The Dangerous Playground

 

I just want you to do a thought experiment with me for a little bit. You are a park administrator. The town council has allocated certain funds to build a playground in the park you administrate. They want, specifically, a jungle gym, slide, and swing set--the sorts of things that would be attractive and fun for children. There is already a designated space and it has been partially paved. There is no compelling reason not to use the allocated funds to build the jungle gym, slide and swing set. 

However, you don't especially love the idea of the playground itself on general principles and are trying to save park administration money because you have as yet to be determined reasons and saving money looks great on your personal resume.

So you hire three, let's call them-- "Stooges". They say they are builders, and that's good enough for you, because they seem bright enough. And they use some pre-made kits to get the ball rolling and build something that looks like the promised picture--but there are lots of unused parts. They have no idea how those go together, and assume they are just extras and cart them off. 

They are, actually, reinforcing beams, retaining straps, cement screws--parts intended to ensure the whole apparatus doesn't cave in under the weight of child bodies, fall over in a stiff breeze, or send children flying. But these budget builder fly-by-nights had no idea how anything worked, and now, we have kids approaching a rickety playground of doom. 

Kiddie carnage awaits. 

The Kennedy Hearing was Ugly

 

When your own family thinks you are a weird conspiracy freak who is uniquely unqualified and literally call you a grifting predator, well, that's probably bad news, right? 

But when quizzing by US Senators demonstrates you don't know Medicare from Medicaid and have not just trimmed your public pronouncements to suit your audience but are a legal grifter profiting off of your own BS (as Sen. Warren demonstrated), well, that hurts to be aired publicly, in so many words, doesn't it? 

Or maybe it doesn't.

This guy gave himself a brainworm from consuming roadkill, admits to dumping a bear corpse in a public park, seems sketchy about how germ theory works, has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, has opinions about the AIDS virus and vaccines that would have been shameful and out of date 25 years ago, let alone today, and yet?

He's got influence in his corner. Why they want him, I don't know. You might think people would want someone who isn't a whole fucking flake in an important position like Secretary of Health and Human Services--

Unless you just aren't that interested in health and will be goddamned if you see it as a basic human service. 

Seeing things in Pictures

 

While Elon Musk is channeling Fonzi, 

The withered husk of Trump

is a played out Ponzi. 

His expression wry, 

his head seems bare

as if worry at last has

worn off his hair.

Facts Don't Care About Etc.

 

An undocumented immigrant from Guatemala says the odds of Trump improving the economy is worth the potentially higher risk of deportation. “Trump wants to deport those who do bad things. … I haven’t broken any laws.” https://t.co/7JFCCYGcC7

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 7, 2024

Our friend here doesn't realize that the bad thing he did was actually just coming here.  

That's enough to make you an "illegal". 

Wow, if we only had some precedent for this:

Giuliani and the Boomerang

 

The Bullshit Artist formerly Known as "America's Mayor", who lied about the 2020 election and had to admit that he didn't have any proof whatsoever that the election was stolen, has been ordered to start turning his various valuable personal belongings into receivership to satisfy a judgment against him for defaming two election workers who were endangered by his lies and had actually not done anything wrong. 

Some people believe in karma. I don't know if I do--but I do believe if you throw shit around, don't be surprised if a stiff wind blows it right back in your face. You shouldn't be surprised if what you put out there comes back to you.

This man used to have a good reputation (I don't know to what degree he earned it, but he did). Then he decided to use up everything he was for Trump. And now he can lose everything he had. 

There's an example in there.

Living In Very Normal Times

 

Protesters in support of Palestine glued their hands to the street in the middle of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, temporarily halting the event. There were other instances of protests on the sidelines as well ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/D0TWKrsdov

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 23, 2023

Usually, the husband and I have steak because wow. Turkey. Very boring. But we did have turkey this time--turkey liver! This was his surprise for me, because he knows I like organs. So wait up, before I lose anyone:

A lot of Boomers in the US have bad experiences of offals because they were cooked up by well-meaning parents who learned to cook during the Depression and didn't have full access to all the spices and whatnot organ meats deserve. Also, there's a notion that organ meats are just "dirty" and need all kinds of soaking and preservation, and for things like chitterlings--yeah! Tripes--sure! But stuff like kidneys and livers? Eh? I just care they are seasoned a lot and cooked thoroughly. Throw in lemon while sautéing--it more quickly does what soaking is supposed to do. 

