Boots in the Oven

Chen Noodle House is... in the house?

What's the fastest way to get me or the Mr. excited about a new restaurant?

Drop the phrase "all noodles are handmade" onto the menu somewhere, and you're just about guaranteed we'll be there within the week, elbowing small children out of the way so we can order first.

There's a new Chinese noodleteria that just opened in late September out in the same strip mall that holds Asia Cafe.  And look at Chen's Noodle House's menu!

We were there immediately, ordering about half the compact menu.  Shoulda gone for the side dish, but we didn't.

I think I made a new friend!

101708, 291/366: Looks can be deceiving., originally uploaded by Boots in the Oven.

I've discovered something about myself in the last week. Not having Internet doesn't mean I magically become more productive, though I did read a book I'd been wanting to read, and I did catalog October's pictures.

I didn't, however, clean the house (beyond the six loads of laundry and folding I did yesterday). Nor did I work on blog posts to be, do any research for our possible trip to New Mexico this December, or make any of a dozen phone calls I really, really should have made. Oh well.

I did some work, notifying residents of upcoming filming in their neighborhoods, but when you're up against a menacing beast like this one it makes your job a tad more difficult and dangerous. Luckily, I do like living on the edge. Do you feel lucky, pup?

A Trough of Friday Fajitas at Trudy's

We first moved here to Austin in 2001, and maybe a week after arriving, discovered Trudy's.  Not that it took that much work - the three locations of this restaurant are some of the most popular places in town, especially with college students and young twentysomethings.  Once a month or so, there we'd be, waiting an hour or more for a table so we could eat huge fried chiles rellenos stuffed with mushroom fajitas or softball-sized fried avocados stuffed with chicken or plates overflowing with enchiladas in cream sauce, and wash everything down with Austin's signature drink - a martini shaker full of margaritas called a Mexican martini (limit two).

I like to think I put on my mid-twenties twenty-five pounds when I quit smoking and got a desk job, but in hindsight, Trudy's just may have had something to do with it.

When we moved out of that early twentysomething demographic, Trudy's started to lose its luster.  The drinks tasted sweeter every time we went.  The menu never changed.  The place was loud, and cavernous, and it started to become more and more difficult to overlook the ridiculous unhealthiness of 90% of the menu.

But it's been a stressful few weeks for the hubs around here with this new movie he's working on, and he came home on Friday craving a bowl of cheese and a Mexican martini, perhaps not in that order.  So, off we went!

Wednesday Night... what IS that?

Not that this wasn't delicious.  It was, in fact, TOTALLY delicious.  But this was also a decidedly weird meal, made of a motley collection of leftovers.

When Husbear got home from work on Wednesday, he already knew what he'd be making.  A list tacked to the fridge said "Spaghetti squash, mushroom and eggplant fryup, macaroni and cheese souffle, salad with flowers."

The excitement of leaving your house - and, are you registered to vote?

I remember the thrill of springtime in Chicago, April or so, when you could finally venture timidly outside without experiencing extreme discomfort, freezing of the teeth, stabbing pain in your exposed eyes, and numb toes.

Well, in Texas, that season of wonder and delirious enjoyment is autumn.  It was a hellaciously hot summer, so hot that I couldn't wear dangly metal earrings because every time I got in my car, they'd burn welts into the side of my neck.  Finally, our highs right now are in the upper 80s to low 90s, and in the evenings, it's positively temperate.  We went out to eat a snickeringly strange meal downtown on Friday (I'll blog it tomorrow or Wednesday) and then spent an hour wandering around, just relishing the novel sensation of not bursting immediately into rivers of sweat.

It doesn't feel like a stereotypical Northern pumpkin bread and braised meats and cinnamon type autumn, yet, but Austin probably won't feel like that until December.

We really could use some rain, though.

On another subject, if you're in Texas, today is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the November elections!  Check here to see if you're registered, and if not, there is a voter registration drive going on all day at all Thundercloud Subs and Blockbuster Video stores.  Please register and vote - it's so important this year!

What's Cooking Wednesday The First - Zucchini Soup with Pimento Cheese Toasts

This is a great idea, this oh-so-simple meme started over at Tales from a Fairy Blogmother!  It seems to be born out of the same frustration I often have with feeling like I have nothing to post, that misperception that something particularly special has to be going on for me to feel capable of writing about it.  So, welcome to my first foray, and please check out her blog for others doing the same thing!  (Hope she doesn't mind that Husbear doesn't really "do" recipes...)

I feel like I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about special meals, restaurant meals, or times that Husbear went all out to feed family and friends.  This invariably has people asking us questions like "how do you eat like that all the time and stay so thin?"  Well 1, we don't and 2, I'm not that thin (but thanks and kisses!).

So, look for this new feature every week!  I'm going to aim for Thursday, but obviously I missed that goal with my very first post.  This is proof that I'm fundamentally untrustworthy, and probably unstable.

This Wednesday, a drum roll pleeze for Husbear's creation:

Well, I know who my vote goes to!

I'm getting really superexcited about watching tonight's debates.  I fully expect Palin to ramble on insensibly and Biden to slam his foot... will it?  Could it?  It will go ALL THE WAY! into his mouth.

And if you can't bring yourself to cast a vote, well, there's always an alternative.

So don't get discouraged.

(If you want your own, there are at least two designs available on CafePress that I found in about ten seconds earlier today.)

Flowers! Pretty! Let's eat 'em.

Last weekend, because of the flooding of downtown with football freaks (for the UT game that was postponed due to Hurricane Ike) and music geeks (for the Austin City Limits music festival), we drove down to a farmers' market we hadn't been to in months - the Sunset Valley Farmers'  Market.

Man, is it huge!  I'd forgotten.  And there are all sorts of things that aren't available at the still awesome downtown market.  For instance - Groovy Greens.

This is a stand that seems to be run by a pair of unreconstructed hippies.  They're a little strange and standoffish, at least to me, though I've seen them greet others warmly.  Maybe I'm the strange and standoffish one.

They sell lots of wild-gathered greens, and often little bags of flowers.  We bought some of their little baggies land brought them home, where Husbear made a wonderfully colorful and healthful salad.  A feast for the eyes, too!

(BTW, a big recommendation for O Vinegars.  WE have the zinfandel version, and it's getting an awful lot of use in this house!)

Flowers even made it onto the Omnivore's One Hundred list I did yesterday.  So, here's further pretty proof!