Giving thanks for mad quantities of pies

After a lovely few days away holidaying in Texas, I've returned with a new blogging perspective and vigor for writing. Actually, I have pretty much the same blogging perspective, but at least now I have some time. I've been enjoying Thanksgiving with my grandparents and aunt (and immediate family, of course) in Arlington, Texas for most of my life (well except for one unfortunate year where my family stayed home, I volunteered at a soup kitchen in Houston, missed my ride to dinner across town, and ended up eating reheated mac & cheese and watching a rerun of Dr. Phil. Although as regards the Dr. Phil, I suppose I have no one to blame but myself and maybe a little bit Oprah.) Over the years, we have honed the perfect meal and enjoyed good wine (now that I'm of age) and company. It's definitely one of the traditions I'm most thankful for.

This year, my boyfriend was able to accompany me down, which was nice because he could not only meet more of my family, but also add two more Texas cities to his scrapbook. That is, if he scrapbooked, which he does not. I'm including a few pictures from this weekend for my own little virtual scrapbook.

My sister and I. Making pies and taking names. We expanded on our usual plain pumpkin pie repertoire with a bourbon pumpkin pie this year. If you ever wanted to know a simple way to dress up a pie, it's in the liberal addition of bourbon.

My dad and our 20 pound bird. We would reduce that bad boy to a mere carcass by days end. Which would be a more impressive statement if a good portion of it didn't end up in tupperware.

A Dallas possum very near the house of Eagle's co-founder Don Henley.

At the Nasher Sculpture Garden in Dallas. At first glance, this looks like one of those sculptures of sad people commemorating the Russian Revolution or something you would otherwise feel like a jerk for smiling in front of and/or posing with. However, the actual title of this piece was something about morning train commuters--a plight of which I am a sufferer, which means I'm not a jerk for posing here, and neither is my mother.

After the success of our pumpkin bourbon pie on Thanksgiving, we kicked it up a notch because we had extra pie crust, pumpkin, pecans, and an insatiable need for more pies. Pictured is a bourbon pumpkin pie with pecan streusel topping. You can't make this stuff up. Because we already did.

A collection of some of my favorite people in the world.

Having gone to Dallas the previous day and walked around both the museum district and Dealy Plaza, on Saturday we went to the Stockyards in Fort Worth. Every day, twice a day, they do a cattle drive through the stock yards just as they would have done in the 1800s only with fewer head of cattle (about 10 in total for the recreation) and with fewer people herding cattle and more people herding toddlers off the curb.

We also went to a local rodeo at the Stockyards. The bull riding was a win for the bulls, but the man pictured above was truly impressive. Michelangelo with a lasso.

Thanks for reading! I hope your Thanksgivings were as enjoyable as mine (which I trust to be true as many of my readers were with me).

A Photo Journal: Treasures of Texas Edition

Those of you truly faithful readers might have noticed I was absent from posting this last week. I didn't announce my leaving because I was pretty sure 99% of my readers knew where I was and who I was with. Also, just in case any of my less faithful readers wanted to take the opportunity to burgle my apartment, which may or may not actually be located in Astoria. At any rate, this year, as always, July heralded scorching weather, displays of patriotism, and summer vacation. My exotic vacation locale this year: Houston, Texas. Also: Austin, Texas. Actually, really a fair amount of central-ish small-town Texas as well as the Gulf Coast region.

The central focus of the trip was family. That's not entirely true either. It's fair to say the reason for the trip was family, specifically my sister and I and our significant others uniting at my parent's house for the week. However, the central focus of the trip--as with any vacation--was most decidedly food. Each meal naturally led to the discussion of what the following meal should be to best complement the current one. The gluttony was only paused when our styrofoam contained leftovers could no longer fit within the bounds of the refrigerator, and we were forced to consume them before continuing the food odyssey. It was glorious!

Per the usual, I'm (mostly) avoiding showing pictures of people (who aren't me--I sold out my privacy a long time ago) in them. However, if you are one of my readers who might have a personal interest in seeing one of the lovely full-family photos taken on this trip, email me and you will have some forthwith!

Where we spent the bulk of the 100 degree afternoons. This is what makes Houston, a city with the humidity level of Vietnamese jungles, a habitable place.

The Fanthorp Inn in Anderson, TX (population: 208, and yet somehow still the county seat). This building has been around since 1834 which (by Texas history standards) is really old. They also have a model stage coach on the property (the inn used to house stagecoach passengers and drivers delivering mail) and offer rides. Sadly, the Fanthorp Inn Historic Site will be closing in September, so if a trip to Anderson, TX is in your plans for the late autumn, you might want to push that up.

We journeyed to Galveston Island to go to the beach. While there my boyfriend and I created this sand face. It originally started out as a portrait of me, but the concept was abandoned when it started to take on Cro-Magnon features. I chose this photo rather than many showing the actual beach at Galveston because while the water is delightfully warm and great for swimming, this particular part of the Gulf Coast is not a conventionally attractive shoreline.

Nevertheless, the Galveston beach is a great reminder of my childhood.

Another fond memory of my childhood: making tamales. Although skipping the traditional lard, our tamales are delicious and totally worth the 2 days of cooking that go into making them. Although I'm not sure I can really say that as it's really my mom who does the lion's share of the meat preparation while the rest of us just jump in for shuck stuffing at the end.

The Art Car Museum is a treasure of Houston springing from the annual Art Car Parade. This particular vehicle is made almost entirely of spoons and other cutlery.

