Category: Food

Kinlaw’s Welcome Grill

bgibson135

With the Rainbow Restaurant being closed the week of July 4th, I had to find other breakfast providers.

I visited Kinlaw’s Welcome Grill again. I had forgotten how good their Country Ham breakfast was.

You get:

· Country ham (“off the line”)

· Grits

· Scrambled eggs (you choice)

· A biscuit

· Drink (unsweet tea, sweetened by me)

All the above for $5.25 including tax. That is an awesome price, and the food is all good!

You don’t pay for atmosphere. It is a metal building with no windows.

You are served from a serving line, with plastic utensils and paper plates.

Lunch at the Southern Sizzler in Whiteville, NC

bgibson135

20160410_120533

I had lunch at the Southern Sizzler Restaurant in Whiteville, North Carolina yesterday (Sunday, April 10, 2016).  I had passed this restaurant on other visits to Whiteville because it always seemed busy, but today, I was a little early for the Church Crowd (about 11:30 am).

The Buffet with unsweet tea came to a little over $13.

They have good food, attentive waitresses, and a country diner atmosphere.

I sampled several items including pork ribs, meatloaf, breaded pork chop, fried chicken (wing), fried shrimp, turnips, butter beans, green beans and salt pork rind.  The only thing that wasn’t up to par was the cabbage slaw.  It was much like what I had fixed in the past before I took note of a trick that Mary Ann uses to fix her slaw.  She cuts up the cabbage roughly, puts it in a blender “with water” and then blends it.  Without the water the slaw becomes too fine and almost mushy.  Drain off the water after the slaw is chopped and add some sweetner and Dukes Mayo.

20160410_120535I enjoyed it all and went back for a few more turnips and another pork rib.  The ribs would have been better if the sauce had been cooked into the meat, but the meat was good, and the sauce had good flavor.

I had a little of two of the deserts, including some banana pudding and a lemon cake something.  Both good.

I used sweetner in the unsweet tea.  It was cold, and the waitress brought me a glass of ice with a tea refill.

I enjoyed the food here and would like to come back sometime.

FATZ Restaurant – Cheraw, SC

bgibson135

Cheraw, SC is about 1.5 hours SW of Fayetteville, NC.  My first visit to the Fatz Restaurant, in Cheraw, was back in November of this year (2015).  My waitress was Ashley, and the overall experience was excellent!  I had onion rings, and one of the provided dipping sauces was a Chipotle Ketchup, which was sweet, with a little heat, and a definite Chipotle flavor.  Ashley was attentive to my experience and I left a good tip, for me;-)

Today was my third visit to the restaurant.  I was seated and told that Ashley would be my waitress.  Moments later, the hostess changed her mind and as Ashley came to my booth, the hostess pulled her off and directed her to serve someone else.  Ashley leaned back to me and said, “Someone else will be here to help you shortly,” smiled and walked away.  Another waitress came to wait on me.

I ordered unsweet tea, although I would sweeten it with an off brand sweetner.  I had viewed the Lunch Menu online before my visit, and had decided to order the veggie trio.  The  Kale Slaw, Red Potato Salad with Fresh Dill, and Sweet Fried Brussels had looked good so I ordered them and I also asked for some onion rings.   Later the waitress would return and ask if a substitution, for the red potato salad, would be okay.  I asked if I could get a baked potato instead and she went off to inquire.  When she came with my food, it included a baked potato, sour cream, butter, bacon bits and a mixed shredded cheese blend… kale salad, fried brussel sprouts (with onions in a sweet balsamic vinaigrette).  The onion rings had arrived just a little before my entree.

It was all good!  The kale salad and the fried brussel sprouts & onions had good flavor, as did the baked potato.  I put some of the bacon bits on my potato, but I also put some in the kale salad.  Good flavors.

My waitress did not return until almost the end of my meal.  She asked if I wanted a tea to go but I asked for a water & ice to go.  She came with my water and I signed the Visa receipt and left a small tip.

I do like Fatz and so far the food has all been good.  *I forgot, they have a bread appetizer that is also good.

