Cheese and chocolate

I started a new tradition on my trip to Austin this weekend.  In cities I visit, I'll find a good local place for artisan cheese and chocolate, then find a park to eat them.

In Austin I found Edis' Chocolates and Antonelli's Cheese Shop.

Edi is fairly short and very friendly.  She makes truffles, cookies, flourless cakes, and even a mini baguette, which I picked up thinking it would go well with the cheese I'd buy later.  I got six truffles: Grand Marnier, Mexican Vanilla, Coconut (not so much for me), Black Salt, Chocolate, and Almond.  Guess what was the best truffle.  Chocolate.

If this is changing between lots of different pictures of truffles, I don't know how, but I like it!

Antonelli's was the best cheese shop I've been to.  Their cheese case is laid out in the order it's best to sample the offerings, starting with fresh cheeses, moving to the softer ones, and then going gradually firmer and sharper until you get to the bleus at the end.  I tried and bought some of the best Gruyere ever, which did go excellently with that baguette.

The staff is smart about cheese and friendly, even offering us a sample of chocolate with almond brittle, knowing that we'd already bought our chocolate allotment at Edis'.  They also had some Beehive cheeses from Utah.  That Gruyere, by the way, was $20 per half pound.  Somehow I didn't notice the "half" on the sign, so it cost twice as much as I thought.  Worth it.

And somehow on December 2, Austin was sunny and 80 degrees, the perfect weather for a great picnic.

It's not a restaurant; it's a litte theme park

When I came to Austin a few years ago, I was a tagalong in a group of people I didn't know very well.  It was for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning conference.  It was early November in 2008, I think.  I saw the bats.

One night the group was going to go out for some barbecue.  I'd been told about The Salt Lick.  But we were with someone who used to live out there, and she recommended another place that left the kind of impression that I can't even remember the name of the place.  I do remember that the head of cattle on the wall would sing Happy Birthday to you if you were unfortunate to dine at this place on your special day.

I wasn't about to go back.  I rented a car for the specific purpose of driving the half hour out of Austin to visit The Salt Lick.  It was worth the drive, the money to rent the car, and would have been so even if I'd blown out all four tires on the way.

It's not so much a restaurant as it is a theme park.  The place is massive, several acres out in the middle of nowhere.  And since the restaurant isn't zoned to serve alcohol, they built a winery next door where they sell booze, and then you have to carry it over to the table.  They allow you to BYOB from anywhere.

It was like a carnival when we got there, with popcorn machines, lemonade stand ($2, and then you walk it over to the restaurant.  They squeeze it when you order it.  Awesome.), and stage for live music--the best we saw in Austin, the live music capital of the world.

And then there's the barbecue.  There are barbecue joints all over here.  There's one just outside my hotel, and I've yet to leave the place when I haven't seen some new one.  I hear that the place over on 11th street has won some awards and love from the locals, but it can't match The Salt Lick for atmosphere.

Our waiter wore a "Salt Lick Eating Crew" tshirt.  We got a sampler of all four available meats--Brisket, Pork Ribs, Turkey, and Sausage.  They have three sides--Potato Salad, Cole Slaw, and beans.  All were good, and none were sweet.  No sugar in the cole slaw, nor any mayo.  It's a barbecue sauce base on the potato salad.  I'm not suggesting it's any healthier, just unlike what you get at most barbecue joints.

It also smells fantastic.

I didn't order one, even though calories are free on vacation.

They have two items for dessert, Pecan Pie or Cobbler (though it comes as Peach or Blackberry.)  I can't comment on them because I didn't order any.  I had to get out to the concert.  I'm in Austin!

White noise

The other day I was staying in a guest house that someone provided me in Moab.  It was a two-night stay.  The view is gorgeous in Moab no matter where you are.

When I got back to the house on the second night after a great hike, the battery in the smoke detector was dying.  You know what that means, right?  Really loud chirps every thirty seconds or so.  I was dead tired from getting in very late the night before, so I really needed some sleep.

I'm in an unfamiliar house, it's ten at night, and I know where nothing is.  Even if I could find a nine volt battery (or go buy one) I couldn't change it because the smoke detector was on the vaulted ceiling well out of reach.

I closed the door to the bedroom.  That helped some, but I knew that I'd be constantly thinking of when the next chirp would come and I'd never get to sleep.

