I Don't Really Like Cooking

 

Last night I made dinner. This isn't it. I should have taken some pictures last night. The recipe involved a lot of mushrooms and other ingredients. (Including wine and garlic...usually a good sign.) The result was allegedly Mushroom Bourgignon. It took a long time. I wasn't terribly impressed.

I don't really mind chopping. The above picture is probably chopped chicken tenders, chopped broccoli, chopped carrots, chopped onion, and minced garlic. All in a bottled curry sauce. (Was yummy as I recall.) 

Since the Plague Times began I've poached eggs in the traditional way (in swirling hot water). expertly separated eggs for my husband's Caesar salad (and saved the whites for an egg-white forward omelet that was pretty expertly done). I've made wilted spinach salad similar to my mom's from the olden days. I've chopped all sorts of stuff for salads and curry (bottled sauce).  I don't bake. I take too many liberties with recipes to bake. (Which might explain my dissatisfaction with the recipe last night.) I never roast chicken or turkey. We don't make homemade pizza.

I love to eat out. Take out is harder and requires planning ahead and also often ends up with food that needs reheating. We've been doing a lot of it, however. We always get more than we can eat because if you have to reheat anyway you might as well not have to go out again. We got takeout greasy hamburgers the other day. In spite of driving them home and having to climb the stairs to our apartment because the fire alarm had taken out the elevators, they were delicious.

Am I Better Now?

Remnants of a bendy Santa. Weirdly, I couldn't find the rest of him!

Every day seems to be something. That something for the last several days has been allergies. I already complained about that the last time I appeared on the 'almost but not quite daily' postings. I am almost fully recovered from injuring my foot/ankle in a bizarre deal where I was trying to walk off a foot that had fallen asleep and my ankle turned extremely. I barely feel it now except when I would push off on it or stop running and plant it in tennis. Not playing tennis for a bit because of the holidays. Walking isn't a bother, but I haven't been going outside because of the pollen. I'm a mess. I think I feel better today. I'm going to try to walk across Lady Bird Lake to the Palmer Events Center and see a band we like at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar (Albert and Gage). And later we are going to go to Trader Joe's (it's only about 100 yards away) and get some fruit and such to have tomorrow when things are closed. Tonight we are going to an interior Mexican restaurant we've been going to for many years for Christmas Eve dinner. I'll have some tamales! Maybe some Molé Enchiladas with Cheese. A Margarita. The allergies have made my appetite a little wonky. Maybe I feel better because all that sounds good even though I'm not hungry.

Well, we will see how I do outside with the pollen.

Christmas is a Day of Rest

I missed writing anything yesterday. I was going to scoop up goofy pictures from facebook and put them here. Today will be a day of rest from many things. The picture was taken Friday of the long-suffereing husband (FFP) at Austin's Headliners club. They have a party on December 23 every year. It's from 11-2. I had several Bloody Marys. That's me in the mirror, post eating and drinking. We didn't do anything much after the party. Before the party we walked over to the bookstore (our local independent, BookPeople which is about a half mile away) and got a book we'd ordered. (Because we don't have enough books.) I think, after drinking in the middle of the day, I was pretty well finished. We read and watched movies.

Our Christmas Eve was jam-packed because we made it so. We went to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and heard a set from a band we like (Albert and Gage) and then we had an enchilada lunch at El Alma. It was a balmy day so we walked across the river to do this and, after lunch, walked up Doug Sahm Hill and through the dog park to say 'hi' to Stevie Ray Vaughn.

We read until time for our early reservation at Fixe. We had biscuits, steak tartare, pork roast,and barbecued beans. The roast was enough for six people (or more), but we knew going in that we were going to take a lot home. (If I ever get hungry again, it will be breakfast or lunch.) We had a bit to drink. A cocktail, some wine. We bumped into someone we knew who was alone at the bar and the three of us dined and dished.