 

ADDENDUM [02/19/22]: A short time ago, I was looking at a Google Maps view of Cheraw, SC and in the area where the FATZ Restaurant had been, the building was still there, but it wasn’t labelled as FATZ any longer. I checked, and I think I recall that this restaurant closed, for good, a couple of years ago.

Pork Chop Sandwich

bgibson135

I bought a couple of slices of pickled green tomato at Whole Foods from the olive bar.  I had fixed a couple of pork chops on the stove top yesterday.  The ones shown here are breaded, but mine were not.  I sliced some French bread and spread some curried mayo on both slices.  The curried mayo also has some small capers in it.  I added a little Splenda to the green tomato slice.  I sliced a Vidalia onion thinly.

Simple, but it was so delicious!

splenda

french-bread-sliced sliced-vidalia-onion curried-caper-mayo pork-chop green-tomato-pickles_DSC8574

French Onion Soup @ Home – Yum!

bgibson135

A few years ago, I drove out to a motel along the I95 highway near Fayetteville, NC for dinner. This was just for something different. When I looked at the menu, I saw that there was “French Onion Soup” as an option. My eyes lit up! I hadn’t had French Onion Soup in years. Not something you would make at home, and rarely an option for the restaurants that I normally visited during a week. I’m not sure when the first time that I had this soup, but my mind navigates toward my time in Louisville, KY and Gary Golden.

Gary was at Southern Seminary in the early 1980s when I was there. Gary was a “foodie” years before that would become a popular term.  We shared an apartment for a while.  During this time, I think he made some French Onion Soup.  He ended up becoming a campus minister at Dartmouth (I think it was Dartmouth.) He was from Texas, Texarkana, where his mother still lived. One Christmas Holiday he drove down to Alabama and picked me up. We then went to Texarkana. He left me at his mother’s house while he went out to visit his old compadres.

I think we left his mom’s house on Christmas night and drove through the night toward Lousiville. Our route meant that we barely crossed through Arkansas in the early morning night. As the sun began to rise, I was driving and Gary was asleep… the sky became a beautiful burgundy tapestry, sort of like a beautiful old sofa, rippled and dimpled by tacks.

I think we spent a night at the Seminary and then drove across several states and spent a night with another friend of Gary’s in Maryland (maybe DC). Finally, we ended up in Vermont where Gary was living while ministering in NH at Dartmouth. We spent a couple of days at Gary’s place, and did not go out much. He had a wonderful view of the countryside for a great distance as the house was raised on stilts and there was a deep snow covering the land. *Deep may be a relative term. This would have been deep for the North Carolina coast where I grew up.

After a few days, Gary drove me down to Boston. I think the night before I was to fly out of the airport there for Jacksonville, NC. It seems that this might have been 1984. We ate at a restaurant in I think, Faneuil Hall Marketplace. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant, but I ordered both Boston Scrod and Boston Baked Beans. They don’t really go together, but I wanted to be able to say that I had eaten both. I’ve had better baked beans as these I seem to recall were under cooked and hard.

I think Gary and I stayed at a motel near the airport, although maybe not. I was reading a book on the airplane. I think it was Dune, and I recall hoping that we would land safely so that I could finish it. We had been above the clouds that morning and the sunrise was beautiful, but as we neared Jacksonville, we dropped down into the mist with no visibility until we were almost on the ground.

It must have been Mary Ann and/or Ray that picked me up at the airport. I don’t recall the visit much, but I flew out of Jacksonville for Charlotte at the end of my family visit. It was a quick flight, rising to a pinnacle and then almost immediately dropping at a similar angle to land. I recall looking down on the Carolina countryside which was not very far below. I don’t recall the friend that picked me up at the Charlotte Airport, but I think he had been one of my tennis buddies in Jacksonville and was going to school in the Charlotte area. The flight had taken about 30 minutes in the air, but I think it was an hour and a half on the ground before we were off the plane.

I took the bus from Charlotte and arrived at the main bus station in Atlanta, GA. The parents of a friend (from Lineville, AL) had driven to pick me up in Atlanta to take me back to Alabama. Their daughter was supposed to pick me up, but she had gone off to do other things.

