jess mebane

Hey, man--saturday came and went; how goeth the Mirabelle y concertina?

Breakfast: U2's All You Can't Leave Behind is in hvy rotation now, and fairly reduces Rolie Polie Olie to a deafmute. Lunch: Seal's latest, or 'Femmes if it's just gonna be rounds of grilled cheese and kool-aid, or KGSR radio "whaddya want for lunch" hour of tunage Dinner: Al Green, because Al Green is love and you can't cook without it, my friend. Drunken early morning steak/eggs/beans breakfast: Tammy Wynette, GNR's Appetite for Destruction, Willie Nelson's RedHeaded Stranger or Jimmy Cliff, preferably one of the concert riffs.

Though in peril of slow death from your withering condescension, I must know who or what Slow Food means. thankyew.

oh, but hell yes. Brava's lineup consists mainly of paid prospamming, occasionally interspersed with NBC retreads and Columbo reruns. And Rocco's getting edited a la Real World crazy roommate-style.

Now when you pick a pawpaw Or a prickly pear And you prick a raw paw Next time beware Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw When you pick a pear Try to use the claw But you don't need to use the claw When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw Have I given you a clue? --From the Jungle Book soundtrack, of course, 'cause that was just gonna bug me aahlll day.

This surely must've been the case at Houston's, where the day shift had to be on point by 8:30am for the 10:45 open, and the chef and line cooks were already at work, making every item on the menu for the manager taste test. This meant after mgr had his taster spoon, any menu item was up for grabs once you'd completed your shift duty. About the only thing that got me thru detailing the plantation blinds and dark woods was the thought of a hawaiian ribeye for breakfast. I can hear my arteries closing just at the memory...... And then there was the cajun joint, where you paid $2 for a bowl of red beans 'n rice with all the fixin's. We were the most regular bunch to be toting large trays of fried seafood, but thank god for the walk-in!!!

Katiekatiekatie! I started my jar o' zest and vodka blue label, and now am anxiously awaiting the results. So then I took the denuded lemons and made strawberry lemonade, which makes a great drink chilled with vodka....go figure.

Admit it! You were at the Royal Sonesta last summer, too...

Is the Dr. gone - Gone period? Well, here comes CM selling a variety of couvertures in small, too handy bars (Valrhona, Scharffen Berger, etc), and unless the Dr. ramped up a bit, I remember they tended to have a lot of theme moulded chocolates and not a lot of candies or bonbons. Maybe that didn't help. But it's still sad. Are there any more independent chocolatiers in Austin coming in to fill the void?? Theabroma okay, so now I'm confucious; the dr. c in westgate ctr with c.mkt is closed? Because I was speaking of the one truly central, in the mid-lamar center, where there's so much good retail and so little friggin' parking.

I concur. The best week I had all year last year was a summer weekend spent at the Royal Sonesta. Just go. Doesn't matter when. And bring the big pants.

Mirabelle

Well, the bamboo went in front of the western rock wall after all; I'm thinking they won't like it much in the rocks anyway. Hard to resist an experiment I guess.

Only the Bayou City could rock out a farmer's market like that--gourmet chocolate and conversation with a local chef?! Next you'll tell me traffic is lighter and city infrastructure is more navigable than Austin....

pink, and yes the leaves should look different. This is my first year with all heirloom varietals (and one olde faithful, Celebrity), so I'm crossing my fingers, especially after my mother cast aspersions on the idea. She thinks heirlooms are dead meat in the Texas heat, and therefore shall have none of my homemade bisque come June. Peh! actually, all the 'looms look a little different; our black krim is more elephantine than the hybrids, and the leaves don't smell quite as peppery, either. wonder what that means?

Katie, remember when this topic came up a year ago or so and you had this divine list for summer practical applications of the stuff? My fave was over ice cream........

Mr. Chocolate in Austin on N. Lamar in the vaunted C.Mkt strip mall looks promising, but I'm a simple gal who enjoys picking up the occasional egg crate of chocolate-dipped strawberries from Lamme's. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm a chocolate freak and if I need a $5 chocolate bar fix there's also Grapevine Market off Anderson Ln, where a wide variety of exotichoklit rubs shoulders with retro candies, jalepeno jams and gourmet olives. But Mr. Chocolate definitely advertises truffles, et al.

