Just Play LCD and Ms. Jackson

I will travel to a party that Brig is dj'ing.  In some instances, I will ask Brig to travel to dj. And he'll come.

But first we will all stand in a parking lot eating tacos. Really good Korean tacos.

I will also witness a beautiful friendship forming over the discussion of video games.

And then the night comes and Brig will work his magic.  None of these people knew how good it would be.  They danced all night.

Let's All Admit to Crushing On Tig

I admit to being a little surprised when I heard that Tig Notaro was organizing a comedy festival in DC.  I also immediately bought tickets for the shows I could attend. 

The Bentzen Ball was named for a man who died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda.  Apparently, it's the resurrection of a comedy festival that DC had a few years ago and Tig wanted to start up again.  She teamed with Brightest Young Things and it pretty much all sold out.  I'm hoping this means it will return next year.

Jenica and I bought tickets for the opening night to hear Tig with Doug Benson, Wyatt Cenac and Heather Lawless.  I have been listening to Doug Loves Movies for over a year now and it's one of my favorite podcasts.  I was excited to finally see Doug perform.  And I've heard Tig on This American Life and other interviews and was super excited to finally see her in person.  Everyone delivered and then some.  I started to crush on Wyatt Cenac as well.  This show was worth standing in the 930 club for close to 3 hours.

And then Brigham came into town the next day for another reason on Saturday (more later) but he changed his life around to make sure to be there for Friday night especially to see Doug Loves Movies.  There was some definite excitement at trying to figure out who the guests will be.  Brig spotted Sam Levine aka lil wolverine through a door and we were pretty smiley to finally see him on stage after hearing him on the podcast for so long.  He takes this game very seriously which I truly appreciate. And Tig showed up!  With Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome aka Garfunkel and Oates.  It was the kind of lineup I could only be happy with.

Tig and Sam.  Tig was looking in that direction a lot because her girlfriend was off stage helping her through most of the games.  At one point, she came up on the stage to sit next to Tig.

Some of the folks who brought name tags trying to get noticed by the famous folk.

I like that Brigham only comes to DC to watch podcasts.

Yeast & Apples

My mother makes incredible Parker House rolls.  We have eaten them as a family for every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter meal since I can remember.  This is the one dish that is always requested and mom is really good at baking them.  She could probably make them with her eyes closed.  She knows how the dough should feel and if it will be a good batch of rolls.

I tried to replicate her recipe when I made an Easter meal in 2009 and it was not a success.  They worked fine but they were not as good as they could be.  I refused to work with yeast again because I failed that first time.

I received this amazing birthday present in 2011 from Evelyn and Francesco.  It's a cookbook called The Bread Baker's Apprentice:  Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.  Francesco would bring incredible bread to my dinners and it was because of this book.  I knew the day would come that I would finally bake with yeast again.

I've had a lot of time on my hands these past two weeks and I felt like it was finally time to get over my fear.  I opened to the first recipe in the book for a bread called Anadama which originated in New England.  It is made with cornmeal and molasses and I have never eaten it before.  It took two days to make and I was waiting for something wrong to happen.  I followed the directions explicitly including baking without any distraction.  And it worked.

Before baking (above) and after baking (below).

I tried my patience waiting for the bread to cool but I waited long enough and ate it with mom's blackberry jam.  It was the most perfect bread I've ever eaten.  Thank you Francesco and Evelyn for helping me to overcome my fear.

I had friends over Monday night and served the bread with this apple and fig crisp.  I found the crisp recipe in a cookbook gifted from Jenica called The Craft of Baking.  I recommend this book as well.

Not a great photo but the lighting in my kitchen is not the best.  I felt very baking accomplished that night.

James Murphy Is Playing At My House

By my house I'm referring to the 930 club but still it's in DC.  Phor and I bought these tickets a while ago and I kept thinking that this was happening in November.  It was a nice surprise to realize that was not the case.

The doors opened at 11 pm and the first set was by a pretty boring local dj.  Everything got louder and better once James started spinning.  He started by telling the crowd to not worry about looking at him because it's more fun to look at the people dancing around us.  He was up in the balcony and the stage was open for dancing.  I was excited to be up there for a few songs considering the caliber of musicians that have played on that very stage.

I went up to the 2nd floor to look at the view and I could see James dancing behind the equipment.

His mix of David Bowie's Love is Lost was just named by Pitchfork as best new music. 

Birch & Barley: Come for the Fried Chicken

This is one of those restaurants that I've been wanting to return to since moving back to DC.  It had been a few years since Phor and I went for one of her birthday celebrations.  It was even better that we went for brunch as I'm a big fan of that meal.

We got into the restaurant pretty quickly considering we didn't have a reservation and we even grabbed seats at the chef's table.  Lauri wanted the donuts and they sounded really interesting - toffee bacon, lemon-poppy glazed and bittersweet chocolate.  Good but not the best. 