I think this holiday was when I managed to go through 26 States in 15 days. If I had driven across the River in Louisville, I could have added another state (IN).

—

A few days ago, I thought of making some French Onion Soup at home… in the slow cooker.  I had done this at least once before, several years ago.  It had turned out well, and going online, I was reminded of how easy this can be.  I had bought some Swiss Cheese slices, and then some yellow onions (so I wouldn’t waste the last of my Vidalia onions), and I think I purchased a box of Beef Broth, although the one I used, I had had for some time.

I might have fixed this yesterday, but in the morning I had turned on my dishwasher as I left to drive to Raleigh.  I had my slow cooker crock pot in the washer.  To my surprise, when I returned, I checked the dishwasher and the crock and saw that it was still dirty.  I checked the other dishes and they had not been cleaned either.  I looked down and saw there was no detergent in the first tray, but the second tray was still closed.  This was proof that I had started the washer, but something odd had occurred and the process had stopped somewhere along the way.  I restarted the process and this time, it completed successfully.

This morning, perhaps closer to noon or 12:30 pm, I got the crock out and started chopping some yellow onions.  I used a couple of large ones, and a medium sized onion.  Some olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar, freshly ground pepper and a little powdered garlic… turn on High and go off to do other things.  After several hours, I added the box of Beef Broth and a little extra water, and some salt.  Later, I went to sleep during the afternoon.

I awoke about 6:30 pm.

Eventually, I got out a soup bowl (with small handles).  I sliced some French bread and buttered the slices, adding some powdered garlic and toasted them up.  While they were toasting, I got out the Swiss Cheese slices.  I ladelled some soup out of the crock into the bowl, placed the toasted bread across the top and finished by adding the Swiss Cheese, and a little grated Parmesean over the top.  I put the broiler on HI and put the bowl on the top rack of the oven.  I checked several times, not wanting this to burn, and noting smoke coming off of something in the oven.

I got out a dinner plate and took the hot bowl out of the oven with my pot holders and took it and a spoon to my easy chair in the living room.

I dipped the spoon into the cheese, bread and soup and lifted it up, the cheese stringing high above the bowl.  I blew on the hot soup and then into my mouth.  Delicious!  So easy to make.  It takes a little time, but so worth it.

Okay, so it’s about time for some more “home made” Chili.  Same slow cooker, but I’ve now found some special flavors that I like… The dried Spanish Chorizo and extra Paprika (alot of Paprika), with a little sweetner.

Chipotle Mango Salsa

bgibson135

Basically, chunk up everything, mix, and give it enough time for the avocado to break down some to form a creamy sauce.  Use one or two Chipotle peppers, chopped up.  If you like more heat, add more peppers.  The peppers are the unexpected element to this salsa.  You get sweet, and hot.  Vidalia onions are probably best.

$T & Walmart
$T

NOTE [05/11/22]: I fixed this again recently and put some left overs in the refrigerator. It took me a couple of days to finish it, and I had put the remainder in a small Tupperware container which had cooled in the refrigerator for a couple of days. By the time I ate the last of it, the avocado had plenty of time to break down and form a delicious, mild sauce. The food was really cold, and by the time I had finished it, I said to myself, “That was almost like ice cream.” Not the texture of the salsa, but how good ice cream is… a really good desert, and that is what this salsa can become!

I used some other brand of Mangos in a jar, the last time, and I had a couple of raw Champaign Mangos, which I sliced up and added to the salsa.

I wrote about making this Chipotle/Mango Salsa while travelling in my posting called, “Road Gourmet.” I would have to re-read the posting to see if I mentioned about not being able to find some of the ingredients, or not find them all at one grocery. I haven’t made this is a while because I think it affected my blood sugar negatively.

I was recently looking in an old cookbook [Southern Living Homestyle Cookbook published in 2008 by Oxmoor House p.153] that I had bought a short time ago and found a version of this:

Mango and Avocado Salsa

  • 2 ripe large mangoes, peeled and chopped
  • 1 large avocado, peeled and chopped
  • 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • ½ medium-size red onion, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • ½ teaspoon hot sauce
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon pepper

This recipe includes fresh chopped cilantro, but uses hot sauce instead of chopped Chipotle peppers.