Red Barn on Pond Springs. We were there Palm Sunday, and they were directing traffick and parking like it were a rock concert. Good luck!

*rolling in the floor* No offense to our fine yankee visitors, but it looks like some of our fair denizens take the "Don't Mess With Texas" slogan seriously. Now, now, fief, as an I-10 commuter within Harris County, you know good 'n well that the mention of only one six-gun is downright neighborly. Hell, that's just your wavin' firearm.

Thanks for asking; Texas Japanese Purple Wisteria, a mouthful of contradictions, is not actually a garden item, but rather a climbing vine that will uproot your foundation and scamper from tree to tree in your yard if left unchecked. It also yields a beautiful purple and white bloom that resembles a grape cluster in shape. My folks had one in Houston, Miss Fifi, that overtook our patio beams and rained down purple blooms like Mardi Gras trash all spring. After 10 years, my mother felt it was getting out of hand and tried to cut it way back, burn it, salt the roots, etc., but the darn thing kept growing. In its prettiest interpretation, I saw one climbing through the boughs of a cedar tree in Washington county during antique week this year, and in full bloom it made the cedar look like a one-trick christmas tree. And foisting pictures of my artichokes upon this forum at this time would be like making you sit thru my near-sighted nieces' first dance recital--you'll be glad I didn't.

yeah, those write-ins are hilarious, but the feature definitely has a strong fan base. Some local establishments genuinely fear the slings and arrows of a fickle Houston public that's eager to comment under the protective aegis of W&D's snob-free zone. And if you're going to get a "heart attack on a plate", make sure to get wet fries on the side, or as dad calls 'em, "mitrovalve infarctions with gravy".

So I moved the artichokes to the raised bed, and I mean RAISED--if one of the toddlers go missing, it's the first place the authorities will start lookin'. The chokes seem happier out of the container, and not hopelessy root-bound, duh, so they no longer eye me with the same degree of resentment. I have country gentlemen corn shoots peeping up, and more heirloom toms awaiting burial on the garden wall. True story: I bought a Texas purple wisteria vine with the tomatoes, and absently plunked it down alongside the garden, forgot it during the downpour of a few days ago, and the damn thing fell on its side, but not before flinging its leading tendril over a tomato cage and snaking about the frame. The damn thing is going to be pretty once we attempt to direct it over a fence, but I swear it's part kudzu, part python.

I agree. So much about the current state of affairs in Food Television is sad in its nakedly shill aspect, and back in the Froog's day, the focus seemed to be more about sharing other cultures. Having said that, my sister and I used to moulder around the house of a day on Saturdays while our folks went careening about Houston in the Olds '88 looking for antiques and overpriced brunch. We didn't learn very much in the way of cooking from our working parents on the weeknights, so this was our basic introduction to basic cooking. It might have been aiming low, but it was flying over our neophyte palates, and took our cooking skills beyond toasting marshmallows on a fork over the electric stove. I will add that we sat thru a squirmy episode of The Froog cooking over the shoulders of three visibly uncomfortable boys about our age, and then we didn't watch so much anymore. Besides, there was also usually a Vincent Price Horror Matinee about that time, and we got way more mileage out of scaring ourselves silly with that stuff. Who knew who the real ghouls were back then?

The poor things are a bit shy. I've thunked them into containers, singleton-style, and they grow at the rate of about 1 leaf per 2wks. I think they're intimidated by their braggadocious neighbors, the spinach, who are elbowing one another for more space and attention in their pot. Everything gets full sun--maybe that's the problem with the chokes, I dunno. We're out in the suburban wasteland north of Austin. Beware the ides of March, but if you're Texan, it's time to sink the vegies into the ground!

This is totally true. Some years ago a guy named Mavrinac offered his home and hospitality to a few carloads of his colleagues for Mardi Gras, and we headed out to NO from Houston. Those of us in his car thought he was smooth-ass crazy when he careened off the interstate suddenly to pee and purchase said gas-station boudin, and then the smell began to get to us and we made him go back. Last, best, cheapest meal we had for three days.

Amen, brother. But bush beans are best begat between breezy and blustery, before beastly and boiling. Typically, mid-October.