Yee-Haw! Burgers for Dinner

Norco, California: Horsetown, USA.



That's how Norco refers to itself. They have signs proclaiming their horsetown-ness all over the place. A bit of Norco, California trivia for you: Norco's neighborhoods are lined with horse trails instead of sidewalks. Homes have horsetrails across their driveways, as do many of the major roads in town. Oleander is illegal in Norco because it is poisonous and horses might eat it. Homes that have oleander bushes have to have them removed, even if they aren't near any horse trails or corrals. (Someone once told me that the pollen could also be a problem if animals breathed it in. Now you know, too.) Norco is the kind of place that has two crosswalk buttons at each traffic light post, one at walker's level and one easily accessible to horseback riders.

Businesses along one of the main drags, 6th Street, have corrals in the parking lots so that riders can park their steeds while dining and shopping. Indeed, 6th Street boasts several feed stores. Many residents in the community have horse related businesses on their properties from riding schools, to boarding facilities to training centers for "Cattle Horses." Most of the time, businesses are small and locally owned. Almost all of them boast advertisements for local fairs, and local teen girls advertise to solicite votes for the various "Miss Norco" or "Miss Rodeo" contests during the year. Norco High School boasts of their strong agricultural program and FAA affiliation.

Norco may be well known for its rodeo. It may also be known for the once glamorous Lake Norconian Club, parts of which are today behind the secured walls of the Naval Weapons Center Seal Beach Detachment Corona, which is neither in Seal Beach nor Corona. The Corona was just recently added to the name to better recognize the actual location. I realize that this may seem odd considering it is not actually in Corona but in Norco. It makes me shake my head and tsk. Finally, right next door to the Norconian Club, housed in some of the former buildings of the Norconian Club and, again, hiding some beautiful architecture behind its walls, lies the California Rehabilitation Center, which is code for Norco Men's Prison.

Have I adequately portrayed a small, ranchy community? In many ways, you might never expect to find a town like Norco so close to the large Metropolitan area of Los Angeles County but as the burbs have expanded eastward, there it is on the edge of Riverside County.

Several years ago, Norco and the company which owns and runs Bob's Big Boy restaurants, entered negotiations to bring a Bob's Big Boy location to the City of Norco. With the rodeo grounds in the north-east corner of the city, the city council has been (slowly) courting restaurants and lodging to the area, in the hopes of attracting more business to the rodeo grounds. But Norco has standards. Before Bob could move to Horsetown, USA, the city council determined that, to better fit in with the feel of the city, Bob needed a cowboy hat.

And so on this day, during our week of "DaddyDoc and Mr. Genius have yet again abandoned us to go Scout Camp" I packed "the littles" in the Honda Accord (DaddyDoc took Millie the PerkyMommymobile,) and we ventured out to Horsetown, USA's very own, unique Bob's Big Boy.

You can't miss Bob from the freeway. A statue of Bob, without his hat, adorns the rooftop of the restaurant. Just look to the West of I-15 to find Bob.

Once there, the boys posed for the first picture:



Our delightful server had an almost perfect name, just one letter off from the most perfect name. She began by asking if she could bring me an iced tea or a Pepsi. I enthusiastically ordered that Diet Pepsi. And a glass of water because I really am trying to cut back.



Sneaky But Sweet determined that children's menu burgers are too small for him so he ordered the Car Hop without mustard or pickles... which is essentially just a cheeseburger with grilled onions on it and nothing else. But it made him happy.



Captain Stubborn chose the Grilled Cheese, but really his primary mission was to find a way to order onion rings. I must say, I normally only like beer batter onion rings because I find that many crumb coated onion rings are too... crummy. I cannot explain it. But these rings were really good. He let me have a bite.



I went classic: A Big Boy Combo. I may have had the salad with bleu cheese dressing (on the side) too.

I promised the boys shakes for dessert. Even though Bob's offers mint chip shakes, CS chose chocolate, the same as the ever-predictable SBS. I asked for my chocolate malt with double malt, please, in a to-go cup. My "add double" version was pretty good, much better than their regular version. Ruby's is still the only place that really knows how much malt to add.



