Beyond Words

Editor’s note: I wrote this back on a Super Bowl Sunday but it bears repeating today, National Chicken Wing Day. Enjoy!

Super Bowl Sunday is upon us tomorrow and I, along with millions of others, will be eating my share of wings. Chicken wings that is. Buffalo chicken wings.  As a matter of fact, it’s estimated that Americans will eat a record 1.4 billion of tasty wings this weekend. But what are they exactly? And I mean exactly?  Yes, you will find teriyaki, BBQ, and a host of other flavored chicken wing options, but there’s really only one real wing: The Buffalo Chicken Wing. When made right, they are uh-mazing and they have an interesting history as I learned many years ago from my Buffalo born and raised husband.

No, Buffalo wings aren’t buffalo meat (buffalos don’t have wings), and no, Chili’s didn’t invent the wing nor did Pluckers or Buffalo Wild Wings. That honor belongs to Frank and Teressa Bellissimo. Here’s the story: Frank and Teressa established The Anchor Bar and Grill in downtown Buffalo, NY back in 1935 and had quite the popular neighborhood watering hole. But, it wasn’t until 1964 that the hole-in-the-wall became historic.

It was on a Friday night in 1964 that their son Dominic and a group of friends told mamma Bellissimo they wanted a late night snack. Teressa looked around and saw some left over chicken wings, which were usually tossed or reserved for stocks or soups. Knowing she needed something fast and easy, she deep fried the wings and then tossed them in a cayenne hot sauce. She served them with celery stalks and bleu cheese dressing because she also had extras of them lying around and the rest, as they say, is history.

Teressa’s wings were a hit that night and it didn’t take long for word to spread that the Anchor Bar had a great new dish. Today, the original restaurant at the corner of Main and North Streets is considered the birthplace of wings and still serves up its famous fingerlings, as do restaurants around the world.

I will say however, that nowhere in the world are the wings as good as what you get in Western New York. And I say “wings,” not “chicken wings” or “Buffalo wings,” just “wings,” as that’s what they’re called by locals. Finding them elsewhere is a bit like looking for cheesesteaks in Oregon, Tex-Mex in Maryland, or gumbo in Iowa. They just aren’t comparable or even close to the real deals.

Wings in Buffalo are so delicious that I truly can eat a dozen of them all by myself. They are most often accompanied by drums and are big, crispy, never greasy or runny, and just the right amount of spicy. If you want them hot, you can but be careful, as your mouth will be on fire. My husband says he remembers eating wings so hot that he’d run outside and put his lips in the snow. I don’t know if that’s totally true but it makes for a great story!

Deep-fried chicken wings are nothing culinary new and have been a southern staple for years, but most of those wings are breaded. Buffalo chicken wings are never breaded. You simply fry them up and then then coat them with a level of hot sauce to your choosing. Simple, classic, and delicious. And please, no ranch dressing on the side. Bleu cheese only is the way to go.

No trip to Buffalo is complete without a stop at the Anchor Bar but if you can’t make it to the original location, not to worry, there’s one right inside the Buffalo airport. So, as you make your way out of the airport on your way to perhaps Niagara Falls, be sure to stop and get you some wings before heading out.

Wings are so sacred in the Buffalo area, that friends and family actually argue over which neighborhood spot has the best ones. The most popular one in my husband’s hometown village of East Aurora (where Mr. Fisher and Mr. Price started Fisher-Price toys in their garage, where America’s Arts and Crafts movement began more than a century ago with the original Roycrofters and thinker Elbert Hubbard, and home of The Millard Fillmore House that was once the residence of the 13^th president of the United States), called the Bar-Bill Tavern takes no reservations, accepts only cash, and only recently began offering take-out wings. It also always makes local and national “Best Buffalo Wings” lists.

In 1977 the city of Buffalo issued an official proclamation celebrating the Anchor Bar and its owners and declared July 29, 1977 “Chicken Wing Day.” Frank Bellissimo died in 1980 at the age of 84 and Teressa died a year later in her apartment above the bar. They both passed at the age of 84. Dominic, the son whose late night cravings resulted in his mom’s famous wings, later owned the restaurant. He died in 1991 and in 1999 the franchising of Anchor Bar restaurants was established. An Anchor Bar bottled sauce line launched in 1999 and today can be found in more than 3,000 retailers. The world-famous brand was even included in a “Simpsons” episode.

