food – I like to write junk…

CHOICES

“Joleen and I were told years ago that this eatery was a well-kept secret, and we eventually found out why.”

There are plenty of good places to eat in Lake Havasu —with my wife and I patronizing a good many. Some might say there’s absolutely no reason to drive out of town to dine out, yet sometimes it’s nice to leave paradise behind and check out nearby towns.

On occasion, we journey west on I-40 across the border to California and eat at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Needles. I was first taken there by the late John Ballard for a Lion’s Club meeting. It was lunchtime, and John recommended their pot roast sandwich.

There’s nothing close to it here in Havasu, as the restaurant has been making this acclaimed delicacy with their secret recipe since 1955. When friends are in town, Wagon Wheel is one of our stops. The history of the business goes back to Route 66 days when diners would turn off The Mother Road just to eat there.

Chicken fried steak for breakfast is a once-a-month delight for me, and the best I’ve found out of all eateries is at Crossroads Café in Parker, Arizona. Their steaks are tenderized and hand-breaded each morning, with one steak filling a large plate. I’ve never been able to finish one. For the most part, they’re tender enough to not need a knife.

We were told of this place by Jim and Pat Brownfield ten years go. The Brownfield and their river friends have been eating there since the mid-70s. Several restaurants in Havasu have tasty country-style breakfast steaks, yet nothing quite tops Crossroads, where my taste buds are concerned. The drive to and from Parker along the Colorado River adds a bit of ambiance to such a meal.

I love eating at airports, and Hanger 24 in Havasu is a great place for lunch. You just never know what airplanes or helicopters you’ll see while there. Private jets are often parked on the tarmac, with my often checking N numbers to try and find out who owns them.

Many of them are registered under corporations, thus, it takes a bit of sleuthing to uncover their owners, most often with me failing. Military aircraft are always unique to see at Lake Havasu City Airport, with the Boeing V-22 Osprey combination helicopter/airplane being my favorite.

Last on my list, and our favorite place to journey to for breakfast or lunch at least once a month, is the Airport Café in Kingman. Joleen and I were told years ago that this eatery was a well-kept secret, and we eventually found out why. Their food is tops — and the price is right.

The scenery outside the cafe windows takes me back in time to when this airport was known as the Kingman Army Air Corp Base. Four-engine B-17 bombers once called this place home until they were cut up and sold as scrap aluminum

Locals in Kingman definitely know of it, and the smart ones travel there rather than go to Cracker Barrel. This café is decorated with all aviation memorabilia, including authentic WWII artifacts. A control tower out front dates to 1941. I’ve asked to go up the steps, but so far, no offers have been made. Perhaps one day I’ll succeed.

Pilots travel from throughout the west to Kingman Airport merely to have breakfast or lunch. I’ve talked to a good many of them, curiously wanting to know more about the airplanes and helicopters they flew than anything. All were very informative in their replies.

One fellow, owner of a heavy equipment manufacturing plant in Vegas, was piloting an amphibious turbine-powered airplane that was worth well over $2,000,000. The man was down-to-earth and more than happy to talk about his unique plane. I told him I’d seen several in Alaska, with him agreeing that was the place to definitely own one.

I love the selection of restaurants in our town, yet I also enjoy taking road trips to those eateries down the road. Poet William Cowper said in his poem, The Task, “Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor!” William Cowper had to be definitely be talking about different places to eat!

A B-17 named “Alabama Gal” at Kingman in 1947 destined for scrap.

LOL

“Perhaps these clubs brought in DEI counselors to help cure this serious problem?

I read the Orchids & Onions newspaper column first thing like so many others. I’ll shamefully admit I sometimes skip over orchids for the nitty gritty. Nicey nice is good but I prefer the cantankerous submissions best for a chuckle.

Some days there are only a few complaints, yet towards the end of the week, people become cranky. I’m guessing those in a sour mood are the ones having to work with the general public. I did that for at least ten years and it was a trying experience. “The customer is not always right!”

From my analysis of Orchids & Onions, here lately, it seems that social clubs have gotten their acts together. Folks are no longer complaining like they used to about having to breathe secondhand tobacco smoke, so the clubs either changed their policies or those gripers died off. I don’t belong to a club so I wouldn’t know.

