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.



.

On the road, AGAIN

Driving from Austin to Toledo...

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.



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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.

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.

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.

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Happy Election Day.

Now go vote.

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...

Hashi tutorial

What not to do with your hashi:



1) Do not use your hashi to pick up things you have no intention of eating.











2) Do not use your hashi for duels.













3) Do not use your hashi to stab other people's fingers, especially if those fingers belong to Wisa.









4) Do not use your hashi to pinch other people's heads.

This could also fall under rule #1.

Tour makes you forgetful

Indianapolis International Festival!


Featuring not one but two Minyo groups, as well as Philipino, Okinawan, Eastern European, Iranian, Scandinavian, Indian, etc etc folk dance ensembles.








We play, too. Four times. Not including workshops & media spots.







Concert programs are juggled, last-minute, so that forgetful folks could zip back to the hotel to retrive parts of their costume. Round-trip travel time from the festival to the hotel: 45 minutes.

This happens twice.

Who were the offenders, you ask? I ain't sayin'. Because it could happen to any of us at any time. Because tour makes you absent-minded.

On a more cheerful note, this festival is packed with all sorts of ethnic eats.

Snacks sampled: Chicken tikka masala, saag paneer, veg curry, naan, spring roll, steamed bun, scallion pancake, pork dumplings, Jamaican beef pie, and chicken empanada.

And that's just me.

Non-festival snacks: Lunch at Sawasdee (an awesome Thai place), which specialized in northern Thai cuisine, which we were told is far superior to the southern version. Dinner at a chain-y pubby place (not worth mentioning), and dinner at PF Chang's (I know, I know... but we are in Indiana).

Today's the day

We bid buh-bye to Dr. Mike, Eau Claire, and the Lose-A-Vice game.

To celebrate, we have breakfast at Cracker Barrel (I know, I know, it was the only place open).



Yurika + coffee.












The Boy + sausage.















The rest of us indulge in our vices as well.

Once caffeine & meat have been ingested, we move on to Indianapolis...

Isn't it cold in Canada?

It is cold here. And snowing.
















We are all sad, soft Californians (including Yurika). We hate the cold.



Eau Claire concert - in the audience is our Minnesota-Wisconsin fan club, aka the Millers & the Fienens. They enjoy the concert, despite its Mike-less-ness.

Not to say Mike didn't help out; when he showed up, we immediately put him to work.



Nothin' says love like crankin' a shime.