So this is where Evil lives
I don’t know what’s inside this building in the Chelsea area of Manhattan, but I assume it involves cloven hoofed animals and geometric shapes. Needless to say, they didn’t have a welcome mat.
The Gamble House, Pasadena
Checked out the Gamble House in Pasadena today. It’s a gorgeous example of the Arts and Crafts architectural movement, but all I could think about is that they used the house as Doc Brown’s residence in “Back to the Future.” The garage doesn’t have a DeLorean or a flux capacitor, but it does have pricey coffee table books on architecture.
You know you’re in an affluent neighborhood if…
This is your toy store.
I just wanted to buy a Super Soaker.
Some Good Southern Eatin’ at the Silver Skillet
Admittedly, I really didn’t plan for my trip to Atlanta, and I didn’t know much about the place before arriving. I was ready to see and eat whatever came my way, and boy was I in good hands. Lilly from the podcast Out There Atlanta helped guide me through the countless points of interest and mountains of delicious food Hotlanta has to offer. Oh, by the way, “Hotlanta” is a nickname I thought of for Atlanta. You should start using it. I think it might catch on.
We started our day with a fantastic breakfast at the Silver Skillet.
The Skillet has been open since 1956, and it still has that old diner look to it, including those metal stools at the diner.
Being a Yankee, I wanted to try a “traditional” Southern breakfast, and boy did they have that.
Grits, two eggs over easy, some country ham (which is cured in a way that makes it super salty, but great to dip in the creamy, bland grits). And then redeye gravy, an essential part of the country ham experience according to our waitress. Lots of soy sauce in that gravy. The ham was pretty seasoned already, so I didn’t have much of it, but I’m glad it was at least on my plate.
Not salivating yet? Here are some closeups:
Just look at that amount of butter! That’s some good diner food right there.
You know what makes grits even tastier? Two pads of butter. Yeah, totally did that. But none of this food compared to their Lemon Icebox Pie. Yes, it was 9 in the morning, but it was pie o’clock somewhere in the world. This piece of pie was seriously delicious.
A Nilla Wafers crust, whipped cream, but that lemon filling–whew. I don’t know what goes on in that icebox, but they need to keep doing it.
Sprinkles for Breakfast
I didn’t know about hagelslag before visiting Amsterdam, but my local friend quickly filled me in on this Dutch food. When I first heard the word, I couldn’t escape the image of Scotland’s traditional dish, Haggis. I was very, very wrong thinking that. Hagelslag isn’t sheep innards simmered in a stomach at all. It’s actually buttered toast topped with sprinkles.
Delicious, right? Can’t go wrong with butter, bread, and sprinkles. But even with only three ingredients, hagelslag is pretty tough to eat. Frankly, it has some engineering failures. I love me some sprinkles, but only when they are well secured by more sugar. Hagelslag lacks either frosting or a glaze to hold down the sprinkles. As wonderful as butter tastes, it fails as an adhesive. These Hagelslag sprinkles are completely loose, precariously balanced on frictionless bread and prone to falling off if you don’t eat the bread completely horizontally. With every lift of the bread, a few more sprinkles roll away and meet their unfortunate fate of hitting the ground, uneaten. I tried to eat over my basket so I could eat the rebel sprinkles later. This is when I discovered there is no dignified way to eat a handful of loose sprinkles. Try it. It’s impossible.
It seems like the Dutch have learned to overcome these hagelslag pitfalls and are going back for seconds. They even sell hagelslag in their grocery stores.
And this is a breakfast item, which isn’t really strange, I guess. Having a little something sweet to start the day seems to be a Western World favorite. Americans have donuts, and the Dutch have hagelslag. But there must be some way to make these chocolate sprinkles more easily spreadable on bread. Like, some kind of spreadable chocolate. Wait a second, that’s Nutella! Far be it for me to try and change a nation’s traditional food choices, but seriously, someone tell the Dutch about Nutella. It would solve all of my eating problems when I visit their country.
