Janice Williams Loves Austin

November 29, 2008

Thanksgiving Day

Filed under: Family,Food — Janice @ 1:35 pm

I hope your Thanksgiving was as pleasant and comforting and homey as ours was!

We made a quick trip to Dallas to see the family, arriving at 3 a.m. Thanksgiving morning (after Mark played a Wednesday night gig downtown). We stayed at Mark’s mother’s house and she went with us to my sister’s for the big day. The boys were home from college and Mom was there from up the street. I’ll have to wait for Mark’s pictures to have good ones because all of the ones that I took on my camera are pretty lame. But he obviously took this one, but on my camera, so I’ll post it. This is my sister Mackie and I admiring our Thanksgiving Day pie selection. The ones with crusts on top were made by my mother-in-law (apple and peach–both delicious) and I made pumpkin and pecan and turtle pie. The turtle was an experiment I probably won’t repeat. It sounds good, but the chocolate filling went over and then under the crust and glued everything to the pan and was really too rich (if there is such a thing). I was on a pie making frenzy on Wednesday night and I think it was worth it. I may have to make a couple more for the weekend, though. I got that taste for pie and discovered we only came home with two pieces left over. I made the two little miniature pie/casseroles, too, because of the abundance of filling that I had. Brandt loves pumpking and Connor loves pecan, so I made them each their own personal miniature pie.
Me and my pies

Of course, the food was the main event (no, wait, thankfulness is the main event, right?). Okay, we were thankful for this great bounty of food. My sister is a fabulous cook and had the best turkey, gravy, salad, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and everything else you could want for Thanksgiving Day. My specialty is dressing, so I did make that for us, too, and, happily, made enough to feed 20 so we brought home a nice sized batch of leftovers there, and turkey, too. Here’s her table before we dug in:

Mackie and the table

The football games were all lopsided, but at least they were all lopsided our way. The food was outstanding, the company was the best, and it was the nicest Thanksgiving I have had in a while and, for that, I am very thankful!

Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend. What a wonderful thing to wake up after two nights away from home and a long trip and it is just Saturday!

November 26, 2008

Thanksgiving is here

Filed under: Family — Janice @ 1:55 am

I keep thinking of wonderful Thanksgiving topics that I should write about, but I’ll be lucky to get something up at all, so this is it. Who doesn’t love Thankgiving? When I was little, it was always the Puckett Reunion in Big Spring or Hamilton or Spur or my grandmother’s and it was a delicious meal and lots of relatives. It meant getting up before dawn sometimes and driving long distances  in the cold morning fog, stopping at a truck stop in Kress for breakfast. Later, Thanksgiving was at our house with my grandmother joining us or a college friend or two. I think Mackie and I even had some Thanksgivings where we had boyfriends join us at the table. Then I met Mark and our Thanksgivings were dedicated to his wonderful grandparents. They continued to cook the ultimate Thanksgiving meal until they died. Probably my favorite Thanksgiving of all time was when my family–Mom and Dad, Mackie and Theo, Brandt and Connor–all came out and enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal with Mark’s grandparents and aunt and her family. After they passed away, we haven’t had a tradition established just yet. Two years ago Daddy was sick in the hospital and I had been in Dallas for every weekend so on Thanksgiving I stayed in Austin instead. Last year, Mark’s stepdad was in the hospital and we joined Mark’s mom and stepdad there for a meal of hospital food. I’m glad we had that last Thanksgiving with them, but it was far from a “good” Thanksgiving. This year, I hope we get back to the “normal” Thanksgiving day. Mark’s mother will join with my mother and sister and family and we’ll make some good memories.
I know I should put more pictures on this blog, and I went in search of our big family Thanksgiving at Mark’s grandparents, but it is not to be found. sigh. But I did find this, which is a photo that appears to make a liar out of me. It is a Thanksgiving table setting with a cornucopia in the center of the table. But this is after Mark and I were married because I am wearing a vest his grandmother sewed for me. But didn’t we have all our Thanksgivings at their house? I’m figuring we must have had “our” family Thanksgiving at my sisters the next day or on Sunday. So this is the Williams family, minus the husbands, with silly boys and an amused grandfather.

Williams Family
To each and every person that takes the time to read this blog and comment and encourage me to write some more, I am very thankful for you and I hope you have lots to be thankful for this week. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend.

November 19, 2008

More on Cooking

Filed under: Food — Janice @ 11:33 am

Carole commented on the cooking blog entry about “Mom’s Surprise,” the specialty of the house when she was stretching a dollar.

