Waiting

"Is it fall yet?"

"No."

"..."

"How about now?"

You're going to have to excuse me while I get this out of my system. I think we're at.. what, 40 days in a row of 100+ temperatures? 41? Anyway, I'm close. And we're just a day away from tying the all-time record of the longest such streak. It finally starts to really fry one's brain. Like say, the first time you get in the car and see 105 on the temp gauge and think, "Ah, we're having a cool day!"

College football season is soclose and I can't wait to have friends over once it's cool enough to hang in the side yard. And grill. And run my oven. And so I'm just waiting. Waiting for fall. Indulge me, won't you?


At my dad's house in Louisiana.


Another one at dad's.


Shake Shack, Madison Square Park, New York City.


At the Dallas Arboretum.


My living room (This'll be my first football season with HDTV!!!)


State Fair of Texas (an October occurrence)

It's just around the corner right? Maybe six weeks? I can make it. I think. Also, did you know that Florence + the Machine did a cover of 'Addicted to Love'? I love it.

On the road again

June is almost gone. How does that happen? When school wraps up, and you look out at the expanse of June and July, it seems as though it'll go on forever. And then, in some strange way, time speeds up and suddenly it's July and ohlook! suddenly it's August and gah! it's over! The only comfort being that the weather is intolerable, so the sooner we get through summer, the sooner our electric bills will come back down.

A nice thing about summer in Dallas is the crape myrtles blooming. One thing this town ain't lacking is crape myrtles. I was trying to give my dad directions to my place by pointing out that you turn left where there's a big pink crape myrtle on the corner but really, they're on every corner. Not helpful.



It does make my front walk look like this, though. Isn't that nice? Like someone just got married on my sidewalk. We had one in our front yard when I was growing up too. They spit on you, you know. Like the faintest drizzle when you're standing underneath. It's nice.

So back in May, my mom helped me rearrange my living room. It was previously organized to accommodate a huge TV cabinet that I'd had for 5 years that was so large it would only fit in one place. It was wonky. So we finally ditched it, I got a new TV stand (and a new TV!), and now, this.



That's right, I can watch TV and bake at the same time. It's the best ever. I love being able to see the TV from the kitchen. My place in Austin was like that too. That's oatmeal cookie dough by the way. Yup.

But back to the summer and how it flies by. For me, July really is going to be a whopper. I'm traveling for four consecutive weekends. Can you believe it? What an idiot. First to Houston for what will no doubt be an epic house-warming party, and to finally, finally tour the Blue Bell Creamery. All my life I've wanted to do this, but since the tours are on weekdays only, and the Creamery is in Brenham, it was just hard.



Follow that truck!

Then the following Wednesday I'm off to the East Coast to visit friends in Philly and in NYC. And on Thursday night, at one minute past the stroke of midnight, my friend Lauren, myself, and a theater full of totally hopped-up, spazzed out of their minds Harry Potter fans will witness history.



Oh the agony of seeing it all end. How will we survive?? Rereading the books helps. I'm doing that now in my run-up to the movie coming out. I still turn each page like I can't imagine what's coming next. Genius. I'm looking at you, Rowling.

Then the next two weekends will be spent wearing my Auntie Manda hat and traveling to see these kiddos. And a few other people too.



Rock star Will...



Beautiful Mary...



And this deceptively adorable little girl. Just watch her, though. The second you look the other way, Suzy will rub Vaseline jelly into your mattress. It's true. Ask her mom.

Then I'm home! Phew! Can you imagine anything crazier? I can't wait, but I'm also exhausted just thinking about it. Does anyone else have superfun summer plans?

In season

August in Texas can be a beat down. A major b.e.a.t. d.o.w.n. Like ohmygosh can it get any hotter? Will it ever cool off again? Remember those beautiful snowy days? How can one place have such extreme seasons? (And hardly anything in between, mind you.)


(Granted, this was taken on the blacktop in the parking lot at my workplace at the hottest point of the day. The official high today was only 107. So.. yeah.)

So it seems, it's understandable that every year at about this time I start going crazy for the farmers market. Because if you can't beat the heat, you may as well enjoy the fruits of its labor.

