Recently at Cafe Du Dad

Chili Night!

I know it's cliche. I know every man believes his chili is the best. But, if you care to take a dare, I think you will agree that mine is the best. You don't have to admit it to me or your significant other. Consider this a gift from me to you. Now you can quit obsessing over your chili and concentrate on the grill.

Here you go:

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Black pepper to taste
Salt to taste
1 15oz can tomato sauce
2 cans chili beans
1 4oz can green chilies
2 1/2 cups chunky salsa spiced to taste
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin

Combine ground beef, onion, garlic, pepper and salt and cook until beef is browned. Combine remaining ingredients, stir and bring to boil. Add ground beef mixture to the sauce mixture. Bring to boil. Simmer covered on low for 20 minutes.

Serve with your choice of sour cream, peanut butter, cheese and crackers. A cold beer won't hurt either.

So, now you know.

Food from the Road

While traveling, I take it upon myself to try things that are not available in our fair Farmington. Sometimes it is a challenge. For instance, any trip on one of our fine interstates. Interstate exits have fast become the territory of the top twenty fast food restaurants, 16 of which call our area home . But rules are rules and if I make them, how can I break them?

You can officially consider this post as my plea to Culver's. Please, please do not expand to Farmington. I look forward to stopping at your always clean and comfortable restaurant while traveling. Your food, not prepared until I order it, is always fulfilling. And I can count on you to satisfy my sweet tooth with your vast frozen custard menu. You have never disappointed me, please do not start now by expanding into our well kept market.

Thank you Culver's for being there away from home.

Plan your next trip on their website: www.culvers.com

Happy Traveling!

You Have To Be Here

Sometimes the best laid plans do not work out. After recruiting several family members to accompany me to Colton's Steak House for the express purpose of a hugely entertaining blog post, we were given a great big fake Texas welcome and informed of a 1 1/2 hour wait. Wow, this place must really be good! After soundly rejecting the thought of waiting an hour and a half for food prepared by anyone short of Thomas Keller, we gazed across the parking lot and saw this:

Sometimes you just have to follow the signs.

"Party of 8? Follow me please."

While wandering into the dining room one cannot help but be mesmerized by all of the action in this place. I may have double counted, but I think I stopped counting TV's at 137. And oddly enough, none of them were playing even one of the three football games I was flipping through before leaving the house.

One thing to consider when choosing Buffalo Wild Wings: This place is loud. Really, really loud. Which can be a good thing. For instance, say you've spent a nice holiday weekend with lots of family and your group decides to peel themselves away from football on TV and head out on the town. By this time, you've had two or three days of catch up. Your long lost uncle has been sleeping on your couch. You've received all kinds of advice on how to be as successful as your cousin that you haven't seen since you loaned him fifty bucks this time last year. You haven't reached rude stage yet, but you're getting close to it. Going to a place like this allows you to absorb yourself in the noise and confusion and completely ignore these people without offending anyone.

We all shouted our orders to the friendly waiter and two beers later, the appetizers started to arrive. The fare here is the usual bar food. Fried this, fried that, will a little bit of grilled thrown in. And of course, chicken wings.

Honestly, the food for me was just an afterthought. By this time I was happy to have a beer and an honest reason to retreat from the conversation. I think I had some fried mushrooms and a buffalo chicken sandwich. It was exactly what I needed.

Anyone who believes in fate understands that fate took me to BWW that night. I left there that night with a smile that only my beautiful wife Alison could read in to. Funny, I detected a hint of the same look on her face. A few hours later, after the ringing in our ears went away, we shared a laugh and remembered to remember to take the family back next time everyone is in town.

As seen on TV

There are many ways to waste time, and watching tv has long been a popular choice. There seems to be a new channel every day, and more and more of it is "reality" based. Fortunately for food fans, there now seems to be more food programming on than there are home hunting/cleaning/fixing. Every night is filled to the brim with cooking.

Here is one that I ran across and enjoyed last night:

Chopped!

