Welcome back to the weekly round-up here at Eating Our Words, where we've built a little fort out of our vast stockpile of holiday leftovers. To start things off this week, Greenway Barista checked out the frogurt at Blueberry Hill. Aw, we're calling it "froyo" now? That's not nearly as fun. Certainly not as much fun as gifting yourself a whole bunch of beer on Christmas and watching your relatives shoot concerned glances at one another.
Our recipes this week included Becky Means' hummus, Katharine Shilcutt's perfect cornbread, Mike Morris's beer bread, Geri Maria Harris's honeyed Marcona almond brie en croute, and of course the mutant horrorshow of the week from the Shameless Chef. Greenway conducted an in-depth interview with Polo's Adam Puskorius, and Mike chatted with Houston's new mayor Annise Parker about her favorite munchies.
Venturing further into political foodstuffs, Robb Walsh examined the backyard garden of First Lady Michelle Obama, and like any article mentioning an Obama, the comments section soon devolved into puerile name-calling, wardrobe critique and, of course, one person's complete obliviousness to the fact that The Daily Show is a satire program. In short: It became our favorite kind of comments section. Keep it coming, folks!
After a post-Christmas miracle involving coffee instead of shoes, Mike plumbed the mysteries of Lucky Burger but was forced to turn back after being injured in a fall deep within the catacombs beneath the restaurant as he searched for their Secret Sauce recipe. Mike, when will you learn: In Latin, Jehovah begins with an "I"!
As much as TWiD gets criticized because we can't stand bitter drinks like IPAs and coffee, we know we could take you punks to school when it comes to imbibing anything sour. Case in point: kombucha, a drink that causes 90 percent of our friends to wrinkle their noses in disgust, tastes to us like uncommonly delicious champagne. But don't worry, it's all in the spirit of friendly competition, and once we're done attempting to out-sour one another, we can relax and enjoy some meatballs. TWiD is really looking forward to this. Please call us soon.
Robb sampled some Cheese Berry pizza, where, somewhat disappointingly, we learned that "Cheese Berry" is simply a name, not some kind of glorious hybrid ingredient. Greenway visited Finca Santa Rita, Paul Knight checked out the happy hour scene at Blue Fish House, and Becky spent $13 at Raja Sweets, while Jane Catherine Collins gave us the wine of the week.
Robb took a lengthy stroll down memory lane with his list of the top 9 Houston restaurant closings of the past decade. We know it doesn't mean much to you guys, but if you'd heard TWiD's stoner friends mourning the loss of the Taco Cabana on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer, you'd have thought aliens had stolen every kitten and puppy in the world, leaving only a barren wasteland of joylessness behind. And to further complicate our misery, they've decided to go ahead and hold a hard freeze this weekend, so all your gardens are screwed. We don't know why they do this to us every couple of years; can't we draft a law prohibiting hard freezes? Seems like it would be easy enough to do in Houston. Then again, we get all of our knowledge of the American political system from episodes of Spongebob Squarepants.
Katharine will be guest trivia master at the Maple Leaf Pub's Geeks Who Drink trivia night on January 14, and we're already brainstorming with her on obscure '80s cooking fads. Did you know that from 1985 to mid-1987 there was literally nothing you couldn't cook in a toaster? Even salads, of which Ruthie Johnson provided a round-up of the city's best for all you semi-malnourished leaf-eaters out there. We kid the vegetarians; we love to watch you guys eat all manner of plant life. We like to imagine it's screaming as you do so. TWiD is not overly fond of veggies, is what we're saying.
Ruthie had some dim sum staples to grab around town, and yes, TWiD would much, much rather eat chicken feet than greenery. We'd even risk bumping into Anthony Keidis to buy some fresh fish under the bridge. And before we decide to heed Robb's suggestion and try pasta with truffles, we're going to have to sort out exactly what the hell a truffle is first. Because we've tried some goofy shit for the sake of novelty, but chocolate on pasta is not going to fly in 2010. We're trying to get better here, people, not worse.
Jane chatted with Community Bar's Elizabeth Kessler, and Katherine helped us close out the week with some videos of adorable animals eating. It's therapy for our bitter souls, which we immediately rendered null when we re-watched Battle at Kruger, in which the only potential meal in the whole video escapes shortly after its relatives show up to stomp ten kinds of shit out of the potential diners. You're awesome, Nature.