I’m not quite sure how wings became so entwined with football watch parties but maybe it’s because they are a popular bar food, they are a filling finger food, and they are so dang good.

So there you have it, the story behind those wings you’ll be munching on during the Super Bowl and above you have Teressa Bellisimo’s original recipe. Now you know they’re not only yummy but truly a beautiful thing. They are bellissimo!

Editor’s note: I wrote this back on Super Bowl Sunday, but it bears repeating today, National Chicken Wing Day. Enjoy!

Super Bowl Sunday is upon us tomorrow and I, along with millions of others, will be eating my share of wings. Chicken wings that is. Buffalo chicken wings.  As a matter of fact, it’s estimated that Americans will eat a record 1.4 billion of tasty wings this weekend. But what are they exactly? And I mean exactly?  Yes, you will find teriyaki, BBQ, and a host of other flavored chicken wing options, but there’s really only one real wing: The Buffalo Chicken Wing. When made right, they are uh-mazing and they have an interesting history as I learned many years ago from my Buffalo born and raised husband.

No, Buffalo wings aren’t buffalo meat (buffalos don’t have wings), and no, Chili’s didn’t invent the wing nor did Pluckers or Buffalo Wild Wings. That honor belongs to Frank and Teressa Bellissimo. Here’s the story: Frank and Teressa established The Anchor Bar and Grill in downtown Buffalo, NY back in 1935 and had quite the popular neighborhood watering hole. But, it wasn’t until 1964 that the hole-in-the-wall became historic.

It was on a Friday night in 1964 that their son Dominic and a group of friends told mamma Bellissimo they wanted a late night snack. Teressa looked around and saw some left over chicken wings, which were usually tossed or reserved for stocks or soups. Knowing she needed something fast and easy, she deep fried the wings and then tossed them in a cayenne hot sauce. She served them with celery stalks and bleu cheese dressing because she also had extras of them lying around and the rest, as they say, is history.

Teressa’s wings were a hit that night and it didn’t take long for word to spread that the Anchor Bar had a great new dish. Today, the original restaurant at the corner of Main and North Streets is considered the birthplace of wings and still serves up its famous fingerlings, as do restaurants around the world.

I will say however, that nowhere in the world are the wings as good as what you get in Western New York. And I say “wings,” not “chicken wings” or “Buffalo wings,” just “wings,” as that’s what they’re called by locals. Finding them elsewhere is a bit like looking for cheesesteaks in Oregon, Tex-Mex in Maryland, or gumbo in Iowa. They just aren’t comparable or even close to the real deals.

Wings in Buffalo are so delicious that I truly can eat a dozen of them all by myself. They are most often accompanied by drums and are big, crispy, never greasy or runny, and just the right amount of spicy. If you want them hot, you can but be careful, as your mouth will be on fire. My husband says he remembers eating wings so hot that he’d run outside and put his lips in the snow. I don’t know if that’s totally true but it makes for a great story!

Deep-fried chicken wings are nothing culinary new and have been a southern staple for years, but most of those wings are breaded. Buffalo chicken wings are never breaded. You simply fry them up and then then coat them with a level of hot sauce to your choosing. Simple, classic, and delicious. And please, no ranch dressing on the side. Bleu cheese only is the way to go.

No trip to Buffalo is complete without a stop at the Anchor Bar but if you can’t make it to the original location, not to worry, there’s one right inside the Buffalo airport. So, as you make your way out of the airport on your way to perhaps Niagara Falls, be sure to stop and get you some wings before heading out.

Wings are so sacred in the Buffalo area, that friends and family actually argue over which neighborhood spot has the best ones. The most popular one in my husband’s hometown village of East Aurora (where Mr. Fisher and Mr. Price started Fisher-Price toys in their garage, where America’s Arts and Crafts movement began more than a century ago with the original Roycrofters and thinker Elbert Hubbard, and home of The Millard Fillmore House that was once the residence of the 13^th president of the United States), called the Bar-Bill Tavern takes no reservations, accepts only cash, and only recently began offering take-out wings. It also always makes local and national “Best Buffalo Wings” lists.