And just like last year, I've taken to stalking the Canton peach stand at the Dallas Farmers Market. Also into my bag over the last few weeks has gone some tomatoes (okay, a lot of tomatoes), okra, blueberries, fresh corn, and cream peas - also known as lady peas (gonna cook those tomorrow). But most of all, lots and lots of peaches. I go crazy for them. Much the same way I used to go crazy for nectarines when I was younger. But you really can't find locally grown nectarines around here, and grocery store produce tastes like crap once you taste these peaches. So here we are. At the peach stand on Saturday morning. Like clockwork.

Posted my recipe for the cobbler last year. And this past weekend I made peach ice cream. I think the next batch of peaches I bring home will go into the freezer so I can relive the peach joy on a colder day.



I'll look at these pictures and remember days like these, and I'm telling you, I'll probably long for them. Days when I could hear the cicadas humming outside. When little dresses and flip flops and tank tops were the uniform of choice. You think? Hrm.. Maybe.

P.S. That's my view while I'm washing the dishes at the new place. Nice huh?

Enjoy some Sam Cooke, y'all.

Dear readers,

Ahhh! Hay you guys, what's happening? It's amazing how summer flies by you, isn't it? Despite the heat and everlasting long days, it still seems to go much too fast for my taste.



Since we last chatted, I packed up and moved into a new apartment. Also packed up my office, moved for a two week spell, then moved back, but into a different office. So. That sucked. Like, that's a lot of packing, no? Naturally I haven't finished unpacking my house or my office cos it's like, who wants to deal with that, after all that packing?

Also have been traveling here and there. To Houston a couple times to see friends and family, and all the way to Los Angeles to see my friend Susan. W00t.



Next will be the other LA, Louisiana, to see family. Then hopefully I'll settle down for a bit. And maybe blog with a tad more regularity. Send me gifts and I will consider.

XO,
AT

Late summer color

I feel like I've totally missed the window on posting about peach cobbler since it's October for crying out loud. But if you're a good girl like me and froze you some, you can still make this with fresh(ish) peaches. Or you can make the recipe with frozen peaches from the store, too. I've done that and it's very nearly just as tasty.

So yeah, these are the peaches I was obsessed with from the Farmer's Market. Did I mention those? No, that was the okra, these are the peaches. This was the real reason I was there three weekends in a row. I hit the same booth every time. If I remember correctly, the sign says they were grown in Canton. They were a bit small (always a good sign I think) and were sweet as sugar and I was like a crack addict coming back for more. Yum.



My mom made peach cobbler a lot when I was growing up. And it was served with a blop of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla on top. Always, always. Oh yum. Usually I'm all for reinventing recipes from scratch, a la banana pudding, but there are some things you don't mess with. Banana nut bread is one of them. And peach cobbler is another. So I make it, as my mother did, with Bisquick. Don't knock it.

Take about four cups of sliced peaches. I peel the skins off too. Toss them in a pot with a wee bit of water and some sugar if you need it (if your peaches are super-sweet, you might not) and put it on low heat. Plus I like to pile in some cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. No idea how much - do it to your taste. The original well-weathered recipe from my mom's cookbook called for a #2 can of peaches, though mom usually made this with fresh. So when I make that peach mixture, I'm aiming to heat it just long enough to get the same amount of peach-to-syrup ratio as that fabled #2 can of peaches.

Set your oven to 350 degrees (or whatever setting achieves this temperature, as is the case with my crap-box). Then mix 1 cup of Bisquick (fo sho), 1/2 cup of sugar, and 3/4 cup of milk. Meanwhile, toss 3/4 of a stick of butter into a casserole dish and pop it into the pre-heating oven until it melts. Don't let it burn!



The next part is key. Pour the batter in first, then add your peaches and syrup, spooned in delicately on top. Now, as the batter bakes and rises, it's going to soak up a lot of that yummy peach syrup. Oh yeah, and the gobs of butter. It goes in looking like a hot mess, but comes out like this after about 40-45 minutes:



Serve with ice cream if you please. In fact, I'd highly recommend it, because if you don't, you might be insulting its southern sensibility. Heaven forbid.

