Roadtrip to Terry's Turf Club (and Reba!)

My husband Tim had bid on and won (with lots of pushing from me!) a "Meet & Greet with Reba McIntire" at a live auction for the Make-A-Wish Foundation held by my company.What I had forgotten to check before pressing him to bid on this DREAM of mine was that Reba had already come to our surrounding area for her tour and didn't show any signs of coming back on her website. And thus became a little roadtrip to Ohio.

Our adventure to Ohio was supposed to be a surprise. Since our honeymoon to Jamaica was postponed because of a terrible terrible flu I came down with...Tim had to tell me his plans. Originally, he had contacted Reba's management team to set up the date to be when we got BACK from our honeymoon...however since we had to push the honeymoon off a week, he had to tell me because we would now be going BEFORE Jamaica. (Who cares when and where as long as I get to meet Reba!!)

Visiting Terry's Turf Club in Cincinnati, Ohio was chosen mainly because we were going to Ohio and I checked what "Diners, Drive-In's & Dives" hotspot we could visit while there. There were two in the vicinity...and while I don't remember what the name of the other place was, it doesn't really matter because we chose Terry's Turf Club merely for the filet mignon chili. Yes, filet mignon chili.

Thus began a "Roadtrip to Reba" which in turn began the "Roadtrip to Terry's Turf Club".

Terry's Turf Club is conveniently located about 15 minutes from the U.S. Bank Arena where we would be meeting Reba (who by the way is someone I have looked up to since I was tiny!)

We used our GPS...which told us we arrived at our destination (checkered flag and all) at a dilapidated building with a plywood sign...Tim said, "If this is it, I am not eating here!" Of course, I walked up and pulled the handle saying, "If Guy Fieri thought it was good enough to eat, WE CAN EAT HERE!! The door was locked (thank God!) I told Tim it must be a little further down...you know how iffy GPS's are!

Turns out, the GPS was definitely confused. We pulled up outside Terry's to see a shiny, glowing array of neon signs. Ah...we have NOW arrived at our destination.

Upon entering the Turf Club, we were sat at a bar top table for 4. We immediately ordered drinks and the filet mignon chili (which don't ask me HOW I forgot to get a photo of that!!) The waitress brought it to us and TERRY himself walked by to ask how it was. He told the waitress to bring us some creme fraiche (no sour cream at this high-end dive!) It was amazing needless to say.

I proceeded to ask Terry about the hand made dart gun they talked about on his episode of Triple D. (I know Guy like that so I can say that. Or least I can pretend.) He wouldn't use it because there were too many diners at the time. But he was a very nice man and his appearance totally explained the Turf Club's appearance. Quirky, but charming.

Next we ordered burgers. They each came out with a huge knife in case you wanted to cut them in half since they were monsterous! The burgers were equally as delicious as the chili however way too large for my stomach to handle. (This was a Diners, Drive-In's & Dives stop for me, not a Man vs. Food!)

As we ate our burgers the place filled up. They sat a family of 3 at our table. Hey, pull up a seat, we don't mind! (After all, most of my adventures in food involve meeting new people!) They were very nice. (I wish I remembered their names...I think I wrote them down somewhere!) Anyway the son was interning at Toyota and couldn't tell us what he did because it was all hush-hush R&D stuff.

After we ate what we could, we had to get going! We had a country music legend to meet! We got to the arena...watched LeeAnn Womack, George Straight and finally Reba McIntire. We were 4 rows from the stage. I could have died happy right there.

After the Show they shuffled all the meet&greet-er's to a downstairs room to wait. I had bought 6 cd's, opened them all and brought in the cd jackets to be signed for myself, family & friends. (No one ever said no autographs! I wound up with 6 non-returnable cd's!) We get to this room and they told us NO AUTOGRAPHS. My heart sank. She came in and she was as friendly and beautiful as ever. (Still no autographs...but oh well!) A photo will work:)

The Roadtrip to Reba (and Terry's Turf Club) was a success. Guy Fieri was definitely right about this one! If you're ever in Cincinnati, I definitely recommend Terry's! If you use your GPS, it's located at 4618 Eastern Avenue, Cincinnati, OH...just make sure you keep going til you see the neon lights!