Our favorite family meal growing up was “Goop.” You cook some bacon until it is done and remove it from the pan and cook a chopped onion in the grease. Then you stir that into a cooked pot of elbow macaroni, stir in a can of tomatoes, and a package of hotdogs (split lenghway for some reason), and a lot of cheese. Yum. So good. Even when we changed it up to a different kind of pasta or different kind of meat or no bacon or RoTel instead of just tomatoes, it was still called Goop.

We were not allowed to call anything “casserole” in our house. “Stuffed Peppers” was okay. “Tuna Casserole” was not. It had to be “Tuna and Pasta Bake” or anything else. Daddy did not like casseroles. I think he thought they were not a “real” meal. Or maybe since casseroles were invented in the 50s when they were newlyweds he was fed more than his share. Who knows, we just didn’t call them casseroles (sure, we still made them!). And Dad didn’t like soup any better than casserole, but it is hard to call a bowl of soup by another name and get away with it. Soup was Mother’s favorite meal. Period. Anytime Daddy was out of town (which was a lot, he was usually gone Monday through Friday), Mom would make stew or soup and relish every bowl of it.

I got an email from my cousin Patsy one day and she had dropped by to see her mother unexpectedly. Her mother had cooked some hamburger patties and green beans or something very simple and Patsy ate with her. Patsy raved about the meal because it was what she had grown up with, but the kind of food you never get again once the kids are out of the house. It’s not fancy enough for a family gathering or a holiday so “Goop” and “Mom’s Surprise” are forgotten about!

One of my absolute favorite meals, which I know I will never have again, was an all vegetable meal eaten after the sun went down about 9 p.m.  In the summer we’d all be busy and doing things and supper wouldn’t even get started until after dark when Daddy finished plowing and other farm work. We always had a fabulous onion crop so we would have a big platter of fried onion rings, the absolute best onion rings in the world. We made another dish where you cooked bacon (we loved our bacon!) and then threw in a bunch of onion rings (we loved onion rings, too, but these were raw) and sliced zucchini until they softened up and then you put a can of tomatoes and a bunch of cheese across the top and put the lid on and let it melt. Yum. And, during the best part of the summer, there would also be corn. Fresh field corn. Donny Mack had a big field of corn right by our house and we were welcome to it. Mom would send us across to pull a few ears and we would bring them back and cook and serve them. Now that is a fresh vegetable! Add sliced tomatoes to the menu and that would make us all happy.

Okay, now I’ve made myself hungry with no way to satisfy this kind of hunger. No veggie plate at Threadgill’s will EVER compare!

November 18, 2008

Cooking

Filed under: At home,Food — Janice @ 2:16 am

I really wish I were a better cook. Or maybe not a better cook, just a better thinker-aheader when it comes to cooking. As I approach the holiday season and there is more cooking to be done, I am thinking about this (and I’m thinking ahead, so maybe that is a good sign!).

There is an old joke about a woman serving salmon croquettes to her bridge club. She tells the club that this is “Sally’s” recipe. Sally is a member of the group. But then she goes on to say, “But I didn’t have any rosemary so I substituted oregano and I didn’t have any cheddar cheese so I substituted Velveeta, and, oh, I didn’t have salmon so I substituted tuna. But it is Sally’s recipe, so if you don’t like it, blame her!” Sadly, I would be the cook (except for the insensitivity).

A while back, maybe six months or more, I saw hashbrowns in the grocery freezer section. It brought back the memory of the last time my mother made a fabulous hashbrown casserole. Yum. Impulsively, I bought the hashbrowns and stashed them in the freezer at home for a future casserole. Everytime I rearrange the freezer, I have remembered that I was going to make that casserole. Recently I was at the store again and thought about it and bought cream cheese, figuring that was a key ingredient in something so good. Finally, this past Sunday, I got around to making this wonderful hashbrown casserole. I didn’t even bother looking for my mother’s recipe because I just knew I would find it and it would call for sour cream or something else I did not have on hand. I searched for a recipe online with cream cheese and hash browns. I found it. It also had cream of celery soup (uh, well, I never have that, but I always have cream of mushroom and that is usually a good substitute). I printed it and went to make my casserole. I heated the soup and the cream cheese and some milk, I think (no, I didn’t substitute orange juice or anything weird at this point). When the sauce was ready, I went to get the hashbrowns to stir in. OH NO!! I didn’t have hashbrowns, I had flat tater tots! Totally different product! What really really made me mad was that I had had a bag of semi-tater tots in my freezer for six months and hadn’t know it and eaten them! I absolutely love tater tots! Okay, it is still potato-based and basically the same, so I made the casserole with flat tater tots instead of hashbrowns. Eh, it was okay, not terrific. Mark thought it was great, but he is incredibly easy to please.

