As we were planning our trip to the Florida Panhandle to visit my son this past weekend, we of course knew that our trip along I-10 would require, no, would offer an opportunity to check out a new place to eat. But where to go?
It was my son who suggested we stop by The Shed, a place he had been to during his travels and in fact had been visited upon by the Food Network guy who does the Diners and Drive-ins show I occasionally watch.
We actually, okay to be honest, I actually planned our trip around hitting The Shed for lunch, just so I could see what it was all about.
The place is co-located with an RV park and looks like it has been pieced together over the years with a little addition here and a little addition there. I love a place with this style.
But what about the food? Everyone has their own style and tastes. The Shed offered up some good choices and we went with the Sampler Platter so we could get a little bit of everything.
We also picked up a brisket sammy to take my son.
Aside from the fact that the place was humid as all get-out, we were pleased with the selection.
In all honesty, we have a hard time not comparing things to two baselines. I submit that Augie's Barbed Wire in San Antonio would easily best The Shed on a blind taste test. Likewise, I'll put my friend Lea's ribs up against these any day. Having said that, this was lunch at a different place in a different state and folks, it was very, very good. I'd recommend The Shed as a place to visit and enjoy to any lover of fine BBQ and good times.
In the interest of time, just watch the video and you'll see a Tasty Treat.
One of the truly enjoyable things about writing about the places my wife and I visit - and eat - has been the people we have had the chance to meet either strictly via comments and e-mails or face to face. Several people who we now consider to be good friends have come just from their chance-reading of this goofy little blog.
I have written before about Matt & Lea. You may recall when I was attempting to make some of my own wings, Lea hooked me up with a recipe of her own; and I failed miserably at trying to make them - though they were good.
I also told you how we met in person - strictly by chance - when Lea yelled my name out across Lowe's, and I genuinely had no idea who she or her husband were. I am simply terrible with names and for the life of me, I thought perhaps they were relatives I hadn't seen in a while. You never know, right?
It wasn't long afterward that Matt & Lea invited us over for some of her famous spare ribs. I know you have heard about meat falling away from the bones when things are cooked right, but seriously, the bones nearly floated away from the meat, these babies were so tender and delicious.
And in return, I serve them some less than average ribs of my own on a bad grill day. I'm surprised Matt didn't insist on a refund. Thankfully, my wife had made some cream-corn to win him over.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out what really nice folks these people are. Like me, Matt is retired military. Unlike me, he is a computer whiz and in addition to working full time, he goes to school pretty much full time! Lea is an amazing person who, though now retired is a no kidding professional carpenter, builder, roofer, floorer; you name it. If it is related to construction and a house, this woman has done it, has the certification to do it and the t-shirt to prove it, and I have seen her handy work first hand.
As it turns out, because Lea is also a mother and grandmother, she and Matt have decided to move to Tennessee to be closer to the kids. How can you blame them? In the mean time, in preparation for the move, she and Matt basically remodeled their home in Silver Creek, on their own. You just can't believe what fine craftsmanship has gone into the kitchen, the bathrooms, the floors - everything. And of course, their home has sold, and off they go.
But not without inviting us over for some pulled-pork sammiches. I had mentioned that on our flight back from New Jersey, we had a stopover in Memphis and the schedule was so tight that we literally got off one plane and boarded the next with only the smell of the BBQ between us. And of course, Lea was quick to comment that she could fix us up.
So, along with several of our neighbors, we made the short trek to Matt & Lea's to try out her pulled pork. Just the smell of it as we walked in the house was the only clue I needed; we were in for some good eats!
Lea had whipped up some fried cabbage with real bacon bits and little potatoes. My wife and I had never had this recipe before but both loved it (and took some home for later).
We all knew that the pulled-pork sammies were on the menu but Lea surprised us with a batch of her famous ribs. There is no way to convey just how wonderful these things are. As expected, the meat simply fell from the bones and you could see smiles on faces around the table.