We ate the whipped cream off the top of our cups. I paid our bill and gushed on our delightful server with the Almost-Perfect Name to the manager on duty at the register. With the sun behind the hill across the street from the restaurant, we took a better picture with Bob in his Cowboy hat. With that, we moseyed on home.

I love this necklace

Remember when we went to Canyon de Chelly in the north east corner of Arizona? I couldn't eat because I was so anxious about the tour I booked with a local Navajo dude? And we bought fry bread and jewelry from his wife and sister?

I told a friend about my necklace the other day. I really like wearing necklaces. Most of mine are Brighton. My Navajo necklace hangs from my necklace rack in the middle of the Brightons, but for the past year or so, it stayed there, not on my neck.

A few weeks ago I told a friend about this necklace. Today none of my Brightons worked with the shirt I wore so I grabbed the Navajo necklace and it worked.

I love this necklace. I tried to take a good picture of it to really show off the colors of the necklace:



Can you tell how great the colors are in the stones?

Do you see the purple and the blue? A good 90% of my wardrobe is plum, eggplant, purple, fuschia, or navy blue. My pants are denim, khaki, navy, with a few browns and greens thrown in. If I had to choose a word to describe my color palette of choice, I would say "jewel tones."

This necklace is PERFECT for my wardrobe! I love it so much. It fits perfectly with my colors and offers colors that I neglect, which accent my choices so well. In addition to not terrific photography skills, I really lack a lot of fashion coordinating skills. Sticking to a few colors makes mixing and matching easier and safer. This necklace safely adds other colors into my scheme.

And, like my style, this necklace is simple. I don't do a lot of fancy. I like simple.

I am so glad I picked this up in Arizona.

Do you have a piece of jewelry or something you picked up on a travel that totally fits into your life?

Perky Mom Needs Help

I have some posts in mind to make... we've been going places.

But coming up this summer, I will need places to go.

You see, Daddy Doc is taking Mr. Genius to summer camp for a week and leaving me to keep "the littles" occupied. We had thought to eat our way through a certain community/state/metropolitan area to the east, but they start their school year the same time we need entertainment. Bad planning.

I want to go eat my way through summer camp. I want to find fun, different places to try. Ideally they would not be major fast food chains. (Although I am very seriously wondering how sick and twisted would it be to make a really short road trip to a Cracker Barrel? I think it's been 2 years since I have had Cracker Barrel. Is anyone interested in hitting a CB with me if I was just that insane? E-mail me if you are interested. I am still considering the idea...)

Cracker Barrel aside, please send in your suggestions? Moderately priced, preferred. Keep in mind, I will have two elementary aged children with me. Two well behaved children, to be sure, but nothing too "adult". I do not want everyone else in the place giving me the stink eye. I can handle it but I prefer to not have to return the stink eyes for suspecting I would even be one of THOSE parents bringing children who would misbehave to a restaurant beyond their abilities.

The northern boundry of consideration is Solvang. The southern boundry of consideration is San Diego. (Edited to clarify: The original version of this post said "San Diego Border". San Diego works. I was debating saying "San Diego" or "Mexican Border" and ended up with San Diego border. What the hey?) Eastern? Well, I would rather not go all the way to Palm Springs. Except of course, if we were to drive past Palm Springs on the way to Cracker Barrel. (Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.)

So. Please give me feedback. Given the boundries described, what food experiences would you suggest for a Mommy and two somewhat adventurous eaters?

Camping and Feeding a Crowd

Ok before we begin, we need to live in a world where I am a totally put together woman.

• Everything out of my mouth is golden, perfectly eloquent.
• I am an amazing event planner. I can anticipate how many people will attend an event even if they do not all RSVP or they respond at the last minute.
• I am an amazing time planner. I can anticipate how long it will take to cook food for 100 people, even when the wind cooling the charcoal briquettes faster than normal.
• And throughout it all, I remain completely gracious: calm, cool, and serene.

Got it? That's me. Totally. TO-TALL-LY.

