Dessert staples: Banana bread and brownies

In part for the benefit of my goddaughter Mikel, who God help her never quite learned to cook while she was living with us as a teen, I'm going to begin putting on this blog some of my staple household family recipes. Lets start with sweets, since she would. ;) Here are two recipes I've used a long time and that Mikel grew up on.

The first is a simple banana bread recipe my mother scrawled onto an index card when I first go my own apartment at college.

Shirley Henson’s Banana Bread Recipe

1 stick of butter
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 mashed ripe bananas
1¼ cup flour
¾ tsp soda
½ tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in mashed banana.

In another bowl, mix together flour, soda and salt. Add to banana mixture. Mix well. Pour into greased loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for 45 minutes before serving.

Add a half cup or so of chopped nuts if you like. Her instructions envision using a hand mixer, but in my large stand-up mixer I do it in one bowl.

I usually double this recipe and make two loaves because inevitably at our house the first loaf gets eaten within 24 hours and it keeps well wrapped lightly in plastic or foil for several days.

Another standard recipe in the Henson household is a brownie recipe I got from a cooking magazine, probably Cook's Illustrated, at some point in the mid-'90s. I've long ago lost the original text of the magazine article, but have made the recipe many dozens of times. They're incredibly quick, easy and delicious. Here's the gist:

Chocolate Brownies

One stick of butter
8 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
1-1/4 cups of sugar
3 eggs
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of cocoa

Put butter in small bowl. Break up chocoloate on top. Microwave for 2 minutes on high. In bowl, beat together sugar and eggs. Add in butter/chocolate mixture. Mix in flour and cocoa until texture and color are consistent. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 38-40 minutes.

This was adjusted slightly from the original recipe, as I recall, which substituted a small amount of unsweentened chocolate for a portion of the semi-sweet. In my experience, this made the already-rich brownies just a little too bitter and intense for children's tastes, but if you want to try it, use 7 oz of semisweet and one oz of unsweetened chocolate instead of 8 oz semisweet.

Watch the angels cry

I love to sing and frequently will get snippets of song lyrics stuck in my head, often for days at a time. Over the past few days, this line has been repeating itself from a favorite John Prine tune: "My car is stuck in Washington and I cannot find out why. Come sit beside me on the swing and watch the angels cry."

The tune is catchy and that line cracks me up every time. But it was a difficult concept to explain to the three-year old grandbaby, who piped in from the other room upon hearing me sing this to myself while making supper last night, "Why are the angels crying, Grandpa?" She came into the kitchen looking genuinely troubled.

Why indeed? I didn't quite know what to say. I told her they couldn't find their car.

"But they'll find it, right?" she insisted. I assured her the angels would likely find their missing car very soon. "That's good," she said with a relieved expression. "I don't want angels to cry."

Me either.

Meeting Mommy's Boyfriend: A 3-year old's first trip to the Texas state fair

This weekend we took Mikel and Ty to the state fair in Dallas, and it was great to see a three year old get to experience that for the first time. Of course, spending so much time on the little kids' midway meant the adults didn't get to see the exhibits we might have chosen, but the little one had loads of fun.

On the drive to Dallas I kept telling Ty she would get to meet "Mommy's boyfriend," ribbing her mom to say she had a long-time crush on "Big Tex," the giant statute at the entrance to the Midway at Fair Park (pictured above). Since all over the fair Big Tex is used as an icon, this elicited cries of "that's mommy's boyfriend" every time she'd see an image of him. Mommy was tickled but a little mortified, which was of course the desired effect - I thought it was hilarious.

Of all the things she saw - from the carnival barker with no legs to a diver take an 80 foot plunge into a 10 foot pool of water (definitely a don't try this at home moment), what Ty loved most were the Midway rides she took with her Mom. It was all ridiculously cute. I've got a lot of fun memories from the state fair when I was a kid and I hope Ty will too when she's old enough to remember what will probably become annual pilgrimages, just like we did with her mom when she was still a youngster living at home.

3 Fun Outings in Austin, and a Baby's First Poem

I had three fun outings last weekend with the grandbaby, Ty, now almost 3, who was with me when her daycare was closed on Friday and then quite a bit over the weekend.

