Last minute minutiae

We've been spending our days wisely. Recently we had a mini Square Pegs and Freaks and Geeks marathon. Those were really awesome shows, that's why they were yanked off the air after only one successful season. Too much fun.

We took a break to grab some milk for Mexican hot chocolate, it's now a full on addiction. We stopped at Chuy's Bakery on Ohlen. It's the happening panaderia du jour. It's been open for a few months now, occupying a lil corner of what used to be Albertson's. This Mexican bakery beats all other Austin bakeries hands down. TOTALLY! Not only is their pan de dulce the bomb but the place itself is set up really well. Go check it out! I know where I'm getting the Rosca de Reyes this year.

Speaking of all things Mexican, I received "Dishes from theWild Horse Desert" by Melissa Guerra. If your Abuelita didn't teach you to cocinar or if you found her dashes of this and pinches of that difficult to commit to memory, this cookbook can stand in as your Abuelita. The recipes really resonated as they are exactly the dishes my Grandmother makes and speaks of. The Wild Horse Desert is that part of Texas between Del Rio, Brownsville, Victoria and San Antonio. The King and Kenedy ranches, said to be what Giant was based on, are located in that region.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! from our lil corner of the world to you in yours!

Insert Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses here.

New Set of Wheels

I received my Christmas skates last week as an early gift from Santa Mom! Artistic skate lessons begin January 8th as does the free one month pass to the rink. I'll be there practicing every chance I get.

It's the best way to work off the Christmas sweets too!

Good morning, Eggnog!

The holidays mean eggnog and toast for breakfast.

Looking back at my blogs, way back, I noticed that I used to work up until the 20th and 21st of December or more. Now I save up my vacation time so I can begin Christmas break a bit earlier. When I used to work through December 20th I remember being so distracted searching for Christmas songs,clips and searching for cookie recipes online making lists on sticky notes of all I had to do when I got off work. All I could write about were my frustrations with not planning ahead. Every year after that I was able to take off a day earlier.

This past week I was able to enjoy dinners with friends, Christmas films at the Paramount and we finally got to see Zachary Scott's legendary Rockin Christmas Party. So all that discipline paid off.

Just a random thought on Christmas: I'd love to get a Rusty Warren Christmas LP if there is one out there.

Success

I would say today was successful. We met with our friends for dinner at Amaya's Taco Village. I highly recommend this Tex-Mex diner. I didn't order their specialty but instead Amaya's two chicken and cheese enchildas with verde sauce.  The best! Seriously, better than Matt's and El Patio...Elsi's and Arrandas.

I was also able to finish Elf #2. Remember the army of pinecone elves I thought I could create? Building armies doesn't happen when you have a 40 hour day job and chores. Completing Elf #2 was the ultimate success. He's a bit odd looking though but he is an elf so open to interpretation... always. Sewing those tiny lil mittens and shoes and turning them inside out is uber difficult because they are so freaking teenie. Trying to get them to all match up makes it even harder.

Somewhat of a success was finally procuring a molinillo for only $3.19 at Fiesta. DOH! Of course, Fiesta. The one I ordered better be worth what I paid for it otherwise, I'm a chump! But we at least get our Mexican hot chocolate, um... tomorrow because the day is quickly coming to a close. There are only so many hours in the day after I put in eight at the office. I'm tired. This blog does not belong to some blissful domestic wonder living in crafty land with nothing to do with nothing but free time to create, marvel, photograph and upload. I have to be up before you do. However, after tomorrow I'll be putting in a significant amount of time as a temp in that crafty, domestic world.

IAWL

We are going to watch It's A Wonderful Life at the Paramount this year. It's always awesome to find other IAWL fans. Will they hand out tissues before the movie begins? I have never seen it out in public, could be quite the experience.

