so close (yet so far)

My friend Amber (who took my favorite photo of all time) gave me a little photography lesson last week before we met up with Loryn for happy hour.  While I don't know if I understand everything she wrote down (there are lots of numbers on that paper), I did figure out how to manually focus and adjust my white balance.  Baby steps, people.

I will always maintain that La Condesa has the best happy hour ever.  Really cheap, really good margaritas, great bar menu, decor that absolutely slays me...  It's a no brainer.

texas, our texaaaaaaaas...

I thought with a fancy new camera, I'd be blogging lots more.  For some reason, however, I haven't touched this thing in a while.  This time I've got post graduation and pre move-to-New-York-and-job-hunt-all-day-every-day has been really lazy.  While I love it, I need to get on some serious memory making, 'cause I've got about a month left in this lil' city I love so much.

stoplight instagrams

I spent yesterday afternoon sitting at one of my favorite coffee shops (Jo's), watching the cutest little sparrow eat my muffin,  (Don't worry, I was done with it.  I don't plan on eating after a bird.)  

The littlest sister met up with me for a little adventuring on South Congress.  We sat at Jo's and did a little prep work for one of the projects I talked about in this post.  I'm making a version of Wood & Faulk's wool camera wrap and I found the most gorgeous woven fabric to work with.

After a bit of fabric shopping and pizza (HOME SLICE! - an important part of the list), we walked along the bridge and up Congress to take lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures.  (Don't ask me why Larisa made a to-go bag beard...)

capturing a master instagrammer at work... 

We walked around the Capitol for a bit and I remembered how much I love the building.  It makes me feel so Texan-y.  (Just go with it.)  The guards at the door got a kick out of our sister act and Larisa might have almost sneaked up a closed off staircase.

Nobody got caught.  Don't worry.

Old man loafers and moccasins.  We were meant to be.

i just need a few things to feel content

Red lipstick and my favorite royal blue grandpa cardigan.

Tom Yum from one of Austin's best Thai places and a good book.

Getting to check a place off my list and eating large amounts of peanut sauce? How do you get any better?  

all I dreamed it would be.

After seeing the Austin episode of No Reservations, I was determined to visit Franklin BBQ.  It's been on my to do list forever and seeing Anthony Bourdain rave about it finally made it all happen.  The second my friends Amanda and Will heard about it, they were up for the adventure.  Adventure?  Well, Franklin isn't a normal restaurant.  It opens at 11:00 Tuesday through Sunday and closes when it runs out of food.  If you want a meal, better show up early and get in line.  So we did.

We got there around 9:00 AM, so we were pretty far up in line - luckily, because the line stretched out waaay behind us.  People were geniuses and brought camp chairs and coolers.  We thought we were so prepared with our Baileys and hot chocolate, but we learned our lesson for next time.  (In related news, I'm a homemade dark hot chocolate making master!)  We made do with sitting on the ground (right in the handicap parking spot, so luckily, no cars pulled up) and counted down the hours.

Will put his sweet doodling skills to use personalizing our cups.  (That's Stephanie, Amanda, and Will in  brisket, ribs, and sausage, respectively.)  As it got closer to 11, someone walked down the line and asked us what we were planning on ordering.  When the numbers added up (to whatever amount they'd made that morning) those people in line got the "Sorry, by the time you order, we'll be out of ribs/brisket/everything" speech.

Once they opened the doors at 11, it was only 30 minutes until we got to the counter.  Those 30 minutes were torture.  We were so excited and inching up the line while seeing and smelling the BBQ was just too much.

The walls were lined with awards like this... I agree Austin Chronicle voters: this is the best brisket in the history of the world.  Seriously.

Aaron Franklin, the owner, is the one you order from and he cuts and serves every piece of meat you eat.  He was super friendly and so kind about how much we were geeking out over the food.  It was kind of embarrassing, but he was sweet about it.  We ordered So. Much. Food.  5 or 6 people would have been stuffed if they'd eaten all we ordered.  Of course, we ordered it all: brisket, ribs, pulled pork, turkey and sausage.

Example of our over ordering?  As we were figuring out how much of each item we wanted, Aaron suggested 3 ribs.  Our answer? 7.  (Duh! 2 for each of us and one I'd promised to bring to my dad...)  That's how we approached everything - err on the edge of too much, stay way away from too little.

See what I mean?  Notice the BBQ for 10 and the single serving size beans and potato salad.

