When life gets you down, at least there’s still food… (Deserter passports and Chicago Blues Fest – Picture-heavy)
Okay, so that’s probably along the same lines of “if you’re having a bad day, eat a gallon quart pint small bowl of ice cream,” and that’s really not the best idea always, but it’s kinda true. I have a thing for comfort food, which really just means that any accessible food is likely to make me feel better, hehe.
A couple weeks ago, everything that could’ve gone wrong, pretty much did. Long story short, my passport went missing 5 days before before a huge international trip was set to take place. After searching for 12+ hours, turning the house upside down (no really, that includes moving the stove and fridge….the unimaginable and forgotten were even scoured repeatedly), numerous meltdowns, and a dozen calls that led to feeling like I was harassing government officials (oops?), I finally got a glimmer of hope.
Chicago has a National Passport Agency where I could potentially get an appointment and receive a passport same day. Unfortunately, their soonest appointment wasn’t until after my trip was scheduled anyway, but a couple meltdowns later, more searching, and more harassing (double oops?), I finally got someone that talked to a superior and got my name put on an emergency standby list. He still told me that it was highly unlikely I’d get called, and even if I did, it’d be if an opening came up….and considering Chicago was a 5-6 hour drive away from me, it’s not like I could make a last minute appointment anyway, but no matter. It was more than I had before.
Oh, and my original birth certificate was discovered missing, too. Did I mention that? No? Well I did say that everything that could’ve gone wrong, did go wrong, didn’t I? You should’ve assumed it wasn’t just a passport slipup. And getting a new passport in Chicago, meant also having to provide a lovely raised-embossed birth certificate copy. I was born a state over, so guess what I did the day after discovering this? I drove across the border to a state office that would give me a copy right then and there instead of paying to have it express-shipped to me, with no guarantee I’d get it before the weekend.
At the point where I had to give up on finding my passport (there’s a landfill laughing at me somewhere, I’m sure), I had to focus on making backup plans. It wasn’t the easiest to do, but the trip must go on. And lo and behold, while I was sitting in St. Louis having lunch after getting my birth certificate, they called.
Chicago freakin’ called! I couldn’t believe it! They told me if I showed up on Friday morning before they opened, they’d get me in, and I could have a passport by that afternoon….which was the day before my plane was set to leave, and left me only a single day to pack and prep everything. Yikes! But whatever, I had an appointment! In Chicago! And I could make my trip!
(I don’t understand these statues. Why are they being sprayed??)
So to Chicago we went. It was exhausting, leaving at 3 am, running into floods (yes, even with a more promising outlook, things continued to go wrong), detouring, hopping a train, walking to the place, going through security, and finally waiting in line as the 3 people in front of me were turned away because of problems with their applications or pictures. But I made it. And they let me have a passport 6 long hours later!
And while I waited? We walked to the park and discovered that a Blues Fest was being set up and would be available to enter in about half an hour. Hmm, Blues Fest? Not necessarily my type of music, but fest = food, and food is awesome. We walked around a bit longer and then hit it up.
Fortunately, food was definitely aplenty and we went the route of choosing a few different “blues bites” options….which are partial portions of food for cheaper prices, so we could try more without having to decide on just one or two items.
That’s the part you’re here for, right? The food! It’s certainly the part *I’m* here for, but I couldn’t appreciate the food without all the hassle and frustration that led to it. Ah well.
Pulled pork from Robinson’s was awesome-tastic with tons of sauce and tender meat. Or maybe we were just starving, but it sure hit the spot.
We sampled some mustard catfish, but with only 3 pieces, I was a bit underwhelmed. Oh well.
And Billy Goat’s? Well we passed by them at least 3 times because they were “just burgers” but they were also actively yelling out, encouraging people to come by, and after a bit, their enthusiasm won my tickets. Unfortunately, they really were “just burgers,” even though I was really hoping they’d be something a bit more special. Again, oh well. At least I had my BBQ pork still, hehe.