The pulled-pork sammies were equally as impressive and certainly a hit. At one point during the meal, there was no talking at all; you could hear several of us making the sigh that comes when someone has eaten something really good and they just don't want the good feeling to end. I had made my familiar mmm mmm mmm sound (at least a few times by this point) and I think the Lea had received the feedback she was looking for.
At one point, my neighbor Gus had about a third of his second pulled-pork sandwich sitting on his plate as he sat back just for a moment. His wife Ruby reached for it thinking he was finished and a near knife fight ensued when Gus attempted to defend his food saying, "Hey! I'm just taking a break!" Ruby was lucky to retract her hand with all fingers remaining.
When everyone had eaten themselves into submission, Matt reminded Lea that they really needed to get those release forms for people to sign - verifying that we would not hold them accountable for any weight gain.
And then there was dessert. Is there anything this woman does not do? I rarely eat sweets, but my favorite cake is Angel food. Lea added a hint of strawberry flavoring in the mix, then lightly covered it with a lemon icing. Seriously, if the others were not present, I could have eaten this light and fluffy cake by myself.
It almost seems inadequate to offer up the familiar Tasty Treat, but I will because there was no question about it.
But, I have to go one step further. This one is just for her. Lea has dreams of perhaps opening a small bistro in the not too distant future. I assure you, she has the skills in the kitchen down. We also know she could build the place from the ground up.
We wish Matt & Lea the best of luck in Memphis (or there abouts) and look forward to someday making a trip to check out her restaurant. I'll bring my camera and my appetite!
It can be a bit unnerving to have someone yell your name from across the lawn mower section at Lowes; especially when you look and you have no idea on earth who the lady is calling your name. Note to self: Less personally identifiable pictures on the blog!
But in fact, my wife and I were really glad that blog readers Lea and her husband Matt caught us stimulating the economy at Lowes this afternoon. You may recall that Lea sent me her recipe for wings and I promptly screwed them up, requiring a second effort to make them Tasty! One of the great things about living here is the nice people you can run into. We chatted for a while about the neighborhood but then had to run off and purchase some things for the yard.
I had this idea in my mind that I would go home and cook some vittles on the grill but my wife had a different plan. She wanted me to "assist her" with tilling up part of the back yard to make it suitable for laying down some new grass.
We have great neighbors, and M&M brought over the tiller and showed my wife how to use it. Which meant I had to bust out my camera and capture the excitement on film (or digital card, anyway).
Do we look like regular farmers, or what? Anyway, I don't know if we are doing the right thing or not, but we have some seriously unacceptable portions of the yard with no recognizable grass. We plan to drop a few pallets of new grass on top of the area, but my wife insisted we motivate the soil to perk up or something.
This is her doing a little motivating. I love the fact that if you look over the fence behind her, you see our neighbor climbing up on the swing set to see what all the excitement is. He's a nice man but we don't know him that well. He is probably thinking that I'm a total jerk for making my wife till the yard while I take pictures. Honestly Mister, it's just a photo op!
We had some spectacular weather in San Antonio today. I hope you got out and saw something good.
As we wind up Christmas and head full steam into the New Year I thought it might be nice to tie up a few loose ends from stories I have posted here recently.
First, you have to know about the wings!
You may recall a reader named Lea sent me her recipe for some sticky brown sugar and soy sauce based wings. I wrote about my effort to make them, per her directions, but I must confess that I strayed just a bit from what she e-mailed me.
Of course, they were good, but not nearly as good as they could have been. On top of that, I made a mess in the oven.
You will be happy to know that for Christmas, my good neighbors Gus and Ruby gave me a little oven guard kinda thing that you actually place on the bottom of the oven. Then, if you have an offensive mistake like I made, you can pull this cover out, wipe it off and the mess is gone.
Lea was kind enough to e-mail me with where I went wrong on her recipe. It turns out, I was supposed to marinate the wings in the glass pan and cook them in the same glass pan without emptying out the marinade. I tried this and two wonderful things happened. First, no spills in the oven.
