Good morning, kinder let me sleep in so she could watch tv this am. Tricksy hobbitses.
77F and 83%RH. It sounds cool, and feels cool, but you sweat in an instant when you start working. And the sweat runs off your nose…
Still, better than 96F with the same RH.
Now I better feed her and spruce the place up before the return of the other two fems from GS camp……
n
Had a great anniversary dinner yesterday at One Fifth Houston with the wife, celebrating 39 years of marriage.
One Fifth is the fine dining restaurant started by James Beard winner Chris Shepard of Underbelly. He took over the space formerly occupied by Mark’s American, a well regarded modern American place. He signed a five year lease and decided to do five different restaurants. He opened as “One Fifth Steak”, a classic steak house with a Houston spin. Then, each July 31, they close, redecorate, and open on September 1 as a different concept. Now in year two, it is “One Fifth Romance”: food from Spain, France, and Italy. We had our anniversary dinner last year when it was a steak house and enjoyed it immensely.
This year was also a touchdown (one of his partners is Texans player Whitney Mercilus). Many of the items on the menu are small plates so we ordered a bunch of items. We started with a bottle of Champagne, Goutorbe-Bouillot ‘Carte D’Or’. Then came a king crab Louis salad with a lemon aioli, cherry tomatoes, capers, and chives presented in a (clean) sardine can. The flavors were very clean, with nothing overwhelming the crab. This was followed by charred octopus on a celery root salad with hazlenut romesco, a salsa verde, and a squid chicharone. The octopus was amazingly tender, you could easily cut it with a fork.
Next was a plate of 20 month prosciutto with stracciatella cheese, a hazelnut agrodolce, and flatbread. The serving was huge, three large piles of the shaved meat easily a quarter pound. All the components worked well. Call it cold Italian nachos. Our last starter was a raviolo al uovo. A classic dish of a large ravioli filled with ricotta and egg yolk. Topped with brown butter, sage, and walnuts. You cut it open and the yolk mixes with the toppings to make a great, rich sauce.
We finished the Champagne and at the waiter’s suggestion, we got a bottle of Hogl “Schon” Federspiel, an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. If you haven’t had that wine, it is like a Sauvignon Blanc with the grapefruit/sour notes turned way down. A mineral, crisp wine with some fruit notes. It was strong enough to stand up to our main course.
For our main, we shared a paella. In a twist, instead of being on rice, we were presented with a large cast iron skillet filled with short fideua pasta, chorizo, clams, mussels, shrimp, and two huge king crab claws. This is the Catalan version of paella. The pasta worked just as well as rice and seemed lighter than the usual rice. The notes of lemon and saffron still were there, but not enough to overwhelm the shellfish. We ordered a side of brussels sprouts with crispy pig ears. The sprouts were quartered, lightly charred in an earthy sweet and sour sauce. The pig ears were thin, salty, and crispy strips which went really, really well with the sprouts.
For dessert, we ordered a croquembouche, a “tree” of cream puffs filled with an orange and anise cream, wedges of white chocolate in the tree, and all covered with a cloud of spun brown sugar. The orange and anise were done with a light hand. A great end to a great meal.
Service was attentive without being annoying. For all you ADBers, they have a huge selection of whiskeys and bourbons, including 5 single barrels done for them.
They then close July 31 and will reopen as “One Fifth Mediterranean” on September 1. The steakhouse concept was so well received, that Mr. Shepard and his investors are shaking up his restaurant group. Underbelly (“the story of Houston food”) will close at the end of the month and reopen a few blocks away as UB Preserve – a more casual place with a seasonal as opposed as daily menu. The Hay Market, his gastropub next to Underbelly, will pick up a few of the dishes from Underbelly and open for lunch. The Underbelly space will reopen as “Georgia James”, a steakhouse named for his parents. They had said that if the concepts at One Fifth worked, they might spin off into standalone places. So, I guess we helped beta test his steakhouse.
