Let's all eat cake.
Cooks all over the U.S. are dusting off their recipes and making long grocery lists for fourth of July celebrations. Plain Chicken , a food blog by a Southern cook, featured this cake.
Even though I am really not a fan of blue and red tinted food, I kinda love the sense of Americana kitsch; it’s a flag-waver just sitting on the table.
I'm feeling those good vibrations. I'm feeling...
There are dog beaches, party beaches, nude beaches, city beaches, historic beaches but nothing beats a baby’s first beach.
What a treat to be along for the ride.
There’s nothing like eating local food, particularly when that food comes from the sea. So far, steamed crab legs, u-peel-it shrimp, sautéed crab cakes and crab bisque. Oh, and don’t forget the tuna melt for lunch.
If you are in the vicinity of Brigantine, New Jersey, try Hoopers.
Sit down and dine on one side of the building or visit the fish market on the other side. They will cook it for you or send you on your way with detailed instructions.
And as far as the vacationing couple who slammed the place, why in the world did you order Manhattan style chowder and fish and chips? Between us, your future as a foodie power couple may be out of reach.
Looking for a sense of community in an increasingly impersonal world? Pining for person to person connection in a high-rise apartment building? Nostalgic for The Way We Were? Well, get yourself to an off-leash dog beach.
There’s a feel of carnival in the air as dogs pour out of back seats and wriggle their way around the tailgates of vans and station wagons. Families, loaded up with folding chairs, carry coolers and tubs filled with rawhide bones and aluminum watering bowls.
The dogs lead the individual parades with wagging tails and smiling faces. If you listen, you’ll hear them yell V A C A T I O N.
There is instant camaraderie. Barkley, the Dalmatian, rushes up to the Max, the Boxer, and invites him to join him for a swim. Thor, the squat little bull dog, chases Louise, the well-groomed poodle. A trio of Golden Retrievers rush into the surf like a team of horses and a pair of mixed breeds chase after sticks thrown into the waves.
There is a lot of dog talk. And grinning. And admiring gazes. And understanding and appreciation. Welcome to the United Nation of Dogs, not a bad place to visit.
The boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey was built by railroad dudes in an attempt to keep sand from cluttering up their club cars. Walking the boards is just as much of an activity as going to the movies or playing miniature golf.
Benches are placed strategically facing the long row of food vendors. It is a lively food circus that has the walk-away food that you get on the midway at a state fair: lemon italian ices, fried pickles, and funnel cakes covered with whipped cream and chocolate syrup, vanilla custard cones with sprinkles, corn dogs and hefty paper sleeves full of steaming french fries.
Mack and Manco’s is a pizza place that has 3 shops on the boardwalk. They are rightfully proud of their places and their pizza. The crust is thin and crispy, the ingredients are fresh and the portions big. It’s finger food that you fold and eat, holding it away from yourself to keep your shirt clean.
After that, it’s nice to lean back and slow drink a diet coke and look at all the Jersey boys.
The National Gallery of Art was created for the people of the U.S. in 1937 by an act of Congress when they accepted a big gift from Andrew W. Mellon. He donated old master paintings, sculpture and a building to be constructed on the National Mall. Opened to the public in 1941, the building was at the time the largest marble structure in the world.
Mellon hoped that his gift would spark similar gifts and so it did. And the generosity continues today.
One of my favorite places is the gallery that houses works by Alexander Calder who shook up the modern art world with his three-dimensional figures in space. He is well-known for the invention of the mobile, whose parts drift together in comfortable harmony.
Here is a herd of his animobiles, a term coined by his wife, to describe his imaginative menagerie created in the seventies.
I love this. The anonymous bystander who says about the criminal that sparked the movie, The Departed, being apprehended today. So he was a mobster. Everyone has a profession.
Is this a part of the problem?
A satisfied bean-bag-bed user.
Move over futon, there’s a new boy in town. If you are wondering where to put up guests this summer without remodeling your house, consider a bean bag chair that turns into a queen size bed.
Let’s face it, unless you’re maybe a caterpillar looking for some place to puff on your hooka, a bean bag chair is not a fashion statement. But this version made by Corda-Roy’s is such a good idea, it sneaks right under the radar.
The chair will set you back $259. A modest investment for a place to chill out while you are recovering from a long week-end on Sunday evening and eating a grilled cheese sandwich and iced tea.
I have noticed a few things are moving toward extinction: ashtrays, phone books, 45 rpm records and customer service. The only thing that I will miss is the last one. I always enjoyed the little bit of an exchange with a stranger treading together on common ground about a product or a service. But it’s a lost art.
Do you have ice in a bag?
Yes.
Silence.
Yeah, good. Where is it? (Should I really have to ask!)
Out there, she said, gesturing in the direction of the front of the store.
Silence.
And there is some inside.
Inside?
Yes, she said, gesturing to the left side of the store.
Silence.
Where, inside? (I don’t work here, you dumbo.)
Well, over by the ice cream, she declared looking at me as if I had asked where do babies come from? As I walked to the car with the ice I knew that I’d never be back again and I wasn’t a bit sorry.
Art by Tyson Grumm
I was looking for a place to eat Greek take-out in the middle of the afternoon the other day in northwest Indiana. Zooming down the highway I caught a glimpse of a picnic shelter and found myself in Hanna, Indiana.
There are 463 people in Hanna; on the Welcome to Hanna sign, it says “unincorporated town.” Best I can figure, being unincorporated means Hanna residents aren’t taxed by a city government. ‘Course on the down side, there aren’t any city services either.
The park is trim and clean. There is a baseball diamond with a painted dugout. There are concrete block restrooms, a concession stand and playground equipment on a mulched surface. The picnic shelter has a Lions Club International logo, a group whose by-words are, Community is what we make it.
Looks to me like the people in Hanna, Indiana don’t need no stinkin’ city.