On Friday, she and I went to Zilker Park and Ty enjoyed the wonderful converted fire truck that they've transformed into a platform for slides and monkey bars. She also loved the huge statutes of seals, which are usually fountains, though she was disappointed that (thanks to Stage 2 drought restrictions) they had the water turned off. And as always, we spent a loooooong time on the swingset, where she would happily be swung as high as you can push her for as long as you're willing.

Quite a few other kids were there, maybe 9-10 or so, all supervised by Moms; I was the only man there with a child. One youngster turned out to be from our neighborhood; her mother recognized Ty from playing at a neighborhood park up the street.

After an hour or so on the playground, we got a (much anticipated) snow cone at the snack stand and purchased tickets to ride on the kiddie train, which Ty adored. She wanted to sit at the very front (in my lap) and waved to everyone remotely nearby as the train meandered through the park. (Later, recounting the story to Kathy, she told her she'd waved to her "friend with the guitar" as we rode along, by which she referred to a long-haired fellow who was playing the guitar by the tracks who waved back to her, smiling as we passed.)

Ty was thrilled when the train went through the tunnel at the very end of the trek, holding her breath and squeezing my neck as we went through, then announcing excitedly when we came out the other side, "It's not scary, I wasn't scared!" Throughout the rest of the weekend she kept bringing up that tunnel, which apparently made an impression on her.

After her Mom took Ty for the afternoon, she came back to spend the night with us, and the next morning after breakfast I took her to hear children's books read on the second floor of Book People's downtown Austin store. This was her first time there and the outing was a big hit.

The reader had chosen books about magic - one about a witch who turns her dog different colors, another about a little girl who uses a magic wand to create a menagerie of friends while alone in her room. Afterward, they passed out paper, crayons, and supplied tape and ribbon to create a "magic wand."

This was a clever trick. First the kids colored whatever they wanted all over the paper. Then you'd roll it up corner to corner, taping it together in the middle so that the coloring shows somewhat randomly on the outside. Then they twisted together one ed and tied on red and white ribbon, which gave the "wand" a pointy feel and a sense of magic as the far end whipped through the air. This cheap, homemade toy was the source of big fun for two solid days after the event.

Just as fun for Ty was running around underneath the bleachers that constitute Book People's little kiddie amphitheatre. She thought that was pretty cool.

On Sunday we had Ty while her Mom went to church (she's just a little too fidgety to sit through a worship service), so Kathy and I took her over to Rosewood Park hoping for a swim. Unfortunately, the main pool was closed (again, presumably because of drought), but surprisingly their lovely kiddie area had all nine fountains going full blast (they're designed for kids to splash and play, not as decoration). On what turned out to be a scalding hot day, that was the perfect way to cool off.

I'm glad Austin has some fun, cool places to take young kids.

A final baby story: Ty recited her first poem on Sunday, at one month shy of three years, I kid you not! :) It's from the wonderful "Book of Hours" - a book of translated Mexican poetry I frequently read to her by the painter Alfredo Castañeda. The one she honed in on (though she knows shreds of many of his other poems) is about Little Red Riding Hood. The short poem is illustrated by Castañeda with his wife's face in a red hood, with a menacing wolf's eyes and ears vaguely but recognizably imaged in her cape behind her. I can't make Blogger properly indent the last two lines, but the poem reads:

Is your fear like mine, friend wolf?
Mine is growing beneath my clothes
beneath my hair
beneath the color of my name

She recited it without prodding upon seeing the accompanying picture, which has always fascinated her (we've read these poems together over and over). I think it was that picture and her love of the Red Riding Hood story that made her latch on to these words, though admittedly they sound a little odd coming out of the mouth of a toddler. Perhaps somebody read her the story at daycare, but Ty has no books with the Red Riding Hood story in it and I've only ever told it to her subsequent to questions about this poem. Still, she knows the tale inside and out and it's a remarkably frequent reference for her.

I'm going to get a Red Riding Hood book next time we're at Book People for storytime, but I suspect Ty will always associate the story in some way with that picture and her first poem.

