Food fiesta!

Last Saturday was Fiesta Oyster Bake, and although my kiddos pooped out on me this year, I wasn't about to miss the fun.

But with only myself to entertain, I thought I'd put on my journalist-blogger hat and give you a complete run-down of the great [non-shellfish] eats on offer at the party.

Before I could do my pig-out walkabout, though, I had a shift to put in at the choir's Chocolate-Covered Strawberries booth.

Here's what my station looked like, when I took a brief break in my 1:45 slog of constantly dipping strawberries:

It is rather astonishingly hard work, and complicated, too, since the chocolate has to be just the right consistency, and the berries the right temperature, to achieve the coating perfection we were looking for:

The decorative swirls were a great idea from one of the choir buddies, and they made for very professional-looking skewers. 

All in all, the kids did a great job of organizing the work, and—hopefully—made a lot of money we can use next year to do some touring.

A line for choir strawberries! Just what we like to see!

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When my work was done, I was tired and famished. So, off into the wilds of Oyster Bake to live off the land! (and, off the $20 worth of tickets I purchased!)

And here's the lunch-dinner course of my spread:

a generous bean-cheese chalupa...a bargain at 4 tickets!

an equally generous chicken fajita

...and, the pièce de résistance, which I can only get at the Bake:

a cup o' corn!

I blame my '50's childhood, but I still can't resist a good helping of canned vegetables. And when you add lemon juice (which makes everything better), butter, and lemon-pepper...well, let's just say that it's what makes the Bake for me (since I don't like oysters).

It's really a very interesting dish. They try to make you take it with "everything," which includes mayonnaise and tabasco sauce. But since the mayonnaise thing just seems wrong to me, and since I've never been able to take much tabasco, I have to put in a special order. As it was, that generous helping of lemon pepper was spicy enough to send me straight to the free waters being handed out in the Volunteer Appreciation Area. (What a nice perk that is, btw.)

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Ah! But now for the really sublime part of the afternoon—the dessert course(s)! Although it wasn't really needed, nutritionally-speaking, since each one of the preceding items could have served as a whole meal for me under normal circumstances. But I couldn't stop now!

I had been intrigued for the last week or so by the sign on one of the booths being set up near the Library. [As you might imagine, it takes a really long time to set up for this enormous party (I've blogged about this preparation work in the past). So we get to plan what we want to spend our tickets on 'way in advance.]

The booth that caught my eye was promising to sell—"Fried Cheesecake!"

Intellectually curious, and salivating at the same time, I finally got both curiosity and hunger satisfied. And the verdict is a big thumbs up! What a savory treat!

uneaten cheesecake morsel

partially eaten cheesecake morsel

It was worth the wait! As was my final dessert, one of those lovely and delicious skewers of strawberries...

strawberry skewer with one berry eaten

Pleasantly stuffed, with all the corners more than completely filled up, I headed for the bus stop to catch my ride home. Right. All this fun and food, for good causes, and no parking hassles. Did I mention that the weather was also just about perfect?!

The only way the day could have been improved would be having the kids join me. Hopefully this mouth-watering reportage will encourage them to put Oyster Bake on their calendars for next year.

Wordless Wednesday: pretty pinks

Sweet seats

At the risk of causing anxiety that Hometown Tourist might be turning into a sports blog, I have to revel a bit in the Spurs game we saw last week.

As guests of one of Henry's colleagues, who was using her firm's tickets, we were very close to the action. Note that the photo above, and the one just below, were taken without zooming! (Note inbounded ball in the red square below. Timmy's about to catch it.)

Zooming took us even in closer. As in this timeout shot. What I want to know is, why can't the players and coaches just get along? The group on the left (see red lines) are the players having a confab while the coaches confer over in the lane.

What fun to be close enough to notice such things! It helped that the game was a very exciting win. Against the Grizzlies, who knocked us out of the playoffs last year. Very satisfying. (Although not unexpected; they often win when we are at the games!)