It was still early when we packed it up. Fixe is a block from our apartment. We sat down and read a bit and were dozing, but, yes, we roused ourselves and went out again! We walked the five blocks to the Elephant Room and met up with our friends Butch and Linda. I drank a Guinness. FFP was down to diet Coke at that point. We lasted a set and Butch sat in for the final number and it was all we could do. The late show at the Elephant usually goes to 1:30 a.m.

By midnight, I was reading David Foster Wallace's "String Theory" (a collection of heavily foot-noted essays about tennis) in my bed. I fell asleep a few times squinting over the footnotes. And sleep.

Today is Christmas. And Sunday. I plan to publish this without editing and curl up in my chair with The New York Times magazine puzzles and CBS Sunday Morning. Maybe at the end of the day I'll write about my Christmas Day. I bet I don't get out as much as I did yesterday!

Joy

Sometimes it's the simplest things. I'm giving myself a break from cares for the day.

We exchanged gifts. FFP gave me a book. ("My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop."). I gave him a stud and cuff link set. He also got me my favorite bath product earlier and I 'let' him buy a driving cap and fedora.

We shopped a used video and music store that's going out of business. (Cheapo Disks.) Bought some weird movies and old TV for next to nothing.

We ate at a new, fancy oyster bar. Some raw oysters and some delicious chowder.

I could be doing financial stuff or cleaning. But I'm going to read and watch videos or TV and drink coffee.

Later we will meet four friends at Ruth's Chris for Christmas Eve dinner.

Joy.

Kitchen Confessional

I love to eat. Whether it's cheap Tex-Mex (photo: Aranda's Taqueira, 2005) or fine dining. I eat all veggies. I love steamed fresh Brussels sprouts, al dente haricots verts. Not as big a fan of English Peas. I love delicate little gourmet dishes with precious bits of sauce piped on in fanciful swirls. Foie gras? Bring it on? Your spinach, green bean or sweet potato casserole. Sure, I'll have some. Fish cooked in paper. Things expertly grilled.

I'm not a huge fan of rich desserts heavy with cream and chocolate, but sure I'll have a bite.

However. I have a phobia for cooking. Now I'll go into the kitchen. Because that's where people keep the coffee maker, the beer and the chips, jalapenos and Costco shredded cheese for nachos. Oh and fresh fruit, crackers, cheese and other snacks.

Some coffee-making is somewhat complex but I've always persevered. I'm kind of like those crack addicts delicately boiling stuff in a spoon. Not sure what's that's all about but it is obviously necessary like the methods for extracting coffee flavor into water that are essential to my addiction. We do what we have to do.

I can also boil water. I'm uncomfortable if you want me to then add pasta but I will boil eggs. My technique: put eggs in salted, cold water. Bring to boil. Turn off heat, cover and leave for 15 minutes. Cool in running water. Peel. I'll save my recipes for deviled egg variations for another day.

But about those deviled eggs. Yeah. Chopping and mixing aren't so bad. My resistance arises when heat and timings and butchering and carving and all that are mentioned. With deviled eggs if you get the eggs cooked and the halves neatly divested of the yolks (start with extras because some will be failures) then you just have to mix whatever with the yolks and put some of the mixture back in the halves. Chopping, mixing, but no more application of heat, no turning, flipping, etc.

God forbid you want me to do baking where things have to rise and be mixed in proper proportions, etc. Better a skillet saute dinner where things can just flow and you can see the onions become translucent.

I like to stand in the kitchen and chop things. Onions even.

And I don't mind a mess. Come to my kitchen. Make a mess in my kitchen making something wonderful and I'll clean it up without a whimper.

The truth is that cooking is hard work. And some of it is exacting: baking, handling meat, etc. Souffles? Ha. And if you have the means you simply have to walk in some place and look at the menu. Last night I had a wonderful seafood risotto (Bess). But I would never, ever make one. At lunch yesterday (posole and a Southwestern Caesar at Mirabelle) and my companion mentioned buying the same corn used to make polenta at Enoteca for himself for a Christmas Eve dinner and for a friend as a present. And I was thinking, "I think I'll go to Enoteca and have polenta!"

I get that if you don't have the money, you have to cook. Been there. Skillet dinners, pot of beans, salads (chopping only). And always lots of things you eat without prep.

