Boots in the Oven

Care for a Cream Puff... RECIPE?

Ooh, faked you out there.  I bet for a second you thought we'd discovered a way to deliver food through the computer.  Weren't we supposed to have been able to nosh on our computerized futurecake while riding in aerocars sometime in 1985? 

Ah well. 

When I get a craving for a particular foodstuff, I hop on the computer to find out who's selling it near me or if there's a way I can make it arrive at my front door with a minimum of fuss.  When my husband gets a craving, he pulls out all of our cookbooks and back issues of food magazines and does three hours of research online to find the ultimate recipe.  Often, he has to go buy equipment too. 

For a month, the boy had been talking cream puff, or Choux à la Crème if'n you's fancy.  After a lot of perusal and rejecting all sorts of recipes that called for vanilla pudding or Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, he alighted on a recipe that we have in a cookbook in our very own house, from Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home.

FINO

On Friday I found out that I was getting off work at a salvageable hour. If I flew home from set I could slap on my pretty pants, grab the wifey and make it to someplace by the nick of 10:30. I hate showing up at restaurants close to closing time (and Mme. Pants hates it even more) so we needed a safe house; you know- friendly territory.

Enter Fino. You may remember it for our glowing praise of their amazing bar but it’s also a rocking food place. One that we for some reason underutilize. We rolled in and were assured that we were in fact not huge assholes and that we had plenty of time to order. God bless ‘em.

Happy Sunday from Bacon Pancake Land!

What do you do when you have five pounds of home cured bacon hanging out in your fridge?  You cook a lot of awesome bacon!

Sure it may seem obvious, but but if you lose focus for just one moment you may accidentally end up with a meal that somehow doesn't have bacon it.  God forbid.

This morning me and the Ms. had no such problems.  The day greeted us with deliciously savory bacon pancakes, spiced gala apples from the farmers' market, scrambled duck egg, and of course, more bacon. I know how to spot the start of a good time.

And now, off to make cream puffs...

-L. Pants

Visiting a Shack Down By the River

While I wait for the Opening Ceremonies to start, I thought I'd let you in on a little of what I was up to last weekend while my husband indulged himself in a bit of a bacon feast.

First, I was in - well, near - Washington, DC.  I was trying to be secretive before I left because it was my uncle's 50th birthday, and we thought it would be neat for me to surprise him with my arrival from Austin.  I knew the gig was up when he called me not twenty minutes after my arrival at Washington National to ask me how my flight was.  Oh well.

I stayed with my grandmother and my aunt, who was in town from Michigan.  Our Monday was completely free, so we piled into my grandmother's Taurus and drove down the GW Parkway right to where it dead-ends in front of one of the area's premier sights - Mount Vernon.

Enter through the Texas Gate.  Little bow to where I'm living.

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon!

In the theme of curing all things that walk, swim or fly I have added a new conquest: bacon. I mean BACON! Yes that holiest of meats (sorry Jews and Muslims) is now for home fabrication (eat it Hormel!)

In case you were wondering.

I think there's a reason that July tends to be our lightest month, in terms of posting.  It's just too hot to think.  I can't imagine how people who work in the few remaining bastions of workplace conservatism in Austin (the Capitol and law offices) manage to drag themselves out of bed each day and besuit themselves.