Janice Williams Loves Austin

Ah. Underwoods. The name from my childhood brings back many happy memories, begging my parents to let us eat lunch at Underwood’s after church. It was a big black building on Amarillo Blvd. (Route 66!) and had a big tile depiction of the Underwoods’ man. I wish I had a picture of that building.

But it was the food that was most memorable. Barbecued steak and cherry cobbler and hot, HOT, delicious rolls fresh from the oven.

Years roll by and Amarillo’s Underwoods closed. Every so often, we would find ourselves in Brownwood and would take the opportunity to eat at the Underwoods that still operated there. Waco had one, too, until just a few years ago. A meal at Underwoods is one of the very few I would recommend that you plan a trip around.

So that is exactly what I did. I came up for my family reunion today in anticipation of eating at Underwoods in Brownwood tonight. It is the last remaining restaurant of the chain that used to cover Texas. I have never been a fan of cafeterias, but Underwoods is different. At most places, you have to pay for every little item you pick up. At Underwoods, you buy the meal and can have all the side dishes AND cobbler AND rolls you want. Ahhhhhhh. So this is what I had:

I’m not a great food photographer. I didn’t want to be too obvious about it so it was a one shot snap. That is the fabulous barbecued steak as the main course. I wonder why other barbecue joints don’t have barbecued steak? It is a wonderful thing. They don’t have brisket, but they do have sausage and ribs. I can’t break tradition and have anything but the steak. Yum. But you know how I search for great fried chicken so I had to try it here, too. One thing Underwoods has over Allen’s in Sweetwater is that they have honey ready and waiting on the table for your chicken. Yum. The beans were like homemade Ranch Style Beans, the mashed potatoes were just so-so, the potato salad was really good and different (did it have cheese in it maybe?).

Those hot rolls are worth the trip alone. And they keep coming around with hot, fresh ones, just like grandma used to do.

As for the cobbler, I talked to Mom once I got to my motel for the night. She asked if I had had the cherry cobbler. I said, no, I had considered it and opted to go with the peach this time. There was a pause and then Mother solemnly said, “That was a mistake.” She could be right, I’m sure thinking about running by about 11 a.m. tomorrow for a quick taste.

Anyone that knows my capacity for food might be surprised that I did NOT clean my plate at Underwood’s tonight. Fabulous, but SO much I did stop short.

As for the other adventures of the day, I stopped first at the Newburg Cemetery and communed with my ancestors for a long while. I hoed weeds off of lots of graves and put out flowers and just wandered. I’ve done so much genealogy lately, a lot of the names were more familiar than they have been before. Two of my cousins came by while I was there, so we had a short visit and I will see them more tomorrow. It is very comforting to be 140 miles from home and bump into cousins.

Tomorrow—- REUNION!!

As I dragged myself in here to (joyfully!) fulfill my commitment of writing daily, I asked Mark what in the world I could write about. “Chickens” was his reply.

Last night Hayes Carll played his song “Chickens” and told his wry story about co-writing with Ray Wylie Hubbard. He said that when he went to Ray’s house to write, he asked Ray what he had been writing about lately. “Farm animals,” Ray said. Hayes, on stage, said, “Man, I’d been writing about depression, and drugs, and sex. He opened up a whole new genre to me.”

So, I will write about chickens. It truly is a topic I know something about and I’ve even thought about getting some chickens for our yard here, except that is one more thing to be taken care of and one more thing that leaves a stinky byproduct. But they do make for some good eggs.

When I was a little girl, we had chickens on our farm. Daddy built a coop and created a roost for them out of cedar posts (the kind that you can “peel” that bark from). I occasionally had the job of feeding the chickens (scattering the feed or pouring it down the center of a long trough that had a rolling/roller bar along the top of it so that the chickens wouldn’t stand on the trough, and, I assume, poop in their food— chickens are really stupid). I say occasionally because I don’t think I was ever very dependable on the farm jobs I had and usually they were taken over again by Mom or Dad. I did have the task, more often, of gathering the eggs. I didn’t mind going into the stinky, claustrophobic henhouse and gathering eggs when they were just THERE, available to me, but often the momma hen would be sitting on those eggs and did not want to make way for me to get the eggs. I don’t care how many people tell me you can “slip your hand under” a sitting hen and get the eggs, that was never my experience, so I usually ended up shooing them off the nest first or, more likely, just letting those eggs stay for another trip.
Daddy built an “egg candler” for us when we first moved to the country. It was a wooden box with a lightbulb in it and a small hole in one end. You put the egg up to the hole and the light would show through the egg. I never really knew what I was supposed to be looking for when I candled an egg. I suppose you are looking to make sure a chick hasn’t started inside. We quickly lost interest in the candler and it probably stayed on the shelf in that garage until they moved away in the 90s.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking what a great thing it would be to have a steady supply of eggs waiting for you anytime you wanted them. We have no eggs right now, or milk, or bread, or just about anything else. Someone in this house has been rather preoccupied with a hobby and hasn’t been to the store in forever. I suppose my ancestors (who I know so much about right now) would think that a steady supply that was waiting at the store for a couple of bucks a dozen and no need to worry about coyotes or foxes or having to feed or clean up or water or gather sounds like more of the optimal situation.

