Rat Pack Memorial Day 2012

Sheila and I did our decoration duties Saturday.  Yesterday, we just enjoyed the day. In the morning, I smoked a pork loin and a turkey breast and cooked a big pot of beans.  Then, we spent the evening at Mike and Jodi's around their pool.  Good food, old friends, a big pool, cool drinks and an hilarious dog.  Who could ask for more? 

The food pictures are not mine.  I got lazy and just cooked instead of cooking and taking pictures at the same time.   So, my apologies to the folks whose food pics I "borrowed" from the internet.  But, in my defense, I would submit that my food looked at least that good and it apparently tasted good enough since so much of it disappeared.  Same for the lightning pictures.  I did not take them but they are good representation of what we saw last night sitting there on Mike and Jodi's patio.

Bill & Sheila Go To The Mountains

 

    

            It is about 7:30 on Saturday night.  I am sitting on the deck of a lovely little cabin deep in the Kiamichi Mountains near Octavia, Oklahoma.  The sun is setting on the tree tops.  Birds are calling back and forth to each other across the tiny wooded glen where the cabin sits. 

            Sheila and I have just finished a fabulous dinner cooked on the tiny grill here on the deck, chicken kabobs with a ragout of grilled vegetables on the side.  Iced tea and bacon wrapped chiles rellenos (also cooked on the grill) finished the menu.

            We spent a pleasant hour or so before dinner with a glass of ghetto champagne (Mogen David and Seven Up) in the little two person hot tub which overlooks the meadow and the mountains just to the north.  It has been a very pleasant weekend that I am sorry to see winding down.  Tomorrow morning, we will head back to Tulsa by way of Krebs for a good Italian lunch.

            We started our adventure Friday morning.  After a surprisingly good breakfast on the fly of QuikTrip coffee and Subway flatbread breakfast sandwiches, we headed southeast.  By noon, we were in Heavener and soon after were threading our way through the switchbacks over the mountains of the Ouachita National Forest.  We arrived at the cabin around one thirty.

            We were greeted at the cabin by our host, Sherri.  She is proud owner/proprietor of Little Cabin in the Woods.  We had texted her from Heavener that we were less than an hour out. Sherri was very accommodating and did everything she could to help us settle in.  The cabin is spotlessly clean, terminally cute in a girly-country kind of way and very secluded.

            By two, we were unpacked, drinking something cold and relaxing on the deck, working on the all over tan we started on our cruise a couple of months ago.  Yes, the Little Cabin in the Woods is that secluded.  While you can hear traffic from nearby Oklahoma 144, it is impossible to see into the the little glen where the cabin is located because of the dense woods.  We grilled our dinner that evening out on the deck.  Garlic chicken breasts with grill roasted peppers and a tossed salad.  We finished it off with grilled pineapple slices and a cup of coffee. 

            Saturday was the kind of day we don't have very often.  We slept in and had a relaxed breakfast of eggs florentine (from a carton), sausage links, toast and coffee.  We spent the morning loafing.  Sheila watched a few of her favorite shows on the satellite TV.  I read and played guitar.  Sheila took a hike in the woods while I read some more.  Sometime after noon, we grilled some very good chicken jalapeno sausages for lunch. 

            After lunch, we showered and took a drive around the neighborhood while our innkeeper did some chores around the place.  She was ever so thoughtful about this, texting us first and asking when it would be OK to come up.

            When we got back from our ramble, Sheila took a nap and I settled in on the deck with my Kindle.  But, the hot tub kept calling me and I eventually gave in.  Pretty soon, Sheila was awake and she joined me.  We spent a pleasant hour or so in the tub, sipping our ghetto champagne, listening to the birds and watching the sun slowly work its way up the trees as darkness crept up from below.

           We promised ourselves that we would get back in the tub after dark so that we could look up the stars through the tree branches.  We did just that and spent the rest of the evening in the tub, listening to the sounds of the forest and watching the sky.

