La Casa Mágica del Pan

There's a place in town, near a fabulous outdoor market (more on that another time!), which has got to be one of the best bakeries around. It's called El Bolillo (The Bread Roll) which is as great a case of understatement as I have ever heard. I gave it my own name, in the post title above, with the help of Google Translate - I can't be sure it's grammatically correct, but either way it's more accurate.

It's filled with racks and shelves (in gorgeous wooden cupboards) loaded with every baked good you could ever imagine, and a few you never could, and customers walk about and fill their trays using big silver tongs (see them on the chair?).

 You can pause for a bit at the back and watch the fresh new plain rolls going into or coming out of the ovens..

 
...or watch the tortilla machine in action, with little blobs of dough flattened and cooked almost instantly and pushed out the end, or you can admire the made-to-order extravaganzas for weddings or quinceañeras.
 

The first time we went we were a bit shy, and just observed; the next time we dived in and selected a trayful of random goodness; when we brought it to the cashier I thought we'd pay at least $15, but it was about $5. We wandered up the street munching :)

Impossibly cute

Look who moved in just down the road!

This gorgeous little crew lives just outside our neighbourhood; they have a beautifully uncomplicated daily ritual, which starts with them up by the green and white barn (standing about the doorway, or lined up in a row staring through the bars of the side fence waiting for the breakfast-bringer), then playing about in the larger field - which is when you can visit them and pat the lovely soft noses through the fence - and ends with them back in the barn in the dusky light; we think they have soft little hay nests, and curl up with a good book and a mug of cocoa.

Our favourite is the stumpy baby, who is even sweeter than the rest, but we love them all... they have become part of our morning and evening spotting rituals; on our way to and from work, we look out for the same things, sometimes with the same commentary. It reminds me of being a child and going to my grandparents' house; my family will remember such gems as 'look at the little cubby' (correct response: 'I did already'), and 'that's where the children played'; there was also the chant 'look at the coloured wiiiindows, and the blue one is cracked', which, after the owners did some repairs, had to change to the ludicrous 'look at the coloured wiiiindows, and the blue one is-not cracked!'

Our spottings are all animals - the mini-donkeys; some even stumpier and shaggier ponies who live in a tiny bit of forest by the side of the road, and even some llamas, one of whom has ridiculously fluffy legs. There may be photos later; in the meantime use your imagination...

Piggen Wiggen

In the late summer last year, we were driving home one evening and, stopped at the lights going into our neighbourhood, I was looking idly about me. Suddenly -

"I see a pig!" I said to Dave, half jokingly, and we both tried to get a closer look in the half-light of dusk. Concluding I'd made a mistake, and seen nothing more than a dog, we went home and I didn't think about it any further.

...Until the next evening, when there he was again, quite unmistakably; whiffling about in the grass and undergrowth right by the side of the road, cars a few metres away.

We went around the block and tried to get a closer look, but by then someone else had seen him and parked nearby; the car didn't bother him but the person getting out of the car scared him and he scampered off into the undergrowth.

And so it went for at least a week; about dusk, he'd come out of the trees and rootle about for a bit; and every attempt we made to get a photo of him was foiled by people or darkness or both.

Finally, we decided to ambush him; we waited, camera at the ready, in the nearby school parking lot at the time we were used to seeing him, and waited... and waited... and just as we were about to give up, out he came.

And it was lucky we did that, as we never saw him again after that day. But even now, we look wistfully at that corner when we pass; it's much more interesting to have a Piggen Wiggen in the neighbourhood than a bare mound of gravel.

Tempting --

 -- but no.

Houston-style Kolaches

Kolaches are originally from Czechoslovakia (and I believe they have variants in Poland as well), but have been adopted by Texas in general and Houston in particular. The Czech-style ones are sweet, with a fruit filling, but the sort you get here are almost all savoury, with breakfast-type fillings - scrambled egg, cheese, bacon, sausage... and because it's Texas, some element of fireyness - jalapenos or salsa or some other hot sauce.

We really like kolaches, and used to buy them occasionally as a treat, but then we started wondering how difficult they would be to make at home - as with most things, not only is it significantly cheaper to make them yourself, but of course you also get to control the amount and quality of your ingredients. Kolaches will never be health food, but making them ourselves produces an end result that is significantly less oily and significantly more tasty. If you've never tried kolaches before (and it seems it's almost impossible to track down the breakfast-style ones anywhere much outside of Houston), here is the recipe - it's really very easy!

The dough recipe below makes at least 15 - enough for 5 or 6 - so reduce amounts or freeze extra as needed. I find the dough is fine after being frozen for a short time, but is better fresh.