I am heartbroken tonight. Mom and I ate a fabulous dinner at Rounders on 6th. If you’ve never been there, I strongly encourage you to go. Normally I don’t tell people about my favorite places because that just makes them crowded and I have to wait and ruins it for me. But I’ll tell you about Rounders because I worry about them going out of business! It is about the only restaurant in town that I always walk in and have no trouble sitting down immediately. I don’t know why it isn’t packed. It is in an area that you don’t think about food being in— that far west part of 6th near Blanco. You have to turn in off of 6th quickly and find parking in the back, so maybe people just whiz by and then go “Oh shoot! That’s that place I want to eat.”

When you eat there, you must must MUST order the garlic knots. Unless you are on a date with a person you don’t know extremely well. Fabulous knots of pizza dough cooked and sitting drenched in butter and smothered in fresh garlic and parmesan. Oh my. OOOOHHH MYYYY. Salads are large. A half salad is plenty big and there are nice varieties and the half is only $4. And the pizza is great. And how often do you go out for pizza anymore? Not often, right? You go to an Italian place and you end up ordering a pasta and not having pizza and you never go to a “pizza place” anymore, you just order it to be delivered. So go and enjoy Rounders and keep them in business.

Oh, but the heartbroken part. We had our fabulous garlic knots and salads, so when the pizza arrived we only ate half of it. I knew Mark would love to have some Rounders pizza when I got home or, if he didn’t, that could be my lunch tomorrow. So we had them wrap up the three big pieces left over. And we, sniff, walked off and forgot them. Walked off, sigh, and left them sitting.

I could see going into this weekend that I was going to have to go see some music that was NOT related to my work in order to achieve this goal of 30 bands in 30 days. So I did just that:

BAND #27  The Geezinslaws at the Broken Spoke on Saturday night. I went over without the accordion this time. I decided I didn’t want Sam and the guys to think that was the only reason I came to see them. But they all seemed genuinely to wish that I had my box with me. Okay, next time. I hope there is a next time. There is a very suspicious “TBD” on the last Saturday of the month on the July calendar at the Spoke. What’s that supposed to mean? That’s the Geezinslaws’ Saturday night. I certainly hope there is no change in that long-standing tradition, but I will say they had a small group there Saturday night. I had a good time, though. Troy Kimmel was there and he bought my dinner. First time I’d seen him since way back. WAY back.

BAND #28  The Belleville Outfit at Momo’s.  I just got in from Momo’s and it was raining lightly downtown. How wonderful! I wish we’d get a cloudburst. No sign of rain down here in South Austin just yet, but I’m hoping. I was glad to see Phoebe, Rob, Jeff, Connor, Marshall and the drummer that I do NOT know of the Belleville Outfit. Such a tight, fun band with a unique sound. I wish they would work up Be Mir Bist Du Schon (which, I am sure is NOT how to spell that song title at all). That was on a Guy Lombardo album I had as a kid (hello!! I’m OLD!!) and I always have loved it. They have that same cool vibe. Lots of folks there to see them and it was a little bit claustrophobic, but Momo’s has that great outdoor deck so it was easy to go out there and catch a breeze.

BAND #29 Warren Hood and the Hoodlums  I think I can count this as new band #8, but I’m not sure. I’ve seen Warren in many configurations and I don’t quite know if I’ve seen the Hoodlums before. Just to make sure I DO see 8 new artists and complete my 30 for the month, I’m going to catch one more tomorrow. But Warren and the guys were fabulous. Great harmonies, very tight band, fun. But, again, even though a lot of Belleville Outfit fans seemed to clear out, a new wave came in and the place was very tight and very full, so I didn’t stay too long.

My other adventure of the day was making homemade ice cream for the first time in my life. Most everyone has memories of the bucket and churning the ice cream at family gatherings. I also have memories of coming home from school and mother making ice cream - - a LOT.  Mother was a real ice cream addict and made it regularly, especially once the electric freezer was invented. Maybe because we had it around so much, I’ve never been much of a fan. But since I inherited the bucket, I decided to give it a go this afternoon. It was pretty darn good, too! Maybe there is something to appreciating it more when you’ve turned the crank (figuratively, since this is still the electric maker). I made banana since I had some very ripe bananas in the kitchen and it was very good. I need to go back and try another BIG sample now that it has set up and had time to freeze hard. The funniest part of making it was when I finally plugged it in to begin its freezing. The motor kicks in and I look to the back door and see both kitties sitting, waiting anxiously to come in. I know they were thinking, “Can opener!! Food is on the way.” They dashed in and sat by their food dish and kept looking up, expectantly, like “When is that can opener going to be done?” Finally, Nathan had to get up on the counter to inspect this sound and find out why there was no forthcoming food.

A realization today about the contents of ice cream, too. When I was a little girl, I churned butter a few times. Not like kids of the old farm days did, but not like Girl Scouts do either, it wasn’t a one-time thing. We had a cow and we had cream and milk and we made butter a few times. Butter consists of one ingredient:  Cream.  Shake it around enough and add a touch of salt and you’ve got butter. Interestingly, you take that same cream, add sugar and eggs and vanilla and shake it around and freeze it at the same time and you’ve got ice cream. Butter with sugar, that’s basically what I’m about to go eat . . . with relish. And a big spoon.