Lots of holidays and sports, so why are we watching the Food Channel? By golly, it could be Benny!
– A chef who is a regular at Guv’s Place in Houlton, Benny, works across the river at Smalley’s BBQ and had some air time when the place was featured on a national cable network, The Food Channel, where the well-known host is that cooking guy named Guy. The restaurant is known for its creative and over-the-top use of spices and also its pirate motif. That fits in because some of the decorative pirates, who often find themselves posing for pictures with patrons, are missing legs and have a peg-leg, and Benny does a great job despite the absence of part of one arm. He recently celebrated his birthday, and has said of Smalley’s that they tapped the first keg ever, anywhere, of local Farmer’s Daughter brew, and that if you need your summer party informally catered, just talk to him and he’ll get you some of the best BBQ you can imagine.
– Going wild at a Minnesota Wild game? Bartender Whitney lost her voice after taking off of work and going to her first playoff hockey game ever, and says it was just as intense, on and off the ice, as she had been told by patrons on her shift the previous evening. She added on her next work night that she is addicted, in a good way, and immediately began eyeing season tickets.
– The St. Croix River bridge construction has been underway for some time on the Minnesota side, with the lay of the land shifting along with tons of dirt seemingly from day to day, and for some diehards making the trek between Woody’s in Bayport and the Stillwater haunts quite daunting. However, the work on the Wisconsin side that involves a four-plus-mile detour of Hwy. 35 didn’t begin until March 17, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day traffic, in case you where going to the highly decorated Guv’s.
– On that note, it would seem that an Irish lass would have a full dance card on St. Patrick’s Day, unless she is a bartender and has to work. So what’s up Jessie? Not so much, she said, just dinner with the folks. I told her I’d heard that if you’re really Irish and don’t really celebrate, a leprechaun will come and get you. Not always so, she replied, some of them can be really nice. But she added, you just might have to watch it.
– Recently at the Village Inn in North Hudson, the clock/sign temporarily malfunctioned and read that this drink is for you “if you were born on this date before 2093.” Think that’s just about everybody.
– On those Shake of the Day dice games, where you have to have so many of a kind to get a freebie, I think of another game, where you can get filthy rich by having all the NCAA tournament brackets correctly picked. If you get nine of nine dice to match, is it like the Quicken Loans offer where the winner gets a billion dollars?
– Maybe she’s just a little punchy. A woman recently gave one of the action downtown games, where patrons score points for the power of their boxing punch, the good old bob and weave treatment for the better part of a minute before actually swinging away. Later, at a different haunt while listening to some music, she did the same Muhammad Ali imitation, but this time it was her boyfriend jovially intercepting the punches with extended hands, not a punching bag. Reminds me of a band I saw just west of here, where the frontman did his version of the Ali Shuffle.
– Oh God, yes, I was finally roped into doing the Cuban Shuffle. I found I could handle the first couple of steps, but when it came to the next batch, I always seemed to have the wrong foot in motion, which meant I was shuffeling sideways in the wrong direction from the rest of the dancing horde. Talk about being out on a limb all by yourself!
– The beach party at Dick’s Bar and Grill was full, and so many people there were wearing flip-flops, despite the lingering cold, that you could state that scads were wearing sandals and digging their toes into the sand. So, it wasn’t brought in for nothing.