Do you think the parrots are bored?
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
A Trip To The Queen Bee
The Queen Bee. Just a little small town cafe, with the best coney dog I ever ate. Walk in the door, plunk down your dollar (that's right $1) and watch as 8 steamed buns get stacked up along the preparers left arm. Then 8 dogs would be pulled out of the steamer and poked into the buns. Next came the finely chopped onions, mustard and finally the meat sauce. The preparer would then layer them in a small paper bag, 2 dogs in, a piece of precut waxed paper, then 2 more dogs and another layer of waxed paper until the bag was full. A one block walk home past the fire station with it's 6 cent Coke machine and supper was served. And what a supper it was. The dog's were made from pork and beef, the coney sauce had probably bubbled in the pot all day and was the best I have ever had.
But there were others in town that were great also. Tegeo's Restaurant sold coney's also. Their sauce was spicier. The New York Lunch completed the trifecta. Again it was a great dog and their sauce was good as well. Over the years, the Queen Bee closed, as did Tegeo's, but the New York Lunch still sells lots of dogs everyday. My only problem is that it's a thousand miles away. I'm stuck in the midwest where everybody thinks a "Chicago Dog" is the best thing on earth. They just never had a good old Queen Bee hot dog.
There are a couple of pretenders in Peoria. Louie's Drive in tries and so does Velvet Freeze - and people think they are great, but these people have just been deprived of the real thing. Over the years I've tried a lot of different recipes to create a sauce as good, but I never have succeeded. The only part of the recipe that I have gotten right is that you boil the hamburger to get that really finely ground consistency. Also all you need is chili powder and the secret ingredient nutmeg. Don't think about putting any tomato sauce in it. The trick is getting the proportions correct. I've come close, but not close enough. Feel free to play with the mix, boil the hamburger, stirring all the time to break up the clumps until it is really fine. Pour off most of the water, stir in enough chili powder to turn it BLACK, then a little nutmeg to make your tongue wonder "What the heck was that?" I guarantee it will be good - just not quite as good as the Queen Bee's.
But there were others in town that were great also. Tegeo's Restaurant sold coney's also. Their sauce was spicier. The New York Lunch completed the trifecta. Again it was a great dog and their sauce was good as well. Over the years, the Queen Bee closed, as did Tegeo's, but the New York Lunch still sells lots of dogs everyday. My only problem is that it's a thousand miles away. I'm stuck in the midwest where everybody thinks a "Chicago Dog" is the best thing on earth. They just never had a good old Queen Bee hot dog.
There are a couple of pretenders in Peoria. Louie's Drive in tries and so does Velvet Freeze - and people think they are great, but these people have just been deprived of the real thing. Over the years I've tried a lot of different recipes to create a sauce as good, but I never have succeeded. The only part of the recipe that I have gotten right is that you boil the hamburger to get that really finely ground consistency. Also all you need is chili powder and the secret ingredient nutmeg. Don't think about putting any tomato sauce in it. The trick is getting the proportions correct. I've come close, but not close enough. Feel free to play with the mix, boil the hamburger, stirring all the time to break up the clumps until it is really fine. Pour off most of the water, stir in enough chili powder to turn it BLACK, then a little nutmeg to make your tongue wonder "What the heck was that?" I guarantee it will be good - just not quite as good as the Queen Bee's.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Of Trees and Roots
I am well into the fourth day of a five day trip. I am writing this from a hotel room in Ohio. It has been a terrible and wonderful week. My cousin and friend Robert "Bucky" Hughes died on Tuesday. He was only 58. I guess you could say he died young. He had a heart attack after helping some elderly neighbors clear show from their sidewalk so they could safely go to the store. He complained of feeling poorly after shovelling the snow and said he was going to go rest. These same neighbors found him slouched down on his kitchen floor the next morning.
This was Bucky's 2nd heart attack. So I guess you could say it wasn't a total surprise. But that doesn't make it any easier to get a grip on. He had been retired for about 3 years. Never married, he had spent the last years taking care of his mother, my Aunt Marion. Buck's dad had died of a heart attack when he was 63, some 28 years ago. Aunt Marion (my father's sister) has been getting more and more confused for the last few years. She is 88 and Bucky had been visiting her everyday since his retirement to make sure she took her medicines and ate. Most days he would take her for rides to visit her brothers and sisters.
Brothers and sisters, not unlike many old families I suppose, but I am in awe everytime I see this family assembled. Aunt Marion had 11 natural brothers and sisters, and when a cousin's Mom died the family adopted her. My dad Charlie is the oldest now at 92, Marion is next at 88, Thel comes next with 87 years under her belt. Uncle Clarence is 83, Aunt Grace(the name is perfect for her) is 78, Uncle Scotch is 74, Don is 73 and Aunt Ruthie is the baby of the bunch at age 70. Four have passed, Uncle Bob just this past November. Add in the wives and husbands, 6 are still alive also, and my Brother Jim and I had 22 Aunts and Uncles, 29 first cousins and a Grandfather who lived to age 86.