Houston-style Kolaches
Ingredients - Dough
4 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 - 4 tablespoons sugar, to taste (dough here is very sweet; I like it a little less so, so reduce the sugar)
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose/plain flour
2 cups bread flour

Method
Heat water to 100F/38C; add yeast and a pinch of sugar; mix and set aside
Mix softened butter and shortening; add sugar and stir until well mixed
Add egg yolks, milk (also warmed to at least room temperature) and salt; mix
Add yeast and water mixture; stir; add flour
Mix, then remove from bowl and knead for 10 minutes
Place back in bowl, cover, and allow to rise until doubled in size (45 min - 1 hour)

While dough is rising, prepare and cook filling ingredients, as it's best if they're room temperature before you use them. It's really up to you what you use for filling, but some ideas are:
- scrambled egg (four eggs usually makes enough for 6 - 8 kolaches, depending on size)
- chopped bacon (four rashers is usually enough for 6 - 8 kolaches)
- chopped breakfast sausage
- grated or diced cheese
- fresh or pickled jalapenos
- salsa (reduce over heat before adding to take some of the liquid out)
- anything else you like the idea of!

When dough is doubled, gently punch down and press out the air. You can leave it to rest for a short time, or begin to use immediately; if dough is resistant to pressing out, cover it with a cloth and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes and it will usually become much more pliable.

Pre-heat oven to 425F/220C.

Pinch off pieces of dough that are about the size of a golf ball, or very slightly larger. Press out into a circle - it can be slightly thinner on the edges than in the middle as the edges will form the base, which will be thicker than the rest.

Place filling ingredients in the middle of the dough rounds.

Gather edges together by pulling opposite sides together and pinching edges closed; it doesn't have to be pretty (though it should be sealed!) as you are going to turn them over and place the sealed side down.

Bake for 12 - 18 minutes, until golden brown. Brush freshly-baked kolaches with melted butter (salted is better, though you can easily add a shake of salt to unsalted melted butter for the same effect).

Serve immediately, eat as soon as they're cool enough, with hot sauce, barbecue sauce, tomato sauce, or no sauce at all!

If anyone tries this let me know - I'd love to hear how they turn out :)

An Absurdity of Gagas

If you decided, one random Friday night, to try the new 'Imperia Bar and Grill', located in a just-like-all-the-others strip mall and advertised at the roadside as 'Russian Cuisine', what would you expect?

Well, probably not this:

Eight waitresses, for four customers (including the two of us), all dressed as Lady Gaga. They had her music and videos playing too, and pictures up all over the walls and windows... it was clearly not their usual practice, either, as they spent most of the evening scurrying around admiring themselves in the mirrors, taking photos of each other, and otherwise being amused by themselves... when, upon leaving, we asked what the occasion was, we were told, 'Nothing; we just decided to do this tonight.'

(Dave and I discussed what the proper collective noun for a group of Gagas should be... we came up with, and rejected, 'an excess' and 'a banality' before deciding on 'an absurdity'. Do you agree?)

Ghost Boy

At least a year ago, Dave and I spotted this sad little figure sitting eternally on the bench outside a house on the way to my work. Rain, snow or Hurricane Ike, he sits there, with his dejected little lichened face and his concrete ball which never rolls and can never bounce... early on, we dubbed him Ghost Boy, as it looks like he's haunting the site of some former unhappiness. Or, as Dave says, in perpetual time-out.

We find it incredible that anyone would willingly display such a morose little person in their front garden; we have hatched some wild plans to give him a Santa hat at Christmas, or a basket of eggs at Easter... but when a For Sale sign appeared in front of the house recently, we thought the least we could do was to immortalise him with a photo, before he possibly goes to his eternal rest.

Vale, Ghost Boy. We hope your next life is happier than this one.

Early morning

Take me out to the ball game

Last night I went to my first baseball game! The Houston Astros vs the St Louis (don't forget to pronounce the 's') Cardinals, at Minutemaid Park downtown. We got the tickets through work - non-profits sometimes get given tickets to sporting events or plays, as a thank you for the work they do. Dave, Anna and I snaffled three of them and were ready, with hot dogs and beer (or Coke, for some of us) at the 7.05pm first pitch.




As far as baseball goes, we hear we had a quick game - all done in just over two hours! Certainly there was nothing of the leisureliness of cricket about it, but it was fun to be there for all the traditions - the national anthem, the seventh inning stretch, the organ music... and the Minutemaid train (those are supposed to be oranges in the back; Minutemaid is famous for juice) which whistles and drives up and down when home runs are scored.


And the Astros won - which apparently they have not been doing, as a general rule - so maybe we brought them some indirect beginners' luck!

Another tree in winter

It continued cold here this past week - we even had snow flurries last Monday night - but I think we're on the other side of winter now. I'm both glad, and sorry - it's lovely to see the flowers blooming, and to plan for spring gardens, but the summers are so hot and seem to last for ever!