           Sunday morning when we reluctantly left the Little Cabin in the Woods, we took Oklahoma 144 west.  Oklahoma 144 seems to start nowhere and end there as well.  It starts at US 259 just south of the big mountains of the Ouachita National Forest and ends at a junction somewhere south of Clayton, Oklahoma.
          To say that it is a lonely road would be an understatement.  We saw a bobcat scoot across the road in front of us and a chipmunk standing in the middle of the road.  In its fifty or so mile length we only met two or three cars.  It is a long way to any kind of grocery store for these folks much less a WalMart or a McDonalds.  I suspect that things like a Starbucks are just something they see on TV, if they can afford a satellite dish.  There is no cable up here and I'll bet over the air reception of TV is virtually impossible, especially since the digital transition has shortened ranges.
         Many of the homes speak of a lifestyle that goes back to another time.  They were obviously built from scrounged materials by their owners, who are apparently loggers and lumbermen.  Every home has a garden out front.  Most have chickens.  Some have goats.  The homes speak of a hard-working, edge of poverty rural lifestyle in some of Oklahoma’s most beautiful country.  Still, it was a good drive for a Sunday morning, a trip back in time.

We were in Krebs by eleven but were disappointed to find that Lovera’s Italian Grocery was closed.  However, we looked up the street and saw the the fast food, convenience store branch of the family business was open.  So, we stopped in for some Italian sausage and cheese to bring home. 

The girl behind the deli counter was very pretty and very friendly.  We asked where she would go to lunch in Krebs.  She recommended Roseanna’s as did the other workers.  They all agreed that the food was very good and not so expensive that you had to cash in a bond to pay the tab.

We had about twenty minutes to kill before Roseanna’s opened, so we saw the sights in Krebs.  Nothing much to see.  Just an Oklahoma small town that just happens to have the best Italian food between Dallas and Chicago.  We did notice a large, very substantial Catholic church with beautiful old stained glass windows.  The parking lot was full as was the expansion lot across the street.  I guess that makes sense.  Krebs was founded by Italians and later became home to Polish miners.
 Roseanna’s was everything the deli folks said it was and more. (Link to video Roseanna's ) Nothing pretentious, just very good Italian food.  The food arrived very quickly.  We had a simple salad with garlic bread, a half order of lamb fries for an appetizer and then shared a half sized sampler platter of spaghetti, meatballs, gnocchi, ravioli and lasagna.  While everything was very good, I finally understand lasagna.  In the past, I just didn’t get it.  I didn’t care for it.  That was because I had never had real Italian lasagna.  Even though I could only have a few bites because of my diet, oh my gosh.  It was unbelievable.  While we were waiting for the doors to open, a friendly lady who had obviously just come from church said that we had to try the cheesecake.  I had one bite.  I will remember it for years.  And, I have to say that our server, Tyler, was the best waiter I have had in years. 

My only complaint about Roseanna’s is that they did not have decaf coffee.  I had tried to get a cup of decaf for the last forty miles and there just wasn’t any.  One convenience store clerk told us that folks in Hartshorne, Oklahoma just don’t care for it.  McAlester wasn't any better.  We stopped at several places and they didn’t have it.  It seems that they just don’t do decaf down there.  I finally got a cup up an hour out of Tulsa at the big Phillips 66 on the Indian Nation Turnpike where all the city people pass back and forth between Tulsa and Dallas.

This was Sheila’s birthday weekend.  My gift to her was the trip and the meal in Krebs, two things I knew she would enjoy and I would too.  And we did. This weekend will be nice memory.

The Rat Pack Does Mongolian Barbecue

One of our fellow rat-packers is fairly particular about what she eats.  She usually does not prefer exotic things like Asian or Indian food.  However, she recently discovered Mongolian Barbecue and we have now enjoyed a couple of visits to the Oriental Buffet at 61st and Sheridan which has a good one.

It works like this.  You walk down a line stocked with all sorts of raw ingredients like chicken, beef, pork and shrimp.  There are also several vegetables such as onions, cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, peppers, etc.  You fill your plate with the raw ingredients you want.  Then, you take a bowl and mix the sauce you want from ingredients like curry juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, hot pepper oil, pineapple juice, etc.

