I’ve been debating whether or not to write about food things. Food things = restaurants, cooking, tips/tricks, ideas, stories, and reviews.

In 1975 I hired on as a cook at the Red Barn Hamburger joint. In 2005 I was 86’d from the steakhouse where I worked as a sort of traveling food ‘chef’ (note the quotes around the word chef, please; street educated). In between I worked for thirty years at nearly every level possible in the restaurant biz.

(BTW, what does 86’d mean? To 86 something in restaurant speak is to tell the staff you’re out of a certain item. “86 10 oz Ribeyes.” If someone is 86’d, it’s means they are excused, off the menu, no longer around.)

Kind of a pompous thing; me musing if I should bless y’all with some tidbits or kernels of knowledge, but here’s the deal: any idiot who does something for thirty years does it because (a) he likes it, and/or (b) gets halfway decent at some part of it through sheer repetition, or (c) is doing it from a prison cell.

Point is if you pay attention, you tend to learn a thing or two. One other point; if you’ve done something for thirty years, I know I’d like to hear some stories from you. (Good reason to send something in to NeighborsGo.)

What I’d like to do if y’all will indulge me is expose my passion (Hey now!), pour cold water on some myths, maybe toss out some food science goodies, and let you know when I run across a restaurant where I enjoy a home run.

As to the idea of restaurant reviews, here’s my problem. There are enough folks having supper at restaurants today who will post their sound thrashing of the place because it didn’t meet their criteria for this or that. And some poor soldier who only (literally) mortgaged everything to open the place will fall as a sacrifice on the altar of blogdom because he or she dared to run their business with human beings, who as we know, have a tendency to screw things up now and then. I don’t mean to be so vague and milquetoasty; sorry. Next time I’ll step out and write what I really mean.

If you’ve followed these blogs before today, you’ll notice I don’t do brand names. I’d rather have my opinions be just that…opinions. In other words, if I have a bad deal at XYZ restaurant, it’s not important to me to keep people away from it; if it simply a bad shift then hopefully the next one will be better. If they have real problems, they won’t be around long. When someone blows me away with their blazingly brilliant food and easy-going, attentive service, do I want to write about it? Well, to quote 2048 Republican presidential nominee, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnson…you betcha.

(Trumpets sounds, the crowd stands, catching their collective breath…)

So today we’ll begin a sixty-eight part series entitled,”Pot lock etiquette: should you leave some bok choy or take a leek?”

Not really. But we’ll begin soon.

Says right there, on the first page of the instruction manual, ". . . . is easy to build with easy to follow, step by step plans." The actual work is easy to understand, but you could say the same thing about raising hogs. Different story once you get your feet in the slop. Here's how it goes.

Your wife says, "Let's get the kids a wooden sky fort, make it one big birthday present for all their birthdays." Being Sunday and all, your official I Refuse to Make a Decision Day, you respond with the required response, "Hrrummph." And off you go to the lumber store.

"Okay, sir, you got your two by four by eight's, your two by six by ten's, your four by four by ten's. Go to register five, and then out the first door. Pull your vehicle around to bay nineteen, show the two guys your invoice -- number seven-oh-nine -- and you'll be good to go. Did y'all get five pounds of sixteen 'd' galvanized nails?"

"Hrrummph."

Now, wedded bliss lends itself to a communication process extraordinaire. Unspoken words, head nods, shifts of the eyes, finishing each other's sentences; you do it all. Until it's time to build something together. Then it's the Tower of Babel. And with a project like this, the confusion starts as soon as you unload the wood.

"Let's get the little wheelbarrow and truck the pieces into the yard," you offer.

"Oh, I don't know, there's not that much, that wheelbarrow is so cheap.”

That's a challenge. You put four pieces of wood into the ten dollar wheel barrow and effortlessly wheel then into the yard. Four more go on, some of the bigger ones, and half way back they fall off. Now the curse of the tongues takes over.

"Put-the big-gest-pieces," you stutter, "on either side of the bed and the weight won't shift when we wheel it across the incline."

