A long, long time ago there was this really fabulous restaurant not far from where I work. Several of the people I’ve worked with over the last 8 years loved this place. I include myself in that list of people. In fact, it is one of the establishments in the Austin area that I cut my adventurous chops on!

Yes, that’s correct. I have not always been such a culinary daredevil. Before 2000, I think the most exploratory I would get is mole on my enchiladas. Every once in a while, I might’ve been excited by jalapenos in the queso, but my most outrageous experiences tended to my tex-mex heritage. That’s not to say that I wasn’t schooled in spice a few times during my tenure in New Orleans. In fact, there were probably a few times at a few festivals in good ol’ Looozyana when the crawfish boil brought tears to my eyes. But the people that I met in Austin taught me just a thing or two of the esculent arts. And of worldly cuisine. Turns out we Texans, while perhaps a little more culinarily brazen than your average Rhode-Islander, are still pretty humdrum when put against Thai or Afrikan or Morrocan fare. I have been to plenty of establishments where I never could have conceived of going before…

But this one place… Oh, I remember it fondly. Most of my coworkers at the time were only too happy (or too ambivalent) to agree to going there. Especially on Wednesdays. Massamun curry day! It was deee-vine. Back then, we were a two-income household, and Hays — well, he didn’t drink 4 gallons of milk a week and so I had a little more disposable income. And I was all too happy to go to lunch with the crowd. And we went to places I’d never been before.

Well, that is except for Thai Spice. We went there all the time. This one guy didn’t really believe there were any other restaurants than this. And it was close. But mostly I loved it on Wednesday for the reason stated earlier. I had never really gotten into curries before — especially Thai curries. And being a good Texan who grew up on carrots and potatoes, well Damn! This was some good stuff. And throw in peanuts to boot!

But then, one day, we went and it wasn’t Wednesday. And I was stumped. I’d already had the Pad Thai and a few other curries and I just wasn’t all that impressed. But another good friend of mine… he introduced me to a whole new level of yum. He’s gone now — not dead, but moved to a different plane of existence. New Zealand. And a different life. Same family, but all mellow and free-spirited. I admire that “up-and-gone” idea but I’m too much the coward. Anyway, back to his fave dish at Thai Spice….

It had a very simple name. It was Basil Fried Rice. And it was all of about $6. Me, I’m a bumpkin, so I don’t really know much about Thai food, but, hell, I knew this was good. So did Meredith. Mainly because every time I would have it, she could tell. We’d go to bed at night, and after lying there for about 2.8 seconds, she’d announce (not query, but ANNOUNCE) “You went to Thai Spice and had Basil Fried Rice today.”

She was never wrong.

You see, BFR is loaded with garlic. And basil. And cilantro. All are very pungent. And apparently, I exude them from my pores when I have consumed even less than two or three grams. Of course, I always consumed more than two or three grams, which made it quite obvious. But still… it was amazing. It was all basilly and garlicky and chili-ey. That’s Thai chilis. An insidious and delicious culprit if ever there was.

But it has all changed.

It is true that Thai Spice is still there. And BFR is still on the menu. But it’s not the same. It’s damn near $11 now. And the serving size is about half what it was. And there’s nowhere near the broccoli or chicken. Not to mention that the place has gone all “mod” and stuff.

I’m baffled why I never thought to find out more about BFR, but within the last couple years, I’ve started exploring in the kitchen…. I could always whip up a good stir-fry or dash together some yummy casserole, but I’ve been looking for more diverse fare lately. And somehow I stumbled across the fact that BFR wasn’t just a one-time-thing. Plenty of Thai places had it on the menu.

NO WAY!

It’s true. But still, somehow I managed to always skip over this recipe when contemplating dinner preparations.

Until tonight.

This afternoon, I found an interesting video (with an incredible wok/burner combo!) that demonstrated the simplicity of the BFR recipe. And I took it to heart. I improvised a little, as I’m wont to do — I replaced the bell pepper with a bit of celery. And maybe used less chili (so everyone else would like it). And (at present) there’s no way I could generate that kind of heat on my stove, so I had to batch things up a bit to get it all done. And I made quite a mess of the kitchen. But the results…

Let’s put it this way: I made what I thought was enough for me to have some extra for lunch on Monday. Well, that’s just not going to happen. The recipe was a hit. And the real kicker is that I can’t really believe how simple it was. No really. I’ll show you:

So, I haven’t begun to dig, but I’m about to start hunting around. See, the thing is, I have this Linux server on my home network that occassionally needs access to Casper.

Casper is my laptop. It’s a mac. A very nice, pretty MacBook Pro.

It also uses DHCP on the network, so on any given day, my server (call him Vader) doesn’t know what Casper’s IP is and I don’t really want to have to force it.