It is seen on Food Network and features real, well know chefs screwing things up in record time. Very entertaining!

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

You may have noticed a colorful glow coming from Farmington's Maple Valley area lately. Alison and I did just that the other night while on the way to grandmother's house. But, fear not, upon further inspection it turns out that the new Colton's Steakhouse is now open! No directions needed, just follow the neon glow!

"Wow," proclaimed my beautiful wife Alison.

"Yeah, think they are from Texas?" I responded.

"They obviously are, look at the flags!"

"Cool, Farmington now has an honest to goodness, peanuts on the floor, Texas steakhouse!"

Visions of challenge size hunks of beef raced through my head, followed by ten gallon margaritas and endless buckets of peanuts as we gawked at the neon display announcing the presence of an eating establishment the likes of our town has never seen.

Not so fast.

Upon returning home, I ran to the computer to see if they posted their menu online. They did. And it looks awesome. Steaks, ribs, chicken, seafood and peanuts. The five major food groups!

But, I also learned something potentially disturbing. They are not from Texas nor do they have a Texas location.

From their website:

In 1996 a group of entrepreneurs and restaurateurs put together their combined total of over sixty years of successful restaurant and real estate experience to develop a concept that later became Colton’s Steak House & Grill. Their vision was to open a steak house anyone could walk into and feel at home, have fun, relax, eat delicious food, and enjoy excellent service in an atmosphere with the feel of the “American West.”

Once the concept was completed, they formed what would eventually become Colton’s® Restaurant Group Inc. (CRG), the franchisor of the concept. In August 1996, the first location opened its doors in Conway, Arkansas.

It wasn't long before the second restaurant opened in Searcy, AR. As the sixth Colton’s® opened, a new corporate operating partner came on the scene: Hand Cut Steaks, Inc. (HCS). During HCS’s primary expansion period, the President, CEO and cofounder of CRG was President, CEO and cofounder of HCS. HCS currently operates eight of the twenty-four Colton’s® that are open or under construction.

Today, all Colton’s® Steak House & Grill restaurants operate as franchises, with locations in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. The current owners of CRG also own an interest in over half of the Colton’s now in operation.

With the hard work, determination and skilled management teams of CRG and all the franchise groups, they have created the successful restaurant theme they envisioned from the start. With a broad menu offering exceptional food, service and a casual Western atmosphere, it looks like the group accomplished their goal."

And this was on their menu:

The Legend of J.T. Colton

J.T. Colton was a Texas Ranger in the late 1800s with a passion for big steaks and playing poker. J.T. was a friend, fellow lawman and gambling buddy of Sheriff Matthew Dillon. Matt owned a steak house and gambling hall in Dodge City, Kansas, called Dillon’s Tin Star Saloon. When J.T. wasn’t chasing desperados in Texas, he spent most of his time in Dodge City, playing cards at Dillon’s and trying to tell Matt how to run things. Legend has it that J.T. proceeded to win the Tin Star Saloon from Matt in a four-day poker game that took place in a back room at Dillon’s between J.T., Matt, a guy named Holiday and several other gamblers of questionable character. There was speculation that Matt lost on purpose because he was tired of J.T. telling him how to run his business. J.T. promptly gave up being a lawman, changed the name of Dillon’s Tin Star Saloon to Colton’s Steak House & Grill, and spent the rest of his days cooking up the best steaks west of the Mississippi. In his later years, he returned to Texas where he opened a Colton’s in his hometown of Moose River. J.T.’s legend lives on to this day, as well as his secret to cooking the juiciest, most tender steaks around.

So, not only do they not hail from Texas, according to the legend they were born in Kansas. And no, they don't have a Kansas location either. Wow. Talk about surprises. OK, so their namesake was a Texas ranger, I get that. What was this guy doing in Dodge City? Why wasn't he off chasing Indians in Texas? Why don't they wave the Kansas flag? (Obviously, they aren't selling many steaks in Missouri if they do that.) What do we know about folks from Arkansas pretending to be Kansans pretending to be Texans? I know this: somewhere, Certified Texan Lyle Lovett is very disappointed.