Climate Sunday: Rough Winds do Shake the Early Buds of...February?

 

At some point this past week, I exited my car for the half-block walk from the parking lot to my office building without a jacket at all, because it was well and truly warm enough. I even ran the fan in my car on my commute home because it got warm in the parking lot sun. And there have been a few days like this--in February. This isn't usual--my early remembrances of February here in the upper Mid-Atlantic is it snows and gets really freaking cold.

It did not do that here. Well, not yet, but as we mosey into March and advance into April, while I know we've had bad storms in these months, I feel like the ghost of winter starts to vanish--and maybe it isn't a good augur for those of us aware of climate change. Spring has been springing early for a while--as if some areas aren't getting the winter we've been used to. 

Now, California--they are having a winter! That's also not a great sign.

Both of these scenarios feed into the denialist vortex in that they create possible "debunking" narratives: either mild winters in the NE aren't so bad, or blizzards in California prove there's no climate change at all. I guess the question is: when does weird weather get weird enough for the jaded and denialist mind to see it? 

And how do changing weather patterns affect wildlife? When crops and flowers start to habitually bloom too early, and the actual wild of winter bullshit starts a bit too late? 

The rhythm we expected from nature is thrown off, and the dancers can't pick up the pace when it too rapidly changes. This will affect crops we eat and animals like wild fish we rely upon for food. We will notice higher prices for foods--at first, because most people don't understand the relationship between nature and what's at the end of their fork. Then we will be scared. 

I don't want to wait until we are scared about where our food is coming from to get concerned about climate change. It's bad enough we tolerate the growing threat of disease and violence. We should not be so stupid we forget that we need to eat. 

The Joy of Fucking Off and Eating Pizza

 

I haven't had a proper review of just fucking off time since the early days of my blog, so I hope I will be indulged for a moment in talking about the weird thing when I was for somewhat over an hour not plugged into Twitter and ate about an entire pizza and also cider (Ploughman's--they make a very dry cider without adding yeast, just natural fermentation--it is low-calorie and really good if you like dry, more wine-y ciders I will have to figure out what distributors have them) and beer. 

I took a day off work to go and get lunch at one of the local haunts in Bristol. 

I spend so much time with wrath and drunkenness that I hardly know what to do when I have great gluttony opportunities. I usually get the carbonara pizza which boasts eggs and bacon and I add mushrooms, so I am basically having a classic breakfast on a pizza. There was also a special with mortadella and ricotta drizzled with balsamic, which was amazing. I am now considering whether balsamic-drizzled ricotta is just something I regularly need in my life, anyway.  For my general well-being. It seems like such a natural dip for breadsticks, apples, crudites (more so than salsa, anyway).  It is a thing for which, at the moment, I am entirely about. 

I tried, during my unplugged from all media moment, to think about TrumpWorld and whether I wanted to talk about his special master, the example it sets, and whether it seems likely that Trump is already in the midst of being about to perjure himself over the documents that are still missing, and I decided--

Yeah, fuck that. I went to a nearby vintage store, and I bought a strand of fake black pearls, a set of onyx dangles with marcasite that fit with a necklace I already have that I absolutely love b/c so gothic, a $4 set of gold-tone clip-on earrings that are amazingly 50's housewife realness, some also cheap gold-tone with fake orange coral dangle earrings, and a dyed howlite faux turquoise set that is a stunning green that deeply pleases me. It made for the kind of grab-bag different from the ones I write about. Instead of dwelling on things I find ugly, I used a little mad money (under $100) to invest in dress-up. 

Look, I don't know if this qualifies as self-care, because my obsessions are still here. I trimmed my bangs and ends this week, got a Vitamin-C facial and started to watch the latest Cobra Kai.  I harvested my self-grown decorative gourds and deposited them on my front steps and am ready for fall. Sometimes I rage against the machine, sometimes I eat pizza and plan wardrobes with amazing costume jewelry. 

I contain multitudes. I actually still feel like I contain a lot of pizza. But it was absolutely delicious. 

