Octoberfest 2007

Nothing says Fall like a block of straw and bunch of pumpkins at an Octoberfest party! This is an annual celebration which our friends, Mary and Ryan, put on each October. David and Jack got to spend the afternoon with the Clark grandparents while Sherry and I got a rare opportunity to be just a couple once again. Maybe that's why I look forward to this party months in advance!

This year Ryan served a German meal that his grandmother was famous for: Roasted pork, potato dumplings, saurkraut, and potato salad. They topped off the meal with German Chocolate cupcakes and pumpkin ice cream from the local Theno's Dairy. There was also at least four kinds of authentic German beer, along with plenty of American ones too. The one beer I drank, Hale's Ale Red Menace, was plenty smooth. But common sense kicked in after one and I stuck to Diet Coke for the rest of the party.

Great food, as always, plus Mary and Ryan are wonderful hosts. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Clark Family Road Food

The Clarks like road trips; we also like eating on those road trips. Here are some of our favorite local watering holes:

Fall City Grill, Fall City WA - Sherry and I have been going here since the early 1990s. David and Jack have been going there with us since each was literally days old. Servers are excellent with kids; due to a law in Washington this is now a smoke-free restaurant. The food is always great, breakfast lunch or dinner, and we rarely have had to wait for a table. The Fall City Potatoes breakfast is my personal favorite, made with big-cut red potatoes, onions, ham, cheese, and optional egg prepared as-requested. It washes down with great coffee. Hard to go wrong with a breakfast like that!

Dick's Drive In, Seattle WA - True veterans at Dick's never order using plurals. For someone who has been going there for a two decades or more (me included) the typical order sounds like "Two Deluxe, Fry, Large Coke." It's a restaurant where fast means something. Dick's employees ask fast, help fast, fill fast, check your twenty in the light, and move on to the next customer. They know how to do something right and stick to it. Custom ordering isn't an option and usually isn't a problem. But Sherry laments at not being able to order plain cheeseburgers, electing instead to wipe the patty clean of goo before eating (David tends to prefer the same method). Jack just loves the fries; he couldn't care any less about the burgers. Me? I'm a veteran. I eat what they hand me. And that has tasted the same all the years I've gone there. We recently discovered that Dick Spady, a member of our church, is the Dick's in Dick's! He's a great guy with a huge heart for community service, which explains why Dick's has an honest pay rate and provides time off for volunteer work (plus medical benefits and tuition reimbursement). Knowing Dick Spady now makes our trips to Dick's a more pleasant experience.

Burgermaster, Bellevue WA - Pull up to the curb, turn on your lights to hail the server, and order up a tray full of meaty paradise. That's Burgermaster, one of the last operating drive-in restaurants in the area. Thankfully there's no indicator of this store, or any of the others in the chain, going away anytime soon. It says a lot in this world of diets that are changing towards a healthier balance that a burger joint can be packed most any Saturday night with cars awaiting burgers, fries, and shakes.

My favorite? The Burgermelt, which is two patties, two pieces of cheese, ketchup, mustard, and pickles that I request. I also get fries, a container each of ketchup and tartar, and a Tom & Jerry Shake (think eggnog shake all year `round). Sherry usually goes for something lighter, chicken sandwich or grilled cheese. David orders either chicken fingers or a hot dog. Jack just likes fries, and will occasionally weasel a piece of hot dog out of his brother.

If you like eating in your car, and dislike getting out of your car to order the food you eat, then Burgermaster is perfect for you. You and several thousand of your closest Northwest neighbors!

Old Country Buffet, Kirkland WA - What can I say? We like buffets in our house. Maybe it's the Midwest in me that appreciates being able to simply serve myself and choose from several different entrees. It's also an easy place for a family with two young boys to have a sit down meal, in an environment where it's almost expected that they will make some ruckus. Since Jack is somewhat picky too, in terms of food, we can choose various small bits of this-n-that to put in front of him so he can graze. Naturally, he grazes the fries before settling in on Chicken, milk, peas, and noodles.

Our favorite server there has watched David grow from being a year old and sleeping to a school-age boy who follows her around while she works. Whenever I meet my Dad for dinner there she asks, "Where's my boyfriend?" if David isn't with us. She adores him.

Krispy Kreme, Seattle WA - Okay, I know you can't survive on donuts. It's not just about the round little doughy manna that keeps us going back to the location at 1st Avenue and Holgate in Seatte; it's the experience, in and out, of being there that keeps us visiting. Inside, the store has viewing windows so the boys can see how donuts are made. Of course, show up at Krispy Kreme when the "Hot Donuts Now" sign is lit and you get a free donut.

Outside the store is the BNSF Railway, running on a mainline track through the center of SODO. David, Jack and I all love trains so going to Krispy Kreme and then watching trains with a donut (and coffee in my case) is a real special treat. When my sons are 28 and 31 years old standing trackside munching apple fritters, I'll take all the blame!

Casa D's Taqueria, Bellevue WA - Three words describe the standard meal from Casa D's: "Urban Food Log." It's a great place to get value out of your burrito dollar. The restaurant is a bit run down, and the employees are often inked and urban. The music is never latin; you're more likely to hear 1990s garage rock while your burrito is being prepared.

The meal comes with chips and an apple. I've been eating there since 1996 and have enjoyed virtually every burrito I've ordered. I have a big appetite and frankly the Super size burrito is too big for me to eat. The regular, plus the apple and chips, is truly a decent sized meal.

Try the breakfast burrito early in the morning when the potatoes and chorizo are still fresh. I often mix the roasted pork with chorizo on my burrito, and then get three good drops of the hot sauce. Awesome! Sherry usually gets the grilled steak taco with mild seasoning. David and Jack both like the chips and the loose beans, but usually we head down the street beforehand and get them dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Plainly stated, it's great food at a great price.

