American Dishes

Sometimes even I have to come up for air from politics. So when I do, I eat up stuff that you can only get in America. Let's chow down on some Americana. Eat hearty!

American Dish #1:  Big Trucks and Old Cars

Most people would assume that I listen to NPR in my spare time, for the classical music. I think I come across as that music purist/snoot type. Well they would assume partly wrong:  only part of me is snooty. Around the time I started going to Tea Parties a few months back, I also started doing other red-blooded American things--like going to Yankee Lake Truck Night out near Youngstown, Ohio.

And I was one of those rowdy loud people on the bleachers watching the truck tug of war, just like these folks. Except I was eating an overpriced pulled pork sandwich. I was wearing cowboy boots, though.

At the truck night, I met and fell in love with him--my dream truck, I mean. It's below, a 1971 Ford F-250 XLT Ranger. If I can still afford a car in an economy after the sunset of the Bush tax cuts in January, I'd like to save up for this bad boy.

Over the past few months I also paid a visit to a Swap Meet out near Youngstown, Ohio, to ogle all the old cars and browse the rusty car parts and random array of antiques. I went with a guy I don't like anymore, but hey, thanks for the memories, right?

American Dish #2:  Country Music

As America as we know it teeters precariously towards communism, I want to cling to everything American. So now I've gone even further--I just today started listening to two local country music stations, so local it isn't even worth posting their names because you can't find them anywhere but here in mid-Ohio. It makes me feel pretty badass, driving along with my windows rolled down and country music blaring. I'm not a connoisseur--I don't have any favorites yet--I just generally enjoy the fat combo of fiddles, electric guitars, twangy vocals, and down-home poetry. A lot of the music makes me laugh, but some of the breakup songs are so poignant it's almost hard to listen. But I still listen. Ah, catharsis!

It's really fun for me, the lace-glove-wearing type, to get down and dirty as I chow down on some good ol' American customs.