Chinese; Eggplant pasta; Car + No Boss; Rebecca; Louisiana; Cookout
Apparently I was on a kick. Here's another entry written in real time...
5/21
After a long, drawn-out bout of indecision, Cindy and I decided on Chinese take-out from the conveniently located Jimmy Wok. The garlic chicken was a little bland (though that seems to be the nature of the dish), but she also got a dish served over fried egg noodles which was nice and different.
Then, the Heroes season finale, which was a bit anticlimatic. They really let a lot of their big reveals happen too early, and with nothing all that suprising left, there just wasn't much to fill up the hour. Still, that can be overlooked in light of some great episodes in the first season. And the horrible second season makes it look even better in retrospect..
5/22
Jeff was going out of town for a little over a week and, in return for looking after his lizard and their fish, I got his parking pass to use while he was gone. Sweet.
5/23
I'd been wanting to try Alton Brown's clever take on eggplant parmesan, so we started by going to Fiesta, which is Cindy's grocery store of choice but which has never seemed sufficiently cheap and interesting to justify its... eccentricities (like the general dirtiness and bad smells).
But anyway, mission accomplished and all that, so we came back and made this dish, which was nice and clever and simple. Chop the eggplant into strips which, when cooked, will resemble pasta; sautée with oil and a little seasoning, add in some fresh tomatoes, some cream (fat free half and half works surprisingly well) to make a sauce, some fesh basil, some parmesan, and then garnish with bread crumbs. Quick, tasty, reasonably healthy.
Serve with the season finale of your choice; we went with Lost, which, despite loud and frequent complaining that nothing ever gets resolved, was both satisfying and intriguing. I'm looking forward to the next season, but that's a long way away.
5/24
No boss and a parking pass. The world was my oyster. I showed up when I wanted and left when I wanted. It was grand.
5/25
After I grabbed my car from the garage, I drove out west to meet the family and pick up Rebecca. I had yet to buy Becca a birthday present, so we stopped by Microcenter to get her an external hard drive for all her data storage needs (and a flash drive for Cindy's). On the way back we called Cindy, and after another prolonged period of indecisiveness, we settled on Mo Mong. We ordered some spring rolls as an appetizer that had feta and chicken that were decent; Cindy got some fried oysters that failed to imrpess me (but oysters in general are not my thing, except the metaphorical kind), and then we got some noodle soup, a stellar lemon grass beef (lemon grass does not get the respect and attention it deserves), a round of sake shots (a usefully low $2 each), a Tiger beer for me, and one of their signature lychee nut martinis for Cindy. It all added up to a very satisfying dinner with two of my favorite ladies.
On the way home we stopped off at the overcrowded Davenport for a round of martinis. Becca had a rasberry one, which was good but curdled; I had a "grasshopper" chocolate mint one, and Cindy had the classic "tilt a whirl" chocolate martini.
5/26
My Louisiana relatives are best handled in small doses. That somehow resulted in me not having seen them in 3 years. Mom and Dad had talked about going for Memorial day, so Becca and I tagged along. We drove through the wastelands of East Texas and on in to the wastelands of south Louisiana, through the cursed borough of Lake Charles, and on to Crowley. We stocked up on cajun groceries, saw the town, and then an impromptu Ward family reunion (some 15 or so of us) began.
We went to a cajun restaurant, dance hall. Becca and I got a ride with cousin-in-law Dawn, who, in Rebecca's words, was "cool as shit" (well, if she didn't say it, she probably thought it). We arrived there first and started in on the drinks. I discovered it's definitely easier to connect with the LA Wards with the power of alcohol. Sitting down for dinner I ordered an Abita Amber and was first asked by them if it was "root beer" then if it was some "imported shit" before finally convincing them that it was, in fact, made in Louisiana. They tasted it, and apparently the lack of Coors Lite blandness was a bit much.
Once everybody took off, Becca and I convinced our Aunt Mona and Uncle Charlie to take us to Coushatta to do some light gambling, and, surprisingly, Mom and Dad came along. $20, a couple of hours, and a couple of free drinks later, it was time to get the parents to bed, so we called it a night.
5/27
We went to lunch at the local café/gas station/truck stop the next day and I had some very good cajun BBQ before we got back on I10 to head back to Houston. If you're ever going that way, the Texas rest stop at the border is actually pretty cool; there's a nice boardwalk through the marsh, and it's very pretty. When Mom & Dad dropped us off back at my place, we ended up picking up some sandwiches from Jimmy John's and took them to Woodrow's to eat with some cheap draught beer.
5/28
I took Rebecca to Susan and Jerry's to meet Mom and Dad so they could get on the road after we had lunch. I headed over to Graham and Angela's for a Memorial Day cookout; there was food, beer (my first Shiner 98, which was good, but not Shiner 97 good), and a piñata left over from somebody's birthday. The candy inside was no longer edible, but we had a stick from hitting the piñata, so... candy baseball! Junior mints boxes are, apparently, quite fun to hit. So are Reese's peanut butter cups. And who knew I could actually hit? Certainly not me.