Bottom line is this: If the food is good, who cares? When you get past the flags and neon, what really matters is if you leave there happy and well fed.

As you can tell, I've been way to busy digging stuff up on the internets to actually eat there, but I will definitely let you know when I do. If you have beat me to it, please leave a comment and let us know how it was.

UPDATE: 11/22/09 Visited my grandmother today and she has been to Colton's. She loved the food and didn't care that they weren't from Texas.

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Recently at Cafe Du Dad........

A few years ago a very thoughtful person gifted Alison and I a curious thing called a "crock pot" as a celebration of our marriage. Evidently, these pots are very popular with families on the go. The idea is that you can put all manner of meat, vegetables and spices into the thing, turn it on and 2 - 8 hours later have a delicious home cooked meal.

A few nights ago I was leafing through a magazine and ran across some recipes especially for the "crock pot".

"Wow, this looks good," I said to my beautiful wife Alison. "I wish we had one of these crock pot thingys."

"Uh, we do have one. Got it for our wedding. It's in the basement, still in the box. That does look good, do you think you can make it?"

So, with the hint of a challenge in the air, I made the trek into the basement to bring out our long lost crock pot. What I found was very exciting. It was a fairly good sized pot that you plug in, turn on and you're cooking. Who knew there were things like this? Technology these days is so exciting.

Alison and I put our heads together and did an inventory of the pantry. Here is the recipe we settled on for our first crock pot experiment:

Slow-Cooked Enchilada Dinner
1 pound lean ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 can (15 ounces) ranch style beans, undrained
1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes with mild green chilies, undrained
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon each salt and ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
6 flour tortillas (6 inch)

* In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until the meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in beans, tomatoes, green pepper, chili powder, salt, cumin and pepper. In a small bowl, combine the cheeses; set aside.

* In a 5-qt slow cooker coated with cooking spray, place two tortillas side by side, overlapping if necessary. Layer with a third of the beef mixture and cheese. Repeat layers twice.

* Cover and cook on low for 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until heated through.

I gathered the ingredients and prepared them according to the recipe. Prep time for me was about 20 minutes. I could have done it faster, but I elected to cut the onion up with a knife instead of using the chopper that finishes an onion in thirty seconds with no tears. No reason, just forgot to use the chopper.

After plugging the pot in, I loaded Cal up for football practice. When we returned about 2 1/2 hours later, this is what we found:


Yes, Alison and Anne Marie couldn't wait. The cheesy goodness wafting through the house was impossible to resist. They had happily dug in.

"So, was it good?" I asked hopefully.

"It was awesome Dad!"

There is nothing like coming home to a happily well fed family.

Restaurant Reactions

Warehouse Bar-B-Q and Catfish Company - October 09

Made famous in town for their "Terrible Tater" while located in the old Tom's warehouse, which has since burnt down, on what used to be Hwy W (Farmington is an ever changing place, huh?) the Warehouse is now located in the Maple Valley area. Their restaurant has a great family atmosphere complete with a cracker barrel style gift shop. But, there were two particular changes that may have set them on a course for Farmington restaurant immortality.

Catfish.

Buffet.

Yes, not only did they add catfish to their great bbq menu, but they also added an honest to goodness, no holds barred all you can eat buffet. And this buffet isn't filled with bread and taters. Oh no, catfish, pulled pork and ribs highlight this dream spread. Yes, there are taters and bread, but they don't get in the way of the good stuff. There is also perhaps the freshest salad bar in town, which you get when you order the all you can eat.

So, how good can it be?

Well, I have it on good information that the catfish recipe was secretly obtained from a seriously whispered about catfish shack somewhere on the outskirts of Marquand. And from what I hear, the ribs were smuggled out of a bootheel town that rumor has is begins with a D. You believe what you want, but I believe that all of it is very good and potentially dangerous to waistlines when offered up on a buffet.

