Austin for the weekend

So we spent last night on the rooftop of a fabulous 1960's American condominium in Austin watching fireworks and drinking good champagne! A friend of ours from Australia was in town, teaching at the university of Texas in Austin (history professor) so we hopped on down to catch her while she was still in town. Perfect weekend for it as it turns out...not only did we manage to miss the tornado that ripped through a few days earlier, it was also UT's commencement ceremony that night. Commencement is actually graduation, but it's the huge ceremony that kicks off all the smaller more personalised graduations. What that meant for us though was Fireworks! And since everyone loves fireworks I thought I'd share the videos.

Everything in this country has a brand.


Only a tiny section of the seating that had been arranged for commencement. It was like being at the Vatican again!


The Austin campus is passionate about two things, the Longhorns (football) and churches. Nice combo here.


I made a friend who wanted to follow me around campus :)


Gorgeous fish stew and champagne dinner! I was in heaven. Jo had some lovely ravioli but boy did I get lucky :)


View of capitol hill from our 17th story rooftop. It's so lovely to get some height in Texas!


Turtles at the lake on Sunday morning as we went for our pre-shop-at-wholefoods walk.


Walking round Austin while the rain was threatening. This is looking back toward Capitol Hill and my favorite lotus-like skyscraper. Our State's capital eh?

(Dis)comfort

I went to the dentist today at the insistence of my beloved who says we must do these things when we have good health cover. Must we? Now I feel all uncomfortable because my teeth no longer appear to bite down on the places they used to bite down on! Gah.

Anyhow, comfort me with soup! So I'm making french onion soup Delia style (but without the bread as I still have a love-hate relationship with bread). Going to watch some sappy chick flick and just wallow for a while!

A truly Texan day

Firstly, Happy Birthday Alastair! I thought I'd try to get a post out today since I know you'll probably be checking the blog and for some unknown reason you're at work on your birthday! What's the point of retirement?

Our friend Harry, international man of mystery, came to visit us a few weeks ago on his way between China, where he had been living, and moving to Africa(!) Really he was in the US visiting his fiancée, but we got lucky for a brief window.

While he was here we thought we'd take him to some of our favorite truly Texan places, including Gruene, the little German town just outside San Antonio that has been "gently resisting change since 1872" and is home to the the oldest dance-hall in Texas (which had a rocking local bluegrass/folk band playing when we were there). We also took him downtown to La Tuna (the little tin shed pub that I've written about before) and Liberty Bar!

Not going to go on, this is just an excuse to post some Texan pics really :D

The Guadalupe river at Gruene. Milky blue/green from all the limestone. This is looking down from where we had lunch. There were a couple of big turtles climbing onto the rock, sunning themselves, then plopping back into the water.


Part of the fantastic collection of bar signs and lights at Gruene Hall.


Part of the charm of La Tuna is its location, near the flour mill and grain silos...and with the industrial train line basically running right through the place!


Harry and Josie at La Tuna drinking with our dear "true Texan" friend Tom.


La tuna...the cactus that gives our favorite watering hole its name.


Pecan trees and powerlines.


More powerlines just near La Tuna. It's a truly industrial part of town but for some reason we both really like it. Perhaps because it is less plastic or artificial than other parts of San Antonio...


Maude...what can I say. She was gently parked out the front of La Tuna by an immaculately dressed old man...they were an impressive pair and I fell for her at first sight.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's days to all you mothers, motherers, and caregivers in general!

America is saturated in it; husbands taking their sons out to buy bunches of flowers, ipod speakers, perfume gifts sets or, of course, sugary treats. Yep, in this country intentions of love, admiration and appreciation are baked and frosted. Swirls of icing prompt you with whatever words are required for the given celebration, literally sugar coated.

These were all taken today, in our local supermarket. Mum, I'd buy you one of the cupcakes if I could, but you'd want to have a shot of insulin on standby! Hope the pics will satisfy (the heart shaped ones are giant cookies!)





By the way, this post is not to belittle mother's day, just the commercial institution that has latched onto it...perhaps more pronounced here. Much love to all our mothers <3

Mushroom pâté

I just submitted this recipe to an online competition where the prize is a kilo of fresh morels. Not a bad prize but pretty unlikely. However, since I had it all written out I figured I'd post it here as well.