Remembering Maggie Lee

What a sad and terrible week it's been. Here's a good account of the extraordinary, jam-packed funeral service in Shreveport for my lovely, departed niece Maggie Lee Henson, and a number of other substantive stories about her and the bus crash that took her life from the Associated Baptist Press:

• Funeral of girl killed in bus crash to be webcast live (8/5)
• Shreveport girl dies from injuries in church-bus crash (8/3)
• Youth minister hurt in bus wreck released from hospital (7/20)
• Struggle continues for teenager injured in church-bus accident (7/16)
• Shreveport church focuses prayer on daughter of church staff member (7/14)
• Pastor says National Guard saved lives following wreck of church bus (7/13)
• Church bus headed toward Passport overturns, killing teen (7/12)

An astonishing 951 people watched a live webcast of the standing-room only service at First Baptist Shreveport. Maggie was buried in Tyler not far from my mother's grave at Rose Hill cemetery; I'm thankful she's at peace and am now pulling for my brother's family as they struggle to deal with their loss and regain some sense of normalcy. My nephew Jack (10) restarts school this week, so I'm hopeful getting back into that routine will be good for everybody. This whole episode must have seemed like an out of body experience - it would be absolutely annihilating to lose a 12-year old daughter as bright, happy and wonderful as Maggie Lee.

One amazing aspect of this event was the online outpouring of support my brother's family received, evidenced on this page set up for her on the website CaringBridge. John and Jinny's updates and the many thousands of guest book entries are as inspiring as they are heartbreaking.

Thanks to all the friends and readers who've expressed their sympathy and support in this difficult time. I definitely appreciate it.

A family tragedy

Say a prayer, please, or give a good thought for my niece, Maggie Lee Henson, who yesterday was in a terrible church bus accident in Mississippi and has been airlifted to Jackson with severe injuries. (See initial coverage.) My brother John is an assistant pastor at the Shreveport church whose bus rolled three times after a tire blew out while taking a youth group to Atlanta, killing one and injuring 27. At this time, Maggie is still not out of the woods and remains in critical condition.

If anyone needed a reminder that everything about your life can change in a heartbeat, here it is. Just devastating. Keep Maggie, John, and his family in your thoughts and prayers, as well as the family of the deceased and the other bus crash victims. They face a rough road in front of them.

UPDATE (July 14): As of this morning, Maggie Lee remains in a coma with a severe brain stem injury. She has nearly died several times and is fighting for her life. Thanks to everyone who's expressed their sympathy and good wishes. They are appreciated.

MORE: See AP coverage of a prayer vigil held for Maggie today in Shreveport.

AND MORE: (July 14, 3:30 p.m., via Caring Bridge): "Latest update on Maggie Lee....Tubes have been inserted to inflate her lungs. The tubes that were put on Sunday were temporary and have been removed. Maggie Lee is getting good air return from this procedure. Medicine has been turned down to ease her out of medically induced coma. Her heart is stable. We are still watching cranial pressure. It is creeping up to 30. Please pray for swelling to subside."

Graffiti as Art in Austin

Fueling the neverending debate over whether graffiti is art or merely vandalism, the UT-Austin art school purchased an outdoor piece by graff writer Shepard Fairey who created the Obama "Hope" poster. The Statesman notes that "Although his Obama poster now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Fairey currently faces multiple vandalism charges in Boston for pasting his work on public and private property."

In addition, some of Fairey's work will be included in a special short-term exhibition at Gallery Lombardi in Austin this weekend. Then on April 4, also in Austin, Spider House Cafe will feature work by a long list of local graffiti artists, sponsored by the Art Seen Alliance.

For the latest in Austin graffiti news, stay tuned to atxgraffiti.com; they'll keep you in the loop.

Oscar Wilde in Austin

Last night Kathy and I attended the first performance we've seen at Austin's Long Center for the Performing Arts - a rendition of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" put on by the UT Department of Theater and the Austin Shakespeare group, and for my money (@$32 per head) I thought it was an excellent performance.

The play was performed in the round and there wasn't a single bad seat in the house. I won't try to parse the details of the performance, but here's an excellent review that gives a good sense of the event.

