Tonight was game night. But first, Jeff took some pictures of Tim for his profile.
I was able to convince a group to play Automobile. As I remember it, (being a month later — so sad) I ended up in second place. My problem was that I never diversified much. I think you definitely need to sell the high end cars as well as the middle or low end cars.
Lately, I have been experiment cooking basic black beans. I was intrigued with a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. It involved performing two things that I haven’t tried before (at least with beans). These were brining and cooking in the oven. And the recipe is as follows:
Remove any stones or ugly beans from a one pound bag of black beans. Soak them overnight (unrefrigerated) in four quarts of water with three tablespoons of salt added (dissolved of course).
Discard the water and rinse the beans thoroughly a couple of times to remove the salt. Cooking beans in salted water will toughen the skins. However, beans soaked in salted water will help create a creamy texture.
Put the beans in a pan and cover them with water. Add sliced garlic, a couple of bay leaves, oregano, onion powder, and some chopped pancetta. Bring the water up to a simmer. And then place the covered pan into an oven set to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook the beans for an hour.
The beans came out great! The next time I am going to try cooking some meat in there. The temperature is perfect for converting collagen into gelatin. I think a pound of Ox tails would work well.
I was a little worried when I browsed the Ace Race site and only saw events for Waco or San Antonio. Not only that, but I couldn’t attend them because I would be traveling to Florida then. But there was no worries, they did indeed hold one in Austin that I could attend.
Jon and I practiced a little bit before the event. Unfortunately, I had thrown one of my two discs (you can only use the two special Ace race discs) into the brush. We must have spent twenty minutes looking for it. And I was almost ready to call it lost. But I spotted it!
I had fun again at the tournament. You only receive one throw for each basket. The only thing that counts is if it goes in the basket (ace) or if it hits any part of the basket or pole (metal). Unfortunately, I did not hit anything. And only got close once (or at least it looked close from the angle I was at).
For lunch, we decided on some burgers at Casino El Camino. Their hamburgers are pretty good. But I do wish that they would have a better quality of bun than the cheap white bread burger bun. And it seems that the Pecan Street Festival was going on at the same time.
As we were walking to the car, I spotted a little Chihuahua dog pulling a cart behind it. I don’t know what the deal was with that setup…
Mike hosted a session to try out his new game that he purchased, Endeavor. It was interesting. An area control game with four different abilities that you can specialize in. However, I don’t think that we will play it again anytime soon. So it is hard to judge a game based on one playing…
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At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered. The next person gets what you ordered. link via
It looks like Monument Cafe planted a new herb garden on some unused land. Which is certainly cool. All restaurants should do something like this in my opinion. Actually, if it were up to me, I would design a restaurant where the entire roof would be a greenhouse. And it would collect and store rainwater as well. The first floor would be a parking garage. All of the outside trees would be fruit or nut bearing trees. Heck, you could probably maintain a honeybee hive somewhere on the property as well.
We went to Old Settler’s park for some disc golf today. I was quite sad to see even more trees taken down. The years of drought have taken their toll. I really hope they plant new tress to replace them.
Fortunately, we missed the Outlaw Singles tournament. There wasn’t anyone out on the field except us.
Jon lost his disc in the trees on hole 4. Can you spot it?
Apparently, it is so hot out here, that you need to water the trees with ice. But it was probably just discarded from a cooler for the Outlaw Singles tournament cleanup.
I like how they used towels to mark a temporary mando. Unfortunately, these trees are dead and will probably be cut down eventually.
I got one easy birdie on the “B” hole. And another one on hole 12.
And, of course, we ended with a trip to La Selva.
Jeff told me about this place and that I had to try it out. They have some pretty good sides. The tamale potato casserole was good, the apple slaw was nice and tart (perhaps a little too tart),. The pulled pork was on the dry side, however. And, while the desserts sounded good, they turned out to not be homemade. The Cheeky Monkey Parfait used banana pudding from a can.
My yogi tea gave me an interesting pattern of condensation. Which I turned into a desktop background.
We went down to Leander for some disc golf today. Man, with the recent rains, this place is overgrown! And the Hedge Balls were fruiting as well. Jon took some home for insect control.
It was hard to tell where the field is supposed to be and where the rough begins. It was all rough today.
It was also rough when we threw our discs in the water. Which was in abundance today.
I did make one birdie today though.
We stopped by Burger Central for lunch afterwards. I was hopeful. The had pictures of what meat looks like when it is cooked rare and medium rare (as well as the other degrees). So I ordered a burger with blue cheese cooked “blue” (or rare). Unfortunately, it was cooked well done. And they forget the sweet potato fries as well. I guess the new waitress was partly to blame since she was having a meltdown. But I wouldn’t come back here to try it out again.
