respublica

St. Louis Food Favorites

August is the time for Feast Magazine (the free newsprint style found in front of grocery stores and some restaurants) to publish their Readers Choice Awards for restaurants by category. This year sees many I'd like to try. The link has the story on each of the 50, but the one I really want to head over to is Mac's Local Eats on Tamm. It's a very bar-like place serving up smashed burgers which are my favorite kind. They look so good and people who have been there rave about them.

Where are the fish?

Another campus pond update. After realizing many of our pond plants were taken we were rather shaken the other day to see no sign of the fish which were also in there. Actually we saw maybe 3 out of the 20 some fish we had. Normally on a Monday the fish are excited to eat because weekends are kind of hit and miss with the feeding. Yesterday, nothing. No fish surfacing to eat, no fish except for those couple hiding. If all had died, they'd be floating.

So. Plants and fish gone.

It's the season

When August shows up, so does the beginning of spider web season. I'm starting to see new webs in the yard, across the handles of our lawnmower, porch railings, bushes, just about everywhere. And walking through a sudden web is just icky.

Also I'm seeing more flies in the house. Maybe insects know more than we do about what's coming.

More foods are making us sick

Every day it seems more food is being recalled for various illnesses found in them. It's at the point where you need two lists when you go to the grocery store, one for what you need, one for foods to stay away from.

The list of recalled food ranges from various lettuces to Goldfish snack crackers. Also pre-cut melon found in most salad bars, Beef jerkey, fresh and frozen raw ground beef.

The number of items is so long and varies from place to place across the country, it's mind-boggling.

When Triscuits get put on the recall list, I don't know if I'll survive. They come from Nabisco which more than a few of their products on the list.

Car fire part 2

In the post below there is a photo of a car fire from last Friday on Clayton Road near Skinker. Yesterday afternoon someone on Facebook posted a picture of this same car sitting on the shoulder of Skinker next to the entrance to Forest Park. It had only been moved a short way from the initial fire.

How odd is this? What reason would there have been to not get that burned out shell of a car to a junk yard or car lot?

Car fire

This shocker happened yesterday afternoon on Clayton Road just west of Skinker, across from the Big Amoco. Dale was heading to Collinsville and got stopped for some time. The black smoke made things look like nighttime.

 

The case of the missing pond plants

In our Academic Quad there is a rectangular pond which has goldfish swimming around in it as well as a fountain and filter system. In addition we've placed quite a few pond plants because we've learned they help cut back on algae and provide shade and nutrients to the fish. Today we added another, stronger pump to get the water circulating better and as we were fiddling around with that, we noticed one of our potted lily pad plants which sit in the water was missing. Gayle used the skimmer to see if it had fallen over in the water, but no. No plant and no pot. Then we realized more than half of our pond lettuces was gone.

After looking in around the grassy area to see if they had been tossed out we found nothing. After checking the trash can we found nothing. So it's a mystery.

Or maybe not a mystery. The way things go around here we more than wondered if someone from the neighborhood has a backyard pond which needed plants and just came over and took some of ours. Some years ago we would never have entertained that idea, but these days, I'd not be surprised.

Here is a picture of our pond from a couple of years ago when we were just learning the importance of water plants. We had way more this summer than that year, but not anymore.

Time flys

One of our students who works with us on the campus landscape gave me this picture yesterday. It is of Dale and Zach's father from 1991 somewhere in Canada. This was about 5 years before Zach was even born, but now he is following in his father's footsteps into the ministry.

I have no idea why I can't get this photo to flip into the correct position. It has something to do with iphones. In my photo album it is right, but this website won't correct it. If you Google this issue you'll find each link is filled with words and gibberish.

Anyhow. Here is Zach doing his field work at Holy Cross in Collinsville with Pastor Wright.

Pickle freak-out

Here is another example of adding unexpected (and unnecessary) flavors to foods or drinks which are darn perfect in themselves. Doritos has come out with pickle-flavored Tostitos.

Seriously. Here is a headline about this from KMOV in St. Louis: "Doritios has pickle-flavored chips and people are freaking out." 

"Doritos Intense Pickle Tortilla Chips are described as having an “intense” and, apparently, delicious flavor. Enjoy the extreme crunch and explode-in-the mouth flavour as you and your friends dive into a bag of Doritos® Intense Pickle flavoured tortilla chips. Savour the tanginess of the intense pickle flavour in every bite."

I won't buy this and Americans can't buy this, freak out or not. They are only sold in Canada, thus the spelling of flavor in the news release as 'flavour'.

One last license renewal post

What a goofy week over-thinking how to get my license plate stickers renewed as well as my drivers license. Both came due recently. After trying to take care of the stickers online and giving up, I went over to the Clayton License office yesterday and was in and out of there in ten minutes. Got the new stickers in 3 minutes and a new drivers license in 7 minutes. It took longer for the second due to the picture taking process.

I felt like I'd won the lottery. Something new with the stickers, they come with two sections of perforations which are there to keep thieves from stealing them off cars. They will fall apart when removed. This was good news for me as we had ours stolen off my truck while it was parked at the airport a year ago. But, I asked the clerk, the same one we dealt with when replacing the stolen stickers if we should still scratch them up a bit more and he said yes.