And to top it off, the half-time entertainment was terrific (as always). Elementary school unicyclists! What more could you want in an evening out?!

...and your 50th anniversary present is...

They've been playing major league baseball in Houston for FIFTY years. What's even more alarming is that I can remember when it all first started.

We moved to Houston in the summer of 1960 and it wasn't long thereafter that we began hearing about an expansion team, coming in the spring of 1962. As a moderately smitten baseball fan (although—most ironically (see below)—more familiar with the American League (Tigers and Yankees mostly) than the National League where the franchise was awarded, I was thrilled.

The new team was named the Colt .45's and they played in a temporary stadium south of downtown. I vaguely remember that it was buggy and hot, but everything in Houston was buggy and hot back then. (I went through my last 6 years of public school there in un-air-conditioned classrooms, for gosh sakes.)

For obvious reasons, the games I remember attending were in the evenings (Wednesday night was Ladies Night: 50 cents got you a seat in the bleachers and all the autographs you could wrangle.) But it still rather makes me cringe to see photos like this one, from the Astros website, and think about all that unsheltered Houston sunshine:

The construction project in the background was the team's "permanent" home, at least permanent for 35 years. The Eighth Wonder of the World: the Astrodome, first indoor stadium in the world. What an exciting place it was! Even late in its active life (I went to a playoff game there in the last season of 1999) when it was getting pretty shabby, it was still a wonder.

Many, many happy memories there. My first full beer (at very a tender age, supplied by my very cool aunt). Actual double-headers (for you young-'uns, that's two baseball games for the price of one!). And, more cheap seats: in the centerfield pavilion, where the view was really quite spectacular, for $1. You could even catch home run balls there, as our son did (it was during batting practice, but it was still a home run ball...and it got autographed by the guy who hit it—Ken Caminiti, one of my Mom's favorite players, who later fell upon hard times—after the game).

Then, in 2000, we got a super new downtown park. Although I still occasionally miss the dome, Minute Maid (as it's now named...look here to see what it was originally called, and see photos from our first game there) is a very nice place to watch a game. I've often blogged about going to games there, and you can see the most photos of the place in this post. But, let me tell you, you can't get a seat at MMP for a dollar, much less 50 cents!

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In spite of our dissatisfaction over recent developments concerning our beloved team (see below), we do plan to make at least one game this season. But the other night, when they celebrated the actual 50th anniversary, to the day, of the first major league game played in Houston, I was just at home in front of our new big TV. To commemorate the date, the players were wearing old Colt's jerseys and, in spite of the less than stellar quality of my phone camera's low-light capability, I had to snap some shots.

Here's our right fielder, former pitcher Brian Bogusevic, playing (and chewing) his position in his Colts glory:

I later got a shot of Bogu at bat, and am including it especially for my sister. The red square highlights the fact that he's wearing short pants and stirrups (rather gaudily colored ones at that), which is a baseball fashion statement followed by only a few players, but which she heartily endorses...

And here's my nominee for current cutest Astro, left fielder J.D. Martinez at bat:

It slays me to think that these guys' FATHERS might not have even been sparkles in their fathers' eyes when the real Colts were on the field! 

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So, what about that bittersweet anniversary present? From the powers that be in major league baseball (which I refuse to capitalize), who spout platitudes about baseball's "sacred" traditions?

To start with, the Colt jerseys you see above might have looked a LOT lamer if mlb had had their ridiculously PC way. They didn't want the guns on the jerseys. Now, I'm about as far removed, on the general issue of firearms, from people like my NRA-member brother as it's possible to be, but this was ridiculous! Fortunately, and unusually in cases where the Astros are concerned (for the second most egregious example of Astros-screwing, google "Astros Cubs Hurricane Ike"; for the most egregious, see below), wiser heads prevailed.

Unfortunately, they didn't prevail about that 50th anniversary present.

