Behind the T-shirt - Cap's Place

Here's a 70's t-shirt from Cap's Place Island Restaurant and Bar - Lighthouse Point, Florida

The back says it's been there for 100 years so I did some digging. 

Their website claims they're Broward County's oldest restaurant - "with roots as a 1920's casino and rum-running speakeasy, it sits on an island off Lighthouse Point and can only be reached by Cap's motor launch.

 

Back in the 20's in No-Man's Land Florida, Cap Knight, Lola Knight and Al Hasis brought together a group of wooden shacks attached to an old barge which was floated up the present day intracoastal waterway from Miami to its location on Cap's Island near the fabled Hillsboro lighthouse north of Fort Lauderdale.  This was a rum-running restaurant and gambling casino, nestled on an island in the coastal marsh."

 

 Look familiar? 

"Among some of the notables who have enjoyed Cap’s creative cuisine are Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Casey Stengel, George Harrison, Errol Flynn, the Temptations, Susan Hayward, Gloria Swanson, Mariah Carey, "Norm" from TV's Cheers and Joe Namath. Cap's has hosted the famous and infamous for decades."

 

NORM!  

For this incredibly soft and thin authentic wearable piece of Florida's rum-running and gambling history, please visit -

vintage 70s t-shirt CAP'S PLACE bar florida soft thin burnout tee Medium Small

WTF Wednesday - Banana, Waffle, Aerobics

Greetings, Wednesday! Greetings WTF! 

Welcome to a short and sweet holiday edition of WTFW. 

In the past month I have found 2 food items left behind in cupboards by previous owners. Both expired in 2011.

Moving on to an 80's wunderproduct. 

Better off raw?And did somebody just take a bite off the front corner of that meat slab?

This 1979 book was full of black and white drawings and step by step instructions to show you how to enjoy exercise the way you've never enjoyed it before!

Last but not least, here is a waffle faced hound dog. 

peoplepets.com

Happy Holidays!

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf
 
New WTF this week:

• 80s DC's Country Junction & Zoo Tee
• 80s Ford Print on the Pocket Tee
• 80s The Pea Team Opening Crew Tee 

WTF Wednesday: Sassy Souse, Neuticles, Safari Teddy

Hello Wednesday, hello WTF!

If you tuned in last week, you may remember reference to livermush, and a livermush festival.

  
Perusing my grocer's freezer, I happened upon an entire section of liver loaves and was intrigued by its neighbor named "Souse." 

Marketed as "Sassy Souse." Upon investigation, it's also known as head cheese. I cannot imagine a more disgusting food label than "head cheese." I can see why they are going with "souse" instead.

 It seems to contain, pork, pork tongues, pork hearts, pork skins, a bunch of carcinogenic preservatives, pickles, and wheat gluten. Fully cooked, ready to eat, a delicious sandwich meat.

WTF?!

 Moving right along to dog balls. Neuticles (slogan: "It's like nothing ever changed.") are prosthetic testicle implants that you can get for your male dog when he is neutered. There are some hazy allegations that they may help the dog's self esteem, but the main purpose seems to be the owners like the way they look, and owners who would not neuter because they want their dog to have balls, will now neuter and implant these fake balls instead.

As if that weren't WTF enough already, they sell neuticle-related items like...earrings. Dog ball implant earrings. 

WTF?!

Ending on a more vintage note, here's a late 80s to early 90s crop top half t-shirt with a Jeep Wrangler-driving, pith helmet-wearing Teddy bear on African safari. 

It's a size XL and in glorious condition.

WTF?!

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

where my oil pullers at?

just kidding, i don't think that anybody who reads here is an oil puller. but you never know!

i first heard of this practice - oil pulling - a few years ago on a facebook for hippies site called "tribe," where a lot of alternative thinkers would post questions and solutions, most with a decidedly natural bent.  i was looking for carcinogen-free toothpaste recommendations and saw a post about oil pulling. it was interesting but i did not try it.

fast forward to last fall when i was becoming aware of the wonders of coconut oil. i was fighting a cold and there was a recommendation i saw online for mixing coconut oil with eucalyptus oil and putting it on the bottom of your feet to clear sinuses. it seemed like a better (less malodorous) idea than the bowls of chopped onions i put around the house last year. the same thread mentioned oil pulling. several commenters chimed in with anecdotes of oil pulling easing everything from tooth decay to rheumatoid arthritis - head colds, blood sugar stability, cramps, asthma, back pain, skin problems, the works.

i bought a jar of unrefined cold pressed virgin coconut oil and was happy with how it plus eucalyptus helped my cold. 

