Coming soon! Southern Cal & Ft. Collins, Colorado!
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Wild Kingdom, indeed.
Omaha, Nebraska.
Home of Marlin Perkins, the Orpheum Theater, and a pretty cool zoo.
We play, of course, at the Orpheum (though some might argue we are more suited for the zoo):
We wrap up our tour with one last concert. It goes remarkably well.
We also enjoy the restaurants and shops in Omaha's quaint Old Market neighborhood. Lots of steaks here. Moo.
It's been fun & all, but after nearly two months of running around the country, we are ready to GO HOME.
Home of Marlin Perkins, the Orpheum Theater, and a pretty cool zoo.
We play, of course, at the Orpheum (though some might argue we are more suited for the zoo):
We wrap up our tour with one last concert. It goes remarkably well.
We also enjoy the restaurants and shops in Omaha's quaint Old Market neighborhood. Lots of steaks here. Moo.
It's been fun & all, but after nearly two months of running around the country, we are ready to GO HOME.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Tour Makes You Stupid
We were planning on going to Gombei this Sunday, as soon as we land in SJ. We have been talking about this for weeks.
Yumi just reminded us that Gombei is closed on Sundays.
...
Yumi just reminded us that Gombei is closed on Sundays.
...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Driving. Again.
This time, from Toledo to Des Moines (on our way to Omaha).
We really wish we could've stopped in Iowa City. It's killing me that we're not stopping in Iowa City.
Oh - how was Toledo? It was fine. Pretty hall, nice crew, leftover adobo, yadda yadda.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Still drivin'
Drive, drive, drive...
Last night, Little Rock.
Tonight, Illinois.
Tomorrow, Ohio.
This portion of the trip brought to you by Franco's mom's fine home-cookin'. She packed two coolers full of leftovers for us.
Because we were just wasting away.
This makes for excellent road snacks.
I don't remember what these rolls are called, but they're like brioche but with less eggs & more butter.
This giant lemon (from Franco's dad's tree) isn't as much a road snack as it is a roadside attraction, much like the World of Pigeons or the World's Largest Ball of Twine.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
And we're not the only ones who eat like this.
.
Last night, Little Rock.
Tonight, Illinois.
Tomorrow, Ohio.
This portion of the trip brought to you by Franco's mom's fine home-cookin'. She packed two coolers full of leftovers for us.
Because we were just wasting away.
This makes for excellent road snacks.
I don't remember what these rolls are called, but they're like brioche but with less eggs & more butter.
This giant lemon (from Franco's dad's tree) isn't as much a road snack as it is a roadside attraction, much like the World of Pigeons or the World's Largest Ball of Twine.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
And we're not the only ones who eat like this.
.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Our Lady of Whole Foods
Austin is known for its busy live music scene, the university, their proudly independent bookstores/cafes/restaurants, and...
... Austin is also the corporate home of Whole Foods Market!
80,000 square feet of Whole Foods goodness!
Bakeries!
Prepared foods! Indian! Japanese! Korean! American!
Three soup stations serving two dozen different kinds of soup!
A gelato bar! A panini bar! Smoothies! Udon! Satay! Coffee! BBQ! Handmade chocolate truffles! Cooking classes!
And a raw food bar!!! In Texas!!!
This store makes the one in Campbell look like a 7-11.
Pretty bread!
Pretty, pretty pastries!!!
I could live here. And by here, I mean in this store.
And did I mention that this store, this cathedral of beautiful food, is across the street from REI, Anthropologie, and an indy bookstore?
I LOVE Austin.
.
... Austin is also the corporate home of Whole Foods Market!
80,000 square feet of Whole Foods goodness!
Bakeries!
Prepared foods! Indian! Japanese! Korean! American!
Three soup stations serving two dozen different kinds of soup!
A gelato bar! A panini bar! Smoothies! Udon! Satay! Coffee! BBQ! Handmade chocolate truffles! Cooking classes!
And a raw food bar!!! In Texas!!!
This store makes the one in Campbell look like a 7-11.
Pretty bread!
Pretty, pretty pastries!!!
I could live here. And by here, I mean in this store.
And did I mention that this store, this cathedral of beautiful food, is across the street from REI, Anthropologie, and an indy bookstore?
I LOVE Austin.
.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Rhythm & Soul (food)
So what is PASIC, you ask?
PASIC is an annual convention for professional percussionists of all musical genres. It lasts four days and is jam-packed with seminars, lectures, demos, concerts, showcases, and a gi-normous room filled with vendors selling thousands of toys.
It is noisy here.
Steel drums! Bass ones!
There are recognizable instruments...
...as well as weird, new things...
...and some old favorites.
The San Josers will get to play with these next week!
We are surrounded by many legendary, world-famous percussionists. And I've never heard of any of them.