To help you celebrate your 50 years in the National League, which was preceded by forty more years as a minor league town associated with National League teams...we're going to BOOT YOU OVER TO THE OTHER LEAGUE! Just to even out the divisions, which haven't been even for, I don't know, 20 years! There wasn't another solution?! One that would have respected baseball traditions instead of screwing them?!

Yes, I'm bitter. Yes, I get pretty choked up about this. Yes, I considered (briefly) just boycotting mlb all together.

But, I couldn't do it. The virus of the team you grow up with is a deep-seated infection. I have planned to dial back my obsession from rabid to something just the other side of casual. I don't plan to attend as many games as in the past, or watch as many on TV. But I can't just cut off that limb.

Besides, I've gotten used to cursing those in charge of baseball over the years. This will just add another talking point to the rant. And ranting is one of the things that—if we really admit it to ourselves—is one of the activities that makes being a baseball fan fun.

PLAY BALL!

Wordless Wednesday: backwards fruit

Wordless Wednesday: puffy whites

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No finer place for sure

Considering how cool our downtown is, we don't spend nearly enough time there. So it's somewhat surprising that in the last week I've been around the very heart of the area—the Alamo—not once, but twice!

This photo was taken* early Thursday when I got downtown (via bus) a little too early for a librarians' meeting at the historic Menger Hotel (you can see and read more about this neat hotel in a previous blog post).

Then, last night we attended a silly, but very entertaining, show at the Arneson River Theatre, an outdoor riverside amphitheatre just down the street from the iconic chapel. (It was Complete Works of Shakespeare...Abridged, put on by the Company Theatre. Quite a hoot, especially for the English majors in the audience.)

What a unique venue! And pretty much a perfect one, at least on an evening as pleasant as last night. Cool breezes (which won't be around for long, more's the pity) and clear skies...a great night for theatre under the stars and for floating down the river. (The players cleverly used the passing tourist barges in their patter, and the folks on board obviously enjoyed getting to see a snippet of the revue as a bonus.)

In all, I've probably spent as much time on the Riverwalk this week as I had in the past two years! We strolled around for some ice cream after the performance last night, and on Thursday I met some colleagues for a delightful lunch about as close to the water as you could get and stay dry!

I couldn't help but be impressed while downtown, not only by our wonderful Riverwalk, but also by some of the gorgeous buildings there. On the way from dinner to the Arneson, I caught this glimpse of the Emily Morgan Hotel through the windshield...[note Miami-looking palms and, un milagrito, a cyclist!]

Just a few days earlier I'd been even more taken with its early morning glow, next to its more famous neighbor...

Then, on our walk to the theatre, there was another gothic-looking structure begging to be photographed, the Tower Life Building, this time favored by a late afternoon sun...

For such a small, compact, downtown (and this has its advantages, too, as it's easy to get around!) we have a lot of great sights to admire.

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*I apologize for the picture quality of some of these photos. And also for my lack of blogging lately.

I am, unfortunately, still grieving for the loss of my wonderful camera—waterproof, but not immune to stupidly careless behavior (mine) that resulted in its being washed out of my kayak two weeks ago.

We might have been able to go back and find it later with snorkeling gear if the river levels hadn't perversely shot up soon thereafter, making for some great paddling, but also insuring that the poor baby is probably buried in the riverbed now, under tons of debris.

I am still debating whether I am entitled to buy a new camera, or could possibly find a nice used one, or whether I should do more penance—namely, being restricted to my phone camera for photos. It does remarkably well for a device that really has no business being a camera as well as a phone and internet connector. But it's not as good as its lost brother, as I'm sure you can see in some of the pictures above.

So I will probably continue my only sporadic blogging for a while, as I work through this surprising difficult emotional turmoil. Please bear with me.

And if anyone knows of someone wanting to unload a small waterproof camera, let me know in the comments. You can assure the owner that lessons have been learned and it will be anchored to boat and/or person at all times and will not be sacrificed to the river gods if I can possibly help it.

I can't bear the thought of going through this again.