Today I have eggs in the refrigerator and a half a loaf of bread along with some grated cheese in the freezer.  Therefore I will be making an omelet for lunch.  I guess I’ll need to make a foray into the grocery store this afternoon and at least pick up some bread and lunch meat or something like that.

I used to be pretty good at meal planning back when the kids were home.  I was also much much closer to the grocery store (1 mile vs 6 miles now).  When my son got past the age of 5 and started to consume mass quantities of food, it was pretty easy.  Just keep adding stuff to the cart, it will get eaten.

Now with just my husband and I, it’s much harder.  I hate throwing food out.  Perishables only last a few days  and often they come in such large batches, it’s difficult to buy for 2 people who aren’t going to scarf down all of it quickly.  I’d be better off in the city with a grocery store nearby.  It would suit me very well to be able to walk to the store every other day or so and buy a few things.  Far better than this once a week deal for the main part of my shopping and then side trips to pick up extras. Especially when the “best” time for me to pick up extras is in the morning when I head over to Starbucks for my coffee.  Not being a morning person, I will often shrug and forget it because I don’t feel like making the extra stop at that time of day.  Then later I don’t feel like making the extra drive… it’s a no win situation.

Somehow I don’t think I’m ever gonna get the hang of this business of being far from the store.

I love the Extra Sharp New York Cheddar by Applegate Farms.  It’s one of my most favorite cheeses ever.  It’s sliced so it’s easy to use to make a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s easy to break into pieces and eat with crackers.  For that matter, it’s easy to break it into pieces and eat all by itself while sipping a glass of wine. It’s white – no food coloring to make it look yellow.  It’s on the creamier side for texture (I’m sure they make it that way on purpose to be able to slice it)  but it has that lovely extra sharp bite to it.  Delightful.  It’s also on the expensive side – there are only about 8 slices in a package.

I buy it from Whole Foods which seems to be the only store where I regularly shop to carry it (well I did find it in one other store, but that’s about 10 miles in the opposite direction of anyplace else I go).  WF doesn’t always have it.  So after several weeks of no cheese to be found, leaving the store every week with that desolate feeling of having only mediocre cheese to eat… I was delighted to find it back in stock last Sunday when I did my weekly shopping.  I bought 2 packages.  I would have bought more if I could find a way to keep it fresh without having to freeze it.  As it stands, even 5 days was a little too much this time.

Naturally I opened one package immediately and proceeded to polish it off this week.  It was lovely.  Today I went to open the second package… Somehow from the time I picked it up in the store and got it into my refrigerator, the seal had broken on the packaging, it was no longer airtight.  I looked at all the lovely cheese… all the lovely blue/green colored cheese.  Yes, it had mold all over it.  There was air and condensation in the package. My heart sank.

I wanted to cry.  All my lovely cheese – all the wrong color.  For about 20 seconds I considered the possibility of salvaging some of it, but decided the probable intestinal complications were not worth the effort.  I put it into the freezer (where all the “old” food goes before being taken out in the trash at the end of the week) .

*sigh*  I guess I have to wait until Sunday and hope for the best.  I will be carefully checking any other packages I find.  I can’t deal with the trauma of having to get rid of any more of my favorite cheese.  We shall hope for the best.

We’ve had so little rain lately, everything is brown and the leaves are even falling.  While I rather wish it would have waited until night, I’m not too unhappy to see the wet stuff.  It does make me think a bit about what to make for dinner though – how much extra work to put food on the table.  While the weather is warm, we cook out on the grill as much as possible.  The stove is used very very little in our house during the summer.

So I asked my husband.  He’s the one who stands outside and cooks,  I do the indoor stuff.  He was okay with cooking on the grill.  Therefore it’s pork chops for dinner.  Yay!  We do enough indoor cooking in winter.  The hope is that there is no major downpour while the meat is cooking.  Otherwise, there should be no problem.

I would never make it as a chef.  I admire chefs greatly.  I am just too damned lazy.  What I want is for someone else to make the food and I get to eat it.  In the summer I get half my wish since my husband does the grill work.  Now I’ve started to wander with this short commentary.  I think it’s time for a nap before I open some wine and contemplate the end of Sunday.