Yes, I confess, I have major phobias in the kitchen. And this time of year I have to say: "I don't cook turkey! Ever."

There, I got that off my chest.

The Fire Next Time...

No, not a fire. But this sunrise in the chilled water steam looks more like a fire than the last post, even, huh?

I don't have anything coherent to say today. (My friend Jette said on Facebook that she was 'impressed by her own incoherence.' I thought she said 'imprisoned' which I get. Impressed am I, too, by mine.) I think I'll just dash off a bunch of random stuff. Follow along if you wish. Otherwise, see you later. (I have posted another couple of amusing, well to me, Journal of Unintended Consequences posts if you are looking for alleged coherence.)

So, random things. Not random things about me necessarily which a lot of people are doing twenty-five of lately (but not me, so far I'm resisting or maybe editing my batch in my head). But anyway random stuff.

That chilled water from that plant? Expensive to use it turns out. We thought it would be an efficient cooling option. But it costs $14 a month to have access to the chilled water to cool and it is decidedly expensive to actually divert some across your fan. Ah, well. Maybe it's better for the environment? Don't know. For the last month or more, we haven't turned on either heat or A.C. but we have to pay $14 bucks in case we do. A person can do Netflix for that. Oh, well. Still haven't had to use the heater in this place which is electric so you know that wouldn't be efficient. The bad news is that the place is being heated by computers and TVs and computer peripherals. So yeah. Wasted electricity.

My 98-year-old father-in-law just called me to remind me he gets an extra deduction for being blind. I figured out they didn't owe any income taxes, but he also figured that out. With a magnifying glass no doubt.

Reading list: I finished Bénabou's book as I think I mentioned. I started another small, light book suitable for carrying around when I go somewhere with just FFP and we take books to read while we eat, wait for a performance to start, etc. It is Milan Kundera's Slowness. What do I like about Milan? That he is not afraid to write fiction and he doesn't impose unnecessary rules on himself, it doesn't seem, and just plunges in and if characters or scenes get in the way, to hell with characters and scenes. Which makes me wonder several things. Should I buy (and maybe even read) his book on writing novels. Would it help me with my problematic novel project or would it just become another book I haven't read. Which, if I can be allowed to digress, leads me to another little side project which is how to use technology to present the novel being accidentally and haphazardly written here as a whole. This caused me to do some brief, futile searches of some techie sites. I'm always assaulted with just the information I do not want to read. And I'm reminded that, even for the little HTML I know I constantly forget actual syntax.

But back to reading. I'm falling behind on my newspapers. That's because I've spent too much time working crosswords, trying to get further into the week in The New York Times and working the unsatisfying but still tempting ones in the Austin American-Statesman. This reduces the input I have for The Journal of Unintended Consequences. And I have an outstanding (and in my mind's eye coherent) essay for this space on newspapers to complete as well. One reason I'm behind on the paper's is that I haven't been riding the recumbent bike as much and the couple of times I've done it I have been reading Ulysses. I'm determined to get through to page 933 of the edition I'm working on before I book my trip to New York for Bloomsday this year. I purchased this edition in Dublin in 2004. It was the hundredth anniversary of Bloom's Day but I was there after the fact, in September not June. Anyway, I'm on page 758. Bloom and Stephen are in the livery stand having something like coffee. This will be my first complete trip through any edition. Joyce was not afraid to write a novel either. Stream of consciousness and unconsciousness and all that.

Other books (and magazines) lie neglected, partly finished. A book of conversations with Woody Allen. Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I recently purchased two books from Amazon. Covers are stiff and uncracked. I was well into E.J. Kahn, Jr.'s Year of Change when somehow I put it aside. Really good book. E.J. Kahn in 1994 died after a car accident. (I sometimes wonder when reading a decades-old book what happened to the person who wrote it in the interim. So I looked up his NY Times obit a few weeks ago.) Reading Kahn's book made me wonder if I owned The New Yorker and Me. Which was Kahn's first book about his relationship with that venerable rag. Did I mention that I own The Complete New Yorker and that, recently, I printed out the Salinger story "Hapworth 16, 1924" from the June 19, 1965 edition and read it. FFP was going to read it, too, but I don't think he has. We read an article about Salinger in the NY Times on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday which mentioned the story. Salinger is not dead, but he's a recluse.