i figured the ancient Ayurvedic practice of oil pulling might be worth a shot.

basically you put a tablespoonful of oil (unrefined coconut or sesame seem to be the most popular) in your mouth and swish it around for 10-20 minutes, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.  i floss my teeth beforehand so the space between my teeth is bigger. after swishing through your teeth, you spit it out in a jar or trash can *NOT DOWN THE DRAIN* and rinse with warm salt water and then brush your teeth as usual.

it supposedly works like an intense mouth wash - the coconut oil is anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and it collects all your mouth germs and then you spit them out.

bonus is the lovely trippy layered tiers of half solidified - half liquid coconut oil collected in the jar!

i have been doing this for 2 months now. i can report my mouth feels terrific! i cannot attest to any other health improvements at this point, though i usually have a sore throat/ear pain at least every other week in the winter, and i have not had a hint of either since starting.  considering i spend many hours per week in the germ nest of thrift stores, and we went on a floating petri dish carnival cruise, i am pretty happy.

it seems that western science has proven oil pulling to have a positive effect on oral health, though the other hundreds of benefits have not yet been verified scientifically. i have a baby tooth - a molar that doesn't have an adult molar to push it out - and i would like to keep this baby tooth as long as possible before i need an implant. i am hoping oil pulling will at least help in this endeavor.

i will keep you all updated on this riveting oil pulling journey. i have my 6 month dentist appointment in april and i am interested to see if the hygienist can tell a difference.

at the bare minimum, it serves as a kind of meditation. for 20 minutes every day i am not talking.


as an aside: how great is talenti gelato and sorbetto? the mango is out of this world!

recipe - bedazzled bananas!

you will not find many recipes on this blog, but this one is fun: 

1. peel a banana 
2. bedazzle it with cashews 
3. mangia! 

having a stroke? call 911!

kevin's parents came for memorial day and among the great discussions that we had, they shared some advice they'd recently heard from a prominent neurosurgeon in tallahassee.

if you think you (or somebody else) are having a stroke, call 911! do not try to drive yourself to the emergency room.

it will take hours for you to be processed correctly through the system, for the neurologist to arrive, for help.

'time is brain' - the longer it takes, the less recovery.

if you call 911, an ambulance will be set up to help you and you'll be whisked right in once you get to the hospital.

call 911!

the warning signs for a stroke are: F.A.S.T.

• FACE: Ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop? 
• ARMS: Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward? 
• SPEECH: Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Is their speech slurred or strange? 
• TIME: If you observe any of these signs, call 9-1-1 immediately.

they also said that an absurd percentage of people who have a stroke/heart attack reports 'steak' as a meal in the previous day.

happy happy!

keeping with tradition, yesterday was the most beautiful weather day of the year! 75 and sunny!

had a great walk with pouncey & kevin.

went downtown & had malaga paella and mojitos at chorizo. muy delicioso!



went to a friend's house and saw the cutest little miniboots. laughing laughing laughing with awesome people.
 
we all went to the civic center and saw bob dylan! behold the splendor!

 

it was a great day!

8 days in havana cuba

if it seems i have been off the map lately, it's true. i spent 8 days in havana, cuba, where US cell phones and credit cards do not work, and the internet is sparse and difficult to access.



it was the first time since 1994 that i have gone an entire week without checking email. slightly refreshing, slightly alienating.

kevin's dad has wanted to go to cuba for decades, and online research led him to a cuban arts and culture tour run by a US college professor, they booked it, invited us along, and there we were 2 days after christmas in the miami airport boarding an unmarked charter plane for a communist country.



the weather was endlessly perfecto. 70-80 degrees and not a drop of rain.

the air was deplorable. many of the cars driving around the streets are from the 40's and 50's and have no catalytic converters, the newer cars and buses were just as bad, and the smell of carbon monoxide exhaust was omnipresent and overpowering. everything was covered in a dingy gray film.


we were on a tour (and tourbus) with 20 other americans. the group tour thing can be tough, especially for people used to having control, but we really lucked out and everybody was flexible and positive and intelligent. the bus was newer and comfortable, though it smelled of stale cigarettes and urinal cakes. i may be overly sensitive to air quality. i would not recommend an extended trip to havana to anybody with respiratory illness.

potable water. our tour bus in the background.

we were told not to drink the water, or eat produce washed in the water. for somebody who would be thrilled to have salad and only salad to eat every day, this was a challenge. most of my meals were chicken and rice, most of my vitamins came from the peppermint in the mojitos.

the buildings are made of concrete because it is cheap and resistant to hurricanes. many buildings are in ruins. the ones not in ruins are painted vibrantly and kept neat. the streets are treated like a garbage can. littering was rampant. there were also many street cleaners so it didn't accumulate, but it's still jarring to see people throwing trash on the ground 4 feet from a dumpster.



the people in havana are not aggressive or hostile. i did not see one person who seemed strung out on drugs. didn't even catch a whiff of weed. (sad face). seems like rum, rum, rum is the drug of choice. 

the street dogs were awesome.



more stories and photos to come.

