Books so flavorful you can taste them

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A sold-out barge full of women laughing their way around the river bend launches the San Antonio Public Library Foundation’s 2010 round of Literary Feasts, which translate literature into words you want to eat.  Diane Mathews and JoAnn Boone are hosting tonight’s floating feast based on the ultimate feel-good book for women, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Ironically, though, Rubin recently blogged that she is far from being a foodie:

I must confess that I have very little interest in the ruling passion of Julia Child’s life. Food has never been very interesting to me. I love certain foods, of course, but I like very plain food best. I don’t get much of a kick from visiting new restaurants, or from eating a wonderfully cooked meal. Some people love exploring farmers’ markets or learning about how foods’ origins or cooking – not me. One of the sad aspects of a happiness project, for me, was to Be Gretchen and to admit to myself that this area of experience, so vibrant for so many people, leaves me cold.

Fortunately, JoAnn and Diane are, and so is Jason Dady.  Dady is opening four of his restaurants for feasts, with the first one at Insignia in the Fairmount on Tuesday, March 23, focused on a book firmly fixated on food, High Bonnet: A Novel of Epicurean Adventures by Idwal Jones.  According to Publishers Weekly:

This is a novel about food with a capital F, about meals, extravagant meals, had in fine dining rooms, country gardens and filthy taverns alike. As Anthony Bourdain (author of Kitchen Confidential) says in an introduction, in this book “everyone” from Jean-Marie’s confectioner uncle to the Gypsy coppersmith who mends the kitchen pots “is a gourmet or a gourmand, racing through life oblivious to all creature comforts but the pursuit of flavor.”

Celtic music, Irish food and plenty of spirits will be featured in the feast hosted by Joan Cheever and Trisha Tobin on April 15.   McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland serves as the inspiration for the dinner.  MacMillian describes author Pete McCarthy’s approach to his journey:

…traveling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, “never pass a bar that has your name on it,” he encounters McCarthy’s bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating people before pleading to be let out at four o’clock in the morning.

Erasing the stereotype that all children are picky eaters is the thrust of Nancy Tringali Piho’s My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus, the theme of Dady’s family-friendly feast on April 17 at Two Bros. BBQ Market.  AP writer Michele Kayal described Phio’s book:  “If you’re bent on raising a gourmet, this is your Dr. Spock.”

In a Publishers Weekly post, Frances Mayes writes,  “The happiness that suffuses my Tuscan days drove my pen.”  It drove her pen to describe many a good meal in Under the Tuscan Sun, the theme for a feast at Dady’s Tre Trattoria on May 18.  Note to self:  After returning from Merida, head to Tre for my favorite meal to split with Lamar –  grilled radicchio; goat cheese, pistachio and balsamic cippolini pizza; and, for dessert, a grilled peach with marscapone.

Other dinners include South Pacific on May 6 at Zinc Wine and Champagne Bar; Napa: the Story of An American Eden  on June 22 at Bin 555; and The Great Gatsby on July 27 at The Lodge.  Jill Giles Design created appetizing “bookplates” as the online invitations for each feast.

The Lavenders and the Molaks are hosting a feast on May 6 at Zinc.

Proceeds from the Literary Feasts benefit the San Antonio Public Library Foundation.

Texas Independence Day Rant

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On the positive side, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas should be congratulated for managing to keep the Alamo admission-free for decade after decade.   And many a nonprofit has experienced nasty inner-board feuding at some point; the feuds generally, however, do not spill over to front-page stories.  The Daughters vigilantly have stood watch to prevent over-commercialization of the iconic landmark, a daunting task in a city where there are probably a thousand businesses named Alamo-something-or-other.

But….  And this is a big but….

Perhaps the time has come to charge a dollar or two to enter the Shrine of Texas Liberty.  The Daughters have become so desperate for funds, they themselves are violating the integrity of the hallowed grounds.  The pop-up tent they erected last year to hawk their audio tours sparked my anger last year, resulting in some of the ugliest, protest collages ever made. 

That architectural blight on the grounds has remained a seemingly permanent fixture; they have now even winterized their pop-up with plastic sheeting all around.  A visit on Texas Independence Day indicates the Daughters might have lost their bearings in the quest for funds.  The Daughters tastelessly have installed a huge banner – larger than life – advertising their new Allies of the Alamo membership group immediately to the right of the entrance to the Alamo.  Without even backing oneself out into the street, it is possible to snap a photo that catches the Alamo facade, the banner and the pop-up in one trashy image. 

Legislators, enact a law so the Daughters can charge the 2.5 million visitors who cross your threshold each year a dollar a pop if you must; I am sure they would gladly pay instead of having ads thrust into their photographs. 

Daughters, lose the pop-up tent and the banner before the Alamo “falls” during the reenactment on March 6. 

Postcards from San Antonio No. 22 “They’ve Breached the Walls”
Postcards from San Antonio No. 21 “We’ve Lost the Alamo”
New addition to the Alamo
Maybe they should make it larger to get their attention.
The framework anchored by a plastic barrel complements the arched entryway to the grounds perfectly.
The seemingly permanent pop-up plasticizes the plaza.
HDRC to the rescue, or are we waiting for a hurricane to blow this all away?

The City of San Antonio’s historic viewshed should be protecting the Alamo from its keepers, as well as the danger of development encroaching from behind.  Since I created the ugly Alamo collages last year, things have only gotten worse.  I took a special Texas Indepence Day souvenir shot of the motley set up gracing the sidewalk in front of Pat O’Brien’s.  The Historic Design and Review Commission should tour the entire Alamo Plaza Historic District. 

The Allies of the Alamo banner is like Travis’ plea for help.  Someone needs to answer in time.

If the Daughters can put an ad in front of the Alamo, surely I can insert one into this blog.  To see more Alamo collages, click here.

In Need of Bird Identification Assistance

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Water birds seem to be migrating to the San Antonio River as a result of improvements in water quality.  Morning walks bring sitings of comical crested ones wearing pinstripes (Obviously, this post is in need of a bird blogger’s identification comments.); kingfishers; dark broody-looking ones with curved beaks who can hold their breath underwater for an amazingly long time; and tall white egrets who, during daytime hours, seem so territorial over their crawdad-fishing grounds one wonders how they ever manage to preserve their species.

Romance must be carried out at dusk, when three species take the opportunity to get cozier with one another in trees just to the west of the Alamo Street Bridge – the dark divers, the white egrets and kingfishers.*  Their “apartment houses” there are carefully segregated, though, with the kingfishers’ tree fronting directly on the bridge.

An unwelcome morning guest, perhaps a Katrina refugee, is a nutria spied rapidly munching his way through several beds of water plants along the King William stretch of the river.  Hopefully, that animal has no mate with whom to get cozy every evening.  According to www.nutria.com:

Nutria breed year round and are extremely prolific. Males reach sexual maturity between 4 and 9 months, whereas, females reach sexual maturity between 3 and 9 months…. With a gestation period of only 130 days, in one year, an adult nutria can produce two litters and be pregnant for a third. The number of young in a litter ranges from 1-13 with an average of 4.5 young. Females can breed within a day of having a litter.

*Note added on March 15:  A San Antonio Audubon Society member, Metha Haggard, has pointed out that my “kingfishers” are actually black crowned night herons.  The photo of the heron on Cornell’s All About Birds appears more “combed,” buy maybe mine just have cowlicks.