Boots in the Oven

Houston at the last minute

Hey, are you following me on Instagram? Because I post there as bootsintheoven, shock. 

And here's proof, from an impromptu trip to Houston the weekend before last!

Houston has one of our favorite museums, the Menil Collection, which does not allow photography inside. Sigh.

But they have pretty tree-lined walkways.

And really nice guys working a PB&J truck. Did you know that half a PB&J, on wheat bread, with apple slices, spicy peanut butter, and strawberry jelly makes a delicous, nutritious snack that will keep you going for hours? Monster PB&J truck knows. They'll even make you THAT VERY SANDWICH in exchange for money.

Many thanks to our friends for their Houston recommendations, btw. After our museuming (hi, Magritte and Klein and Max Ernst and Forest Bess, you self-surgery practicing oddball!) we went to one of Kristi's recommendations, the Grand Prize Bar. It was nice and divey and musty and had a great cocktail list. Rum phosphate with allspice dram? SURE! 

Also, this picture shows that Instagram filters can't always be trusted, even in the hands of incredibly talented photographers like me. Cough.

And then, the Cooper Speedball, the Texas Two-Step, the... upsy-downsy. Coffee after a drink. The Black Hole Coffee House provideth, although they wouldn't provideth Logan with a straight unadulterated shot of their coffee concentrate. Insisted on diluting it with water. 

And then Anvil Bar and Refuge, for another drink before dinner! One must counteract all that caffiene, right? I had a Badminton Cup, with red wine, amontillado sherry, maraschino, cucumber, and soda. It was just as strange as it sounds and twice as delicious.

And then, 9:30 reservations at Oxheart! About which more will be said later. Super local, lots of vegetables, a James Beard semifinalist, and a reservation list that normally opens up (and closes down!) a month ahead of time. We were super lucky to get last-minute reservations, especially since we scored seats at the long bar with a view of the completely open kitchen.

Indecent happy-cat is indecent.

Our in retrospect ridiculous plan had included driving the 2.5 hours back to Austin that night. While still eating at 11PM we realized fully how awful that would be and what an unhappy counterpoint the long drive would make to an otherwise wonderful day in Houston, so Logan excused himself for a moment and called the Modern B&B, where we'd last stayed while preparing to leave for the big trip. We were lucky they had a room available.

And a good sleep was had by all.

Next morning! Jewish deli food! Thanks, Jodi! I got a yooge bowl of matzah ball soup with kreplach. We got smoked sable. We smeared chopped liver on bagels. My Jewish heart thrummed with the happies. Kenny and Ziggy's, I appreciate you. (Not necessarily your Flash website and auto-play music, though.)

and THEN we had the drive back to Austin.

Much appreciation to Houston for the good times, good food, and good drinks. 

Houston! Ninfa's (The Original.) and Anvil (also... the original.)

Aw, man.  Sadness.  Why couldn't we bring everyone awesome that we know on this trip?  For one thing, friendly faces are ALWAYS welcome.  For another, I would love to pick everyone's brains.  And I'm already missing our friends and family as the months start to stretch in front of us.

We went to the original Ninfa's tonight.  It was kind of a celebratory dinner, because Logan and his mom both have birthdays later this month (Logan's dad GQ and I are both in April, so our special day is tomorrow).

The OG Ninfa's has been in this sort of industrial neighborhood off Navigation since 1973.  The place is run like a machine; it was jam-packed, but we waited less than ten minutes for a table.  

Food came out quick and hot and fresh (there were ladies in the front hand-rolling tortillas, both as a display of authenticity and a testament to the a la minute food).

AND the folks from Anvil (more on that later) have just been in to redesign their drink menu, so the margaritas are ridiculous and taste of serious juices and the sangria is... well, I often order sangria because I want to like it and then I never do.  But this one... oh, the balance of bitter and sweet and wine and juice and probably more booze than you can shake a stick at.

We ordered a crazy amount of food and didn't have room on our table for it.  Bowls of queso and platters of fajitas, plates of their famous tacos al carbon and an enormous "original Tijuana 1924 recipe" Caesar salad.

Tacos al Carbon:

Please be kind - the lighting in there sucked.  Actually, had we known what we were doing, we would have requested outdoor seats; the weather was perfect.

And we had a silly-cute quail on a lot of onions:

It was all quite fine and we all enjoyed it and had a great time.

Beth sneakily asked the waiter to bring out a festive birthday dessert for Logan, and much to his serious embarassment several friendly folks emerged at the end of our meal with an intimidating slab of the best tres leches cake any of us has ever eaten.  They crowded around him bellowing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY PANCHITO!"

It was worth it because then, we got to eat the cake.  OMG.  Puddles of heavy cream drenched the sponge cake, which was topped with a perfectly thick layer of toasted meringue.

Logan and his mama had to bust out the straws.

Then, we came back to our little apartment (which would be nicer if the coffee machine hadn't molded and the light wasn't burned out in our bedroom - we will rectify this tomorrow) and set the folks up with links to all of our travel plans.  They headed to bed and we headed to...

Anvil!

