Party at Fast Eddie’s

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Jen

34. Sit in a backroom at Fast Eddie’s Bon Air in Alton, a bar-and-grill venerated on both sides of the river. You’ll find everyone from church-folk to Harley riders, tourists to antique-hunters, filling every neon-lit corner, drinking ice-cold beer and eating cheap, fun food—no frills, but with a definite cult following.

Last weekend, a bunch of us went out to celebrate Amanda’s birthday in style — if that style was jean shorts and NASCAR t-shirts — at Fast Eddie’s Bon Air! I had never been there, I’ve only heard about its awesomeness. And it lived up to the hype and then some. You can only imagine what kind of crowd would frequent an establishment known for its cheap food and cheap beer. Let’s see, I guess I can give you a glimpse into this world: mullets, she-mullets, tight acid-washed jeans, much older women with bleached-out hair, non-stop Southern Rock cover bands, and Busch Beer on tap. Well, the Busch Beer allowed Bob, Andrew and Matt to consume more alcohol at a reasonable price point so that was fine.

I must take some time to rave about the food there, though. Extremely cheap and very excellent. I mean, for three people to have burgers, fries and chicken-on-a-stick, it came out to be around $11. You can’t beat that with two sticks!

Of course, we were that close to Fritz’s, we had to stop by afterwards for a little dessert. Who can pass up frozen custard? No one.

So, Amanda, Happy Birthday, your party was a blast!

Rake Trinket Palin…

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Bob

… is my Sarah Palin Baby Name. What’s yours?

2008 St. Louis Art Fair

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Jen

86. Buy art so original, you can crow about finding it—either in May, at the newcomer, Belleville’s Art on the Square, still pinching itself after ranking first in the nation in the 2007 Art Fair SourceBook, or in September at its older sibling, the Saint Louis Art Fair in Clayton, which has been reaping similar accolades for years.

I’ve been working down in Clayton for the past 6 years and I always see the city setting up for the Art Fair and each year I say to myself, “We should go to the Art Fair.” Then, as soon as I get home, I totally forget about it. Well, not so this time. This year, I made a point to mention to Katie that the Art Fair would be cool and so now that I had said it out loud, we were going to go.

I knew going into this that I was not going to be able to buy anything because art is expensive so I did the next best thing: I got their business cards with their websites printed and so now I can go and gawk at their fabulous pieces of works from the comforts of my own home.

Some our favorites were:

Bruce J. Peeso has some really awesome, extremely horizontal, photo-realistic landscapes. These paintings were probably 3-5 feet long and at most 6 inches tall. The gave a really tremendous expression of space and distance and were Katie’s favorite artist at the show.

Chris Roberts-Antieau is a fiber artist that has some large, colorful, and quite humorous works. Bob’s favorite was the Celebrity Mugshots, but Household Safety Techniques was really nice as well.

Bryan Cunningham has some really great mixed media pieces that had that old-timey look that would make you think that Jack White probably owns a piece or two.

Xavier Nuez brought some large, super-saturated photographs showcasing the beauty of urban decay. He had shot many of his most recent series here in St. Louis, a prime choice for finding urban decay.

Michael Hoffman was another of Bob’s favorites. He had some large abstract colorfied paintings with really bright, slick looking colors that would look great over a fireplace. Bob has sworn that he will purchase some of this when we can afford Capital A Art in our home.

Heinrich Toh’s contemporary Asian art was my favorite. His works mixed printmaking and photography to give a really interesting vibe.

In addition, we ran into Bob’s friend and ex-coworker Alex and hung out on the Il Vicino patio with him and a couple friends shooting the breeze. A great night for all, even if it made us want things well outside of our price range. :-(

Bailing Out

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Bob

So this morning we woke up to loud noises and a freaked out dog. It was raining like monsoon season, so I checked the backyard area and sure enough, the water was rising fast — almost to the house. Damn. I ran out and grabbed the snow shovel and started cleaning out the leaves and pine needles that were clogging up the draining area and helped, but the water was coming down too fast and I was getting drenched, so I started bailing the water out by scooping it up onto the deck. Jen came out to help and for her trouble got drenched, but it was nice to see her out there pitching in.

So we got the water down — turned out we got about 4.5 inches of rain today — and everything is cool. Regardless, we’re considering our options down the line, whether to try and excavate out better drainage under the deck, or to replace it with something that will handle the water better.

Supper Club: September 3, 2008

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Jen

Because there where quite of few people participating in last week’s Supper Club, Kim suggested the idea of another Supper Club menu, similar to the Supper Club Challenge. As always, Cooking Light did not disappoint us with their Memorial Day menu (I know, Memorial Day is in May but we wanted a summer menu and this one sounded the best).

Appetizer: White Bean and Bacon Dip with Rosemary Pita Chips. Now this was a very delicious bean dip and I loved the homemade pita chips. The only thing I wouldn’t have minded was more bacon, one can never have too much of it.

Entree: Spice-Rubbed Flank Steak with Spicy Peach Bourbon Sauce. The steak had a lot of flavor to it and I love how the sauce was sweet and spicy at the same time.

Side Dishes: Sweet-Spicy Cumcumbers over Tomatoes. The name just says it all, it was sweet, it was spicy. A definite staple to a backyard barbecue. And I tell you what, I had it a few days later and it tasted even better.

Succotash Salad. I’m a fan of any type of corn salad and this dish was fantastic. I’m not really a lima bean sort of person so I think next time when I make this dish, I’ll only put half of the lima beans in or omit them completely. The dressing on the salad was tangy and flavorful without being overbearing. This dish even tasted great when mixed with the other side dish.

Corn and Smoked Mozzarella Mashed Potatoes. Technically, this dish was not on the Memorial Day menu but creme fraiche could not be found at Dierbergs so Monika chose another potato dish. Okay, I love corn, I love mashed potatoes, this is the best of both worlds! And now you can see why the succotash salad works well when you mix with the mashed potatoes. Corn, corn galore!

Dessert: Buttermilk-Apple Coffee Cake. Another recipe that was not part of the menu due to the fact that none of us makes ice cream. Kate chose this recipe because she’s always up for cooked apples and it still complimented the rest of the menu.

So, hooray to all of us for executing another Cooking Light menu with huge success.