I was a vegetarian for years and haven't been eating meat for that long, so I don't have a lot to compare this BBQ to.  Nevertheless, this was the best thing I'd ever eaten.  I don't really have words to describe how delicious it was.  We devoured it, stopping only to repeat, "THIS IS AMAZING!" or "THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER EATEN!"  

The carnage.

All I can say is, you have to try this.  If you like BBQ, you'll love it.  It's not over hyped; it's so worth waiting in line; it's all I dreamed it would be.

no more sappy, I promise.

Just pure gratitude to the family and friends who drove for hours here and back to east Texas, bought plane tickets, re-arranged finals, adjusted family Christmas and birthday celebrations, and spent their precious holiday weekend to come and see me walk across a stage for 4.5 seconds.  I heard their cheers, crossed my fingers again that I wouldn't trip on my uncomfortable shoes, held on to my too small cap (Yeah right, one size fits all!  What about my giant head?  One size fits all normal-headed people.), smiled at the man I'd never met but evidently runs my school, and took the rolled up piece of paper that said, "Don't fail your finals or you won't actually get the piece of paper that we're pretending to give you right now!"

It was so worth it.

I wore my little blue shawl/scarf/stole thing all day and had the dumbest, giantest (that's a real word; trust me, I'm a college graduate) smile on my face when everyone asked, "Did you graduate today?"  I got a free strawberry lemonade out of the deal, so the whole tuition thing is almost evened out.  The family and friends all went to lunch at the group of food trucks on south Congress.  It was delicious (salted caramel creme brulee!) and as I sat there with a bottled Mexican coke and a fresh squeezed lemonade (as would be the theme of the day, It's my graduation and I can have both if I want!) I stared at all the people who loved me and realized again just how lucky I am.

After a mid afternoon siesta and a more comfortable shoe change, Hannah, Katrina and I headed over to the east side to meet up with Matt and Bri.  We had yummy tacos and margaritas at Takoba and more tequila shots and Hendrick's at Shangri La.  It was the perfect go-out-and-party-it-up night for a girl that never goes out and parties.  Despite my frustration at the EAST SIDE KING BEING CLOSED BY THE TIME I GOT UP OFF MY LAZY BUTT TO ORDER, we ended it at Lucky J's on 6th and Waller.  Chicken and Waffles!  Katrina and I split a cheese steak from a neighboring food truck; the star of the evening, however, was the chicken and waffle with bacon, swiss cheese, syrup and hot sauce.  I believe that's what's known as magic.

Those photos?  2 AM is the best time to take use a photobooth.  Fur-hur-shure.

I started off this post by once again being crazy sappy about people I love and ended it with descriptions of food.  So, pretty much life as usual.

do judge an energy bar by its wrapper

I might have only chose this bar from Cafe Medici today because of the cute packaging.  The coconut and mango were just a happy surprise - it was really good.  Organic, raw, vegan, gluten-free: this is obviously local to Austin.

(I'm a sucker for guys with beards and well designed packaging.)

just to make me happy

Loryn said it best, but I am damn lucky to have such great friends.  Loryn, Bri and Amber took me out on Saturday for my birthday and helped me cross off things on my "eat before I move" list.  We started out with a mad dash in the rain to Perla's for oysters and wine.

As you can see, we chowed them down (well, Amby abstained), taking advantage of our waitress's offer to choose a variety of oysters from all over the country.  I think the New York and Maine oysters were the group favorites, but it was so fun to have a "tasting" and get to compare the West/East coasts.

After a few glasses of sauvignon blanc, malbec and pinot noir, we headed down the street to Enoteca for a delicious meal of calamari, caprese salad, pizza with prosciutto and a fried egg, and linguine with seafood and arribiata sauce.  It was so good.  After dinner, they had a few glasses of prosecco (perfect!) and a yummy flourless chocolate cake brought out.  (The rest of the cake is still in my refrigerator and taunting me with its delicious, delicious calories...)  The girls got me the most beautiful flowers that sit on my dining table, reminding me that I have people in this world that love me more than I could ever deserve.  They weren't all there on Saturday (and some of them were taking the picture above), but I'm so blessed to have women in my life that would spend their Saturday afternoon running around town, finding places that I'd love to eat at (and that I could check off my blog-to-do list!), arranging for flowers and dessert to be there when I arrive... just setting up the perfect night to make me happy.  When did I get so lucky?

(Thanks Amby, for being our personal event photographer.  I love that first picture more than any photo we've taken in the last few years; it's really useful to have a best friend so talented.)

