My mom spent 3 weeks in Germany during the month of May for work and missed Mother’s Day completely. So when she got back, she took the Monday off as a recoup day, especially to try and get back on Missouri time. She called me Monday morning and asked if I wanted to go to Joplin with her so I jumped in my car and buzzed on over to her house.
She went and got her nails done and then it was lunch time. She asked where I wanted to eat and I told her I didn’t really care. She gave me the option of Cheeseburgers or Mexican. I told her she was the one who had been out of the country for 3 weeks so whatever she wanted, we’d go there. She finally said she really wanted a Cheeseburger and Onion Rings so we wound up going to Gooch Bros. Grill.
When we first looked at the menu, mom was afraid they didn’t have onion rings, but I put her fear to ease because they did.
Tbug wasn’t going to be able to share Mother’s Day with my mom, so the last weekend she was over we decided to go out to dinner for Mother’s Day. When dad asked what we all wanted, somewhere Tbug said she wanted ribs so dad decided we’d go to Big R’s Bar-B-Q for Grandma’s Mother’s Day Dinner.
The last time Hubby and I ate here was in February of 2010 just after we got engaged. We came here for a Dinner Club (which no longer happens).
My mom’s job has her traveling all over the country and world for that matter. She recently went to New Orleans and I asked her to take photos. I also asked if she’d be willing to do a guest post about restaurants… And boy did she ever. I’m going to turn it over to my beautiful momma today to talk about Muriel’s Jackson Square. Take it away!!
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Lots of restaurants have a “hook” enticing patrons to dine with them rather than the competitor down the street. This hook may come in many forms: décor, menu, live music featured on the weekends or a combination of several. Last week while working in New Orleans, I had the pleasure of eating at Muriel’s Jackson Square.
They claim to be haunted!
Muriel’s history started with the original property owner, Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, purchasing the property in 1789, and subsequently building his “dream home”. Unfortunately, Mr. Jourdan had a gambling problem and one ill-fated night in 1814, lost his beloved residence due to a bad card hand during a poker game.
Vowing to never leave his home, he committed suicide on the second floor the night before he was to be evicted from the premises. Thus Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan walks his home forever.
Waiters (or is the PC word servers?) at Muriel’s have the touch of fine dining captured….. as you are seated, they retrieve the fabric napkin which has been artfully folded at your place setting, and gently place it in your lap. It’s been so long since I’ve had this experience, I’d nearly forgotten how to react. For a split second, I was starting to wonder what the server was going for. Where I’m from anymore, linen napkins aren’t an option. You’re lucky to get a paper one that has been made of recycled paper products wrapped around your fork (forget getting a knife) with a self-stick paper band. Plus, if the menu mentions anything with the word B-B-Q sauce as a main ingredient, you might just find a roll of kitchen towels donning a wood dowel rod at the end of a picnic table. Guess I shouldn’t complain though; beats using a shirt sleeve or pants leg.
This last weekend we were out driving around looking for tractor & baler parts. It was about lunch time and we passed by this restaurant. It has been there since February of 2011, but we’ve never eaten here. In fact, we were discussing that amongst ourselves when we passed by headed west. On our way back east we talked about it more and dad turned in the driveway.
He said, you know, we’ve seen this for quite some time now and never tried it, partially because your mom won’t let me, so let’s try it, what do you say. Well hubby and I were up for it so in we turned.
A short year after their marriage on June 10, 1950 their family of 2 became a family of 3, mother, father & son. 2 years later they added 2 more but not wanting an un-even number of kids 2 years after that they rounded out the family with their 4th child. This family of 6 lived in rural southwest Missouri on a working dairy farm. As the kids grew older, they helped with farm chores of rounding up the cattle for milking, milking or just checking the cattle to make sure they were all where they should be and problem free. Along with the milk cows they had Hereford cattle and of course their trusty horses.
Meanwhile in Southern Michigan the family of three expected their first child [together] a little over a year after their marriage on September 4, 1954. She was followed 3 years later by her younger sister. This family was into the horse business and went all over the state showing horses.
As the son grew up his grandmother wanted him to go off to college somewhere. She told him he needed to get into the Engineering field, but he had different dreams, he wanted to be a veterinarian. Toward the latter years of his high school education his grandmother took him to Colorado with her while visiting some friends. She wanted him to see the Colorado State University.
Eventually the son would attend Southwest Missouri State College for his first two years and planned to transfer to MU – Columbia to join their veterinarian program. Life took him on a different route and he eventually transferred back to Missouri Southern State College to finish out a Biology degree.
When the daughter hit her Junior year of high school, the family decided to move to Missouri. The father had had enough of the cold Michigan winters and wanted to move somewhere warmer. They had some fellow Arabian horse breeders that moved to southwest Missouri that they came to visit and decided this is where their family would move so they picked up and headed south. She finished out her high school years and graduated. She had dreams of going off to school and living in the dorms but her father thought differently. He finally agreed that if she got a scholarship he’d allow her to live on campus at Missouri Southern State College and away she went. (more…)
Ok sorry for the confusion, this is not a baseball post. This is a Red Bird story post that is near and dear to my heart.
So the year was about 2005, I was home one weekend from college and we were all sleeping peacefully one Sunday morning when all the sudden we hear, Peck, Peck, Peck, Peck, Peck…. etc. You get the point. Anyway, there was this pesky red bird that was flying into the big circle top window in front of my mom & dad’s house. It was annoying, especially at 6 am when we were all snug as a bug in a rug in our beds. The funny part, this continued every morning for the next 2 weeks at the exact same time of day. We’d go, shew him away but that wouldn’t detour him, he’d wait until we were gone and he’d be right back at it.
