Teej's Secret Box

I just want to share my pictures for September 2008 with all of you.  Enjoy.

Whole Hog Cafe
1400 SE Walton Blvd
Bentonville, Arkansas

It has been a while since I reviewed a restaurant. Partly due to the fact that I get tired of writing about places, and especially since I have been to a whole sea of “perfectly adequate” sites that does what they are meant to do, and nothing more: Serve edible food.

The past few weeks I have been working here in Bentonville, Arkansas, I had the pleasure of being introduced to the Mecca of BBQ.

I can hear you now: ‘Wait a minute; this is Arkansas, not Texas/Memphis/North Carolina/Cincinnati!’

Just as unbelievable as it is that we could have the world best pizza in Phoenix, Arizona, not downtown Bronx, we can have the world best BBQ in the middle of nowhere, not in the middle of the best places. It all boils down to one thing: Competition breeds similarity.

It take a complete shift to a different audience who are more willing to try something unique, rather than with a bunch of people who are stuck ordering the same sauce since they were born, for creativity to blossom.

It took a group of Buffalo ex-pats in Pittsburgh to come up with the most brilliant and hottest chicken wings sauce anywhere (Joe Vs the Volcano.) Unfortunately, that recipe has gone by the wayside ever since Fat Heads South Shore Saloon was renovated and shifted their menu toward draft beer and Pittsburgh dishes. I suppose there weren’t enough people brave enough to keep them afloat by burning their tongues frequently enough.

* * *

I do not know the history behind this place, Whole Hog Cafe — other than the award winning food they have entered in so many competitions that their place is jam-packed with trophies. That’s right; these are not your typical bowling trophies at your pizza parlor. Those trophies you see all around the restaurants are awarded for the food they make, not for how well they play sports on their free time.

Granted, Whole Hog is a wee bit too much for a lunch, but their general options are excellent. To make a note, while the ribs are far better than your typical ribs at whatever fancy ribs place you may attend, the food of choice for lunch is Pulled Pork.

For a place that serves hundreds of people a day, somehow this pork dish is not the blandest thing around. They did it right, by god they did it right. The only way to beat the taste is to slow cook your own pork and eat within minutes of finishing. The pork is moist, but not soaked. The taste is tangy but not fake. They do indeed smoke the food on site, as we noted downwind.

Not only that, their coleslaw is very solid. Again, not soggy, but very crunchy and freshly made (the proper way at that.) Their other sides are solid, including the potato salad, and fried beans — a must for any BBQ lover’s dish.

Unlike most places that would slather their BBQ sauce all over the pork, they do it right — you can eat the pork straight (and it’s very tasty at that already). However, they also recognize that people are diverse, so they offer seven different sauces. Some are sweet, while other can be quite spicy. My favorite is the tomato and vinegar, slightly tangy — while others go crazy for the southern vinegar and spice, quite bold. One spice is held back, “Volcano” — something I have not been brave enough to try.

In the end, whenever it was discovered that we are planning to head to Whole Hog Cafe for lunch, our group of people usually double if not triple in size of eager eaters. Finding seats are difficult for large groups, especially if the banquet room is reserved. But the wait and the search are worth it, as the food gives us a true taste of America.

If you ever find yourself in Arkansas or nearby states, do take it upon yourself, BBQ lovers, to pay this place a visit.

P.S. Yes, this place is far better than Gates in Kansas City, for those who may be asking. For those who know, it is high praise, indeed.

For years, I have been telling myself, “Self, when I get a wife, and kids, I will have to retire from traveling on the road, because I can not imagine being without them.”

There are far too many stories by the media of kids with their dad being on the road for days on to the end, bemoaning the loss of their father, and whatever guilt-laden reasoning for their own failings due to the absence of their poppa.

It have been over four weeks since Heather moved in with me. Just last week, I came up with a realization that even in this world, this issue is not quite as black and white as I thought it would be. You see, by traveling, I bring myself out of that house for days on to the end, allowing Heather and myself to be able to do our own things.

We are a very intimate pair of people, longing to touch and hug and be with each other. This desire cut into our own pre-existing needs to get things done. Bills, repairs, errands, and to-do lists are one thing that we need to take care of. However, it is self-reflection, doing our own things, and returning to our own worlds that are also very important for ourselves. While we enjoy talking with each other to a great extent, we also have many friends and families that we treasure to a great extent.

And the greatest thing about traveling? We get to experience reuniting with each other every week. How cool is that, eh?

Dear Professor Pausch –

Wherever you may be…

Thank you.

Thank you so much for all you have done (Note: Subtitled in English).

-Teej

As a deaf person with both ears unable to interpret sounds below around 105 decibels, I have to depend on hearing aids in order to partly hear some sounds. Those devices do not make me a hearing person, as it only “improve” my hearing loss to moderate deafness. Much better than profound deafness, but still far below what people would assume to be normal hearing.

As an aside, cochlear implants are also limited in this manner, only improving the sense of hearing to a certain extent. Far better than hearing aids, but not up to normal hearing levels.

To compensate for the limitation, the digital hearing aids I have are designed to be optimized toward the vocal range of sounds, making those sounds as prominent as they usually are, and minimizing the sounds in the background. For someone with a less severe deafness, this is a godsend, but for me, my hearing loss is so bad that I can’t even hear the silent accents of certain words.  After all, people with moderate deafness can not hear them either without the use of devices to improve their hearing.

So hence the important value of speech therapy and lip reading education.  I spent most of my life constantly improving my ability to read people’s mouths along with hearing their sounds.  As part of hearing their voices, I believe that I analyze those sounds differently than most hearing people.  Instead of having an intuitive phonics structure in their head, which they directly translates to the words, I do a big database search in my head for the closest related word that the partial sound may most represent.

To me, “true” sounds exactly the same as “screw”, because I can not detect the distinctive difference of U and W, and the sharp silence of T versus the softer silence of S.  So not only do I look for the closest related word to the sounds, I also search for the context of the word accompanished by neighboring sounds.  “That’s so true” versus “You drop your screw” are very distinctive for me, and allows me to figure out which word a person would be saying.

But there is a problem with this solution — the inability to interpret multiple words.  I become far more reliant on the subject being covered during times like this — not only because I may be unable to interpret a word, but for several important reasons:  Inability to see a person’s lips; too much background noises; and too different of an accent.

Accents are part of what make a verbal language so interesting.  It help identify the person’s origin, along with their upbringing.  The deeper drawl of a Southern accent is probably the best accent for me to interpret sounds, due to the more audiable silent sounds, and the careful emphasis of the words compared to other accent make them clearer for me.

In a conference room with three co-workers this past week, one a Western accent, one sharp Asian accent, and a Southern accent; I realized that I was able to understand the person with the southern accents far better than any of the other two accents.

It is to my dismay that despite this huge advantage, this person is fond of changing his subjects, which is a challenge for me, when I finally do make a miss on a word or two he is saying.  Not only that, he would start a conversation without waiting for me to focus upon him, making it much of a challenge to catch up.

Being Deaf in a hearing world is an incredibly hard challenge to say the least.