Huckleberries: What’s a little snow berm among friends?

Sheriff Ben Wolfinger provides a reality check for readers of this column who are grousing about the small berms Coeur d’Alene snow plows have left across driveways this year. It could be a whole lot worse. The Kootenai County sheriff knows whereof he speaks, after spending quality time with the Idaho Public Safety Communication Commission on Thursday in Boise. Sheriff Ben told Huckleberries Online readers afterward: “All I heard all day was the constant complaints from locals about the Ada County Highway District and (its) lack of plowing, particularly the residential neighborhoods.” This, after Boise had just received a record snowfall. Make that a record snowfall for Boise, not North Idaho. Meanwhile, the residents on the smallest street in Coeur d’Alene can be assured that the top-notch crews of streets chief Tim Martin will plow their ’hood within 30 hours of a major storm. And, in years when massive snow berms aren’t clogging the streets, they will drop their snow gates to leave driveways relatively berm free.

It ain’t chicken

A long time ago, during a noncredit geology class field trip to North Idaho, Donna Potter Phillips, of Spokane, helped herself to a Rocky Mountain Oyster on another diner’s plate (with permission, of course) at the Snake Pit in Enaville. In an email response to the Wednesday Huckleberry about the Snake Pit’s famous delicacy, Donna described the taste of bull testicles: “It tasted like greasy fried liver, something ‘mealy’ and definitely fried in old oil.” Yum? … Owner Tom Richards of the Snake Pit has a stock answer for those who ask what the dish tastes like: Rocky Mountain Oysters taste like, well – Rocky Mountain Oysters. Quoth he: “I also say to customers who are scared of them that there aren’t many things in this world that don’t taste good breaded and deep-fried. In the end, I think you just have to try them for yourself.” … Anything that tastes remotely like liver is a non-starter at Huckleberries HQ.

Huckleberries

In the “Get There Early, Otherwise They Run Out” category, Huckleberry Friend Florine Dooley of Coeur d’Alene provides this tip: “Many people know that if you want the best tamales in town ya gotta get to Cafe Carambola (at Harbor Center on Northwest Boulevard) before noon on a Friday” … But, continues Florine, that “also applies to its neighbor, Soul (as in Bowl of Soul) right next door. As the owner/cook explains, ‘I can only make so much soup in this tiny kitchen.’ ” So much Soul, so little space … Huckleberries hadn’t considered the condition of local parking lots until Gina Emde Mote of Coeur d’Alene gave a Facebook shout-out to Costco on Neider Avenue: “Thank you for having the cleanest parking lot in town (no ice).”

Parting Shot

Keri Alexander, publisher of the Shoshone News Press in Kellogg and wife of Shoshone County Sheriff Mitch Alexander, offers a nice January whine that most of us share: “I’m freezing! I’m wearing two shirts (one is actually a sweater) and a double-wrapped scarf. I keep tucking my chin into my scarf to gain warmth. If I were a dog, I would be considered healthy because my nose is so cold. Mercy sakes, I miss summer. I’m done whining.” Seems the past three or four easy North Idaho winters have made all of us soft.