Although this photo is from a year ago, in northern California, it seems appropriate to post it as we turn our thoughts to Thanksgiving 2013.
Mid-week adventure – preparing for Thanksgiving!
This year I’m not having Thanksgiving at home, but instead will travel to California to celebrate the holiday with #1 Daughter, #1 Son-In-Law and my grandchildren. They live south of San Francisco, in the Palo Alto area, and this has become one of my favorite destinations. First and most importantly, my family lives there. But almost as important to me is the scenery, which is always beautiful. Beaches and rolling surf and tide pools and golden hills and fields full of produce we just don’t grow in Texas. I have developed a fascination with the artichoke plant. Who knew it got so big?
I will be in California for almost a week and plan to post a full report of our adventures after I return home. In the meantime, I seem to be dreaming of Thanksgiving recipes, even though I won’t be doing as much cooking as normal. For some reason, that doesn’t seem to matter. Late at night I find myself immersed in cooking magazines and cookbooks and my binders full of favorite recipes. And what is my most favorite Thanksgiving recipe? Hands down, it’s Sausage, Cranberry and Cornbread Stuffing, which was published in Epicurious in 1997:
I’m a huge fan of lots of cranberry sauce with my dressing, and since this recipe includes fresh cranberries in the dressing, it’s just perfect (at least in my humble opinion!). Plus it has sweet Italian sausage and pecans. Heaven! It’s the only side I will probably insist on for Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps I should share this link with #1 Daughter!
Note: there is a link within this link – the recipe for the cornbread. You’ve probably already figured that one out, but I will confess it took me several years to find that hidden recipe. Silly me! Also, instead of the seven leeks called for in the recipe, I usually just use a whole yellow onion.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
My trip to Houston – Part 2
Fall is reunion time, and this year Rice University celebrated not only its annual reunion, but also its Centennial. The first class at Rice was held on October 12, 1912, and conveniently, this year our reunion weekend started on October 12, 2012. To get an idea of the scope of the celebration, check out http://centennial.rice.edu/home/
For months before the reunion I followed the Rice historian’s blog and learned interesting tidbits about Rice and about Houston. My father and his sister and brother all attended Rice during the Depression, because they lived in Houston, their family was broke, and Rice was tuition-free at that time. I will never forget their stories about driving to Rice in an old, beat-up car whose right passenger door flew open every time they turned a corner, and whose floorboards in the back were a bit rotten and let them view the street flying by beneath them. Rice didn’t charge tuition until the 1960’s. I gladly followed in my father’s, aunt’s and uncle’s footsteps, even with the tuition!
I drove down to Houston on Thursday, so I could enjoy the festivities on Friday and also take a tour of the campus. I had not been to campus for a number of years and was amazed at all the new buildings. Here’s some of the older buildings, with which I am most familiar:
Lovett Hall — the first building on campus. The pictures of its construction show mules dragging the building materials through the mud up to the construction site.
The tomb of William Marsh Rice, with Fondren Library in the background.
And the other buildings making up the academic quadrangle. All of which stand in stark contrast to the newest structure:
The James Turrell Skyspace, built this year. I was not able to stargaze at the Skyspace, but I suspect the night-time show is amazing. There are benches at the top of the structure, and if I were still a student at Rice, I suspect the Skyspace would seriously affect my studies. The ground-floor view through the structure is also interesting:
The fountain is in the courtyard of the new business school buildings. And in the distance you can see the food trucks that gathered for a Centennial lunch for all.
On Friday night my classmates gathered for our own mini-reunion, and I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with people I hadn’t seen in years. I don’t know if we’ve all mellowed or just gotten tired, but our conversations were friendly and interesting and lacked the competitive edge I remember from our college days. Such a nice change!
When I left Houston to start the drive back to Dallas, I had only good memories to keep me company on the road home. Another successful adventure!
Until next weekend!
My trip to Houston – Part 1
Hello, Gentle Readers!
I’m back after a short time off necessitated by a bit of surgery. All’s well now, and I’m back to sharing my adventures outside the office.
In October, I journeyed to Houston for my reunion at Rice University and for a bit of nostalgia. I grew up in Houston, and even though I have lived in Dallas for 20 years, I always get swept up into a tide of longing when I go back to Houston. What do I long for? Probably the simplicity of growing up in another era, of playing kickball for hours in the cul-de-sac in front of our house, of going to the community pool every day in the summer, and of just being with my family. We spent hours at the pool all summer – from 10 to 12 each morning, then home for lunch and the mandatory rest time, then back from 3 until 6 each afternoon. One of the “games” we played when we went back in the afternoon was seeing who among us (me and two sisters and two brothers) could walk barefoot the longest on the hot sidewalk. Hey, I didn’t say we were smart — this is just what we did! Everything was so uncomplicated then. And we had such good summers!
But I digress. Before I left for Houston, I stopped by my favorite nursery and bought $60 worth of pansies to plant among the headstones at my paremts’ graves. Our family plot is in Glenwood Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in Houston. My grandmother’s sister died in the influenza outbreak of 1919, and my great grandfather bought a huge family plot at that time. I’m always struck by the history that lives in that cemetery. For example, the graves of the Allen brothers, the founding fathers of Houston, are in Glenwood.
I also learned on this trip that Charlotte Allen, who married one of the Allen brothers, was known in some circles as the Mother of Houston. I took a picture of the side of the Allen monument dedicated to her, and of the historical marker dedicated to her, both shown above.
