The Washington Redskins

The world of sports gives us many different ways for individuals to compete, to strive to be the best, to attack the other guy and declare victory over the defeated foe.  The games are kind of fun, too, but the real conflict happens on the radio and the tv set as the various commentators, talking heads (by the way, have you noticed that Joe Buck’s head is larger than his shoulders?), gasbags, signal callers, color commentators and play-by-play guys in the press box and on the sidelines and in studios carry on for days about stupid inconsequentiae or take something obvious and turn it into a cause.  A good example of this is the current controversy to force the Washington Redskins football team to change their name.

You’d think it would be crystal clear to the most cretinously accelerated slob from the suburbs that, if the Natives tell you the Redskin name as applied in supposed homage to the noble savages is offensive, it’s offensive!  Duh!  What more do you need to hear?  You can’t deny anyone’s perception, they own it!

People being people, they get set in their ways and don’t like for things to change.  I like to think there’s always a way to solve a problem if you can just agree on what it is.  In that light, I believe I have stumbled upon a possible solution to the controversy:  They can rename the team the Washington Redskin Potatoes!  Talk about having your French fries and eating them!  Think about the possibilities!  The fans could gather in the stadium and root for their team!  The club mascot would be Spud, and the dancing girls would be the Yammers!  The logo would be a big laughing tuber!  Fans could smuggle in potatos in their pockets to throw at the ref when he blows a call, or at the receiver when he drops a pass.  The stadium could sell Rally Fries, Bangers and Mash, Shake and Bake Russets, and Cleveland Hash Browns.  During the off-season the field could be converted to a P-patch!  When they played the Rams or the Bears it would be considered a food fight!  Back to back games with the Dolphins and the Broncos would be Surf and Turf!

See how easy it is to solve problems when you put your heads together?   Don’t thank me, thank you!  We should do this again soon!  :-{)}

Inertia

Inertia:  The tendency for an object at rest to stay at rest, and an object in motion to stay in motion.

For purposes of this discussion, a body at rest can be approximated for a fat ass sitting on the couch sucking down beers and watching football.  And as we know from our study of physical principles, a body at rest will remain so until acted upon by external forces, such as a spouse.  Furthermore, a careful review of mathematical theory will show that the amount of such force is directly proportional to the volume with which said force is delivered, plus the sum of the number of times it was previously delivered, without effect.

Thus, we can say that force times volume times repetition equals mass plus n, where mass equals scale weight plus 1.2 times the number of beers consumed previous to the final application of said force that results in motion, and n equals the amount of energy expended in leveraging the motionless body to a standing position.

But wait, it’s not that simple!  A body at rest can also be put into motion by internal forces, as well!  This is a bit more complicated, because the internal forces can be generated by multiple sources, and can also combine with external forces to provoke motion that would otherwise have been unobtainable.

Through much data gathering and analysis, we have been able to define most of the important internal forces and weigh their value in combination with external forces.  This list is as follows, ranked in order of importance:

1.       Need to pee – This internal force has a geometric progression included where time plus number of beers consumed equals stress that always results in motion of one sort or another.

2.       Out of Beer – This condition is modified by the next force, which is:

3.       Presence of commercial – this factor can reduce the force needed to achieve motion by half, and is only modified if the commercial is one that has not been seen before (rare), or involves scantily clad women or Richard Sherman’s Mother.

4:       A noise sounding like spouse coming – This factor, in combination with any of all of the above forces, will automatically result in motion.  The speed of said motion is affected by the location of said spouse, proximity to refrigerator and location of bathroom.

When all forces are balanced, a symmetrical motion is observed, as where spouse appears in the doorway just as body rolls into kitchen, grabs beer out of fridge, then slips down the hall as spouse enters the kitchen, and into the bathroom where inertia is restored while body sits on toilet while drinking beer and watching game on smart watch.  Thusly is stability achieved...  :-{)}

Viet Nam

My participation in the extended debate in the 60’s over why we were in Viet Nam consisted mostly of attending anti-war demonstrations in Seattle.  I had been lucky enough to score a relatively high draft lottery score, 256, so I was pretty sure I would not be getting one of those “Greetings” letters from Uncle Sam, and could live my life without fear of having to go to basic training and learn how to kill people, let alone having to go to some far-off land and actually do it.

Of the kids I grew up with, many were not so lucky.  I remember one in particular, Steve, who not only got drafted and sent to Viet Nam as an infantryman, but lived to come back to his old neighborhood and tell the story.  Another, my future brother-in-law, was assigned to a helicopter maintenance operation at the air base in Da Nang as a welder/fabricator.