So, not doing as much reading as I'd like. We are quicker to recycle papers and magazines these days, but they are still building up too much. And I secreted a large pile in a storage thing by my my chair and I really need to clean those out so I can store other things in there. (These are from, I'm afraid, last summer when we were in the deep throes of moving.)

I've been watching some of the Australian Open. I am especially interested in the Federer/Nadal match that will occur tonight. I may watch it live. Or not. I'm much more interested in that than the Stupid Bowl. Who is playing again?

Did I mention that I hurt my back playing tennis? That I just keep playing anyway. I need to do a good 'core' exercise program when it heals. Assuming it will. I always assume such things. If it's broke, it will heal. With our bodies this isn't always a correct assumption but it's a helpful one.

It's a nice day for a walk. I think I'll take one. We are going to see Austin Lyric Opera's "Rigoletto" tonight. We will walk to the Long Center, too, I think. Did I mention how glorious the weather has been. It has. Although everyone, myself included, seems to have had a cycle of cedar fever.

FFP is listening to opera and making himself vegetarian barbecue for lunch. I think I'll have some. (OK, did that. Had a Chimay with it. So sue me.)

So, yeah, random stuff. Not going much of anywhere. Sort of like my life. Next time, though. The fire.

Seeking the Cinnamon Roll

These cinnamon rolls were at the Farmer's Market on Saturday. They looked close enough to my grandmother's that I bought one. The guy helping me at the empanada stall that sold them ask if I wanted frosting. "No, I thought, we never had frosting." "No," I said. I heated the thing up in my microwave and ate it. It was good. It was closer to Deedy's (that was our nickname for my maternal grandmother) than, say, store-bought one or the ones that Upper Crust (I love them, but not for this) purvey around town that somehow contain so much butter or something that we call them 'gut bombs.'

But this one, enjoyable though it was, was not like my grandmother's offerings. Maybe it was all in the dough recipe. She made these transcendental homemade rolls for holidays. She made a traditional yeast rising dough. (Left to warm and rise on the part of the stove where the pilot light was, remember those? With a dish towel over the bowl.) And she made dozens and dozens of rolls from the dough. They tasted sweet themselves as yeast rolls will. (Come to think of it, no one comes close to her recipe on those either, not even Threadgill's whose giant yeast rolls have to be seen to be believed and taste sweet in that yeasty way.)

I think my grandmother made rolls often, eschewing the 'brown and serve' ones at the store that my busy mother resorted to serving. (Not that Deedy wasn't busy. She had her elderly husband to care for, her chickens, babysitting us, babysitting other peoples' kids, making clothes for half the town, all that scratch cooking to do for all of us.)

But at holidays? She set aside some dough. Put butter, sugar and cinnamon between layers and rolled out cinnamon rolls that came out as big flat wheels of delight, just cooked enough, just doughy enough, especially in the center. We ate so many (and the rolls, too, sopping the homemade turkey giblet gravy off our plates) that I don't know how we arrived at adulthood as fairly skinny kids. (Yeah, later I gained weight easily. I'm wearing one of the rolls above now!)

I remember one Christmas when my cousins and I were watching her make the cinnamon rolls and clamoring for more of the butter, sugar and cinnamon. But she just smiled and ignored us.

One year I decided I would learn to make these rolls from the master. I never did, of course. Baking is the worst of cooking for me because of the accuracy required. I don't have the patience and concentration. From this session when I tried to learn, I remember only one thing. When she added the yeast to the warm water she 'hid' it. She almost filled a measuring cup with some flour and then put the yeast there and put a bit more flour in. This she added to the warm water.

"Why do you hide the yeast in the flour?" I asked.

"My mother always did," she said.

