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By Amber, on January 26, 2012, at 10:24 pm 
Bacon broke free from breakfast a long time ago, but why not chorizo? (And why don’t I have any photos of chorizo??) Granted, I can get chorizo con huevos at any hour here in Houston, but let’s see you do that in Philadelphia. It’s time for chorizo to shine!
I guess Austin has been on the hipster taco tip for a long time, but Houston is finally catching up. We got a Torchy’s Tacos and Mark and I have been eating the heck out of that. Green chile pork for him, chorizo egg & cheese for me. It’s beautiful when you can get breakfast tacos for dinner, and they’re open late.
BUT — tonight we tried Tacos A Go-Go at the new Heights location, and I’m afraid that after tonight we may have to just be friends with Torchy’s, because the chorizo, egg, bacon and cheese tacos that I ate have won my heart. Plus they’re open until 2 AM on weekends, which might as well be all night for us.
I have a growing list of chorizos I’ve sampled in Houston. Like bacon, I don’t think I’ve had a bad one, but some are better than others. I think the ground chorizo we get from the Whole Foods meat counter is as good as any restaurant’s, and never gristly.
And then there was the time Mark cooked my chorizo and eggs in the pan in which he’d cooked a habanero omelet earlier in the day. My heat/spiciness tolerance is offset by about an order of magnitude from Mark’s, and that may have been the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. The suffering I endured through that meal is a true testament to my love of chorizo.
By Amber, on December 18, 2011, at 7:36 pm So we’re four days from the first day of winter, but better late than never!
There are some beautiful autumn colors on my drive to work, as well. We’ve had the odd 80-degree day here and there, but the weather has mostly been cool enough to enjoy long sleeves, tights and leather jackets. We got the car back from the body shop this past week, so now I’m ready for another arctic blast that will let me enjoy the seat heaters! Also, Enterprise gave me a substantial discount for the rental car being dirty and smelly, so hooray!
I can’t believe the holidays are just about here. My work days are as busy as ever, which I generally like, with the exception of staying 90 minutes later than usual this past Friday. I have a three-day week and a lot to try to accomplish, and then I’m off for the rest of the year. Mark and I are looking forward to seeing his side of the family for the first time in over a year.
I also have a Toastmasters speech to prepare — our last meeting of 2011 is this week. My topic is bad PowerPoint habits. I am starting to think that PowerPoint may be my life’s passion. What exactly does that say about me? I don’t want to think about it. I’m just going to go back to devouring these books.
By Amber, on October 4, 2011, at 11:29 pm Has anyone seen my blogging motivation?
I usually come home from Toastmasters and blog, but tonight I took a nap while Mark did the cleaning and then we went for pho, and now it is suddenly super-late o’clock! It’s good to have those days sometimes.
Speaking of pho and good days, we’ve finally gotten a break in the heat and we are down (down is relative) in the high 80s with humidity around 50% or lower. It’s sunroof weather! The last couple days have been the kind that make Houstonians feel like there is no other place in the world they would rather be. We may not have autumn leaves, but we do have this!
By Amber, on September 25, 2011, at 10:00 pm My web host got hacked today and my site looked like this for a little while:
Fortunately, they fixed it. Not everyone was impressed by the hacker. I didn’t lose any data and I didn’t have to do anything to restore my site, but I’m making a mental note to back up my stuff more often. If I’d had to rely on my last manual backup, I’d have been in a world of hurt! Kudos to InMotion.
In unrelated news, I’m off to Chicago again tomorrow. Another going-to-Chicago-without-going-to-Chicago trip. My poor officemate, who just moved to Houston from Chicago, has to go there this week for the same seminar I’m attending, come back to Houston, and then go back the following week. I asked him, “Aren’t you glad you transferred to Houston so you don’t have to be in Chicago anymore?”