Grandpa had a farm where we all met, almost every Sunday for the first 12 or 13 years of my life. Grandpa never had a tractor, he always had work horses. I still relish the memory of Grandpa holding the horses' bridles while 6 or 8 of us grandkids sat on their backs. Not many families can field both teams for a softball game and still have players on the bench ready to go in. But on Sundays we could. And when we went visiting on other days, it was always to Uncle Bob's, or Don's, or Ross's., Aunt Grace and Uncle John's, or Clarence and Thelma's, or Aunt Marion's. Later it was Bob and Ruthie's.
I stayed with my Mom and Dad for the funeral. Mom had me go through the family pictures to take what I wanted back to Illinois. What I saw in those pictures were the lives of my Aunts and Uncles from the time they were kids until now some 90 years later. They were always together, swimming, playing games, dating, marrying, raising kids. Always together, then and now.
When I walked into the church for the pre-service visitation I was not at all surprised to find them all there. The Aunts, the Uncles, the cousins. Aunt Marion was sitting in front with her brothers and sisters rotating in and out of the chairs on either side. Aunt Grace holding her hand and helping her recollect friends and family. Uncle Don guiding people to her and making sure everyone was welcomed into the fold. It was a time of sorrow and joy. People telling family stories and laughing. People crying with Marion.
While at Mom and Dad's that moring I took phone calls from my Uncle Bob, making sure I had made it from Illinois and that my folks had a ride to the church. Then a few minutes later Aunt Ruthie called to make sure Mom had remembered her new false tooth. Always checking on and watching over each other, for 90 years this has gone on. I have missed this closeness of family since moving to Illinois 33 odd years ago. I still get a taste of it on trips home, but it is not the same as living it for all those years.
My cousins and I always talk of getting together, but we never seem to get it done unless one of the old timers hosts a family reunion. The times are faster and much different now than when the old generation were raising us cousins, faster, but I don't think better.
My brother searches for Family history, stories, tales, historical movements of the Family. I work on the Family Tree, our predecessors in this world. My hope is that we can somehow continue to keep close to our roots and let our children enjoy this wonderful family.
This was Bucky's 2nd heart attack. So I guess you could say it wasn't a total surprise. But that doesn't make it any easier to get a grip on. He had been retired for about 3 years. Never married, he had spent the last years taking care of his mother, my Aunt Marion. Buck's dad had died of a heart attack when he was 63, some 28 years ago. Aunt Marion (my father's sister) has been getting more and more confused for the last few years. She is 88 and Bucky had been visiting her everyday since his retirement to make sure she took her medicines and ate. Most days he would take her for rides to visit her brothers and sisters.
Brothers and sisters, not unlike many old families I suppose, but I am in awe everytime I see this family assembled. Aunt Marion had 11 natural brothers and sisters, and when a cousin's Mom died the family adopted her. My dad Charlie is the oldest now at 92, Marion is next at 88, Thel comes next with 87 years under her belt. Uncle Clarence is 83, Aunt Grace(the name is perfect for her) is 78, Uncle Scotch is 74, Don is 73 and Aunt Ruthie is the baby of the bunch at age 70. Four have passed, Uncle Bob just this past November. Add in the wives and husbands, 6 are still alive also, and my Brother Jim and I had 22 Aunts and Uncles, 29 first cousins and a Grandfather who lived to age 86.
Grandpa had a farm where we all met, almost every Sunday for the first 12 or 13 years of my life. Grandpa never had a tractor, he always had work horses. I still relish the memory of Grandpa holding the horses' bridles while 6 or 8 of us grandkids sat on their backs. Not many families can field both teams for a softball game and still have players on the bench ready to go in. But on Sundays we could. And when we went visiting on other days, it was always to Uncle Bob's, or Don's, or Ross's., Aunt Grace and Uncle John's, or Clarence and Thelma's, or Aunt Marion's. Later it was Bob and Ruthie's.
I stayed with my Mom and Dad for the funeral. Mom had me go through the family pictures to take what I wanted back to Illinois. What I saw in those pictures were the lives of my Aunts and Uncles from the time they were kids until now some 90 years later. They were always together, swimming, playing games, dating, marrying, raising kids. Always together, then and now.
When I walked into the church for the pre-service visitation I was not at all surprised to find them all there. The Aunts, the Uncles, the cousins. Aunt Marion was sitting in front with her brothers and sisters rotating in and out of the chairs on either side. Aunt Grace holding her hand and helping her recollect friends and family. Uncle Don guiding people to her and making sure everyone was welcomed into the fold. It was a time of sorrow and joy. People telling family stories and laughing. People crying with Marion.
While at Mom and Dad's that moring I took phone calls from my Uncle Bob, making sure I had made it from Illinois and that my folks had a ride to the church. Then a few minutes later Aunt Ruthie called to make sure Mom had remembered her new false tooth. Always checking on and watching over each other, for 90 years this has gone on. I have missed this closeness of family since moving to Illinois 33 odd years ago. I still get a taste of it on trips home, but it is not the same as living it for all those years.
My cousins and I always talk of getting together, but we never seem to get it done unless one of the old timers hosts a family reunion. The times are faster and much different now than when the old generation were raising us cousins, faster, but I don't think better.
My brother searches for Family history, stories, tales, historical movements of the Family. I work on the Family Tree, our predecessors in this world. My hope is that we can somehow continue to keep close to our roots and let our children enjoy this wonderful family.
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