CindyG111

We have fruit ornaments as well - an glass apple, pear and strawberry. I think we had grapes too, but I believe they were forced into retirement by one of our dogs. My favorite however we bought when we moved to Texas four years ago. It's a rootin tootin hot pepper. If you pull the string with the star of Texas attached, he draws on you. Here's a picture: He's actually a little creepy - lol!

WOW I need to go hot sauce shopping! This thread reminds me how sad my frig currently is. All I have is Texas Sassy pickle juice - lol and a very lame bottle of Frontera Chipoltle hot sauce - such a disappointment! My current favorite is Smack my Ass and Call me Sally sauce. Originally bought it for the name and now love love love it. Cindy G

The SF Hooters really cracks me up. IMHO probably only tourists go there. I lived in SF many many moons ago. I would have loved to work there too (if it existed way back then) just to get some boy action - but that's another story. My second story for Hooter's is second hand - and really involves another stellar establishment - Bone Daddy's. When evaluating Hooter's waitresses, my married male friends (and my hub) use the gold standard value of "the waitress at Bone Daddy's whose ear you could blow through (to the other side)". Said waitress remarked upon my Scottish friend's accent wondering where he was from. After hints such as, "kilts", "bagpipes" and "Scottie dogs", she replied, "oooh, I know where you are from, Switzerland!". I don't think I would eat the wings there without the breading though..... ick.

Oh Holy Moly this is like a food confession - Ruffles into macaroni salad - heavenly!!! pretzel sticks into ice cream - pant pant french fries into mayo steak into mayo and when really desperate and naughty finger into mayo ARRGH! ok - I don't really feel better now I got that off my chest.

This topic is awesome! I've had my own cooking disasters and posted my worst one, The Purple Fish Soup, previously. My desire for food and cooking often exceeds my ability. The worst dinner my hub & I went to was at a friend of his from work's home many years ago. Little did we know that: 1.) he was a mean bitter drunk 2.) his wife - God bless her - was about to file for divorce 3.) said friend had never told his wife we were coming for dinner 4.) we were really invited so my hub could fix said friend's computer. While hub is fixing the computer I'm sitting in the kitchen drinking wine and watching the wife make stuffed mushrooms. Friend keeps coming in to check and making sure my wine glass is never empty. I proceeded to get blasted. Unfortunately so did the mushrooms. Wife must have used at least two bottles of wine to marinate the mushrooms the whole time giving evil looks to her husband. Finally the mushrooms go in the oven. I'm actually fearful that the whole mess is going to catch on fire and explode. Hub gets computer fixed. We sit down to dinner of crunchy soggy wine stuffed mushrooms. We bail as soon as we possibly can. We find the nearest pizza place and chow down. I like the idea posted here of bringing food/snacks or eating before dining in uncharted territory. Cindy G.

Celery Jenga My apologies on bumping this topic - but I've had a couple of the most hysterically funny times at the Hooters here in Austin recently and well, I can't help myself. My hub & I have terrifc friends from Scotland we hang with. They love Hooters (ok I think he loves it more but whatever) and take their kids too. They go on and on about the wings. Right. One night after many beers at a local sports bar, our friends talked us into going to Hooters. I had never been and was shocked to see how bright it was inside. My second shock was the IQ level of our waitress. Now granted I wasn't the sharpest either having consumed quantities of beer. Our friends took over on ordering the wings, but I was adamant that we should have enough celery and ordered 2 for every person. Since there were 5 of us - to me that meant 10 pieces of celery. After about 20 minutes we got our beer. 20 minutes later the wings. Getting a picture here of the service? 10 minutes later our waitron appears with another waitron carrying two giant platters of celery. Oh boy! I got roundly razzed for the mis-order and banned from talking to the waitress ( ) However I redeemed myself by finding a use for all that celery. Celery Jenga. We had lots of fun with that and finally it was time to go home. Our waitron was truly dissappointed that we did not want to take all the extra celery home in a doggy bag and just couldn't understand why we would leave it. Cindy G.

Blue Heron - Thanks! You should be able to buy jalapeno stuff olives anywhere. They come in glass jars. Sometimes I have to find them in the "bar mixer" section of the grocery store. They're mixed in with the sun-dried tomato stuffed olives and the almond stuffed olives (ick!). I don't know if the jalapenos are pickled - but they give the vodka a nice hot flavor - wooh! I have even bought them at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Those were in a jar with beautiful packaging - viva marketing! Your olive dinner story reminded me of dinners with my huge extended family. When my son was 5-7 we would get togther with my parents and brothers & sisters and all their children. My Mom would put out a big bowl of black olives and all the kids would put olives on their fingers (ok all the kids even the big kids) would eat olives off our fingers. Very very fun!

Oh how I love egullet!! It's so wonderful to read posts from people who love the foods I love too. Makes me feel full o love! O live! Ok lame sorry. I couldn't live without olives! Jalapeno stuffed olives are my absolute favorite. I love them in very cold vodka martinis or just to eat. I even have a martini glass set with little olives all over them - the set has a beautiful little glass bowl with short nubby feet to serve olives in. I love to go to Central Market here in Austin just to buy new kinds of olives. Supreme Olive Joy!! Cindy G.

