A Day at the Park

Bastrop State Park has gone all high-tech. Is nothing sacred?!?

Okay, so it's not actually high-tech, but they've reorganized the trail system since I was last there several years ago. The trails are all color-coded now, with signposts at each intersection indicating that, to stay on the red trail, you keep to the left. The blue trail is off to your right. The signposts have park maps with each trail indicated by a colored line. It's just like the Metro, only less expensive, and with slightly better odds of reaching your final destination, assuming you're trying to get back to your car.

They also have a cabin camping area. Cabins? We checked them out after our walk, driving among them slowly, scoping out our picks for some future weekend visit. Let me tell you what, those are some nice cabins. They are bigger than my house. They have fireplaces, too, and curtains. I haven't gone camping in several years now, but my dad used to take me all the time, so I know there are certain things that are a part of camping and certain things that are not a part of camping. Camping involves things like canned vegetables, Tang, collapsible 5-gallon water jugs, and (God help us all) pit toilets. It emphatically does not include curtains.

I've always hated pit toilets. I'm intrigued.

"Where would you recommend," asked my companion in the park office as he bought a year pass, "a good barbecue place in Bastrop?"

There was such a long silence that I wasn't sure the staffer had heard him. Finally her coworker piped up. "It's not a hard choice," she said, "there's only two."

"Billy's and Cartwright's," added the woman helping us at last.

"I saw Cartwright's as we were driving in," I said helpfully to my friend.

"Yeah," said the woman who had first spoken, "Cartwright's has a really big sign."

This didn't really strike either of us as a ringing endorsement. "So where would you go for barbecue?" pressed my friend.

There was another long pause. "Lockhart. I'd drive to Lockhart," they chorused.

Or Elgin, they went on to add, so we had dinner at Meyer's Barbecue there. I'd been to Southside Market once before, a year ago, on my work group's fam tour of Central Texas; and I thought it was really quite good, although a coworker of my friend's and mine, who lives in Elgin, was outraged that the tour took us there instead of Meyer's, which she insists is much better. So we checked out Meyer's, and I have to say, their sausage (for which Elgin is so well-known) really is tasty. At least I liked it, and I don't like sausage. But you can't go wrong with Southside Market either. I had a side of creamed corn and discovered that my companion thinks creamed corn is an abomination, which is something of a pity, as creamed corn, from a can, falls rather firmly into the things-that-go-with-camping camp.

But that's okay - so do marshmallows, a fact I don't have a problem with as long as the marshmallows are slowly immolated in flames until they drip, sizzling in sugary agony, into the glowing embers. Then you eat the chocolate and give the graham crackers to your kids: that's my recipe for S'Mores.

Happy New Year! 2010 is off to a good start. I'm looking forward to doing some camping.

To Explore New Cuisines

When I'm out with a group of fun and funny people, in the midst of a spirited conversation, I often wish I had a notebook in front of me - as opposed to a Young's double chocolate stout, which tastes better, but has sort of the opposite effect. There was a major disagreement on the merits of Kirk vs. Picard, I'm sorry to say. I'm not quite sure who won.

Last night Kevin and I met up with a handful of the band's other friends to see Gilmer and Moore play at Fiddler's Hearth, a new Irish restaurant in the former Bennigan's on Barton Springs. Fiddler's Hearth is a chain too, but it's pretty cool, and I hope it hasn't doomed itself by moving into the space that was originally the very first Night Hawk. Some locations are just cursed, and that's all there is to it.

We used to eat lunch at Bennigan's every once in a while, though it was never a favorite - it was just within easy walking distance of the office. That's a chain whose star had set by the end of the 80's, same way Steak and Ale should have closed its doors for good on December 31, 1979, instead of decades later.