Divine wild mushroom pâté
I created this dish when a friend surprised me with a few pounds of morels and asked if I could create a three course feast to showcase them. The added twist being the entire meal had to be vegetarian!

Forget chicken livers, this pâté is simple to make, melts in your mouth and disappears within minutes of reaching the table. Best served with hot ciabatta toast.

1 cup dried wild mushrooms (porcini, shitake, chanterelle, lobster and oyster etc) – rehydrated and liquor reserved
2-3 cups of fresh mushrooms (cremini, shitake, oyster, morel etc) - sliced
4oz butter (1 stick)
2-3 cloves of garlic – crushed
¼ cup of sherry or white wine
½ cup cream
1 handful Italian flat leaf parsley and/or tarragon
Salt and plenty of cracked black pepper to season

Rinse the dried mushrooms to remove any residual grit. I use porcini for their amazing texture and shitake, chanterelle, lobster and oyster mushrooms for their rich flavor. Really any mushrooms will do but avoid using too many wood-ears because their texture is too gelatinous.

Cover with boiling water and allow to soak, then simmer them very gently for 10 minutes. Drain the rehydrated mushrooms but reserve the liquor as much of the rich flavor has been transferred there.

For the fresh mushroom, select your favorite combination. I primarily used morels when I had them, and bulked out with some milder cremini, white or honey brown mushrooms. When fresh morels are unavailable I use a mixture of fresh shitake, oyster and cremini mushrooms for the combination of tastes and textures.

Clean and roughly slice the mushrooms and cook them until they are nicely browned and reabsorbing their released moisture. Use at least half a stick of butter to sauté the mushrooms, if not more. The more butter the creamier the pâté and the better that cool, smooth mouth feel when it first hits the palate. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper as you cook them and add 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic towards the end of the browning process, so that the garlic doesn’t burn but remains a major player in the flavor stakes.

Deglaze the pan with sherry or white wine, depending on your preference. I like sweet sherry, especially if I’m going with a peppery pâté, but use white wine if you prefer a slightly lemony edge.

At this point you can turn the heat down to a happy simmer, add the rehydrated dried mushrooms, half a cup of good quality cream and a little of the mushroom liquor. Be careful not to add any of the sediment that may have settled at the bottom of the mushroom liquor because you don’t want any grit in the pâté.

Allow the whole mixture to simmer and infuse until the cream reduces. Use the mushroom liquor to stop the mixture reducing too much. It’s a balancing act but you want the mushrooms well coated in the cream mixture but not swimming in gravy. The cream mixture should thicken slightly. At this point add as much cracked black pepper as you can handle, and season with salt as required. Remove from the heat and continue to stir occasionally as it cools so you don’t get a skin forming.

Once the mixture is luke-warm, and a good handful of chopped Italian flat leaf parsley and/or fresh tarragon and blend the whole mixture in a food processor until smooth but not total paste; it should retain some fine mushroom texture. Taste and season again if required. Transfer to small serving bowls and top with cracked pepper and/or some more finely chopped herbs. Chill for a few hours or overnight then serve with hot ciabatta toast or on melba crackers.

Leftover pâté is also amazing when mixed through pasta as if it were a pesto, or a dollop can be added as the finishing touch to a creamy mushroom soup, or used as a filling in home made ravioli, and melted over a freshly grilled rib-eye…priceless.

You know, I think I might start posting more recipes here...hmmm

Grandvewe

So, Jo and I recently spent two weeks in Australia, mostly in Tassie, which turned out to be one of our worst traveling experiences to date! That doesn't mean we didn't have some fantastic times, because we sure did, and the wedding we went to (the point of the whole trip) was simply one of the most perfect wedding we have ever been to! The bad side of the trip is that we were both horrendously sick! I came down with everything from fevers to vomiting to migraine and spent more time crashed-out on various friends beds and couches than I did actually socialising with people! Jo wasn't much better off, and came crashing down just as I was getting better! Not what we traveled thousands of miles to do >_<

Ok peeps remember, just been horrendously sick, ya.

