Slide of the Week: April 20th, 2006
Wildflowers & Fried Chicken, Antelope Valley, California, 1955
This almost could’ve been me last weekend. But it isn’t. However, I did eat fried chicken and sat on a rock surrounded by wildflowers. I just didn’t do it at the same time!
I’d never be above wearing a long-sleeved, pointed collar, Navy blue and white shadow plaid shirt with breast pocket flaps, tucked into cuffed, coco-colored gab slacks over argyles and hand-sewn leather slippers. This is, after all, the perfect afternoon ensemble for a gentleman to sit on a rock with a big pot of cold fried chicken in the middle of a field of lupine.
Speaking of chicken… last Friday night I had one of the best fried chicken dinners ever! I wined and dined with festive friends at the Hill-top House Supper Club at 3500 N. Rancho Drive in Las Vegas. This place has to be the last honest, old, mom and pop cocktail lounge-dining room combos left in “Jackpot City”.
It was on the darker side of twilight time as we pulled past the Hill-top House Supper Club’s aging, plain-jane-yet-seductive neon sign entering the half-empty parking lot. The neon wasn’t on yet. We got out of the car and as we walked up to it, it came on. When was the last time you saw SUPPER followed by CLUB in neon? It’s been a while - huh? It was an electrifying moment!
Originally this “dressy- diner” was a house built in 1954 out of railroad ties. It became a restaurant in 1961. The moment you walk in the door you could be in any decade. It’s timeless. The walls are wood paneled. The salad bar has pickled pigs feet! And the next time I may try their famous “sea and pond combination,” one lobster tail and two frog legs.
Last Sunday I was in the Antelope Valley sitting on a rock surrounded by miles and miles of wildflowers. The poppies, lupine and little yellow daisies that grow so thick they look like yellow shag carpet, are in full bloom. I could go on, but I can’t. There are no words to describe the beauty. Chicken leg anyone?
Here’s to fried chicken, wildflowers and you!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
April 2006
PS. A final Downtown Tour date has been added - MAY 28, 2006, plus, join me at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for my Disneyland Slide Show, Friday May 19, at 8:30 pm & Sunday, May 21, at 2 pm
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17 Comments on “Wildflowers & Fried Chicken, Antelope Valley, California, 1955”
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April 21st, 2006 at 5:45 am
Hi Charles;
When are you going to drop by my hotel [The Westin Bonaventure] for a tour?
We hope to see you again soon at one of your shows.
Don, Lu and Renee
April 21st, 2006 at 6:38 am
Charles,
Are you certain that this is Calif?
Those look suspiciously like bluebonnets (state flower of Texas).
No matter, love the outfit.
April 21st, 2006 at 7:29 am
I don’t know why but this one made me laugh so much. I think it’s his look of sheer joy as he’s about to dig into the fab feast his wife (Betty, surely!) created for him specially for this event. But wow, those slippers… Did they come via RV and thus felt so at ease and homey? LOL! Thanks, though, these SotW shots make my Fridays much lighter.
April 21st, 2006 at 7:45 am
Have always wanted to see the poppy reserve in full flavor .. .my grandparents lived in the AV for decades …
My mom and her two brothers went to AV HS and my uncle lived there for a long time…
Great picture!
April 21st, 2006 at 8:07 am
This is shocking on soooo many levels! I may be going out to this very spot this weekend. And Carolyn Yes this is good ol California. They don’t have mountains like that in Texas. This is the edge of the San Gabriel Wilderness. That outfit is shocking! And you have to love those socks. See you soon Chrales! Looking forward to the upcoming shows at the Redcat!
April 21st, 2006 at 8:40 am
Looks like the area just west of Interstate 5 before Gorman. The wildflowers there can be absolutely spectacular.
Why can’t he just put that lid down? - Is he afraid someone will catch him and he has to quickly hide the chicken again or something??
OP
April 21st, 2006 at 8:41 am
“Weee-doggies! Ah loves me some frahd chicken! A-hyuck!”
Come on, you know that’s what he’s saying. I’ll bet he was a regular at the fried chicken dinner at Knott’s Berry Farm. In fact, I think I might have sat next to him a time or two. A-hyuck!
I love this picture!
April 21st, 2006 at 8:42 am
I just dig those argiles…….. We here in the Antalope Valley follow our own fashon rules.
April 21st, 2006 at 8:55 am
If anyone is in the area (or an hour drive or so) this is truly worth the trip. Think that poppies scene in Wizard of Oz. Rolling hills of color.