At this time of year

It's finally getting cooler. We have one of the woollen blankets on the bed (although we don't always use it). We've had the heating on a few times. I'm thinking about re-stocking the kindling basket by the fire. It's almost time to roast the turkey. Leaves are drifting down from the backyard trees. It's pleasant to be out of doors. It's dark when we get home from work. We wear slippers in the morning. And the grackles swarm and chatter each evening at dusk.

Friday

On one of the first cool-enough-to-sit-outside-on-the-verandah evenings this year, who'll join us for drinks?

Art and the City

Last weekend I spent a lovely part of Saturday at the Bayou City Art Festival - it's a yearly event here, billed as 'one of the top three art festivals in America' (which, as Dave says, you know means 'the third best') and something I would have been interested in anyway, but as I got free tickets through work I was doubly interested!

My lovely friend Anna picked me up, and we went in to the festival together - it was the first actually-cool weekend so far this year; somewhat overcast for picture-taking but extremely pleasant for walking around downtown.


The festival was held in the closed-off streets of a couple of city blocks, as well as some park space - there were loads of stalls; it was all much larger than I'd envisioned. There was so much to see! Lots of great art and photography, as you'd expect, but also textiles, jewellery, strange sculptures, wooden items... it was very interesting and lots of fun.


Dave and I bought a print - even though the exhibitors came from all over the country, our single purchase coincidentally came from someone relatively local - Jay Long, from Austin, TX.



Afterward, Dave and I went for a coffee in a hipster-cafe, Agora (I am not remotely hipster and Dave not a lot more so than me, but it's still fun to visit such places from time to time)


before going home to hang out with Matt and Rebecca. Cool weather, art, coffee, and lots of lovely friends - not far off the perfect sort of day!

Update #1 - Hell and High Water

Our floodwaters have now largely receded - well, they're confined to the reservoirs, at least, which are still fuller than full - but it took some time for that to happen! For days after the initial downpours, water remained at about the levels it had been at the height of the flooding; some of the roads cleared within a day or two (like Clay Road, the photo through the mist with the cars all stranded in my original post), but some of the others stayed closed for weeks. One of the most interesting was the closure of Highway 6 - a major road - despite the extreme inconvenience and huge traffic jams caused by its being out of action, we found it interesting enough to go and explore it one morning (it was closed for about five days, including over a weekend).



It was very odd to stand in the middle of a road down which we would normally hurtle at a rate of about 60mph! We saw one utility truck, one cyclist and a jogger during our stroll, but otherwise what was most noticeable was the quiet, and the sounds of wildlife - apart from a distant hum of traffic from Highway 10, a mile or so to the south, we remarked that it could have been a post-apocalyptic scene; no one left alive but us...



Also interesting were the playing fields along Clay Road, and the golf courses there and on Highway 6 - they were almost completely underwater, and I laughed one morning as I passed the golf course to see technicians out on a little island trying to stop the automatic sprinklers which had come on!





All of these photos were taken a couple of weekends ago; most places remained underwater for at least a week and a half after that, but in the last few days have dried out rapidly, and there is now a faint green fuzz of new grass in most of the muddy fields, and life has gone back to normal in most places. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we get another big lot of rain, though, as the reservoirs don't have much empty space! And of course, hurricane season is about to start...

Floody hell! Or: Why one should always check one's phone messages before leaving for work

The rains I reported earlier have continued... in fact according to news reports, some parts of Houston have received as much as a foot of rain over the last 24 hours; certainly there was rain, thunder and lightning for much of the night last night. When we got up there was the usual scramble to get exercised and showered and dressed in time to leave; a slow journey to Dave's work showed a lot of road flooding and high water everywhere.




However, it was only on my onward journey to work that the true magnitude of the situation revealed itself - I saw utility vehicles up to their roofs in water; Clay Road shut to all traffic with a few cars mournfully stranded in the high water;


deer struggling through knee-high water near the roadway; car after car abandoned after attempting too deep a crossing...


Close to work I had to go through my worst yet; a dip in the road where water must have come at least a third of the way up the car's doors. Having nowhere else to go I went through it, to the applause of some onlookers!

About a block from work I had occasion to look at my phone, where I found a message from earlier - classes were cancelled and the office was shut for the day. I promptly turned around to make my way home again, getting to within about five minutes of the house before being turned back and having to retrace my tracks for another 45 minutes to get around the high water on Highway 6... having left the house just before 8am, I was back inside shortly after 11am. I intend to stay here.

Note: I think I've managed about the worst pun possible in the title, but if anyone's got another to share - Dad, I'm looking at you - let's hear them ;)