We were only in San Antonio for about a day and a half.  This didn’t leave much time for hitting up lots of restaurants.  One thing to remember about any restaurant on the River Walk, if you eat outside, the service will be very slow.  I heard this from others, so was moderately prepared for it when we did eat outside the first night.  We ate at the Hotel Valencia’s Restaurant.  They had outstanding guacamole made fresh at the table (this seems to be a staple of most restaurants down there and I like it!).  The rest of the meal was okay, but that may be because I decided to experiment and had some sort of thing with duck in it.  I have decided I am not a huge fan of duck – so the dish may have been perfectly wonderful for someone who likes duck.

We had a great view of the river while eating, along with an empty building across the river from us.  We spent a good deal of time speculating what might have occupied the place over the many years.  It was kinda fun but even that wore out after a little while.  We saw all kinds of taxi barges going past and many of them were carrying people who were having dinner while floating down the river.  My only problem with this, the boats have to go under bridges… there is no canopy or anything… um… no.  Although the people on the boats seemed to like it.  There was even one “romantic” cruise that went by with only a single couple on the boat.  Special occasion I think. If you’re going to eat outside, it is best done with a group of people who have a great deal to talk about.  That would pass the time much faster while waiting for food.

The following evening, after a fun filled day at the Alamo, we decided to ask the concierge for a recommendation.  He got us a table at Boudros.  We did have to wait once we got there because we decided to do an inside table this time.  (HUGE difference in speed of service).  The food was great and although I don’t remember what I had (sad I only seem to remember stuff I don’t like!).  I know I really want to go back there again.

When we left we decided to walk along the Riverwalk and got all turned around.  It’s very confusing down there and you can walk quite a distance if you go the wrong way.  So we did have an excellent post meal bit of exercise.  About the time we finally found our way to street level we decided we wanted a drink.  We were walking back toward our hotel and we did NOT want to get back on the Riverwalk.  That’s when we happened by Zinc.

What a fabulous little place.

We never did figure out exactly how it worked.  We were in the bar area which looked to be self contained.  But there were double glass doors at the back and people sitting at tables to eat in the room behind the bar.  However, the entire time we were there, no one walked through those doors either entering or leaving.  Hmmm.   Oh well  – we had a fantastic waiter who told us that Zinc is owned by the people who own Boudros.  Okay that’s 2 for 2 in excellent goodness.  Great atmosphere, not headbangingly loud, a couple of corner tv’s. and excellent drinks… what more could you want?  Well, we found out they also serve food.  Damn!  We weren’t hungry but we still ordered an appetizer.

Next time.  Next time we head down that way we want to hit all these places again.  They were terrific.  This is why I like to go places even though the travel gods do not like me.

If you are not really into head banging music or you are older than college age – 4th Street in the Warehouse district may be more fun for you.  While it is widely known that 6th Street is the party street, I’m a bit past the early 20′s.  A stroll down the street at night finds it to be a very amusing place indeed, but I prefer to hang out in a more sedate environment.  YMMV.

First if you are ever in Austin, you simply must go to Fado’s.  It’s an Irish pub and if you love fish and chips – they have the very best.  I have no idea how they make their batter, but it’s so light and crispy it’s incredible.  We were there on a Thursday evening late after a very long day of travel.  It wasn’t crowded – we were really lucky.  I’m so glad we got there and I certainly plan on going back again.  For that matter they have one in Chicago and I may try to see if that one is as good as Austin. Then again most people would be very happy with a nice pint of Guiness on tap.  I had a pinot grigio because I don’t like beer.  (leaves more for those who do). But the fish and chips – outstanding!

The next place we wandered into was on Friday night.  We had thought about going back to Fado’s for a drink, but it was packed to the gills.  So we turned around and walked back to Pe´che´ .  Yes, an Absinthe bar.  Of course they had many many other drinks.  My husband ordered one that was Gin and 2 other types of Chartreuse.  I tasted it and it was fabulous – very unexpected.  We also had a couple of their appetizers and they were delicious.   Yet another place we both thought – we need to come back here again!

On Saturday night we really splurged.  We asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation of a great local steak house.  He recommended Perry’s which has a few Texas locations, but isn’t a national chain. We each had an excellent steak dinner (because what is the point of going to TEXAS if you don’t eat at least one steak while you’re there!).  I ordered a dessert – something I seldom do – chocolate mousse.  It was more like chocolate ice cream (too heavy to be considered a mousse) but it was very good.  Our table was in a room that was a former bank vault – really pretty cool.  Excellent wait staff and live music at the bar.  All in all it was a terrific place with great food – but not for the faint of wallet.

