Food 911

Since I will not be cooking for the next week, I thought it would be a good time to post on food. This time of year the farmers market is in full bloom. The prices this year have been better than the year past, which of course makes me happy.

My favorites market items are heirloom tomatoes-especially the green zebra, peppers galore-serrano, poblano, jalepeno, bell, onions-sweet and vidalia, and eggplant. I just started cooking with eggplant and I am addicted.

I am trying to perfect roasted chicken, so far putting herbed butter under the skin has worked bet. I tried cream cheese as one recipe suggested, but it was too overpowering for my taste. A bed of cous cous is perfect to pick up all the jus from the roast. Roast onions and peppers are an easy and delicious accompaniment.

I will definitely miss the homegrown tomatoes as they are perfection dressed with just a little salt and pepper. The hydroponic or "vine ripened" tomatoes we have to live with at the grocery need a lot of doctoring.

I have been roasting eggplant lightly brushed with olive oil frequently. To give the veggie some taste I have been make some chimmi churri like sauces with cilantro, garlic, peppers to top. I made a stuffed Italian eggplant the other day which was an interesting and easy dish.

If I haven't mentioned before, I love to use Foodnetwork's website to search for recipes. The search engine is great and I find I start to like certain cooks recipes better. Tyler Florence is one of my favorites at the moment. I'm not big on the 30 minute meal recipes, but I do love Rachel's travel tips for food.

Since it is Oktoberfest season, I will end with German fare. We made a stop last weekend in the Amanas, which I blogged on in my Iowa travels. We had a nice family style German meal with plenty of Schnitzel with my parents and grandma for her 84th birthday. We make brats at home every now and then with German potato salad and artichoke salad. Sides of sauerkraut, mustard, and horseradish are a must!


Thought for the day: You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

Son of Sam, Son of Hope

I first heard David Berkowitz's story over 2 years ago. A coworker asked me what I was listening to and I said the testimony of David Berkowitz on Focus on the Family. I went on to explain he was a serial killer who converted to Christianity. My coworker immediately said he is going to hell, but I saw David as God did--forgiven. I was overwhelmed with compassion for a serial killer.

Unfortunately FOF no longer has the podcast up, but I recently came across a video that relays the powerful story. Check out David Berkowitz's homepage where you can view several videos on the first page. The video is so much more interesting than me writing out his testimony, so I highly encourage you to listen (Video link)

A lot of people talk about being good people or classify certain people as good people. I imagine in their minds David Berkowitz would fall under the category of a bad person. Somehow there is this scale under the law or under personal choices that make them good people or bad people.

The fact of the matter is all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When I think of David Berkowitz , I see someone not so different from myself. How big is the grace of God? How deep is God's love? How wide is His mercy?



Thought for the day: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles. Psalm 34

Emerald City Epilogue

Its been about 2 years since I called Seattle my home away from home. I enjoyed revisiting my old stomping grounds and exploring new ones with my husband. We spent the majority of our time wondering through the eclectic neighborhoods of Seattle and took a trip to the mountains to see the Snoqualmie Falls and go hiking. People always talk about how much it rains in Seattle, but we had 5 days of sunshine and 70s. In fact, NYC and Boston get more rain typically than the 38 inches Seattle gets each year. The Washington Coast is another matter, which receives a whopping 200 plus inches a year.

Coffee shops were on the agenda since this is where it all began in 1971, Starbucks that is. Luckily there are numerous independent cafes with a lot of personality and great espresso. Many shops were housed in old garages as seen in the picture. Lonely Planet had good recommendations as always.

Seattle is a geographic wonderland. To the North you have the San Juan Islands, Skagit Valley tulip fields, Vancouver, Whistler, to the east are the Cascades including Mt. Rainer and the Snoqualmie Falls, to the South you have Mt. St Helens, the Columbia River Valley and Portland, and to the West you have the Puget Sound, Olympic National Park, Hoh Rain forest and the Pacific Coast. If you plan to visit I highly recommend at least a week and check out all directions from Seattle.

We hiked around Snoqualmie Falls and found one of my favorite critters, a brown slug! I know it may be strange, but I had many pet slugs growing up and have a warm affection for them.

We visited Alki beach in West Seattle, where the water was surprisingly warm. It was low tide, so we made our way out to sea. I noticed a jelly fish close by and then Wyatt noticed one by him. Luckily we didn't wander

into a bloom of them. On shore, I managed to step on the top of one, but did not get stung.

