http://www.foodnetwork.com/throwdown-with-bobby-flay/index.html
Yes, there was a throwdown. I’ve never seen it, though and don’t know when it’ll air next. We brought Jim’s parents to visit NY State relatives, those in Canada, saw Niagara Falls and Corning. Saratoga Springs, Vermont and Albany. It was an exhausting trip, I know because I drove it so they could see the view and the leaves changing in Vermont hills.
A while ago I did a shout-out to Hattie’s in Saratoga Springs. We walked there one night and it was a Tuesday and they were closed, but there was a sign in the window that they’d be on TV on the Food Network on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown. Two years later I’ve yet to see the episode but I know Hattie’s won, no matter Bobby’s results. It won because it’s in my heart.
Hattie’s had the first and best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Ernie was at the door in a tuxedo (this was the seventies) and we’d have a couple of glasses of iced tea, some cole slaw and potato salad and be in heaven. Sorry, Ernie, I didn’t know about greens back then.
So today the new chef/owners Beth and Jasper got back to me and they’re still there. As is erstwhile Ernie, tuxedo man with ruffled shirt who’s cooked the collards for over thirty years. No, the collards are not thirty years old, it’s just that Jasper’s doing the Southern thing and letting his collards cook down.
He always treated us well when we were stupid college kids and then grads. I believe the restaurant is now represented at the Saratoga race track, but go to their regular downtown haunt off-season too and live it up. Go to my favorite bar and play electric bowling a few times then go to the hotel Saratoga and put your behind down on a rocking chair on the porch. That’s what I did when I was twenty. It might not fly now.
But Jasper is cooking up chicken, Ernie’s doing the collards and Beth is holding it all together as women do. God bless ’em. Keep cooking everyone, even though we’re on sandwiches. More on that later. It’s early morning and I’ve a full day ahead. Cheers, Dee.
Cooking with Dee 
Electric bowling sounds like a very stimulating experience!
My high school friend Pam went to Hattie’s and sent me a bottle of their hot sauce last week, which I have yet to try. I think I’m going to try true Buffalo Wings, deep fried. First I have to buy a gallon of canola oil as right now I’m looking at one unopened bottle of extra virgin olive oil from the Val d’Arno at $25 a pop in our pantry and I’m not using that. It’s even autographed by the grower! Dee