Check the links Charles has above for conditions, but when the wildflower preserve is going it’s really something.
Here’s a photo (Poppy Field) I took there a few years back.
Oh, you might want to check the pollen count, if you’re so afflicted.
April 21st, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Chuck Wagon Charles!
Although done up a bit daffy, at least Mr. Nibbler is dressed for supper! Good for him! It’s always excellent etiquette to dress properly for the circumstances. A quibble: are slippers appropriate for flower gazing and chicken eating? A sturdier shoe probably would’ve served Hungry Jack better!
This slide made me nostalgic for a old fashioned picnic. As such, I turn to _Better Crocker’s Outdoor Cook Book_ (1961) for some wonderful words about picnicking and for a menu that just might have been along for the ride with Colonel “Crazy Sox” Sanders.
“The very word, picnic, carries a special enchantment to nearly everyone. It brings back memories of childhood’s happy adventuring into the country with food turning up as if by magic at the end of a long ride, of tablecloths spread in the cool shade, of hampers bulging with the cold foods so appetizing on a hot day, and the lovely informality of grass for seats and sky for roof.”
Quite nice description, I think. On to the menu (the best part!) for the succintly named “Hamper Picnic”:
“Traditionally, picnics mean cold foods, but that is no reason they cannot be as sophisticated as you choose. Indeed, many of the most elaborate lunches I have had came out of the big fitted hampers that are so popular and that make picnicking so graceful and easy.” The menu:
Cold Grape Juice
Smoked Rainbow Trout Pate or Smoked Fish on Small Crackers
Cold Fried Chicken
Cooked and Raw Vegetable Salad
Caper Mayonnaise
Whole Cherry Tomatoes
Watermelon Pickles
Herb Bread and Butter Sandwiches
Loaf O’ Gold Cake
Chocolate Peppermints
Coffee
Now, I’m not all that certain that Bucket Full of Chicken would adore a fish pate on an out-and-about lunch with the missus, but I’m positive he would have a huge slice of that Loaf O’ Gold Cake! (Described as “Modern pound cake, so moist and buttery it needs no topping or icing.” Yummers!)
Happy lunching!
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
April 21st, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Charles!! You were in Las Vegas last Friday? Well, so were we! Larry and I were attending the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend Car Show at the Gold Coast. We made a few other stops too, like the Atomic Testing Museum and The Peppermill Lounge, of course. Sorry we missed you. We must try the Hilltop House Supper Club next time!!!
Hugs!
Ellen and Larry
April 21st, 2006 at 5:09 pm
The MOST disturbing thing about this photo is: If you really take a close look,Those mouth watering deep fried (Parts) are too small to be a chicken.My guess is the Ol’ Cowpoke caught and fried him up a Roadrunner,or Who knows what.Happy eating Mystery meat fans!
April 25th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Nope. That’s not a drumstick; it’s a drummette (biggest part of the wing), and the other two joints remain on his plate to chew on.
(And the Texas Bluebonnets are called Lupine in California.)
April 25th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Hi Charles,
Wildflowers, hillsides, a mountain backdrop and fried chicken? Squint your eyes just a little bit, and think back to 1955, when Grace Kelly starred in the Alfred Hitchcock film, “To Catch A Thief”, which was filmed on the French Riviera. Why, fifty, yes, fifty years ago, almost to the day, (April 19, 1956) Grace Kelly married Prince Ranier III of Monaco, giving up her movie career. In the well-known picnic scene of “To Catch A Thief”, Grace asks Cary Grant, with reference to the fried chicken, and with only thinly-veiled double entendre, whether he preferred breasts or legs. Well, I guess we’ll never know … . Princess Grace’s car went off a cliff on Sept. 13, 1982, near the very spot where the picnic scene was filmed, claiming her life a day later. Prince Ranier passed away on April 6, 2005.
April 27th, 2006 at 8:37 am
What great timing for this slide as this past weekend Antelope Valley hosted it’s annual Poppy Festival at the Lancaster City Park! Charles, I think next year you should come up and put on a display of your old slides from around the AV area. This would be such a treat for those people like myself who grew up out here and who long for the “good old days”……….
April 27th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ummmmm, poppies…. *feeling extremely witchy* Surrender Mr. Chicken-Eaten-Argyle Guy!
April 27th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
What say we sprinkle those hillsides with BIG yellow umbrellas?
…Lorenzo