McHuston Booksellers

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Tag: Irish (Page 106 of 112)

The women and Jessie’s Girl.

January 11, 2013 /

Wow.

It’s something when just reading a headline can make your face turn hot from embarrassment. The article was on the Tulsa World website and reads:

Rick Springfield Sets Return Tulsa Trip

It could be that you’re in that group that has never heard of Rick Springfield. After all, it was about thirty years ago that he starred on the television soap opera General Hospital. In truth, he was a seasoned musician and fairly well known in his home country before he came to the US.

His song Jessie’s Girl hit #1 in 1981 at the same time he was playing the television role, and he found himself working TV scripts and touring concert arenas at the same time. I found myself in a concert arena in Tulsa sitting next to my wife, who was an avid General Hospital viewer and fan of Jessie’s Girl.

I had no idea what I was in for.

There had to have been plenty of other males there, but I sure felt like the only one. Maybe we were all shrinking back into seat cushion invisibility. On the other hand, the women all seemed to be leaping, shouting, and generally drawing attention to themselves. At least, that’s the way I remember it.

The song still gets played on occasion, but I haven’t heard it in some time. According to Jennifer Chancellor’s account in the World, the song enjoyed a revival in popularity when it was featured on Glee. I missed that one, too, but I’m happy for any 80’s-era rocker who can still sell tickets for casino performances and entertain crowds at age 63. Springfield played the River Spirit Event Center last year, probably boosted by the Glee promotion.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think Rick Springfield’s concert was horrible, necessarily. It was a matter of being in the midst of so many vocal fans and feeling out of place. There is sort of concert karma, though.

I got out of taking my daughter to the Backstreet Boys concert when they made a Tulsa appearance. I’m pretty sure I’d have felt a lot more out of place there.

In the meantime, any of you new or veteran Rick Springfield fans might enjoy his recently published memoir – Late, Late at Night – which came out in paperback last year and is ready for some reading, late, late at night.

A pie for your eye.

November 28, 2012 /

That’s what the image is – Eye Pie – (as opposed to eye-candy).The pie itself is intended for the hungry stomach.

For me, it’s comfort food. Maybe because I served up so many in the days at Paddy’s Irish Restaurant I thought everybody knew what a Shepherd’s Pie was, and ordered one regularly for good health, vigor, and shiny hair. (Or just because they taste good…) Sure, the recipe may vary from place to place, but it has basically the same ingredients: Meat, potatoes, cheese.

McHuston-style is similar to that served up at Paddy’s back in the day: a heaping helping of Irish Stew topped with fresh, mashed-by-hand potatoes and grated cheddar cheese. A bit o’ stew gravy over the spuds. We used to melt the cheddar but it seemed to me that caused all the cheese to come off in a single bite.

There is another version in Broken Arrow that consists of a slice of meatloaf topped with mash and cheddar. I’ve seen it cooked up in a casserole dish with a mixed vegetables covered with a thick layer of mashed potatoes and topped with cheese, then baked to a lasagna-like consistency.

The baking process adds a crispiness to the top of the potatoes and melts in the cheese, and probably is closer to a pie – from which it originated. Personally, I like my mashed potatoes fluffy rather than crispy, so I leave out the baking step. The stew and taters are already cooked anyway… In the 1700s, the potato was finally becoming accepted as an inexpensive and widely available food source in Europe (after being grown for centuries in other parts of the world…). The term cottage pie came to describe a meat pie made from leftover roasted meat and cooked in a pan lined with potatoes.

Of course, there are no leftovers in the Shepherd’s Pie here, since the roast is prepared especially for the stew. And while the term Shepherd’s Pie can indicate the dish contains mutton, that doesn’t necessarily hold true in the US. This is beef country, and we all know it.

My stew and mashed potato cooking is better than my photography, but I took a cell phone shot of the Shepherd’s Pie to include in some of the little table-topper signs.

At least it will give those unfamiliar with this humble (but tasty!) dish an idea of what they’ll find in front of them should they decide to give it a try!

Serving at lunchtime Monday thru Friday, 11:30am to 1:30pm. Call-in orders to go at a 10% discount: 918-258-3301.

Keeping up with the Updates

October 18, 2012 /

Something made me think about it, and when I did, I realized that I had a menu posted on the website that had not been updated.

Not in a good while.

Looking it over before I updated, I could see good intentions everywhere with a heaping spoon-full of impracticality. A friend had told me after looking over an early version of the menu that I needed to remember that I was running a book store that sold food, not a restaurant with some books around. He was right.

That version of the menu was pared down to the one that I just updated. As it turned out, when the waiter, the cook, the cashier, and the dishwasher are all the same person – it has to be a limited selection of items that can be easily presented. Oh yeah – it helps if they taste good.

I’ve mentioned before that things are ever changing, which shouldn’t be viewed as a negative. It keeps things fresh and edgy. Fresh I like. Edgy? I don’t know, but sometimes it gets the adrenaline started and that can be a good thing too.

It has been fun for me serving lunch, even if it gets a little hectic at times. Those of you who have allowed me to serve you lunch, I appreciate the opportunity – and hope you’ll be back soon!

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