However, one of our most perfect days (aside from the wedding) was the very last day of the trip where we took a ride down the channel, through Snug and towards Woodbridge. Thems who know us know that this turf is near and dear to our hearts, so seeing the outcome of the Snug fires was pretty sobering. We'd been meaning to do this drive for the entire trip so we were both so glad that we could finally fit it in on the last day, that and we were both finally feeling well enough to enjoy life again!

Aside from meandering through familiar countryside, the point of the trip was to get to Grandvewe...A sheep cheese farm whose produce Jo had sampled previously. She had been talking this trip up for months so when it looked like it wasn't going to fit in we were both devastated, but never fear, we made it!

View from the Grandvewe deck, and grand it was, even in the rain!

Grandvewe went above and beyond my expectations. I had no idea that such a gem was lurking just 30 mins from the city. Oh to live in Hobart again! The first thing we did was a tasting, cheese and wine, of what was fresh and on offer at the moment. There were several incredible cheeses (primarily sheep since that's the point!) but lucky for us one of those was a cheese known as "the diplomat"...part sheep, part goat, part white mold and part blue mold...Basically all the good stuff in one! From the tasting we could select a cheese platter, paired with their own wines, so we selected the diplomat (of course) combined with the pinot paste (gorgeous, like quince paste but richer) and the fermented mutton sausage which was out of this world! I can't really remember the wine pairings because they were both a bit fresh but had potential, I think Jo had a chardonnay and I something light and sweet (the rose?) While we waited for our platter to be arranged we hung out in the 'dining area'...a covered in deck overlooking the farm which consists of hills rolling all the way down to the channel, edged by forest and just so beautiful (especially after the dust and concrete of Texas). There were so many birds and the rain was sweeping across the river in squalls leaving rainbows in its path.


When the platter arrived bliss turned to perfection! I'll let the photo speak for itself, but needless to say sitting on that deck, sipping wine and eating wonderful food surrounded by the view and the the rain/sun tag team...It was truly one of the high points of the trip. One of Tootles' marbles.


So if you live within driving distance of Woodbridge and you haven't been to Grandvewe yet, get your butt in gear, seriously. The restaurant is closed at the moment but it is my understanding that they do tastings, coffee and platters year round. Sheep milking starts again in August and the full restaurant (which has had good reviews) will be back in November.

Drambuie vs the Bogans

This one is for Hamish and his Nemesis...

You may have seen it before (it's kind of old now) but this was a classic piece of marketing done by Drambuie in Australia.

A language warning though, there's some Aussie pub talk in here (ie. you got the meat raffle tickets wet you dipshit!) that probably shouldn't be piped through the speakers in your office!

Drambuie Research

Watch the video. The executive summary is cute too :D

The best thing about birthdays is realising how much your beloved is loved by everyone else.

Somehow cards and packages continue to find their way into our letter box and my dear one is writing lists and cards with fervor and the odd "I'm crying but I'm happy crying" tear.

I guess I just wanted a chance to say thanks, from one who gets to see the impact of all that love. So Grazie, Durdaladawhy, Liels paldies and Muchas gracias!

JoJo's frocktail birthday bonanza

So I am well aware that I've totally neglected the blog. I have written hundreds of super interesting posts in my head but somehow none of them made their way here... Life has a way of getting away from us! However, I'll do my best to catch up somewhat.

Yesterday was Jo's birthday and our apartment is now semi forested in gorgeous birthday cards. The princess treatment will continue on and off for at least a week yet! On Saturday we had a 'frocktail party' to celebrate the birthday with our wonderfully eclectic Texas friends.


It was rather a last minute affair, which was probably good because it meant I couldn't get too stressed about the planning! It seems many of the Americans were confused by both the terms 'frock up' (the boys were worried they were required to wear dresses) and 'swan about', but once the expectations were thoroughly explained all was well.

John and Jo kindly agreed to let us use their fabulous house for the event, which also became the christening of the outdoor area for the new year, however that did mean that we spent Saturday afternoon outside wiping down the outdoor furniture, restringing lights etc (which is why I have a picture of the birthday girl up a tree!)