So, if I couldn't eliminate the noise, I decided to try and drown it out.  I downloaded this free white noise app for my iPad.

I tried several of the calming sounds.  I knew I couldn't turn up the volume too loud, or I'd never get to sleep anyway.  The campfire app sounds like a crackling fire with crickets in the background.  I found the perfect volume so that every time the smoke detector chirped, it just sounded like one of the crickets by the fire.

I slept like a baby.

Larry Thomas is who, now?

I met Larry Thomas.  I even got a picture taken with him, though he was ignoring me at the time and maybe didn't actually know.

Larry Thomas played the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld and he came down to the Owlz game a few weeks ago as part of a promotion for Gandolfo's, which wanted to sell some soup. So, they brought in a guy famous for telling people they can't buy soup.

I'm sure it worked, because the line for Mr. Nazi for signing the ladles that the Owlz gave away was super long.

By the way, Larry Thomas has also played Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

This is Thomas as Osama walking with some schmoe who's playing President Bush.

When I googled Larry Thomas Saddam Hussein, no picture came up of what I was looking for, but I did find this one, which is of neither Hussein or Thomas, but I thought was funny enough to post anyway.

He also told a story about when he was on an airplane and a flight attendant said to him, "I guess no soup for you?"  The guy sitting next to him didn't get it.

Fireworks and dogs

On Pioneer Day morning I walked around Oquirrh Lake.



It's a nice walk when I don't have time to get to the canyons.

This time, there was a non-leashed dog wandering about.  Eventually, she started following me, which I encouraged by whistling for and praising her.  I didn't know where the owners were, but figured I could either find them after my whole circuit of the lake or check the dog's collar and make the connection that way.

She was a good dog.  Eager to please, and also eager to chase ducks.  Eventually, we made it all around the lake without finding anyone who knew the dog, but plenty of people who seemed please to see her.  At least one of those people wasn't so pleased, because that person called the Daybreak rent-a-cops who sent someone along to chastise me for having an off-leash dog.

Back at the beginning, I checked Emma's collar and found out her name was Emma and that she had a phone number.  I called.  "Do you know Emma?" I asked.  Yes, she knew Emma and had been looking for her overnight.  Fireworks set off in the neighborhood the night before had scared her to the point of taking off when she was out to tinkle.  She ended up about a mile away from home and across Bangerter Highway.

It was a nice reunion when Mom showed up to get Emma, who was thrilled to see her.

Oi--society!

I just got back from the hot tub.

I discovered while I was in Cancun that one thing I appreciate in life is modesty.  No thanks on the skimpy bikinis, thanks.  I think that makes even beautiful women look cheap.

And it's worse on twelve-year-olds.  They really shouldn't wear such things.  Their parents really shouldn't buy them.  There are men that aren't me, who would find such things titillating--is that what their parents are going for?

I unfortunately could also hear these girls talking, complaining about living in "Troy's house," and quoting Troy saying to their mother, "Smack that ass."  Oh, okay.  That explains something about the outfit.

And then the girls stand there with their arms folded over their bare torsos.  The boys (who wear perfectly reasonable bathing suits, thank you) asked why girls always stood like that.  "Because we think we're fat."

First, these girls were eighty pounds with their hair soaking wet from the pool, and second, why the string bikini, then?

More family magic

I went to Idaho for the fourth of July.  My sister lives in Idaho Falls.  After a day there, it is very clear to me why the Eternal plan we're part of is a family-centered one.

There's a connection that comes with family, even extended parts of it.  The love I feel for my nieces and nephews amazes me, and I'm sure it's dwarfed by the feelings of their parents for them.

My sisters in-laws, whom I've met but am not close to, were around for the holiday.  Big family get-together at the park.  The whole group probably had close to two dozen children.

There's no reason for that group of individuals to get together except for the fact that they're family.  And I don't know, but if they're like any other family, there's baggage they overcome in order to get together and be nice.

But I think that's the point.  Family is so close and has such potential for love and joy, but is still full of imperfect, sinful people who hurt themselves and each other.  I think that hurt can be exacerbated by the fact that the pain comes when there should be such love and devotion.

But that's the lesson, I think.  Forgiving family has the greatest potential to show us the fruits of real forgiveness, because no matter the pain, the disloyalty, or the betrayal, forgiving one's family means that all the same potential for love and joy is still there.  And choosing forgiveness lets you experience that, while holding grudges means you won't.

Just like the big plan.