Lunch at Lone Star
A nice early Saturday morning in the rain. One of the things I miss during the winter is nice walks in comfortable rain. We saw a lot of rain in Round Lake Centre this winter but it was never anywhere near nice to walk in — I’ve never seen a winter with so many ice storms, pretty but tough to walk in. The rain this morning was gentle and drip sweetly from the Spanish Moss on the big Live Oaks and the tall, mature Yellow Pines. The redbud next to our trailer seemed to have snuck into bloom overnight and wild azaleas and dogwoods were blooming off in the underbrush around the park. A lovely morning for a walk. The dogs loved the strange smells so we wandered aimlessly until the rain stopped and it was time for coffee.
Our fridge — which had been repaired and worked for 48 hours seems to have suffered a failure in the same circuit board so we still had not done any grocery shopping at all although we did finally have coffee in the trailer and I had some left over milk we’d kept cool with the remnants of the freezing in the ice packs in the freezer. Dinner had been good enough at The LakeHouse on Friday night that neither of us were starving so we puttered around before heading off to Santee.
Originally, we’d thought of sightseeing in Charleston for the day but on the off-chance that one of the fridge repair places we’d phoned on Friday night might actually phone back. However, Santee isn’t exactly a place where people push to work on the weekend so we weren’t expecting a call back and we never did get one. So instead of Charleston, I showed Lorraine the sights in Santee. We found a little flea market and a really good antique store. (If you’re ever in Santee we recommend Gabi’s behind the Exxon station). I showed Lorraine the Quality Inn — still under renovations more than 10 years after our last Spring Golf Tour.
After the quick tour and antique shopping we were ready or lunch and there is nowhere better in the Santee area than the Lone Star Restaurant. They call themselves BBQ and certainly that’s part of it but the menu varies and it is a serious old style southern Buffet located in 3 largely unrenovated country stores that have been moved to the old village of Lone Star just west of Santee and hooked together.
For $11 you get a large plate of food including desserts and ice tea, lemonade or water. Canned pop is a dollar extra. My plate contained at least the following: rice, bbq hash, chopped bbq pork, mac and cheese, tomato casserole, a hush puppy, a southern fried chicken breast, butter beans, collards, baked beans, sweet pickles, and a hush puppy with coleslaw on the side; none of these is the best there is — I think they merely aspire to be very good and they achieve that. The ambiance of the old general stores and the generally run-down conditions of the buildings add to a good-old country meal. There is no table service — just big family tables where everyone sits together. Not too busy today so Lorraine and I only had to line up for 20 minutes... Lorraine’s response on her first bite of Tomato Casserole while looking at the heap on her plate was “Well fuck my life.” It didn’t hurt that we were hungry — if you go to the Lone Star, go hungry.
After a lunch like that there is little that you can do that makes sense. We decided that we’d cook dinner in the trailer for the first time and have a little food for breakfast. There is the old aphorism never shop on an empty stomach — well the opposite is true too. The only thing that made sense to buy was Campbell’s soup, bread and wine... In the IGA we encountered a new southern product — fake Gin, Whisky, Vodka and Brandy made from flavoured wine at 16% alcohol so they could sell it in the IGA. Sometimes I fear that this is the kind of thing that could happen in Ontario if they ever sold the LCBO and let the grocery barons do the liquor buying...
We finished our shopping and Lorraine had a nap while I worked on homework for the Creative Writing course — more on the homework later this week. We sat out and enjoyed the view of the water before a lovely sunset. Planned the next week of our trip ( roughly) and then had toast for dinner — even the grocery shopping we did was too ambitious given the plates of food we had for lunch. Just as well — if we eat like that too much I’ll need to upgrade the truck.
Our fridge — which had been repaired and worked for 48 hours seems to have suffered a failure in the same circuit board so we still had not done any grocery shopping at all although we did finally have coffee in the trailer and I had some left over milk we’d kept cool with the remnants of the freezing in the ice packs in the freezer. Dinner had been good enough at The LakeHouse on Friday night that neither of us were starving so we puttered around before heading off to Santee.
Originally, we’d thought of sightseeing in Charleston for the day but on the off-chance that one of the fridge repair places we’d phoned on Friday night might actually phone back. However, Santee isn’t exactly a place where people push to work on the weekend so we weren’t expecting a call back and we never did get one. So instead of Charleston, I showed Lorraine the sights in Santee. We found a little flea market and a really good antique store. (If you’re ever in Santee we recommend Gabi’s behind the Exxon station). I showed Lorraine the Quality Inn — still under renovations more than 10 years after our last Spring Golf Tour.
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| The infamous Ziggy’s Under Renovation |
After the quick tour and antique shopping we were ready or lunch and there is nowhere better in the Santee area than the Lone Star Restaurant. They call themselves BBQ and certainly that’s part of it but the menu varies and it is a serious old style southern Buffet located in 3 largely unrenovated country stores that have been moved to the old village of Lone Star just west of Santee and hooked together.
For $11 you get a large plate of food including desserts and ice tea, lemonade or water. Canned pop is a dollar extra. My plate contained at least the following: rice, bbq hash, chopped bbq pork, mac and cheese, tomato casserole, a hush puppy, a southern fried chicken breast, butter beans, collards, baked beans, sweet pickles, and a hush puppy with coleslaw on the side; none of these is the best there is — I think they merely aspire to be very good and they achieve that. The ambiance of the old general stores and the generally run-down conditions of the buildings add to a good-old country meal. There is no table service — just big family tables where everyone sits together. Not too busy today so Lorraine and I only had to line up for 20 minutes... Lorraine’s response on her first bite of Tomato Casserole while looking at the heap on her plate was “Well fuck my life.” It didn’t hurt that we were hungry — if you go to the Lone Star, go hungry.
After a lunch like that there is little that you can do that makes sense. We decided that we’d cook dinner in the trailer for the first time and have a little food for breakfast. There is the old aphorism never shop on an empty stomach — well the opposite is true too. The only thing that made sense to buy was Campbell’s soup, bread and wine... In the IGA we encountered a new southern product — fake Gin, Whisky, Vodka and Brandy made from flavoured wine at 16% alcohol so they could sell it in the IGA. Sometimes I fear that this is the kind of thing that could happen in Ontario if they ever sold the LCBO and let the grocery barons do the liquor buying...
We finished our shopping and Lorraine had a nap while I worked on homework for the Creative Writing course — more on the homework later this week. We sat out and enjoyed the view of the water before a lovely sunset. Planned the next week of our trip ( roughly) and then had toast for dinner — even the grocery shopping we did was too ambitious given the plates of food we had for lunch. Just as well — if we eat like that too much I’ll need to upgrade the truck.
I walked in the rain with you. Thank you, again.
ReplyDeleteI said “FORK my life”!!!
ReplyDeleteDid you find a cart girl with a particularly clean right arm?
ReplyDeleteYour posts make me hungry!
ReplyDeleteThat’s the idea. And you need to be hungry if you want lunch at the Lone Star.
Delete