Churrascaria

OK, time for a food post.

Since Kristal and I moved in together we have tried to limit the number of times we eat out each week. The effect of this has been to greatly expand the variety of dishes we prepare at home. Especially with the new grill, we have been dining in style at a fraction of the cost of restaurant fare. While I occasionally miss the popcorn shrimp at Outback, $10 of steak from the grocery store and a bottle of marinade will feed us for dinner and the next day's lunch and taste just as good (if not better). The only establishment we frequent now is our sushi restaurant (where we are considered patrons). We have discovered the secret to getting a lot of food for a small price, and rarely buy alcohol there (the tea is too nice).

Last night, beyond our wildest expectations, we weren't in a sushi mood. There was nothing to eat in the house save ground beef. Searching the internet was turning up few possibilities for new places to visit, and we ended up driving around Innsbrook in search of a place I thought I saw once...figuring we'd end up a Cheesecake Factory (their extensive menu is bound to have something that tickles our taste buds). In our meandering we came across the Ipenema Grill. It looked....expensive. But for whatever reason our curiosity get the upper hand and we started on a wonderful adventure of meat.

I have no idea what they eat in Brazil. The images that come to mind are beaches, slums and the rain forest. None of those landscapes include a restaurant of any kind. It turns out that the most popular style of dining is the Churrascaria. The service is Rodizio - a kind of all you can eat buffet, in which the meat is circulated on giant skewers by a team a waiters wielding equally huge carving knives. The Prix fixe was reasonable, so we agreed not to bolt for the door...

Before you accept any meat, the practice is to visit the salad bar (also providing side dishes). In hindsight, it is unsurprising that the food has a distinctly Mediterranean flavor; after all, Brazil was colonized by Portuguese, Italians and others, including some of Middle Eastern origin. For whatever reason, it felt slightly Greek, perhaps because of the ubiquity of olives!

On returning to the table, one flips a small acrylic sign from red to green, and the men arrive bearing carnivore heaven. The host mentioned ten type of meat. I tried to keep track, but as the meat-coma set in and my cognitive powers receded, counting to ten became a bridge too far. This is as much as I can dredge from my subconscious: smoked sausage, chicken wrapped in bacon, sirloin, tenderloin, pork ribs, lamb, and the roasted pineapple. All the meat is cooked in a South American barbecue style known as Churrasco, originating with the Gaucho cowboys. As far as I can tell, the key to everything Brazilian is lime juice. Everything was incredibly moist, tender and tasty.

I have to try a local beer whenever I can, and Ipanema offered Xingu. All I'll say is I may never drink another Guinness. Well, of course I will, but every time I do I'll think of Xingu.

Gas Grill!

To celebrate my being in the USA for two year, Kristal acquired me a gas grill. A work friend of hers had no further use for it, so it came for free. It wasn't in very good shape, so I sanded down all the wood and metal, stained or spray painted as appropriate and generally cleaned it up. The worst job was getting the spider nests out of the gas lines. Apparently no one sells pipe cleaners anymore (people just buy Drano) so I had to buy a 99c wire bristle toilet brush and make a few alterations. After much sweat and bloody knuckles I finally had it clean enough that gas didn't get backed up and create a fireball around the taps!

The weather is awesome for grilling right now. Yesterday was burger night - tonight we had sausages. Maybe tomorrow I'll do chicken kebabs....

Costco

Yesterday we made our first purchases at the Mecca of excess known as Costco. My place of work offers cheap membership each May. Although we got the cards a few weeks ago, and had gone in to take a look around, it has taken us this long to summon the courage to actually buy anything. I think I found the deal of the century in a set of Floor Mats for by truck that came in at $13. We don't have to buy ground beef, yogurts or Snickers bars for a while!

