotten about them. Had one at a roadside stand on the way to Joshua Tree. Swoon-worthy.

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  16. I have to agree that Chuck E Cheese was awful. Giant loud rodents. So-so pizza. Watered-down tasting beer. Bleah. The best pizza I ever had was in Costa Rica. The owner was Italian and had an outdoor pizza oven. It was close to the Arenal
    volcano. I also discovered delicious fruit drinks on that trip. Cold and foamy refrescas. My favorite was made from guanabana which is related to the pawpaw in our South.

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    1. Pat, I was not sorry to hear they were filing for bankruptcy...

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  17. Hank! How embarrassing! I had a similar experience dining in Europe. I had "ugly Americans" acting that way at the next table. I was so embarrassed that when someone asked me if I was from the USA or Canada, guess which country I picked? Canada! LOL

    Jungle Reds, it never occurred to me to talk that way regardless of where I am. However, I DO have a problem with cigarette smoking in restaurants. I Cannot Taste food if I smell cigarette smoking. We were in a beautiful restaurant in Paris, France when someone walked in smoking. I apologized and asked if it would be ok for me to sit at a table outside and eat there. Luckily, they were nice about it and said it was fine. I found that if I ate outside, I had a better chance of tasting my food than if I was inside with the air polluted by cigarette smoking.

    Trying to remember if I had an unusual restaurant experience. I think we stopped at the Artichoke restaurant when I was a kid on family road trips between Berkeley and Los Angeles. Yes, there was an unusual for me experience.

    In the USA, when you get chicken salad, the chicken is chopped into pieces and mixed in with other things. Well, when we were in the Scottish Highlands, I was surprised that when I ordered a chicken salad, the restaurant served a chicken leg and a salad on the side! Imagine my surprise! LOL

    There are many wonderful memories related to food. I was just reading the new Bakeshop #11 NOTHING BUNDT TROUBLE by Ellie Alexander. Jules was talking about how memories are connected to food and that is true! I remember the best wine I ever had at that same restaurant in Paris. I think it was actually dessert wine? It was a Kir Royale. The goat cheese salad and the salmon were wonderful!

    When I was a kid, a family friend took me to all of these exotic restaurants and we went to a ? Lebanese ? restaurant. She complained to my parents that all I wanted to eat was the bread. I was a kid and only wanted American food. LOL. I was not interested in food until later in life.

    When I was studying a semester abroad at Oxford (Worcester), I remember eating bell pepper filled with rice and it was so good! Since then I have loved bell peppers. I was not a big fan of vegetables until I lived in England. I still love vegetables.

    Diana

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    1. Diana, your chicken salad story reminds me of the time my youngest ordered egg curry. Unfamiliar with Indian food, she thought she was getting a spicier version of my egg salad - hard-boiled and all chopped up together with other ingredients. Imagine her surprise when she was served curry with a fried egg on top!

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    2. Julia, that's interesting. I've never seen egg curry at an Indian restaurant. Next time I go to an Indian restaurant after the pandemic is over, I am going to try that. Thanks for the heads up that it's a fried egg on the top! I usually get whatever is on the lunch buffet.

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  18. When we were in Sarlt, in the Perigord, a few years ago, Julie got very sick. Green face stay in bed with nearby bucket sick. So Melinda and I were on our own for dinner. Being unadventurous, we returned to the place we'd eaten the night before. The waiter asked where our friend was, and in my best French -- ha --described maux d'estomac.

    For those of you who have been to France, you never ever ask for a doggie bag and take out doesn't exist. But this was an emergency. I asked about their soup. It was garlic soup. That wasn't going to work. However, the chef appeared, told me not to worry, and where we were ready to leave, had a large plastic bag packed with a quart jar of soup, bowl, spoon, linen napkin, and crusty bread. He had made a wonderful chicken vegetable soups just for Julie, pureed and smelling like heaven. Price? 5 euro!

    This soup cured her, I swear. The next day we took back the bowl and spoon and jar, and we were delighted to find the chef standing out in front, cigarette hanging off his lip. Julie thanked him so much, best Catholic school girl French. (Thank you Sacred Heart Academy!)

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    1. And, that is a wonderful story! and proof that the French are a kind-hearted people after all, especially if you make a small effort to speak the language.

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    2. I love this! Despite having had my shot, I cam down with typhoid fever in Burkina Faso in 1998. The embassy nurse was Peruvian and her husband ran a restaurant. She brought me a soup that, I swear, cured me (after several days of nearly being medivacked).

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  19. One of my favorite finds was in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Well, it was a find that I had been directed to from others who had been there before and a family member who lives on Oahu. On the North Shore is Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimp Truck, my go-to shrimp truck there. Shrimp trucks are well-known for their delicious plates of food, and this particular one is my favorite. Of course, I love the North Shore area, too. The garlic butter shrimp is my choice, and it comes with rice and salad and a wedge of pineapple. There’s a covered seating area with picnic tables where you can sit, and while it’s not the linen tablecloth elegance of fine dining, it is a scrumptious meal and well worth the drive. I will note that if someone is visiting Oahu and stuck in Honolulu, I did find a shrimp truck on a side street in Waikiki that was pretty good. But, Fumi’s on the North Shore is the best.

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  20. Such fun reading about everyone's experiences. One of my most memorable meals has to be the multi-course dinner the chef at Lower Slaughter Manor cooked for me. They had a group event the night of my reservation, so he had a table set up just for me in the library. I felt like the Queen, and the food was just divine.

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  21. One of my best meal was at the restaurant Jules Verne of The Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was over my budget but my brother wanted absolutely to go there and share the experience with me, so he invited me. He had booked two months before the travel but during the day it snowed a lot and when we arrived, the tower was closed. Luckily they were able to find a place for us for the morrow's lunch. The scenery and the food were divine. We took different choices to taste more . I especially liked the ecrevisse soup and the flambé dessert with rhum.

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  22. I did have rattlesnake once -- even deep fried, it was dry. Also, chocolate covered bacon - yes, please! I do love me some state fair oddities.

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  23. On our first Swiss tour, my aunt wanted cheesecake. Our Swiss guide told us it was weonderful in Bern. Except it was quiche! She got her cheesecake in Germany where the Neuschwanstein Castle is. But she also ordered iced coffee. I thought that was a dessert, and I was right, but since we were eating with Marti and her teenage son, we managed 2 cheesecakes and an iced coffee plus whatever Marti and John had ordered.

    I used to work for the Bureau of Forestry. We had bear, elk, deer, squirrel, and partridge at our Christmas potlucks. All were good. I guess our hunters knew how to do their bear meat better. Stay safe and well.

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  24. Someone recommended UNORTHODOX on Netflix and I just binge watched it! Excellent!

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  25. Heh. On safari in Swaziland, our meals were served outdoors. The warthogs were polite -- they waited on the fringes for scraps -- but the ostriches were SO rude. They would snatch the toast right off your plate! Horrid creatures. :)

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