Ribs & Rhythm Tour, 2013 ~

Labor Day weekend we headed west.  And so began our 2nd annual Ribs & Rhythm tour.  We met at Buc-ees, and it was a sweet homecoming.



Oh, how I love Buc-ees.  The land of fudge and jerky and all good things.  The one in Luling has dozens and dozens of bathrooms guarded by a Longhorn with a head of marbles.   Buc-ees: they are my people.  And my people shall be your people....go!!

Luling City Market. Can't beat it.  So far, the best in Texas.  I wrote about them last year so won't repeat, but it's heaven.  Lovely bones.  The end.



And then on to Fredericksburg, one of the meccas of Hill Country and a lot of fun to boot.  A few of our adventures, no particular order:

OK, who knew Circle E Candles had a showroom in Fredericksburg??  They are the best candles ever...they smell divine.   I chose Creme Brulee.

"Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas

With Waylon and Willie and the boys
This successful life we're livin'
Got us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys"

Let me tell you about Luckenbach.  It's hot.  It's primitive.  And the visitors come from far and wide.  That's a small stage but there is a bigger dancehall.  God bless Waylon Jennings.

 After Luckenbach we headed for Alamo Springs Cafe, which has the #3 hamburger in the state of Texas.  In all it's glory:

Yes, that's it.  Charles was the only one of us who had THE prize winning burger, but everything we ate was delicious.  The drive to Alamo Springs was crazy...we saw dozens and dozens of deer.  Here, there, everywhere - they were jumping fences and crossing roads and Don loved it!


Huge homemade onion rings.  





Alamo Springs made us happy, happy, happy! (note, the fridge is red)




One day we set off for the LBJ Ranch.  Democrats! What the heck, we were in the neighborhood, we figured we might as well see the Texas White House.  It's a National Historical Park and you can drive through for free, just had to stop and get a pass.




The cattle are beautiful.  They're living the good life.






You can only imagine how many world leaders made the trip to the Ranch. I snapped a shot of a photo of these two.  Body language tells all, doesn't it?  There is LBJ in casual clothes, leaning forward, trying to make his point while Nixon, shirt and tie, sits back, listening.  Noncommittal.  Body language. 




We toured the first floor of the Ranch, it was only $3 per person.  The tours are limited to 12 people each so we got to ask lots of questions.  You feel a real connection to history.  

When we were in the kitchen, the Ranger told us that on the day JFK was killed, he and Jackie were expected at the Ranch later that afternoon.  He had requested pecan pie, and the cooks had baked 18 of them in preparation for the group.  I could just imagine those pies sitting on the counter, waiting for the group that would not arrive.  A somber day.  

Fredericksburg is just charming.  It's small but there's lots of fun around.  We hit these:

• WWII Pacific Rim war reenactment (the brothers-in-law)
• Shopping (the sisters)
• Rustling Rob's
• Cranky Frank's 
• Enchanted Rock State Park

And Clear River Ice Cream & Bakery.  This place is darling!!

Decorated in red retro malt shop style.  Elvis is alive and well there. 




So many kinds of ice cream, all homemade.  



Frozen hot chocolate...enough said.  



You can even have lunch/dinner there too.  No wonder Elvis sticks around.  




After we stayed in Fredericksburg for a couple of days, we moved on to San Marcos.  Had to check in to see the Drugstore Cowboys (a band) at John T. Floores and eat some tamales.  

Before long, it was time to hit the road and go home.  



Adios, Hill Country.   Until next time...

Homemade Spaghetti in a Green Bowl ~

I'm not much of a sentimental person when it comes to things.  If I don't love it, I really don't want to hold on to it.  I love my old green bowl.

My bowl belonged to my maternal grandmother, who died in 1974.  She didn't have nice things.   She was poor, having been a sharecropper's wife and then a widow for so many years.  She lived in a small, fairly primitive house...but that's a story itself.

When her children cleared out her things, my mom asked me if there was something I wanted - you bet I did...her green serving bowl.  All kinds of good things to eat were served in that bowl.  Spaghetti and Chicken Fricassee mostly.

Yesterday I used my green bowl.  I made Spaghetti.  I could write a book...I've made all kinds - Sausage Spaghetti, Shrimp Spaghetti, Pork Rib Spaghetti.  My favorite is Chicken Spaghetti.  Yesterday I made my kids' favorite kind - with ground chuck.  (Too bad none of them were here to eat it!)


 


I make this like my Mom did. And she made it the way her mom did, on the farm in Bell City, Louisiana. Here's how I do it: 

As with many dishes, the secret to good spaghetti is good meat. You want to use high quality ground chuck. I use the 90% lean/10% fat mix from Sam's Club.  Don't use bargain meat.  It's not worth doing.  Have a ham sandwich instead. (No, they didn't have Sam's Club for ground beef back in The Great Depression, but they had cows in the pasture, and I assume the meat was good.  So there.) 