Anyhow, long story short, the outdoor area looked amazing. I swear that house is nicer than a freaking hotel (decent pics coming soon...I got distracted). I wanted to plan the whole thing so that:

a) Josie didn't have to stress about anything (she hates planning but loves dressing up)
b) we could afford it and
c) people would be able to have a good time chatting and swanning about without being encumbered by environmentally unfriendly plates and plastic cutlery...

so with those simple guidelines in hand I embarked on one of my biggest planning adventures yet!

I'm not going to go into huge detail over the food (shock horror I know!) but basically I wanted people to be able to eat with one hand without too much mess. I also knew there'd be one vegan and at least two vegos there. So here's what turned out to be the final menu:

Cold:
Spicy white bean hummus
French onion dip
Artichoke and lemon dip

Crudités, bread and mixed olives

Insalata caprese sticks (with balsamic reduction dipping sauce)

Pork, cilantro, snow pea and mango sticks (with sweet chili soy dipping sauce)

Sugar pea, ginger and shitake sticks (with sweet chili soy dipping sauce)

Prosciutto and melon sticks

Mushroom pate and melba toasts

Wasabi peas and chili rice crackers

Hot:
Spicy glazed chicken wings

Aussie sausage rolls

Herbed mixed mushrooms and garlic

Grilled lap chong with Szechwan mayonnaise

Sweet:
Red velvet and black forest birthday cake duo

Katy's handmade liquor truffles

The biggest travesty of the night was that I was too distracted to photograph anything much, especially the food (which actually looked really good) or our frocked up friends, so now I have to do some serious begging to see if I can scam photographic evidence of the event from other people! I did catch one pic of the caprese sticks just before the last of them disappeared!


Similarly, I wanted to keep the drinks relatively simple ingredients wise, as well as not ridiculously alcoholic! Not to mention easy to make since Matt and I were going to tag team the bar. In then end Matt turned out to be a born bartender and I didn't get a look in! Thanks to the Meadies for their simply divine recipes for Bongos and Sangria, both of which went down a treat with the punters! We also managed to take advantage of the fact that our mint plant has been in overdrive for the last few months leaving us with a bountiful harvest just in time for mojitos! The following drinks list was laminated and taped to the bar...obsessive much?


Needless to say the party was brilliant fun, everyone dressed up and looked amazing! The temperature outside was perfect and only started dropping out after midnight.

Josie and the gorgeous Vikings!

Hopefully I can post some more pics if I can track them down. I also have a bunch of other stuff to post about if I can get my butt in gear! Whip, crack, away!

More travels

I'm off to Portland, Oregon this morning for more work on the glaucoma grant with my colleagues up there (not to mention good food and my favorite hotel!). Then I have one day back in sunny San Antonio before Jo and I head to Australia!! We can't wait :)

See you all soon.

Another youtube classic

I realised I hadn't posted one of my favorites in the set of youtube clips. This guy's work is great. I love his drawing style and the music syncing is pretty slick too.

Mardi Gras!

A few weeks ago Josie and I went to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras with some friends of ours, and had all our preconceptions blown right out of the water. I don't know what I was expecting but it involved some degree of lechery and debauchery, and instead we experienced the most wonderful, family friendly city wide celebration of a carnival season, it was brilliant! Just to get it out there now, Mardi Gras in New Orleans is NOT a gay pride event! Keep on reading...

I'm not going to go on and on with too much description because the pictures mostly show it all. However, I don't have as many pics as I'd like because our little digicam died (most of the following pics were taken by me but I've borrowed some from our friends). Some good friends of ours here in San Antonio are Louisiana natives and they convinced us that Mardi Gras was a 'must do' thing before we leave here. We were planning to drive in convoy, but came up with a much better plan where we drove with one of them from San Antonio to New Orleans, while the others flew, and reversed it for the return. It was about an 8-9 hour drive, very smooth and almost no traffic (in a subaru which helped too!) Driving across Texas and then into Louisiana was wonderful, watching the landscape change and the variety of trees increase exponentially! We drove through the flat interior of our part of Texas, through coastal estuaries and over swamps! Josie drove us across the state line, with much enthusiasm (maybe just to be out of Texas?) We stopped at Fezzo's, a cajun seafood house on the way (poor Jo) where I had an inspired crab meat augratin AND we went to "The Best Stop" which makes fresh pork cracklins (fried pork skins covered in a spicy powder and no where near as fatty as you expect!) They sell about 2500 pounds of cracklin a day!!