To her that has the same meaning as, "Green, crusty Jell-O tastes yummy on toast points." For a minute you just stare at each other; she -- convinced she's married Cooter Brown, you -- wondering just where on earth this woman has stashed her brains.

"Hey Bubba," she hisses through clenched teeth, "this wheelbarrow is too small to handle this load, let's JUST CARRY IT!"

You hear . . . well, you hear nothing.

"If you just HOLD the boards up at your end," you say slowly, with your eyes bugging out, "the weight will be more distrizzxedj ghuthej kklkj!!"

"Grisam PLASTSa whicker, ggesat forub NICKSHAB!!"

Somehow the wood gets in the yard.

You get to measuring and leveling and lining up with the square and hammering and tightening and sawing. (I loved the sawing part. I can saw like a big dawg. Just plug me in. Zinnnggg! Scared the heck out of the dog. Zinng! Make the kids jump. Zinngg! It's great fun.) And then, you put the frame together and stand it up.

It's four thousand feet tall.

Didn't look that tall at the lumber store. The kids will need oxygen to sit up there. Planes will bank around it. There's a snow crust forming on the top already. But you continue on. And on.

It's 10:30 at night. The neighbor, kind enough to offer a hand six hours ago, holds the eighth bent nail destined for a particularly tough spot, while your wife holds the flashlight that needs shaking every twenty seconds to keep from dimming. Nail number nine goes in, sort of, and you call it quits.

Later that evening, you peer out the back window. There it stands, like one of those big, black, brooding heads on those Juga Booga islands. A great mystery. Only the mystery is not the fort itself. The mystery is why you didn't just call Sears and say, "Come build me a swing set!"

Hrrummph.

"So, are you serious about this writing stuff?" my friend asked. "I mean, I know you are, but like…why do you do it?”

I thought for a moment; how could I explain this?

"See, it's like . . . . “

(Dream sequence music)

You see, one day, it will happen for me and they’ll make a movie about it.

Some kind, benevolent editor will be slumming through her slush pile one lazy Thursday afternoon, and keep chancing upon this certain envelope. No matter how many times it's thrown back in the pile, out it pops. So the editor; played by Selma Hayek, (it's my dream) opens it. The tinkle of small bells, the ones you hear when magical twists of fate invade the plot. Maybe a faint glow of green light from the open envelope. She begins to read.

Her bosom begins to heave as she. . . . whoops! Wrong Selma story.

She smiles at first as she reads through the piece, then begins to laugh out loud. The poor, underpaid, overworked assistant editor, played by Johnny Depp (my wife will insist Johnny is in this movie. In any movie, for that matter.), will stick his head in Selma's office to see what all the fuss is about. He'll be buck neck-ed.

"This piece," Selma will gasp, "is great." Then they'll do it, but in a PG-13 rated context.

Selma tries to call the writer but finds the phone disconnected. Then a whole bunch of goofy things happen until they find the writer, played by. . . . um . . . a young Fabio (hush), living under an overpass with his dog. He's making about four bills a week with signs that are variations on the "work for food" thing.

Selma and Johnny get Fabio cleaned up, and bring him to the Managing Editor of the newspaper syndicate. They sign the stud to a sweet deal; 1000 papers to start, etc, etc. With some of his advance, Fabio buys a beautiful diamond necklace. On a starlit summer night, out on the penthouse balcony of the Grand Shindig Hotel, he opens the box and shows Selma the necklace.

"Oh, my," she says, "it's beautiful."

"Really?" he asks. It requires ten takes for Fabio to get the line right.

"Oh, yes," Selma says, drooling with anticipation.

"Good," Fabio says, nodding assuredly. And then he runs into the hotel room and gives the necklace to Johnny. They embrace and the scene helps them capture the Oscar the following February. They live happily ever after. At least until the sequel.

Okay, go to the "return from dream sequence" music because this dream is getting away from me a bit...

(Return from dream sequence music)

". . . . it's like, hard to explain. I just have to."

Whether or not you agree with an incoming president or his politics, you can’t deny the almost herbal tang of a do-over that wafts across the air each election. As a country we either renew our effort to sweeten things up, or, as in 2008, we chuck the old and brew a new batch.