You can’t go to Chicago without having some authentic Chicago deep dish pizza, right? Wrong. The “blues bites” option at the pizza place actually wasn’t pizza at all. :S Strange. Instead, it was shaved ice and worked out well for us to have a “drink/dessert” with the food….and the tickets ended up falling in a way that we grabbed a second one of these on our way back to the passport agency. Not bad.
And the entertainment was fun. Guy King and his Little Big Band were okay, but my eyes were glued to a guy in the crowd the entire time (well, between bites anyway). Check him out, dancing to the beat, all by himself.
Wish I would’ve gotten more of his excited moves, but every time I’d put down my camera is when he’d get into it again.
Did I mention I got my passport? Yay!
<3
Fries are just a vehicle for dipping sauces
I love a good fry. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, hot, and salted just enough to not be overbearing.
A bad fry? Still edible. Soggy, mushy, unsalted or salted too much, chewy, cardboardy, droopy. Whatever.
While I can adore a good fry without any sauce at all, I think they truly shine as just a dipping sauce vehicle. I don’t just mean ketchup either. Mustard, french dressing, salsa, cottage cheese, cheese, barbecue sauce. Whatever.
So it’s no surprise that when we stopped by Arby’s, I didn’t turn down a single sauce offered.
Actually, I started off by ordering their new buffalo chicken sandwich, hoping the sauce there would offer something new, but I can say that it was underwhelming enough that I just added Arby’s sauce to give it flavor. Oops.
The fries were the real stars of the meal, though. Delicious rings of deep-fried potatoes in all sorts of sizes and shapes, perfect for smothering in creamy sauces.
Arby’s and horsey sauce were of course featured, along with trying their honey mustard and a triple pepper sauce that had a funky taste that we couldn’t quite place. Weird.
The absolute best way to use fries is to scoop up the sopping mess from over-saucing an Arby’s roast beef sandwich with a combo of Arby’s bbq sauce and horseradish sauce. I don’t care how unhealthy it may be or how disgusting it might sound or look even, as an occasional treat, it rocks my socks.
Who knew fries were such multi-taskers, huh?
Ladybugs on boats and bacon caterpillars – Tyson grilled chicken
I guess they’re more like rafts, since I didn’t add bacon sails like I considered, but still better than ants on a log.
Actually, my final dish is completely different than what I originally had in mind. Tyson and Foodbuzz sent me a coupon to try out Tyson’s new Grilled & Ready items. Turns out, my store only carries the chicken variety and not the steak like I was planning on, so those plans got scrapped.
Then I thought they were more stick-like and less flat, so my ideas involving various sized cubes wasn’t really going to look right. The next step I got mostly right, realizing they were larger pieces, but I was a bit disappointed to see that it wasn’t all strips like I thought it’d be.
See? There are a fair number of chicken strip type pieces but most weren’t very long and there were way more “bits” than I would’ve expected. Oh well. At least there were plenty of little pieces to taste test, I guess. :P
Ultimately, instead of the chicken becoming the main focus of the dish like would be typical of a review, the pieces were used as vehicles for my ladybugs. Had there been more full pieces like there should’ve been, there would’ve been way more ladybugs.
I wanted some bacon caterpillars, but wasn’t sure how well they’d hold up.
To get this little guys, I sliced turkey bacon into smaller strips, folded it onto toothpicks (skewers for the larger snake-esque ones, and just free form with the squiggly ones), and baked them on an greased baking sheet.
They slid off surprisingly well, but that left me with some holes to deal with. Which of course meant, more smiley faces. :P
It looks more like a ghost there, huh? Ooooooo.
While I’m at it, I had some other, um, odd turnouts. Before I settled on exactly how to make the ladybugs, I tried several variations.
Some were obviously better than others. When I was trying to cut the tomatoes the other direction, I got some weird lumpy ones, so I added smiley faces to those, too, and made ‘em look like something from Monsters Inc.
Alright, alright, enough pictures. Anyway, Tyson’s Grilled & Ready chicken was definitely tasty. L even said it was her favorite part of the dish, even over and above the bacon (*gasp*). It stayed tender and moist, heated up quickly, and the grill marks were a nice touch. I do wish the pieces had been more uniform in size and shape, but oh well, it tasted great and gave me a reason to split up the package into two dishes.
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