Spaghetti Western

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Italy

To be fair I didn’t have spaghetti but the restaurant was such a ghost town tumbleweeds were blowing through.

It occurred to me that I have really given Italian restaurants a short shrift for much the same reason I avoid the standard Chinese & Mexican restaurants in every shopping plaza in America. They tend to be generic and for all practical purposes share the same menus. Acknowledging that prejudice I decided to give a local Italian joint a chance.

Right around the corner from me I have two to chose from, located in adjacent shopping plazas, Mario’s & Luigi’s. It makes me chuckle every time I think about it, all we’re missing is a Princess Peach Ice Cream Parlor. I’ve eaten at both since moving to Rock Hill so I knew Mario’s had very little in the way of atmosphere and the menu was pretty standard. Luigi’s has the Italian restaurant aesthetic with pictures, vines, and wines.

When I got there the staff was already outnumbering the customers and the single table of 3 left shortly after I arrived so I was soon the lone diner. My server was very nice and attentive throughout the meal. The menu did have the staples of various noodles with red sauce or alfredo and various parmigianas plus of course pizzas. I decided on the Chicken ala Luigi as something that was a little different.

The Chicken ala Luigi was a couple of thin chicken breast pieces lightly floured and seasoned along with mushrooms and artichokes in a garlic, white wine sauce over fettuccine. It came with 3 little garlic bread sticks. The first bite was not impressive. The sauce was decent but it felt like it was missing something. I got a bite with some of the chicken and the blank was filled in, salt. The bit of salt from the seasoned chicken made the difference and the same for the bread that had garlic salt on it. It had the effect of making one appreciate the chicken and bread more than usual. Now lest you wonder why I didn’t just add some additional salt, I probably would have as a reflex except there was no salt or pepper on the table. I decided not bother requesting any and just enjoy the extra importance the chicken and bread assumed.

Honestly if I had to pick between this and Olive Garden the only reason I’d pick Luigi & Sons is because they were local and not a chain.

One bit of amusement I probably wouldn’t have gotten at the Olive Garden was my server talking with a co-worker about things going on in their lives and a subject came up that the one said to the other, “That’s probably not something to talk about out here”. They walked into the kitchen and because of the noise raised their voices so I heard the conversation even clearer than when they were standing in the dining area.

It was good enough I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it even if I’m not making it a regular on the “I’m too lazy to cook tonight” tour.

Trail Head

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So as I mentioned in the last entry my plan was to start hitting the international flavored restaurants again and while Legal Remedy Brewing doesn’t represent any country specifically there are some tenuous international connections which I’ll point out a bit later.

What kind of derailed my initial plans were the weather and downloading the Visit York County app so I could do the Brew Trail & Taste Trail. One is a list of breweries in the county and if you check in at 6 of 8 you can get a t-shirt and the the taste trail has a list of 15 or so restaurants and if you hit 12 and have their “signature” dish you can also get a t-shirt. I saw these as win, win, win contests and I love winning contests. I decided to start both at the one establishment that gave me a twofer being on both lists. Legal Remedy Brewing is also a place I’m familiar with and like.

Their signature dish for the Taste Trail is an appetizer, Southern Poutine.

Here’s our first international connection, Poutine is a Canadian dish, eh. The LRB Southern version happens to be well fried, semi-crispy French fries topped with smoked jalapeno pimento cheese, bacon, and pepper jelly. Initially I disdained cutlery and proceeded to play a sort of edible jenga game where the goal was to get a hold of the fry with toppings and not get any on me. That led to a leisurely dining experience until people started noticing the intense concentration and deliberation with which I was eating and I think they started worrying about my sanity. When the fork and knife were brought to bear the pace was accelerated and the bacon and pimento cheese disappeared in a frenzy of fries.

The pimento cheese was good but I didn’t notice much smokey or jalapeno-y about it. The pepper jelly was an interesting addition that was more jelly and peppery. The bacon was just right. Overall it was enjoyable the portion generous enough I didn’t even finish it all. The beer might have helped in making me feel full.