One of things about living in Houston is that, by September, you can’t really remember what temperatures below 90F feel like. It makes packing for other parts of the country tricky. I know I’ll be cold, so I should pack warm clothes. On the other hand, I know that 50s-60s aren’t really THAT cold. On the third hand, I know that what 50s-60s feels like to me is not what it feels like to most of the country. So after two days of a clothing merry-go-round, I finally made peace with the idea that I’ll be wearing a sweater and a jacket, and Chicagoans will be wearing shorts — and now my suitcase is ready to go.
Finally, I’m putting this here just so I can pull it up and enjoy it any time I need to this week:
I’ll probably be too busy to post this week — seminars all day, and then someone has to look out for the old guys who think they can out-drink the young bucks after dinner. Talk to you soon!
By Amber, on September 18, 2011, at 10:00 pm You know what we had this weekend? Rain! A drop in the bucket of this year’s terrible drought, to be sure — but good, hard rain nonetheless. We took the car through the carwash today and were rewarded with another little sprinkle of rain for our effort.
Oh, we also had these beautiful ribeyes:
 Our favorite butcher had tweeted about them on Thursday and although they sounded wonderful, I was awfully tired at the end of the day and figured they were probably gone anyway. When they were mentioned again on Friday morning, I started planning my day around them (following Revival’s tweets has made me hungry non-stop and may end up being very expensive). We didn’t have any sides, so while I was there I picked up some extremely long beans:
 And of course, the most important part of any meal:
 I needed some lunch anyway, so I also brought home one of these, which I immediately enjoyed with great gusto:
The dog is supposed to be served with relish, but I don’t like anything on my meat except cheese or more meat. Figured the house-made chicharrones were close enough to meat, so I allowed them. Oh, and if you’ve never have Zapp’s chips, you should rectify that.
How did your weekend taste?
By Amber, on August 28, 2011, at 11:04 pm I hope you had a nice weekend! My Saturday was mostly occupied by a dear friend’s baby shower. I have known her since college, when I used to sit behind her on a smelly river for a couple hours before sunrise every day. She and her husband were college sweethearts and he was a rower as well. I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people who don’t live near me, so it has been fun to see her go through her first pregnancy. She is due October 28th, but I advised her to hold out for November 1st. ;)
I bought that dress to wear to the office with a cardigan, but forgot to do the sit-down test in the dressing room. Whoops! Turns out I won’t be wearing it to work, after all. But I found something else that I think will work with a cardigan. And although I was cursing Houston’s heat today (it reached 106 at the airport), I have to admit I’m excited that I will be able to wear it for a couple more months!
By Amber, on August 25, 2011, at 10:39 pm 
Just kidding — this is Houston! Our seasons are ‘summer’ and ‘the pause between summers, wherein I think I am going to die because occasionally it gets as cold as 50F.’ The only difference between November and summer is that, in November, the days are shorter and I’m trying very hard to make my beloved waffle-weave shirts work. And so, since this is merely August, we are still so very far away from fall.
Someone should tell that to the retailers who are sending me catalogs full of delicious-looking cozy fall clothes. At least Express had the courtesy to pair their giant faux-fur trapper hat (is it wrong that I want one?) with a very short skirt, like ‘we know you want some warm clothes, but here’s something you might actually be able to wear.’
Anyway, my lizard brain is clearly still confused by the first 28 years of my life, as I am simultaneously trying to soak up the ‘end’ of summer, and yet continually reminding myself that September does not equal autumn. Just the end of my fast commute to work. Thanks, school buses!
By Amber, on June 16, 2011, at 10:00 pm The guanciale was delicious in eggs, but I wanted to see what else it could do. I already had plans and supplies for a bacon and scallop dish from Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals, so I decided to use the scallops. Close enough to what I had planned – hopefully better!