Steve was one of the dominant group in our band of delinquents who hung out at a park in White Center in the late ‘60s.  When he disappeared in ’69, and we heard he had been drafted, he faded from our consciousness until he reappeared in the summer of ’71.  He had saved much of his pay for the two years he was on active duty, and rewarded himself after he mustered out with a brand new Ford Galaxie XL, the one with the hidden headlights, so when he showed up back at the lake with a fancy brand new ride he was received as royalty, and we hung on his every word about the wide world out there and what it was like.

He told us how his platoon would be rounded up in the morning and remanded to expend a certain amount of ammunition every patrol, and how important the body count was, so they would hide behind a tree and fire off their M-16s, even though there was nothing out there, nobody was shooting back, and report anything that might possibly have been a dead body.  He explained that the 2^nd lieutenants were assholes who would bust any grunt caught smoking Thai stick, and that everyone was high on something as much of the time as possible, and you could get anything you wanted in the local markets.  Remember that our forces were mostly draftees in those days.

JB confirmed that with his story of the puppy dogs of Da Nang.  It seems that, every so often, a scrawny, shivering puppy would appear inside the gated secured compound that housed the maintenance wing of the repair facility attached to the airbase, and would promptly be adopted by some homesick American GI and soon become the mascot for the entire barracks.  In a few short weeks the rescued puppy would thrive, and put on weight on a diet based on the table scraps and orts from the entire company.  Then, suddenly, the puppy would disappear, and within a few days another shivering scrawny waif would take his place, while at the same time one of the local restaurants featured a dish made with young dog.

Ramparts magazine back in the day had uncovered a document showing how all the major oil companies back then had parceled out the entire offshore of Viet Nam, both north and south, into a series of leased areas for oil exploration that went a long way towards a reasonable explanation of why the U.S. was sending troops over there to die in increasing numbers.  The official explanation, that we somehow were “preventing the spread of Communism” throughout Southeast Asia, was the same kind of bullshit that is used to justify air strikes and boots on the ground in the Middle East to attack ISIL.  In both cases, the only winners are the multinational arms corporations and the military-industrial complex in this country and the result of their profit taking is the same:  death and destruction.  There are only two kinds of people in the countries that are currently being used to expend our ammunition, those who are making money off us and those who are suffering because of it, and who hate us in return.  I offer you one simple example that shows exactly what is going on:

Every band of “terrorists”, or “partisans”, or “rebels” or “freedom fighters” has one thing in common.  In their midst is always an imam, a preacher by any other name, a sky pilot who is there to exhort them to action, promise them the eternal rewards they will earn by their actions, and teach them that it is the will of God, or Allah, or Buddha or whoever that they take those actions.  God is on their side, and they cannot lose.

All it would take to put a stop to all of it is to hold the individual imams responsible for inciting the crowds.  If every fatwa declaring Jihad was immediately followed by an aerial bombardment that destroyed the mosque from which the fatwa was issued, along with the imam who issued it, the faithful would soon begin to marvel that God is not responding to this challenge, and wonder if maybe the imams were lying through their teeth, and sending them off to die for nothing, which they are.  Just as those politicians who think America has to be the world’s policeman are lying when they make up bullshit excuses for sending our own men and women off to die.  One thing you will notice is it is never their own children, always the children of the poor working class, the expendables, who are chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice.

You’ll notice we don’t do that, hunt down the imams and destroy their mosques.  We don’t have our Secretary of State stand up and shout, “That story about the 72 virgins if you die a jihadi is bullshit!  And any preacher that says so is lying!”  We don’t want to disrespect their religion, I guess, or maybe we just want to expend some more ammunition.

But if you spend any time reading history, you can find the real stories about what we did in the world as a country to make so many people hate us.  Read up on how we replaced the elected president of Iran with the Shah, or how we participated in the murder of the elected president of Chile, or of South Viet Nam, or the many times we tried to kill Castro, not to mention the Sandinistas, and you will eventually catch on that, in this world in this year 2015, the United States of America is no longer the beacon of hope for the rest of the world.  Instead, for most of them, we are the bad guys.  It’s pretty clear that for all those years our foreign policies were designed to result in protection of private property all over the world and the successful exploitation of other countries’ resources for the profit of the multinational corporations that control our government, and many of theirs, as well.