[06/23/25]:

Spicy Mango Habanero Guacamole at Trader Joe’s

I rarely look to Trader Joe’s for any grocery items, so it was unusual for me to be on the Trader Joe’s web site today. But, during my brief visit, I happened to see an add for “Spicy Mango Habanero Guacamole.” As I looked at the image and read the following list of ingredients, I began to realize that with an addition of pineapple chunks & cilantro, and a substitution of chipotle peppers for habanero/jalapenos, I would have a satisfying guacamole that mimicked all the salsa flavors.

Chunks of golden Mango provide the sweet. The spicy comes from a combination of jalapeño peppers and Habanero pepper purée. These sweet & spicy components are complemented by just a handful of other fresh (never frozen) ingredients, including onion, red bell pepper, and cilantro. Of course, we can’t forget the avocados! Our Mexican supplier acquires Hass variety avocados from nearby farms and scoops them by hand to create the creamy and delicious Guacamole base.  (Description from Trader Joe’s web site.)

I normally do not fixt this salsa because the mango and pineapple affect my blood sugar negatively, but I do love the flavors, and as I recall, if you leave the dish a couple of days in the fridge and allow the avocado to break down to a smooth, cool sauce, this becomes “a dessert.”

The last several times I’ve been in Food Lion, I’ve walked past where they sell the DelMonte Brand of canned fruit, but I haven’t seen any sliced mangos, which a few years ago they always had one or two glass jars of mangos. The mangos in a jar are not as good looking as the fresh mangos. *Oh, and I have seen and bought several cans of mangos at Dollar Tree ($T). I’m not sure if I still have them, or if $T still sells them, but I know that $T does sell the canned pineapple for $1.25, because the price is prominently displayed on the can, as part of it’s advertising by the company.

[end]

Turkish Glass

bgibson135

7918179770_579b9727e6_zI found two of these glass tumblers at an antiques store in New Bern, NC.  They were the first two things my eyes focused on as I entered the door.  I went to them immediately and took the two of them up to the checkout counter, and then spent about another hour looking through the rest of the store.  I recall that the clerk took off about a $1 per glass, and they weren’t expensive.  Very pretty gold rim.  They are slightly smaller than the Libby Catawba glasses I have (of which all but about two have been broken in my dishwasher).  51VVR1CKTWL

Country Ham, Red-eye Gravy at Helen’s Kitchen

bgibson135
countryham-red-eye-gravy-at-helens-kitchen-jax-nc

I cannot rely on Helen’s Kitchen to consistently provide good red-eye gravy, but this picture reminds me that this was one of the really good ones.  Everything fixed really well!  More than once, or twice, or even three times, their red-eye gravy has come out “looking good” but having no or very little salty flavor.  At one time I thought that I had just gotten there late and they had “watered down” the gravy to make it last, but I’ve arrived earlier and it still was bland.

[NOTE 06/28/25]: I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I found that adding some salt to the bland red-eye gravy was the answer. Maybe they add water to dilute the salt, and I just have to impose my will and add it back. *And they almost always provide way more country ham that I am going to eat at breakfast so I almost always take one of the flat biscuits (which I love that they don’t have a bunch of white starchy center) and make a country ham biscuit for later. The later normally coming somewhere near the Friends You Know Restaurant, after I’ve just had some onion rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper.

I drove down to Hubert yesterday (Friday) and had lunch with Mary Ann at the El Catrin Kitchen near Swansboro. But there were several things I did or did not do that I usually do or do not do. I didn’t go to Helen’s Kitchen for a country ham breakfast. Highly unusual. I ate a Mexican Scrambled Eggs breakfast at home, and got started for Jacksonville a little later.

So, since I didn’t go to Helen’s Kitchen I drove directly to the Library and bought a couple of books and some magazines ($6 total, I think). And then because of the relative “lateness of the hour” I drove down to Hubert (instead of heading up to cross the Minnesott Beach Ferry to Cherry Branch – a 20 minutes joy of a ride) with the intent of passing by Mary Ann’s in Hubert and driving directly to Beaufort. But as I went past Ray’s, I decided to turn in and try to unload the thick cut pork chops I had bought for them.

