She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes...

She won't be riding six white horses, probably driving a silver Camry, but whatever works.

My non-professional goal, being the non-professional I am now since retiring recently from 29 years at the Court, is to find a malt just like the old-fashioned ones made by the malt/diner in Downey, Idaho well back into the last century. I am referring to the ones with real ice cream and malt mixed in those wonderful mixers like this: 
My recollection is that the one in Downey was green and could mix two or three at a time. Part of the charm is they had to stop it mid-cycle to make sure the mix was doing well.  Maybe that was just to build up our anticipation and delight. If that wasn't their reason for doing so, it worked that way anyway.

It used to be that a good malt was the norm. Somewhere along the line, someone decided to thicken the malt so it couldn't be drawn from a straw. Someone else had a thought on the other side of the spectrum and made malts so thin they were like a runny syrup. They also decided to half the malt flavoring, anything to save a few pennies. 

Now a perfect malt, in my opinion, is one that you could drink with a straw or use the long spoon to dip in if you wanted a change of pace. The whole idea of a malt is to enjoy every sip. I have not found a malt in years where they fill up your glass (made of actual glass), hand you a straw and a malt spoon and lay the balance of the malt in the container where you can finish it off at your own pleasure.  

I've taken a survey of friends and former coworkers as to possible malt places in Utah County or its surrounding counties. Here are the current contenders: 

 1-The Malt Shop in Ephraim 
 2-Stone Drug in Spanish Fork
 3-Eli's in Payson
 4-SOS Drug in Springville
 5-The Trolley in Springville
 6-Barry's in Spanish Fork
 7-Glade's in Spanish Fork
 8-Leatherby's in Draper
 9-BYU Creamery
10-JCW's in Provo
11-Granny's in Heber City
12-Farr's  (Orem & Ogden)
13-Peach City in Brigham City
14-Pace's Dairy Ann in Bountiful
15-Casper's in Richmond'
16-The Bluebird in Logan
17-Nielson Ice Cream in Bountiful
18-The Purple Turtle in Pleasant Grove

Nik made me an Instagram account called malt_maven just for the adventure. Neither he nor any of the rest of my family knew what a maven was (apparently not a word used these days) so I looked it up and found--

"A maven is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass timely and relevant knowledge on to others in the respective field."   I'm a NATURAL!

I'll be looking for the following:  texture, taste, atmosphere, 3 points in each catagory, a 1 point bonus if it's served with a cup of water and a 1 point take-away if they put a cherry on top after I've requested they not do that. 

Several people have said they'd like to go, too, but my grandson, Jesse, said, "Grandma, when do we go?  I'll drive."  SO, we are off to the Ephraim Malt Shop this Saturday.  I will keep you posted.  (By the way, Happy Birthday today, Jesse!)

malt_maven

Life Is Like a Car Wash

Last year after our trip to Canada, my car (Simon) was buried in 2000 miles worth of bugs. It was more than the regular car wash could handle so I went to brand new the Fancy/Schmancy drive through car wash. A nice young lady took my money and directed me to drive around their sign...where she and another young lady wielded their wacky wands at full pressure.  It felt as if they might blow off the front grill. It was a little shocking.

While bracing myself from such a frontal attack, I felt something grab Simon's left front tire and start to suck us forward.  We had lost any control and into the vortex we went. I've never been in a drive-through car wash where you couldn't see the end as you went in the entrance, but this looked like a never-ending black hole.

We got sucked further and further through the cave and there were big things flying about everywhere. It made the wand girls seem tame. There was an assortment of huge flapping multi-colored brushes spewing multi-colored soaps. And the NOISE was incredible. Vertigo took over and I felt as if maybe we might crash into the ground somehow. Then motion sickness set in, and it was quite a terrifying few minutes.

Though I had never heard of a news report about anyone trapped inside a car wash, that thought did pass through my mind. Headline--"Elderly Woman Stranded in Wild Car Wash; Jaws of Life Needed".

Finally, the light appeared and the tsumani disappeared.  With heart pounding like being chased by The Thing, I peeled out of there like a bat out of Clifton. It probably took five years off the life of my tires' warranty.

That's Who I Am?

Follow up to the Christmas DNA party:

First, we filled up on ham, scalloped potatoes, salads, and rolls. I tried to make individual chocolate cakes in ceramic mini-bread pans for the little people to decorate but they stuck to the pans and fell apart. I decided we all had plenty of treats recently so threw the failed cakes in the garbage. Maybe next year. We passed out the little owls to the young kids to decorate and gathered around the computer.

Nik's test was delayed and won't be here until mid-January so I had him pick names from cards as to the order viewed.. Jared went first.  (He is the only kid who ever thought he was adopted which is kind of understandable since he has that nice olive skin the rest of us got denied.)  He was 58.4% Scandinavian, 23.9 % Irish/Scottish/Welch, 8.4% Baltic, 7.2 % Iberian and 2.2 % Italian.

Next was Kyle.  He is 48.8 % Scandinavian, 36.9 % English, 10.4% Iberian, 2.1% Irish/Scottish/Welch, and 1.8 East European.

Next was Jason's: He is 76% Scandinavian, 13.8% Northern and Eastern Europe; 8% Iberian, and 2.2 Western Asia.

My results showed: 53.9% Scandinavian, 30.5 Irish/Scottish/Welch, 7.4% Iberian, 5.4% Baltic and 2.6% Italian.

Also, it showed we are all related as mother and sons so, Jared, you can't escape now.

No surprises on the Scandinavian as my mother's grandparents were from Sweden. Also, my kid's father has Norwegian ancestors. The Irish-probably not Scottish-and Welch was not surprising as my grandmother Rice's grandmother was Irish and the Rice line has ancestors from Wales. Totally surprising was the Iberian, the Italian, and the Western Asian. Maybe the Western Asian came from their dad's side, but there must be someone we don't know about who jumped into the family from Iberia, the Baltics, and Italy.

If anybody knows who those strangers are, please feel free to chime in.

Also, I decided to throw a little packet together of ancestors, photos, and family histories on both sides of the kid's lineage back a few generations. What started out as a "little project" turned into a massive undertaking but it was wonderful to see those old photos from the early 1800s and to read some of the histories. If you think you have it hard now, be glad you didn't live back then.