In 1977 the city of Buffalo issued an official proclamation celebrating the Anchor Bar and its owners and declared July 29, 1977 “Chicken Wing Day.” Frank Bellissimo died in 1980 at the age of 84 and Teressa died a year later in her apartment above the bar. They both passed at the age of 84. Dominic, the son whose late night cravings resulted in his mom’s famous wings, later owned the restaurant. He died in 1991 and in 1999 the franchising of Anchor Bar restaurants was established. An Anchor Bar bottled sauce line launched in 1999 and today can be found in more than 3,000 retailers. The world-famous brand was even included in a “Simpsons” episode.

I’m not quite sure how wings became so entwined with football watch parties but maybe it’s because they are a popular bar food, they are a filling finger food, and they are so dang good.

So there you have it, the story behind those wings you’ll be munching on during the Super Bowl and above you have Teressa Bellisimo’s original recipe. Now you know they’re not only yummy but truly a beautiful thing. They are bellissimo!

I’m scurrying through “Where the Crawdads Sing,” a popular book I’ve not read but want to before going to the new movie.  In one part, a family sits down to a dinner of hamburger patties described as “thicker than a small phone book.” Oh phone books. Who remembers them?

The free and delivered to your doorstep books are shocking when you think about it. Not only were they never recycled, in them every person in your town was listed as was their phone number and address. Can you even imagine that information going out to anyone and everyone now? Weird right?

We are so incredibly private today and live in fear of someone “out there” finding our address and personal info that it’s no wonder phone books for the most part no longer exist. Oh sure I occasionally get a small business “yellow pages” businesses type of book in the mail but it immediately goes in the recycle bin. We have the internet now for all that info. And we have our phones.

Those phones have sure morphed through the years. Some former coworkers and I still laugh about how excited we were to get one of those “brick” phones pictured above. They were indeed big and clumsy, but they were mobile. Flip phones were cool but whatever happened to Blackberries? Whatever kind of cell phone we now have, they fit nicely in our purses and pockets and easily go everywhere with us.

Funny thing is, no one ever seems to answer those phones even though we all know we all have them right beside us virtually 24 hours a day and are always on them; even in a crowd and surrounded by people. Some of you even have a watch that serves the same purposes so you basically ignore two devices. You know who you are and so does everyone you know!

Growing up, I remember yelling “I’ll get it!” anytime the phone rang and running to it hoping I beat my sisters to the punch. It was so exciting to get a call even if the call wasn’t for you. If it was for you, you’d drag that long coiled cord into another room so you could have privacy. The actual phone you see, was mounted on the wall. My mom’s still is in the house I grew up in.

My mom also still thinks I have a “machine” as in “I called you and left a message on your machine.” Remember those? Answering machines? They were the bomb when they came out. A whole new way to get calls and screen calls. Then came voice mail and the machines were out the door. Call waiting and caller ID were also game changers. Except that is, when you were on the internet through your phone line and got a call. Off goes the connection. Sounds so weird to think now that I would have to disconnect call waiting whenever I got on AOL.

When I think of my mom and my childhood home, I also think of “the red phone” just like the one above. When our daughter was little, she loved that phone. Not sure why; she just did. I cherished and still do those pink Princess Phones. Still have one.

In their own way, phones were just as important back then as they are today and I can actually remember many a phone number from my childhood. Friends. Neighbors. My grandma. Friends of my parents. Restaurants my parents frequented. I can recite many of them to this day. Dialing them on a rotary phone day after day or pushing those “new and improved” push button phones made sure the numbers remained in our brains. Today, we push a button or contact. I couldn’t tell you anyone’s phone number on my phone now except for my husband’s and daughter’s. Even those I call (or text) frequently.

Whatever number we call today, it will include an area code. Back in the day, that wasn’t the case. I don’t remember exactly when the area code requirement came into effect, but it wasn’t all that long ago. A dear friend of mine from back in my TV news days recently shared an old press pass request I’d submitted that included my office phone number, sans area code. It looked so odd and naked on paper, clothed only in seven digits. Jenny would agree with her 867-5309 famous digits.

Today area codes are a type of calling card in some parts; excuse the pun. Ask Carrie Bradshaw. The “Sex and the City” character was devastated when she got a new phone number that didn’t have the legendary 212 New York City area code. In Austin, 512 before your phone number is coveted as is 214 in Dallas. No one wants to be the newbie in town and heaven forbid you have one of those California area codes. And BTW: all three of them were three of the original 86 North America area codes established in 1947.