Not to mention cakes and pies. Cakes and pies, cakes and pies! Yes, the Warehouse does serve up ultra home made cakes and pies. While I have never actually tasted any of them, due to obvious reasons, they sure do look delicious.

What could possibly be wrong with this place?

During my third visit to the buffet, I was asking myself this same question. And was begining to believe that I had found buffet nirvana.

Then, due to my second ultra huge refill of tea, I went to the bathroom.

I guarantee it's not what you think.

Really, it's not.

Someone in the Warehouse family is a University of Kansas fan. Evidently a big one. As I stood doing my business, who is staring back at me but Raef Lafrentz. Raef flippin Lafrentz in all his hoity toity KU basketball glory. I've never, ever had a finer meal ruined so unexpectedly. After splashing some water on my face, trying to wake up from this unwelcome nightmare, I looked around and saw the fictional cartoon red, yellow and blue bird that has appeared in so many of my nightmares since I became a Mizzou fan, which is to say forever.

Needless to say, I had to get out of that bathroom.

"Is something wrong?" asked my beautiful wife Alison.

"Uh, no, uh, lets get going," came my reply.

So, we went. And, oddly enough, I have really good feelings about our visit there.

If you are male and reading this, you may be sympathizing with my situation. You are probably doing the good fan, bad fan routine right along with me. If you are female and reading this, you are probably saying something like this: "For goodness sake, get over it!"

This paragraph is for the males, females may skip to the next. Guys, here's what you do. On regular non game days, go ahead and go for the buffet. Just make sure to use the bathroom right before you go and have a bathroom plan in advance for when you leave. This way you can tell yourself that it is only a rumor and you havn't even come close to breaking any fan rules or even worse, started any curses, because you didn't see it for yourself. On game days, use the drive thru. Sure, this isn't perfect stuff yourself nirvana, but they give you plenty to eat, trust me, i've tried it.

Thank you Warehouse for a great buffet, but please put some Mizzou stuff in the bathroom.

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Restaurant Reactions

Hunt's Dairy Bar - Farmington - September 09

After teasing us with closing this Parkland institution last fall, lucky for us, another Hunt family member stepped up and reopened Hunts Dairy Bar in Farmington this spring. Life was a little empty for me those few months, realizing the possibility that I might never have a western cheeseburger again. Sure, there was the Flat River location still open, but I never felt comfortable there. There has always been something special about the long waits at the drive-in in Farmington. The anticipation of a burger found no where else. The grease soaking through the paper bag even before the car hop makes it to my window. Horns honking to hurry, headlights flashing, people needing their fix.

I've know this scene my whole life. And I love it. Almost everything has changed during my life. Norm Stewart is no longer stormin the Missouri basketball sidelines. Jack Buck no longer describes the Cardinals games for us. You're silly to leave your doors unlocked in the Parkland these days. But, Hunts is still the same. They still make the best burgers available anywhere, unchanged. Their shakes still taste exactly as I remember them when I was four. Pardon me if I cling violently to the only thing that has stayed the same my whole almost forty years.

Actually, as you know, I'm kidding myself. There is one thing about Hunts that changed sometime in the last decade. I try to block this out while attempting to convince myself that there is one thing in my life that has remained pure and unchanged. Someone, some time ago, eliminated onion rings from the Hunt's menu. Oh, they do offer a replacement of sorts, onion petals. Onion petals are the kissing your sister excuse for onion rings. You know, it could be fun but really just makes you feel weird. I remember Hunt's onion rings fondly, onion rings that had no equal. Onion rings that I have never found an acceptable facsimile of. If I had three wishes, one of them would be for Hunt's onion rings to appear on the menu again.

If there is a moral in this story I think its that if you do one thing really good (western cheeseburger) people will go to great lengths to forget about the really bad thing you did (replace onion rings with onion petals)

Thank you Hunt's for being there for me.