So those are the highlights of eating in Austin over 3 days.  We aren’t the biggest eaters on the planet so we missed much.  We want to go back and go out to one of the places like a blues bar or something like that. It just didn’t happen this time.

Yes, we will go back.

My husband and I were talking.  We both grew up with mothers who would have been right at home in the kitchen with the recipes from James Lilek’s Gallery of Regrettable Food.  Not exactly haute cuisine.  Both of our mothers would buy corn on the cob, shuck them, break them in half and drop them in boiling water until they were over cooked to the max.  We had no idea how good corn on the cob could be until we finally bought our first little grill about 3 years after we were married.  It was a Smokey Joe.  (almost 30 years later it looks nearly the same as the one we bought all those years ago).

I don’t exactly remember, but I think in the little cookbook that came with the grill – they had instructions for grilling corn in the husk.  We didn’t have much money back then, so this was a real leap of faith to spend money on food and cook it in a way we never had before.  However, the results blew away expectations and all these years later, we are happy to see corn in season.

Gotta love it when it’s so easy to get great food with so little effort.

I was trying to be discrete while taking pictures… didn’t want to freak anyone out.  So they didn’t turn out to be the best shots ever, but they aren’t bad.

While we were in San Antonio, we stumbled across a terrific deli called Shilo’s near the Riverwalk.  It was such a great place we have actually considered heading back down to SA just to go eat brunch there again.  It’s been around forever and if I recall correctly it has been in the current building since the 1940′s.   I mean, just have a look at the deli case!

They have the always great looking tin ceiling tiles.

I kinda laughed at the microwave – it looked so out of place there.

Loved loved loved the old floor tiles.

And the wood booths.

And they make their very own home made Root Beer.  It’s been YEARS since I’ve had root beer.  I have to say it was delicious.  We went for brunch then we went back later in the day just to have the root beer.  We just may have to go back again because when it comes to vacation, it’s all about the food.

To start back up, I’m going to throw out a couple of excellent links.

First we have Suzette presenting us with a step by step biscuit recipe with pictures put together by LeeAnn.

This created a furor of cooking on the part of Mr. Bingley who threw together a very yummy looking recipe involving scallops. (I love love love scallops)

Now, with just a little extra thought I hope to come up with some food type posts.  We shall see.  Of course it might be that I once again run out of time and my poor little food blog will languish.  We’ll hope not.

Ho-Hum

Of course these are all the rage right now.

Goji berries might be good for what ails you

Also known as the “wolfberry and the “matrimony vine,” goji berries are the fruit of a woody perennial from China. They’ve been a mainstay of traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years.

As they say, go read the rest. You shouldn’t be surprised to see China being mentioned prominently.  According to those who are into all this stuff, China is the place of miracles.  If we just did everything they did in old Chinese medicine, we’d all live to be 1001 at least.

Makes me tired.

However, the Whole Foods store where I shop sells Dark chocolate covered Goji Berries.  They are very very good.  They taste like dark chocolate covered raisins. Of course if they didn’t have the chocolate, I would never have bothered to buy them.  Now I’ll have to wonder if I am getting the health benefits from the berries or the chocolate… what a dilemma!

I have no idea why, but I always have a hard time finding capers in the store.  I know which aisle the stockers use. I even know the approximate location within said aisle.  Yet the few times a year when I want to grab a jar, it takes me over 5 minutes to find them.

They blend.

They are always located with the pickles and olives.   The jars are small.  For some reason I tend to look right past them.  The longer I look, the less I see them. The more irritated I become.  It gets to the point that I must make myself start at the top shelf and specifically look at each and every jar until I finally see them.

Of course I know they were hiding behind jars of olives the first 15 times I looked, yet when I have to make the laborious effort to look at every jar, they sudden sneak out of hiding and are sitting on the shelf as if they’ve been there all along.

With all the new techno-gadgetry out there, I think we need to come up with little tags for these hard to find items.  The homing signal can be coded into your cell phone.  As you waive the phone over the face of the shelves, it rings when it goes directly past the item you are looking for.  Think how much time it would save.

Of course I could always not buy capers.  Just leave them on the shelf.  But I do like them in certain dishes.  At least I have a new jar as of today.  I don’t have to worry about it for a while. In the meantime, I should “write an app for that”.  Heh.