That sounds like one heck of a meal! Great way to mark a date.
While I was traveling for work, and on per diem, I ate about 700 meals a year in restaurants. Most of the dinners were in whatever the first or second best (accessible) restaurant in town was. Sometimes that meant Appleby’s. Sometimes Palm, or Morton’s, or the local equivalent. Eating well was our vice on the road, as strippers, drunkenness, gambling, and drugs had all paled as we got older. I even considered doing a food and drink blog, since I was eating out every night anyway.
Now that I’m home, we rarely go out (‘cuz kids at home), and when we do, we try to make it memorable. I’ll have to ask the wife about 1/5 instead of Brenners or one of the new places around Kirby….
nick
(eating out that much also meant I got a very skewed idea of what stuff should cost. $12 drink? HOORAY- bargain drink night!, $48 steak? guess it’s probably not gonna be epic… and I got food poisoned an average of 4-5 times a year. THAT sucked.)
ech, you are a great food critic! I want to go there and will add it to my list when i visit Houston in June.
But I am also in agreement with Nick. I find my own hearth and cooking of great comfort as i age….
What is an assault rifle?
In case you aren’t clear on the precise definition (I wasn’t), here is the Wikipedia entry.
36º and sunny here in the city by the Bay. Kinder spent a couple of hours at the high school pool – organized by the Parks department. It’s cold outside but that pool was warm and inviting.
Got some LTS flour packed away this weekend, and got some needed maintenance done.
Assault rifle – I find the following rather simple: A weapon that is well suited to assaulting a defensive position. A hunting rifle suitable for deer is not an assault weapon/rifle. An AK or AR is well suited, due to the configuration of the weapon. The most notable feature is the stock in line with the barrel, to prevent lifting. This makes repeatable fire at the same location possible. Everything else is simply window dressing.
And yes, the 2nd amendment applies to assault rifles/weapons as well as to anything else. If it ever comes to pass that we need to defend ourselves, we have the right to be able to defend ourselves.
Ah, feel the joy of the diversity, vibrant culture, quirky traditions.
“Parents choked, beat up and poured hot cooking oil on their daughter, 16, after she refused an arranged marriage”
” *16-year-old girl was beaten by parents after she refused an arranged marriage
*Maarib Al Hishmawi ran away from home in January and was found in March
*Her parents choked her, beat her up and poured hot cooking oil on her body
*The parents agreed to the arranged marriage in exchange for $20,000
*Al Hishmawi was placed under Child Protective Services custody along with her five siblings, who are between the ages 5 and 15″
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5542163/Parents-abused-daughter-16-refused-arranged-marriage.html
Note that Mom was 17 or thereabouts when she had the girl in question. This is in the western suburbs of San Antonio.
No mention of where the purchaser lives….
n
An update from The Home Scientist front: the new owner (Ben) has gotten all science kit stock (and refills) available again – and ready for immediate shipment.
The web site (as previously mentioned) is now ‘live’ at http://www.thehomescientist.com . All of the HTML on all pages were re-done and ‘modularized’ to make for easier updates of content and structure.
The support forum has been installed, but is not available yet. Ben needs to tweak the forums a bit (we’re using phpBB). But support is available through a contact form for now.
Ben is contemplating a blog/journal, but hasn’t made a decision yet.
But Huzzah! for all of his hard work continuing the work that Barbara and Robert started!
But Huzzah! for all of his hard work continuing the work that Barbara and Robert started!
And a much-deserved “Well done!” to Barbara and to you for perpetuating RBT’s legacy.
“When David Hogg’s fifteen minutes are up, we are wondering what careers he will be qualified for. Being a Leftwing human shield does age-out, you know”
demagogues can do a lot of damage before they’re put down. That kid volunteered to be the face of the faceless powers that be. He’s drunk with power and will inevitably go ‘off the reservation’ and they’ll discard him like a soiled tissue. (or in a way that furthers the cause. Look for a sniper after he pushes too far.)
N