(This first blog of 2012 is all thanks to R.C., an old (and new again) friend convincing me to keep blogging!)

Yum. I'm hungry.

My sister-in-law always finds the best recipes. And I take pride in stealing every single one of them.

Try this:

Ultimate Twice Baked Potatoes from www.allrecipes.com

Prep Time:
15 Min

Cook Time:
1 Hr 15 Min

Ready In:
1 Hr 30 Min

Servings

Original Recipe Yield 8 servings

 

 

Ingredients

• 4 large baking potatoes
• 8 slices bacon
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
• 8 green onions, sliced, divided

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Bake potatoes in preheated oven for 1 hour.
3. Meanwhile, place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
4. When potatoes are done allow them to cool for 10 minutes. Slice potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh into a large bowl; save skins. To the potato flesh add sour cream, milk, butter, salt, pepper, 1/2 cup cheese and 1/2 the green onions. Mix with a hand mixer until well blended and creamy. Spoon the mixture into the potato skins. Top each with remaining cheese, green onions and bacon.
5. Bake for another 15 minutes.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 422 | Total Fat: 29.5g | Cholesterol: 63mg

"Life IS the messy bits"

End of May - Find out something is wrong with Buddy

Go home not knowing what the problem is...hug and love and kiss the pups. Squeeze Tim's hand with fear and hope. 

Early June - Find out Buddy has serious kidney issues...cry til there are no more tears. Buddy is put on blood pressure meds and antibiotics. He decides he doesn't like his food anymore.


At home, Tim and I cook Buddy some ground beef & rice together hoping to keep him eating. He does. We are ecstatic.

Buy an air conditioner for our bedroom so we're not sweating since the central air doesn't work too well upstairs.

Sweet! It's used so it's on sale!

Get it home. Plug it in. No wonder they returned it.

Return the air conditioner on Father's Day. 

Get in the truck to drive to Tim's parent's house - seat belt airbag breaks for no reason causing a loud noise and smoke in the truck...while we're not even moving yet!

Laugh with Tim as I sit in the backseat...now afraid the front seat is going to kill me. Drive to Tim's parents. Have a nice dinner with Tim's parents for Father's Day which he insists on paying for.

Results back from another vet appt for Buddy...ALL levels are worse.Cry. Curse the vet (in our heads.) Swear they're wrong. 

I could keep going...the point is, there's good and bad that happens everyday. Having friends and family (and pups) can make everything better (or worse depending on the day!) 

Would You Behave Differently?

While looking for a speaker for my job...I came across this guy named Brian Tracy. I "liked" him on Facebook because he seemed very interesting.

Yesterday he posted this quote that really made me think.

"Imagine that you are already the very best in your field; how would you behave differently?"

I have never been completely confident in any part of my life...even at times when I know I did the best I could do...I always feel like I could have also done better. 

My husband can account for this because every single time I go to sing karaoke, I wind up coming back to the table making terrible faces and complaining about how bad I was. I've even gotten compliments after singing and still want to bury my face in the sand with embarassment! (I know, I'm a little crazy.) But what if I just pretended (imagined) that I was the best and ignored my little voice telling me otherwise?

And this doesn't go for just hobbies like singing...it goes for my work. I know I do a darn good job at planning events...however, I always feel like there's something I could do better or possibly just speak up about the ideas and thoughts that I have. But I don't because I'm nervous people will turn my ideas down...but what if they ARE the best ideas? Shouldn't I just pretend I'm the best and let the thoughts and ideas fly just in case? 

And I guess I don't want to look cocky? I guess there's a balance you need to find when "imagining you're the best in your field". Maybe imagining you're the best in your field and having confidence in what you do go hand in hand. 

There's my little rant for the day on my way of life. It's funny how one little quote can make you re-access the way you live your life...

Not the soup kitchen in your mind...

Friday I went with a group of girls to feed the homeless in Camden.

I guess I was expecting a gross, dirty place. With a lot of gross, undesirable people. There were policemen guarding the street because of all the crazy fires Camden has been having in the area. We didn't know this at first and thought for sure there had been a murder or something. (There wasn't!) The lady that runs the place told me a lot of people think it's actual firemen setting the fires because of the all the layoffs. (I've always heard firemen are pyros!!)

