Bear Paw Meanderings

I have eaten some strange meals with people who were drinking. I learned early on that a whole car full of whisky is not going to stop a good cook from getting a good meal on the table. It was just a matter of when.

No names here to protect the innocent and guilty but one family I knew had the best cook I have ever known. Let’s just say they liked their bourbon but it did not get in the way of a great meal. I think that at their house they would have about a two hour happy hour and then feast on this great meal, mainly seafood, and then go full time into drinking the rest of the night away,

I learned how to have a happy hour from them. I try to have a two hour happy hour every Friday and Saturday. It starts at 3:30 p.m. and ends when we eat at 5:30 p.m. on the dot. I try to get the whole meal ready to put in the oven early in the morning so that it is simply a matter of cooking the meal, giving me the ability to enjoy my happy hour as well.

Not the case with one Beaver Creek family who loved to drink and loved to eat. Steaks cooked outdoors was their forte although they cooked plenty of roasts and turkey inside as well.

They would get their meal lined up, then put it on hold and drink from say 5 p.m. until 11 p.m. Just before midnight the steaks would go on the grill, the potatoes would come out of the oven and the cucumber salad came out of the refrigerator. I must say that that amount of drinking did make one very hungry so when the meal finally did get on the dining room table, it was gone in a flash.

We are getting close to Thanksgiving and yes, I do have a bad, bad Thanksgiving turkey story. I had an uncle who decided to cook a turkey with dressing in his oven. Things were going “swimmingly” to coin a phrase, until his drinks and his guests got him putting off the serving of the big bird. I noticed that he kept going to the oven and turning down the heat. But the big bird really started smelling like it was cooking and burning too! Finally we all looked and he had been turning his oven control the wrong way so he had a singed blackened piece of charcoal at the bottom of his roaster.

We all went home shortly after that. I don’t know what happened to the other guests but at my house, we filled up on Fig Newton’s. Sad when one was expecting turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy.

There is a moral here. Don’t let your drinking interfere with your dinners and don’t let your dinners interfere with your drinking.