Before I leave (the food edition)

As some/most/few of you might know, I'm moving to the Big Apple in January.  I graduate in December and after that I'll be moving in with Evane and Hannah.  (Hannah and I live together in Austin, but she's moving up there in a month when our lease is up and Evane lives there now, going to St. John's University.)  It's scary and awesome and scary again, but I'm super excited.  I'll be looking for a job/internship with an interior designer (or firm) and I'm so excited to start doing what I love (and maybe get paid for it!)

I am not, however, excited about leaving Austin.  I love this town (and Texas!) and I'm determined to make the most of my four months left.  I thought I'd make myself a list of places I should try to go before I leave.  I'll start with food...

I want more great, fresh veggies at Eastside Cafe.  I want to try Vespaio (or Enoteca if I'm too broke.)  Same for Uchi/Uchiko.  I want frito pie at Vegan Yacht. I want BBQ at Franklin's, Salt Lick and Lambert's.  I haven't tried Barley Swine or Foreign + Domestic yet.  I want more happy hours at La Condesa and El Alma.  I need more lazy mornings and late nights at The Hideout and Epoch.

(Thank you Loryn for the beautifully instagrammed last two pictures!)

I want another P. Terry's perfect veggie burger.  I want pitchers of margaritas at Polvos. I want mexican vanilla with strawberries at Amy's Ice Cream.  Doughnuts so fattening and magical at Gordough's.  Veggie BBQ and strawberry honey lemonade at Mr. Natural.  I want pizza at Home Slice and East Side Pies.

I really want some more of that lemonade right now.

I wanna try Elizabeth St. Cafe and Noble Pig.  I've always wanted to go to Evangeline Cafe and Frank.  I never got to go to Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, because they closed.  Rude!  I've also never gone to Juan in a Million, which is weird considering how much I love breakfast tacos.  I love me some Titaya's (like more than anything in the world), but I also wanna try Thai Passion.  Why have I never been to East Side King or Olivia?

I want to have brunch at Moonshine again.  Great wine and local, fresh food at 24 Diner.  Tacos at Maudie's and Torchy's.  Breakfast at Bouldin Creek.  THE BEST FRENCH FRIES EVER!!!! at Hyde Park Grill.  Khuroos-E-Tursh at Clay Pit.  Oysters at Perla's.  Spinach dip at Magnolia's.  The chai latte at Genuine Joe's will haunt me forever.  I need more Protein 2000 at Veggie Heaven.  Calamari and killer employee discounted wine at South Congress Cafe.  Magical, vegentarianism-banishing burgers at Hopdoddy.  Late night pancakes with a good book at Kerbey Lane.

Most important and pressing issue about my move from Texas to New York:  Will they have a Shipley's there?!?!?!

That's really what I'm stressing out about.

Did I miss anything?

don't you love 3:30 in the morning?

Finals week is almost over (including all of the papers and programs) and I pulled (am pulling at this very moment) a few all-nighters.

a slice of epoch pizza from eastside pies with a grapefruit izzie.  perfect late night dinner.

a soy mexican chocolate mocha and actual studying.

no epoch all-nighter would be complete without some bathroom graffiti pics.

Oprah's in my government book!

What I've been doing lately...

I took Friday night off of work to do some catching up on sleep from Thursday's all-nighter (but I've gotten my grade back and the studying wasn't in vain!)  After my nap, I went to a movie by myself (my favorite way to spend an evening) at Alamo Drafthouse - an Austin institution that's worth all of it's hype.  I saw 21 Jump Street and had some amazing 4 cheese-artichoke-spinach-hearts of palm dip.  It was fantastic.  Fan-freaking-tastic.  So funny and smart (and a little dirty, fair warning.)

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The littlest sister (Larisa) moved into a new bedroom, so we've been spending a lot of time together lately, talking color schemes, new furniture and paint choices.

We also had the first Casey's of the summer last night.  Seriously, if you live in Austin and you've never been, you need to remedy that.  Casey's New Orleans Snowballs - one yelp reviewer said it all:

If one does not like Casey's, it is fair to assume the following:

* They are a terrorist
* They are a communist
* They do not believe in AMERICA
* They take life for granted

Mounds (hers) and Peach/Strawberry (mine).  Why did we get big ones?  I think we were just a little excited that they were finally open.  We drove by, saw the open sign and practically did a U-turn to get there.

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Campbell (the brother) has had a scary week.  He went to the ER with what he thought was a extreme muscle spasm in his neck.  An ambulance ride to Seton and some surgery later, he had a giant abscess taken out of his lymph nodes.  He's totally fine and cracking us all up when he's loopy on painkillers, so I'm relieved.  He does have a sweet scar on his neck - we've been coming up with explanations for the injury and my favorite is knife fight, followed up with the classic, "You should see the other guy."

I just stole this picture from his facebook, but look how handsome he is!

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I also took a little study break tonight and did a little music making with Larisa.  She's become a little ukulele virtuoso and so we used my crappy iPhone video camera and had a concert out on the south steps of the Tower.  

Thanks for the screenshots, youtube.

I made Larisa record "Sweetie Pie" - the song that prompted this post.  She killed it, of course.

Oooooh... That one might be worse.

The squeals at the end of both of these is our excitement of getting through the songs without a car driving by.  If we were more professional, we'd have multiple takes to pick the best from...  Nope, y'all get one-take performances.

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Ok, back to more studying.  I lead an exciting life, don't I?

this makes me happy.

When I was at UT the first time, I had all of my classes in the education building on the edge of campus (makes sense, I was a special ed major...)  But now that I'm back and taking all the random little classes I have left before graduation, I'm spending time on campus in places I've never really been before.  The photo above is outside one of my classes where I sat down and ate lunch on a bench and just past those trees is the UT tower.  So, pretty much in the middle of campus, behind me a straight view to the Capitol, but a place I've never had class before/spent any time in.

I sat there on Monday, eating my seitan BBQ wrap (awesome new vegan food cart right on my path during lunch time... score!) and waiting until it was time to volunteer for a linguistics experiment.  (Volunteer is such a nice word.  Forced to sit and listen to non-sensical sentences for an hour for class credit is more like it.)  There were flowers all around, six gorgeous old buildings surrounding me (they call it the six-pack) and these giant, amazing trees forming a canopy over my head.  It was a perfect moment.

I would spend the rest of the day stressing out about how to get everything done before Friday for my autism/music program and then spending an hour or two discussing/arguing about everything from roles for women in Hollywood to the government's role in our solar panels (and daily lives.)  But those twenty minutes were calm and peaceful, surrounded by beauty and great architecture, and just for me.

we're just a couple of city girls

So, on Tuesday, I met the littlest seester at her school (Austin High) and rode the city bus to our dad's house with her - so she would know what she needed to do if she missed the school bus and couldn't get a ride.  We stayed downtown for a while and ate some chicken/eggplant parmesan at my favorite hole in the wall Italian place.  I love having Larisa in Austin because she loves the city as much as I do.

all photos by Larisa Corder

The art is pretty and all, but I WANT MY METRO BACK!

So, I'm back at UT (graduation is 325 day away!) and there are quite a few changes from when I was a freshman 10 years ago.  One of the most heartbreaking is the loss of Metro.  Metro was this all night coffee shop right on the Drag that was old, gross, cheap and my absolute favorite place on campus.  In high school all of my friends and I would hang out there (for hours with one cup of coffee, I'm sure they loved us) and when I lived in the dorms it was my go-to all nighter spot.   A few years ago, they replaced it with some place called Caffe' Medici.  It's fine and whatever, but (in case you can't tell) I have a bit of a grudge with the place for replacing my beloved Metro and their magical chocolate banana milkshakes.  For some reason this week, I decided to do a bit of studying there and while the soy mocha wasn't anything to write home about, I found a bit of design inspiration hanging on the wall.

On their website, it says that this is an ongoing installation, where they are giving the same image/paper (the dude drinking coffee from their logo) to their customers and local artists.  The whole thing looks like it's just hung up with binder clips and seems like it would be pretty easy to recreate.

This might be really easy if you've got some artistic friends to help (you could do it yourself, but I like the mix of styles that you see here.)  Just find a black and white image, print it on some sturdy paper and get to colorin'!  Hang them in rows with the binder rings and you've got a totally customizable piece of art.  It seems like they nailed a piece of wood at the top and hung/nailed the rows to that.  The inch or so that it's off the wall gives it a little bit of dimension and lets the binder rings hang flat.  It's perfect for a weird/large area of wall space that needs to be covered and I'm pretty sure it could be done for under $10.  (Printing 20 or 30 at Kinko's on some card stock, a package of binder rings and a couple of feet of 1X2?  Nice.)

Now, call me a genius, but I also LOVE the idea with children's artwork.  Make the image something pretty graphic and clean (because children's artwork usually is a bit all over the place - "organic" if you will) to balance the drawing/painting.  Pick the colors the kids can play with and let them go to town.  I think it would be a fantastic piece for the living room, over the couch.  Oversize artwork like that is expensive and this is so much more personal! (I have a special inflection for when I'm saying that something is really expensive.  You should imagine that I just said expensive in that way.) Who says kids artwork only belongs on the refrigerator?

So what if I'm looking at the architecture when I should be paying attention to the professor?

One of the things I love most about going to UT is being on campus.  It's got some gorgeous old buildings, mix that with its location right in the middle of the city and you've got a fantastic place.  I walk right through this area every day on my way to class and I love the view.

I found these lights in a building I've never been in before.  The combination of the gorgeous tiled floors, big windows and row of pendants down the ceiling of the hallway made a perfect picture.  Of course, right behind where I stood to take this photo there was bright blue Pepsi machine.  Kind of ruins the scene.

I seriously miss downtown.

Dear god, I do not mean downtown as in Sixth-Street-party-time-so-many-crowds-and-drunkeness. I mean the city. I love my apartment in north Austin, and being able to hop on the highway to get to work is really convenient. That's all well and good, but there's something I miss about working and living in and near downtown.

The tall buildings, the people rushing to and fro, the little mom and pop pizza stands, the fancy bars and restaurants, the buses, the guys playing their guitars on the street corners, the museums, the Capitol, the everything! (Oh, and of course the people on every corner asking you to sign a petition or donate some money to get some bill passed/make sure some bill isn't passes/save the whales/kill all the whales/elect some dude/stop some dude from being elected/etc. Can't forget those guys.)







I love it.

I love that I go to my favorite little Italian place and they remember what I ordered for lunch practically every other day, even though I haven't been there for years. I love that the baristas at the hole in the wall coffee shop (that make the best Italian sodas ever!) are as excited about the beautifully designed new menu on the wall as I dorkily am. I love that the guy sitting on the shaded bench, dressed like he may be homeless, isn't sneaking a quick nap, but engrossed in a well-worn copy of The Plague by Camus. I love listening to the woman in a sharp business suit debate Ethiopian vs. Guatemalan coffee beans with a bra-less, long-skirted, hippiest of the hippie chicks.

I love it all.

And as I take my favorite route up Congress, north of the river to the Capitol, I watch who I walk by and wonder, "Am I part of what they love about this city too?"


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Best bathroom graffitti of all time

My favorite place to be in Austin in the middle of the night (beside my comfy comfy bed) is at Epoch, a 24 hour coffee shop on North Loop.  I used to live practically across the street from it (and used to practically live there.)  While I don't frequent it as much as I used to, it's still my first choice for all-nighters.  It's got a great vibe, killer soy mexican chocolate mochas, and the best bathrooms ever.  One used to be heaven themed, but it got repainted, so now it's just starting its graffiti-ing.  It's walls are empty and bare compared to the other one, but it's got a few gems...

(I also enjoy whoever went over each of the pieces of graffiti and 

attributed them to Dan Akroyd.  I'll get a picture soon.)

The other one, though, still has the hell theme, and it's awesome.  There are some pretty funny things, like a reference to some board game I've never played, but have been assured I'd love.

 

And yes, before we go any further, I know it's weird to be taking pictures in a bathroom.  I'm also aware that it's a little gross.  It is funny, however, and funny will almost always trump gross for me.

So, this is my favorite graffiti in this entire bathroom.  For some reason, it strikes me as the funniest thing ever!  Every single time I'm in there, I have to read it, smile, and then ask myself why I think it's so funny.

Here's the general look of the bathroom: a mural background, with lots of quotes about hell done by the person who painted the mural and lots of other random lines of graffiti (some about hell and some about I-don't-know-what-the-hell-it's-about.)

So, whoever painted this mural put Jean-Paul Sartre's most famous quote on one of the walls.

"Hell is other people" -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Well, then a few other people got on it.  My favorite part is that it all seems like different handwriting, and I just love thinking about the inspiration (while, sitting on the toilet, obviously) of these three people coming up with these quotes.

"Jean-Paul Sartre is hell"  -- People Magazine

"People is a hell of a magazine" -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Brilliant.  (And weird.  I know, I know... Stick to design and lay off the bathroom photos.  But it's funny!)