As is my want in a place that offers the option, I got a flight of the seasonal offerings. As you can see I got a mix of light and dark. I started with the heaviest and went lighter as the meal progressed. The Barrel Aged: Elements of a Crime was an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels and conditioned (I have no idea what that means) on Brazil Monte Verdi coffee from a local roaster. And there’s the other international connection, Brazilian coffee. The stout was just that and had very much embraced the barrel and its bourbonness.

The next dark beer was Exhibit:Gingerbread Porter. A mild porter that had some hints of clove but that was about the only one of the winter spices it was brewed with I could discern. After the two dark ones I had the Probation Pilsner, a German pilsner with a light flavor and hints of evergreen. I saved the Bribery Bittersweet Orange Wheat for dessert. A sip of that provided a nice flash of orange that quickly dissolved into a bitter finish, in a good way.

In summation your honor it was a good lunch and a great start to the trails.

Holiday Yums

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Well after several weeks of laziness I decided to drop the December Holiday Yums box entry.

The 2019 Holiday box had 13 snacks from 13 different countries; Spain, Uruguay, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Philippines, France, Jordan, Austria, Croatia, Belgium, Japan, and Poland. There were a couple of repeats from previous boxes but mostly it was new stuff. My favorite was a repeat.

The Jabri Mixed Baklava was my favorite from last year’s Holiday box as well. The regular is great but the birds nest version with pistachios is just a special treat. It did have some competition this year in the form of a Belgian treat.

If I haven’t said it before I’ll say it now, white chocolate is not my jam but add some cinnamon cookie bits and I’m inviting you to the party. It was like an uber-sweet snickerdoodle. A little went a long way sort of like the most unusual paring of the box.

The Spanish weighed in again with a twisted chip flavor because someone thought, “you know what this chip needs? Raspberries!” It really didn’t. It was better than I expected but I had the bar pretty low going in. The raspberry flavor was reasonably muted so it was more like a distraction from a quality chip that an enhancement. The French, not to be left out of the chip wars said “hold mon bier”.

Roasted chicken chips? I had high expectations in spite of past experience with most “meat” flavored chips. First chip had me impressed and thinking “by golly these do have a roast chicken flavor” by about the 4th chip though I was over it.  It was just too much of the roast chicken flavor, which is something I never imagined saying. I could’t even finish the bag. Croatia managed to come in with powerful entry though that I did finish.

As soon as the package was opened the garlic smell ventured forth like it was planning to conquer the world or at least the room.  The pretzel sticks were good and crunchy even with the hollow core that was loaded with garlic.  I do mean loaded.  It was so garlicky I had to go brush my teeth and gargle just so I could move on with my day. 

Most interesting taste sensation goes to the Polish gingerbread.

This was actually the first thing I had from the box. Gingerbread snacks have been hit or miss but this entry with black currant icing was tasty and light with a hard glaze icing.  For the interesting taste sensation. As I was biting it I got a strong hint of black currant that was like a combination of scent and taste but it hadn’t yet hit the tongue. This certainly has happened with other foods but this was probably the most remarkable because the black currant taste on eating it was very subtle until I was finished and then it lingered. Good start, good finish.

The other snacks were mostly good with a couple of so so but the grade for the Holiday box was an A-.

The next blog entry will have me out and about again for a lunch at one of a couple of new (to me) restaurants I’ve found.

   

Spanish Yum

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The Culinary Passport has been gathering dust recently and I need to get that turned around and do some searching for new restaurants. Until that happens here’s another box review. Goodies from Spain as curated by Universal Yums.

I didn’t have any ideas what the folks in Spain may be snacking on but if the box is a good representation they have a bit of a sweet tooth. I was definitely looking forward to trying them out.

The snack I enjoyed most was the Lucasas Trufas, cocoa dusted chocolate truffles.

These little treats were a chocolate lovers friend. The chocolate was very good quality showcasing the why people would go to the dark side for their chocolate. Very rich and smooth and more than enough to enjoy over several days. The cocoa dusting was a good addition from a flavor standpoint but it was kind of like glitter in that it got everywhere.

My second favorite was about as far away from the truffles as you could get and still be a sweet.

