Paducah picnic and sushi

Stephen's first "vacation" to Paducah included many yummy meals. Well, at least for me and Grammy Tilsch. I can only hope Stephen enjoyed them too.Thursday night we had seaweed salad, caterpillar roll and spider roll from Tokyo Sushi restaurant near Sam's Club. I really like the way they make their seaweed salad, with green onion and sesame and several different types of seaweed.
Stephen slept while we gulped everything down.
And then Friday we had a picnic at Bob Noble Park ... the kind of place Hopkinsville should have, but doesn't. We ate smoked chicken from Buzzard Brothers under the big pavilion along with slices of buttery sweet bread from Kirchoff's bakery and vinegar slaw. We also had grapes, brownie and red bell pepper slices.

Stephen didn't sleep, but he was relatively content.

Paducah produce

Paducah's farmers market is awesome. We visited last July when my folks and Joe and I met up there before I had Stephen. I bought a white pattypan squash and it was delicious.... the same vendor, a very nice man originally from Syria, was at the market and had lovely produce again. ...And one giganto pattypan sitting atop a bin full of little dark green acorn squash. It was the only pattypan, and I didn't see a price for it. I scooped it up, like a treasure, and asked him how much.

For that? Just take it, he replied. He said that he'd been trying to sell it for two weeks :-) Mom bought three acorn squash for a dollar just to give him some business. He said he was opening his own farmstand in Lone Oak and will have someone else man his farmers market booth.

Paducah Barbecue Festival

It just so happened that the time mom and I picked to meet up in Paducah is the weekend of Paducah's big bbq festival. It took up the entire area from the parking lot where the farmers' market is all the way to Broadway. Stephen slept as we strolled around. We sampled Buzzard Brothers pulled pork sandwich as well as Larry Daryl and Daryl. Both were good, but mom and I felt that Buzzard Brothers (which had the longest line of the dozens of booths there) had a smokey-er sauce, softer bun and more tender meat. Larry, Daryl and Daryl (pictured below), though they also had been recommended and had a good crowd, was slightly less saucey and had too many big chunks of meat that made it a little difficult to eat the sandwich.

A lady at the farmers market recommended this catfish and hushpuppy kebob from the Christian radio station booth. She was right, it was very good. I normally don't like hushpuppies, but these had a nice green onion flavor.

Trip to Paducah

Mom and son Parrino went for a little adventure on Thursday and came back this morning. We left after Stephen's 4:30 a.m. feeding and got to Paducah to meet up with Grammy Tilsch in about an hour and 15 minutes. Here's a little series of photos of Stephen enjoying the king sized bed at the Marriot Residence in, hanging out with Hoops and YoYo.

Paducah Farmers Market

Both of these were acquired at the Paducah Farmers Market. Which one is the real vegetable? :-)
I bought this giant patty-pan squash from a middle eastern couple. I was really taken by it because the patty-pans I've seen are all in summer squash and zucchini colors. Plus it was giganto. The corn is a stress-squeezer that my mom got from teh UK extension office table... where they were also cooking free samples of corn and zucchini saute, beet salad and green tomato salsa. Yum!

Paducah food

Tokyo Sushi

Last night we went to Tokyo Sushi, near Paducah's mall, before hitting downtown after dinner. I had the dragon roll and a seaweed salad (eaten too fast to photograph.) The salad was just right- vinegar sugar and sesame oil dressing coating a mix of thinly chopped seaweed, jellyfish and green onions. Sprinkled with sesame seeds and strips of nori. My roll was also good: eel, cucumber and avocado. Joe had a roll with salmon, avocado and cucumber and two flying fish roe. I didn't try them, though I wanted to, because of the risk to the baby. Mom and Dad had teka maki, udon and some other kind of roll... but I've forgotten what. We all enjoyed our food and it was fairly reasonably priced.
Yesterday at lunch we ate at Kirchoff's deli, attached to the famous bakery. Their portions are generous and they have quite a variety on the menu. I had a falafel salad.... the falafel was tasty, but not really authentic in texture. I thought the rest of the salad was kind of a dud: Really huge pieces of romaine, slightly red on the edges. One big tomato wedge and one big cucumber round and some dried out shredded carrots. Probably the tastiest part was the big bowl of feta, but again, since I'm avoiding the various bacteria carrying pregnancy no-nos, I didn't eat any. The yogurt dressing was kind of boring. I added lemon juice to it to give it some zing.
Joe and I split the salad and a portabella sandwhich, which was good, but salty and messy. The chopped mushroom and red peppers were cut too finely, so they were falling out everywhere.
Mom and I split a lemonade cookie, which was basically a very soft, fat sugar cookie with yellow sugar on top. I liked it, but there was the slightest taste of too much baking soda and not really any lemon flavor. Still, it was a good end to the meal.

Something I didn't photograph, but perhaps should have, is the mango Frutista Freeze from Taco Bell. Besides taking us on a tour of the entire shopping strip (Taco Bell is tucked behind another mexican restaurant and the sign is very hard to spot) and giving us plenty of opportunity to make fun of the rebel-group sounding name (we said the Frutistas must be led by Che Gauva-era) This thing is about 100 times more mango-y than the "Man-go Banana Smoothie" I got at Coldstone a week ago. Also, it has some real (frozen and sugared) strawberries on top. And it's only about $2. I'm going to look up the ingredients on line to see if it contains real mango, which I suspect. If not, the artificial flavoring food scientists really hit the mango flavor. OK, I tried to find out what's actually in it. Not really fruit juice, but "natural fruit flavoring." Couldn't find out what that was. Well, it tastes like mangoes... but it isn't :-(

Paducah food

Last night we decided to check out Paducah's "Downtown After Dinner" a summer street festival of sorts. First we ate at d. Starnes-- a bbq joint that is connected to a quilt shop and an ice cream shop. We both thought we were ordering something we'd gotten before-- dry rub barbecue pulled turkey. Sadly, it was just lunch meat with some sauce. But the meal was redeemed. We each had a side of the Most Delicious Vinegar Slaw in the World. I can't quite figure out what makes this cole slaw so special... other than the happy fact that it does not have mayonnaise binding it together. This mix of finely chopped cabbage, onion, carrot and pickles has celery seed and dill seeds and the perfect oil-vinegar-sugar-salt combination. I put mine on my sandwich.

Joe gets his meal:




Joe ate his food very fast. 2 minutes later:


We were under the misimpression that many restaurants were supposed to be serving samples, so we had a small dinner. I did get a bag of popcorn- something I haven't had in a while. But other than that, nothing to keep our mouths busy.

While at d. Starnes, I over heard a server tell a customer that Downtown after dinner is ending a month earlier than usual because of a low turnout this summer. I have a theory about that. One, it's been triple digit temps all summer. Two, about half the street performers are so tone-deaf, they might be driving away the tourism.

Joe and I listened to 89.7 "All bluegrass. All the time" on the way home to cleanse our ears.