bluegrass to lonestar

not so good

delicious

I took a trip to DC to visit Lauren last week.  We decided to check out Philadelphia since she’s so close.  Our bus “depot” was in the basement of a row house in Chinatown.  Very shady and hilarious.  The bus itself was straight out of 1992.  Crazy neon shapes and squiggles on the upholstery.

When we arrived we checked out the Reading Market for coffee and honey sticks.  It’s a pretty nice place to browse Pennsylvania Dutch products.  We also had to do the tourist thing and go to Geno’s and Pat’s for a cheesesteak comparison.  I’ve never had a cheesesteak, and quite frankly they’ve never sounded very appealing, but when in Philly…   Everything about the Pat’s experience was better.  The place wasn’t gaudy like Geno’s, the staff was surlier and the sandwich was delicious, juicy and flavorful.  I can understand why people make a big deal out of these things now.  It would be hard to beat this for best drunk food.

(more…)

Sunday night we biked down to Barton Springs pool to go swimming for Gesse’s birthday.  The pool is three acres long and is fed by a natural spring.  Because of this it stays 68 degrees year-round.  At 9 o’clock in the PM it’s free to get in so we took advantage of that.  One end of it is still the natural stone and the other is closed up to look more like a standard pool but the bottom is still the real deal.  Seaweed and slimy rocks.  It’s pretty great at night with the trees lining the place and the stars out.  Lauren and I went during the day once and it’s not as good.  Too many drum circle hippies.

Saturday night I went down to the Mohawk to watch Sunset Rubdown with the ladies.  Witchies and Elfin Saddle (both Montreal bands) opened.   They seemed pretty good, a nice change of pace from the opening acts I’ve seen lately.  I need to give them both another listen.

The Sunset Rubdown set was amazing.  The crowd was actually really cool for once and the band seemed to appreciate it.  Some guys were smoking cigars and Spencer remarked that it made him feel expensive.  The set list was heavy on Dragon Slayer which was fine by me because it sounds like it’s going to be another great record.  They only downside was the length of the show.  They didn’t go on until 11 and apparently there is a downtown curfew for outdoor music, wtf?  They had to quit playing at 12:15.  This is bullshit.  It’s a Saturday night.  To make up for it, they closed with the epic multi-drummer Nightingale/December.  So loud and incredible.

Gesse and Kady had joint birthday party Friday.  It was good times, but cupcakes and hooch led to me feeling less than spectacular Saturday.  Hoping to cure my ails, I biked up to the Tamale House for some migas.  Ironically I didn’t see tamales on the menu.  The place is very sketchy inside.  I’m not sure it’s ever seen a mop.  These cocerns faded when I bit into my delicious egg goop.  There are probably better places to get migas, but for cheap ass hangover food this is great.

not pretty, but it works

In keeping with the cold foods trend, I turned the large number of tomatoes in my CSA box into some gazpacho.  It was a good excuse to use the chamgane vinegar I bought at Williams Sonoma with my gift card.  A lot of gazpacho I’ve tried has seemed more like glorified salsa, but I used an old Andalusian recipe that required soaking french bread in water and then blending it with the rest.  It turned out quite nice.