Of course, yeast is delicate. If the water was too warm, it would kill it before it could do its work. The flour coat meant that there was more margin for error in the warm water, I think. The science of baking is interesting. But like I said, I didn't and don't have the patience.

My mom and my sister both actually made rolls and cinnamon rolls and used the time-honored recipe from Deedy for a while. Then I think they switched to something easier. And they stopped making the cinnamon rolls. And then Mom died and my sister became disabled and I doubt she attempts it now. And, really, it was good but never quite the same.

During holidays of old, the presents sometimes were a disappointment and sometimes Dad wasn't there because he was working, but Deedy usually cooked the perfect meal that was everything I wanted. Turkey (I was a white meat kid, then), homemade cornbread dressing, homemade giblet gravy, those rolls, those cinnamon rolls. I'm sure there was an array of things I avoided like green beans or cranberry sauce or salads, too. (I was a picky eater as a child.)

Oh, those cinnamon rolls. Never to be duplicated. Even if the same recipe was scrupulously followed by someone, it would, of course, never be the same.

My Austin Film Festival, Part 2

[Picture is a reflection in a toy store shop window of a tie die Keep Austin Weird T-Shirt.]

Rule Number One of Film Festivals: You will not see half of what you put on your tentative schedule. Rule Number Two: You will meet interesting people.

We did see a panel today. It was about the Dramatic Story. There were some interesting panelists. This fellow Jeff Nathanson who did the "Catch Me If You Can" script said that every script needs to have a sort of 'original moment' that you build around. The twin brothers Alex and Andrew Smith ("The Slaughter Rule" is their main claim to fame and I haven't seen it) were very interesting. They both teach now. Alex provided a couple of good quotes.

Make the character a mess....Even Superman is a mess...he's two people at once, he's an orphan.

and

Something that happens is an event. A movie is a journey.

We also saw a Shorts Program. It was Shorts Program 6 but the programmers could have called it "Puberty and Young Love." It burst with the confusion of the attraction of one human animal to another, concluding with something that I think could safely be called "Geek Love with Apology to Fellini" but was actually called "Outcasts."

We saw a teen prom flick called "Bart Got a Room" in the early evening. This flick used its lead well and used William H. Macy effectively as the kid's father. Somehow they resembled one another. It wasn't really the kind of film you'd expect Macy to be in. The Florida setting was given a leading role, too. It was just fun.

We slipped out of film fest mode and went to a party for Austin Chronicle's Stephen Moser's birthday. It was amazing and we saw a lot of our friends although it was at Pangaea, a bar I don't get and would never go to if there wasn't an event there. We stopped over at Ruth's Chris after and sat in the bar and watched people stream in for the film festival party. But we never really joined that jostle, just greeting a few people who were.

Film. Food. Drink. And we walked to it all, too. Living downtown is great in that way. Also, there was lots of street theater today including a woman dressed in what appeared to be a wedding dress and tiara shouting across Lavaca at some guy then sitting down with another woman at a table at Austin Java. Mascara was streaked on her face. It had to be someone doing a movie, I decided, but I saw no cameras.

I Forgot to Say What I Ate

So, yeah when last seen, the Visible Woman promised a report on lunch. Day before yesterday's lunch! Hmmm. Where does the time go? That isn't my refrigerator but a window display on South Congress showing trendy products in an old refrigerator. The window was intended, during these dog days, to project coolness. In more ways than one.

So I had a panini sandwich for lunch day before yesterday. It had pesto on it. I was in a wine bar but I had water to drink. I'm thinking I went incommunicado after that last note precisely because I didn't want to describe my terrible diet. I think there was some of the ever popular arugula with that sandwich. For dinner on Monday, I had guacamole, hot sauce, chips, enchiladas and a beer. My companions were being good. They had guac and chips and stuff but had salads they didn't finish. And tea, not beer. I topped that off by buying a single, large Hefeweissen at Royal Blue on the way back from the restaurant and drinking it at home.

Yesterday, the good news was that I didn't eat anything until about 1 or 2. I was busy. I played tennis, ran a couple of errands and went to my dad's house where we washed the filter on his HVAC unit and I sorted some books to bring a few more into the fold at the condo. Didn't have time to eat. When I did, I chose, um, nachos! But just water to drink.