Glenwood is a peaceful place – one that I don’t mind visiting. My family has lived in Houston for generations, and so the genealogic opportunities here for us is endless. My mother spent a good deal of time at Glenwood researching our family history, and I’m saving all her work for what might be a book someday. In the meantime, I just enjoy the beauty every time I get to Houston. Here are some of the pictures I took on this trip:
And, last but not least, here is a monument that caught my eye during this trip. Wouldn’t it be nice to know the story behind the bicycle on top of this monument?
So that’s it for Part 1. In Part 2 I’ll let you all know about the reunion!
The FAIR!
Today was the perfect Fair day! The temperature hovered around 55 all morning, which is chilly, but a long-sleeved T-shirt and a fleece and jeans were perfect. I took Dart to the Fair, which is so easy and even relatively cheap when you buy the combo Dart and Fair tickets at Kroger. The train stops right at the front gate, which is awesome! 
The fun begins after you get through security and on to the Esplanade. I always stand for a minute just enjoying the Art Deco buildings.
I also use that time to figure out which car show to see — the more upscale, foreign cars or the Ford trucks. Today I started with the foreign cars and fell in love with VW’s small SUV. Until I saw it was $50,000. Yikes! After I finished drooling on the cars, I went out the back door of the car show building and this is what I saw:
And inside:
The log house had three rooms, and this little bedroom was the only one I could photograph. It was beautiful inside, though. I wanted to live there!
Next it was a trip down the middle of the food booths. That’s what you go to the Fair for, right? But so many choices . . .
None of these tickled my fancy, though. I’m a traditionalist and always have to have my Fletcher’s corny dog:
I take mine slathered with mustard, but unfortunately forgot to take a picture of it before it was gone. <sigh!> The chaser?
The next stop was the Creative Arts Building. I don’t know which I like most — the butter sculpture (this year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts:
or the quilts:
The quilts are hard to photograph because they’re up high, close to the ceiling of the building. I suspect the quilters don’t want anyone’s sticky fingers touching their beautiful handiwork. This display always blows me away. I can’t imagine the patience it takes to create these masterpieces.
I also liked the Lego sculptures in the corner of the building:
I wandered around some after that, but I’d really seen everything I wanted to see. I took a walk by Big Tex and said “Howdy,” then back to the front gate and the train home. It was a great ending to my “no work” weekend!
Back to work tomorrow, but the real adventure continues next weekend. See you then!
Ah, blessed Saturday!
9:00 a.m. – This is officially a “no work” weekend, and I spent Saturday morning reveling in the thought of two whole days of fun. I had planned to spend the morning gardening, but it got cold here Friday night. Well, OK, to be a bit more accurate, the temp dropped into the ’50’s today and it was damp. To this native Houstonian, that’s cold, and so I decided to limit my outdoor activities to filling up the bird feeders and doing a little watering. As I was filling up the hummingbird feeders, I realized this may be the last time I put fresh nectar out for the pint-sized critters. But then last night at dusk I saw one at the feeder. I really thought all the hummers had finally migrated south for the winter, but perhaps not. I’ll watch today for other stragglers. And, quite frankly, even if I take the feeders down and there are those who were left behind, they’ll have food from the flowers of my pineapple salvia and turks cap. I’m always sad when they leave. I miss their aerial battles. But then I remember the goldfinches who will soon be here for the winter, and that cheers me up!
12:30 p.m. – Lunch and laughter and a mani/pedi with my good friend Cheryl. Heaven!
9:00 p.m. – I decided Saturday was Movie Extravaganza Day and spent some quality time at the Angelika at Mockingbird Station. I saw “Butter,” followed by “The Oranges.” Jennifer Garner was so good in “Butter,” playing a crazed butter sculptor competing for the championship at the Iowa State Fair. Her main competitor was a 10-year-old African-American foster child with a talent for butter sculpting. And Olivia Wilde was awesome as the local stripper – amazing tattoos! If you go, stay for the out takes at the end of the movie! I was less enthralled with “Oranges,” although it was nice to see Hugh Laurie playing a normal guy (**spoiler alert**) who has an affair with his best friend’s 24-year-old daughter.
Today’s fun — The FAIR!! More later! Until then, please enjoy Alton Brown’s tribute to 50 years of James Bond:
http://altonbrown.com/2012/shaken-not-stirred
Cathjanie
The beginning!
Hello, everyone!
First things first — a little bit about me.
I’m a lawyer who came to the law relatively late in life. I didn’t start law school until I was 38, and when I applied, I was a stay-at-home mom with no lofty ambitions – I was just looking for a way to support myself post-divorce. My surprise has been that I find inspiration and comfort in the practice of law. It’s a noble profession, and one in which I have respected and liked my clients and have been pleased and proud to represent their interests zealously. That representation has required twenty-plus years of nights/weekends/vacations/any other personal time you can think of, all of which I have happily devoted to my craft. I gave that time gladly. I will be the first to admit, though, that it has not been a very well-rounded life.
Now that I am leaving the 50-something part of my life and entering the 60-something part, it’s time for my world to expand. I am beginning a journey towards becoming a person who is hopefully more complete, more in-tune with the world around me, and perhaps more interesting. The first part of the adventure will lie in exploring the wonders that I suspect lurk just outside my office. Let’s go!
Cathjanie
The-Intrepid-Lawyer 