The "Crowding Out" Argument

 

I'm just going to stick with the previous blog post for a bit because I really wanted to know what the pro-life reason for denying WIC expansion so poor families could feed their children was, and now I have it. You want me to share? Here it is:

The undeserving poor are using their WIC-privilege to make it harder for the hard-working Americans to get their hands on the baby formula. 

In other words, and I mean, to use the exact words, if we make it easy for WIC families to buy formula, they will "crowd out" other folks' access. And I really did think it was going to be something like that. Here's our star explainer of things, MTG, breaking it down:

Marjorie Taylor Greene blames WIC, an assistance program that helps poor moms buy baby formula, for contributing to the supply shortage: “The WIC program is making it more difficult for [parents not on WIC] to buy baby formula.” pic.twitter.com/EvYBaWqiHW

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 19, 2022

So, to get this completely straight, she believes that with the WIC vouchers, the food insecure are going to corner the entire Enfamil market because they don't have shit else to buy. She's saying that like she has received a special insight into how broke people work the system. But WIC isn't the customer--the families are. And they have limits on their vouchers that just wouldn't make her scenario likely. 

Her partner in awfulness, Matt Gaetz, has the following to say:

I don't know how many families he thinks are on WIC, but saying they are "crowding out many hard-working American families" is some pretty deliberate language. He might not be aware how many WIC participants are working poor, such as military families, and also, and I want to careful how I put this--how many are white. When I hear Republicans put the words "hard-working" and "American" together, I feel pretty cool saying they are implying it's a matter of white folks vs. welfare queens. In other words, the message is: this is a giveaway to those people. You need to starve those people before they starve you. (Seems familiar, doesn't it?) 

But as to the rest of his Twitter message: the Biden Administration is sourcing formula from overseas now, undoing the stupid trade restrictions put in place by the previous administration. Gaetz wants to make it appear that it's Biden who is useless, when I don't see all the help his posse are offering. And the message these Republicans are sending is very much what George Carlin said long ago about these conservatives. 

Putting Their Money Where Their Mouths Are?

192 Republicans vote against $28 million for baby formula shortage pic.twitter.com/7hZv4DUe8p

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 19, 2022

In a word: no. To expand on that a little bit, apparently it's Biden's fault (actually, it is not) and they are very concerned but it is simply wrong to ask them to, you know--do stuff. 

UPDATE: They don't care about domestic terrorism, either. I don't even wonder why.

ADDENDUM: Why no, Elise Stefanik was not one of the twelve who voted for funding to fix the baby formula supply issue, but if you knew there were only twelve, you would find overlap between them and Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill. 

There was also a bipartisan vote on expanding access to paying for different brands of formula via WIC, and if I told you the nine Republicans who voted against it were Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Clay Higgins (La.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Chip Roy (Texas), well, that would sound exactly right, wouldn't it?  

And I'm sure every one of them would tell you there was a "pro-life" reason why poor families should have a harder time finding food for their babies.

Abbott and Audacity

 

INBOX: ⁦@GovAbbott⁩ slams ⁦@JoeBiden⁩ ⁦@POTUS⁩ for providing baby formula to undocumented immigrants during a national shortage #txlege #tx2022 pic.twitter.com/OGhLYVl1Q5

— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) May 12, 2022

It seems to me that the complaint Gov. Abbott makes that the Biden Administration is feeding babies in immigrant detention is an obvious example of Adam Serwer's axiom: "The cruelty is the point."  There isn't an option here--you feed the kids or they die of starvation. Texas Governor Greg Abbott understands that, but he also understands that there are people who really don't care if that happens. And those are his people. He doesn't have a solution to the issue of fixing the food supply or actually taking care of these children.

What? Greg Abbott, concerned about the supply chain or child welfare? 

It really feels like he doesn't care if children are endangered so long as he is making a culture war point.  He comes up with complaints about things, not real solutions even while real people can be harmed. So of course he has something to say about even the babies of undocumented immigrants--he has made the border his business, and threatening babies I guess makes him look tough. 

Or it makes him look like a sick SOB. I know how I see it. 

Labor Day: Is It A Crime?

 

The $7.25 minimum wage can’t pay all the bills in any state https://t.co/wTk5JHdYNQ

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) September 7, 2021

We talk sometimes about "working for a living", so I just want to interject that working doesn't always provide a living. It provides the barebones of existing, maybe feeding oneself and ones' kids, inadequately, going into soul-disrupting debt at times, relying on various kinds of assistance at others.