The costumes and set were visually gorgeous, particularly the women's dresses which displayed the long trains and high Victorian-era style one might have seen when the play first debuted in London in the 1890s. Some of the "bonnets" worn by the actresses - particularly a hat worn by the woman playing Mrs. Marchmont - were so elaborate and outlandish they almost made me laugh as hard as the dialogue.

I'd not seen this play performed before and it's been 20 years since I read it, so after seeing this performance (which shortened the script to cater to the shorter attention spans of modern audiences), I'm now anxious to go back and read the full text again as it made me laugh out loud nearly from start to finish.

The actors motion, to a person, was incredibly fluid and graceful, and the lilting British accents they adopted gave Wilde's prose an impact they couldn't have achieved in the local dialect. Good choice, IMO, to make it a period piece instead of trying to modernize the setting or script.

One of the actresses in a Q&A after the event said their vocal coach had told them to emphasize the adverbs in Wilde's script instead of the nouns, because it emphasized that what the speaker thought was important was their own opinion, not the actual subject of the conversation. I don't think I'd have noticed that particular affectation if she hadn't mentioned it, but, it's absolutely true that that aspect of their delivery made the humorous lines all the funnier.

The UT MFA grad students who performed the five main roles did an admirable, professional-level job to the point where I can honestly say I wouldn't have expected a higher caliber performance if I'd seen it in New York. Everybody involved deserves a lot of credit.

They'll only be performing the play for one more weekend, so anyone interested should make their plans accordingly.

A serious art museum in Austin? Blanton's permanent collection improving with Latin American additions

Kathy and I went to UT-Austin's Blanton Museum of Art yesterday afternoon, and they've improved their collection a lot since I'd been there last.

A commissioned work covering the walls and stairs at the main entrance - tiles resembling stacked water in rolling waves of blue - really improved the visitors' first impression. And at the top of the stairs leading to the main galleries, they've installed a gorgeous African piece made of metal strips from Nigerian liquor bottles sewn together with copper wire to look (from a distance) like a woven blanket with tribal patterns. Very cool, and a step forward from the European dominated pieces that formed the base of their initial collection.

They're developing a significant Latin American base for their permanent collection - a decision which, as a lover of Mexican art, I can only applaud. Among the new pieces acquired since I last visited was a small painting by David Siquieros, the Mexican painter who once tried to assassinate Leon Trotsky. I didn't know previously that Siquieros was a mentor of Jackson Pollock. You could see from the painting they'd chosen how Pollock's "controlled accidents" may have evolved in part from Siquieros' stylings, though I'm not sure I'd have otherwise made the connection.

An acquisition fund left to the museum by writer James Michener has been used to purchase a number of excellent new pieces from Latin America and elsewhere, including the piece pictured above by Jerry Bywaters, a former Dallas Morning News art critic and co-founder of the Dallas Nine, a group of artists who became known when they (unsuccessfully) tried to get permission to decorate the interior of the Hall of State on the state fair grounds during Texas' centennial celebrations.

I think that's exactly the direction they should take the museum's collection, fulfilling a niche that to my knowledge nobody else has taken. I'm not aware of a serious, permanent collection of Latin American art on US soil, certainly not in Texas, and there's a lot of wonderful historical and artistic ground to cover. Let somebody else do ancient Greece and the European masters.

That said, the European art in the Blanton is certainly impressive, just not in any way unique. I've got a fascination with religious history so I especially appreciate the Christian art from the 15th and 16th century they've compiled, which includes some beautiful pieces. A series of drawings featured in a collection of art from the era of Pope Clement included sketches for larger murals and elaborate drawings of action scenes commissioned for an international Jubilee in 1600. The most vivid of these (and there were several) depicted attacks on soldiers by wild lions. They were beautiful to look at, but quite classical not particularly interesting, as art exhibits go. If you visit big museums with any frequency, you've seen much like it before.

When the Blanton first opened, I was particularly unimpressed with their collection. But by my third visit yesterday, their team of curators had bolstered that initial batch of art with numerous quality additions, giving me hope that, before long, Austin may actually have a serious, quality museum with exhibitions rivaling those in Houston and Fort Worth.

