McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

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White Linen Night.

August 14, 2014 /

Signs went up this morning. Main Street will be closed to traffic Saturday evening so we can waltz through the Rose District looking over artwork, crafts, food offerings, and beverages. White Linen Night.

You are invited to attend, regardless of whether you don your white linen wardrobe.

Our neighbors Greg (at Southern Magnolia) and Alisa (at Your Design) are the driving forces behind the Rose District’s 1st annual ‘White Linen Night.’

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If you’ve lived in New Orleans or Houston you may have experienced the festival’s origins, a summertime fashion funfest that mixes arts, shops, vendors, and musicians. Ours won’t be a tuxedo-event, so you needn’t worry about the high-fashion aspect so much as the simply-fun venture Saturday evening.

Along the sidewalks you’ll find local artists and their latest original creations. Between the curbs, you’ll encounter food trucks offering tasty and unique creations. And, of course, there will be music. Local, live musicians. (All the dead, zombie musicians were previously engaged.)

In front of the bookshop you’ll have a chance to taste our Bangers & Mash – at least, the street festival version. Instead of mashed potatoes and stew gravy, we’ll be serving up the spicy link sausages on a bun, proving that old Irish adage, “A banger in hand is worth two in the bushes.” Particularly when available with draft-style Boulevard Wheat.

You can see this afternoon’s project in the image – a little flyer to describe to folks what our menu item is. I’ve discovered that not everyone is familiar with Bangers and Mash. Of course, mash is just short for mashed potatoes. Bangers are sausage links. Why are they called bangers? I’m glad you asked.

During the wartime shortages, Europeans mixed a little cereal with the sausage meat to make a small portion into something a little more. Unfortunately, those cereal-extended sausages didn’t fry up in the skillet quite the same as they had in the past. In fact, the popping and banging noises were almost enough to set off the air-raid sirens, and those sausages came to be called Bangers.

We’ve kept the name but left out the infused cereal content. Just delicious hot links over mashed potatoes and covered in brown gravy and stew vegetables. That’s our twist on an old favorite. You can try it Saturday with the banger nestled in a bun, ballpark style.

It ought to be some fun.

Look for us Saturday. Ought to be easy to spot us. We’ll be in white.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Old dogs. New tricks.

August 11, 2014 /

There is so much to learn, and we only have one lifetime in which to master it all. At my stage of the game, I’m picking my lessons. Some are more entertaining than others. Today’s learning-project involved beer kegs.

Luckily, I have some life-experts that I can count on for advice. I’ve learned the hard way that I’d rather not learn things the hard way. Ronnie let me know that I could disconnect a full keg without it exploding. That’s important knowledge.

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When a keg ran out in the old days, someone would poke their head in the kitchen and call out that this keg or that keg had blown. I would dash into the walk-in refrigerator and start rocking kegs until I found an empty. Then, there is the little handle. Pop that up, then do the twist-on, twist-off thingy. Remove the valve from one and replace it on another with the same label.

And that was the extent of my knowledge. My partner kept track of that stuff. I had enough work to keep me busy in the kitchen.

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These days, when the handle is pulled and beer doesn’t come streaming out of the spout, I’m the one who has to figure it out. I’ve learned that the CO2 container is important. When the needle points to the red area on the gauge, that’s not good. When a newly-filled container is attached to the line and still the beer isn’t pouring, that’s even worse.

I’ve always thought that – where beer is concerned – the frostier, the better. When I saw the thermometer at 29-degrees, I could not have been happier, knowing that the refrigerator was doing its job so well. The machine believes it’s a freezer. Turns out, when it gets too cold, beer freezes.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

The beer was so cold that it froze inside the small line leading to the spout. (It’s still difficult to get mad at anyone or anything for doing a job so well…) It was easy enough to open the door long enough for the line to thaw and then turn the thermostat a notch.

From the internet I learned that beer served from a keg ought to be chilled to 38-degrees. That’s still pretty frosty. Just not freezing-up-frosty.

So, that’s the lesson for today. None of the Boulevard Wheat went out at lunchtime. The line was frozen solid. But tomorrow is another day, and beer & corned beef on rye is a pretty good combination.

Or so I’m told.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Another Encounter with the Little Giant

August 4, 2014 /

“Look out!” I hollered, and then looked toward the driver who was backing out of the parking space. He’d nearly hit me as I walked toward my car, but I smiled as soon as I saw who it was behind the wheel. No matter your politics, you extend an amount of courtesy and respect to a man who was next in line for the US presidency.

Even if it’s after a near-miss auto-pedestrian event.

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Carl Albert was retired by then, and maybe he was used to having a personal driver. Regardless, I survived the incident and got a friendly wave from him out of it.

Saw his name on the spine of a book during a weekend book-scouting run, and I couldn’t resist looking inside. I’m always tickled when there’s a signature inside the cover. Mr Albert signed this copy back in 1990. The handwriting is a little shaky, but he was 82 years old at the time – a few years older than he was the day we nearly bumped into each other in the parking lot. Literally.

It’s a bit of shame that the book has fallen out of the hands of the original owner’s family. It was inscribed to a granddaughter of a woman who had worked in Carl Albert’s first congressional campaign in 1946.

Mr Albert was born in a little community near Eufaula called Bug Tussel, but maintained an office in McAlester after his retirement from politics. As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mr Albert would have assumed the presidency during the Nixon administration, had the president been removed from office by impeachment. (Nixon resigned instead, as you recall.) Vice-President Spiro Agnew had already resigned, and the vacated office left House Speaker Carl Albert as the next in the line of succession to the big office.

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The occasion escapes me now, but I interviewed Mr Albert at his office one afternoon. It was something I could have easily accomplished over the telephone, but I wanted to meet him in person. To date, he remains the highest ranking Oklahoman ever to serve his country in elected office. Heck. There was even a bust of him mounted on a pedestal in front of the federal building at McAlester.

In fact, I had fielded what I thought was a crank phone call early one morning, when a tipster advised me that “Carl Albert was at the bottom of the McAlester Motor Inn swimming pool.” I phoned his office and his secretary assured me that Mr Albert was doing just fine at his desk.

It wasn’t until later in the day that I discovered my tip didn’t involve the man himself – just his bronze likeness. Some prankster had dislodged it from the granite mounting and carried it off before getting cold feet (or getting sober) and ridding himself of it. The former speaker was netted from eight feet of crystal clear water, and once landed, was returned to his place of honor on (where else?) Carl Albert Parkway.

That was the day I began taking all news tips seriously. At least long enough to determine if there might be some statue-fishing truth to any fishy-sounding story.

When I got the book back to the shop, I kicked myself a little. There probably aren’t too many folks who even remember Mr. Albert and his service to the US, or the small-town Oklahoma upbringing that started a journey to one of the nation’s highest offices. The book may be a long-term occupant here in the store.

But that’s okay. I’ll consider the book a souvenir of the day I crossed paths with a high-falootin’ politician and lived to talk about it. I couldn’t save him from the swimming pool back then, but Mr Albert can keep me company here in the shop as long as he likes. Or until I find him a good home.

And he needn’t fear the backing-up of the bookcart.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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