Spices, Slingers and Pasta

There is a new bridge crossing the river to St. Louis, and coming across there you get an attractive view of the skyline. Much better than the view from the old McKintley bridge.

And there is so much to do in St. Louis that it's hard to get around to everything. Yesterday we went to one of our favorite stores - Penzey's. This small store sells only spices and seasoning. I love to look around and find new spices, or new variations of spices that I do know. They have more kinds of cinnamon and nutmeg that I even knew existed.

Today we decided to try a St. Louis specialty - the Slinger. There is some debate about who came up with it first but the Eat-Right dinner has a pretty good claim to inventing it. I think the diner is about 100 years old and I don't believe they have changed anything inside, except adding a couple of pinball machines.

They start their Slingers with hash browns (I ordered mine extra crispy), then top it with sausage patties, a couple of eggs, a slice of cheese and a big ladle of chili. It looks awful and tastes wonderful!

One of the reasons we love St. Louis so much is that it really is a great food town. Aaron and a friend came over for a visit today, and we all went to dinner on the Hill. We went to Guido's, which is one of our favorite Italian restaurants. Actually, it's half Italian; the other half is Spanish. The owners are an Italian and Spanish couple who combine their two cuisines to form one great restaurant. It took a long time for our dinner to arrive, but that was unusual - the waiter said there was a big banquet in the back room. But that was OK; when it eventually showed up, it was worth waiting for. Randy likes their Tutto Mare, but I went for the Beef and Pork Tortellini. Good choice!

We've been having a great time in St. Louis. I didn't get out see all of my friends but several friends came to visit us. Now it's time to move on again. We will be heading to Texas within a day or so (like it's not hot enough here!) to try our hand at gate-guarding.