That is why I am continually puzzled by people who proclaim their pride in being an American, who adopt that old line, “My country, right or wrong, but My Country”.  Those are the folks who cannot see into the future with enough clarity to realize that we will be defeated one day, without a shot being fired, other than our lunatic fringe being executed by the police.  We will be defeated because we no longer will produce anything of value to the rest of the world at a price they are willing to pay, and our working class will no longer be able to afford their products.

And that, as they say, is when the shit will hit the fan.

“Ah, but,” you say, “What about all those sharp young people who are out there making things happen in the world?  Are they not also the future?”  Why, so they are.  But why do you think they can be successful, ultimately, without your help?  

Don’t you see, this is all about you!  You have to step up, in your community, in your neighborhood, in this society!  You have to take the time to attend your community meetings, your caucuses, your get-togethers and your events.  You have to show your face.  You have to put your money on the line.  You have to look in the mirror, and ask, “Am I all about me and my family, or am I putting some effort into my community as well?”

And what are the principals upon which you choose to operate?  Do you believe that all people are equal, and that all of them deserve a share in the world’s resources?  Or are you more of the “All for me, none for you” persuasion?  It doesn’t matter which, it only matters that you think about such issues, and take a stand one way or another.  When too many of us are content to sit on the sidelines and let someone else do our suffering for us, everything falls apart.  And the one thing we all can share, misery, is always waiting out there for us.  It’s up to you to make that not happen. : –{)}}

How was your dinner?

How was your dinner?

Did you have the steak?  Or the burger?  Good stuff, huh?!

How about the shame?  You know, of course, that you’re getting a heapin’ helpin’ of shame along with every bite of your commercially raised, fed, fattened, slaughtered, butchered and packaged beef you take in, right?  You do know that, right?  Because of all the methane coming out of the assholes of all those cows,  not to mention the diesel and the fertilizer used to grow the feed for them, nearly matched in production by the hot gaseous eructions emitting from the pieholes of most of the politicians out there who are not named Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, that steak was good for you, bad for the environment.

Let me hasten to add that, contrary to what you might be asking, no, I have not gone all Vegan on us, not yet anyway.  I still eat my red meat.  I’ve just cultivated a taste for shame.  It’s like a guilty pleasure, the kind you get when you smoke a cigarette, knowing full well that, within a few years, they will be illegal and marijuana will be legal, go figure that.

It’s a tossup whether shame tastes better than crow.  I’ve eaten both, you can be sure of that, and I think it depends on the recipe.  When you have to eat some crow because you said something about someone else that was bullshit, and they call you on it, that kind of crow’s not so bad, with enough catsup and soy sauce.  After all, you did deserve it, right?  It’s a lot better than the kind of aged, stinky crow you have to eat when you get up in public and try to deny global warming, or pretend that Republicans are the friends of the working man.  If you truly believe the drivel you spout, then there’s no shame attached, though.  That comes when you spout your drivel knowing it is bullshit, but you’re making money doing it, so you don’t care.  Shameful crow is the equivalent of flattened three day old armadillo off a highway in East Texas or somewhere just as hot, and there’s no amount of Sriracha that will blunt the flavor of that snack.  The aftertaste alone is a mortal sin.

So what about chicken, or fish?  Is there less shame attached to them?  I don’t think so.  The only chicken you can eat shame-free is free range, uncaged chickens that have been fed only organic chicken feed and bugs, but even then somebody has to kill them, and a certain portion of the karmic shame that comes with that act is attached to the meat whether you like it or not.  If the chicken comes from a factory farm where they’re caged by the millions and fattened in three months the shame quotient goes way up, of course.  The only thing that brings it back down some is if you eat the chicken in Chinese or Mexican food, where the pieces are small and the sauces strong enough to allow you to pretend they’re tofu or eggplant.  And don’t even start on fish, unless you also want to talk about farmed salmon, net by-catch and factory trawlers.

The real problem is, if you’re looking for shame-free food, where are you gonna start?  Corn?  I don’t think so, let’s talk about fertilizer and water consumption, not to mention feed corn and gasohol.  Wheat?  Sorry, gluten is bad now, as are carbs in general.

The inconvenient truth is that if everyone only ate food that was ethically and cleanly grown, processed and packaged, we’d all starve.  There’s not enough land out there to make room for all those chickens.  So we better just get used to the taste of shame.  It probably tastes like Soylent Green.  :-{)}

The Thrill of The Score

It was one of those days in Monroe at the Fairgrounds when the sun would peek out behind the clouds just enough to give one hope, then dash it with a blast of rain.  The overflow crowd trudged through the sprinkles from the far parking lot through the underpass into the main lot, even then full of cars for sale.  It was the annual Automotive Swap meet on Saturday morning, and the underground economy was in full swing.  All the indoor spots were taken up, as usual, by the long-timers with the same old stuff, the trinkets and gubbins and gewgaws, so the action was out in the parking lots and the grassy areas along the fence where the newbies and the latecomers are sent.  That’s where you’ll find the guy who just wants to get rid of stuff, as opposed to the inside guy who’s trying to make a living.