Fiddler's Hearth hasn't changed up the space much, except that the bar no longer reigns supreme from its raised dais in the center of the restaurant, but is instead huddled back in an out-of-the-way corner. The center area has some tables and chairs and a small stage, all of which look as if they might rather be somewhere else. The "Bennigan's" inlaid in mosaic tile at the entrance has a rug thrown over it. The place doesn't look finished.

The food is an improvement, both tasty and educational, and sent me to Wikipedia this morning to learn more about such goodies as shepherd's pie, boxty, and colcannon - and the source of my man problems as well, apparently. My dinner was a boxty, a large potato pancake folded omelet-like over a filling of steak strips and sauteed onions and peppers. I think the boxty would be more authentically, if less appetizingly, served by itself, because if you can afford meat, you don't go around inventing potato pancakes, do you? Still, it was very good, and I'm really wanting to go back again sometime soon for the weekend brunch buffet. How often do you eat a savory mash of cabbage, onions and potatoes with bits of bacon mixed in to start your day? Not that often, I bet. But frankly, I'm kind of tired of breakfast tacos.

Colcannon is traditionally served at Halloween with prizes hidden in it, and if you get the ring in your portion, you'll be married within the year; if you get the coin, you'll make money, and so on. That assumes you don't choke to death on the favor, which is generally regarded as bad luck and very rude to your host besides.

Fortunately we all survived last night's dinner and had a wonderful time too, because the music was great as always and the conversation was hilarious. I wish I could remember more of it.

For External Use Only

One of the items I brought home from last week's fam trip was a 5-ounce bar of handcrafted orange vanilla goat's-milk soap. I haven't put it in the bathroom because I don't want anybody else using it. I might take it to San Angelo with me. But actually I'm troubled by the faint stirrings of a temptation to eat the stuff, because doesn't it sound scrumptious? It sure smells good.

What's with this trend of increasingly edible-sounding personal hygiene products? One of the stops we made on our trip was at a spa - not for treatment, more's the pity, but simply to tour the facilities. They gave us a menu of the services they offer. Many of them involve food in some capacity - massaged into your skin, lathered on your hair, cupped over your eyelids; exfoliating, defoliating, moisturizing, replenishing, rejuvenating, and God-only-knows what else. Just don't eat it.

Men aren't big spa frequenters, are they?

I'm off to San Angelo tomorrow after lunchtime, and won't be back till late Thursday. I'm bringing a bottle of champagne with me - either to celebrate the results of the election, or else to drown my sorrows; we'll find out soon, won't we?

If things get really bad I'm eating the soap.

Making a Difference

We had the most awful time at dinner last night.

Well, I hope not everyone did. I did, because it was a work function, and I had planned it, and it didn't come out well. I won't name the restaurant. But it's a well-known local establishment with an excellent reputation, and I made the arrangements without any doubts about the quality of the service or the food.

Both, as it turned out, were awful. The servers were friendly and pleasant, but seemed very inexperienced, and were unfamiliar with the menu or with basic techniques for formal serving (serve from the left, remove from the right - exceptions are always allowed based on circumstances, but to splay out your arms and plop down two plates at a time, in locations where the diners have to grab them and scootch them into position, is not really kosher when the setting is supposed to be elegant), and also had to be prompted to begin taking orders, to begin serving coffee after dinner, and to begin serving dessert - which they were unaware was included in our catering package (the standard one). No plates came with the bread, so the tablecloths got pretty crumby.

These are just little things. But larger problems included the fact that some people's vegetables were cold on the bottom, that every steak served, regardless of the doneness specified, was between rare and medium-rare, and that (only) the first table served dessert was not given a choice of which of the two desserts on our pre-selected menu they would prefer. Or that the conference coordinator got missed for dessert altogether, so that two of her tablemates, on two different occasions, had to chase down a waiter to get it for her, and that it finally arrived after everyone else had finished and people were beginning to leave. Or that we never got spoons to stir the coffee. My table never got cream, so I didn't need a spoon anyway.

