I like mine fried. Chicken-fried. Part dos.
I was in Lucky’s for breakfast. Close to the folks, a formerly eccentric neighborhood, and the food’s good.
All right, for the more right-wing, leftist, homophobic crowd, I’m sure Lucky’s is a little strange. Two guys meet for brunch and they embrace. No one bats an eye. Yeah, about half the folk in there are gay? So?
“Kramer, check it out, he’s cruising you….”
As if.
And some of my friends think this is a big deal. Others are less disturbed. Just part of city life.
What caught my eye was a middle-aged couple, typical Dallas folks, I guess, he was reading a newspaper and she was reading Interior Design. Out to brunch while both reading something else. Might as well be alone?
Dunno, it’s a big city. I’m sure it has tales.
While Lucky’s Cafe has a very acceptable Chicken Fried Steak breakfast, I got sliced tomatoes as a side dish, and somewhere, I’m not sure about this, I just don’t think good chicken-fried steak, rich cream gravy, and biscuits are supposed to be joined on the same plate with Roma Tomatoes. I just find that this is an unacceptable incongruity. Like fancy mustard on ballpark hotdogs. Yes, I love me some good mustard, as fond as I am of hot stuff, but certain situations dictate cheap, yellow mustard.
And chicken friend steaks should have regular beefsteak tomatoes, not some fancy Eye-talian jobbie.
But that could be me. Enough of Lucky’s chicken fried breakfast and I won’t be getting cruised by anyone.
I like mine fried. Chicken-fried. Part uno.
Toys: Some of the best fried squid, ever.
When I last lived in Dallas, Toys was a tiny Thai & Vegetarian place around the corner from where I was living. (Lemmon Ave. Between the Tollway & Wycliff.) Food was good, hot, and plentiful. Plus there was ambience that comes with a place filled up with greasy, stir-fry smoke, simmering peppers plus tofu and rice noodles.
Stopped in twice while I was there.
The second time, with my trusty Dallas guide, and with the help of a couple of warm sakes, ($1.25), the place felt different, albeit, the price structure seemed a little out of line for Dallas, i.e., cheap.
Good grub.
It’s a note on a napkin, as I look over, and ask, “Hey, you got a pen I can use?”
I wound up grabbing a napkin and scribbling a note in blue crayon.
Squid, at least the ways I’ve had served before, is usually rubbery. Not that it’s bad, that’s just the way it’s been. Chewy. Until that afternoon in Toys.
To me, it tasted just like chicken-fried squid. However they prepared it, though, that made all the difference. Texture wasn’t just good – it was perfect. Just like chicken. Only, it was pretty obviously squid.
I wonder where they find fresh squid in Dallas? Trinity River Bottom?
Texas Trilogy 2: Trainride
Steve Fronholz’s epic about Texas, central northeast Texas and history. I can’t shake that one song. There’s an elegiac tone to the trilogy, too, and yet, to hear Steven sing it himself, something like 30 years after I heard it the first time, on Texas radio, he imparts a slightly more upbeat tone than the current – and popular – version. Still, it’s powerful music if the words, the tone, and the sentiments travel with me, up and down the train track. The Missouri-Pacific line joins with the old Santa Fe line in Temple. Useless trivia, the Santa Fe (rail) yard in Temple is the larges Santa Fe yard west of Chicago. But it’s when the route cuts across the Brazos River, Bosque County, that’s when song’s whole cycle makes sense. The words:
Well, the last time I remember that train stopping at the depot
Was when me and my Aunt Veta came riding back from Waco.
I remember I was wearing my long pants and we was sharing
Conversation with a man who sold ball-point pens and paper.
And the train stopped once in Clifton where my Aunt bought me some ice cream.
And my Mom was there to meet us when the train pulled into Kopperl.
But now kids at night break window lights
And the sound of trains only remains
In the memory of the ones like me.
Who have turned their backs on the splintered cracks
In the walls that stand on the railroad land
Where we used to play and then run away
From the depot man.
I remember me and brother used to run down to the depot
Just to listen to the whistle when the train pulled into Kopperl.
And the engine big and shiny, black as coal that fed the fire
And the engineer would smile and say, “Howdy, how ya fellows?”
And the people by the windows playing cards and reading papers
Looked as far away to us as next summer’s school vacation.
©1969, MCA Music Publishing (ASCAP)
I was hoping for a better shot but we have to take what we can get these days. It was a Santa Fe – Burlington Northern engine against a backdrop of Dallas concrete, clay and glass skyscrapers.
Concrete, clay and glass? Know that musical allusion?