Texas

I took three days off work to visit Martha and Graham while she was in Texas. The Lone Star State definitely went far beyond my expectations. Although I only had a short time and stayed around the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, we saw so many different environments. Both cities had very clean downtown areas with great bars and restaurants, lots of plazas and parks. We visited McKinney Ave. in Dallas for some lunch when I got off the plane. With a tram running up and down the street, it kind of reminded me of Sheffield.
Then we went to see the spot where JFK got shot. A little way down the street there is this strange monument memorializing the man. Even after reading the accompanying plaque, we really had no idea what any of the elements were meant to symbolize. As I said, there is an abundance of plazas and parks in both towns, so we walked around downtown Dallas to visit various points of interest. One park is home to a herd of life size brass longhorn cattle and their brass cowboys. Next door is a Civil War cemetery - I couldn't believe I'd traveled 1100 miles across the country and still hadn't escaped the Confederacy!
After we'd done Dallas, we headed back to Ft. Worth. The way back to Graham's apartment we passed through the Stock Yards, so stopped to take a look around even through it wasn't on the itinerary until later in the week. It's really a cool place: the streets are paved with bricks and all the saloons and general stores have wooden porches over the sidewalk. We kept missing the cattle run, but by all reports it wasn't that exciting. Some of the shops form a railway station for the steam train from Grapevine. Although most of the shops are tacky (with cowboy gear that was made in Taiwan) at the very end we found this awesome spice shop which sold every type of spice plus different salts, meat rubs, curry blends and teas. I picked up a few ounces, hoping the sniffer dogs at the airport wouldn't get me! We were getting thirsty so we popped into the White Elephant Saloon were a very curt barman who didn't understand half of what we said ended up giving us free beer. Time had gotten away from us, so the stores I wanted to go in for cowboy boots were shut, so we made haste to H3 Steak House for just about the best Ribs and Steak I've ever tasted in my life. Granted, the place wasn't cheap, but I think we all agreed it was worth it, and did our best to clean our plates.
We pottered back to Graham's apartment and after a brief respite, decided that we needed to walk off dinner a little. Graham wanted to show us this great pub that has a lot of beers on tap, so we took the scenic route to downtown through the water gardens. At the Flying Saucer, I tried a local brew IPA, which was pretty decent, but we were all dog tired after one pint so called it a night.
On Tuesday we headed out to the West of DFW. The main plan for the day was to visit Possum Kingdom Lake. I'd been told that the landscape started to resemble a desert very soon after leaving the DFW area. I didn't find it to be so. The ground got sandier, but there were plenty of hardy trees and prickly pear cacti. It's definitely Ranch country, with the stereotypical iron archway incorporating the ranch name over every driveway. Cattle, horses and to my surprise goats were present in large numbers. We stopped for some lunch at the lake, and watched some boys jump in, then climb straight back out of the cold water! The next attraction was to be Dinosaur Valley SP near a great barbecue joint, so we set off along some scenic roads towards Glen Rose. Our route took us through Granbury, which had the cutest town square. This quaint ice-cream parlor caught our eye, and with the temperature pushing 80 we indulged in a round of root beer floats. Martha put 'Twist and Shout' on the duke box, then we headed out again in the heat.
Dinosaur Valley was one of the highlights for me. Down in the Paluxy river, all these dinosaur footprints have been exposed in the layers of rock. At first all I saw was round holes that could have been anything (but were apparently sauropod prints). Then as my eyed discovered the three toed prints of the Acrocanthosaurus, it was suddenly the coolest thing on the planet! Plus the park is really pretty - we took a stroll down the river trying to spot a snake or an armadillo.
Unfortunately the barbecue place we wanted to eat at was closed, so we made our way back to town to find some dinner (with a brief stop to change a flat tire caused by a four inch bolt embedding itself in the right-rear). The BBQ joint in FW was classic (their motto was: "Life's too short to live in Dallas"). It was counter service and the meals were served in polystyrene trays and consisted of a huge pile of meat, sauce, beans, 'slaw, potato salad, two slices of bread and half a raw onion! The beers came in frozen margarita-style fishbowl glasses. Another fantastic meal at the opposite end of the price range!
Wednesday was kinda short. Graham had to get a new tire, then we went back to the Stock Yards so I could get some boots. After that it was time for me to catch my flight back home.