Pirate Post: Tasty Buffet, Chili Tomorrow

Pirate Post by Art Carden

Shannon is in Austin living it up with some friends from college, so Jacob and I are having a Guys' Weekend.  I've taken over No More Nuggets until she returns.  It's been pretty successful so far: Jacob slept kind of late this morning, we had fun at swim lessons (after the crying stopped), we went out for lunch and then to the grocery store, he took a long nap this afternoon, and right now he's running around the house after dancing to Sixpence None the Richer.  Yesterday, Shannon left us a crock pot full of chicken tortilla soup, which I'm going to reheat for dinner here in a few minutes.

When Shannon travels, I usually indulge my inner teenager/college student and eat one meal I shouldn't.  For lunch, we went to Tasty Buffet, a Chinese buffet a few blocks from our house that offers the standard Chinese buffet fare, some American staples like pizza, french fries, and chicken tenders, a limited sushi selection that can be pretty good at times, and Mongolian barbecue.  It isn't somewhere I would take Shannon on a date, but Jacob and I enjoyed it.  Jacob liked the noodles from the Mongolian barbecue, the chicken tenders, and the french fries.  He wasn't so enthusiastic about anything else.

We're hosting a few friends for lunch after church tomorrow, and I'm making chili.  I learned something about how situations aren't always as they appear today while shopping.  I started putting beer in chili in about 2001 or so, when Michael Thomas and I started getting together to watch Alabama football games  in St. Louis.  Today, I was standing in the checkout line at Kroger with all of our groceries in the bottom of Jacob's stroller--numerous cans of beans, cajun smoked sausage, ground turkey, bell peppers, seasonings, a bag of tortilla chips, a couple of two liters, and a 24 ounce can of cold Busch beer.  Observers who noticed might have thought "he won't be winning 'father of the year' anytime soon."  Or they might not have cared.  In any event, appearances can be deceiving.  I also learned that the demand for low-end beer in our part of Memphis is very, very price elastic.  Miller High Life, which was priced at $1.29 in 24 ounce cans, was sold out.  The other brands, which were priced at $1.39, were available in ample quantities.

I'll post the "recipe," if you could call it that, tomorrow.  Shannon gets home tomorrow, too, and it goes without saying that we will be very happy to see her.