Friday, August 10, 2007

Chef Jeff


I don’t know why, but at the bird feed section of Wal-Mart I seem to find myself in conversations with men… I guess that is a man thing, stand around and talk about different methods of bird feeding.

Today, I was standing in front of the bird feeders studying. A man in his late 20s stood and begin studying too. He asked me was I looking for something squirrel proof. If so, he said, he bought one at Home Depot that the bar in front, once something as heavy as a squirrel sits on it, it collapses down, which of course would dump the squirrel. He said it works great.

I said, no actually I didn’t want to have any kind of feed, like sunflower seed or corn that squirrels like because I our new dog grabbed a squirrel the other day and at least yanked his tail off, so I don’t want to encourage squirrels to hang out in our yard.

He said this area of Georgia squirrels have no natural enemies so they have become too plentiful. He said my dog might have done the humane thing to have killed and ate a squirrel. Well, that is one way to look at it.

Then he said the squirrels from where he is from has plenty of natural enemies – up in the mountains of North Carolina. I told him most of my genealogy research goes through his home area. We discussed a couple of counties in western North Carolina that we both knew. He told me his father bought a 100 acres of land on the Nanahala River in Macon County, Ga., and his father recently died and now it is his.

Somehow we got talking about cooking. We talked about Cajun cooking. He loves the food prepared by the brothers at the Cajun Butcher Company not far from my house. We both were salivating talking about their tasteful turduking.

He told me was a chef at a private club. He said he has a culinary degree from Western North Carolina University. He gave me his business card and said, “I’m a good old boy.”
A good old boy?

His name is Jeff. Chef Jeff.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

E-mail me that guy's name and we will see if we know him.

Eddie said...

coming up!

Anonymous said...

oh my lord, there's a place not too terribly far from us called chef jeff's...we ALMOST went there to eat on friday...

Eddie said...

Bird,
I don't think it is the same person. I even told him I am related to Hoopers in Towns County and he didn't bat an eye.

Anonymous said...

well, does your chef jeff cook cajun food?

Anonymous said...

just saw the cajun reference in your post... the chef jeff's restaurant i know of is a cajun joint...

Button Gwinnett said...

Reminds me of the conversation I had the other day with a man in the pest control section at Home Depot. He lives near water and has an occasional problem with snakes in his yard. He was looking at the modern newfangled ways of deterring snakes. Obviously frustrated at what he was reading, he put down a box of snake-away and said out loud that he'd just go buy some lime.

Normally I mind my own business. But I asked him if that was really a good idea. I learned that he has grandkids that come to his house and I'm assuming that he has grass and other vegetation in his yard. And he also has a dog.

He asked me if I knew what to do. So I called upon my days of being reared in the literal sticks. I told him to get a cat. He said he hates cats. So I asked him which he hated more, cats or snakes.

The old wives tale was that cats will keep snakes away from your house. Since my mother fed strays, wild cats from the nearby woods would come and visit around the yard. And while they were there, snakes were never ever seen. We would see them crossing the road. But hardly ever in the yard or any place the cats frequented.

So I hope the man got a cat. Still seems like a better answer than lime.

Eddie said...

Button,
I agree! The only lime I want is in limonade.

I think the squirrels got the message, hang around this yard and maybe lose a tail - or a life.