Anyway, the point of this was not to spend too long going on and on! We survived the drive and the cholesterol. We were staying with family of our friends in the Garden District of New Orleans, one of the more expensive areas and one of the least damaged by Kartrina. Actually, the entire city was looking so much better than my last visit!

The garden district is gorgeous, lots of big old trees, big old houses, dress shops, coffee houses, and of course the main parade route.

You can see the beads that passers by from the parades have left on the fence of this place, that use to be a 'home for ruined girls'. It was a gorgeous house and the magnolia trees! So pretty!

Anyway, back to Mardi Gras! Wikipedia has a great explanation of what it is, worth reading. Basically Mardi Gras is literally 'Fat Tuesday" in French and describes the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent. In New Orleans there is a 2 week long city wide carnival that finished on Fat Tuesday, but Mardi Gras is kind of used to describe the whole thing. During carnival there are a bunch of parades, each one put together by different Krewes. The Krewes are the group who make and man the floats. There are a few different parade routes through different parts of the city, including the French Quarter, but the main one is up in the garden district where we were, lucky for us! The floats are really elaborate, themed, and usually quite old (many of the Krewes have been doing this for decades, even longer!) They're pulled by tractors and the float riders toss "throws" to the shouting, waving masses who line the parade route (that was us!).


The 'throws' are mostly coloured plastic beads but the better throws include stuffed toys, beads that have the name or symbol of the particular krewe on them and dubloons (metal coins with the krewe logo, the year etc on them). Each krewe usually have a few 'special throws' that are pretty sought after, like light up necklaces, tshirts and hand painted glass beads. I was lucky enough to score two out of three, catching both a t-shirt (huge mind you) AND a gorgeous set of glass beads. For the good throws like that someone on the float usually gets your attention and lines you up. It was a lot of fun cheering the different krewes on, yelling "throw me something mister" which is one of the catch cries, along with "DUBLOONS DUBLOONS" I spent most of my energy collecting the dubloons, whereas Jo seemed to catch he attention of the throwers and caught a ridiculous number of beads!

The parades that we manages to catch in the few days that we were there (including Fat Tuesday itself) were the Krewes of Thoth (Egyptian themed floats), Mid City (all their floats were done in coloured foil), Bacchus (one of the rowdier night parades), Babylon, and of course Rex, the king of Mardi Gras who parades on Fat Tuesday. I felt sorry for the Krewe of Rex though because they kept breaking down and got stuck waiting around for over an hour! The day parades were very family friendly, and where we were the night parades weren't too bad either. A little more rowdy and in one all the floats were themed on cocktails, but still not what I was expecting!

Rex, the king of Mardi Gras!

The riders have their own special dubloons that they might give you if you're brave enough to approach them!

There were lots of marching bands from all the schools, colleges and universities in between the floats. Poor kids walked a long way, some of them holding huge instruments, in what was about 30 degree heat for most of the parades! The parent helpers had them sucking icecubes which was a neat idea, not so good for the brassbands tho...


Some of the night parade floats were my favorites because of the way they were lit, some with all sorts of fiber optics and LEDs withing the float structures. However, they were also really hard to photograph!

The other cool thing was that most of the people on the streets watching the parades dressed up as well! Some of them even form small "walking krewes" and walk the parade route all dressed up.

Anyhow, epic New Orleans post is finally live!

Happy Birthday Mum

Just a quick little extra to say Happy Birthday to my Ma, even if it isn't quite the 18th here yet.

And while I'm at it, here's a final shot of our Christmas tree (now back in its box) so that Kate can't tell me off for not posting it!

Click it for the big version. Nothing traditional about this baby but it is very Jo and Jac...whatever that means!

...and onto 2008

Crikey that came around quickly. I still don't have my head around the fact that it's already '08. I know it's been a long time between blogs but I'll do my best to catch y'all up quickly.