There was a time club members complained about the pecking order within their ranks, or that another member had dissed them. When I say pecking order I mean seniority. It appears some of the older members developed an attitude towards newbies. Perhaps these clubs brought in DEI counselors to help cure this serious problem?

Restaurant food is always good for onions and these days I see many more than in the past. A laugh comes whenever someone makes a cliché gripe such as, “I’ll never patronize that place again!” We’ll never know if they did or not and for the most part, most of us don’t care.

A bad meal while dining out is to be expected on occasion—the same goes for home-cooked. I doubt poor folks in Ethiopia complain about what’s on their plates or if it’s slightly overdone.

Bad driver onions are on the rise and those complaining generally peg it on snowbirds coming back to town. I don’t know if that’s true because during summer months Californians are to blame. On rare occasions, a senior citizen behind the wheel is labeled a traffic hazard but I don’t believe there are too many of this type. My former boss always said that experience makes perfect and I assume that means us senior drivers as well.

I’ve been wanting to write an onion of my own for some time but so far nothing noteworthy has come to pass. The other day I was behind someone at a stoplight who must’ve fallen asleep or was on their device. That happens daily throughout town so it’s not really onion fodder.

When the light turned green they just sat there. I gave a slight, barely heard toot just to get them moving. That didn’t work. After I laid on the horn for two seconds this car immediately started rolling, yet rather slowly as if intentional.

By the time it inched through yellow, a red light reached out and grabbed me. I give myself an orchid for keeping cool here although I muttered something unprintable under my breath.

The other morning at a local restaurant I received hashbrowns instead of country potatoes like I “thought” I ordered. That’s not really onion-worthy for a valid reason. Potatoes are potatoes according to Dan Quayle. If you don’t remember Dan Quayle you are indeed not of the Geritol generation. My wife says that when the server asked which type of potato I wanted, I never answered. I don’t recall that but with selective hearing anything’s possible.

I see no need to complain about hungry coyotes prowling at night for a snack nor bright lights in the neighbor’s backyard, as well as those blue rubbish cans standing guard like British soldiers on the sidewalk. Garbage or recycling receptacles left out after pickup merely add to the ambiance of our neighborhood.

Oftentimes, I’m guilty of this. Not that it’s intentional—I just forget to bring them in. There’s no law against it, yet.

Litter in the streets bothers me but not enough to lose sleep over. Sometimes I see stuff worthy of stopping in the meridian and picking up, like new beach towels that blew out of boats or life vests. I’m not the only one.

The folks losing them are heading back to California and have plenty of money so it’s no biggie. One thing I let lie for other road scavengers is their colorful swimwear. How about those onions regarding aircraft noise at the airport written by residents living close by.

I could write an onion about a lack of parking at the Mesquite phlebotomy clinic but on the other hand, sitting there watching customers try to park is pure joy. Onions to baristas seem to be on the rise, yet no one’s complaining about the exorbitant price of lattes and mochas. Go figure.

I have a few suggestions for those cranky ones running low on onion ammunition. Our dog park on the south side has grassy areas for small and large dogs yet nothing for canines in between. How hard is it to fence off one more section?

With handicapped parking areas throughout town, how about creating some designated “senior citizen” parking spots in the second row. Perhaps make the age limit start at 70.

Last but not least, people need to continue complaining about frivolous things to keep readers of Onions and Orchids laughing. They say that laughter is the best medicine. Above all, unlike Dr. Willie Feelgood and Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy’s pills, laughter is free!

FRUITCAKE

“The big joke nowadays thanks to Johnny Carson is that a fruitcake will last forever.”

A recent article printed on 12/22/2024 in the “Today’s News-Herald,” written by Daniel Neman of the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” struck a nerve with me. Neman’s article was on holiday fruitcakes. He was talking about the edible kind and not a two-legged variety that most of us have encountered in life.