The Gummi Spicy Mangos were definitely a fun treat. Of course they have the chewy, stretchy gummi consistency and a pronounced mango flavor that lulls you into a false complacency. I was thinking to myself, “these aren’t too spi…Hey now!” That spice comes out of nowhere to tango with your mango. It was quite the surprise and the combo was great.

There was a tie for the worst snack. Unlike some other months where that is really just my least favorite these were just not good.

The first one was supposed to be a ham flavored corn puff but it was mostly just puff. The flavor was not good and the texture was more like a decades old cheese puff without the cheese flavor or the unnatural orange color. The second was also supposed to be a corn based snack that was ketchup and mustard flavored. I was skeptical of these off the bat and they lived down to my expectations. The flavors were just nonexistent. The best use for them was as packing material to make sure the other snacks didn’t get damaged in transit.

The most unusual was probably more of a mental thing plus some bias based on hearsay.

I figured this one could go either way. I’d heard people who’d tried egg chips before comment they were nasty, smelled bad and / or were just weird. With that feedback I opened the bag with mild trepidation as I expected an assault on my nasal passages. There was not so much as a skirmish. I even decided to get in there and take a good whiff and while it did smell a tad eggy it wasn’t as bad as a boiled egg. The flavor was mildly eggish and not unpleasant at all. The chip was a quality chip to boot so I enjoyed them even if it was a combo I would not have put together.

For me the Spanish box was a mixed bag or box in this case. In addition to the favorites covered I really enjoyed some lemon cookies, a smoky snack mix, some dark chocolate covered peanuts and the Cortadillo Relleno de Crema that was OMG sweet but tasty. But there was also an olive oil, almond and spice cookie thing that couldn’t commit to being sweet or savory and suffered from the indecision.

The December box is a holiday box that is a virtual UN of snacks with 13 different countries represented and I already tried one from Poland and it was delicious.

Austrian Yum

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The October box from Universal Yums had delicious snacks from Austria.

I had some high expectations for this one and there was plenty of chocolate plus some savory items that left me with a positive impression of the snack scene in Austria. There was nothing I didn’t like at least a little so the “worst” item will be the least liked.

My favorite was the Pischinger Mandel Ecken, little chocolate covered, almond topped wafers with almond creme in a tasty little square.

The milk chocolate was decent quality and the almond crunch paired with the crispy wafer worked well. There were a generous number of them and as an accompaniment to a cup of coffee it was outstanding.

My second favorite was a toss up between some Cool Mint Lemon patties and the winner, Schoko-Erdbeeren.

This was a big old bag of strawberry shaped treats. The dark chocolate shell covered a strawberry filling of an interesting consistency. It was like a cross between cream and jelly fillings, very odd but full of artificial strawberry flavor. It was weird and delicious.

My least favorite wasn’t bad but just the laggard in a decent box.

The Milch Wafflets also had strawberry flavor and chocolate but it just wasn’t in the same class. The wafers were not as crispy as the ones in the several other snacks that had wafer cookies. They were a bit styrofoamy. So they were meh.

The weirdest one in the bunch was the Big Banana.

It was a chocolate shell very much like the strawberries but not quite as dark. That shell covered a banana flavored core that again shared a consistency with the strawberries but the artificial banana flavor was not top of the line. It was pretty darn big though.

Everything I’ve highlighted was sweet but there were a couple of savory snacks as well; some Paprika Chips of the potato variety and some Creamy Onion Mini Fritts french fry sticks. There were some additional chocolate snacks and a gingerbread cookie that had hazelnuts, almonds, honey and candied orange peel. Overall the box was loaded with leckerein.

Next box is from Spain and I have no clue what to expect.

BBQ Bonus

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I was travelling to the eastern part of North Carolina for a family gathering and decided to go a bit out of my way to try a restaurant that is on just about any Best BBQ in NC or Southeast list you care to check out.

Skylight Inn BBQ is not exactly on the beaten path unless you’re from Ayden, NC but it’s worth trodding the unbeaten for.

I got there early for dinner, about 4:30, and there were a half dozen cars in the lost and people walking out with bags of to go food. The main area has seating with dining rooms off to the side and is shaped like a half hexagon or an isosceles trapezoid if you prefer. Going with the half hexagon analogy the bisecting line was the ordering counter. They keep it pretty simple with 3 tray sizes a sandwich and barbecued chicken plus just a few sides. I got a medium tray and drink for less than 10 bucks.