I got a great deal on the Thick Cut Pork Chops at Lee’s Fresh Market, near Benson, the day before. They had two chops per package and they were only $1.89 a pound… and, there was a sticker on the package that said, “Buy One, Get One Free.” Wow!!! What a deal. And I had prayed, minorly, just to have some pork chops there to buy, but this was fantastic. I bought four packages, kept one, and tried to take one to Jeff Mitchell’s, but no one was home so I ended up taking 3 packages (6 chops total) down for Ray & Mary Ann.

I also had made a Bean Sprout Kit for Ethan, but didn’t see him. Left that with Ray & explained how it works. Also left several books for the kids. One book was about the Titanic, and I think the book I bought at the library that morning was about Space (from back when the space race was popular… Goddard, the Moon, etc.). These books might have been interesting when I was growing up, especially if I had to do a report on something, but now I would just get the full color photos, and videos from YouTube and let the AI help me write the whole thing. *I was never good at writing long papers. I couldn’t even write a three page report. All the extra words to explain something that could be said in three sentences didn’t seem interesting to me. *The sinking of the “Graf Spee” came from a Reader’s Digest article and I just couldn’t make it flowery enough to fill 3 pages. And I’m pretty sure that the teacher knew exactly where I had gotten the idea from. And this was before the Internet, so I only had one source and it wasn’t the TV. Argentina?

Oh, and I had a jar of Duke’s Mayo that I also gave Ray. Just before I left home, I had looked over and saw the 4 unopened jars of Duke’s and I thought, hey I’m never going to use all these before one goes bad. I’ll see if Ray wants it.

Mary Ann left for the beauty parlor while Ray and I were talking outside. I didn’t see her come out and get in her van, but then Ray pointed out that it was gone.

I told him I was heading down to Morehead City and he said he had to go back inside to “feed the kids.”

I didn’t count on the “summer traffic” milling about the beach, and “the bridge” and Morehead City & Beaufort, but I made it almost to the Beaufort Inn before turning around, and it was about 2:08 pm when I got to the restaurant.

But I also took the back route along Morehead City and never had an accident or other traffic flow problem to deal with. It’s 4th Street where the thru fare ends, and you turn for one block back to the road that will take you over the new bridge to Beaufort. As you come off the new bridge the Beaufort Airport (a small thing) is on the left and you turn right to go down to the Beaufort waterfront. Lots of beachers down there.

The damned GPS on my phone kept telling me that Swansboro was almost an hour away, and it was only when I was almost in Swansboro that the GPS said, “You’re 8 minutes from Swansboro.” I don’t know where it thought I was, but it was obvious, IT DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE! Like when I was in Greensboro, last, and it said it would take a day or more to get to some street in Greensboro, by car, and it kept showing that I was starting somewhere in Missouri, USA. Or, how about several weeks ago, I had an argument with Gemini (AI) that Joe Biden wasn’t our current President in June of 2025. It swore up one side and down another that he had won the election and that was after I had tried to tell the AI, he didn’t even finish the Election. Later that afternoon, the AI finally came to it’s senses and agreed with me that Donald Trump was our current President. I think I even responded to the AI, “Damn, I wish you were right and that Joe Biden had won the Presidency again, but he didn’t.”

Ray never showed up for lunch.

I sat at the table next to the others, but right next to Mary Ann. I had the Chicken Fajitas Lunch Special, a little over $10, and unsweet tea. I ate a bunch of tortilla chips, which I shouldn’t have and the one meal was probably 1,600 calories, just for lunch. But, it was delicious.

I took a detour after El Catrin and went over to Stella and then back on Parkertown Road on my way to Mary Ann’s. Mary Ann and I talked at the round table and I left shortly before 7 pm. Still lite outside, and I stopped at the Friends You Know Restaurant for onion rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper. I ran through a little stormy weather before getting there and the temp had dropped to about 83 degrees F. That’s amazing because just a few days prior the weather people were saying we might have about 7 days of 100 + degrees weather. Now only about 3 in a row, and yesterday, didn’t get to 100 everywhere I went.

[end]