We made a pilgrimages out to Ballard just North of the downtown area. Salmon were heading from salt to fresh water for spawning. At the Ballard locks, the have a fish ladder where you can view the salmon making their journey. Tons of salmon were jumping above the water too. We also made a trip to Mars Hill Church which was in downtown Ballard in a dark warehouse building. It was great to worship there.

Other activities included touring the Pyramid microbrewery and Chateau Ste. Michelle winery. The filtration equipment and heat exchangers made me nostalgic for chemical engineering. I could have been a brew master, alas.

Thought for the day: When you feel neglected, think of the female salmon, who lays 3,000,000 eggs but no one remembers her on Mother's Day.

No Intelligence Allowed

I had the pleasure of meeting Ben Stein a few years back and was delighted to hear he was venturing into documentary film making. I was even more excited to hear he would be taking on science and essentially the problems I addressed in my last blog.

Ben Stein has a long list of credentials including lawyer, comedian, actor, political speech writer, economist, and professor. I'm not a Gore hater (hey, I have a Gore '08 sticker on the fridge), but if I have to hear him narrate one more documentary I just might have to take that sticker down. So it is incredibly refreshing to hear an intelligent, funny and wonderfully gifted voice will be addressing a very poignant topic that needs to be revealed.

Essentially this film looks like it is going to expose the discrimination against many scientist who bring up any questions against Darwinism. Stein explains this is a matter of freedom stating Freedom is not conferred by the state: as our founders said, and as Martin Luther King repeated, freedom is God-given. A huge part of this freedom is freedom of inquiry. This includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS. Ben Stein is bringing to light the issue of how science is defined and ultimately practiced.

I remember back to my days of evolutionary biology in college where my professors frequently mocked the idea of God and that it had no place in the realm of science. You don't have to go into a science classroom these days because leading atheists Dawkins and Hitchens are bringing this message to you by way of the Best Sellers list and prime time TV.

Additionally, Ben Stein is Jewish, so I hope this film will open the eyes of some Americans who immediately dismiss any critiques of who they perceive to be Right Wing Christian wing nuts. I'm looking forward to a full review when the movie comes out. I hope you will be encouraged to check it out. Watch the trailer here.

Thought for the day: If science can't even disprove the existence of unicorns, how can it disprove the existence of God?

The More You Know, the Less You Understand

I have been interested in philosophy ever since I first read Plato's Republic in my early teens. I then dabbled in existential writers like Camus, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Objectivist Ayn Rand. I was just shy of a minor in philosophy in college where I was especially enjoyed medieval and religious philosophies of Augustine, Algazali, Aquinas, Anselm and the list goes on...

So I was delighted to find a new podcast and website that has thoughtful and interesting information on relevant philosophy, science, ethics in relation to Christianity. Special thanks to my friend Jen, who introduced me to the group Stand to Reason. The founder of Stand to Reason is Greg Koukl. He has a talk radio program that comes weekly as a podcast and this blog will touch on his most recent podcast Science-Is God Out of Bounds? (Subscribe here!)

The podcast is formatted to have around an hour to address a relevant topic, in this episode its science and then an hour of listener calls. Recent podcasts include discussions on Christopher Hitchen's bestseller God is Not Great, How Christians Should think about voting for a Mormon, and Raising Children to be Adults.

Greg is addressing an article by Edward Larson called If its Supernatural it is not Science. Larson makes the statement that even if God did create the universe, its not science. Science as it is currently defined is to explain the material world by naturalistic explanations. Thus science by definition leaves no room for the supernatural.

Greg raises a point that this definition is problematic. He draws a good analogy in that if you find a man with a gun wound, knife stab, and head lopped off, you aren't going to say he died of natural causes. In fact, you will probably search for an agent that caused the death. Why is it that science limits itself arbitrarily to rule out certain agents as causes?

"Is it possible that there are some nonscientific enterprises like philosphy, theology and ethics that might contribute legitimate, defensible conclusions that represent problems for some scientific views? If truth is really the object of the scientific enterprise, scientists should welcome it from any source. So Greg propose that the definition of science should not limit its causes to only the material world.