The San Antonio Riverwalk at Christmas. Not quite dark enough for the lights but you get the idea.

Christmas/New Years was great - well celebrated with plenty of friends and food, and thanks to Kate being with us, even a little family :) However, we were still both terribly homesick: Jo for the cold blue waters of Boat Harbour and me for a spot of fishing on the near rock.

We spent Christmas eve/day at John and Jo's where we cooked lunch for 16 adults and 2 kids, including roast pork (with crackling) and roast turkey, all the trimmings (potato bake, vegies, green beans and crispy garlic etc) as well as a baked ham provided by Andrea! It was a pretty busy day but lots of fun. We ended up with an eclectic group of friends from all over the world, and only two Americans!

Me using the nifty little gadget that Kate and Josie bought me! It's a silicon thread with a needle attached for stitching up meat for cooking and it is a total dream!
The finished product! I haven't got a photo of the pork because the hounds descended so quickly and I had to fight to protect the crackling, but it looked good. I might post the pork recipe soon because you cook it over apples/pears and red onion and it is simply delish!

New Years Eve was the exact opposite, totally laid back and not a moment of stress. Eric and Andrea hosted the event on what turned out to be one of our few freezing nights, so we rugged up and sat outside by the fire sipping wine and eating Andrea's divine homemade paté. We had a bbq for dinner, including Aussie lamb chops that were melt in your mouth gorgeous! Anyhow, after dinner we got stuck into playing board games, in particular "Battle of the Sexes", a game that was brought out by some Australian radio show I think, so it would have seemed pretty odd at times to our small American crew. The game got so heated that we actually missed the countdown altogether, but since that was mostly due to the fact that we were laughing hysterically and taunting each other it seemed to be a pretty good start to the year.

More exploits soon!

Santalales

I couldn't believe my eyes the other morning walking past one of the trees in our complex - hanging from it was mistletoe! Real mistletoe! I've never seen it before and it was like the spirit of Christmas incarnate and parasitic, sucking the life out of a little pecan tree (well maybe not quite that dramatic!) However, it is a gorgeous specimen, perfectly round, about the size of a basketball, and fruiting! I doubt there's anyone else on this earth quite as excited about this as me but that's ok!


In other news I did a test run on the roast pork that we're coking for Christmas tonight...The crackle was perfectly crispy and the meat was good, basted overnight in garlic and thyme. I cooked it on a bed of red onion and pear...tasty! But enough food talk because I'm full! Happy Christmas lead up and such!

Wandering Kates

Random update: Kate missed her flight into San Antonio so the poor thing in stuck in stinky Houston for another few hours. Like mother like daughter I guess!

Does give us another hour or so to attempt to tidy the Christmas explosion that is our apartment at the moment!

Christmas milk

Oops...also forgot to mention that I've already made my first batch of Christmas milk! For those of you who haven't had the experience, Christmas milk is my families secret recipe - a whiskey based starter to Christmas morning that keeps us going all day (mostly because we don't stop drinking it...) I can't post the recipe because it is top secret ;) but I can say that it's a combination of whiskey, coffee, condensed milk and vanilla and it is truly wonderful! Sadly, it doesn't last very long, it's far too drinkable! So I'll most likely need to make another batch before next Tuesday ;)

Nearly finished wrapping presents, yay! Must be time for one of those aforementioned beverages :D

Cheers!

Christmas is coming!

I'm sitting here surrounded by presents in various states of unwrappedness, cards, candles (and at the moment, washing). Christmas is coming!! We've been flat out partying hard with various work functions. I womaned the BBQ for the lab party today, even though it was about 4 degrees outside! Winter hit us all of a sudden (and I'm sure it'll be gone just as fast). One day hits 28 and the next drops to 4! There was even ice on the car when we headed home tonight. Ok, so it was barely an ice membrane but still! Brrrr. However, while it is cold it is also stunningly sunny so in that respect it feels a little like Tassie.