Another Houston gem: the beer can house. Created by a retired upholsterer and beer drinking enthusiast who began siding his house in beer cans in 1968. It is now an art piece although the artist himself says of the work, "Some people say this is sculpture, but I didn't go to no expensive school to get these crazy notions."

Some of the aforementioned gluttony. It doesn't look as formidable here as in real life, but believe me, this is quite a pork chop.

This photo requires a jump from Houston to Austin, but it seemed a fitting follow-up to the previous photo. We saw this porker in an Austin resident's front yard near the place we got drinks on South Congress.

The Capitol in Austin, a building my sister describes as "pink." The Texas Capitol is the largest in gross square footage of all state capitols and is second in total size only to the national capitol in Washington. I'm including my source for this fact because certain Californians doubt its veracity.

Barton Springs, in Austin, is a spring-fed swimming pool that stays consistently 60 degrees around the year. Very refreshing on a 105 degree day! Apparently, it's also the only known home of the Barton Springs salamander, an understandably endangered species.

Overall, I had a lovely trip. It was wonderful to see family, old friends, and to make one new one. Now it's back to the daily grind, but I should remain pretty relaxed for at least the next day or two.

Eating my way through the lone star state

I'm currently at my parent's house enjoying the 77 degree holiday weather in Spring, Texas. (For the record, those readers looking to rob my apartment now that they know I am far away from Astoria should know it is locked up and watched by both a tenacious roommate and a fierce guard cat. Also, unless you want a 4-year old Sony Vaio on which the e key hasn't worked in months...well you should probably move to greener pastures.) One thing I'm enjoying about being back in my hometown (besides not being at work and being able to go jogging outside) is the food.

New York is a seeming food mecca that should have every type of cuisine known to man (and some fusions they just make up when those options get tiresome). But there are a few things that I find Texas has New York soundly beat on. The first is obviously Mexican food. You can get some excellent Mexican food in New York, I grant you, but you also end up paying for it. Cheap, good Mexican food is the norm here, such that those modifiers would be redundant. In New York, "cheap" Mexican involves "guacamole" that has clearly never seen an avocado and far more closely resembles pea soup. Also, inexplicably, cheese fries.

The second thing, despite all the trendy "Southern comfort" food places in the city, is chicken fried steak. You would think, and maybe this is being a Tex-pat talking, that slathering a plate-sized piece of steak or chicken in batter, deep-frying it, and slathering it in white gravy would be popular anywhere. Strangely, this isn't the case.

Finally, and this is really the most important: kolaches and donuts. Kolaches, for those readers who have never experienced these little pillows of heaven are rolls filled with sausage and cheese and any number of other delicious options. They're originally a Czech or Polish thing brought over to Texas and, I think, parts of the Midwest. There is a place by Grand Central called Kolache Mama that claims to sell these. Trust me, they do not.

They don't photograph super well, but, trust me, these taste better than the slightly-misshapen eggs they appear to be.

The other issue is donuts. New York is a bagel city and thus not terribly worried about the taste of their donuts. That said, relying on Dunkin' Donuts (or worse yet: deli and bodega donuts) for all your donut needs just isn't right. If you're ingesting half of your daily sugar in one meal, you might as well enjoy it. And as far as I'm concerned, with the possible exception of fresh Munchkins, these just aren't worth it.

At any rate, this will likely be my last post while I'm home, so I want to wish all my readers a happy, food-filled holiday wherever you are! I shall enjoy the precious edible regionalism while I'm here and be thankful I can run outside again.

Deep in the heart of the Houston suburbs

Tomorrow morning, I'll be embarking on a (in my opinion, richly deserved) vacation. As I won't be tethered to a keyboard 8 hours a day, I don't think I'll be doing much blogging. However, I promise when I return I will come bearing the gift of photos and stories from Mexico. That's right--I'll be journeying to Mexico City to visit friends and explore the city all of next week. But this weekend, I'm excited to announce I will be enjoying the equal richness of the suburbs in beautiful Spring, Texas.

In honor of the occasion, I google image searched my hometown to see what nostalgia inducing images I could cull from the grand reaches of the internet. Many of them did not inspire familiarity at all...
Case in point: This was one of not two but three seperate photos of in-line skaters that came up on the first page of results. I don't recall seeing many in-line skaters much growing up. But now that I'm thinking of it, I remember suddenly a faction of the homeowner's association of my neighborhood trying to block the addition of sidewalks because they thought they would cause skateboarders and hooligans to come. If only I'd understood their presience then.

In May of 2005, ghost hunters in Spring Texas conclusively proved the existense of paranormal activity in our suburban hamlet. These pictures, taken in a location the ghost hunters call only "Cemetary #1," are undoctored orbs which any ghost hunter knows prove the presence of other worldly beings. I was shocked too.

This one confused me at first because I thought it was actually a picture of the Hollywood sign outside of Los Angeles, California. By clicking on the link this picture came from, I found out that this was from a relator in Spring, Texas looking to sell houses by playing up the Spring, Texas/Hollywood connection. Did you know musician Lyle Lovett was from Spring, Texas? What about actor Matt Bomer who not only lived in Spring but went to my high school? I haven't heard of him either, but apparently he was named one of People Magazine's "Sexiest Rising Stars." It's enough to make me want to buy a house there.

I don't know what this is about.

Finally! After going through 10 pages of results, I come upon one thing that reminds me of home. This statue is of the talented Arabian race horse Morafic who spent his entire life in Egypt and never set foot in Texas. And yet for some reason this statue is at the entrance to my neighborhood in front of a large shopping center. Beautiful. Majestic. Just like Spring, Texas.

Ah, the memories. I can't wait to head home!