Famine of Choices

WATCH: As California farmers make the hard decision to plow through crops no one is buying, analysts say the drop in food supply will be felt in a few months by consumers eager to buy produce at grocery stores https://t.co/F4LVLT5Gct pic.twitter.com/ecrWcGja7c

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 16, 2020

Some portion of my ancestors came to the US because there was, quite purposefully, no food where they came from. The one crop poor people mostly ate, failed. Just about every other kind of food a rich land produced, was exported. If it mattered enough, just a tweak of economics could have saved lives (a million people may have died, maybe a million more were saved by leaving). It wasn't that they couldn't have lived off what the land provided--it's that that nourishment was intended for other paying customers' tables. This sort of thing happens the whole world round. People starve not for a lack of food, but because the political climate doesn't allow it to be on their plates. It's either deliberately withheld, as can happen where the government is oppressive, or because there is no foresight on a government's behalf that food insecurity is a national security issue.

It's not just in light of the above story I consider that--it's a painful thing for farmers to produce good food and watch it go to waste and also know that it isn't just money they are out for their labor, but that the demand exists (people still need fed), it only needs a different path to the ultimate consumer. It's in light of images like this:

image of the line of cars waiting for food aid. Surely, they has to be a way for other plans to be made for more produce to be canned, dairy to be powdered, etc. possibly by an act of government, to make food more available for the people temporarily in want? The logistics for such a thing must exist. I know when I was a kid, people talked shit about government cheese (but it was good for grilled cheese) but that was a staple. We need the USDA to get it's top game on.

I'm not a logistics kind of person that knows exactly how to translate not plowing crops under into filling the bellies of people who just need tiding over until this virus crisis is licked, but taking inspiration from folks like Chef Andres, I know if the will existed we could find a way to do it.

That's the kind of thinking we should want in government. And the sort of thing I think government can make happen on a meaningful scale--but which shouldn't stop food relief groups, local governments, etc. from trying to manage, because I think the crisis is still unfolding, and future food shortages could drive inflation and just some really fucked-up realities. Basically, capitalism Venezuela. I could be wrong about that part, but I am not wrong about feeding the people and subsidizing the farmers. We all need to eat and we all need to take care of one another when things are rough. We are all in this together.

That is what makes a nation great.

I usually have mine regular.

 

 

I really don't spend a whole lot of money on coffee but it's all in how you use it, I guess.

Lady Doritos is a Weird Thing

The idea that Doritos is thinking about making a "crunchless" version just for the ladies is kind of amazing. Instead of recognizing that women also need to make noise when eating a crispy product, and using marketing dollars to normalize or empower women to eat noisily if that is even a thing that needs doing, the marketing folks think maybe there should be a Dorito flavorful enough for a man, but made for a woman. And that product shall have no crunch.

Experiencing our crunch seems to me to be what feminism is about. If we want to have a crunchless experience, we can have yogurt and cottage cheese. We can have oatmeal and cream of wheat. But what if the sound of one mouth crunching was our satori? What if the extreme flavor of salsa rio or cool ranch was the flavor of our feminism? What if to never crunch was to take a step back in our snackular liberation? 

I say that the sound of one woman snacking is a bell of liberty for any woman to eat and be nourished, to receive comfort from food and take up that space. I will not be crunchless in the hope of people thinking I was snackless. I will, Jay Leno-like, brandish my snacks aloft and be seen and heard. Because I am woman, hear me eat. I am strong. I am consumerable. I am chip-eating.

Sometimes a Sandwich is Just a Sandwich

I guess I have to be a little thankful for David Brooks because he gives me a reason to not blog (again!) about Trump/Russia, and to blog about things I really have always cared about--socioeconomics and food. Basically, he wrote a column where there was so much other stuff, but the thing everyone honed in on was the friend he was going to have lunch with in a gourmet sandwich shop, who seemed put off and so they agreed to have Mexican, instead. He seems to have taken for granted (and maybe I'm compounding the error by 'assuming his assumption") that she was put off by all the exotic Italian words on the menu because she only had a HS diploma. 