Greg also addresses scientism. Scientism is a belief propelled by Carl Sagan and others that science is the source of all reliable information about the world. Plainly stated, only that which can be proved by science is true. Society is infected with scientism and you will find a good number of individuals who dismiss anything that is not science. Science is fact and everything else including philosophy and theology may or may not be true, but we will never know.

The limitations of the definition of science as previously stated make this view a rather dangerous one to hold. If science is the only way to truth then science itself is self-refuting because science is built on a series of truths that cannot be demonstrated by science but must be in place even for science to be valid.


Check out more science related articles here. I recommend Sagan and Scientism, Unbelievable Unbelief, and Science Isn't, Science Is.

Thought for the Day: If the wager is your life, what odds will you take?

Where in the world are all the Christians?

The media would still have you believe Christianity is a religion that is synonymous with the right wing whose main concern is running the US. The majority of the world's Christians; however, are not in the US. In fact there are Christians in every country of the world, countries that you may have not heard of like Djibouti and Tuvalu.

Christianity is the only truly global religion. You will find missionaries in New Mexico from Indonesia witnessing to the Navajos. You will find Nigerians starting churches across Europe. The Chinese church is sending thousands upon thousands to the Middle East.

The world continent by continent has an almost even distribution of Christians today. This has of course changed over history and even the last 100 years. I am throwing out all these stats without support, but hey this is a blog. Operation World has a wonderful podcast and presentation where I have pulled these pictures on their website. Check out the YLG podcast and presentation.

The majority of the world's mission force comes from non-Western countries. To my surprise, Mongolia sends the most missionaries per Christian- 1 missionary for every 222 Christians. The next greatest sending countries per Christian are Lebanon, Singapore, Niger, and Nepal. I think this should send quite a message to the much wealthier churches of the West.

In closing, Operation World has a great resource that outlines all the countries of the world in good detail and also how you can pray for all the countries more specifically. I would highly recommend getting this book.






Thought for the Day: When man works, man works. When man prays, God works.

Food Roll Overs

I have too many food pictures, so I need to do a quick post to display them all. Wyatt and I aren't big on left overs. I personally like to get my knives and frying pan out and Wyatt likes variety. There are many terms for reusing left overs in new ways, my favorite thus far is Rachel Ray's coined name Roll Overs.

Lately, I have seen many recipes calling for a store bought rotisserie chicken. Recently, I saw a show where Tyler Florence broiled a chicken beautifully by cutting out the back with scissors, so I decided to use that for a base of several roll over meals. Not to mention the whole organic fresh free roaming chicken was 79 cents a pound, so I got a 4 pound bird for a little over $3 (about half the price of rotisserie I think). Meal 1: Broil chicken in lemon, olive oil, and thyme with roast vidalia onions, garlic rice and bulgar, and garden tomato salad.

I took my traditional America meal and transformed it into a Southeast Asian staple, chicken tikka. Meal 2: Sliced broiled chicken with reused tomatoes, vidalia onions with tikka spices, a touch of cream and topped with coriander over rice. Note: The broiled chicken was so tender on the second day and absorbed the flavors of the spices perfectly.

If you still have some left over chicken, try this last combo. Meal 3: Puff pastry squares stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, chopped vidalia onion, mushroom and shredded broiled chicken served with brown rice and seasoned tomatoes.

Veggies can be rolled over too. I prepared roasted acorn squash with cinnamon and sugar as side dish in Meal 1 with roast pork and onions. Meal 2: I added the left over squash to chicken stock and blended with a submersion blended and added a touch of cream for a rich soup.

Finally frozen shrimp are a great way to roll over meals, ok so this technically isn't a roll over, but a good tip. Shrimp are sold frozen in larger bags at the store, often at significant discount. We especially like the jumbo freshwater shrimp cooked with shell on to keep a nice texture. Meal 1: Angel hair pasta tossed with grilled shrimp, roasted cherry tomatoes, Alaskan jumbo king crab meat, parsley, lemon, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Meal 2: Spicy Cajun fried shrimp with lemon and green beans. Both meals are super easy and can be made from your pantry if you have the frozen shrimp on hand.

Believe it or not I have several other shots I wanted to blog about, but I will save them for later. I would love to hear about your roll overs and the largest number of meals you have made from stretching one option.

Thought for the Day: The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook. ~Julia Child

From Vampires to Jesus

I know nothing of God or the Devil. I have never seen a vision nor learned a secret that would damn or save my soul. A quote from one of Anne Rice's main characters in Interview with a Vampire. This movie was a favorite of my youth. Was it Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in one movie or the existential search for meaning?