Christmas Tree 2009

Mexican Tin Nativity Ornaments
Originally uploaded by Tera in the Isles

Our trip to San Antonio for Mexican food, tin ornaments and a molinillo didn't turn out as we expected. The day was foggy and cold and then gave way to a colder mistiness the closer we got to San Antonio. It finally began to rain and never got out of the 40's. We passed on the market square and Mi Tierra, instead it felt better to hang with my brother at his house, get all cozy and watch some funny films. We did get our Mexican food at one of the restaurants in his neighborhood.

We ended up at Cha-Cha's and had a great dinner. Their menu doesn't include all the regular Tex-Mex foods. Their Caldo Azteca is not a tortilla soup nor a caldo de pollo but a unique recipe that is muy sabrozo. I also ordered the nopalito plate. I love cactus but never had it cooked in a ranchero sauce and topped with chihuahua cheese. It was served with refried beans and rice. This was the closest to my Grandmother's food I had ever tasted. I think the key was everything was so fresh. They told me they made the caldo Azteca more than once a day, more than twice a day sometimes. We weren't too sorry we passed on Mi Tierra. Maybe next time.

Cha-Cha's was decorated for Christmas with straw decorations from Michoacan. I had never seen straw wreaths, bells and garland quite that large and ornate.

We drove to Del Rio on Saturday and it was there that I acquired all the Mexican tin ornaments I needed to complete my tree. My mother had a bag of close to 30 of them waiting for me. These were the ornaments I had grown up with. The tree still needed a few more so I visited Milagro's Del Rio and completed the hunt. This cute store was decked out for the holidays and is fairly new in the town. It's now a must-stop destination because Lisa Craig has the absolute best Mexican imports this side of the border.

I was not successful in hunting down a molinillo in San Antonio. I was told the only place that would have them would be found in the market area. I used to see these at grocery stores growing up but haven't spotted one in years. Milagro's Del Rio had them in stock but sold out. But they had them!!! Mine should arrive soon.

Lewisville, TX

I just found out that the Texas town my roller skates are coming from was once featured in a Route 66 episode with Tuesday Weld, George Maharis and Martin Milner.  It was one of  the more esoteric episodes.
It was an episode entitled Love is a Skinny Kid. Tuesday Weld emerges from a bus with wearing a most disturbing mask.  She then goes on to emotionally torture several town's people as Buz and Tod try to fix everything. It took place in Lewisville, Texas.

I would love to visit Lewisville because not only is it sacred Route 66 ground. So much of what was featured in the episode filmed in 1962 has remained the same. But Lewisville is also home to Interskate Roller Rink  one of the largest and, from what I can see in photos, most awesome skating rinks ...in all the land.  They boast a maple hardwood floor that can accomodate 1000 skaters. Their skate shop is online. You can find Riedell skates at really reasonable prices there.

Minutiae Du Jour

I love what Jonathan Adler is doing but his work and that of  other designers and contemporary graphic artist have me wishing I could afford original Bruna's, Sasek's and a cabinet full of Holt-Howard ceramics. Holt howard made especially cute Christmas decor.

This year we did something different with the tree and made it extra shiny by adding one more light strand than usual and then decorating with Mexican tin ornaments. The tin ornaments are tres colorful and shiny. William really likes it. In keeping with the theme because we both love themes, I bought some Mexican hot chocolate to make all season.

I'm not a chocolate person but making Mexican hot chocolate is fun because of the molinillo. There was never a molinillo in my family though, I seem to come from a long line of people who never liked chocolate so no molinillo to pass down. In looking for molinillos I found French chocolate pots with built in chocolate frothers. Looks like it would make making hot chocolate fun the French way too. I'll be going to San Antonio at some point to pick up a nice molinillo.

























Another traditional Mexican Christmas beverage is ponche. The following recipe is off a website that has the closest recipe to authentic ponche:
8 quarts water
1 lb tejocotes
3 whole oranges
8 guavas
2 lbs sugar cane
1 lb pitted prunes
3 pears
1 C. raisins
6 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped
3 sticks cinnamon
1/2 C. whole cloves
2 1/2 lb. piloncillo
3 C. brandy or rum (optional)
Prepare the fruits( reserving the tecojote until the last half hour of simmering). Peel the sugar cane and slice it into medallions. Remove the stems and cores from the pears and cut into large chunks. Cut the guavas and prunes in half. Stud the oranges with the whole cloves. Cut the cone of piloncillo into large chunks.
In a very large pot (like your grandma used to use for canning), bring the water to a boil. Add all the fruits and nuts to the pot and bring it back to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for one-half hour, stirring gently now and then. Add the peeled tecojotes piloncillo and cinnamon. Simmer for another half hour.