Yurika & I watch parts of a competition (marching, small-ensemble), a concert (a high school percussion ensemble - pretty rockin'), and a maracas lec-dem, which features about a dozen different kinds of maracas, some filled with dried frog eggs. The audience is rapt. But to my uneducated ear, they all sound the same. Hm.
Anyway, we play a 50-minute showcase for about a thousand percussionists.
Since every single one of these people could probably kick our bottoms, chops-wise, we concentrate on ki. And by that, I mean that we girls smile a lot, since the audience is mostly made up of (according to stereotype) straight guys. They seem to like the show.
Onto dinner!
We go to Hoover's with Michael & Theresa Holden!
Hoover's is in an unpretentious strip mall, marked only with a smallish, modest sign. But when you walk inside, the walls are covered with reviews and articles.
A good omen.
So what do you get at Hoover's? Down-home Southern coookin'. And the world's best chicken-fried steak.
And pretty friggin'-awesome chicken-fried chicken.
And did I mention the smoked hot wings?
We got these in honor of Adam.
And the fried okra! And the butterbeans! Mac & cheese! Sweet potatoes! Stewed okra! Garlic new potatoes! Mashed potatoes!
And the blackberry cobbler!
Burp...
And to top it all off, we are staying at the uber-posh Austin Hilton.
Life is good.
PASIC is an annual convention for professional percussionists of all musical genres. It lasts four days and is jam-packed with seminars, lectures, demos, concerts, showcases, and a gi-normous room filled with vendors selling thousands of toys.
It is noisy here.
Steel drums! Bass ones!
There are recognizable instruments...
...as well as weird, new things...
...and some old favorites.
The San Josers will get to play with these next week!
We are surrounded by many legendary, world-famous percussionists. And I've never heard of any of them.
Yurika & I watch parts of a competition (marching, small-ensemble), a concert (a high school percussion ensemble - pretty rockin'), and a maracas lec-dem, which features about a dozen different kinds of maracas, some filled with dried frog eggs. The audience is rapt. But to my uneducated ear, they all sound the same. Hm.
Anyway, we play a 50-minute showcase for about a thousand percussionists.
Since every single one of these people could probably kick our bottoms, chops-wise, we concentrate on ki. And by that, I mean that we girls smile a lot, since the audience is mostly made up of (according to stereotype) straight guys. They seem to like the show.
Onto dinner!
We go to Hoover's with Michael & Theresa Holden!
Hoover's is in an unpretentious strip mall, marked only with a smallish, modest sign. But when you walk inside, the walls are covered with reviews and articles.
A good omen.
So what do you get at Hoover's? Down-home Southern coookin'. And the world's best chicken-fried steak.
And pretty friggin'-awesome chicken-fried chicken.
And did I mention the smoked hot wings?
We got these in honor of Adam.
And the fried okra! And the butterbeans! Mac & cheese! Sweet potatoes! Stewed okra! Garlic new potatoes! Mashed potatoes!
And the blackberry cobbler!
Burp...
And to top it all off, we are staying at the uber-posh Austin Hilton.
Life is good.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The People's Republic of Austin
It's a blue day in a red state.
We are here in Austin to play a showcase at the PASIC conference.
On the way, we stop for lunch at Rudy's BBQ.
This is a no-frills bbq throw-down. You order your food by the pound, which is placed on butcher paper and garnished with half a loaf of white bread.
While waiting in line, you can watch your brisket being sliced on the Cutter Cam.
As usual, our eyes are too big for even our stomachs, so we order way too much food:
Spicy beef, brisket, sausages, half a chicken, ribs, beans, creamed corn, cole slaw, potato salad, with onions, pickles, and extra "sause."
This is one of Franco's favorite BBQ places.
He gets a little teary.
So how was it, you ask? Totally solid. Their "sause" is packed with cracked black peppercorns and has the perfect balance of sweetness, saltiness, and spiciness. Their brisket is Texas-style, covered in about a half-inch thick layer of rub and smoked until it's completely black. Hoo-yeah.
Moving on to dinner at...
Chuy's!
With Archie (Franco's brother), Carol, Josh, Luke, & Jakey!
Chuy's is an Austin Tex-Mex institution. The decorative theme: Elvis. Why? Because when the restaurant opened in 1982, the owners only had $20 to decorate the place. And what did they get with their $20? A velvet painting of Elvis.
This is also where the Bush twins (or was it just one twin?) got busted for underage drinking.
I get a chicken enchilada in tomatillo sauce & a chicken tostada-ish thing (it's under the lettuce).
Yurika gets the veggie enchiladas, made with blue corn tortillas.
It's a lot of food. But it's good. So we both manage to clean our plates.
On a completely unrelated note, Yurika says her pants are getting tighter. Mine, too.
Hm.
We are here in Austin to play a showcase at the PASIC conference.