Name that bug

Everyone's lamenting the end of summer these days. I think most of us in Texas are over it though. I mean, I do love summer, don't get me wrong. But as per usual, it's overstayed its welcome here. We're all hot and sweaty and long for a cool breeze. Many of us have sunburned (not me of course). Our forgotten chapsticks have all melted. Our electric bills have broken the bank. Our cats and dogs have shed their coats. And shed them again. Our ovens have been largely overlooked and neglected. Our local ice cream cart man has rung his bell (and we have paid him our dollars). Our kids have returned to school (in wool skirts and blazers no less, poor girls). Our potted plants have bloomed, our herbs have been harvested many times over. And so on.

We're good. It's time.

One of the things I will miss about summer, though, is the sound it makes. Namely, this one.



It's been a particularly noisy summer, as far as these bugs are concerned. I'm not sure what determines that, but when they start humming, I just sigh. What a lovely sound. I would also like to give special recognition to the smell of an incoming summer rainstorm. That is, as long as it doesn't lead to a lightning bolt that puts my computer and modem entirely out of commission. But the smell - that and the humming bugs, I would keep.

So, can anyone identify? So that I might kindly wish these bugs farewell by name, of course, as the cool nights start creeping in. After all, even if your guests have overstayed their welcome, you still must maintain decorum.

Dining out is fun

Some of you might be familiar with this magazine (which shall remain unnamed because I used to work there). Their December issue had a huge round-up on small town cafes that I was fortunate enough to contribute to. I use fortunate loosely. It might sound like great fun to eat at 17 cafes in 3 days, but trust me when I say it gets old very quickly. Plus there's a lot of bad food out there.



I brought along my friend E, who grew up in a small town eating good, traditional cafe-style food. She had an astoundingly accurate radar for fake mashed potatoes and high standards for her chicken fried steak, and great skills at chatting up strangers, which was a huge help while I was feverishly snapping pictures or taking notes in a corner.



Our zone was south east Texas. Specifically from just north of Beaumont up to highway 21 and from the Louisiana border west to highway 59. It was hot and we were in a rented Suzuki that was of such poor quality of workmanship that we repeatedly checked the model year and mileage in disbelief that it was not much older or more well-traveled. My apologies if you own one.



E took that one of me. Since logistically it's near impossible to "eat in" at all these cafes in that amount of time, we would almost always order the food to go, jump in the car, and drive off to the next town while I would take a few bites and snap a few photos in the backseat, then carefully pass fork-fulls up to E. Again, this eating on the fly really takes away from the charm of the whole adventure.



Our first night we stayed in a roach coach, which was highly unpleasant. So on night two, we treated ourselves to a B&B in San Augustine. It was called The Columns - if you're ever in that neck of the woods, I'd recommend it.



Atmosphere was just as important as food, so finding that combination was a lot tougher than you'd expect. The answer to "Would I send one of our readers here?" was most commonly "no." A couple made the cut, though.



One in particular had that most sought-after pie case. We had such a hard time finding pies, and an even harder time finding good pies, and even harder still finding good pies that weren't purchased at Sam's (truly - we had to ask everyone if they made their own pies, and they usually didn't). And since the pie case place was also one of two to serve real mashed potatoes, and was obscenely cute to boot, it won our vote.



I was never really a fan of onion rings until this trip. Now I know I'd just never had good onion rings. If you're ever near Moss Hill, Texas, I'd recommend stopping into Simply Country Cafe. The weekends give you better odds of a wider variety of pies. The lemon meringue is heavenly. And if you're ever near Colmesneil, Texas, stop by the Burger House. I hear their onion rings are to die for.



This place was lovely and served good food, but they buy their pies. We considered this a deal breaker.



Not our hotel. Sour Lake was cute though. Anywho, it was a fun trip - quite an adventure I'd say.

Preparation is under way for last-minute holiday gatherings, cleaning and doing laundry, baking up a storm, and packing (soon) for my trip to Belgium. I leave on the 24th and am beyond excited. If only there weren't so much to be done before I go--ahh holiday stress attacks! Got Courtney's holiday mix CD in the mail yesterday and popped it straight into the car stereo. Oooh, that's better.