5/21
After a long, drawn-out bout of indecision, Cindy and I decided on Chinese take-out from the conveniently located Jimmy Wok. The garlic chicken was a little bland (though that seems to be the nature of the dish), but she also got a dish served over fried egg noodles which was nice and different.
Then, the Heroes season finale, which was a bit anticlimatic. They really let a lot of their big reveals happen too early, and with nothing all that suprising left, there just wasn't much to fill up the hour. Still, that can be overlooked in light of some great episodes in the first season. And the horrible second season makes it look even better in retrospect..
5/22
Jeff was going out of town for a little over a week and, in return for looking after his lizard and their fish, I got his parking pass to use while he was gone. Sweet.
5/23
I'd been wanting to try Alton Brown's clever take on eggplant parmesan, so we started by going to Fiesta, which is Cindy's grocery store of choice but which has never seemed sufficiently cheap and interesting to justify its... eccentricities (like the general dirtiness and bad smells).
But anyway, mission accomplished and all that, so we came back and made this dish, which was nice and clever and simple. Chop the eggplant into strips which, when cooked, will resemble pasta; sautée with oil and a little seasoning, add in some fresh tomatoes, some cream (fat free half and half works surprisingly well) to make a sauce, some fesh basil, some parmesan, and then garnish with bread crumbs. Quick, tasty, reasonably healthy.
Serve with the season finale of your choice; we went with Lost, which, despite loud and frequent complaining that nothing ever gets resolved, was both satisfying and intriguing. I'm looking forward to the next season, but that's a long way away.
5/24
No boss and a parking pass. The world was my oyster. I showed up when I wanted and left when I wanted. It was grand.
5/25
After I grabbed my car from the garage, I drove out west to meet the family and pick up Rebecca. I had yet to buy Becca a birthday present, so we stopped by Microcenter to get her an external hard drive for all her data storage needs (and a flash drive for Cindy's). On the way back we called Cindy, and after another prolonged period of indecisiveness, we settled on Mo Mong. We ordered some spring rolls as an appetizer that had feta and chicken that were decent; Cindy got some fried oysters that failed to imrpess me (but oysters in general are not my thing, except the metaphorical kind), and then we got some noodle soup, a stellar lemon grass beef (lemon grass does not get the respect and attention it deserves), a round of sake shots (a usefully low $2 each), a Tiger beer for me, and one of their signature lychee nut martinis for Cindy. It all added up to a very satisfying dinner with two of my favorite ladies.
On the way home we stopped off at the overcrowded Davenport for a round of martinis. Becca had a rasberry one, which was good but curdled; I had a "grasshopper" chocolate mint one, and Cindy had the classic "tilt a whirl" chocolate martini.
5/26
My Louisiana relatives are best handled in small doses. That somehow resulted in me not having seen them in 3 years. Mom and Dad had talked about going for Memorial day, so Becca and I tagged along. We drove through the wastelands of East Texas and on in to the wastelands of south Louisiana, through the cursed borough of Lake Charles, and on to Crowley. We stocked up on cajun groceries, saw the town, and then an impromptu Ward family reunion (some 15 or so of us) began.
We went to a cajun restaurant, dance hall. Becca and I got a ride with cousin-in-law Dawn, who, in Rebecca's words, was "cool as shit" (well, if she didn't say it, she probably thought it). We arrived there first and started in on the drinks. I discovered it's definitely easier to connect with the LA Wards with the power of alcohol. Sitting down for dinner I ordered an Abita Amber and was first asked by them if it was "root beer" then if it was some "imported shit" before finally convincing them that it was, in fact, made in Louisiana. They tasted it, and apparently the lack of Coors Lite blandness was a bit much.
Once everybody took off, Becca and I convinced our Aunt Mona and Uncle Charlie to take us to Coushatta to do some light gambling, and, surprisingly, Mom and Dad came along. $20, a couple of hours, and a couple of free drinks later, it was time to get the parents to bed, so we called it a night.
5/27
We went to lunch at the local café/gas station/truck stop the next day and I had some very good cajun BBQ before we got back on I10 to head back to Houston. If you're ever going that way, the Texas rest stop at the border is actually pretty cool; there's a nice boardwalk through the marsh, and it's very pretty. When Mom & Dad dropped us off back at my place, we ended up picking up some sandwiches from Jimmy John's and took them to Woodrow's to eat with some cheap draught beer.
5/28
I took Rebecca to Susan and Jerry's to meet Mom and Dad so they could get on the road after we had lunch. I headed over to Graham and Angela's for a Memorial Day cookout; there was food, beer (my first Shiner 98, which was good, but not Shiner 97 good), and a piñata left over from somebody's birthday. The candy inside was no longer edible, but we had a stick from hitting the piñata, so... candy baseball! Junior mints boxes are, apparently, quite fun to hit. So are Reese's peanut butter cups. And who knew I could actually hit? Certainly not me.
Labels: bars, cooking, family, Louisiana, restaurants, trips
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 2:19 AM