For the same meal, I made candied sweet potatoes. I searched and searched for a good recipe and then, once I found it, I didn’t have the required maple syrup. No worries, Mom always made maple syrup from Karo and maple flavoring. Yes, I had the maple flavoring, but no Karo. So I made the sweet potatoes with molasses. Yuck, not a great choice.

Ideally, one of these substitutions one day will create what will become my signature dish because of my creativity and sense of adventure, but really, it is just poor planning and laziness that sends me in new culinary directions.

November 17, 2008

Delbert McClinton

Filed under: Austin,Food,Music — Janice @ 12:30 am

I haven’t written about the fun night we had last week at the “Help Clifford Help Kids” event at the Austin Music Hall. I have never been able to go to it before and I was glad I could this year.  Mark and his company do work for the event and are given a table for their efforts, but each year, I have had other commitments and not been able to go. This year I was able, plus Mark was able to go and just enjoy the event because their company wasn’t needed this time (but they still got their table).

Or maybe they didn’t. We got there and were told we were at table 47. We went into the beautiful hall with tables and centerpieces and candles, very classy. We saw a table 49 and a 51, so we figured ours was close by, but then we saw Mark’s boss and his date and they said they had gone up and down every row in the place and had not found table 47. Yes, we had been forgotten, but they quickly arranged another table for us and all was well.

My favorite part of the event was getting to meet someone I have known for 35 years! We were talking to Seth Walker, who used several members of Delbert McClinton’s band for his next CD because it is produced by Gary Nicholson who plays with these guys, too. Along came Kevin, the keyboard player so we met him. Then something was said about Lynn Williams, the drummer. I said, “Lynn Williams? I went to high school with him!”

Actually, I didn’t, but my sister did. But Lynn was the drummer for Black Water Draw, the best band ever! They played all of our junior high dances, usually ending with either Silver Wings or Color My World. They could do Doobie Brothers and lots of great songs. The guys in the band had long hair, which was against the school dress code, so they had to wear wigs to school to keep their long hair tucked up. Ah, simpler times (or more complicated, really?). When I lived in Amarillo in the 80s, my roommate Beth’s boyfriend had a band called Anderson Flesher and Key (or just AFK). They put out an album and Lynn Williams played on it. Even though I noticed he was on it and discussed with Woody Key, I still never met Lynn Williams. Years later I knew he was playing for T.Graham Brown and was doing well in Nashville. Occasionally, I would see his name on credits. So when he walked up to our little group, I knew him on sight (except for the long hair being gone — really gone — he hadn’t changed a bit). I enjoyed talking to him, though it might have seemed a little stalkerish that I knew so much about him!

I did like his attitude. He said he was always told to find a “real job” and he never had to, music has done very well for him. And then his son started racing and riding BMX bicycles. People would tell him “That bike isn’t going to earn you a paycheck,” but he is now a sponsored racer and making a living at it. That’s inspirational!

The Delbert McClinton show was very good. He’s got some great songs, for sure. I first saw Delbert in 1982, I think, at a Western Merchandisers convention in Amarillo. They are the folks that own Hastings (it used to be Hastings Books and Records). Their whole chain was based in Amarillo so they had their convention there. I got to go that year (because of my radio connection) and saw Delbert play in a hotel ballroom for just a couple of hundred revelers. The next night we saw Journey–early in their career, but they were still already famous. The final night, it was Alabama, and they were huge at the time. And all of these shows were in hotel ballrooms in Amarillo. Still boggles my mind to have seen them all in that setting.

Coming up soon . . . my trip to Winters, Texas. What a great day I have had!

November 12, 2008

Subjects

Filed under: Austin,Family,Music — Janice @ 11:01 pm

I have had no trouble thinking of subjects to write about in the past week…. I just don’t have the discipline to write about them in a coherent manner.

Last week I went to my cousin’s funeral in Mineral Wells. It was an absolutely beautiful drive. Straight up 183 and 281 was bright with fall colors, yellow trees, red sumac, orange leaves, all against the green cedars. Breath-taking. Yes, it made me want to see the aspens in Colorado from my childhood, but it was still stunning against the limestone rock creeks and pretty meadows.

All of the fall colors and the time of year reminded me of my trips to Terlingua over the years when we would go for the Chili cookoffs with Gary P Nunn and with Tommy Alverson. Those were fun trips. One year bitter cold and another year burning hot.
I could have written about the funeral, especially in conjunction with Veteran’s Day. I had never thought about my cousin Marshall being a veteran. It was never discussed and he was an incredibly quiet man. I learned at the funeral that he was not only in the service, he was a medic in World War II and was there for the invasion at Normandy on D-Day. Imagine the horrible things he saw and has kept inside all of these years. I also learned that because he had tuberculosis, he never finished school and withdrew in the 8th grade. Years later, after he had sent both children through college, he got his GED. I consider myself the one in the family that learns the stories and records these things, but I had no idea about his history.