We are on our way into 2009 and soon dialogue, diatribes, and filibusters will serve as entrees in many discussions; the one I want to hear is, “If we had 900 billion sitting around to hand out, why didn’t we played black jack with it and double down or something?”

As a Texan (transplanted, I grant you) I am compelled to weigh in on the real problem and offer a solution and lubricant that will move our country forward. Yasser, as a Texan…dare I say as a southerner…my philosophy is thus: good Sweet Tea cures everything.

Not sure if we have a state drink, but we ought to and when it becomes so, I’m thinking it needs to be sweet tea. Now, it’s fine if you want to limit your sugar or carbs and drink unsweetened tea but please don’t deny the power hot water possesses after trickling gently over leaves picked in some far off land, left to steep for a moment and then impregnated with six hundred metric tons of sugar until it screams, “Por favor, Poppi; no mas! No mas.”

Go ahead, lick your lips and swallow…I’ll wait.  

Thing is, what can really….I mean really…go wrong over a glass of sweet tea? Nothin,’ that’s what. Meaning the solution to all our problems is right there if, that is, you’re a sweet tea person. What’s that look like? Let me tell you about Tony. 

He worked for me a few years ago and he loved him some sweet tea. He’d swing into his favorite drive-thru each morning for sweet tea, and if you saw him fifteen minutes later you’d swear he’d just had a quick tumble with the wife. A wide-eyed, blissful buzz of sugary love coursed through his veins, painting his face with a bright glow…and then he’d do the work of three men because he’d done half a gallon of the stuff and it wasn’t yet 10 AM.

Lunchtime we’d go to this or that restaurant usually, but now and then someone would say, “Well let’s try XYZ restaurant today, whaddahya think?”

“Do they have sweet tea?” Tony would say.

“Well yeah, I think…”

“No,” Tony would interrupt politely, but firmly, “I mean sweet tea, already sweetened, done so while the tea brewed, sugar added and mixed while the tea was hot. The real sweet tea – do they have it?”

“Um…”

Somehow…eventually… we’d go to a new place and, as you’d expect, they wouldn’t have sweet tea and it would go like this.

“We have iced tea and you can add sugar or the blue stuff,” the waitress sweetly offers.

We duck as Tony gets started on his response.

“Good Lord, ain’t y’all got a map? Do y’all know geography? How in the world can I be sitting in a Texas restaurant and not have a glass of sweet tea sitting in front of me?” Ten seconds of silence, and then he mutters: “You must be from Colorado.”

Resigned, Tony quietly works hard, stirring and adding sugar to get his tea just right, tongue out ala Michael Jordan, before starting on his meal.

“Oh, there she is,” he hisses a few minutes later, “the girl with the tea pitcher.” Tony shakes his head and continues.

“Why do they wait until I got my tea as good as it can be and then ruin it? If she comes over here and tries to add tea to my glass, make sure you stop her if I don’t catch it.” 

Invariably he’s in the restroom, someone is telling a story and we lose track of the iced tea girl and she fills his half full, decently sweetened, glass of tea to the brim. Tony returns and shakes his head; what was drinkable is now a brackish nightmare of Tegur –half tea, half undisolved sugar.

Then the manager comes by.

“Hey, how y’all doing? How was the food?”

“Know what,” Tony says, “just take this tea and bring me a Dr Pepper; how’s that?”

“Well, we don’t have…”

“No sweet tea and no Dr Pepper?” Tony cries. “Well let’s just give this place back to the people of Ohio or where ever, why don’t we? Datgum, who’s idea was it to come here anyway? You know, I ask ‘Do they have sweet tea’ and every time…”

He’s nuts until he next sips some of the good stuff.

It’s the genuine article, sweet tea; it’s the real deal, and I’m pretty sure a safe bet for elephants and donkeys as well as those who pay taxes on time and those who wait until they’re up for administration positions to wonder if stuff they got worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is taxable.

And you wanna talk about a stimulus? Hit the drive through with Tony; that'll jump start things.