Remove from heat. Ladel into cups, making sure each cup gets some chunks of fruit and nuts. Add rum or brandy to each cup as desired. Serve hot. Will make at least 30 servings.

One year I'd like to decorate a tree using nothing but those cute wooden ornaments that look like vintage Fisher-Price Little People. I have a few but not enough for an entire tree. I guess the theme then would be German Christmas. That would be a good excuse to maybe visit this place for cute decor. One tree that impressed me was a world tree decorated with ornaments that were handmade from all over the world. Ornaments for a themed tree like that can be found here.

Going through the wikipedia list of Christmas dishes...yum!!!!!! I would definitely love to attend a Christmas around the world party, one that was very thorough

Happy St Nick's Day!

Because of the predicted snow, I ran all my errands this week after work and ended up with nothing but free time all weekend. I caught up on my reading, put up Christmas and the tree and went to a show. I  finally had a chance to read some old Gourmet magazine articles from the 1940's by Clementine Paddleford and Louis Diat. I really enjoy gastonomic writings because they are usually very descriptive and evocative.

Since I was in a very 1940's mood we went to see I'll Be Seeing You: A 1940's Christmas Musical. We I was surprised and impressed with the quality of this cute Lakeway production.  The cast really understood and delivered a 1940's sound.  The costumes were cute. The girls were wearing some Stop Staring dresses so I got to see what many of the designs looked like in person. After the show I thought of Dino and hope we can catch him this month.

I rented Honey West and really dug the wardrobe and of course Bruce, the crazy ocelot.  Anne Francis was so awesome! I may have to get this set because I could watch it over and over. It delivers the perfect amount of inspiration I need to get myself sewing all those 1960's patterns. As for an ocelot, I knew someone who had one once as a pet. I should ask him how that went next time I see him.

Every year I order a tree from De Long Farms and have it delivered a few days before the December 6th. When I phoned them on Tuesday to check the status of The Tree I was told it had just been cut down and would not ship for another 24 hours and should expect to receive it on the 10th. That was slightly disappointing news but oh well.  Bussing home on Friday I thought of how I wouldn't be decorating for another week so maybe I'd bake instead since the day was nice and cold. When I arrived at my front yard, I spotted the familiar seven foot box across my  porch! I phoned De Long Farms and they don't know how or why I received my tree before it was even mailed and suggested, perhaps, a small Christmas miracle. 

Happy Birthday Sparky!

Did it snow, did it snow, did it snow?

As I began to compose a blog on the disappointment of predicted snow not showing up,  it finally began to snow.  For a full five minutes we all convened at the windows and watched a few flakes blow around  and then it was over. So much for the small blizzard that was predicted over 24 hours ago. The sun peaked out and a few more snow flakes came down...anemic, lil Texas snowflakes turning into droplets of water as soon as they hit the ground.

Petrified Forest Lodge

On the corner of Guadalupe and 45th St, where a Wal-Greens now sits, use to stand the awesome Petrified Forest Lodge. I used to drive by the place twice a day. The sight of it would feed my imagination and I'd often think of those people who drove in and out of the place. I'd wonder what Austin was like back then and how 45th street was the outskirts of town. It reminded me of the motel in the film Niagra.

It's too bad the lasting reminder couldn't be the Petrified Forest Lodge restored and used as shops, a cool coffee house, pub, offices or even a motel again. Hugo Kuehne was the founding dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture and designed the Ritz Theatre, now the Alamo Ritz on 6th St. (tres grateful for that restoration)

The Festive Cube