Over the weekend I made a quick trip to the DFW area. I listened to UT and Baylor the whole way on three different radio station (and one TV station, too) and hoped Baylor might put up more of a fight. I liked the first half! I met up with my younger nephew Connor for a quick lunch in Waco since he couldn’t be home for the weekend. In DFW we had a nice family dinner for the older nephew Brandt who is 21 now! How time does fly. I traveled a lot when he was a baby, but I bet I saw him close to every day I was in town for the first couple of years of his life. It was great to live close by back then. Connor came along when I was unemployed for a while so I probably saw them even more then. Fortunately, I didn’t move away from Austin until they were old enough to email and call and then drive to see me.

Of course, there was plenty to write about for Veteran’s Day. It made me want to write about Daddy, who served in the Air Force during the Korean War, and my uncle Glendon, who was a POW in Germany for over a year when he was 20 years old, and my uncle Jay, who lost a lot of his hearing while firing big cannons in Korea, and uncle Homer, who served as a Merchant Marine all over the world in WWII. And now that I know, I would have written about Marshall!

Soon I will have to write about the CMA awards. I am sort of watching it right now while I’m doing other things. I will watch it more closely when Mark is home and we can say, “Oh for heaven’s sake” a lot and shake our heads over the state of country music. I did see a close up of my friend John Michael Whitby playing organ for George Strait and that was exciting. Other than that I was appalled that their “salute” to the new members of the Hall of Fame and to Jerry Reed, who died this year, was simply reading their names. I liked when they at least showed some of the highlights of their career and explained why they were in the Hall of Fame. People ask me a lot if I would get back into radio. It would sure be hard if all there was to play was songs with a reggae beat or by Kid Rock.

So, lots of subjects that have slipped by without a true blog entry. We’ll see if I can get back in a habit.

November 5, 2008

Mr. President

Filed under: Uncategorized — Janice @ 3:21 am

Vote

President Barack Obama.

I am overwhelmed that this historic election has taken place in my lifetime and that it was a candidate that I could wholeheartedly support.

I am excited that a smart man, a man of character and dignity, a loving father and husband, and an American that can calmly lead us for the next four (eight?) years, is our President elect.

November 3, 2008

Book Festival 2008

Filed under: Austin,Music,Reading — Janice @ 11:46 pm

I went to the book festival Saturday. It is a wonderful experience and I am always surprised when Austinites are unaware of it. But maybe they are just not readers. The book festival is a FREE festival with authors speaking and panel discussions about books and writing and about the subjects of the books. There are books for sale and other things for sale. There is music and food. And the sessions all take place in the Capitol, which is the coolest thing. I love walking those long corridors and soaking in the sights and sounds that perhaps my great-grandparents and grandparents saw? They didn’t see that fabulous Capitol underground extension. That thing is a work of art.

Saturday I heard Alec Fouge, the  author of Right of the Dial about Clear Channel Radio. When he wrote his book, the company had their own paid author write their own view of the history of the company to be released at the same time. That author was also supposed to be at the festival which would have made for a truly interesting discussion, but that author canceled. I need to read the Fouge book. I have heard it is very even handed, but it also shows the problems of a company that big trying to remain true to its local audience.

I ate at the Capitol cafeteria Saturday, too, which was cool. Anyone can do it, any day it is open, but I never have. I would like to eat there on a day the Leg is in session. Though surely those guys go to Jeffrey’s or something for lunch, wouldn’t you think?

Later in the afternoon I went to stalk, I mean hear, my favorite author Sarah Bird. I guess I’m not alone in my adoration, the room was packed and I was lucky to have a seat. She started talking ten minutes before her time, had a door prize for someone in the room, and was willing to continue long past her scheduled time. She was quite political, doing a send up of Sarah Palin. My favorite line was when she used the classic Southerism “bless his heart” and then said, “And I mean that in the Aztec way . . .” indicating a still beating heart ripped out of a sacrificial chest. I didn’t speak to her because she had many ardent fans there to say hello.