I was wrong on all accounts. The Cathedral Kitchen in Camden, NJ started in 1976 but in 2008 moved to their current location on Federal Street.


We arrived and the outside of the building was the first thing that surprised me. It was very nice with fenced in parking. There were hungry people on the front porch waiting. We knocked and were let in.

All the tables were set with placemats, plasticware, tastykakes and a bottles of water. 

We had to wear plastic aprons and gloves. Our first job was to form an assembly line and fill bags with an apple, an orange and a sandwich. These bags were placed on each chair - a snack for each person to take home with them.

Then we were given assignments. Before they let any people in, we started delivering plates of food to each place setting. They were served seasoned baked chicken with rice and fruit. After about 5 tables had food on them, they started letting people in. They only let about 16 people in at a time until a table was full and so on.

At this point I started doing my assignment: foil & bag table. And to be honest, when she gave me that job I thought I'd be bored. But apparently a lot of people like to take their food home!

Since they had opened the doors to let people in and the dining room had filled to about 300...it got a little hot. You can imagine how it feels to have a plastic apron and gloves on when you're sweating.

It went very quickly. Everyone seemed very appreciative and thanked us a lot. A few even said we were angels. It was very nice.

I think the thing that surprised me the most were the amount of people with cell phones. The woman who runs the place told us that most of these people do have homes but are on welfare so when the money runs out...they're busier in the middle and end of the month.

There were tables designated for families. Children get to have seconds. And they also get a juice AND a milk. It's really kind of heartbreaking to see children and babies who probably haven't eaten all day.

I didn't take these photos but they show what it looks like at the Cathedral Kitchen. The girls I was with all had the same impression of me. We had a great time. All of the guests were extremely appreciative and thankful. It was a very good experience. I only suggest bringing your own apron. Those plastic things aren't very good when sweat is added. I was a hot, soaking wet mess and my arms kept sticking to my apron.

I know this wasn't exactly the most uplifting and fun thing to read...but it was interesting for me to participate in so I wanted to share. And don't forget....

*Sprinkles*

A few weeks ago a friend of mine named Leslie asked if I would mind making some mini cupcakes for a baby shower she was throwing for her friend. 

Of course, I said yes! (Add to the list of things Tim thinks I am spreading myself too thin with.)

Let's see...the cupcakes were needed for Saturday. The week before this date went like this:

Monday & Tuesday: work 9-6
Wednesday: leaving for NC at 530am to attend fabulous breast cancer/women's networking event
Thursday: Return from NC, go to lunch with my sister, go to Atlantic City for networking event with Lauren where we proceeded to go to dinner with some wonderful women we met and wound up getting home around 12. 
Friday: Work 9-6..throw in a lunch date with the dentist.(ugh)

Soooooooooo needless to say I baked about 40-some mini cupcakes Friday night. I'm a huge fan of what mini cupcakes turn out to look like when finished...but I am not a huge fan of filling the tiny cups before baking!!!!

Friday night I realized I was out of food coloring and after the exhausting week I had I did NOT feel like running to the store at 9 o'clock at night. (I should have forced myself!)

Saturday morning I woke up and went to the store...I got some food coloring and some bacon. 

The bacon wasn't for the cupcakes...it was to butter up my husband whom I forgot to tell we needed to leave the house by noon to deliver these little minis to their destination.

The reason noon is early is because he works at a bar on Friday nights...he got home around 4am and well...we didn't need to leave for the race shop (that's a whole other story) until closer to 1. 


At 11 I went upstairs and woke him up. I said, "Get up, I'm making you a bacon sandwich and we need to leave at 12..." and ran downstairs. Hahahahaha. 


He came down to bacon frying in the pan and me putting light blue icing on my little mini cupcakes. 


For this, I slopped all of the icing into a plastic ziplock bag and cut the corner off. The problem with this bag was it was technically a freezer bag and had strange corners I guess to make it stand nicely if you happen to put liquid in it to freeze (which who does that anyhow?) 


This made the first few not look so spectacular...so I switched to a generic brand snack bag...cut the corner and voila! Perfect iced minis!


Tim was staring at me while I added little sugar pearls to the icing. He asked what they were. 

I said, "They're sprinkles." 
He said, "Those are NOT sprinkles." 
I said, "Fine, they're sugar pearls!" 

