I had some time to kill so I decided to go out for a nice lunch. I could have gone anywhere in Louisville, and I chose Cask Southern Kitchen. I had read recently about it being one of the gems of Louisville cuisine, and I’ve had some decent meals there in the past. So I decided to see if they had upped their game.

In a word, nope. I was really disappointed in them. I chose their buttermilk fried chicken sandwich with fries based on the server’s recommendation. I *do* like chicken sandwiches. I also got a starter of their grit fritters.

The service wasn’t bad. But the food was really poor. The grit fritters tasted OK, but they were cool and mushy. Supposedly deep fried. The chicken sandwich was just OK – well cooked, good bun, but no seasoning and on the small side. I could’ve gotten a much better sandwich at Joella’s.

The deal breaker was the french fries. They were cold (OK, maybe cool) and stale, as if they were leftover from yesterday. I let the server know. But for me that’s a cardinal sin – fries should be the best part of the meal, and these were…just bad.

All in, a disappointing lunch. I won’t be back to Cask for a while.

It’s been a nice long weekend in KY – good weather, time with family and plenty of time with the grandsons. Time zone fatigue (CA, then Mexico, then CA, then KY in 2-3 weeks) and my clean living lifestyle have led to (very) poor sleeping, but what the hell. The old saying, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” may apply.

Meanwhile, out in the world things are flying apart. More natural disasters (Turkey), an unnatural disaster (Ohio), more mass shootings (US), and now Russia is ready to strike back after Biden visited Ukraine and gave Russia the finger. In response Russia just announced they’re exiting the nuclear arms treaty with the US – a symbolic measure, but definitely a message being sent. “Remember, we have nukes and are just crazy enough to use them”, or something to that effect. Combine that with our commitment to keep sending weapons to Ukraine as long as it takes, and it becomes clear that we’re in an escalating proxy war with Russia. Sixty years after my gradeschool classmates and I were scared shitless by having to hunker under our tiny desks just in case Russia dropped a nuke on us, it’s finally happened. This time I’ll need a bigger desk.

All this wonderful news plus insomnia have created a feeling of general malaise, an ever-present thought that “things aren’t right”. It doesn’t help that there’s absolutely nothing one can do about most of this. It’s probably time to hunker down and stop worrying about the world at large, and just focus on being healthy and happy(er). Easier said than done.