All that said, the biggest problem of all was that the manager on duty would not see us. Things had gone wrong, and the head waitress was very apologetic and visibly squirming, but wasn't in any position to do anything to help. We asked to see the manager; after being gone for ten minutes, the waitress returned to say, miserably, that the manager was just too busy with a table downstairs - but that she was the assistant manager and would be able to help with any issues.

That's really the part that gets me, I think. Screw up as much as you like, but to send someone to face the music who can't do anything about it is really chickenshit.

So we ended up just paying our bill and leaving. Still there was an ugly scene on the phone today with the restaurant manager, who was naturally very angry and belligerent.

Why is that, I wonder? I guess the assumption is that we're a bunch of cheapskates trying to weasel out of the bill. Frankly, I would have been much happier paying it if she had just rephrased things a little, in a different tone of voice.

Try this:

"Oh, no. I am so sorry it didn't work out for you. We really try to make a good experience for all our guests, and I hate to hear that we fell short of expectations. I couldn't be there last night. Because we waived your room rental" [according to their website, there is a $600 room rental for Friday and Saturday nights, and every day in December; so I had assumed there wasn't one for a Wednesday in October - but never mind], "and only charged you for the 38 entrees we actually served rather than the 45 you guaranteed" [this one's a legitimate, and duly appreciated, point], "I really can't waive any of the costs. I'm so sorry you had a bad experience. I wish I could do something to make it up to you, only I'm just not able to. I really hope you'll give us another chance."

Not this (more or less a paraphrase of what she actually said):

"So what exactly is it that you want? Look, I apologize. But you had my best staff last night, so I don't see how it could have been that bad. We waived the room rental for you. We only charged you for the 38 dinners we served instead of the 45 you guaranteed. I don't see what else I could possibly do for you, and based on what you're saying, it doesn't sound like you want gift certificates. Look, you got your room, you got your food. I guess I can talk to the owner again about it, but I don't really see the point. What, really, are you complaining about?"

Whatever. We had already paid it; the money isn't the issue, the issue is going back to my division director (whose husband, alas! ordered his steak medium well) and saying, I'm sorry. I picked this place. I thought it was a good idea. It turned out I made a mistake, but we did what we could.

I don't know if it's a decision, really, to be the type of person the manager is - a collection-agent-type, I'd say on first blush, someone who would be comfortable calling up complete strangers and demanding money in a belittling tone. Or someone like me, too far in the other direction, apologetic and afraid of stirring things up and making trouble, to the detriment not only of myself but of people who depend on me. I just know that every decision we make sends little ripples out one way or another, through our friends or our coworkers or our contacts with strangers through anything like a random "hello" on the hike-and-bike trail to a blog which not all that many people read.

All I've really figured out so far is to try to do the best I can, as much of the time I can, and hope that something, anything will make some kind of difference. It's not much of a revelation.

Everything will probably make more sense after dinner.

Wichita Falls

Why is it, do you think, that people are always in such a gigantic hurry to get on the plane? It's not like sitting around in an airplane seat, contemplating battery-powered dirigibles from Skymall, is such great shakes.

Yet everybody always crowds around the departure gate, jockeying for position before the boarding call even starts. People sneak on before their row number is called, or try to pass themselves off as minors traveling alone despite the fact they clearly aren't a day under 53.

I'd assume it was just that airports are so soulless and horrible that no one can possibly wait to get out of them, but everybody's in just as much of a hurry to get off the plane once it lands. The new airport isn't going to be any better than the one you left behind, people. Especially if you're flying into Dallas.

This, on the other hand, is a fairly cool way to travel:

I won't shout "PT Cruiser bruiser!" and punch you in the arm, partly because that's, like, SO 2003, but mostly because I'm not there. But I will tell you that, on the drive from Dallas to Wichita Falls today, I blew the doors off of not one, but two (count 'em! Two!) Corvettes. You heard me.

For some odd reason, their drivers appeared to be observing the speed limit.