Anne an atheist for 30 years now pens stories of another supernatural being, Christ the Lord. You might wander what journey brought this women from devout atheism back to devout Catholicism. A new found podcast reminded me of the fascinating conversion Anne underwent that suddenly transformed her main character from a vampire to Jesus.

The Whitehorse Inn a delightful podcast that interviews many leading thinkers and answers difficult questions recently interviewed Anne Rice (Listen Here). Anne discusses her return to Christianity, as well as, the reliability of some New Testament scholarship.

Anne grew up in a strict Roman Catholic home in New Orleans. She left the church and her faith upon entering college where she describes, "No personal event precipitated this loss of faith...there was the world itself, without Catholicism, filled with good people and people who read books that were strictly speaking forbidden to me. I wanted to read Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. I wanted to know why so many seemingly good people didn't believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behaviors and the values of their lives..." (Read more here.)

So Anne threw herself into her work, embracing atheism, and began publishing many best selling books (50 million plus). Anne's novels have always tried for complete historical accuracy, whether it be the 18th and 19th century for her Vampire Chronicles or the 1st Century for recounting the life of Jesus. Fascinatingly, she does not use an editor for any rewrites and brings each work to perfection herself.

In fact it was her own research into the first century and Roman culture that brought her to the questions--How did Christianity actually 'happen'? Why did Rome actually fall? The mystery she couldn't explain was the survival of the Jews. This set into motion the idea that there might be a God. She returned to the church in 1998. She read the Bible now with a state of utter amazement at its variety, poetry, and startling portraits of women. She posed herself to exhaustively research Jesus and how Christianity emerged.

Anne did much research into New Testament scholarship. She first looked at the skeptical New Testament scholars of the Enlightenment. To her surprise, she did not find strong, well examined arguments, but incoherent, inelegant assumptions and conjectures that reached absurd conclusions on the basis of little or no data at all.

In summary Anne found--"the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if he knew about it-that whole picture floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read."

Anne had never seen such kind of emotion in any other field of research. Luckily she came across other scholars who took seriously the words of the Gospel and presented their individual authorship and unique coherence. Among those include A.T. Robinson, N.T. Wright who addressed that Christianity achieved what it did in fact because Jesus rose from the dead. It was this fact that sent the apostles out into the world with the force necessary to create Christianity, nothing else would have done that.

Given these two directions in scholarship, Anne was confronted with how to write her novels about Jesus. Anne has accepted that challenge and chosen to write about the Jesus of the Gospels! So with that I am encouraged to read her work and happy to know I will not find the ill researched, poorly presented history of someone like Dan Brown.

Please let me know if you have read her work and your thoughts.


Thought for the Day: If God were to make reasonable promises: a spiritual high, a tax break, then a secular age might credit the word of the Almighty. But God promises a new nature, physical resurrection, a new heaven and earth, and eternal life.

Chicken and Noodle

Some things are just great combinations, like chicken and noodles, cookies and milk, Tracy and Wyatt. I am currently reading The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, which was recommended to me by Noel Piper. It is a lovely book that encourages us to be creative as we are made in the image of God, the ultimate creator. Creativity can flow in many areas of everyday life from music to decorating to cooking.

Cooking is something I love to experiment with as you have seen from other posts. Last night I made steak tacos and changed our normal flour tortillas and crispy corn shells out for fresh soft corn tortillas. It made a world of difference, so I highly recommend trying it. We used the Migas brand made in Chicago. Also add a homemade salsa of tomato, cilantro, and lime and queso fresco (fancy cheese aisle) to give it a very fresh taste.

Wyatt and I started having a tea time where we sometimes have a devotional, podcast, or just discuss the day. To switch things up, I made homemade chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. This was courtesy of the Toll House package directions, since it was a whim inspired by the Food and Wine magazine I was reading at the moment. As always I am trying to convert Wyatt from Starbucks to coffee at home, so we bought Intelligensia espresso beans and Ghirardelli mocha powder and I whipped up a Chocolate Mocha with my espresso machine. The satisfaction of creating things from nearly scratch is definitely worth the time.