As an aside, by comparison to the ever-improving Blanton, the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum across the street, by all accounts, remains a complete mess - if they didn't have an IMAX theater, I can't imagine why anyone would go there.

That's a source of embarrassment to me because I care a lot about Texas history and think there's much of significance besides nostalgia and schlock for them to present, but that would require more serious and creative curation. Perhaps as the Blanton's collection improves, with a serious museum across the street the Texas History Museum will ultimately be shamed into presenting a more serious collection.

Burn, baby, burn: Flaming timepiece incinerates last year's regrets

Yesterday afternoon Kathy and I went downtown to walk around Town Lake and see the preparations for Austin's First Night celebrations, and I couldn't help but remark here about the astonishing New Year's art project the city of Austin financed for the event.

The city gave artsts a grant to construct an ornate, two-story working wooden clock - a project that took them three months - then for the new year, they invited the public to write on the clock anything they'd like to symbolically get rid of and burned it publicly last night!

I'm pleased and proud to live in a city that spent my tax dollars that way, and clearly from the response we saw to this magnificent piece of art, the public enjoyed it, too. Here's the Statesman's coverage, a Youtube video of the clock once it was fully constructed and here's a clip of them burning it last night - awesome stuff.

Congrats, and thanks, to everyone involved with the project.

The old precinct sports a new election day look

To avoid the lines, Kathy and I showed up about ten minutes before 7 a.m. at Austin's Precinct 126 to find about 12-15 people waiting ahead of us. After a moment of initial confusion (my ID was checked a total of three times, and there was an oddly large amount of redundant paperwork required, for whatever reason), we were able to quickly complete the task, and now it's just a matter of hoping the electronic voting machies record the darn thing accurately. ;)

In any event, predictions of a high turnout appear to be on target. Over the years, East Austin has experienced such low turnout rates that most political consultants, based purely on a (correct) cost-benefit analysis, advised against spending money on East Austin GOTV efforts since, more often than not, nobody voted anyway even if the campaign spent money there.

This spring, though, around 2,000 people voted in my precinct alone in the Democratic primary, then more than 600 of them came back that night to caucus at the precinct convention. By comparison, at the last Democratic precinct convention I attended before that, my wife and I made seven total participants. (I've lived in this neighborhood since 1990. Our precinct is historically black and at one time a serious crime center, but is now a rapidly gentrifying mixed neighborhood a mile due east of the capitol.)

Another interesting change, for good or ill: For years, our precinct (which was precinct 128 until the 2003 redistricting) was staffed on election day with the same, long-time cadre of septuagenarian or octogenarian black women, all wearing their Sunday finest. A couple of them would remember me as a frequent voter, always asking if my wife was coming in, exchanging guesses about turnout totals, etc..

But 2008 saw a generational shift Precinct 126's election workers, who today were mostly energetic young people, a couple of whom sheepishly admitted they were doing this for the first time as they fumbled through the seemingly over-complex paper work required to verify IDs. One of the new election workers was an old friend who Kathy and I've known for 20 years, so I'm happy to report this personnel transition didn't alter that sense of communal familiarity I think I'm somehow looking for when casting a ballot on election day. And there's little question there's a lot more excitement in the air - even at 7 a.m. - than there is for most elections.

Dinosaurs in Zilker botanical gardens good fun for kids

Kathy and I took our two-year old grandbaby to the "Dinoland" exhibit at the Zilker Botanical Gardens - featuring life-sized replicas of various dinosaurs set au natural - and the baby particularly enjoyed herself, though the long walk wore her down by the end and made everyone a little cranky.

We happened to go to the event on opening day, and though the botanical garden is a large place - around 30 acres - the crowd at 2 pm on Saturday was still rather oppressive, I must admit, though it made no difference to the baby.

Having visited the zoo recently, I think, primed her for the experience, and Ty issued oohs and aahs at nearly every stop. I particularly liked one depicting two long-beaked dinosaurs in a gigantic nest situated up in a tree, but Ty was most impressed with the traditional, large lizard creatures like the one featured above.