More importantly, the wings came out awesome, and I am quite certain that the Cowboys actually won their game as a result of my wings being so incredible. I'm sorry, Lea's wings!
A few days ago, I reported about our little dog, Panda, going to live in New Jersey with my daughter and her husband. Good news: The dog made it to New Jersey without incident and she loves the snow. Better news: My daughter is very happy to have her little dogie and it made for a Merry Christmas. Best news: Panda no longer wakes me up at 4am to play.
And finally, this past week this blog went over 10,000 hits. I know for many of the blogs I read, this is chump change. They get 10,000 hits in a day or a week or at least a month. But for a guy just telling goofy stories about places my wife and I go to eat or posting pictures of goofy things I see in my town, it is a true sign that either you people like what you see and read, or you are simply bored silly. Either way, I appreciate it and hope you will continue to stop by.
A while back I wrote here about how I had made my very own BBQ Wings. One reader, Lea, was nice enough to send me the recipe that she and her husband use for the purpose of stuffing their gullets full of the popular snack.
So, having waited the obligatory several weeks before recreating the mess in the kitchen, I had the plan to try Lea's brown sugar and soy sauce based baked wings during the Cowboys-Eagles game.
In case you don't get Newsweek, let me just break the news that the Cowboys lost, no doubt a direct result of Tony Romo having Jessica Simpson sitting in on the game and sending in the plays - such greats as "Throw it to the man in the green uniform." I like Jessica Simpson. I'm sure Tony Romo likes her. But let that goofy blonde (no offense to other blondes) go make a movie or sing at a concert, and keep her ass away from Tony for at least 24 hours prior to each game, and until at least a few minutes after the 4th quarter. Nuff Said!
So the problem was, I was trying to make wings and watch a game and make a second set of wings using the recipe I had reported about here.
So, Lea's recipe is simple. Get yourself some wings.
Whip up a mixture of equal parts Brown Sugar (my wife quickly raises her hand and says, "That's me!") and soy sauce. In this case, I used a cup of each. Take that mixture and pour it over the wings and then let them marinate in the refrigerator for about half an hour. 
I ended up using a gallon bag instead of a glass pan. This may have proved to be a mistake later. It turns out that this particular recipe results in really sticky wings that you have to turn a few times. 
So you may be able to look at the picture of my wings going into the oven and figure out the HUGE mistake I made. 
As my version of Lea's wings were working on the first side in the oven at 350, I was preparing the other wings so I could fry them up on the stove top. And I was making a huge mess as well.
After 30 minutes in the oven, I turned the brown sugar and soy sauce wings and saw the enormous spillage that was occurring in the oven. I might mention that at this point, the Cowboys were already losing. And for whatever reason, I kept trying to watch the game in the living room while cooking in the kitchen at the same time.
I think in the end, I overcooked the wings in the oven and the wings in the frying pan. But, you can't over cook chicken, and I went through with the sampling of each. 
I really enjoyed the brown sugar and soy recipe Lea sent me and in fact, my wife gave them the thumbs up. That gets her the official Tasty Treat and a big thanks for the tip. 
Oh, in case you were wondering about my faux paux in the oven - I should have cooked these puppies in a pan, not on a cookie sheet. The mixture of soy and brown sugar sort of bubbled up and resulted in a little spillage in the oven. Not to worry, I was able to get the mess fully cleaned before my wife could see that I had defaced her baking area. Thankfully, regular Christmas Cookie baking continues unabated.
We actually, okay to be honest, I actually planned our trip around hitting The Shed for lunch, just so I could see what it was all about.
The place is co-located with an RV park and looks like it has been pieced together over the years with a little addition here and a little addition there. I love a place with this style.
But what about the food? Everyone has their own style and tastes. The Shed offered up some good choices and we went with the Sampler Platter so we could get a little bit of everything.
We also picked up a brisket sammy to take my son.