Triple XXX Drive In, Issaquah WA - The first time I set foot in the Triple XXX it was 1971 and my family lived outside Issaquah. Since that time it has gone through a few owners before ending up in the hands of Jose Enciso, who has a passion for old cars and good food. He brought the Triple XXX back from the dead, energizing it to the point that there is a car show there every weekend through the summer. If you have nothing to do on a Saturday night, there's always the Triple XXX and its parking lot filled with chrome and rumbling steel.

This restaurant is considered the "Last Historic Triple XXX" left in the US. I love their fish & chips, while the rest of the family usually orders hot dogs and corn dogs. Their Root Beer is made from a proprietary recipe, original to the Triple XXX organization. No other root beer tastes like like theirs.

All these restaurants are worth a try if you're in the area. And who knows? You might see the big blue Clark minivan there if you ever visit!

The New King of Vegas

"Thassalright, mama...just bring me peanut butter sandwich with that milk, baby."

I'm thinking "Jack Clark" sounds like a Vegas lounge singer. Nice to see that Jack feels the same!

Scrap Wood = Great Memories

It's inevitable; no matter how hard I try, there always ends up being spare lumber after I finish a home project - whether it be fencing cedar or spare 2x4s that ended up being warped. What does a guy do with that stuff? Around here, throwing away perfectly good wood can cause a self-guided tour down the Guilt Canal; in the end the wood piles up in various places because we're all afraid of putting a tree in the landfill. So we cut it up into manageable firewood for camping, lean it up inside the garage, or just stash it out in the backyard.

My solution has been to save it for "projects" that include my sons. The results of the projects to me are less important than actually involving them at some level. Right now I'm trying to teach David how to hold and swing a hammer; at five years old, he just starting to gain that type of coordination. And he's a lefty like me, which means he's better tuned to learning in his own way rather than some established method. In any case all this wood-smacking work we do is something David and Jack may remember when they grow older, thinking about the goofy stuff their Dad used to build for them out of scrap. Sometimes the results are cool too, so it's not like we're out there just bending nails and hitting our index fingers with hammers.

Wooden Hydroplanes
Take, for example, the Seattle phenomena of Wooden Hydroplanes. I've started building them again after 30 + years in hiatus. These aren't dainty models that lie under glass. These are "pavement rated boats with assisted bicycle propulsion." Several generations of kids growing up in the Puget Sound found a way to mimic the hydroplane racing they saw on Lake Washington, by nailing together some scrap wood and towing the things behind their bicycles. I was no different; the boats I built were pretty roughshod, but fun nonetheless behind a bike. When tied 6+ feet behind a bicycle, wooden hydroplanes skid out to the side in corners - just like the real thing - and bounce along the pavement in perfect form the same way the big boats would skip across the water. Watch a hydro race sometime and you'll see what I mean. Even the new high-tech boats that race these days behave the same on the water.

The materials and tools for building these are simple and cheap:

• 2x4s of any sort
• 1" thick anything that is wide enough to be cut as a hull
• Roofing nails
  
• Sabre Saw
• Circular Saw or Hand Saw
  
• 2 cans of $2 spray paint from Ace Hardware

Building these really involves some trial and error, so having scrap lumber is a plus; there are some plans available from The Seattle Times, but in my opinion they're kind of wimpy and not meant to last. The main component of my boats are the 2x4s; they are studs or pressure treated...it doesn't really matter. With them I make the bodies and the tails. The best hull material I've found recently has been from reclaiming old pallets and cedar fencing boards. I even get some of our 2x4s out of pallets. A quick check on Craigslist with the search term 'pallets' will usually come up with someone who is trying to get rid of them. If anything they make awesome firewood.

David named the first boat I built "The Heavy Hauler." Black in color and made with a particle board hull, it may not last another season of the local "Cul De Sac Cup" as the hull has started to chip heavily along the leading edge. Later versions moved away from particle board entirely, but not before I built the red boat (currently known as "Number 59"). The orange boat is "Number 10" and required a new hull after one of the sponsons broke during a circuit of the course (hence the white material). Currently in the works we have a yellow boat with a dual tail and split hull (pictures when completed); it will employ a checkerboard design on the sponsons, per David's requirements, but it doesn't have a name yet.

Wooden Race Track for Hot Wheels
When you're all done with a 12 foot long 2x10, what happens to it? I asked that question this summer after I "rediscovered" the board in my backyard. It had cost me close to $30 by itself when I bought it back in the late 90s, so i didn't want to cut it up for stuff. Plus it's pressure treated wood, which means it's not a good idea to use it as firewood due to the chemicals. So again, what do you do? Well you tilt one side up high and run cars down the board...DUH! It was a natural solution thought up by David one afternoon, and it led to a two lane self contained race track. With the help of some old cedar fencing I took down last year, plus a healthy portion of roofing nails, I was able to create two separate racing lanes from one end to the other. They converge at one point at "The Diamond of Destruction," which has become a road hazard so successful at ruining races that it may come off (look in the detail pic and you'll see the diamond - hardly anything gets past it). While it may look the part, I didn't just chuck this racing board together; each piece nailed to the board is cut individually and then sanded smooth on the wall that would touch the car running down the track. The cars launch with the help of rubber bands strung across the starting gate. The end of the course has a jump and collector box for the racers. With enough angle on the racing board the cars careen down the chutes and into the box. It's great fun.

Since we now have a pretty consistent source for our scrap wood (pallets), our chances are good for coming up with more "projects," even if it's just nailing stuff together!