All us East Coast elites like my working class BA in English ass wondered WTF. You don't need a degree to know what you want on a sandwich or to have familiarity with an array of Italian meats and cheeses. I come from the vibrant sandwich culture of Philadelphia, where sandwich literacy begins in grade school and full sandwich literacy is assumed by completion of high school. It isn't a function of class, either. The brokest person you ever saw knows whether they want spicy ham and provolone on their sandwich, or if they're hanging with the American hoagie. They know if they want hot peppers or hold the onions. If you come up in the right neighborhood, you are beyond the what goes into a sandwich and have moved on to the sublime characteristics of what's good bread (Does the quality of the bread depend on the water? Is it the heat of the furnace?) and whether the meats and cheeses are actually authentically sourced (Quiznos--is this Italian salami? No--I ask you!) by adulthood. 

It isn't even a parochial thing. Jewish deli, Italian cheesesteaks, Vietnamese banh mi (but really, order the pho--of which there are more varieties, all great, than you can shake a stick at), if you are from a pretty diverse local culture, you don't balk at Italian on the menu. If I wandered into a Nigerian restaurant (a cuisine I'm not so well acquainted with) I'd ask a server--what do you recommend? What is spicy and what isn't? What is in this? That's not education, and that's not class--I just know you have to assume food is edible and trust that no one likes food that sucks. 

But the forces that made me omnivorous across the cultural landscape didn't make my parents. They don't do sushi. They order mostly the same five or six things from the Chinese take-out.  I don't think they can hit up an Indian buffet and deal with the abundance of distinctly different palate-choices than they grew up with. But trust this--they can figure out an Italian sandwich. They are not Italian--they just got this. They did not need Intro to Salumi 101.They just aren't going to waste a buck or twelve on food they find out they don't want to eat--

Which brings me back to Brooks' friend. Maybe she digested that what was on offer was $20 sandwiches that she could get for $8 anywhere else. Maybe she didn't want aioli breath. Maybe she just knew Mexican almost always offers better value for price since it hasn't been gentrified by third generation pezzonovantes. The thing is--a lot of us middle class/working class people who get to traipse into the upper strata aren't unprepared for the secret handshake--we just balk at the prices. 

I probably could have been a little brighter and applied to schools I knew we couldn't afford--but I chose one I knew we could swing. Was I able to apply for scholarships, etc? (Maybe.) Was I afraid I'd fail? (Always.)  Did that choice make me less competitive as an employable adult? See--I get that the first several of Brooks' paragraphs talk about what I've tried to talk about in my "Know Your Class War" pieces. He's maybe not specifically laying the blame at white privilege and the whole tilted table at specific class prejudices--but he is  bringing some of it up--and I think that's kind of positive, really. But it isn't culturally about the barriers, the sort of intellectual poll tax he's assuming people are not able to pay to enter the upwardly mobile franchise. 

People have knowledge and great opinions and different opinions and a variety of experiences and a host of likes and dislikes--but the entrée to the actual society he's talking about, after all, is still money. To see that Broadway show, to have that leisure time to catch up on news/entertainment/reading, to go eat the world? Takes money. It's always about money. To live in that school district and get the ear of that congresscritter. It isn't the capicollo. It's the Benjamins.

But maybe this also adds color to the times we see some people (even of means) treat Olive Garden like a real taste of Italy, even if they are in a major city where more authentic fare can be had--they want to know what they are getting, and they trust the chains because they did not have an environment that gave them the "eatportunities" a richer cultural environment might have.  People make checkbook decisions. They don't feel like they can afford to have an unpredictable bad time. 

You have to take it all into account--and still recognize that taste is individual, and often based in experiences. Maybe a sandwich is just a sandwich--maybe one column can't really take in the scope of choice versus economic availability. I'm not here to bury or praise Brooks, just to point out that while his example is broken, his broader topic (while he does not have the range to really explore it) is a good jumping-off point for further and better discussion. 

Hey Everybody--Don't Do Black Friday.

There's a commercial issue we still need to look at in this country regarding how "occasions" are used to sell us into participating in cheap consumerism, where we select times when we opt-out of participation in real life to sit outside of stores about to open for supposedly plush sales. Those sales are never all that. I submit that participating in them is a little weird--you are being conditioned to shop when the man says on the basis of sales that might not even represent true value.