The countryside around here is very pretty, though, not flat like Amarillo, and not rocky and scrubby like San Angelo. They've had lots of rain lately, and it's green; the pink dirt is red with moisture, and the gentle, rolling, white-fenced, tree-dotted hills of the horse country between Dallas and here remind me a bit of rural northern Virginia.

The Wichita - about a mile north of those magnificent falls here - is pretty, too.


I tried to get my boss to go to dinner at Fat Bastard Steakhouse ("Fat" McBride's, whatever) but she felt she'd had just about enough steak, and we ended up going to Red Lobster. Nothing else evokes the unique, regional flavor of the Oklahoma border quite like seafood, you know?

No complaints, though. I was up at 5 this morning. This is the most appealing sight I've seen all day.

That's Nae Ordinary Rabbit

I forgot to mention that, in addition to its own little playa lake, the facility we were inspecting in Amarillo had lots and lots of bunnies: happy little brown ones, roaming the grounds, enjoying the shade of the shrubs, and generally just being wiggly-nosed and cute. They're wild bunnies, but the supervisor there feeds them carrots in the mornings. They aren't particularly afraid of people.

A striking feature of that facility is a normally dry arroyo, attractively lined with decomposed granite and multicolored river rock. During a rainstorm it carries runoff. Footbridges cross it from the parking lot to the building entrances. The bunnies hop up and down the rock banks of the dry arroyo and sometimes spread themselves out in the sun - "they look like they're dead," remarked the supervisor, pointing out an unusually flat specimen of lagomorphy baking on the gravel. She told us that once an outraged visitor approached her, demanding to know if she had imprisoned the bunnies down in the arroyo.

"You do feed them," I pointed out, and she was forced to agree that her behavior is essentially enabling. It's elementary psychology that the best way to ensnare someone is to give them everything they want, right? Elementary human psychology, anyway. I assume it also works on rabbits. In so many cases, there's very little distinction.

Meanwhile, back at the office, a coworker found that news travels fast. Several of the other facilities we supervise called in yesterday to request backup files and paperwork - oh, no reason! - and, in one case, to mention oh-so-casually that they had some minor damage they'd been unable to repair due to budget cuts. None of them seemed surprised to be told that my boss and I weren't in. The internal communications issues the agency is so plagued with aren't really a problem in my division.

I have to revise, slightly, my positive review of the Ambassador. The hotel was certainly comfortable enough, and the wireless signal was nice and strong - and free! But unless you're on the concierge level, breakfast is typically hotel-overpriced and limited; and I think they have some serious issues with their plumbing. Yesterday morning I stepped out of the shower into a full inch of water on the bathroom floor. I saw the ceiling next to the top of the shower stall wet and sagging, and large droplets of water inside the adjacent light fixture - a pipe leading to the showerhead appears to have a major leak. I described it to the clerk as I was checking out, and she smiled and nodded and thanked me for letting her know, but didn't write it down, and went on with the next client as I was leaving.

And I'm sorry to report that, due to extreme exhaustion, my boss and I ate dinner Wednesday at the featureless chain restaurant off the hotel lobby. I got a steak, but it was very salty. The next morning we had breakfast at Roasters, a coffeehouse which would like to be like Dominican Joe, but needs to make its coffee a lot stronger. Also the staff there doesn't know how to pronounce the word "scone" (it rhymes with "gone," people).

Lunch yesterday, though, was at Outlaws Supper Club, a somewhat ironically-named little dive with vinyl tablecloths and a dirt parking lot next to the railroad tracks. They are elegant enough to have wine - three kinds, in fact! They have white, red, and pink. The burgers are big and greasy and served on Texas Toast instead of a bun, and the onion rings are actually very good.

Isn't traveling fun? That's about all I have to tell you about Amarillo, since I didn't get to see much. I have two more trips coming up this month, but where I'm going is a secret.

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to sic the bunnies on you.

