Still Eating . . .

October 24

Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

[This is Krewe, the restaurant in St. Joseph, that we somehow didn’t find open in three separate visits in one week . . . ]

Still, he thought, it’s an adult’s body we got here, no question about that. There’s the pot belly that comes with a few too many good steaks, a few too many bottles of Kirin beer, a few too many poolside lunches where you had the Reuben or the French dip instead of the diet plate. ~ Stephen King

October 17

Great food is like great sex. The more you have the more you want. ~ Gael Greene

[Every other Monday we go to a Community Ed movie. After the movie we have a discussion and then go to dinner at Longtrees. On this day, Ruthie & I ate lightly – I had the meatloaf dinner (on the left) and Ruthie had the carnivore special, ribs and chicken (on the right), which yielded one more meal for me and three more meals for her . . . ]

October 18

Wait. Why am I thinking about Krispy Kremes? We’re supposed to be exercising. ~ Meg Cabot

[Ruthie had to take her car to St. Cloud for servicing. I went along so we could have lunch at Krewe in St. Joseph. Well, guess what? Krewe is closed on Tuesdays? So, here we are again at Bello Cucina, just around the corner from Krewe . . . ]

I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them. ~ Nora Ephron

[The day’s special was a pasta buffet – with a deal on Bloody Marys . . . ]

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner. ~ Sophia Loren

I love you like a fat kid loves cake! ~ Scott Adams

Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don’t forget food. You can go a week without laughing. ~ Joss Whedon

[Church of St. Joseph viewed through the window . . . ]

What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. ~ A.A. Milne

[A smile on the way home from the Freeport water tower

October 19

[The first layer of ice appears on Lake H2Obert . . . ]

Bachelor’s fare: bread and cheese, and kisses. ~ Jonathan Swift

[What could be more fun than a trip to St. Cloud Hospital for an angiogram? We arrived the evening before the “procedure” and dined at White Horse on St. Germain Street . . . ]

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in the water there is bacteria. ~ David Auerbach

We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie. ~ David Mamet

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~ Luciano Pavarotti

October 20

I don’t share blame. I don’t share credit. And I don’t share desserts. ~ Beverly Sills

[The hospital event – bypass surgery is in my future . . . ]

First, we eat then we do everything else. ~ M.F.K. Fisher

[And after we packed up and headed for home, we once again missed the 2:00 lunch closing time for Krewe. Uff da!!]

October 22

Work is the curse of the drinking classes. ~ Oscar Wilde

[Oktoberfest at Carlos Creek Winery. A lovely late October day, we spent over 4 hours outside enjoying the music of the Federales and the Cropdusters. The Federales were up first, from Minneapolis their first performance in Alexandria . . . ]

Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer! ~ Martin Luther

You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer. ~ Frank Zappa

I’d tried to straighten him out, but there’s only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer. ~ David Sedaris

Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer. ~ Tom Robbins

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer. ~ Abraham Lincoln

[A native Alexandrian in the foregound . . . ]

I like my coffee black, my beer from Germany, wine from Burgundy, the darker, the better. I like my heroes complicated and brooding, James Dean in oiled leather, leaning on a motorcycle. You know the color. (“Ode to Chocolate”) ~ Barbara Crooker

[The “who can hold a full beer stein the longest” contest . . . ]

Beer’s intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it. ~ Ray Bradbury

There are more old drunks than there are old doctors. ~ Willie Nelson

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. ~ John Gunther

[Among the fare available from the food trucks, we opted for brats!]

A man who lies about beer makes enemies. ~ Stephen King

[This is part one of a panorama shot . . . ]

I want a beer. I want a giant, ice-cold bottle of beer and shower sex. ~ Nora Roberts

[This is part two . . . ]

Millions of deaths would not have happened if it weren’t for the consumption of alcohol. The same can be said about millions of births. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

And … and what is civilisation if it isn’t people talking to each other over a goddamned beer? ~ James S.A. Corey

120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. ~ Sam Harris

Across the troubled maelstrom of time, people always need a beer. ~ Ellen Kushner

[And, I believe this was the full beer stein race . . . ]

Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science. ~ Yann Martel

[Where the food was . . . ]

I mulled over what he had told me as I savored the Scotch. Not bad, really — like a beer that’s been in a brawl. ~ David Justice

[The brat eating contest, emceed by Michael Right, the longtime voice of Alexandria . . . ]

Depth perception and beer obviously weren’t related. ~ Katie McGarry

It was never wise to challenge fate to a ‘Hold my beer’ contest. ~ Yasmine Galenorn

According to Chesterton, tea-drinking’ is ‘pagan’, while beer-drinking is ‘Christian’, and coffee is ‘the puritan’s opium’. ~ George Orwell

[Beginning the switchover from the Federales to the Cropdusters . . . ]

[We had a nice visit with the Federales (yes, named from the Townes Van Zandt song, “Pancho and Lefty”) after which they gave us these free “merch'”, a couple of CD’s . . . ]

To say that members of Congress have egos is like saying that I like cold beer. ~ Michael Fanone

[The Cropdusters setting up . . . ]

We conduct business meetings so much better on beer. ~ Rachel Bergsma

One more never ends. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

In this world, there are only a few things more available than gasoline: coffee, soda and beer. Oh, and bad advice. ~ Foster Kinn

A warm beer is still a good beer, despite what modern country singers say. ~ A.D. Aliwat

A flash of inspiration struck him with all the force and brilliance that ideas have when they’re traveling through beer. ~ Terry Pratchett

Most cultures made beer before they had an alphabet. ~ Matthew Weiner

Life is nothing but some bubbles in a pint. ~ Viraj J. Mahajan

Modern civilization owes its existence to beer. Hunter-gatherers individually lacked the time and resources to create a raspberry pilsner, so our nomadic ancestors were seduced into an agrarian lifestyle that might someday evolve into local microbrews. I am not sure if teetotalers minded the goats while others were busy getting plastered or if they were cast out of the tribe for being dull. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

[Last seen wandering the grounds at Oktoberfest muttering something about the attacks on democracy, public schools, and still and forever, Hillary Clinton . . . ]

Beer, brewed in cauldrons the size of houses by machines and then served cold. It has no soul. It isn’t worthy of the name. ~ Jim Butcher

[Kinda Halloweenie in mid-afternoon . . . ]

The refrigerator was one of the main things my mother prayed to. She said that a cold beer could make you love a refrigerator. ~ Jennifer Clement

I also liked they Belgian brewers are notoriously rebellious and mock Americans’ obsession with categorizing beers by style; I saw them as arrogant expressionists ensnared with creation, not categorization. ~ Lucy Burningham

American beer drinkers had been conditioned to believe they were choosing Anheuser-Busch’s beer, but that was only half true; Anheuser-Busch had left them few other options. ~ Josh Noel

Up Next: Surgery dependent . . .