I had 14 pieces of guanciale left, and 24 scallops. A couple of the pieces were fairly small, so I set those aside and cut the others in half across the short axis (if I had cut them across the long axis, half of the pieces would have been all fat, and I wanted all of them to be similar in composition). The pieces were large enough to cover the scallops, but not wrap them, so I stuck a toothpick in each to prevent excessive curling:
We had some smoky scamorza left over from Heather’s visit (Revival Market impulse purchase! Can you tell we love that place?) and it seemed like it would make appropriately decadent chapeau for the scallops. I cut some little chunks and pressed one side of each into panko bread crumbs for a little crunch:
My advice: make sure you do this ahead of cooking the scallops, and set them on a plate. You’ll want them to be ready and next to the oven when you need them.
Broil the scallops for six minutes. At the end of six minutes, pull them out and quickly stick a piece of your panko-covered cheese on top of each one, then pop them back in for 2-3 minutes (you’ll want to watch them starting at two minutes, because the cheese melts and the guanciale crisps up very quickly at this point):
Et voilà! Guanciale-wrapped scallops with melty scamorza and toasty panko. Could that have been any easier?
Oh yes — you probably want to know how this tasted. Well, Mark ate the first couple and said, “Wow.” And then he kept saying it, louder and louder with each scallop. And he fist-bumped me. By the time we finished, I knew I’d be making these again.
In this setting I detected a richer quality to the guanciale, versus regular bacon — especially considering how very thin the pieces were! The cheese and bread crumbs provided a really nice touch, though I might press more crumbs into the cheese next time.
Overall, it was one of the best things I’ve made in recent history! You could serve these as appetizers — the toothpicks will be handy for guests to pick them up – but I’d recommend keeping them for yourself. Of course you can use American-style premium bacon (which I will probably have to do most of the time since guanciale is not a daily item at Revival), but this was so filling that you will probably want to be judicious in your bacon use, especially if you buy the thick kind like we do.
Mangia!
By Amber, on June 14, 2011, at 9:24 pm
I don’t remember how I stumbled onto it, but about a year ago I first heard of guanciale via this article. I was immediately intrigued – a better bacon? Is that even possible?
Thus began a fixation. I was desperate to experience it for myself, but chances seemed slim unless I could finagle a trip to Italy. I even begged Mark’s parents to send some back from their Italy vacation — they sent me a tiny photo instead:
Then, a few months ago here in Houston, Revival Market opened in the Heights. Their philosophy is to offer organic local meat, raised humanely and sustainably. Their meat case would make any carnivore salivate. We have had their Mangalitsa bacon and sausage, and it is incredible.
We happened to be buying some bacon there in April when I noticed that the pig diagram on the chalkboard included guanciale. “Do you cure your own guanciale?” I asked. The man behind the counter said “We have some curing now; it will be ready next month.” I could hardly believe my luck. Christmas was coming to Houston!
Finally the day arrived that guanciale and I were in the same place. I knew it would be coming home with me! Since we had never cooked it and it was priced the same per pound as the beef tenderloin we buy from Whole Foods, we decided half a pound of paper-thin slices would make a good test run. Look at this beautiful meat:
It wasn’t in the fridge for even 12 hours before we dug in. Our first experiment was to slowly fry it up like regular bacon, cook some eggs in the grease, and add the guanciale back to the eggs.
It was rich and delicious, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could have distinguished it from Revival’s standard amazing bacon. I wanted to try something different for the second half of our stash.
Come back Thursday to find out how we got our $25/lb worth!
By Amber, on June 12, 2011, at 11:15 pm My sister and I visited Harwin Dr. (WHY do I always call it Harwin St.??) today for a little cheap jewelry update. I always get overwhelmed, so this time I made a list ahead of time. Of course I forgot to bring it, but found a few necessities anyway:
I’m a sucker for Chanel necklaces, but I’ve made peace with the idea that I’ll never own one. I can live with $6 for a knockoff necklace and earrings! L-R: earring/necklace set (necklace is about 34″), multi-strand bracelet, gold tassel earrings, another knockoff earring/necklace set (the longer strand is about 54″). The best part? I got out for under $40. It would have been under $20, but the bracelet was a splurge!
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