Marshmallows: No

I just read this Yahoo feature on Thanksgiving side dishes.

All right, fess up: who likes marshmallows?

I don't have too much problem with most other foods, using that term loosely. I think Wonder Bread is gross, but I don't care if you eat it. Cheez Whiz? Ick! Don't eat it when I'm around, and I'll pretend not to know. Cilantro sets off my gag reflex. You like it? Please, buy it all! Cool Whip? What's wrong with you?! Eat whipped cream fer crissakes! Why would you schlep a big glob of trans-fat on - oh, fine, do whatever you want. Eggplant is eh: not inedible, but given a choice, I'd rather eat Kraft mac-and-cheese, sorry. And you all know my fond, irrational feelings on candy corn.

But marshmallows are an abomination.

How can you eat these things? Not to say that they have no purpose. You can take them camping. You can poke them on the ends of sharp sticks and set fire to them. You can watch, mesmerized, as they dissolve gradually into blue and pink and lavender flames;* I don't think iceberg lettuce would do that, though you can always give it a try.

And why would you contaminate a perfectly good Thanksgiving side dish with the gelatinous little bastards? Sweet potatoes are yummy. You can chop them up and bake them in brown sugar syrup. You can mash them. I suppose you could even sautee them. They're good with turkey, gravy and stuffing, if (to be perfectly honest) a little redundant with the mashed potatoes. But if you can't have redundancy at an orgiastic holiday feast, when can you? Grandma always made up for this by also serving soybeans. Eat your soybeans! You never know when you might suffer from a wax shortage.

But marshmallows? No. They are not tasty and they are not good for you. They make hot chocolate slimy and undrinkable; they convert S'mores into S'Lesses. Rice Krispie treats? Whatever. Just try to tell me those have any nutritional value whatsoever. You might as well eat spray insulation.

Under attack next week: football. What is with you people?!?

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*Food rule #1: If it turns pastel when you set fire to it, it isn't food.

Perspectives

3MBGer Jason returned to work today after a three-week European vacation. His (clean) oatmeal bowl is still soaking in the sink, but I don't think he's noticed it just yet.

He brought in his flash drive with a couple hundred pictures from the trip. Many of them were of magnificent cathedrals and castles in Prague, Warsaw, Krakow; but the things he photographed most plentifully and with the most gusto were meals: from breakfast with a Heineken on a Berlin-Warsaw flight (because it was 2am according to his internal clock), to wurst and kraut and schnitzel and kochen and lots of other things I wasn't able to identify, but which looked pretty yummy nonetheless.

"Oh, look, look at this one," Jason said, showing us several shots of a cream-cheese-and-raspberry-bedecked pastry. "This is the best crepe I ever tasted!"

"I guess it was," I laughed, "you only took four pictures of it!"

"Five," corrected 3MBG newbie Ernest, standing in the cubicle behind me, as Jason clicked on.

"Six," he added.

Now I'm all hungry. I have to say, though. Who would have figured someone who eats that much oatmeal for an epicure?

I don't think it would occur to me, if I were traveling overseas, to take very many photographs of food. This is not to say that it isn't a good idea; it's just something I probably wouldn't do. Jason did have pictures of some other things, too, though; he had a great many cathedrals, many of which he clicked past somewhat impatiently, with little comment. "You saw a lot of cathedrals in Europe," remarked Ernest.

"Yeah," said Jason. "Too many."

In one cathedral in Prague, he took a beautiful photograph of the magnificent pipe organ, and I was reminded of someone else's European pictures: an old boyfriend of mine from college, a professional church organist who had studied in Prague and Vienna. "I think I've seen that one!" I exclaimed. "I used to date a guy who probably played on it. See, you went around taking a bunch of pictures of what you ate. But he only liked to take pictures of his organ!"

The others backed away from me slightly.

If I ever get to go to Europe, won't you be interested to see what catches my eye?