Well it wasn’t fancy but it was delicious and honestly it was some of the best BBQ I’ve eaten. The coleslaw was just cabbage slaw and was really too sweet in my opinion but I can see it going nicely on a BBQ sandwich with the slightly tangy sauce. The cornbread can only be described as a slab. It was dense and heavy but much better than I was expecting. In contrast to the slaw it was not nearly as sweet as a lot of cornbread you get at restaurants. Now the BBQ. As you can see it is pretty well chopped but you occasionally get chunks of solid meat. The smoked flavor is easy to taste but not overpowering and there are also crispy bits of skin mixed in like little prizes as you eat. I ate most of it without adding any of the sauce found on the table but I did try that as well. It was ok, not as thick as a lot of store bought sauces but similar enough that I don’t think it really added much to the meat.

So if you find yourself in the neighborhood or want to go wandering definitely give them a try.

A Tail of Two Crabs

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After months of having an Opening Soon sign out front a new restaurant opened just down the road from me. Knowing it was a seafood place and boils were going to be a thing with them I was eagerly waiting to give it a try. In the meantime another, similar restaurant opened a few miles further away so when this one finally opened I figured I’d give them both a try and compare.

The place near me is called Yummy Crab. When they first hung the Opening Soon sign it was going to be called Crazy Crab. I don’t know if the mental health community or Big Crustacean got involved but the name got changed to Yummy Crab before it opened.

The building they were in was also previously a seafood restaurant and it has a very large seating capacity that was largely unused when I went for lunch. This suited me fine as I got good service and got in and out rapidly while having a good lunch. They have fried and boiled seafood but I came for the boil so I really didn’t pay the rest of the menu much mind. I got the lunch snow crab legs. (The original pics I took I accidentally deleted so this is from a second visit)

The boils come with different types of seafood and they have combos and add-ins. I kept it simple and got the 1/2 lb snow crab legs lunch special which came with a potato, small cob of corn and a boiled egg (this was a new thing to me). Once you pick the seafood and add-ins you pick a flavor, I went with Cajun, and a spice level, medium for a first try.

It was delivered to the table in a big plastic bag, along with a bucket, bib, claw crackers (I had to ask for these on the first trip), and gloves. I’m a big fan of the gloves. The cajun spice was obviously the powdered version and in spite of the copious amounts you can see it really wasn’t that cajuny. Medium was fairly weak on the spiciness front. On the upside everything was well cooked, the crab came out of the shells nice and easy and it was a great lunch that didn’t leave me stuffed. I rated them 4 stars because I had to ask for the claw crackers and sweetener for my tea plus boils like this should have sausage not egg. Obviously since the picture is from a second trip I liked it enough to go back.

The place that opened first that I visited second is named Fiery Crab Juicy Seafood. When I first saw the name I thought, “you couldn’t work moist in there too?”. Fortunately the web site and menus all just have Fiery Crab on them. I don’t know what this place was before it was Fiery Crab but it also has a large seating area that was marginally more occupied that Yummy’s. Again I was good with that because the service started good and I did get my food in a timely fashion.

To make the comparison equal I got the same thing at this place.

Here you can see the plastic enclosure it’s served in. The accouterments accompanying the meal were essentially the same but the gloves were slightly different and they didn’t provide any wet wipes. I got their Cajun flavor with was called Fiery Cajun with medium spice. You may be able to tell from the pictures that they use the liquid boil mix instead of the powder and their overall spice level at medium was significantly higher than the other places. Another difference was it came with two potatoes and a couple of pieces of kielbasa sausage in lieu of the egg. The crab didn’t come out of the legs quite as cleanly but did have a good taste. I gave these folks 5 stars because I didn’t have to ask for anything and sausage was a default ingredient.

Comparing the two I think the actual crab was superior both times at Yummy but Fiery has the edge on overall flavor and they have sausage. Either one gets a thumbs up from me.

Greek Yums

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Snacks from Greece

The September box from Universal Yums was loaded with treats from the land of Greece. I’ll say up front it was a mostly solid box with nothing being awful but there were a few I’m ok with never having again.