You then give your plate and the sauce bowl to a cook behind the bar.  He throws your dry ingredients onto a huge, very hot grill and cooks them for you.  In the last few moments, he adds the sauce and stir fries it a bit more.  The result is delicious, very healthy and even low in calories.

The Oriental also has full Chinese buffet as well as a salad bar and even an ice cream machine.  So everybody gets something they like.  The staff is also friendly and doesn't mind us sitting around and talking for an hour or so after we have eaten.

We were there again last night and as usual, a good time was had by all.

More Front Porch Music

Here is some more front porch music on my new Martin. The song is something I remember from my youth. I can't remember the title. The picture is from left to right, my mother, my uncle Earvin, my maternal grandmother and my uncle Eugene who taught me how to play. The guitar he is holding appears to be a pre-war Gibson L Model, perhaps an L-5. It would have been worth the good part of a years "crop" back then and now it would be priceless.

Front Porch Music

This is the kind of music I heard in my youth. It was played on front porches and even at the general store. True to the form, I did not use a mic nor any effects. It is a raw acoustic recording of me playing a Hohner Crossover harmonica in a rack accompanying myself with a Martin LXM guitar. The sound is kind of raw to my tastes and I was amazed at the amount of reed rattle a nearly hundred dollar harmonica produces in an acoustic recording. But, the sound is also authentic. This is pretty well what front porch music sounded like around our place in the 1950's.

The song has no name. It is what my uncles used to call a breakdown. They did live radio back then. When they had to "stretch" they would go into one of these "breakdowns" and vamp until they ran out the clock. My uncle Eugene taught me some basic breakdowns when I was five or so.

At any rate, this is in remembrance of my Uncle Eugene who took the time and trouble to give me the gift of music when I was too young to appreciate it.

Post Script:

This was my first recording with my new Martin LXM guitar. I have had it now for a couple of weeks and I think I have developed a friend for life. It is very small guitar, 3/4 sized actually. It is made for children and adults who travel. But, it has a HUGE voice and more than adequate tone. It is easy to play and easy to haul around. I can play it all evening if I want to without developing cramps as I play or spending the night awake with aching shoulders.

The guitar is made in Mexico. I wish it had been made in America but I doubt that it could be under the current administration since it uses all high tech laminates whose manufacturing processes would cost a fortune to license in the US due to environmental restrictions. And, that brings up another point. I had avoided this guitar for months because of it is made of plywood. Problem is, whatever Martin did, they did right and their little plywood axe sounds much better than many solid wood guitars I played.

Sometimes, a musician develops an emotional attachment to an instrument. I have several guitars and ukuleles. Some of them are pretty good instruments and some are just adequate. I have played this little guy every morning and evening since he arrived on my front porch and I can see myself doing the same thing every day for the rest of my life. It is that comfortable. Thank you Martin for making a good quality, inexpensive guitar.

Good Time Over A Bad Meal

The Rat Pack went out Wednesday night for the five dollar spaghetti dinner special at Spaghetti Warehouse. I can't say much good about the meal. My soup was cold, my pasta was lukewarm, the chicken topping I ordered for it was a frozen entree that had been nuked. I have had better pasta out of a Korean War era C-Rat can warmed up over a heat tab. The only things really worth talking about on the table were the sourdough bread (which was good) and the really overpriced pitcher of Sangria. I suppose it would be really, really hard to screw up Koolaid and table red.

But, the talk around the table was pleasant as was the company. The conversation went something like this: Mike was deeply engrossed in getting his quite sophisticated, self installed home security system installed and working right. Maddy was exercised about Rush Limbaugh for calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a whore. I have been reading a book about the destructive effects of meth on small towns and talked some about that. Vacation plans went around once or twice. We're kicking around the possibility of renting a beach house together next fall after the students clear the beaches. Probably someplace on the Redneck Riviera in Mississippi or Alabama.
















But, as usual, good food or bad, a good time was had by all.

The Rat Pack Takes A Cruise