The thing is, when you stumble across something worthwhile you have to recognize it and bite down hard and fast, because, if you look away, it will be gone.  So it was with the matching fender set off an early ‘90s Harley Davidson Heritage Softail that I spotted laying in the grass alongside some yard tools and other junk.  I could see they were in pretty good shape, even had the Heritage script intact on one side of the front fender, so I asked the guy who was on the spot, “How much you want for them fenders?”, pointing.  He got a big ol’ grin on his face and said, “Ten Dollars!”  “Each?” says I.  “Nah, that’s for both of them.” He says.  “I told that son-of-a-bitch they weren’t coming back this time, no way, nohow.  Ten dollars!”  ”Done!”, I said.

I peeled 10 dollars out of my wallet in record time and scooped up the fenders and beat feet out of there, in case the son-of-a-bitch was anywhere on the grounds.  Just for the record, I sold them later on EBay, quickly, for $285 with free shipping.  It turned out they were a matching pair, in Vivid Black, and all the trim was in place including the lights on both tips, along with the factory paint and hand pin striping, and it was all in excellent shape!  And that, my friends, is a score.  That’s why we play the swap meet game, and the Craigslist game, just searching for that oh-so-sweet moment when the adrenaline rush lets you know you’re on to something and your fingers start to twitch as you reach for your pocket.  It’s the payoff, for all the years of mistakes and lost money, and learning about the subtle differences between the various years and models, and what fits what.  It’s what Carl Sandburg was talking about when he said, “I seek to make my vocation my avocation.”  For most of us, we have to “retire” to do that, so, when you find yourself in that position, count your blessings.  Pity the one who doesn’t recognize the point of departure when it comes, and continues to slog away in harness until he drops to the earth, spent.

But for those of us who have freed ourselves to enjoy the pursuit of the score, be it on a gaming table, an ad in the Little Nickel, or on the ground at the swap meet in the rain, the undeniable thrill of the occasional unexpected single item score pales when compared with the one you get when you stumble across a pile.

And that’s the second thing.  Every pile has a story attached, for good or bad, and sometimes the story lingers long after the pile is gone.  One in particular remains fresh in my memory.

It was early Saturday morning, and I was cruising Craigslist’s motorcycle section as usual.  I have learned that you need to check in every day to catch the hot ones, the earlier the better.  This one read, “Harley shop going out of business, leftover stock for sale today.”, with an address in Tacoma.  I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, then gathered up any loose cash I could find in the house and headed for Tacoma from Renton.  I even hit the cash machine for $300, just in case.  When I got there, at a strip mall on the road to McNeil Island, I found chaos.  The building was newly constructed, and consisted of bare concrete floors inside a steel and glass building that could be upfitted to be a Chinese restaurant, a massage parlor, or a Shucks Auto Parts, depending on your needs.  In this case, the space was occupied by a church.  They were raising funds to turn their space into a sanctuary by selling off a number of donated piles of stuff that one of their members, who ran a storage lot, it appeared, gave them.  I looked one way, past the two nice ladies at the picnic table with the cash box and receipt book, and saw a pile of flooring, another way a pile of household goods, over there a bunch of TVs, and there, on the floor surrounding the center post of the room, a large pile of Harley parts.

I saw a hardtail frame, a couple of front ends, I saw wheels and tires and boxes of new stuff.  I saw gas tanks and carburetor parts, lots of S&S stuff.  I saw bins full of odds and ends, the type that accumulates when you run a shop and you need an axle spacer, say, so you order a dozen of them in various widths, or those special bolts you need to mount a starter on an open belt drive on a Shovelhead, and then you need a system to keep track of all that stuff, plus takeoff parts and mistakes and spares, lots of spares.  It was all there.  I went looking for the person in charge.  I found him near the back, harried and hurried, with several people demanding attention at the same time, and maneuvered him over to the pile.  “How much would you like to get for all this stuff at once?” I asked.  He looked over at the pile, his face betraying the obvious fact that he had no idea what Harley stuff was worth in those days, and said, “I don’t know, you think it’s worth $500?”  I gave him the spiel I have used successfully in the past:  Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out all the cash I had on me at the time, which was around $385, held it out to him and said, “Easily.  It’s worth a lot more than that, I’m sure, but all I have on me right now is this, and I’ll give it all to you for this pile right now.”  He hesitated, and I added, “and if I do real good on this pile I’d be happy to make a donation to your church later.”  That turned out to be the magic words, and the deal was sealed.  I asked him, before I stuffed my Chevrolet Astro Van with the seats removed to the gills with all the plunder, what happened to the shop in question, and he didn’t know too much.  After I broke $1500 on that pile of parts I sent the church a $200 donation, upon which they hounded me for years afterward, just in case.  It was only later, after most of the pile had been sold, that I heard the rest of the story. 