One of the prep chefs worked on the flatbreads directly in front of us.  We chatted with him a bit but he obviously enjoyed the position so he could overhear conversations.  I would be the same.

Out of love for Lauri and Derek, I didn't tell them of my dislike for gorgonzola until after we ordered the flatbread with figs and prosciutto.  I wanted to see if I still really didn't like it and I don't.  But it was good if you like that kind of cheese.

This was the real winner.  The fried chicken was delicious.  I'd come back for this.

And I was happy with the egg sandwich with sausage and cheese.  There is nothing better for breakfast than a good egg sandwich.

After brunch, Lauri caught her bus back to NYC and I watched DC completely shut down that week.

Trees with Apples and Trees without Apples

When a dear friend from NYC visits, sometimes I gather 5 other friends and we hike Bull Run Mountain.

Can you find the frog?  I was amazed at the crispness of the photos with my new iPhone.

I was happy to see some of the leaves changing color.

Emily on a rock.

The view from the top of the mountain.

Super happy that Lauri was able to visit.

Jenica found her favorite book.

We waited 45 minutes for these apple cider donuts from The Apple House and they were worth it.

We were all kind of amazed with how quickly Jenica ate her donuts.  

Our last stop was the Stribling Orchard in Markham, VA.  It was a perfect introduction to autumn.

A Little Gospel Music, Good Bread and a Broken iPhone

My last day in Austin is the day that my iPhone 4 gave up the ghost.  I was using it without any problems and then it suddenly died.  Nothing I did brought it back to life.  I also wanted to get the phone immediately as I was traveling the next day and I would not be able to buy a new one until Tuesday night.  This just means that some of my photos are lost from that day but more on that later.

There were too many restaurants to choose in Austin so some of our meals happened a little too closely.  We actually got out of the hotel Sunday morning during the morning and headed to Contigo which is this gorgeous restaurant pretty much all outside.  I lost those photos.  But I have photos of the food we ate.  I think I'm done taking food photos of every meal that I eat after this trip.  I'll focus on the things that are really beautiful but I'm realizing that doesn't have to include every bite of food that I eat.

Because we were going to eat again in a very short time period, we split what we ate.  Pain au chocolat with sea salt and strawberry jam and a lemon & rosemary scone with roasted red onion cream.  Both were as delicious as they sound.

And we finished it off with the Nopales with corn, tomato, white bean, sourdough, eggs and cactus.  With a side of bacon of course.

We used the time in between meals to check out the Texas State Capitol.

I'm fascinated that babies are included in this photo.  I assume they belong to the senators but I don't know if they are children or grandchildren or both.

After wandering around, we drove to Stubb's for their gospel brunch.  Stubb's is kind of famous for their bbq sauces but their brunch wasn't the reason I was excited for this. 

I was so happy listening to the music and it was good.  That boy on the bass is only 14 years old.  He did a great job but he got a kick out of the singer mentioning his age every few songs.

We took advantage of museum free Sunday and went to the Blanton Museum of Art on UT campus.  There was an exhibit in its last weekend that I'm so happy we saw called Lifelike.  The official description - Lifelike invites a close examination of artworks based on commonplace objects and situations, which are startlingly realistic, but often made of unusual materials in unexpected sizes.  This elevator was the height of a few inches and it worked.  There were so many other pieces there that I really liked as well.

This was also the place where Agnes, my iPhone 4, died.  It was sad but I was more stressed when I realized that our time was short to get to an Apple store before they closed at 6 pm.  This is also the place where we got stuck in a parking garage because a UT sporting event got out at the same time I was needed to leave.  It took 45 minutes to get out of a parking garage.  Not fun.  Ever.

Miracles still happen.  When I first arrived with an hour to spare, the employees told me there was no way to get an iPhone 5S as people had been waiting in line for a while for them.  I said that was fine so they were going to give me a 4S and I would upgrade once I returned to DC.  But then this other manager talked to me about how they keep iPhones precisely for these types of situations.  She understood that I was on vacation and that I needed a phone for the next day of travel.  She was sorry that there were no more gold phones available and I told her I wouldn't want one anyway.  I got my first choice in gray and they set me up with a brand new functioning phone.  It's been a toy I can't stop touching since.  I'm amazed at the whole fingerprint recognition tool.  My photos are much better and the speed is incredible.  I'll wait just as long for my next upgrade just to have this feeling of amazement again.

After the stress of that, we drove to Alamo Draft House to see Short Term 12 which is my favorite film of the year, eat sandwiches and drink milk shakes.  I have to thank Amber for this suggestion as it was perfect.

I was pretty content by the end of the day.  I was not content to leave Austin the next morning.  I'm really looking forward to returning.