We’ll start off with my favorite and also the winner of the least photogenic of the snacks.

The poor Serenata Triplo Hazelnut did not fare well in transit due to the ovenlike temps we were having. As much as it looked like something that would empty a public pool it was quite tasty. The milk chocolate was good quality, the hazelnuts were big generous pieces while the wafers and cream filling provided a delicious platform adding even more textures. A case of don’t judge the snack by it’s melty cover.

The second place finisher was a baklava variant call Soragli.

Phyllo pastry dough, almonds, walnuts, a hint of cinnamon and syrup wrapped in a roll, how can you not like that? I will say it did spike the old blood sugar but in small doses it’s a straight up winner.

I didn’t have a “This was nasty” experience so instead of a least favorite I have a most disappointing.

OK look at the package, now look at the inside of the cake. Notice the difference in the size of the cocoa cream filling? I know the pictures always show a best case scenario but come on that’s just false advertising. Aside from being a tad dry the bread itself wasn’t bad and the filling had a decent flavor even if it was spiced with disappointment.

Most unusual goes to another one that was also a bit of a let down.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw the donut shaped, cakey looking item with the grapes on the package. I did expect something grapish about it though and that expectation was met only minimally. It was a wheat cake that was sweet and the 8th ingredient was grape juice and it tasted like that’s where grapes were in the priority. The texture was crumbly and wasn’t overpoweringly sweet in spite of sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sorbitol beating out the grapes on the ingredient listing. It went ok with some strong black hot tea. There are too many other better snacks though to bother with this one again.

I want to give a shout out to the candies from the Yum Bag.

They were all three a hit with me and each was very different from the others. The white ball was an ouzo flavored hard candy that had a great anise taste. The middle one was a honey flavored toffee chew that nailed the honey flavor and the toffee just about melted in my mouth as I chewed it. The pomegranate jelly candy had the tartness of the pomegranate and the consistency almost like a Turkish delight with a light dusting of sugar crystals. All nice little nuggets of goodness.

There was also a peanut and honey bar that was reminiscent of a peanut plank, some oregano potato chips, a bruschettini pizza cracker, and some mini breadsticks with pesto flavor plus a chocolate coated wafer cookie that rounded out the box. According to the hints the next box should be an assortment from Austria. Looking forward to seeing what that includes.

Food for the Soul

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Southern US

A couple of Saturdays ago I was doing a dry run trip from my house to the Spectrum Center arena to get the timing down and see how close to the arena the light rail got. Turns out it’s really close.

Since I use my head for something other than a hat rack sometimes I also timed it so I’d be down there around lunch time so I could try a little something different. I did a little scouting via Google on the trip down but decided I’d just walk around and see what I found and I wound up at Mert’s Heart & Soul.

I’d seen this on Yelp and if you’re a Food Network fan you may have heard of Mert’s since it was on Diner’s, Drive Ins and Dives or something like that. I was more than happy to come up on it as I wanted to try them out at some point anyway.

The first thing I notice is how dim it is in there compared to the bright sunny day and the pictures reflect the dimness. The second thing that was evident was somebody in authority loves plays and musicals as there are framed, autographed posters all the flat surfaces. The third thing was the menu and I decided quickly to go for the app sampler.

I wanted to try the soul roll but didn’t want to get the app and then an entree so the sampler worked out just fine. It came with the soul roll, a salmon patty, chicken wings and cornbread.

The cornbread came out first and let me just say it was an excellent start. As you can see from the photo it was a mini loaf that was fresh out of the oven hot and served with butter that was already soft and ready to spread. It was a sweet cornbread. So much so I save half of it for dessert because it was so cakeish.

The soul roll is like it sounds, an egg roll with soul. It has black eyed peas, collard greens, rice & some bits of chicken wrapped in a egg roll wrapper and drizzled with a spicy honey. I could have lived without the honey but that’s probably the diabetes talking. The salmon patty was another pleasant surprise. The salmon to other stuff ratio was outstanding and it was not that canned stuff with the bits of bone and skin but a good quality salmon as well. There were onions and green peppers scattered sparsely throughout and the remoulade sauce was very nice. I wound up dipping everything in it at least once.