But I will tell you that the bottle of "sugar pearls" did say sprinkles on it!!!

In any case, I finished and was out of the house by 12:10...they needed to be there by at least 12:45 because the shower started at 1...I got to Leslie's at 12:30...parked in someone else's spot in her complex...put my blinkers on (would they really tow my car if I'm delivering cute little light-blue-iced-sprinkle-covered cupcakes? I didn't think so either.


I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. I knocked again. I thought I'd hear her or she'd yell to let me in or something. Oh wait, I think I need to go up one more flight of stairs. Yup. Glad no one answered that door!!


Cupcakes delivered in perfect time. Confirmation that everyone loved the little confections. Just call me "Sandra Lee - Semi-Homemade" today. (If you're like me and watch food shows, you'll know who that is!)

Louis' Lunch

At some point or another if you know me, you know I'm obsessed with food. And food TV shows. And trying new foods or new restaurants. Or trying food from restaurants shown on TV shows. Especially those in fact.

Since my blog is new and I've already had quite a few interesting "adventures" I think I will share one of my most favorite restaurants I visited after seeing it on TV. There are others...but I love this story.

To start you have to know I'm generally up for anything...but anything involving food I'm up for times 2! (And Tim is not always happy about my "up for anything" attitude because that usually involves him doing something he doesn't want to do or spending money he doesn't want to spend! Or both.)

The weekend before Valentine's Day in 2010 we were snowed in. Being snowed in means Tim goes to shovel and I sit my butt in front of the TV and watch food shows! I'm usually the Food Network queen but this particular time I had found the Travel Channel most interesting. The show was called 101 Places to Chow Down in America. Each hour was part of the countdown.

Tim came in from shoveling and I was NOT giving up the remote. He sat down and got hungry right there with me. We watched the entire series. (I think it was about 5 hours, no lie)

Number one on the list was a tiny little place called Louis' Lunch in New Haven, CT. They are credited with making the FIRST hamburger and supposedly have the best burger in America cooked in these crazy old upright grills. Now I know what you're thinking, did those two idiots drive to CT when they were supposed to be snowed in? No. We did not. We made a frozen pizza and I handed the remote over.

HOWEVER, the next weekend was Valentine's Day weekend. We were sitting on the couch and Tim asked what I wanted to do. I said, "Let's go to Louis' Lunch." He asked if I was serious. (Of course I was! Who doesn't want to try the best burger in America??)

We got ready, jumped in the Mustang and were on our way. A little while down the road I suggested we call Tim's friend, Jeff and ask him to go to lunch. We picked him up. He made the mistake of not asking where we were going on the phone. It still cracks me up when we finally told him Connecticut. Who goes to Connecticut for lunch? We do.


We arrived in New Haven, CT and IT WAS COLD. We had to park in a parking garage and walk to Louis' Lunch. As we got closer we noticed a line out the door. We had to stand outside for about 15 minutes before being able to be the part of the line that was inside the door.

The inside of Louis' Lunch is very small. When I say small, I mean could MAYBE hold 20 people sitting down at these old, worn, wooden tables. Standing room for the line made the place "packed." We got lucky and while we were in line a tiny table opened up. Jeff sat down and we ordered for the 3 of us.(By the way, I checked out the bathroom - just might be the tiniest bathroom ever!)

This is not your typical "have it your way" type of place. You can have your hamburger sandwich (and I say sandwich because it is served on TOAST not a bun!) 4 ways: ham with cheese, ham with onion, ham with tomato or ham works. I decided on the ham works while Tim had the ham with onion and Jeff had the ham with cheese. By the way, don't even think about asking for ketchup. They don't have it because you don't need it. (or so they think...I wasn't exactly thrilled about this at first since I am such a fan of the tasty red condiment.)

After eating, I went and talked with the owner. He was so kind as to let me take a photo with he and his worker making sure to get the centuries-old grill in the photo.

All in all...we had a great experience. I think it's more about the experience and the history of it. The hamburgers were very tasty however I don't think I can make an informed decision on if it was "the tastiest in America" because well, I haven't tried enough burgers!


If you ever have time and want to do something a little crazy on account of a burger...take a drive to New Haven, CT and visit Louis' Lunch.