Bloody Marys the Watts way

For this blog topic, I decided to steer away from travel and focus more on another favorite pastime of mine – mixology.

Believe it or not, I’ve had several people say very complimentary things about my Bloody Marys. I do have my own “recipe” which I like, but it’s by no means a closely guarded secret. In fact, if there’s one thing I know about a Bloody Mary, it’s that there are a gazillion ways to make one. Still, a few people have thought enough of my Bloody Marys that they suggested I include it in a blog, so what the hell.

And, as you’ll notice on the list of ingredients, I don’t even make my mix from scratch. I use Zing Zang as the base and work from there. That may be considered cheating, but it works for me.

This may take some tracking down of all the ingredients, but here’s what I use:

A pit stop at the Rib Shack in Saint Louis

One of the reasons I decided to blog was to have a journal of sorts of my observations from various trips and travel experiences.  So, my recent shortage of blogs is in direct correlation to the fact that I simply haven’t had that much to blog about lately. 

My favorite Gypsy, on the other hand, recently hitched her wagon to an American airlines flight to Paris to spend a week drinking wine, eating fine food, enjoying music and shopping at the flea markets.  And as much as I’d love this blog to be about Paris (and you’d probably prefer that, too), you’ll have to settle for a blog about my ongoing search for great barbecue in off-the-beaten-path places.   

That brings me to the Rib Shack, conveniently located on Natural Bridge Road in Saint Louis, not far from Lambert International Airport.  Before I drove Gypsy to the airport, I researched possible places to have lunch in Saint Louis on two websites I recommend – Roadfood  and Urbanspoon.  On the barbecue front, I narrowed my choices to the Rib Shack and Pappy’s Smokehouse, which has been featured numerous times on the Travel Channel but would have taken more time to find.  Since Gypsies tend to not favor barbecue, I decided I would only dine at one of the locations if we were running late and did not have a lot of time for lunch. 

Things discussed at the Brewhaus, Vol. 3

Gather around, fellow conversationalists, barstool philosophers and bullsh*t artists, as we review the latest list of topics recently discussed at my favorite watering hole: 

Random thoughts from the 2011 Springfield Ethnic Festival

One of my favorite local events every year – and one that symbolizes to me the end of summer – is the annual Ethnic Festival held Labor Day weekend at the Ethnic Village inside the Illinois State Fairgrounds.  

For those who aren’t familiar with the layout at Ethnic Village, bands play under a large gazebo in the center of the grounds.  The booths where the food vendors are located encircle the border of the festival.  Each booth has a sign prominently displayed that indicates the culture/nationality represented by the food for sale. 

Lately, however, the event seems to have lost some of its luster.  In some ways, it has almost become an afterthought of a larger ethnic festival included as part of the State Fair.  Still, despite fewer food vendors than during the fair, the entertainment still makes it worthwhile, and it’s a good complement to the motorcycle races that take over the grandstands at the fairground over the same weekend. 

Here are a few more observations I had over the Friday and Sunday night I attended: