Dining in San Antonio - Day 2

We started the day with some trepidation. The evening before, at the bad BBQ place, the person sitting next to us recommended a local tradition for Tex-Mex called Mi Tierra. The trepidation was caused by the fact that this gentleman was enjoying the bad BBQ. He had traveled to SA for it.

But he was a Hispanic- American, and that has to count for something in a recommendation, don't you think?

So we started off the day with one mile jaunt to the Mercado (Market) District, the kind of place tourists go to find stuff for their kids, or if you really need a Chilli Pepper Kippah, as at right.

Mi Tierra may be the first restaurant to challenge Salvatore's of Buffalo for an excess of kitsch, all in a Tex-Mex way, but the food was everything I had hoped for. The Ranchero sauce was a perfect blend of flavors. The flour tortillas a revelation, warm, and fluffy even.

When hot sauce was requested by me, it came not in a bottle, but two ramakins of housemade salsa, one rojo and one verde. Yum.

We ended up making a second hike to the Mercado that afternoon, after a visit to the Alamo, and stopped at La Margarita, a sister restaurant. If you look at the photo, only the right hand third of the bottom shelf is not Tequila. We had a frozen margarita that went down nicely, and it wasnt the last time I would be there!

It's That Time Of Year

Passover arrives at sundown this coming Saturday, but the Holiday really seems to be arriving each year with the annual appearance of that two liter bottle of Coke with the distinctive yellow cap emblazoned with Hebrew letters indicating that the beverage is Kosher for Passover. That means real sugar as the sweetener instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).

Now I have plenty of gripes about HFCS , but this is based on religious restrictions for this particular Holiday - the details are here, but it boils down to a celebration of the escape of the Jews from Egypt, and the fact that in their hurry they could not allow their bread to rise. Any thing that is or mimics risen bread is out for the eight days of Passover.

The details of this are best left to Talmudic Scholars
(or perhaps Jesuits, they are pretty close on the hair splitting thing). For the rest of us mere mortals it makes our heads explode. Really. I have witnessed it first hand.

The bottom line is that many Orthodox Jews from Europe have decided that corn is included in the Passover prohibition, and thus HFCS is a no-no. The Coca-Cola company responds to this need by providing, once a year, Coke made with real sugar. And once a year I get that that taste I used to get out of an 8 oz. glass bottle after a little league game!

PS The tile it is on displays the Chinese pictograph for "happiness".

I Heart You!

Nothing says I love you like the gift of bread crumbs. Yep, my Schmoopie gave me Panko! Since we just bought a couple of bottles of Zipang Sparkling Sake, I think there may be something like Tonkatsu in the near future.

Dinner was, of course, the traditional heart shaped meatloaf (served with banana ketchup in homage to Fredi , roasted potatoes, asparagus and peas, all washed down with a Mionetto "Il" Prosecco Rosso.

Cooking with Kids I - Pretzel Logic

Cooking with your kids is one of the greatest joys of being a parent. Maybe one of the greatest joys of being a cook It can be as simple as making the Ginger Ale you see at right, (1 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp. yeast, juice of one lemon, water to fill. Keep in a warm place for a day or so.) or something more complex.

I have a backlog of posts about such endeavors, which I will share, but the important thing is that cooking for strangers is an important part of being a cook, cooking for friends and family is more important. Cooking for your family is really good, but cooking with your family is the best (though they need to learn things like "behind you").

Below are some photos of the girls making soft pretzels. Were they shaped perfectly? No. But we had fun, and they tasted great!

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