All things considered, there is still sense in encouraging a "not one dime" day. I never understood why Thanksgiving needed to elide onto Xmas so seamlessly. But I completely understand why not investing in consumerism during an otherwise sacred holiday makes total sense. One shops to live, one does not live to shop.

I'm going to work, and don't plan on spending one dime. Unless I buy bagels for my crew. Or something holiday-ish like that.

This Drunk Lady is Vegetarian Thankgiving Pretty Well

There is tofu (so much plant-estrogen isoflavones, y'all) but there is also not at all vegan parmesan (yay--a thing with flavor!)

When I did vegetarian Thanksgiving it involved so much squash. And seeds of same. I like it that I eat turkey now.

Climate Sunday: The Pumpkin Spice Edition

I know, regular readers of my Climate Sunday posts were probably expecting me to elaborate on the claim made in yesterday's Democratic Debate that climate change directly leads to terrorism, but I've touched on the national security risks related to climate change before, and also, Brad Plumer has written a very nice Vox 'splainer on the topic. So, I feel like I don't have to go there--instead I want to talk pumpkins.

I like them. I'm a huge fan of pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, assorted savory gourd preparations. But climate change and the pumpkin go together like things that don't go together. For one thing, naturally, climate matters when it comes to pumpkin crops. Just like climate change could have a lousy impact on Christmases of the future, climate change could ruin Thanksgiving. (This is something that has been known for some time.)

But wait, there's more! While climate change could cause pumpkin scarcity on one end, on the other hand, pumpkins are often completely wasted, and food waste contributes to methane as the fruit simply rots.

That doesn't seem wise.

I've never been keen on jack o'lanterns myself. When I purchase a gourd, while I may decorate it (as you can see), I pretty much intend for that food to get eaten. Sure, part of the rind is going to "waste" (likely mulch for the grapevines, even though they've gone into their winter's slumber), but the bits we don't eat for ourselves we have the tradition of cracking and leaving for deer at a local park. (Not carving them also keeps "trash pandas"--raccoons--off them until I'm ready to surrender them back to nature.)

Back From Vacation

It's nice to spend a week away from the Internet and my various current preoccupations, what with the religious freedom issue, the race relations, the whole Confederate Flag stuff and the business about immigration and migration of populations. So, I spent the last week in and around Harpers Ferry, WV, where John Brown made his stand, and where a patch of territory changed hands between Union and Confederacy a handful of times, and also visited the Antietam battlefield, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

Well, on the upside, I did get unplugged from Twitter and all television news programs. So my immersion in history was kind of pure, in the sense that I wasn't engaging with the news cycles. So I missed things like Rick Perry's withdrawal from the 2016 contest (I had a bit of thought he'd do better this time around, not being looped up on pain killers from the back surgery, but no. Once bitten, I guess supporters are twice shy.)

Instead of absorbing news and blogs and the 24/7 noise, I did a lot of walking around Harpers Ferry, Loudon Co,. VA and Jefferson Co., WV, and took in the historical offerings of the National Park Service, which has painstakingly kept history in this region alive. It is a hilly region, and everything, though in walking distance, was uphill both ways. I want to give a shout-out to The Light Horse, which is a brilliant area B&B and an excellent place to stay if you ever get the chance. It's very well situated and pleasantly appointed with tasteful and well-kept antique furnishings--and you get a damn good breakfast there. It happens to be walking distance (if you are a tolerable walker) to both the Bolivar Battlefield site and the Historic Harpers Ferry area. (There is also a liquor store like a block away, and a pizzeria two blocks past it). Also, out of six nights, we ate at the very good Canal House Café three times. They don't have a liquor license, but are BYOB. What kept us coming back? Brilliant food. "The General" is a generous slice of meatloaf with a delicious red sauce--very recommended. I also had the "Blue Ridge" and "Triple Crown"--very tasty variations on the ham and cheese and the BLT sandwiches, respectively. Their farm-to-table concept focuses on fresh ingredients and concentrates on the food being of great quality--and they deliver. For openers, be sure to have one of their soups (you can't miss) and order a side of bread. Even if you aren't a big bread fan, the bread is awesome, with honey and salt-added natural butter. It's just damn decadent. We ate indoors, but outdoor dining is also available. They have organic teas and some nice microbrewed sodas on offer.