The same evening as the mocha, I introduced Wyatt to the wonderful world of soap carving. Astonishingly, he had never heard of such a thing. I would consider this a lost art, as it has been buried in my repertoire for many years. We both opted to carve turtles at my suggestion. Toothpicks make the perfect tool for chiseling. I dug out my bag of hotel soap and we each selected our medium. These were pretty quick pieces, so look for more developed ones in future blogs.

Thought for the Day: The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Free is not always better

Blasphemy you say! Time is money, yada yada yada, there is no such thing as a free lunch, etc. Ok, ok, I hear you. Although I do gain much joy out of finding a good and especially free deal, some of them are a risk. I was bitten by a trip to the Shedd Aquarium, my favorite museum, when on a free day the wait just to get inside was several hours (no, I did not wait). It was a good lesson and reminds me to think a little bit harder when I see the word FREE.

On the brighter side, I had a wonderful free lunch last week at the all you can eat Brazilian steak house Fogo De Chao. A salad bar that alone I could have made 5 different meals from plus unlimited amounts of 16 cuts of meat. I believe I sampled every cut with my favorite being picanha, the best part of the sirloin. Other notable mentions were beef ancho and bacon wrapped filet mignon. Even though the food is great, I give a mild recommendation since the price is steep and it would be difficult to eat your money's worth.

Colombia is a neighbor to Brazil and also boasts delicioso meat dishes. We recently hosted a birthday party for a friend at a very festive Colombian restaurant Pueblocito Viejo. The fact that you have to make a reservation in Spanish speaks to the authenticity of the place. Not

only do you get many authentic dishes like carne asada, arepas, and platanos, but the jungle like atmosphere will place you on a house patio in Bogotá. Salsa and dance music kicks in around 9 and you can dance your meal off till 3 am.

Wyatt and I love Ethiopian food and have found many people aren't exposed to this unique cuisine. Chicago has several options for Ethiopian, but we have declared the creme de la creme to go to Ethiopian Diamond after many thorough tastings. We love to sit at traditional or basket tables and split a platter of several meats and veggie stew-like dishes. The unique part of the meal is your utensil, injera. This crepe-like bread is quite sour if made right since it is fermented for 4 days. If its your first time definitely get the spice tea and a sample platter of several dishes.

To end this eclectic blog I want to share a tip I found out by accident this week. I recently discovered that the special weekend rate for Avis kicks in at 9 am on Thurs. So by booking 30 min later than I wanted I went from a rate of $161 for the weekend to $90. Play around with the hours when you book cars and flights and you just might get a super deal. This will come in handy as we plan several upcoming adventures to Seattle, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Iowa!

Thought for the day: A free lunch is only found in mousetraps?

Dicern Your Food

I primarily shop in one aisle of the supermarket, fresh produce and meat. My local Jewel consists of about 90% processed food and 10% fresh food. I'm not on a diet nor do I want to be, but I have decided to become more food conscience. One couple at our young marrieds class at church reminisced about how they knew the honeymoon was over when 3 months in they were 20 pounds heavier and realized its time to cut back on the three course gourmet meals every night.

Every now and again my Time mag has an article worth reading. What the World Eats was fascinating, see the pictorial here. The photo essay pictures 16 families from around the world and what they eat. The essay outlines how much each family spends weekly on food. Not surprisingly, an African family only spend $1.50 a week for a food budget. A German family came out on top spending over $500 a week. The most appealing layouts to me where Japanese and Mexican food diets. Japanese of course for the fresh fish and sushi, although Wyatt and I found ourselves worn out on sushi after 2 weeks in Japan. I still cannot eat Udon since getting back. Mexico seems to sport the most fresh veggies and fruits and I am of late a chili fanatic.

The article in Time had some interesting observations. I will relay a few for you. Tomatoes didn't come to Italy until Columbus brought them back from US. Japan got chopsticks from China and tempura from Portugul. Food's purpose is to keep us alive, but something we rarely think about. Africa is one place where this reality can be see. Meat is a luxury in many areas and last year the starvation in Niger spoke to the great need for the basic necessities for this continent.

In closing I will plug an upcoming food movie I am soo excited to see, Ratatouille! From my favorite movie company, Pixar, makers of Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc, comes this animated feature of a mouse in Paris with a knack for the culinary arts. France, food, and furry animals, sounds like a winner to me.

Let me know which country food appeals to you and why.

Thought for the day: Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. ~Jim Davis

Two Sweet Freebies!