The animals were most notable for their impressive scale, but they didn't quite look real, more like oversized toy dinosaurs. Another minor complaint - while we know nothing about what color dinosaurs were, a little more diversity in the educated guesses exhibitors made would have been welcome. Like birds, to whom they're related, dinosaurs were likely multi-colored and more showy than depicted in this exhibit, which portrayed most of them as gray, brown, or some other neutral hue.

The level of supporting information provided was aimed at an audience of kids, for sure, not adults who might, say, frequent natural history museums. But for its audience it was quite well done. There was also quite a bit of kid oriented programming in addition to the nature walk, but it was a hot day and the baby was ready to bed down by the time we finished. Not only was this a good experience for kids, it gives a lot of Austinites who might not have been there before a chance to see Austin's impressive botanical garden that plays second fiddle on most weekends to Zilker Park and Barton Springs across the road.

UPDATE (Oct. 19): See a story on the exhibit from the Austin Statesman.

Baby Ty and the Rhinos

Among the many animals at the San Antonio Zoo that were new to her, my granddaughter saw a rhinoceros for the first time recently and the beast made quite an impression on the 23-month old. Even now, weeks later, if you mention the zoo she'll break in to a babbling description of either the rhino or the monkeys (who got into a fairly energetic and vicious fight while we watched, much to her amazement).

In any event, upon returning home she was so obsessed with rhinos that we got online looking for toddler-appropriate rhino references and quickly found "The Rhino Song," a brilliant little ditty with an accompanying cartoon that she now asks for virtually every time she sees the computer. This is clearly quite popular among toddlers and the adults who cater to them but I just ran across it. Be forewarned: It's addictive:

Depth Perception

I've always thought optical illusions are a pretty cool thing, but while it's one thing to manufacture them in drawings, it's another entirely, it seems to me, to enshrine them in sculpture. Here's a piece outside the McNay Museum in San Antonio that appears to have a great deal of depth when viewed from the vantage point of the museum:


Here's the view from the opposite side:


However, here's a side view that shows to what extent the depth you see from the front and back is mostly illusory:

I thought that was a pretty neat piece: the eye projects a lot more depth and complexity to the sculpture depending on your perspective. Here's another remarkable sculpture from the McNay - this one, if I'm not mistaken, from the late Austin sculptor Charles Umlauf set in the museum's fabulous courtyard:

If Green Bay can buy the Packers, why can't Austin purchase the Statesman?

When Green Bay, Wisconsin's beloved historic professional football team was about to be sold and moved to another locale, the local community decided they'd rather buy the team than see it auctioned off to the highest bidder. It was a smart move that's benefited the town tremendously, both economically and in terms of prestige and public satisfaction.

So upon hearing news this week that the Austin-American Statesman will be put up for sale, my first reaction, posted as a comment on The Good Life blog, was that:

I think the City of Austin should purchase it and put it in trust with professioal management the way Green Bay, Wisconsin did with their football team. Nobody else who can afford to buy it will do anything but slash it to pieces.

To me, daily newspapers are a national treasure as important to sustaining democracy and public life as water and air are to keeping us all upright and breathing. Certainly blogging would not exist as it does today if bloggers didn't have daily journalists' work to build upon. So-called "citizen journalism" is a good thing, but some projects only get done if you have a pro on the job. Despite the rise of disparate additional media that cut into ad revenues and shrunk the newshole drastically, the Statesman remains the central information source for the largest number of engaged citizens and opinion leaders in Central Texas and a critical spearpoint for public conversation .

I'd personally support a bond issue to purchase the paper and establish an independent trust with its own, dedicated board to manage the project. Public ownership would give the paper many options for distribution and synergy that are closed to a private entity. And a charter for the paper could be crafted that dedicated it to reporting in the public service, bucking the trend of treating news items as entertainment and giving the public better coverage all the way around. If the paper is sold, odds are both staff and the newshole will be further slashed and diminish overall reportage.

The main reason newspapers like the Statesman are losing money is people are accessing their content for free online. So by providing taxpayer support for journalism, purchasing the paper would overcome the "free rider problem" created for papers by web technology.