Season the meat with salt and pepper, brown in a heavy pot over medium heat, breaking up the meat as you go. When the meat is browned, watch it closely. You'll have some liquid in the bottom of the pot but let it cook for a few more minutes and the water will cook out. This is important...if you drain the meat as soon as the pink is gone you're pouring all the flavor out. A little fat is OK, even good.  

Add some chopped garlic (must be fresh, don't use chopped garlic from a jar) and onions and saute for a couple of minutes. I like a generous amount of garlic.  If you don't, we can't be friends.  

Then add tomato sauce (a can or 2) and tomato paste (1) and stir in well. Add water - how much depends on how much meat you have. I fill my tomato sauce can with about 5 cans of water. Add 1 teaspoon sugar (just trust me, that's enough).  

Lower the heat to medium low and simmer for awhile until done...at least 40 minutes for a normal pot.  Stir often, don't let your sauce burn. Add more water if it gets too thick.  You cannot rush good spaghetti.





The first meal I made for Don after we got married was Sausage Spaghetti. He loved it. Little did he know how much spaghetti-eating was in his future. 

I don't make it nearly as much as I used to when our children were young. In nearly 39 years of marriage I've never made spaghetti with sauce from a jar. And I don't expect I ever will. 

Spaghetti is delicious, especially served from an old green bowl. 

The end.
            

The Great Galveston Family Vacation ~

June 2013!  

We hadn't planned it.  Maybe that's a good thing.  But flight times and work schedules and the stars and the moon and the planets all aligned so we could ALL be in the same place at the same time for a family vacation. 

Destination:  Galveston Island.

This post is long on pictures, short on story, but here you go:



We stayed at a pretty awesome condo at Pointe West, which is on the far west end of the island.  I can't say enough good things about this place...3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a large family room, 2 eating areas, and a spacious well-furnished balcony.  



Such a pretty place comes with a price but I talked Papa Bear into it before he knew what hit him.  And he loved it!  We want to go again.



We had access to the beach and the Beach Club, which was fantastic. Infinity pool, hot tub, baby pool, places to eat, grill and just relax.  The wonderful bathrooms sealed the deal!  Can we stay forever?   





Our grandgirls swim like fish, so you know they loved it! Speaking of grandgirls...we were so excited to see them!  They're adorable.  And funny.  And smart.



So much fun!  (I want that sofa, it was super comfortable.)




When I see that beach I hear Glen Campbell singing, 

"Galveston oh Galveston, I still hear your sea winds blowing..."

Kirra is 7.  This little girl is a ball of fire.  She is such a doll.

Alahna is 9, nearly 10.  She is sweet and inquisitive, and loves everyone. 

Papa Bear and me.







Family pictures were done. Oh happy day!


I nominate Kirra to be the poster-girl for Galveston tourism.  Who can resist that face?







Breezes were blowing in from the Gulf.  




The Duplantis girls. How I love this!  Jeans, white tops and bare feet.




Justin had to set up the shots and jump in the picture.  Here's one family pic...an out-take.  It won't make the yearly Christmas card but that's because we were all waiting for the camera (on a tripod) to go.  And when it did, we weren't ready. Some of us were cracking up.





My children, they are my heart.  They're good and smart and some kind of wonderful.

Jason, Jennifer, Justin

Don and the boys. I adore this picture. I do. 

 



 I don't know when we'll all be together again, but those days we spent together were the best.

Galveston.

Love.

Family.

The Blue & The Gray ~

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).  Home improvement.  Our house is almost 33 years old and had paneling when it was built.  It was the style of the day.  All of that had been removed except for 2 bedrooms.

By the way, yesterday Don & I went to a movie and saw all the paneling you'll ever want to see...go see"Mud" with Matthew McConaughey!!   ;)

Back to my story...let's call one "the boys room" and the other, "Jen's room".  Even though  they're all grown up. Even though they do not live here anymore.  Even though we love them a lot, we don't want them back.  For good.  

So the boys room looked like this (ignore the tape, it's there to mark studs):

Jen's room had been painted, it was yellow.  So I brushed a few colors on the paneling to decide.  I knew I was going for a blue-gray.  (Note...you cannot put blue-gray on top of yellow)

Grays have undertones, people.  Some are pinkish, some are brown (griege), some are green and some are blue.  I wanted a rustic-coastal-cottage-beach-nautical look (got that?) and instead of sheetrock, we had beadboard put in with new trim, crown and base molding.  

In process:

While I happily brought home paint samples, my time was running out to choose a color. 

First off, it was Smoke.  Smoke looks good. Everyone says so.  No, Smoke looks too green to me.  It must be Mr. Rainier Gray, I can't live without Mt. Rainier Gray.  That's it.  For sure.  No. Too purplish.  With north facing windows, I needed to go somewhere else.  Silver Gray.  Good neutral color.  OK.

No, no and no. I kept coming back to my favorite....Benjamin Moore's Nimbus Gray.  

To quote Candice Olson:

Nimbus Gray:  As dense as the cloud for which it's named, this cool mid-tone blue-gray evokes memories of an early walk on a deserted wind-swept beach.

