Thursday, December 28, 2006

What is lady laughing about? or, The Jim Bunch Eats Again

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That's my sister, Lois. She is about to attempt to eat this whole sandwich.

Don't they feed pretty good here in these Iowa prisons?

Shown with Lois is a pork tenderloin sandwich from Joensy's in Center Point, Iowa!

I could only eat half of mine but it was sooooo good I really wanted to eat the whole thing too.
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This is Karen after eating half a pork tenderloin sandwich.
Please note the ornaments on this tree,
they are pig shaped.
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Joensy's Restaurant is located in Center Pont, Iowa. Their pork tenderloin sandwiches are the best I've had.

Lois (sister) says you can order them on a plate with mashed potatoes and white gravey too.

Maybe next time I'll have them that way for less calories because I will skip the bread.

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# posted by Jim : 12/28/2006 12:12:00 AM  3 comments

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Historic Pig Stand Restaurant, I'm Glad I Went

That's because they closed this Monday, maybe forever.
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Mrs. Jim and I went to this historic restaurant with grandkids, Megan, Jenna, and Timothy, about twelve years ago. We visited the facility in Beaumont, Texas on the way back from a nice visit with Mema in Louisiana. [link, check it out while the Web site is still in operation. More piggy icons are there as well as these two.]
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The food really wasn't all that good. The kids had wanted to stop at a McDonald's or Burger King, stopping at the Pig Stand was something I had just been wanting to do. Of course I ordered a Pig Sandwich which they were noted for. It is a pork barbecue deal, this one just happened to be tough and not very tasty. The kids agree with me by not finishing theirs.

The original Pig Stand in Dallas reportedly is the first drive-through restaurant, starting a new American concept in take-home dining. The chain also invented the fried onion ring, a yummy chloresteral gob of fried vegetable, as most of you well know.

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 Last year they were celebrating their 75th Anniversary. (I know, the Chronicle article says they started in 1921 in Dallas.) Today they are in bankruptcy proceedings.
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The straw that broke the camel's back was when the Texas Comptroller closed them for delinquent state sales tax payments. [link to story in the Houston Chronicle]

Those gnomes actually commandeered the three stores still open--one in Houston and two in San Antonio--and took the entire day's receipts to compensate for those missed payments.

You'd close too if you couldn't keep your income, I wonder if they took those wait staffs' tips too?


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Photos courtesy of the Houston Chronicle. See all eleven at http://www.chron.com/disp/dispcomp2.mpl?cid=4208684 (link).
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This was the second generation building at the Houston Washington Street Pig Stand that closed Monday.
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I like this sign, in the Fifties everyone must have wanted to stop. My 1950 Ford didn't make it there. I know it wanted to go, we just couldn't make it over there.

We could call this the Jim Bunch eating high on the hog!

Or as my Dad would often say, "we haven't eaten so good since the pigs ate my little brother." I don't know where in the world he came up with that.

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# posted by Jim : 11/22/2006 12:16:00 AM  6 comments

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Old Buildings on Our Farm - - - Mom's Cat House - - - Dad's Pig Shed - - - Mom's Chicken House

Link to all the "Old Buildings on Our Farm"
Mom's cat house
My mom always had a lot of half-way stray cats. A few would let us pet them or come to the milking barn for a fresh teat treat. She had this special cat house at the edge of the grove. The cats would get fed out there and at our back door. None ever got shots or the like. They seemed to be pretty tough though, most lived to run off or get killed by a wild animal or the neighboring Toms.
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[click on pictures for full size]

The old pig shed .

At one time this pig shed of Dad's was in the corral. Now the corral is cultivated to become an excellent corn field.

The small door on the left got mainly used by the pigs, but Dad and I went in many a time to help a pig out of some trouble, or to mark their ears so we could tell them from the neighbors if they got mingled.

Dad usually raised about 120 hogs from pigs. He would pick ten to fourteen to become mother pigs and another cycle would begin.

Those others went to the slaughter house. We generally butchered a couple for family eating. Remember, the Jim Bunch eats good.

. Original farm house,
it was a chicken house
ever since I new (70+ years)

Mom raised the laying hens and handled the egg marketing. Again we raised from babies, chicks this time. She always got unsexed chicks. Most of the roosters would get sold for fryers, we would eat about sixty. That is one for each Sunday and a few more for company or the threshing crew.

She would wash every egg with vinegar. Like me, she was a night owl and would start this task around midnight. A lot of times Lois and Dad would have had several hours of sleep before Mom and I went to bed.

Notes:

1. On our farm, the cattle, cows, hogs, and chickens ate the grain and hay grown on the farm. The oat straw was used for bedding. Most times there would be more profit, not counting family labor, from raising and marketing the animals, eggs, and cream.

2. All of the farm buildings were kept in good paint. The cat house and hen house were red, the hog house was black. There is still some of that paint showing after twenty-five years of non-use.

3. Unsexed chickens meant buying a mixture of male and female chicks. The mixture generally was around fifty-fifty. It figures.

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# posted by Jim : 8/10/2006 08:04:00 AM  1 comments

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