This past Saturday, RJ had to check on a job for work in Gainesville so I decided to tag along and we could make a day of it. Got the morning off right with a stop at Rudy's BBQ for breakfast tacos. We were on I35 and visited the Rudy's in Denton on 35@Teasley Road. We love going there- or to ANY Rudy's and getting their breakfast taco's. I know I've written about them before but they deserve second ...and third....mentions!

We got a tray of them and picked chorizo & egg, sausage & egg and the pièce de résistance - brisket & egg. They now throw a few containers of Rudy's salsa on there- spicy & hot. It was good but I like their 'sause' much better. We stuffed our faces and went on our merry way to Gainesville. RJ did his thing and it was still early so we decided why not travel on up to Winstar Casino and throw some money away....which we did. We played for about an hour, lost as much as we cared too and figured it was time to hit the road.

Rudy's BBQ   http://rudys.com/
520South IH-35 E
Denton, TX 76205
Phone (940) 484-RUDY

Coming back into to Texas from Oklahoma on I35, there is a very nice WWII memorial at the Texas Welcome Rest Stop. This one honors the 103rd Infantry Division headed by Maj. Gen. Charles Haffner and Maj. Gen. Anthony "Nuts' McAuliffe. (For any of you that watched "Jericho", when Skeet Ulrich's character uttered "Nuts" at the end of one episode, that was based on McAuliffe's reply when surrounded by Germans demanding his surrender. His response: “Nuts.”)

The memorial lists the name of all the men who died during this theater of operations from 1944-45 and gives a little history of the events. It's worthwhile to stop and look.

From there, we went back to Gainesville. We'd seen a sign on the freeway for the Fried Pie Co. & Restaurant on the downtown square....fried pies....who could resist! We found it fairly easily. It's located on the southwest corner of the square. It was still open (although they flipped the 'open' sign over shortly after we got there). Inside is a quaint, back-in-time place with old-fashioned looking tables and booths. We found a booth that was right across from the counter with all the fried pies and thought that was a good place to contemplate what flavors we'd take home! In the meantime, we ordered some lunch - a couple of sandwiches.I got homemade pimento cheese on white toast and RJ went with a grilled ham and cheese on wheat toast.

Both had potato chips on the side and were quite adequate....not great but certainly good and the meals fit right in with the atmosphere. When we were done, we both selected apricot pies to take home. Had them late Saturday night with glasses of old milk and I must say, they were divine. The sack they were in weighed at least a pound and they were stuffed full of filling with lots of pieces of real fruit- not the gooey mess that you get with store brand fried pies. The folks at the Fried Pie Co. & Restaurant know how to make a mean pie! I hope we'll be going back up that way again soon!

Fried Pie Co. & Restaurant
202 W Main St, Gainesville, TX
Tel: (940) 665-7641

From Sweeney Todd, Patti Lupone singing "The Worst Pies in London"