Blog Day 2007: August 31
I noticed this whole Blog Day thing somewhere… U-Handbag?? and decided to participate. The task: find 5 interesting blogs I wouldn’t otherwise patronize and post them here for my readers to see, and notify said bloggers that I linked to them. Add this Technorati tag in somewhere. Oh, and do it today. And I’d like to say that I actually have subscribed to all these - it’s not just an exercise. Here we go:
[Sorry to those I tagged who couldn't find me! Apparently WordPress is not as friendly as I'd like it to be!]
1. Bridget Jones Has Nothing On Me: mocking others for 33 years and counting. Be sure to check out the cast of characters. Real life soap opera? Whatever it is, there’s a good fair amount of that sort of black humor I love so much here. Not quite as dopey as Bridget Jones was. 
2. Confessions of a Closet Environmentalist: In their words: “A couple of environmental minded students setting out to live sustainably on a student budget. This is a record of the struggle, the successes and the failures. Along the way, the attempt to fight the negative stereotypes of being an ‘environmentalist’.” I find this very interesting. Will forward to environmentalist-student brother.
3. Because I’m me and I can’t just do this without crafts, Suburose is next: bookbinding and pottery by a father and daughter. Like many of the good crafting blogs I read, this one is attached to an Etsy store with beautiful things in it. As with many blogs I subscribe to, I found myself liking the story attached to the blog.
4. A Chicken In Every Granny Cart: this one’s a smorgasbord. There’s (1) the kind of cooking that makes me hungry, (2) pictures of New York that are gorgeous and (3) it totally seems like the kind of thing most humans are - a unique mix of experiences, interests, and sensory information. Oh - did I mention I like to cook and used to live in New York. I completely admire her for cooking & experimenting in her tiny apartment. I tried that too. It’s such a shame such great ingredients have to be processed in kitchens that are about 2′ square!.
5. Slice of the Day is a blog that posts approximately an entry a day about a different flower. Pictures, compiled information, etc. You know I love flowers (and plants generally) and I love information in general, and now I get to have a daily dose of something great and beautiful! Yay!
Nerdy Amigurumi
You can do anything with a crochet needle. The force is with you.
Maid Rite and Family-Owned Joints
This evening I was watching Alton Brown’s “Feasting On Asphalt” Part II. In case you aren’t familiar, Feasting on Asphalt is a Food Network show in which Alton travels the back roads and small towns of America looking for little eateries, road food, family-owned restaurants and other joys of eating. I wouldn’t post this here if it weren’t that I think independent artists and independent cooks occupy some of the same landscape. Getting away from the freeway is a lot like getting away from the box stores. And in this case, it’s special to me.
In Part II, Alton decided to travel the length of the Mississippi River from New Orleans all the way to where it begins in Minnesota. I think this is wonderful - I have a lot of family who live somewhere along the Mississippi and indeed, they live or have lived all the way from the ‘Sippi Delta into Minnesota. The Mississippi holds a special place in my heart.
In the episode I was watching he got into Illinois and I was sort of hoping he’d stop some of the places I know. Much of my dad’s family lives in Illinois, and my mom’s family lives across the river in Iowa.
To my surprise, he DID stop somewhere I knew - Quincy, Illinois. My dad lived there. My extended family lives there. Uncles, half-aunts, great uncles and aunts, cousins, you name it. But most importantly, that’s where my grandmother lived while I was growing up. And my grandmother’s favorite restaurant was the Maid Rite - which is JUST where Alton stopped! I’ve BEEN to that Maid Rite a number of times. My grandmother always wanted to go there.
I’m sure my grandmother knew the people featured on the show, since they’d been working there for 30+ years. This Maid Rite, while a franchise, has been a locally-owned shop for 79 years, owned by the same family in fact. They bake their own pies. They mix their own sodas. They want things to be good and they like who they are. And while I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t really know what Etsy is, the truth is they have the same one-of-a-kind, entrepreneurial heart.
Update: Thanks to the someone that posted this segment on YouTube, so you can see what I’m talking about! My dad updates me that he’s been going there since before that waitress worked there. My dad tells me that when he was a kid he had a Maid Rite with ketchup and a strawberry shake with fries!