Two excellent freebies, you should download and listen! Christianaudio.com has a free monthly download and this month its an audio book on the best of Jonathan Edwards Sermons, $15 value. Download here and use code provided. I just downloaded it, so I will let you know what I think once I get to listen. It includes his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God...good stuff.

Secondly, the New Attitude conference from two weeks ago is up for free at Sovereign Grace Ministries. The conference is on discernment and features great speakers like John Piper, Mark Dever, and Joshua Harris. Still working my way through the seven part conference, but so far its great.

Thats all for now, I should be back soon : )

Food and Wine Introspective

I have been trying to eliminate TV from my daily routine, but the Food Network and Travel Channel are making that hard. I do enjoy the simple tips from Rachel Ray like grating garlic into your marinade or exploring delicacies of half born chicken eggs or halo halo with Andrew Zimmerman. Today I will simply post on a few meals that have had some inspiration from TV shows, some from podcasts, and some from my curiosity of mixing interesting ingredients.

This is just a glimpse into a few dishes I have done recently. I try to keep them affordable, healthy and tasty (also maximizing a very small kitchen space). I'm still working on portion control . Yesterday I marinated a chicken breast in several spices with an emphasis on cayenne and paprika and grilled it (on an indoor grill). I broiled a vegetable kabob of baby bella, red onion, and yellow pepper. Amazingly, heirloom tomatoes were the cheapest in the store, so I simply prepared them with salt and pepper. Oh, I can't leave out my new found love, quinoa! It looks like cous cous and is an Incan organic grain that contains the most high quality protein of any grain. I paired it with a Pouilly Fuisse, an exquisite chardonnay from Burgundy.

Wyatt likes pork, I'm not a big fan. As a compromise, I made him a center cut pork chop and myself a pork cutlet dredged in lemon and Parmesan. I oven roasted asparagus with lemon zest and made a side of angel hair pasta with fresh tomato sauce and baby bellas in marsala. Normally I wouldn't recommend a Malbec with pork, but I didn't mind overpowering the dish : ) Malbec is very fruit foward and a great value wine out of Argentina.


After a trip to Mitsuwa, I was stocked up on Asian goodies. We love making miso soup from fresh miso paste. It tastes just as good as the sushi restaurants and is very healthy. Miso paste is a great ingredient to add to marinades or sauces and has an unbeatable shelf life of six months, now thats value! Asian stores often have marinated meat, so we grilled a nice helping of bulgoki, alongside fresh shitake mushrooms. No Asian meal is complete without a side of kimchi, fermented spicy cabbage. Wine pairing for this is an Anderzon Cote de Rhone, which is a Syrah. Very bold and flavorful, again probably not the best choice for spicy food, but we drink what we like and enjoy trying things out for ourselves!



Thought for the Day: You gotta have fresh intestines for chittlins~Andrew Zimmerman

Keeping Austin Weird

In anticipation of our trip to Austin, I decided to watch David Linklater's Slacker to get a feel for Austin. The movie was one character after another and had little cowboy hats or country. I then found out that the motto for Austin is Keep Austin Weird. So at that point, I didn't know what to expect. Luckily Rachel Ray had made several trips to Austin and reassured us that we were in for some culinary treats.

The BBQ was phenomenal in the Austin area. We enjoyed ribs, brisket, and turkey at Stubb's in downtown Austin. The sushi scene was great too. Lonely Planet gave us the tip to head to award winning Uchi. Foie gras and fatty toro on the same menu, now thats my kind of place. Of course we hit the coffee houses, which boasted many unique and yes weird spots, ala Spider House and Ruta Maya International Headquarters. The common theme amongst the food and drink joints in Austin is a stage and live music, it is the live music capitol of the world.

Wyatt soon discovered my passion for Goodwill as Austin or Texas, for that matter, appears to be the thrift store capitol of the world. He was very patient and even found a beautiful triple X beaver cowboy hat and leather cowboy boots.

We enjoyed two stepping and the rodeo at Cowboy's Dance Hall in San Antonio. Riding a bull for eight seconds takes a very brave individual. The Broken Spoke was reminiscent of Station Inn, our favorite spot in Nashville. With cowboy hats and boots, I'm sure we blended right in with the locals.

If you have any suggestions for locations that have a great two stepping or country dancing scene, let us know while we still have the bug.




Thought for the Day: I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps. Rocky