In my control-freakness, I volunteered to coordinate a Dutch oven dinner last week for about 100 people. We ended up feeding over 100 people. I volunteered because I had goals I wanted to achieve: A variety of recipes to choose from, including a variety of meats to hopefully address any potential dietary issues. Recipes which we had not made before at other such events. Providing enough food to feed everyone. And, lastly, accomplishing all of this while keeping to a budget.

For the record, my shopping partner and I purchased all of the necessary food to feed over 100 people for $175. We used no coupons but we shopped at one warehouse store and one ethnic market. (We may have stopped at the food court for carne asada tacos and a carnitas burrito, but I'll never tell. And if we did, we did not submit those receipts for reimbursement. We are upstanding women.)

Perfect? No. Mission accomplished? Yes.

Cooking looked like this:

Photo by Perky Mommy

After a group of parents, siblings and scouts assembled the main dishes, Daddy Doc and Mr. Very Good Friend manned the coals. The giant Dutch oven is a 16" Dutch oven. The rest are 12" Dutch ovens. The 16" is twice the capacity of the 12" Dutch oven. Now you know. This set up is designed to approximate about a 350°F oven.

These Dutch ovens only contain dinner. We had three more set aside to cook dessert during our evening program, to serve after the program. Most of the ovens came from Scout families. Each time we go camping, more and more families decide to acquire a Dutch oven.

And by families I mean this:

Dad sees the Dutch oven cooking. Thinks it's really cool. It's like using a barbecue but there's other gadgets. And it means going shopping at Bass Pro Shop.

Dad says to Mom: "Honey, I think we need to get a Dutch oven." And so it goes.

Full Disclosure: Sometimes it happens that a Cute and Perky Mommy encourages and/or enables the aforementioned process. But you didn't hear that from me.

(See how happy Dutch ovens make Dads?) Photo by Daddy Doc

Shortly after this picture was taken, Mr. Very Good Friend cut up this pot roast to make serving the crowd easier.

Photo by Daddy Doc

And then we served over 100 people, from the bottom of the picture to the top:

Pot Roast with Sweet Potatoes, Carrots and Onions
Cheesy Potatoes a la Perky Mommy
Bratwurst Bake (with Apples, Onions and Potatoes)*
Teriyaki Chicken
Enchilada Casserole

For dessert, later that evening, we had:

Bread Pudding
Apple Crisp
"Almost" Pumpkin Pie

* The Bratwurst Bake is the one that made me happiest. I totally worried that this would be the least popular recipe. Parents later confided that they did not expect to like it nearly as much as they did. It was the sleeper hit of the evening.

Very Good Friend offered to let me get out of line to eat but being the calm, serene and gracious creature that I was, I stayed. I needed to make sure that every person ate and clearly, by staying at the table to serve enchiladas, I controlled the food and could guarantee there would be enough for everyone.

Clearly, I was right because it worked.

You may now marvel at what a totally put together woman I am. (Which is why I plan to spend this weekend recovering from last weekend.)

Someone REALLY Won!

I was using reusable shopping bags before every store sold plastic-ish and strange not quite fabric-ish bags. When I was in college, I had a few canvas bags I hauled with me to and from the local grocery store within walking distance of my apartment. That store would rebate my bill five to ten cents per bag. They held much more than the regular bags, too.

Now those spoiled college students have a Trader Joe's walking distance from my old apartment and my old dorm. I cannot begin to describe how insanely jealous I am of them. I take consolation in remembering the malted cookies and cream ice cream from the ice cream shop that is no longer in that shopping center.

My parents have several Trader Joe's locations within a 10-minute driving radius of their home. For years, this added to my bitterness because we had no Trader Joe's in our town. The closest locations were at least 15-mile drives up or down our local, very crowded, freeway. The day that Trader Joe's finally opened up in our community, the heavens opened up and the sunshine fell in rays directly over the location of the store.

I try to remember my reusable shopping bags when I visit. I usually write my name on the little receipt with my phone number to enter the monthly contest that rewards those of us who do so. In the beginning, they rewarded shoppers with a gift card but several months ago, a clerk advised me that the prize changed to a "gift basket" of products to circumvent laws against giving away alcohol. (With a gift card prize, shoppers could purchase alcohol. Gift baskets avoid this dilemma.)