The sampler had two full chicken wings so it was more like 4 of what most people call wings. They were just skin on, lightly floured and spiced just like I’d have gotten in my granny’s kitchen. Not flashy but filling and quite the delivery vehicle for the sauce. And of course I finished it up the meal with my, somehow still warm, cornbread dessert. Whew that was good comfort food to make the ride back to South Blvd an my car a pleasant one.

I’ll definitely go to Mert’s again.

Friday Crab Day

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Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted due to a combination of vacation and sloth. However it was the third Friday of the month and if you don’t know by now that’s Food Truck Friday, put it on your calendar.

This month started way less hellish than last month at a much more tolerable 82 or 28 for the C folks. The sun was shining and the music was blaring when I pulled into the parking spot and the early crowd was robust compared to the last few FTFs.

A quick swing by the adult beverage tent secured me a Damn Yankee IPA from Southern Barrel Brewing. It was a passable and hoppy way to pass the time as I wandered from truck to truck looking for inspiration and dinner. The crowd was larger than normal and there were so many children running around the fountain I saw 3 separate instances of mothers mistakenly grabbing somebody else’s kid when they got too close to the water.

The bright red of the Baltimore Crab Cake Co caught my eye and lured me in.

The offering was slim; a crab cake sandwich, she crab soup, coleslaw and chips. The up side of that was the service was faster than just about any I’ve ever had at a food truck. I got the crab cake sandwich and because they had a money back guarantee on their homemade coleslaw I felt challenged to try it.

Up to this point the band had been inoffensive, not bad, not great, just live elevator music but then they hit us with Wagon Wheel during the brief time I was at the Baltimore Crab Cake truck which earned them some point with me. Sandwich in hand I settled in to see what else they might have up their microphones.

The photo will serve as my awkward segue back to the sandwich. The crab cake was loaded with lumps of real crab and spiced with Old Bay seasoning and enough filler to hold it together during cooking and long enough to get it to the bun but then all structural integrity was out the window. They had a mustardy, slightly spicy remoulade to accompany the sandwich. All good but I’m not sure I’d do it again for $11. The coleslaw was good enough I didn’t test the guarantee. It was mostly diced cabbage rather than the more common shredded or sliced. It had a bit of dairy flavor I couldn’t quite peg like they added a touch of sour cream or buttermilk to the recipe. Thankfully they didn’t add sugar and make it a sweet coleslaw. Overall it was a decent meal and with the amount of real crab I was okay with the price point.

That pretty much covers the food portion of the blog, now we’re on to the experience of the evening. After finishing the meal I wandered over to the other beer tent and got a Passion Fruit Kolsch beer from New Belgium Brewing. For those of you that gagged a little right there let me say it was really decent. I’m a big fan of passion fruit and was a mildly disappointed the flavor wasn’t stronger. This had just a enough of a hint that if you didn’t know what it was you’d think it was just hops. It also was more fizzy than heady. Not a bad choice to kick back and enjoy the band that was getting me even more on their side with the Zac Brown / Jimmy Buffet Knee Deep song.

I found a good spot along a low wall to perch and enjoy the PFK, the band who has belted out Black Water at this point got some applause out of me. I’m feeling in a generous spirit, watching this diverse crowd of all ages, ethnicities and Breakfast Club stereotypes enjoying a night out in harmony and thinking this is just people being people. It made me smile and feel good about my community.

Now before you start thinking “Damn, the pod people got James”, let me just tell you I wasn’t quite ready to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with everybody. There was a dude next to me talking to a couple of his buddies going on and on about his golf equipment, his carbon shaft, big club heads, putter faces and in a tone of voice that made it sound just that dirty and creepy. Then he started talking about this guy he played with the other day. He regaled them (and me due to proximity) for 10 minutes with stories this guy told him about holes in one and famous people he’d golfed with, etc. and finished with “but he’s a drug addict so he might have been lying.”

As I was rolling my eyes a fellow who looked like a 5′ 5″ Lebron James miniature walked by and the band started playing Drift Away. So I smiled at mini Lebron and drifted away from that group.