Anyhow, I am writing this nonfocussed rant for the simple purpose of posting pics of our typically unorthodox Christmas tree, complete with dragons, chilies and a Croatian bread heart. This year we also have a real Christmas wreath which smells divine! We couldn't bear to put it on the outside of the door (ok, so the door turned out to be so thick that we physically couldn't fit the hook over it...) but it makes the house smell all foresty and sweet when you first walk in so our miscalculation turned into a bonus :D


We've had quite a few Christmas parties lately, mostly work related but we did have a couple of the girls over for an early vegetarian Christmas dinner because our vego friend was heading home for the holidays. Pretty tough to cook something suitable and tasty when one guest is vego and another doesn't eat mushrooms! But we came up with a pretty tasty layered vegi bake that was a cross between moussaka and lasagna, with plenty of eggplant, zucchini, fennel and heaps of other yummies. We've also had a few interesting "present exchanges" lately that have been a bit of an eye opener for us Aussies! The first was at an all girls party where we all brought gifts for the exchange then spent quite a lot of time working out the best way to randomly distribute them...from complex algorithms to a 'pin the tail on the donkey' style blindfolded snatch and grab (and probably crash and fall). Eventually we settled on drawing a number out of a hat (to determine your turn order) then setting up the presents in a circle and playing 'spin the bottle' to pick one! As untoppable as I thought that one was, the exchange at the lab BBQ yesterday was something else entirely! No idea what they call it but it seems to be some kind of American tradition for these exchanges, where you either select a present from under the tree (if you touch it you have to take it), then open it in front of the entire group. Then the next person who goes has the choice of either picking one from the tree or stealing yours! Chaos! We managed to score a beautiful (real) tree...about a meter tall, only to have it stolen and replace by a jar of blue cheese in oil >_< Luckily the person who stole it from us lost it again to the 10 year old with no tree at his house. Fun times :)

More updates soon. Our friend Kate arrives tomorrow! We're looking forward to having a house guess to share the 'holiday season' with.

The Salt Lick...best BBQ ever!

Lucky for us we've made friends with a couple here who are originally from Louisiana and who know where to find good food here in San Antonio. They already introduced us to two course peking duck lunch (duck with the fluffy rolls, spring onion and sweet soy AND the bones made into duck and cabbage/watercress soup - for under $20 total, not per head!) as well as Mama Lee's Soul Food (excellent gumbo, fried okra, fried chicken...apparently souls like fried stuff!). Well this time they took us on an out of town roadtrip to a place called Driftwood, TX...which is actually quite a long way for wood to drift. It was only about a 40 minute drive through very pretty ranch country, once we got off the mega highway that is, although I missed a lot of the view in my quest not to get carsick.

So our final destination was a place called The Salt Lick, which turned out to be a ranch sized BBQ place. It was a drizzly cold early winter day, probably 10 degrees but misty and wet with a nasty pervasive wind the got under every layer of clothing, so walking in the door of the Salt Lick was like walking into heaven! The BBQ pit was inside this HUGE shed, like a shearing shed, but filled with tables and noise and heat and people. The BBQ smelt incredible and I was basically drooling before we even sat down! While we were waiting for our table we got to watch them at the BBQ chopping up the ribs and smoking the sausages...mmm


Once seated at a rough wooden table in the veranda section of the shed (covered in but we got to watch the rain) we quickly ran through the menu, but opted for 'family style' which turned out to be all you can eat bits of just about everything! Our waiter turned up with plates of brisket, sausage and the best BEST sticky pork ribs I have EVER tasted in my entire life...they were fall of the bone soft and tough and crunch all at once, with this amazing dark sticky sauce - they put any other rib I've had here to absolute shame. We also had potato salad (not a creamy one...hard to describe but gooood), beans, pickles, coleslaw that wasn't creamy but had a lemony sesame dressing and fluffy white bread. It also came with their signature BBQ sauce and a habenero (spicy) version that cut through the smokyness of the brisket and sausages just so perfectly. The Salt Lick was BYO in the true sense, so we had our esky at one end of the table and thems who like beer drank beer and we cracked open an old vine Californian zin that seemed to be made for the day (Gnarly Head) - sweet and spicy with a good solid kick.

And once again nothing but a food post! But with food this good, how can I not!