On my visit to Trader Joe's last week, I decided not to ask the clerk for a slip and pen. I never won anyway and he seemed focused on his job. Why bother to distract him? I had several errands to complete, I decided to save us both the fruitless time and effort. As I started to take my bag and leave, he called me back to the counter and encouraged me to fill out the slip. I protested but he already tore the receipt paper off the register so I filled it out anyway.

On Tuesday of this week, the manager of the store called me to advise me that I had WON! I believe I squealed. Then I asked "Does everyone react like that?"

B replied "Yes, I think everyone's just happy to find out that SOMEONE actually wins these things and we really do give them away!"

I asked if I could wait until Friday to pick up my bag and he assured me that would be fine. Today being Friday, Mr. Genius and I visited Trader Joe's to do some shopping and pick up my prize!! At the request of other Trader Joe's shoppers, I present a list of what I won. By my choosing, I offer visual aids:

The bag as I collected it at the Trader Joe's customer service desk:

Note: B was significantly impressed that I came and picked it up on Friday, just like I said I would. Huh. I knew when I would be in the area.

Two bags of snacks right off the top:

I happen to adore the cheese puffs, which are the Trader Joe's version of Pirate Booty. Yum!

I presume this jar in the bottom of the bag goes with the tortilla chips:

But the jar might end up poured over some chicken in a slow cooker. Or some baked potatoes.

More snack foods:

We have yet to try the trek mix. The package only includes nuts, no dried fruit. We are finicky about the nuts we like and tend to make our own trail mix by shopping for the individual ingredients among three different stores. The mix is really only peanuts, almonds, cashews and honey roasted peanuts. I doubt we would purchase this in the future but in the future, we might find some toffee peanuts to add to our custom blend in lieu of regular peanuts. I plan to send these packages with Daddy Doc and Sweet But Sneaky on an upcoming snow camping trip with Scouts.

I apologize for the quality of this photo:

I love these crackers. I purchase at least one box on almost every visit to Trader Joe's. I especially like them with the cheese, pesto and sun dried tomato spread from the refrigerated dips section of the store. I take them on camping trips and serve them often at parties. This explains why I forgot to take a picture of the box when I took the others, earlier in the day when the daylight was much nicer. I forgot that this box came in the gift bag. I have several others in my kitchen already!

Cat cookies...

... for people!! I purchased the regular variety in the past and we enjoyed them very much, although it has been several years since we had them. We look forward to trying the chocolate variety. I love spice cookies but I tend to prefer chocolate in candy as opposed to cookies.

Another pairing:

I tend to purchase whole wheat pasta when I can, or else I stock up at the regular grocery store during sales. I like funky pasta shapes. I look forward to trying the marinara sauce.

Another jar:

I grew up on Laura Scudder's Natural Peanut Butter but I confess that I am a Skippy mom. There. I said it. Natural peanut butter is a pain in the tush to spread cold out of the refrigerator.

And finally:

Of everything in the bag, I am least likely to purchase this in the future. I tend to avoid pre-sweetened cereals and I work the Cheerios sales like no one's business. Just today I purchased four boxes of Cheerios, the same size as this box, for a buck a piece, after sale and coupons, at my regular grocery store. I do stuff like that all the time. I have a stock-pile of Cheerios in the garage. But the boys look forward to trying the frosted flake cereal!

Of course, the bag itself is another gift. We will definitely use everything in the bag. Nothing shall go to waste! What a fun opportunity to try some new items and get some old favorites for free!

After we took the bag to the car, Mr. Genius and I shopped a bit. I told the clerk that I was happy to win last month's prize. She actually ripped off a tape for me to sign up for this month's prize which made me giggle. I decided to let someone else have a chance this month.

One Year Later

One year ago, (it was actually the weekend of February 12-15 but it was President's Day Weekend,) I was going to bed in a tent, about 50 feet from where I'm sitting now. It was very cold. So cold that this happened:

In response, about two weeks later, THIS happened:

And so this weekend, we're back. Same campground but parked in a trailer spot with electric and fresh water hook-ups. (No sewer, but that's ok because our grey tank and black cartridge are portable.)