(found this cuban woman's blog last night: http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/ which speaks out against the human rights violations, repression, and censorship cubans are experiencing under the castro regime. not surprisingly, we were exposed to very little of this sentiment on our state-sponsored tour.)

rotting watermelon fibonacci

if you cut a watermelon in half and leave it on the counter, this magical design will appear.  

also fruit flies will appear.

$10 bottles of wine!

homegrown restaurant on merrimon in asheville is great. the food is great. the folk art for sale on the wall is great. 

the greatest thing is monday is $10 bottle of wine day.

a glass of wine costs you $6, but on monday for $10 you can get the whole bottle. what a steal! 

you can walk away stuffed with 2 delicious dinners and a bottle of wine for under $30.

if you want the uptown girl painting, however, that will run you $25.

no more living in her white bread world.

let the counter surfing begin

pouncey has figured out food. i put hot water on his kibbles, so now anytime i am at the sink he thinks he's getting kibbles and sits expectantly next to me. he learned quickly from his brothers nacho and eli that the sound of wrappers usually means crumbs. he put his face right in this bowl of snacks on the coffee table.

what...did i do something wrong?

hongray

when pouncey is hungry, he goes and hangs out by himself next to his bowl. and generally tries to look as pathetic and tiny as possible. this strategy is effective.

automobiles, trains, and planes

asheville cancelled their direct flights into new york, the closest you can get now is newark, which is not new york and is more shipping containers than anything.

you can still get to new york via fairly easy mass transiting, though, and you can take beer on the LIRR, and they sell a 32 oz high gravity IPA with a straw for $6.50 in penn station.

a "hot sausage" from a hot dog cart does not mean bratwurst, it means a hot dog with fiery red peppers dumped on top.

if your office bans microwaving lunch because disgusting smells and you have a window, you can make a solar cooker. 

a woman who is not at all crazy about animals can fall in love with a dog like my furry brother henry.

a boy as cute and sweet as my nephew willie will be immediately bombarded by cute older girls at the park who will take him by the hand. 

 

and push him on the swings. 

 

he is only a month away from turning 2, but taller than 50% of 3 year olds. the cutest little beanpole.  he likes being thrown in the air and looking at books and putting toy trucks in order. he smiles on command and eats anything you put in front of him.

my other nephew rilan is only a month old and has gained 4 pounds in that month. 2 pounds are in his cheeks. 

 

henry would like some bacon. 

 a great way to end a trip is with a bite or two of a goodbye mcgriddle. 

dropped strawberries

newest entry into the flickr "spilled food" group 

downtown asheville last night

squirrel banquet

if they say y

tell 'em that is human nature

Contains milk but milk is not an ingredient.

hunger and whistling

i am hungry. 

for the first time in 5 days. 

which makes me ecstatic! 

i don't know if it was stomach virus, flu, or food poisoning. all i know is that i've had no appetite since last thursday. frowing up, spare you the details, bad news. my last meal was probably the culprit but since there's no way to *really* know the cause, i'm just going to look at the last thing i ate and whistle. 

[looks at picture above and whistles] [goddamn you taco truck chicken] 

this was a trick of my great late grandfather named flops. when he wanted to blame somebody, he would say "i'm not going to name any names, i'm just going to look at the person who did it and whistle." and then he would look at somebody in the room and whistle.

hello to you hushpuppies

luella's bbq

biscuits

i have heard rumors for years that if the unc tar heels basketball team scores 100 points or more, bojangle's gives out free biscuits the next day.

last night the heels scored 100 against elon.

i googled 'free biscuits bojangles unc' etc. and couldn't find anything official or specific, but we headed down there anyway this morning.

the deal is: carolina scores 100 or more, you get 2 sausage biscuits for $1. not too shabby!

we didn't end up getting the sausage biscuit deal, but we did enjoy scarfing down a country ham and egg biscuit from the comfort of a lovely solarium with a downtown view for less than $3. 

score! 

exhausted by sandwiches

angela sent me this photo of my nephew william this weekend, with the caption "Totally asleep at lunch."