I knew the name of the shop that had gone out of business from paperwork that was in with the pile of parts, and one day, a couple of years later, I saw an ad on Craigslist for one of the custom choppers that this particular shop had intended to build and sell as part of their business plan.  I sent an email asking if there was any connection to that shop, and it turned out the seller was the guy who had owned the shop!  As I learned, this guy was an Army Ranger, a Special Ops guy, and the shop was his own retirement avocation.  But in the heat of Iraq, the guy got called back for one more tour of duty, so off he went, even though he was supposed to be retired soon.  He told the landlord about the callup, and was promised that, no matter what, that shop would be there waiting for him when he got back from Iraq.

But then he got injured, bad, a roadside bomb or something, and wound up spending the next year or so in rehab and recovery.  And the dirty bastard of a landlord evicted the business from the shop and turned whatever survived over to the church for disposal while the soldier was in the hospital in Germany.  By the time he got back it was all gone, and I had made a pile off the last of it.  I felt kinda shitty about that, as you would imagine.  I gathered up most of what was left, bins and gubbins and paperwork and stuff, and took it back to him as a token recovery, and told him what happened, and how it went down.  I hope he sued the shit outta that landlord.  I can’t think of too many animals lower than a landlord who would screw over an injured Ranger who put his life on the line for the powers that be, and I hope he gets what’s coming to him.

And I hope there’s another pile out there with my name on it, with another good story attached.  The one is worth as much as the other. :-{)}

Triumph T100C

2/5/13                    T100C on Craigslist

On March 25, 1966, a young axeman walked into Dewey’s Cycle in Seattle and rode out on a brand new Triumph T100C motorcycle.  Paperwork in those simpler days consisted of a warranty certificate, a copy of the factory owner’s handbook and a Tyre manual from Avon.  Later an official letter arrived from Johnson Motors congratulating him on his purchase. All of those original documents survive to this day along with the original motorcycle, which has only managed to accumulate 2200 miles in over 50 years of pampered storage!

The reason for this rare turn of events is that the original owner, the young man who rode off on it that day, still owns the bike on this day. He may not have had time to ride it much, but he loved it and kept it in the condition you see here.

The young man has now concluded that his riding days are over, and has created this opportunity for you.

The bike itself is in wonderful condition.  A few years back (like, 15…) he had it converted to 12 Volt battery ignition from the original Energy Transfer ignition system, the source of the infamous “Prince of Darkness” label.  Now the lights are bright, and it works like a modern bike.  The job included new alternator, regulator, coils, ignition switch and battery along with the bulbs, brackets, fuses and other stuff needed.  It’s all on the receipt folded into the owner’s handbook.

More recently the gas tank was repainted by an expert restoration painter, and the aluminum and chrome bits were breathed on by the polishing guru, which returned it to near original condition, as the pictures show.  There’s a bit of scuffing on the muffler and the front fender from a parking lot tipover, but the resulting marks are character.  You can see Marlon Brando sitting on this thing.

For the serious motorcycle collector, the chance to pick up an original Triumph with complete history documented like this one is something you don’t see every day.  Now is your chance to put your name in the book as the second owner of this classic Triumph motorcycle.  Call Chris at 253-852-4019 to arrange a viewing.  :-{)}

Sold in 5 days for $6500.00

Restaurant review, Paragon Brewing, CDA Idaho

We went to Coeur d’ Alene for the dog show, and part of my assignment was to scout the area for interesting places to eat, of which there were many, one in particular that was so good it generated this review.

Government Way is a north-south road that connects CDA, as the locals call it, with Hayden Lake to the north as it parallels, and later crosses US 95 on the way to Sandpoint.  95 is the multi-laned main drag, and, as such, has become the location of choice for all the big chain restaurants and stores, which had the effect of putting many local establishments out of business and forcing the rest of them to survive by appealing to the local people who will know where to find them, and providing good food at reasonable prices, which makes the best of them into lucky finds for the inquisitive traveler who wants to get off the beaten track.  Paragon Brewing on Government Way between CDA and Hayden is one of those.