I also like pretzels and ice cream - but I can't eat ice cream anymore I'm surprised no one has mentioned peanut butter, mayo and pickle sandwiches - these are delicious! You can add pickles (really good ones) to anything. Pickles and pork chops and of course pickles & barbQ. I'd eat pickles & ice cream but of course I can't now. Does anyone else love pickles? I'd love to try a new weirdo pickle combo. Here are my other fav's: Mac & cheese & ketchup Jelly & cream cheese sandwiches apple sauce & cottage cheese mayo on apple slices - love mayo Mayo on left over steak when I was doing Atkins - no more Atkins ugh!!! scrambled eggs & cream cheese Cindy G.

Jaymes - you can get Mojitos at Saba Blue Water Cafe. My favorite happy hour bar. From 4 - 7 PM you can get $3 drinks and appetizers. I used to go there after work with my work pals and drink their blue Martini's. My compatriots favored the Mojitos. I now work NW of the city and miss going there after work (my brain cels don't). I haven't tried Gumbos downtown. We tried to go there for lunch one day but it was too long a wait. I have also heard the Round Rock one is better. Mirabelles is a great restaurant. Their service is also very good and I have only been there for lunch - alot. I also like the Alligator Grill for lunch. I love their Oysters Oypallousas (sp?). I used to live in New England and loved fried oysters. What's the best Italian restaurant in Austin? I have heard it is Bellagio. I haven't gone to as many restaurants for dinner here as I would like. My son is in the in between age of too old for a babysitter and a little too young to leave at home alone - but I think he's passing that soon. Hope to dine at more this summer. I really want to go to Fonda San Miguel - I'm not fond of Tex Mex - too much cheese. Last weekend we ate at a typical Tex Mex - Iguana Grill. Didn't like it at all and if I'm going to have poor to mediocre food and a view we'll go to the Oasis. Why is it here in Austin you can have a good view or good food, but not both? Cindy G.

I'm with Hopleaf - I think Serrano's are wonderful little peppers and can be added to salads, sandwiches and sauces. I really like dryed Ancho peppers and have made the chili and the beef pot roast using the Ancho paste all described in Rick Bayless completely awesome Mexican cookbook. His book got me started on my pepper adventure. I'd like to hear more about Cayenne. I also like cajun cooking and now will be happy to experiment adding this spice. Cindy G.

My favorite childhood food memory is the Clambakes my family would have when we lived in Philadelphia. My Dad would go on business to NJ and buy clams to bring home. My Mom would cook them in giant steamer and we would eat them with butter. Sometimes my Dad would save some to eat raw and I felt very adventurous and grown up and eat some raw too. Later I tried raw oysters and sushi and now I'm hooked on raw fish in general. My other favorite is the rice & raisin pudding my grandmother would make. It was the only good thing my grandmother could cook. I can't eat it now unfortunately as I'm lactose intolerant.

Thank you for all the Vodka posts! I never checked last weekend for them and now I have great Vodka's to try. I will definitely look for Tito's - being a fairly new Texan. I also want to try Iceberg to save on some moula. Has anyone been to the really cool bar in the Philadelphia airport that has different iced Vodka bottles all round the bar? Is it still there? Can't remember the name of it. My husband and I had a really fun layover there several years ago and drank Bloody Mary's until we were silly and got on the plane to WV to see my parents. Unfortunately when we arrived we were quite tipsy and had to go to a restaurant to eat lunch and sober up. My parents were wondering what happened to us.... oh well. Cindy G.

I would be this happens more often than you think. We were in Hilton Head 3 weeks ago with my extended family and it happend to us. We ate a seafood restaurant. At the time there were only 6 of us dining and my husband paid the bill. A 15% gratuity was added to the bill and he added an additional 20% on the tip line. He didn't notice until later that evening that he had tipped twice. I don't buy that it was just a mistake of the waitress. We were the last ones at the restaurant and it was not busy at all. Caveat emptor! (spelling?) We just chalked it up to paying more attention and decided not to make a stink. My entire family (19 of us) ate at the same restaurant later in the week and had a wonderful time - and carefully tipped once to the attentive waitstaff.

I love Martinis and have been drinking Vodka for over 20 years. In College we spent all Sunday having "Country Club" drinking Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers.. but I digress. I was in NY for Toy Fair several years ago and went to a snobby club and had my first martini with Belvedere Vodka. The waitress (with nose in air) informed me it was the best Vodka in the world. So I order one and was suitably impressed. However - I know think that Grey Goose is much better (and slightly cheaper!). I would love to try other brands and want to hear what others think. One of my best friends loves Ketel One - but it doesn't come close. Ablsolut is terrible - unless you do Absolut Citron with Blue Curacoa - ala Blue Martini from Blue Water Cafe in Austin. Anxious to hear others opinions....

I have a bottle of white Creme de Menthe and make Vodka stingers as opposed to regular Stingers - never know which Brandy to buy... love my Vodka... I recently purchase a liquor though, call Chocolate Cookie - which sounds horrible and is delicous. If you add a ratio a 2 - 1 (2 Choc chip cookie - 1 CDM) you end up with a wonderful drink which tastes like Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies - yum yum.