Raising Cane's on University, Fort Worth

I tried the new Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers on University yesterday. Cane's is a franchise out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana with about 100 restaurants and it sells one main dish: strips of battered-and-fried chicken breasts called fingers.

Plus:
The chicken fingers are excellent. They're cooked perfectly, served hot and juicy. Loved them. Also, on the plus side, Cain's is comfortable and clean, has a modern interior and a friendly staff.

Neutral:
$6.50 for 3 strips of chicken, about 4 ounces I'll guess, plus fries, toast and a drink is a little pricey on my balance scale of value and cost, because . . .

Minus:
The fries are wimpy and the Texas toast, while thick, is light and a pretty tasteless piece of toasted bread.

Raising Canes is not in the McDonald's/Taco Bell dollar menu category, they are more the In-N-Out, Chipotle category which is a little more expensive for a little better quality.

But that's a distinction I am not liable to make on the side of Raising Cane's when I'm looking for chicken, even though compared to that slab of white shoe-leather they serve at Chik Fil A, it's heaven.

If they could give me a crispy french fry and a heartier piece of bread and maybe another piece of chicken at $6.50, I'm happy. But I'm not looking at their numbers so that may be asking for too much.

I liked it, the chicken is delicious. I might go back, but not often.

The O Antiphons of Advent

Today is the final day of the O Antiphons.

"In the Roman Catholic tradition in which they originated, the O Antiphons are sung or recited at Vespers from December 17 to December 23 inclusive. In the Church of England they have traditionally been used as antiphons to the Magnificat at Evening Prayer during this period, and although not printed in the Book of Common Prayer, have long been part of secondary Anglican liturgical sources, such as the English Hymnal. More recently they have found a place in primary liturgical documents throughout the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England's Common Worship liturgy." Wikipedia

 The hymn O come, O come, Emmanuel (in Latin, Veni Emmanuel) is a lyrical paraphrase of these antiphons.

Tom Waits

Haven't posted much, lately. It's been a rough couple of months. Heard this old Tom Waits tune today, Waltzing Matilda.

Taco Heads. Damn. Fine. Tacos.

My guess is that I'm the last Fort Worth blogger to write about Taco Heads -- but I don't get out much these days. I'm not going to say anything that hasn't been said, so I'll keep this short.

Taco Heads makes a damn, fine, breakfast taco. That's their tagline and it fits.

Jake, Russ and I met at Taco Heads this morning for our more-or-less-every-Monday-morning Geezers meeting. I understand from the others that Taco Heads' regular dinner tacos are just as good.

But I have only partaken of the breakfast taco: eggs, chorizo, peppers and cheese on two fresh corn tortillas -- and it was molto bene.'

The coffee was excellent as well. I'll be going back. They're in Fort Worth, off 7th near Montgomery Ward Plaza. Here's their Facebook page, if you are one of the very few people who haven't searched them out already: http://www.facebook.com/Tacoheads

Peggy Noonan on 9/11, Ten Years After.

Wall Street Journal, from the Associated Press

There are many thoughtful editorials on the events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Peggy Noonan, as expected, writes about that day as well as anyone. The paragraph below is pulled from her piece, a link to it follows . .

"And there were the firemen. They were the heart of it all, the guys who went up the stairs with 50 to 75 pounds of gear and tools on their back. The other people who were there in the towers, they were innocent victims, they went to work that morning and wound up in the middle of a disaster. But the firemen saw the disaster before they went into it, they knew what they were getting into, they made a decision. And a lot of them were scared, you can see it on their faces on the pictures people took in the stairwells. The firemen would be going up one side of the stairs, and the fleeing workers would be going down on the other, right next to them, and they'd call out, "Good luck, son," and, "Thank you, boys.

They were tough men from Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island, and they had families, wives and kids, and they went up those stairs. Captain Terry Hatton of Rescue 1 got as high as the 83rd floor. That's the last time he was seen.

Three hundred forty-three firemen gave their lives that day. Three hundred forty-three! It was impossible, like everything else.

Many heartbreaking things happened after 9/11 and maybe the worst is that there's no heroic statue to them, no big marking of what they were and what they gave, at the new World Trade Center memorial.

But New York will never get over what they did. They live in a lot of hearts. They tell us to get over it, they say to move on, and they mean it well: We can't bring an air of tragedy into the future. But I will never get over it . . ."

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2011

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