Besides convincing taxpayers it's a worthy investment, the hardest part of such a deal might be structuring the entity so it's editorially independent - boardmembers couldn't be appointed by the City Council, for example, and remain credibly separate from the city power structure. I don't have a clear idea how that might work, but I'll bet it could be done. The Green Bay City Council, after all, doesn't interfere with the Packers game plans or hiring decisions, and I'll bet there's a way a newspaper could be similarly distanced from outside interference.

Who knows how much Cox News wants for the Statesman or whether it might be possible for the city to purchase the paper? In any event it seems worth considering whether public ownership might be a viable option.

RELATED: See also "Who will buy the Statesman?" from Jeff Beckham, and the Lone Star Times has identified a prospective buyer.

Food notes: An Irish blue cheese adds zing to a salad, Italian ricotta dreams, and perhaps the best steak dinner I've ever had

A few disparate food notes:

First, on the home cooking front, I made a spectacular salad two nights ago using fresh spinach greens, a splash of seed-heavy trail mix with raisins and dried cranberries, a spectacular (if expensive) blue cheese from Ireland made from sheep's milk called "Crozier Blue" (see their website for a lot more detail about this cheese and its makers).

The Crozier Blue cheese really made the salad special, though it'd better given the dear price - a whopping $30 per pound at the Central Market, though I just bought a smidgen (at $3 worth), enough to liven up a couple of 2-3 person salads. It would be wrong to call the flavor "mild," though it's not as pungent as some blue cheeses (or as I imagine it might become if allowed to sit and ripen a bit). Indeed, arguably the slightly less brash initial reception the Crozier Blue engenders with the palette creates space for enjoying more fully its rich and complex textures. A good find. I can't afford much of it but it's a good choice for a style of cheese that frequently I pass by as too overwhelming.

Speaking of cheese, I was interested to see an article in a recent issue of Saveur about traditional methods of making ricotta cheese used by shepherds in rural Italy - nearly a dying art form now practiced by septuagenarians whose kids for the most part haven't picked up the family shepherd biz. Turns out Ricotta cheese (ricotta means re-cooked, said the article), is produced from the whey or liquid byproduct from making pecorino cheese, a more expensive and exportable commodity. That whey is used for all sorts of different products by industrial manufacturers, but for shepherds in the mountains its main purpose in the past was to generate a wonderful fresh ricotta that still dominates the region's recipes.

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention the ridiculously fabulous (and equally expensive steakhouse Kathy picked for her birthday dinner last night - a place called Three Forks at Lavaca and Cesar Chavez catty corner from City Hall.

The meat was as fabulous as any I've been served, clearly of the highest possible quality. My filet mignon came as a three-inch high tower of melt in your mouth tenderloin goodness, perfectly cooked medium rare, while Kathy ordered a rib-eye twice the size of my cut of meet which she entirely devoured. Kathy was so happy with hers she essentially giggled all through the meal.

The side dishes are the same for everyone, so all you pick are the entree', drinks and appetizers, though given the size of the main dish portions there's really no need for the latter. The bread that came before the meal, too, was clearly made on-site and really quite special. With entree's at $35-50, this is a place for special occasions only on our budget, for sure - Kathy just wanted a "good steak" for her birthday so we got her one. It may not be P.C. to say so given the global economics of beef production, but that might have been the best meal I've had in 2008.

Religion and Science meet for coffee

Religion and Science meet for coffee over at Real Live Preacher, and part of the discussion included this wonderful observation:

Dark matter makes up about 96% of all that is, which is a little sobering, considering we make a lot of broad statements about reality for creatures that can only perceive about 4% of it.

They say perception is reality, and this data puts a metric on it: The reality we perceive, at best, captures about 4% of what's there.

Read the whole piece, which was as delightful as it was insightful - a rumination on science and "trust," in which RLP concludes wisely that "trusting people is its own kind of spiritual exercise."

Never been horse that can't be rode, never been a cowboy can't be throwed

Wow, what a Superbowl game, huh?

When Kathy asked who won, I told her that light prevailed over darkness and the Evil Empire had fallen. I think she was a little non-plussed at the hyperbole. Still, I was glad to see New England go down.