Cherokee, NC Part 3 – Wherein the Indian Taco finally makes an appearance

Click these links to read part 1 and part 2 of this series as well.

Okay, well, now that I’ve been advertising it for a week, I’m afraid that the Indian Taco might not live up to its hype.  Here it is, though, in all its glory:

The fabulous Indian Taco

You can see that it looks a little like a big puffy tostada.  It is made of Indian frybread, topped with chili, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, salsa, and sour cream.  Yummmm.  I wasn’t sure what to expect with the frybread.  I thought it might be cornmeal based, but it wasn’t.  It was white bread batter, fried.  It reminded me of an unsweetened funnel cake.  And it was delicious!  I’ll definitely be going back for more of that particular delicacy.  Wonder if they’d make up a veggie version for Alicia?

Oh, and the restaurant where I got the taco was Paul’s Family Restaurant.  It is a simple restaurant, nothing fancy, but it serves good food at good prices.  Phil was thrilled with his mountain trout, caught locally.  (Earlier he had a bottle of genuine Cherokee river water, so he was continuing the “eat local” theme.)  Personally, I knew before we ever walked in the door that this would be a winner.  Any restaurant built around a tree, in any way, is already a winner in my book!

See? A winner already!

Speaking of food, we also relished eating at Paula Deen’s Kitchen.  The Cherokee location is new this year, and it is situated right on the first floor of the casino hotel.

Paula Deen, herself

We went for breakfast, so even though it was “early”, I made the effort to brush my hair and dab on some makeup.  I’m not sure if they allow you into Paula Deen’s without a good layer of foundation and some hairspray.  At any rate, I didn’t want to take the risk!

We had the breakfast buffet, and it was one of the best I’ve had.  They cheerfully served us heaps of sausage, bacon, ham, eggs (any way you like them), grits, breakfast casserole, custom omelets, and more, topped off with unfettered access to baskets overflowing with muffins, cakes, croissants, and cookies.  You will have to take my word for it, however.  Apparently, substantial hunger plus a bounty of southern sumptuousness (I did NOT know that word was spelled like that) leads to photographic incompetence.  All I got was a shot of this muffin.  Not even a good shot.  But the muffin was good enough to make up for a multitude of sins, trust me.

Yes, it was good.

Later, we saw this same muffin (well not this EXACT same muffin, but another one like it) for sale in one of the hotel’s cafes for $3.  The buffet at Paula Deen’s was $13 for adults, 1/2 that for kids, and free for us, because Phil had enough comps to cover all four of us.  Free food always tastes even better.

By the time we’d gotten our room for free, and then food for free, too, the girls were a bit suspicious.  They are two business-oriented little entrepreneurs at heart, and Madeline demanded to know, “How do they make any money?!”  So we had to explain that, well, the $15 a day for internet access, and the $10 they charge for watching a Disney movie are a start.  But then there is the casino itself – they take a small cut of each poker hand and slowly raise funds that way.  And they raise funds even more quickly with the slot machines and blackjack and such.  And you know, I say if we non-native-americans want to voluntarily come in and “donate” a lot of cash to the people whose ancestors our ancestors drove off their land . . . it is sort of poetic justice, in a way.

Fifty percent of the profit from the casino is distributed directly to the members of the tribe.  The money for minors goes into a trust fund, which they receive in a huge lump sum when they graduate from high school (and complete a money management course!).  Even with the comps they give out, it seems that the casino business is doing pretty well.  The value of the trust funds for 16 year old tribe members is over $100,000 each, for example.

And speaking of comps, I guess it is obvious that the reason we were in the casino in the first place is to play.  Well, not me – I don’t do casinos.  I lost $50 in slots the first time I went to one, and I’ve never had the slightest desire to go back.  For that matter, Phil can’t stand slots, either, or even blackjack.  Basic math means that anyone who plays those long enough will lose money.  Phil, being an accountant, is too pragmatic to play something he can’t win, even if it does benefit impoverished natives.  But Phil does love poker.  Which, I have learned, is more a game of skill than anything else.  It is all about math and memory and strategy and reading people and timing and bluffing and a lot of other things I’m not good at.  Or rather, not good enough at to win.  But Phil has all those particular qualities in spades.  So he goes off to “work” in the evenings, earning all these nice comps.  And what do the girls and I do?

Pedis in progress

Mani-pedis on the first night.

Drying . . . Don't get any on the couch! Or the table! Or the carpet!

Finished Product

And then we raided the Dollar General the next evening, to stock up on some basic crafty items:

Craft sticks, glue, and paint, just in case

Play Doh and friendship bracelets - plus Pringles and Peanuts and Coke, of course

A popsicle stick sewing basket? Hey, it's something to do while watching Master Chef!

The only bad thing about the whole trip was that their pool was closed.  Apparently there was an issue in the phone lines somewhere, so that the pool’s emergency phone wasn’t connecting to 911.  And apparently they aren’t allowed to open the pool without an operational emergency phone.  I would have pointed out that we could bring our cell phones, but I didn’t really think that common sense would prevail over bureaucratic red tape.

And Phil looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested that we demand a refund.

So we just sort of let it drop and enjoyed the rest of our vacation.  We had Dollar General to keep us occupied anyway!