Saturday saw us dropping Kat off at her mom's house for the weekend, then heading to the City Market. It's early in the year for many of the local farmers to be there, but we thought that we might find one or two of them set up with some bedding plants for sale. That we did, along with a couple of vendors selling homemade breads and tropical plants, but we didn't find anything we wanted. We also checked out the "permanent vendors", which are mostly produce importers and ethnic grocers. Didn't find anything we wanted there, either.
These pictures aren't from this weekend, but from all the way back in July of 2007. The market looks about the same, but Kat looks very different. She was just 4 years old here.
We did buy a couple of items at one of the Asian markets in the same general area, then we were off to take a look at all the weird stuff at Weird Stuff. Weird Stuff is a junk store/antique shop of sorts that specializes in the odd-ball and off the wall. Saturday the proprietor was dressed in a clown suit and had his fur-covered Cadillac pulled up out front. That's not always the case, so we felt we'd been treated. Anyway, we were there to look at a guitar they'd listed on their website. As it turned out, it wasn't what Shane thought it was, so he didn't buy it. He needs another stringed instrument like he needs a hole in his head.
We stopped for lunch at a dive called LC's Barbecue. It's near our sports stadiums and has been in business, like, forever...but I'd never tried it. (There are so many barbecue joints in KC that it's probably impossible to try them all.) In my opinion, it was just ok. The meat was smoked well, but didn't have a lot flavor. The portions were big, I'll say that for them. But the place really is a dive. They had a recent food inspection certificate on display, but I couldn't help but wonder how they earned it...LOL. Lucky for them, that kind of thing doesn't bother us much and we stuffed ourselves silly on pig and french fries.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol pulled into LC's right behind us, but not because we did anything wrong. The Troopers just wanted some sandwiches. Hauling this around is hungry work, I guess. They'd had the 1959 Dodge cruiser in town for the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
The rest of the day was less eventful for us. No more Troopers, clowns or fur-covered cars to be seen, so we came home and had a very nice supper of grilled salmon, grilled asparagus and pasta salad. Some of the asparagus actually came from our garden!
Yesterday was fairly calm. Shane worked in the back yard, building more raised beds, moving more topsoil from the big pile out front, and generally doing whatever needed to be done before the rain moves in. Here's a quick pic of what's going on outside. I can't get it all in one shot, but I plan on posting more garden pictures later in the week.
While Shane gardened, I hung a couple loads of laundry and did some cooking. As I mentioned in my last post, Kat suggested that we cook an international meal every now and then, choosing a different country's food each time. Since she was gone on Saturday, we decided to have our Irish/St. Pat's meal yesterday.
I used my friend Alea's recipe for corned beef, potatoes and cabbage cooked in the pressure cooker. It turned out great, and was an excellent reminder that I should use my pressure cooker more often. You can find her recipe HERE. Trust me, you'll want to bookmark it and try it next March. Or maybe even this week, if your local store puts their excess corned beef on sale.
When Kat got home, we enjoyed our meal and played a couple of games afterward. I don't think she was very pleased about spring break being over, or that she had to go to bed on time so she could get up early for school today.
So, tell me...how was your weekend? Did any of you celebrate St. Pat's Day in a big way, or did you keep it low-key like we did (I didn't even drink a beer this weekend). And what's in store for your week ahead. Me? I'm off to pay some bills this morning, but beyond that, I have no clue!