I feel extremely grateful because this is happening:

A Restaurant Story.

Hi. Remember me? Yeah. Sorry about that falling off the blogosphere thing I did there. But, I'm back for now. So if you're checking in or have me on an RSS feed, here's something new to read!

Most Sundays, after church, we go out for lunch or brunch at a local restaurant. This is most definitely a habit we inherited from DaddyDoc's side of the family. When I was a little girl, we always attended 9:00 mass. IF we were good, SOMETIMES my dad took us to Bob's Big Boy, Sambo's, The Jolly Roger or The Parasol Coffee Shop for breakfast after church. We had three critical intersections between home at church at which he could either turn left or continue straight. As we passed each one, I held my breath wondering.

Number one: Are we going to turn? No, darn it!

Number two: Are we going straight? Dangnabit, he got in the turn lane.

What about this one last shot? If we turned left there, all hope was lost, Mom was making something at home.

Daddy Doc's family went to 11:30 mass and they almost always went out afterwards, usually with at least one or two other families even.

And now we have our turn. We have our regular stops. At a few of them, we have our regular servers, too. I love having regular servers. They walk up to my table carrying our diet sodas without even having to ask us first. But we find that the servers like having regular customers, too!

Before our children, we had a regular server at Mimi's. On one occasion we heard her shout and cheer when she returned to the kitchen. She knew we loved a particular appetizer and that day the staff had a tic-tac-toe game and contest going on. All she needed to complete her row was an order of Fried Artichoke Hearts with Lemon Butter Sauce. She saw us walk in, looked to her peers and announced that she would be right back with that square. She came to our table and said "Hi, can I get an order of the artichokes for you?" We said yes, she cheered and she won!

Several years ago, we ate lunch at Islands and sat in Tarin's section. Tarin convinced her manager that day to play a name game. When Tarin introduced herself to us, she let us know about the contest and asked us to use her name whenever possible during our visit. The server whose guests used his or her name the most that day would win the contest. And so it began...

Our boys were much younger but they understood the rules and we all had so much fun with the game. "Hi, again, Tarin! You know what, Tarin? We could use some more Diet Coke, Tarin. Thank you, Tarin!" Mr. Genius joined in, "Excuse me, Tarin, could I have some more ketchup, Tarin, french fries, Tarin?"

When the manager stopped by to see how we were doing, we informed her that "We're great. Tarin's our server. We love Tarin. Tarin's really helpful. Tarin's doing a great job helping us today."

Yep, you bet we did. I think at some point, we just said her name to say it: Tarin, Tarin, Tarin!

And, obviously, we remembered Tarin's name. Every time we returned to Islands since that day, we ask for Tarin. At first the staff recognized us: "Oh! You're the Tarin Tarin Tarin family!" Over the years, the staff working there that day left the restaurant and now only a few remain. But we still ask for Tarin.

Today we decided to have Islands for lunch. It had been awhile since our last visit. I saw Tarin when we came in and asked the hostess for a table in her section. The hostess at first apologized and said she just sat the table we needed. Then she changed her mind and offered us the "large" table, meant for a much larger group than ours. I told her not to worry, Tarin knows us. Sure enough, she apologized to Tarin and she laughed saying "No problem, I know them! They're great!"

Tarin greeted us, squatted in front of our table to write our order, and started to write down three kid's milks on her pad before asking if we wanted Diet Coke today. (Sometimes I order Paradise Iced Tea at Islands. She had reason to ask.) Then she dropped her news. Tarin and her husband are moving to Oklahoma in a few weeks and she was glad we stopped by before she left.

OKLAHOMA?? Oklahoma is far away! Oklahoma is cold! Oklahoma is humid in the summer! How could she do this to us???

We asked more questions. Her husband will be attending a specialized school for nine months and they may come back when he finishes. I told her that I expected her to come back. She mentioned that Islands assured her that they will rehire her when she returns.

We gave Tarin a little extra in her tip today and wrote a little note on our receipt before we left. Then I hugged her on our way out the door.

Because I'm just like that.