And that’s where Bonjour comes in. Hopefully.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Ultimately, I’d like to be able to type something along the lines of ’ssh casper’ from a terminal on vader. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

Considering my wife doesn’t even like beer, I think she’s spent a little too much time at the Heineken website:

[I have removed the iframe that was here and replaced it with a direct link because it was disruptive even to me.]

Heineken Video

I’ve always been fascinated by bowties, but I’ve only ever worn one as part of a tuxedo. And I think in my entire life, I’ve probably worn a tuxedo a grand total of, oh I don’t know… let’s count backwards:

1. My cousin Kelly’s wedding
2. My wedding
3. My cousin Michael’s wedding
4. Senior prom
5. Junior prom

Uh, yeah. That’s it. But bowties… they’re pretty cool. I love their whimsy and the way they look much better with short-sleeved oxford shirts than a necktie does.

I think I will look to Mr. Kevin Greene for inspiration and perhaps go out and pick up a bowtie or two and maybe a new oxford shirt to wear with it.

This past weekend, Meredith and the kids and I went up to Olney, Texas, to visit my grandparents along with my folks. It was the opening of dove season in the Texas North Zone, and up to just a day before 9/1 I had been feeling very ill and afraid that we would not make it. Well, Friday came and I felt at least decent enough to make the 4.5 hour drive from Austin, so we packed up the kids and supplies and headed north.

Saturday, my dad and grandfather and I got up early and headed out to some land behind their place that we’ve got permission to hunt on. Some others were hunting around the stock tank we normally occupy so we set up around another nearby. I guess by about 8:00 or so that morning, the birds started to fly. Most of them were white-wing dove coming out from roosting in the city overnight and I had quickly limited out on my two ww. I was going to have to keep a close eye on the flyers so as to not drop any more ww that morning, which was difficult because of the angle I was at on the stock tank — they were mostly flying directly over some brush/trees on the far side of the tank about 40 yards away or so and then breaking to my right across a fenceline. If I shot too early, they’d drop into the tank and too late, they’d drop on property I couldn’t get too because of the terrain. I did manage to bag four other mourning dove before we headed back to the house for coffee and breakfast.

That afternoon, Hays expressed a serious interest in going out with us. I hadn’t really expected it at all. My dad brought my old .410 break-over and we had some shells for it, so we let him come with us. Of course, if you’ve ever been hunting with kids who haven’t been out much, you know that you’re not so much hunting as mentoring and tutoring them. We set up in a treeline under some low overhanging cedar with the sun at our backs. After showing Hays how the .410 worked and giving him a quick rundown of the “this gun can kill things, don’t point it at stuff you don’t want to die” speech we were set up. A little while later a couple dove came in from the far right (away) moving to cross in front of us and pass about 20 yards over our left shoulders. Hays cocked and raised the gun and took aim and fired. He didn’t bring any bird down, but the shot was certainly close because of the reaction of the bird. I don’t think he’d pulled the gun in tight against his shoulder as the next few minutes were him overreacting to how it kicked and frogged his bicep. He quickly figured out that drawing the butt of the gun into the shoulder keeps it from doing that!

A couple more birds did fly in that afternoon, but very few. At one point I did drop a bird out at about 30-40 yards and was having a helluva time finding it in the thigh-high scrub that was pretty green from this Summer’s rains. Then Hays, with his eagle-eyes managed to walk right out to it and say, “Well, duh, dad! Here it is.” Thanks to him, I did manage to bring the one dove I shot that afternoon back to the house.

The next morning (Sunday, September 2) we went out again and set up around the tank we had originally wanted to get around. The birds just weren’t flying, so after maybe a half-hour or so, Hays and I headed out across a big patch of sunflowers and set up in a treeline waiting for the birds to fly in to feed. None ever came. I think we might have seen a grand total of a dozen birds on Sunday morning. It was pretty disappointing, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless, since I was out with my grandpa, dad, and my son.

I had a lot of fun, and so did Hays. He’s enjoyed telling his friends at school that he got to go hunting and on Monday (Labor Day) we stopped in at Cabela’s and he got to look at some different shotguns, including a nice 870 Wingmaster Youth Model. It was still just a little big for him, but they make an even smaller one with a barrel just shy of 19". I might try to find a shop around town that has one in stock to see how it handles for him. I think it’s time to track down a good hunter’s safety course to get both him and Griffin into. Even though she doesn’t want to do any hunting, she’s still interested in shooting skeet and clays with us whenever we do. I’m looking forward to that and even Meredith has expressed a strong interest in getting involved. Not that she’s ever been opposed to it, she’s just not as gung-ho about the whole thing as I am, I guess. Anyway, there’s still quite a bit of dove season left, so I certainly hope we get to go out at least a couple more times. Otherwise the seven birds I’ve brought down this year are going to amortize out to about $20 each!