I walked to the Tavern (12th and Lamar) around 4:30 and it was plenty hot out so a cool Newcastle was nice when I got there. I wasn't just wandering around looking for a cool beer...could have done that steps from my building front door. A friend of mine was having a book signing for her book. I've known her since I first moved to Austin and while I rarely see her any more I thought it would be a great chance to catch up.

Dinner last night involved a couple of glasses of wine, a peach and arugula salad and risotto and (the shame of it!) a share in some rich dessert.

Too much food! So what did I do? Go to The Four Seasons for a delicious Market Breakfast which had heirloom tomatoes, local sausage, local Goat Cheese and eggs and a griddle cake. I don't even eat breakfast usually. Now I have to stave off the desire for napping and accomplish some of my goals for today. Hmm...what were they again?

One Last Time

No, it's not my last post on Visible Woman. In fact, I seem to have become rather addicted to posting every day. (Displacing from downsizing, I suppose.) I shot this Sunday, a detail in a thrift store window of mannequin feet and my friend and I reflected. And, no, it probably won't be the last time you see a shop window here reflecting the not so mysterious photographer.

But I've been thinking of the phrase "one last time" a lot lately. As I clean out a closet I think "this may be the last time I clean this out before I move out forever." Or as I look at the winter-bare backyard I think "this may be the last time I wait for the blooming, budding, leafing out of spring." Certainly as I schedule things to be fixed and maintained I think "this may be the last time we have to take care of this particular thing." When we put something in 'curbside mall' or take it to the thrift store I think "I may never see that object again." (Usually followed by "thank goodness!")

I found it all a little depressing for most of yesterday. I'd spent the day with the elderly and in my own not-so-young head. First trying to get a stopped-up sink fixed at my dad's house. Watching the seventy-year-old handyman try to do it and my dad, weary from his 'chores' sitting on his walker seat, everything and everyone seemed old and broken. Then, after giving up and calling a professional plumber and worrying about my dad just supervising them, I had to take my ninety-seven-year-old father-in-law for a haircut. I mean he's amazing. But still. Everything you do with the old folks feels like it's in slow motion and it might be the last time. When Dad had me stop for provisions, he mentioned that I should get a gallon of milk. "It's a little heavy for me at the store, but I can lift it from the refrigerator." What a winding down of capability life is, I thought, curling the grocery bag with the milk in it as I went to the car.

Later my computer guru stopped by to haul away an old external hard drive, a printer and a fax machine. (He not only consults on the new stuff but hauls off the out of commission for recycling.) He is a former ballet dancer and IT guy and now a student finishing a computer science degree. We were talking about my desire to get a new computer setup (it's been quite a few years around here) and he pulled out his Mac Book and started showing me how he ran it with VMWare and XP and Apple windows. He is so young and eager that it made me feel better. Not that he's that young. He's in his thirties, having fulfilled his dream to be a professional ballet dancer before going back to school. I told FFP later that I would pay him just to come over and cheer me up.

FFP and I went back to a place that's recently reopened after a fire for dinner. Mother's Cafe in Hyde Park. We've probably eaten there a hundred times, enjoying the vegetarian fare even though we are omnivores. The menu is still very similar. I wondered how often we'd make it there when we lived downtown instead of North Central. At least I made it there 'one last time' for a Mom's Reuben (an open-faced sandwich where the rye and kraut and cheese have never seemed to miss the meat).

Life's Equations

Yesterday I was pedaling away on the exercise bike while flipping through some old newspaper sections. While I didn't make any resolutions, I made a pact with myself that I would throw out more magazines and newspapers every week than arrived at the PB Manse. The natural result of this, over time, is that at some point the magazine and newspaper count would probably reach zero at least for a moment. Your holdings increase/decrease by X-Y where X is what you acquire and Y is what you divest yourself of.