What was a great delight and surprise to me was seeing a sort-of old friend at her session. Gianna came to the studio a couple of years ago when Billy Joe Shaver had a book published by the UT Press. Gianna was his “keeper” for the day (and, yes, he really has to have a keeper). I had just heard that day or the day before that Billy was engaged to be married. That certainly was going to be the first question I asked him. As we three made the long trip through the building to the studio, Billy was on the phone with his friend Robert DeNiro (my six degrees of separation with a movie star!!). Gianna leaned over and quietly said, “Don’t ask about the engagement, she broke it off.” I didn’t ask, but he volunteered a lot in a mumbly, bitter way. That was the day he played, “No Fool Like An Old Fool.”

Gianna remembered all those same details about that day and we discussed Billy Joe’s current legal difficulties and the hope that he makes it through all of that without conviction or at least without jail. She was just as cute and interesting as she was when I met her and it was neat to be back in touch. She is now back with Random House, Sarah’s publisher.

That was enough book festival for me for one year. I would have liked to have seen Robert Caro on Sunday because his LBJ biographies are brilliant, but I opted to stay home on Sunday to watch Cowboys (what a stupid choice that was!).

Book festival weekend always reminds me that I have had another year of writing my OTHER online journal, the one you won’t find by searching Janice Williams or anything obvious. When I first moved to Austin, I was reading some online journals of local characters. Somehow or another we had a meeting of journal writers and readers. I believe I was the only sole reader of the group, so the writers there encouraged me to start a journal (we weren’t really calling them blogs at that point, and it isn’t what I call a blog still). They directed me to sites that made it very easy to do (without having to have a domain or know how to do anything techy) and I’ve had that diary/journal/blog for 9 years now. It gets neglected a lot now that I’m writing here, but it is the more dull daily diary. It’s where I write things like “Rained this morning” or “Talked to my nephew.” Stuff I want to remember and know when I did it or how I felt about things, but not necessarily things the world needs to read.

I’ve had people puzzle over why I need an ONLINE diary as opposed to just a personal diary. Hard to explain that one, since I don’t really allow it to be public, but it is online and it is read by random people. I think it is because, since it is written for an audience of strangers, I sometimes have to make things more clear than I would in a personal diary. For instance, today in a personal diary I would note that my cousin Bobby Joyce’s husband Marshall passed away last night (yes, my sixth family member to die in the last year and my ninth funeral coming up Thursday). In a personal diary, that would be enough. In a diary I write for the public, I would go into more details about who Marshall is and how much we all loved him and his quiet, caring nature. He and Bobby have always been at my big family reunion that I go to and I will miss them both so much in years to come.

November 2, 2008

Sweeney Todd

Filed under: Austin,Music — Janice @ 5:12 pm

In an effort to not be so much of a homebody, I went to see Sweeney Todd Friday night at the Paramount Theater. I don’t know why I fight my nature and force myself to do things, but I do. Normally, I wouldn’t have even noticed that Sweeney Todd, the musical, was at the Paramount, but my friend Jennifer was talking about it Wednesday and about how much she would like to go. On Thursday, I got an email offering tickets to the show (yes, for free). So, I could get out of the house and make Jenn happy all at the same time, so we went to see it.

It was a creepy musical with lots of murder and blood, even though it was only signified by red lights and eerie sounds and buckets of red water. In true musical style, the characters sang and were all singing different words at the same time. I like musicals, but I think I like them more when it is a happy musical, like Chicago or  Hello Dolly or something. I did wonder, a lot, during the show how they find such talented individuals, though. Do they actually advertise that they are having tryouts for an actress that can sing beautifully AND play flute/accordion/clarinet/drums? Every person in the play acted and sang and played several instruments. That is one way of not having to pay an orchestra, I suppose. The ten characters on stage were playing all the music.

I wondered a lot during the show about who choreographs all the “business” that goes on on stage. This wasn’t a dancing musical, but the characters were constantly moving from spot to spot and moving this table/coffin/door/podium/altar to different places, often for no purpose other than to be doing something.

I didn’t walk away thinking how wonderful it was or that I was glad I had come, but I also wasn’t the other end of the spectrum where I rued the day I accepted the tickets. I was glad Mark wasn’t with me because I knew he would have hated every minute. Jenn enjoyed it a lot and I was glad that I could take her.

It was also an interesting time to be downtown and see the costumes. Lots of people at the show itself in costume and then we drove past plenty. Our usher, a 70+year-old man was dressed as a pimp (interesting!) and on the street we saw a guy dressed like an aviator riding a giant duck. Creative!

Friday afternoon I was driving home down Congress about 4 p.m. and noting the folks that had gone to work in costume apparently. I saw a witch and a hooker and then I saw a man in a thong and tiara and tube top. Yes, it was just Leslie, who dresses that way every day of the year. He should wear a business suit on Halloween.

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