We got to see our friend Mindy (of @drinkswmindy and Houston bartender of the year in the Houston Press!) for the first time in more than a bit.  Drinks were fantastic and included a London Guinea (Scotch, Pimm's, Lemon, Birch Syrup, House Sarsparilla Bitters), a Maharaja Buck (Cardamom-Infused Gin, Lime, Turmeric, House Tamarind Jam),

a Jacko's End (Applejack, Mezcal, Benedictine, Peychaud's Bitters) and an Improved Tequila Cocktail (Tequila, Turbinado, Maraschino, Xocolatl Mole & Aromatic Bitters - Logan thought this tasted like lettuce, oddly).

Fun.  And walking distance from where we were staying.  Funner.  Though I will say it was kind of sad how many people we overheard shrilly ordering double vodka sodas at a craft cocktail bar.  Ah well... they just don't know what they're missing.

Another successful day.  Tomorrow... Trip to Ikea, setting the folks up with FaceTime and Skype (we're bootsintheoven, surprise!) and April birthday dinner.

30 hours to Merida.  Holy cuss.

Ninfa's on Navigation is at 2704 Navigation Blvd. in Houston.  713.228.1175.

And Anvil Bar and Refuge is at 1424 Westheimer in Houston.  713.523.1622.

Holy Houston, we made it to Houston.

Wow.  I'm still in shock.  After days of frantic packing and trying to fit in as much harried, quickie last-minute visiting as we could, we've actually left Austin.  For serious.  And we're in Houston, with really overpacked backpacks (luckily we're meeting Logan's folks here for a couple days R&R, so we can hopefully send some of the excess back with them).

Austin's airport was a dream as usual; we got to see lots of people arriving with guitars and less recognizable musical instruments for SXSW.  The flight was fast and efficient.  We're staying at a very cool and relatively inexpensive place (Modern B&B) not too far from the museum district.  AND we get to hang out with Beth and GQ for a bit, too!

Tonight, we met them at the Houston Rodeo.  In the years and years I've lived in Texas, I've never been to a rodeo!  What the heck.  So here, for your pleasure, are a few shots of the honest-to-goodness rodeo of Houston, Texas.

Reliant Stadium.

The stadium is ENORMOUS.  This is early on; things got crowded later.  

Logan brought his new zoom lens (thanks, Andy!) and was able to get in pretty close for some good shots.  Here's calf-roping - the calf gets a rope around it to slow it down, then the cowboy leaps off the horse and pile-drives the calf preparatory to wrapping three of its legs up in a sling.

Did I mention they do this in somewhat less than ten seconds?  (Tuf Cooper won the round; I think he roped the calf in 8.8.)

There was bronco riding, both bareback and saddled (what beautiful animals!) and then some crazy people jumped up on bulls to ride them.  Right.

We even saw Colt McCoy from the Amazing Race get thrown off a bull!  Please don't tell me if he and his brother have been thrown off this season yet - we haven't gotten to the last couple of episodes.

And then a bunch of high schoolers were thrown out into the arena and lined up.  BRING OUT THE CALVES!

 This is called a "calf scramble", and I can see why.  If you get a calf, I think you win a scholarship?  The announcers, for all their yammering, didn't actually tell us why grabbing a calf in the calf scramble is so important (I mean, defeating your opponents, sure, but what do you GET?  Pride?).

This kid held this calf by the tail for a good three minutes.  

At the very end, we got to see my favorite rodeo event - the mutton busting!

Think bronco busting, but replace the bronco with a fluffy sheep and the cowboy with, well, a mini-cowboy or cowgirl.  These kids are YOUNG.  And tiny.  And we saw more than one child get completely bulldozed by a clumsy sheep.

Lookit that grip!  And the rodeo clown, ready to step in at the first hint of trouble.

The Houston Rodeo.  What an awesome goodbye to Texas.

 

The Kountry Bakery of Schulenburg TX

Care for a kolache?

Yup, you're not having a fever-dream - this is a post!  And that means we're back!

Actually, to be completely fair, we've been back since late Sunday.  But then I got sick again, and Logan immediately went back to working 14 hour days.  Le sigh.

(More talking and pastry porn after the jump.)

Der Lindenbaum and Enchanted Rock

What better way to follow a heavy German meal, including fried slabs of meat and double scoops of potato salad, than with a hike up the second-largest exposed granite dome in the US? When it's 103 degrees outside?

I know! We couldn't think of one either, which is why we spent a day last week eating at Der Lindenbaum in Fredericksburg, TX, and then hiking up Enchanted Rock.  This was all work-related, of course - Logan was scouting the park for his job, and I tagged along.

I've been wanting to go to Der Lindenbaum for a while.  It's supposed to be the best German food in Fredericksburg, a German settlement about 80 miles west of Austin.  Fredericksburg retains a bit of its German heritage, mostly in a smattering of restaurants, but seems to make its living now on weekend tourists from Austin and San Antonio - at least if the huge array of shops on Main Street is any indication.

On to Der Lindenbaum.  The place is very dainty and quaint and looks like it should be serving tea and scones.  We were the youngest people in there until a couple in their early 20s came in with their two very young screechy kids.