It occurred to me that so much in life is like this simple bit of math. Your weight increases/decreases by X-Y where X is the energy acquired from food and Y is the energy expended. Your net worth increases/decreases by X-Y where X is your income and Y is your spending. (We won't talk about the ups and downs of your assets.)

X-Y=Z is one of the simplest equations imaginable and even those who shirked Algebra usually comprehend it. And yet so many of life's seemingly hard dilemmas can be reduced to that.

Well, no resolutions, but here's hoping it's a year of negative Z for possessions and weight change and positive Z for net worth. It's just simple math after all.

Think Globally, Eat, Um, From Everywhere

Last night I did NOT eat this. The picture captures an impromptu 'surf and turf' of lobster and lamb that a friend got at Jezebel one night in August. I didn't take my camera last night but we went to 34th Street. I thought of going downtown but 34th Street is closer and, this time of year, people crowd up going to what I call the Trial of Lights. It's actually the 'Trail of Lights.' Maybe they got rained on last night. Serves 'em right. Bad traffic-making is the trial.

Anyway, 34th Street is lovely and closer to the house. I did not have lobster, nor lamb. No. I had the most politically confusing meal ever. A half dozen raw oysters. Blue Points from Canada. And foie gras. It was either from California or New York, I think, the only current sources in the U.S. Actually I shared these two dishes with FFP. My entrée? A dish designed around a program called 'edible Austin.' It was bison stew with root vegetables. The meat and vegies came from within miles of the restaurant. The idea is for chefs to put on dishes that, you know, don't burn a lot of fossil fuel getting to the table.

Oh...and I had two glasses of wine. I think one was from California. And one from Italy.

And, hey, my yogurt comes from Austin, too. And I'm about to go have some before I go, gulp, get a root canal. So if you don't hear from me for a while, just think 'ouch!'

Holidailies is Fixed!

I learned a couple of things when I came home from breakfast at the Frisco Shop this morning. (Tennis was a wet out...it isn't raining but the courts are wet.)

One, I have to be careful in entering my entries into the Holidailies portal. I was so excited that it was up that I flubbed copying my link to the entry I was presenting into the portal. Cool as Chip's technology is, there is no recourse for correcting a entry once it's posted. I accidentally popped in the link to my last night's menu from the Four Seasons site! People are bound to find this puzzling! It was the last thing I'd copied and I failed to hit CTRL-C to copy the link to my entry. Anyway, I'm glad the portal is up and it is very cool and I'm sure I'll discover some great entries and journals.

Two, I learned that the reason the button was missing from The Visible Woman to link to Holidailies was that Blogger was probably ditching it for having a bad link associated with it while it was down. Who knew it would do that? Not me, certainly. The button is back. I did nothing to correct it.

Three, I discovered that a big 'traditional' Frisco shop breakfast is very sleepy-making. I stayed up late (about 1AM) and got up around seven-thirty. When tennis was a wash today due to wet courts even though the rain had stopped, FFP and I decided to go out for breakfast. The old Frisco shop near Burnet and Koenig has been there for over fifty years, but will soon move to a new location to make way for Walgreen's. We had the 'Number Two' which we customized with two eggs, bacon, hash browns, biscuits and strawberry jam. I had the eggs over easy. FFP scrambled. I had grapefruit juice and he had OJ. Coffee and more coffee. Still. So. Sleepy.

I'll Never Be a Cook

This is my lunch. As elaborate as the sesame tofu and roasted root vegetables look, don't be fooled. Central Market chefs prepared it. I microwaved a portion. I didn't even shop for it or get it out of the refrigerator! I'm so much not a cook, that I don't even shop for food, usually. No. FFP has to shop for his mother anyway so he usually buys all the groceries. I add a few bulk things from the occasional Costco run.

So my new downsizing mantra is this: all you need for your culinary lifestyle is a good sauce pan (primarily for boiling eggs), a good sauté pan, a microwave, a toaster and lots and lots of glassware. The rest of it can go. Of course, we will keep a few other pots and pans and baking dishes. But, let's be honest about our lifestyle. And, yes, I know about all my determination to cook more in retirement. Let's just say I've gone better at almost every other goal.