So what is it; what’s changed so much in that we all have to have phones but don’t really like talking on them? Have we become that private? That’s kinda hard to believe being that we post anything and everything on numerous social media sites that are anything but safe and private, enter our credit card numbers willy nilly online, and track locations of friends and family.

Could it be that we’re overwhelmed and overstimulated? Information and requests come in constantly on the phones we own, which are really small computers and not merely phones. Having to talk to someone maybe stresses us out as does being “on call” 24-7. It’s a struggle and it’s a lot. Maybe we should bring back the “busy signal” to ensure callers know we are just to busy to answer the call.

I took this photo sometime back in an airport. Many of you know what it’s of while others have no idea. Spoiler alert: it’s a wall of what used to be pay phones. Yes, we used to have to pay money on the spot to use a phone in a public place. And I’m not talking waaaay back. In fact, I was recently watching an episode of “Friends” and Joey ran out of coins while making a call.

Guess I’ll go back to reading my book, which by the way is a real book; not one I read on my phone. I’ll save it for texting, scrolling, Googling, photographing, and just about everything but calling and talking. If you want to force me, do what another blast from the past Blondie would say, “Call me.” Maybe I’ll pick up.

One week ago today we were officially half way through 2022. Often called “Halfway Day,” the day is seen as a good time to assess the first half of the year and to plan for the second half. It seems to have come very quickly, as the months have flown by. At least for me. Let’s look back and look forward.

Courtesy Max Lucado

I personally have had a fairly quiet year, save for the aging of my mamma and the loss of our sweet Beagle, Nikki. Our other Beagle, Barry, tore his ACL and had to have major surgery followed by weeks of PT. Minor as it may sound, it was not an easy road. My husband and I celebrated our 36^th wedding anniversary this year, which is something we celebrate big. In this day and age, we are so very grateful for our commitment and the little life we’ve created.

My year has been blessed with friends who I’ve come to appreciate more and more this year. Monthly lunches, weekly golf games, theatre and events outings, dinners, visits, and things like book club and bible study have enhanced my year and my life. I can only hope the rest of the year proves the same.

I was so lucky to enjoy fabulous trips to Punta Mita and Sedona, visited my mom in her new assisted living facility, and enjoyed reuniting with my dear college friends during a wedding in Nashville. Both the visit with mom and the wedding weekend were equally joyous and heartbreaking though, much as the year itself has been.

Our country started the year with somewhat high hopes, only to see inflation and crime skyrocket, our southern border virtually disappear, food shortages hit the shelves, gas prices surge, loss of confidence in elected leaders, damages inflicted in our schools and to our military, right to bear arms and right to life debates, and more protests and more division. Our country is not in good shape. Things can get a lot worse but let’s hope and pray they get better. November is right around the corner.

Something else to consider as we hit the mid-year mark is how we’ve done with our New Year’s resolutions. In a blog earlier this year, I suggested New Year’s “Intentions” rather than resolutions as the word just seems more user-friendly. I sent an intention for having more discipline, but sadly I now, at the mid-year mark, find that I really haven’t upped the discipline ante. There’s still time to do so this year, and maybe six months in is the perfect time to reset intentions and goals.

Looking back and examining the first part of this year, I will say one thing I’ve stuck with is having a “word of the year.” The word I picked back in January was “pause,” and I gotta say it has served me so very well. This over-thinker and over-planner sometimes just needs to let it go and telling myself “pause” has worked wonders. Woohoo! Accomplishment done.

Other than not increasing my discipline in certain areas of my life, I do have other regrets and intend to work on them as the year winds down. I regret gaining some of the weight back that I worked so hard to lose three years ago. Blame it on being locked down for months on end; blame it my own lack of discipline. Either way, I’m determined to get back on the plan and take those pounds off once again. I’ve also learned that hopes and dreams are rarely in my control so I’m learning to stop wishing so much and releasing part of the fantasy. Life is good and it’s time to accept it as is and be grateful for my blessings. Perhaps “acceptance” should be right up there with “pause” the rest of the year.

As I’ve written many times, one goal I have every New Year is to learn something new. I feel I can somewhat check that box as I learned to boogie board in Punta Mita. Completely out of my comfort zone, I found it to be so much fun and quite empowering. Keep learning people. Always keep learning.

So as we head into the last six months of 2022, take some time to reflect on the first six months and assess the highs, the lows, and everything in between. What are your accomplishments? What are your regrets? What might the rest of the year hold for you?