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Tag: Featured (Page 12 of 43)

It’s a Happy St. Pat’s Day to ya!

March 17, 2014 /

Hard to imagine a St. Patrick’s Day without some kind of stress (from a restaurateur’s point of view), but this one goes in the books that way. Granted, the celebration here was an abbreviated version, compared to some year’s events, and those planned elsewhere. The fire-marshal-at-the-door-year comes to mind, for example…He was most gracious though, that year, and said we could “carry on our party.”

Once again, Kristen the super-daughter stepped in to make it all work smoothly. I ventured out from the kitchen when I could, just so I dash among the tables spreading blarney. (One of my many vices.) She is always great at taking care of the guests and making sure everyone has what they need for a good experience.

I have the apron on yet, ready to tackle the stack of dishes and glassware that resulted from the St. Paddy’s Day lunch. The feel-good afterglow even knocks down the burden of hand-washing all those plates and bowls. I do miss the big sanitizing machine we had at Paddy’s Irish.

(We now interrupt the blog for this news-brief: I just fielded a telephone call with a question about how busy it would be tonight. Not all all. One of these days we’ll graduate to the Big Boy party circuit. Maybe. Having been in that league during my years at Paddy’s Irish in Tulsa, I’m not sure I’m ready to jump back into the party-pit.)

Today was genuinely enjoyable.

A fellow just popped in wondering about the evening’s Irish menu. I hate to disappoint potential partiers, but I had hardly recovered from the Saturday evening cooking and serving before I was back in the kitchen again, prepping for Monday’s lunch. Those carrots and potatoes still won’t peel and chop themselves, despite my repeated training sessions. Of course, after I admitted we’d already had our little party, he said he was planning to visit Main Street Tavern anyway…

So, there weren’t any bagpipers playing. Some are relieved when that happens, but I happen to enjoy them. We had no Celtic guitars and penny-whistlers. No riverdancers. There was enough of the Clancy Brothers to prompt a “Can you turn it down?” request. And that was okay, too.

Time marches on. Eventually, I’ll need a cane to keep up with it, I suppose.

For now though, I’m sure I’m not the only one a wee bit relieved that the festivities of the pot o’ gold type are over for the year. (Reference: Saturday evening’s ShamRock the Rose festival in the Rose District, and everyone who worked so hard to make that event come off as planned, or – at least – near to the plan.) At the restaurant in Tulsa, we had a tradition in place. There were alterations to the formula, to be sure, but it was a bit of carry on and keep it up.

Here, it was a first-time thing. (Last year, St. Paddy’s fell on a Sunday, creating its own set of difficulties.) But, from here on out, there is an experience to build on. And, Hey! Maybe next year we’ll even publicize our little party. Who knows?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all! And to those of you who allowed us to serve you lunch and a green beer or shamrock punch:

Go raibh míle maith agat!

(If you want to say it out loud, that’s – Guh Rev Meeluh Mah Og-ut.)

Roughly translated from Irish Gaelic: Thanks a million!

Come visit!

McHuston

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

Rose-colored glasses looking Green!

March 16, 2014 /

One thing about working on your day off – you can tackle the jobs at your own pace. So here I am, taking a break from chopping vegetables, looking over some pictures from the first ShamRock the Rose festival. Here comes my admission, right up front, honest and forthright.

I had my doubts. Once again, I was wrong.

Predictably (pun-intended), there were the expected dire forecasts from the meteorologists, which made me worry. (Those are the same who advised us, when it got cold and snowy, that we should all stay home – or die. I didn’t and I didn’t. My customers did, regrettably. Stay home, that is. Not die.)

This time the prediction was for a 100% chance of rain beginning at noon.

Mention of severe tossed in, just for good measure.

As it turned out, the rain held off and the festival got underway as scheduled. A net-posted photograph indicated sparse attendance, but it was obviously a snapshot taken early on. On our part of the Rose, there were plenty of folks wandering about, and many of them stopped at our door-front table. We were offering Irish Stew and – Surprise! – green beer.

Based on the festival sales, I decided to up my preparation for St. Paddy’s Day’s lunch service. Back in my Paddy’s Irish Restaurant days, we were strong on corned beef and cabbage, Irish whiskeys, and – of course – green beer. We had a great kitchen staff back then. My kitchen staff here is – me.

So, I’m planning to do what I know I can manage on my own. Some of you will recognize my lovely daughter Kristen in the image. (It was the Luck o’ the Irish that she didn’t inherit the old man’s face.) She’s agreed to help out during the St. Paddy’s lunch, which will make it a much smoother service.

We’ll be offering green beer to go along with corned beef on rye, if you like. Or Irish stew, if you prefer. Potato soup, as always. Shepherd’s Pie with the hand-mashed potatoes and stew gravy. Some Irish music, as you might expect.

Compared to the old days, it will be a small party. But we’ll be in good spirits and wishing everyone the merriest of St. Patrick’s Days from the heart of the Rose District.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

The Most Famous Author You Never Heard Of.

March 8, 2014 /

The Summer of Joe and Frank was marked by almost-daily hikes to the public library, where a summer reading program for kids was offering a gummed-back sticker for every completed book. I’ve always had a competitive streak, and figured the way to fill up my stick’em-on page was to tackle the Hardy Boys.

There was certainly a collection of titles. The Tower Treasure was the first book in the series, and when I carried a copy home that summer, it had already been read by generations of young boys. Of course, I didn’t know that. (Just the beginning of things I didn’t know.)

As young sleuths, Joe and Frank Hardy found their way into all the exciting situations a kid could imagine. Their father is the great detective Fenton Hardy, but – as every boy reading the book would have it – the cases are solved by the brothers, who must rescue their dad, more often than not.

More than 70-million copies have been sold, in some two-dozen languages, quite a writing-plume in the cap of Franklin W. Dixon.

Except he didn’t write a single word.

Maybe I was the last one in the world to learn it, but Franklin W. Dixon was a made-up-name created by Edward Stratemeyer, a New Jersey writer and businessman. Mr. Stratemeyer grew up in Elizabethtown, where his father and brothers were successful entrepreneurs. Edward quit their cigar-making business to manufacture stories.

He created a couple of brother-detectives, and then – over the course of his lifetime – hired writers to pen the stories for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, his publishing firm. And he didn’t stop with the boys. Nancy Drew became the fictional counterpart, penned by Carolyn Keene (another name made up by Mr. Stratemeyer).

When his stable was complete, Edward Stratemeyer and his firm had to their credit, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Twins, and others. All told, the juvenile fiction titles have sold more than 500 million copies, and most are still in print. Stratemeyer alone is said to have written over a thousand books.

At his death in 1930, the reins of the business were turned over to his Wellesley College educated daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who was just as prolific as her father and wrote books under several of the pen-names.

It’s obvious that I would have been the dumb-as-dirt sidekick in the Hardy Boy world. It took me all these years to figure out the Case of the Secret Writers. I can only offer the single true fact that kept me from learning the truth before now.

I didn’t have a clue.

Read’em if you got’em. And if you don’t…

Come visit!

McHuston

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

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