Well OK then.  

But Nimbus Gray was just a bit too dark. It's not enough that Benjamin Moore has thousands of colors, I have to create one of my own.  

I went to the paint store and told the guy that I wanted Nimbus Gray lightened 25% (only 75% of the colorant added).  He said, "Ma'am, if you do that you're basically going to have the next color up on the card, Silver Gray."

I knew he was wrong.  I had studied the formulas.  

Behold:



An excellent color. 

I love it.

Pretty!  Darkish in late evening.

And dreamy in the morning. 

Now I just need to get the beds fixed and some art on the walls.  I might even paint some furniture.  

~The End ~

Spring afternoon at Oak Alley ~

As a native Louisianian, I admit I haven't done much traveling in my home state.  But it's never too late to be a tourist right in your own backyard, right?  Right!  So, Don & I took off for a bayou backroads trip one weekend.

It was a glorious spring day, cool and breezy, and practically perfect.  We drove to Lafayette, and then down to Avery Island where Tabasco is made.  It was a fun visit.  Don used to go there for work many years ago when he was just a young whipper snapper mechanic, and I always wanted to see it.

After Avery Island, we headed out through Franklin, Morgan City, Thibodaux and finally got to our destination...River Road and Oak Alley Plantation.  I've always wanted to go!   So pretty.  There are 28 oak trees planted in the front of the house creating a breezeway from the Mississippi River (also 28 oaks in the back).  The builder put 28 columns on the veranda of the house, a tribute to the mighty oaks.  Oak Alley is a sugarcane plantation.  

There's a gift shop and restaurant.  If you go, stop in and eat pecan pralines at the gift shop.  They're delectable....don't ask me how I know.  You can walk around the grounds by yourself but you do need to buy a ticket to tour the house.  Of course the house looks bigger in movies.  Isn't that always the way it is?  Waiting for our tour to begin.



Our guide showed us some family pictures of the past owners of Oak Alley.  



The master bedroom. I didn't bring my camera so these shots are from my phone.




I fell in love with the cradle.  It's the only furniture that's original to the house from when it was built, in the 1830's.  Just think of those babies who were rocked and loved there. 




The last owner (Josephine Stewart) of Oak Alley died in 1972 but before she died, she set up a foundation so that Oak Alley would survive and remain a gift, to be open to the public.  

What a gorgeous setting for a wedding (they do those there).  Concert (they do a few smaller ones).  Craft show (every spring, fun!) 





How to get there:



You've probably seen Oak Alley in the movies or on TV.   Wheel of Fortune was there, twice I think.  Here's some others:  

Midnight Bayou
October 2008 by Lifetime. Starring Faye Dunaway, Jerry O’Connell and Lauren Stamile. 

Ghost Hunters
August 2008. Paranormal investigation and interviews with Oak Alley Plantation tour guides.

Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte
Bette Davis. Exterior shots only. 

Nightrider
1978, David Selby and Kim Cattrall. 

Dixie: Changing Habits
September 1982. For CBS television, starring Suzanne Pleshette and Cloris Leachman. Filmed entirely on location at Oak Alley Plantation and the French Quarter in New Orleans.

Days of Our Lives
NBC Daytime, filmed at Oak Alley mid 1984 during the World's Fair in New Orleans. One day, dawn to dark, film session of Peter Reckell (Bo Brady) and Kristian Alfonso (Hope Welch). Aired on NBC in August 1984.

The Long Hot Summer
A made-for-TV version of the original. Don Johnson, Cybill Shepherd, Jason Robards.

Interview with the Vampire
Starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Based on the Anne Rice best seller.  October 1993.

Primary Colors
John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates... based on the novel "Primary Colors" by Joe Klein. A southern governor's campaign to win the Democratic nomination to run for President.

~ Oak Alley Plantation ~

(from Google images)

Let the Sunshine In ~

Fact: We had a gloomy winter around here.  Day after day of rain, cloudy and wet.

I was ready to pack up and head for the hills (which hills, I didn't know).

Fall and winter have always been my favorite seasons - cool, clear, crisp and mostly dry.  No pollen, no steamy days and nights, and no tropical storms.  We were robbed!

But this week we've hit the jackpot.  We're in the middle of the most magnificent weather EVER!



I went to my park today.  I call it "mine" because I claim it.  I love the view of the I-210 bridge from here.  It's a beautiful bridge but if you don't see it from this spot, you never know that.




As I walked today I tried to soak it all in.  I wasn't alone, lots of people out enjoying the park - kids, dogs, people taking pictures.

This is the Indian Bay Pavilion.  It's such a pretty place for family reunions and picnics.



This is what makes a perfect park: walking paths, well mowed grass, playgrounds, restrooms, fountains, boat launch, plenty of benches and a fun splash pad (steamy days...).  

And, and - (this is so coincidental) - the park is very close to Target!  

You gotta love that.

Well done, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury!!

Perfect weather in a perfect park...March 27, 2013, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.