Daniel Neman mentioned how fruitcakes came to get such a bad name, with it lying squarely on the shoulders of late-night television show host, Johnny Carson. Mr. Carson used this traditional holiday dessert in a 1989 joke monologue viewed by millions—criticizing these cakes as being something that people hate to receive as gifts or to eat. Johnny wasn’t speaking for everyone and he almost killed the industry with his baseless comments.

Our family always had fruitcake at Christmas or New Year’s, courtesy of my late Uncle and Aunt Noel McDaniel in Birmingham, Alabama. Mom generally received one as a gift from the various hospitals she worked for. My brother and I could devour a sizable loaf within a few days. I especially loved the green, yellow, and red candied fruit pressed inside.

The big joke nowadays thanks to Johnny Carson is that a fruitcake will last forever. That might be true if they’re frozen, but over time, even covered, they’ll dry out and become inedible. This rarely happened in our household. Dad and Mom liked fruitcake with their coffee while Jim and I had ours with milk or hot cocoa. I’ve been told more than once that fruitcake, like bacon, is unhealthy and plugs the arteries. It’s something about trans fats.

The folks condemning foods like fruitcakes as unhealthy without any scientific proof are the terroristic gadflies of this world. I’ve encountered multitudes of such people over the years—self-proclaimed experts on any particular subject after they’ve read a book, seen something on Facebook, or listened to Doctor Nutcase on an infomercial. For the most part, those offering “free advice” on television end their spiels with an offer to buy pills or books for $29.95.

Erroneous nutrition advice started with friends and acquaintances lecturing me that eggs were bad. This was in the 1970s. According to these armchair nutritionists, cholesterol in eggs was over the top and would turn my veins to stone. I listened to them for a while refusing to eat eggs or drink milk, until hearing later that they’d changed their tune. A three-egg omelet with a glass of 2% milk is now my breakfast of choice.

I’ve been told that red meat will kill me, including soda pop—both diet and regular, decaf coffee, high-fructose corn syrup, prepared frozen dinners, or anything microwaved in plastic. Eggnog is also on that bad list. I even had one person warn me about microwave popcorn with added butter. Supposedly, if the butter aroma is huffed, lung damage will occur. I’ve never been one to huff or sniff popcorn bags. Who does?

The warning I laugh most about regards McDonald’s or fast-food restaurants. More than once I’ve been told after hearing a gasp, “That stuff will lead to a heart attack!” The first McDonald’s came to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1970, and I’ve been eating at the Golden Arches ever since. That started over 55 years ago.

If the food we eat today is so bad, why are people living much longer than they did 200 years ago when vegetables, fruit, and meat were considered free of hormones and preservatives? I try to eat healthy according to what’s labeled healthy by my doctors, and for the most part, I’m successful.

I understand that anything consumed in excess has potential health consequences. Euell Gibbons was a nutritional guru to the extreme. He was a guest on Johnny Carson more than once. Euell promoted Grape Nuts cereal as being healthy and was an advocate of a low-fat high-fiber diet. Gibbons was called a nut cruncher back then by my friends and others. During that time I was a Grape Nuts fan as long as a bowl of sugar was within easy reach.

Euell Gibbons became a practicing Quaker and I have much respect for him due to this alone. Regardless, he fits the fruitcake mold where handing out bogus advice regarding nutrition is concerned. Euell evidently felt that totally foregoing certain foods would keep him around a few more years. Had he stopped smoking cigarettes that might’ve been worth another decade or two.

Gibbons died in 1975 at age 64 of a ruptured artery. Perhaps had he consumed a bit more eggs, pork, and beef he would’ve stayed upright a while longer? We’ll never know. What I do realize is this—somewhere down the pike—we all leave this world. Just because a person is vegan or doesn’t dine at McDonald’s isn’t going to stop such things from eventually happening.

The most important thing to remember here is that it isn’t what we eat, but the plans we’ve made on where we’re going after our ticker stops. John 3:16 tells us how to do that in 25 easy-to-understand words. As a Quaker and a believer in Jesus Christ, Euell Gibbons made that wise decision and so have I.

Before turning out the lights, there’s one last slice of fruitcake left in the fridge. All I need is a tall glass of cold eggnog to wash it down. Partaking of these two delicacies once a year hasn’t killed me yet!