I had driven by and marked the spot mentally because of two things:  It was a brewpub featuring their own products, as well as other local microbrews, and it billed itself as an British style pub, which is just enough of an oddity in northern Idaho to call for a visit.  We came back on a Tuesday night after the dog show crowd had departed.

It’s a small place, log cabin style, with a gravel parking lot in back and stairs up to the outdoor seating area with rickety metal furniture and a great view of the vacant lot next door and the various auto shops and storage yards across the street.  Inside, the single room with much wood paneling was full of people, mostly families with children there for dinner, something we usually count as a good sign.  Typical of Idaho, the sign said, “If you are under 21, please do not sit at the bar”.  They were happy to let our dog sit with us on the outside patio, though I had to go back inside to read the beer list, which is written in chalk on a board above the bar, and changes every time a keg runs dry.

We started with a What the Helles Maibock for me and a Trickster’s Druid Stout for her, served with an appetizer of Scotch Eggs($8), two soft boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried, then served split on a plate with the yokes perfectly done.  The Maibock is a very nice bitter with a hint of IPA in the bite and and an ESB aftertaste that perfectly complemented the scotch eggs.  My only complaint was that the dog got too many treats that should have come to me instead.

Her Druid Stout was a leathery mocha influenced brown ale with perfect creamy head and wonderful quaffing ability served in a large stemmed oval glass that reflected the nose back at you with each hoist.  Then it was on to dinner.

I wiped out the Maibock, and chose a glass of Orlison’s Underground to accompany the main course. Orlison, it turns out, is the name of a brewery in Airway Heights, outside of Spokane.  Their motto is “Brew No Evil”.  The beer was a sublime brown ale, the type that, when it is first poured, entertains you for several minutes as you watch the cascading waves of creamy head fill the glass with golden bubbles that sink to the bottom and raise back up to reveal the black lager behind and below them as they resolve into a creamy head on top of your glass that still remains after the beer is gone.  Wonderful stuff.

The menu changes regularly, and each change Is reflected in a three course special offered in addition to the regular menu, from which you can pick and choose at will.

We regretfully passed on the Potted Trout appetizer and the Cornish Hen entrée, but could not pass up the Dessert Flight($10), of which more will be said later.  She chose the Pork Chop ($13), which came beer brined and Parmesan-panko breaded, accompanied by some delicious Pear Butter and a hefty pile of braised Brussels sprouts on a bed of barley risotto.  I had the Bangers($13), two smallish but excellent British style house-made fine grained sausages served on a scalloped potato galette covered with mushrooms and Scotch ale demi-glace, with a small metal pot of mushy peas on the side.  We both dove into our meals and came up in Nirvana, or some kind of foody heaven equivalent.  The mushy peas, which I had not previously encountered, were wonderful, seasoned with thyme and sage and whipped into a pudding that melts in your mouth, and the potato was just solid enough to hold its shape until my fork revealed its mashed intentions, as the sauce made my taste buds sing a song.

The pork chop was likewise perfectly done, and the combination of the risotto and the pear butter raised the overall experience to one you would expect at one of the finest French restaurants in Paris, or New York, but maybe not in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho.  We asked our Chef, who dropped by to see how we liked his work, where he learned his licks, and it turns out he is a veteran of a well known French restaurant in Pend Orielle.  Their loss was definitely our gain on this night.

And then we got to dessert, or, as they call it, Afters.  The flight came on a narrow plate with a small bowl of Urfa Biber spiced chocolate ice cream on one end.  In the middle was a beer-battered white chocolate and cardamom tablet, and on the end, half of a Mick Duff’s Pale Ale-poached Forelle pear.  Words cannot adequately express the feeling of joy that your taste buds impart when you cut off a chunk of the pear, add a nibble of the white chocolate and top that with a spoon of the ice cream.  I swear you can actually taste the individual grains of brown sugar as they melt into the ice cream while the pear adds cadence to the chocolate.  It was very close to a mystical experience. The dog got none of this.

Perhaps the best part of the meal was the thought that the two entrees were the most expensive items on the two-page menu.  That fits my definition of Local and Reasonable, indeed.  So if you find yourself in Coeur d’Alene one day, I urge you to go out on Government Way and look these folks up.  Your taste buds will be glad you did.  :-{)}