On the way, we stop for lunch at Rudy's BBQ.
This is a no-frills bbq throw-down. You order your food by the pound, which is placed on butcher paper and garnished with half a loaf of white bread.
While waiting in line, you can watch your brisket being sliced on the Cutter Cam.
As usual, our eyes are too big for even our stomachs, so we order way too much food:Spicy beef, brisket, sausages, half a chicken, ribs, beans, creamed corn, cole slaw, potato salad, with onions, pickles, and extra "sause."
This is one of Franco's favorite BBQ places.
He gets a little teary.
So how was it, you ask? Totally solid. Their "sause" is packed with cracked black peppercorns and has the perfect balance of sweetness, saltiness, and spiciness. Their brisket is Texas-style, covered in about a half-inch thick layer of rub and smoked until it's completely black. Hoo-yeah.
Moving on to dinner at...
Chuy's!
With Archie (Franco's brother), Carol, Josh, Luke, & Jakey!
Chuy's is an Austin Tex-Mex institution. The decorative theme: Elvis. Why? Because when the restaurant opened in 1982, the owners only had $20 to decorate the place. And what did they get with their $20? A velvet painting of Elvis.
This is also where the Bush twins (or was it just one twin?) got busted for underage drinking.
I get a chicken enchilada in tomatillo sauce & a chicken tostada-ish thing (it's under the lettuce).
Yurika gets the veggie enchiladas, made with blue corn tortillas.
It's a lot of food. But it's good. So we both manage to clean our plates.
On a completely unrelated note, Yurika says her pants are getting tighter. Mine, too.
Hm.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Of all nights to arrive in Texas...
Y'all did vote, yes?
We drove from Memphis, through Little Rock, and now we are in Mesquite, which is a suburb of Dallas, and about three hours from our final destination of Austin.
Some observations from the highway -
Most interesting bumper sticker:
"Don't take a bite out of crime - just shoot the criminals."
Number of hybrid cars seen: 0
Ratio of trucks/SUV's to cars: 3 to 1
Number of Wal-Marts seen within the last twenty minutes of today's trip: 4
There was a Gun & Knife show going on at the Indy fairgrounds next to the International Festival, and I was sad that I didn't get a chance to go (to stir up trouble, of course), but this whole place is one big, fat gun show.
Yee-haw.
We drove from Memphis, through Little Rock, and now we are in Mesquite, which is a suburb of Dallas, and about three hours from our final destination of Austin.
Some observations from the highway -Most interesting bumper sticker:
"Don't take a bite out of crime - just shoot the criminals."
Number of hybrid cars seen: 0
Ratio of trucks/SUV's to cars: 3 to 1
Number of Wal-Marts seen within the last twenty minutes of today's trip: 4
There was a Gun & Knife show going on at the Indy fairgrounds next to the International Festival, and I was sad that I didn't get a chance to go (to stir up trouble, of course), but this whole place is one big, fat gun show.
Yee-haw.
Monday, November 06, 2006
On the road again
Leaving Indy and drivin' to Austin, TX.
Sing along with the piggy!
"The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar - I am following the river, down the highway, through the cradle of the civil war..."
Can you guess our first stop?
Eh?
Memphis!
BBQ!
We go to Blues City Cafe to sample some of the local goodies.
Their specialty: ribs.
Uh-huh.
Look at that.
You wish you had these.
Served with beans, slaw, fries, & Texas toast.
And it's as good as it looks.
And if that's not enough, there's dessert:
Apple dumpling, served hot, with vanilla ice cream & caramel sauce.
It's so good, Alex cries. Just a little.
According to Chowhound posts, there are maybe 8 or 10 other bbq places that are just as good (if not better). Blues City Cafe is in the touristy part of Memphis, but the bbq is, at least to my uneducated bbq palate, pretty-friggin'-awesome.
Tomorrow: Mesquite, Texas. I suspect we might find some bbq there as well...
Sing along with the piggy!"The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar - I am following the river, down the highway, through the cradle of the civil war..."
Can you guess our first stop?
Eh?
Memphis!
BBQ!
We go to Blues City Cafe to sample some of the local goodies.
Their specialty: ribs.
Uh-huh.
Look at that.
You wish you had these.
Served with beans, slaw, fries, & Texas toast.
And it's as good as it looks.
And if that's not enough, there's dessert:
Apple dumpling, served hot, with vanilla ice cream & caramel sauce.
It's so good, Alex cries. Just a little.
According to Chowhound posts, there are maybe 8 or 10 other bbq places that are just as good (if not better). Blues City Cafe is in the touristy part of Memphis, but the bbq is, at least to my uneducated bbq palate, pretty-friggin'-awesome.
Tomorrow: Mesquite, Texas. I suspect we might find some bbq there as well...
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