Texas Library Association conference recap

As mentioned before, April was a bit...um...hectic. Two conferences in three weeks? Awesome*.

The first conference was Texas Library Association in San Antonio. Having never been to San Antonio - nay, never having been anywhere in Texas - I didn't know what to expect. But Texas delivers, man. The people were super nice, the cabbies were uber-chatty (in a good way), and the conference organizers are some of the best I've encountered so far.

I have a ridiculous amount of highlights to share with you so stay with me, folks:

• Hanging out with my fabulous publishing friends at Liberty Bar. It's hard to describe but it's this bizarre building, almost an Old West homage to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was introduced to Shiner Bock, which all my Texan friends told me I had to have, and it was every bit as awesome and refreshing as I had heard. But the stand-out was the venison burger - holy crap, it was out-of-this world.
  
  
• Meeting the ladies of Oops...Wrong Cookie. I've been a fan for awhile and it was fantastic to meet them in person. When I say to all of you, "Hey, stop by and say hi to me in booth #2222", I have to confess that I never believe anyone will. Shows me that I need to stop underestimating bloggers! This was a huge highlight for me, as evidenced by the happy-dance I did when Patti introduced herself!
  
  
• Meeting Ryan Smithson, author of Ghosts of War, who signed in our booth and spent quite a bit of time with us during the week. I've met people that served in Iraq before but, for some reason, meeting Ryan was just incredibly poignant for me. He's incredibly smart and bright and has so much to say and so much to add to the conversation (the conversation, of course, being teens serving in the military). It was an honor for me, truly, to spend time with him.
  
  
• Dinner out on Thursday night. A couple of us took out Sophie Jordan for dinner ( What, you haven't read Firelight yet?! The directions are easy: get yourself to a bookstore come September and buy a copy. You won't regret it. Or if you've read an ARC already, let me know what you think). But our reservation was canceled because we were too late. So, long story short, they were ridonkulously accomodating and set us up in their "sister" restaurant, Zinc. And we had our own little table in this little alcove on the patio while the rain fell five feet away - it was private and fun and intimate. In short, everything you want an author dinner to be. It's a HIDEOUS picture but feast your eyes on the truffled Parmesan fries:
  
  
  
  Need I point out that this photo does NOT do them justice?
  
  
• This is a walking town. Seriously, you could walk everywhere, which was just heavenly. I can't say the same for my next conference recap...
  
  
• Lastly, the Watermark Hotel. I can't recommend it enough. Remember the line in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? "I love driving it - it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." He could have been talking about the Watermark. Is there a better place to stay on the Riverwalk? I doubt it**.

San Antonio, I love you...just as others who have come before me have declared. I will gladly return...in 2013! Can't wait!

Eat, drink, and look forward to your next Shiner Bock.

* When will someone finally perfect the sarcasm font?!

** Keep in mind that it's the only hotel I've ever stayed at anywhere in Texas. So no disrespect to other San Antonio hotels.

Dream Come True!

Guess where I'm going to lunch on Tuesday, July 8th. Just...guess.

Thanks, Amy and Lisa, for getting the rezzie!!!!

Another One Where I Talk About the NYT Dining Section

The NYT Dining section has been doing this sort of annoying thing lately (to me, anyway) where they’re reviewing the best restaurants in the country. Naturally, I find it annoying because it doesn’t interest me and everyone knows it’s all about me, right? Nevertheless, you should know about this so you can check it out, if you want. For now, though, onward…

The Letters section was actually pretty interesting. Last week there was an article on MSG that almost accused MSG-related migraine sufferers of imagining the whole thing. Of course, a couple of letters grumbled about that. And two letters were related to the octopus article – you know, the octopus recipe that I was dying to try. One person actually spent time in Mykonos so, of course, he had had the real thing off the boat, beaten against a rock, and grilled on an open fire. Well, dur! Of course that’s going to taste better than octopus prepared in my crappy NY kitchen! Then another letter was from a woman who had seen the gorgeous creatures while scuba diving in the Caymans and questioned whether octopus was worth eating when it was so beautiful...not to mention that, if you have to do that much to a thing to make it suitable for eating, isn’t that a sign that maybe we shouldn’t eat it? I don’t know, perhaps I have no conscious, or perhaps I’m too simple-minded, or perhaps I’m cavalier…but I just don’t really care. For the most part, I have had an immensely enjoyable experience every time I’ve had squid. And that’s enough for me. Environmentally, ethically irresponsible? Sure, I suppose you could argue that. But isn’t nearly everything we parasitic humans are doing these days environmentally irresponsible? Oh goodness, I am so digressing…

I’ve been trying for months to get a decent reservation time at Blue Hill to no avail. Apparently now, thanks to TableXchange, I can purchase one! They cost anywhere from $15 to $40, sort of like eBay without bidding. There’s another website, PrimeTime Tables where you pay a $500 annual membership fee (!) and even then you play $45 per reservation. This is irking the restaurateurs because now they’re getting more no-shows and, probably more importantly, they can’t manage the quality of people getting into their restaurant. Now anybody can get in! The most popular restaurants in the country are now open for the masses! Hell, it’s anarchy! I can see where the restaurateurs are coming from but, on the other hand, this is American enterprise and capitalism at work. It’s the nature of the beast. Now some restaurateurs are saying that, if they know a reservation was made by a TableXchange customer, they won’t honor it. I do find this whole issue interesting, but it’s also part of the reason why I prefer home cooking to going out. I want an experience. I don’t want this cutthroat, bragging rights, showing off, competitive part. Or if I do want to go out, I’d rather go to a mid-level restaurant where I can manage a decent reservation time if I call on a Tuesday or Wednesday beforehand: Fig and Olive, Home, Gaby (in the Sofitel Hotel and some of the best food I’ve had in NYC). That’s much more enjoyable and less pretentious to me. I loathe pretension.

I am going to go back to the whole restaurant thing, very briefly. The restaurant reviewed on the first page – Fearing’s in Dallas – has a dish that looks and sounds like a plate of heaven: Buffalo marinated in maple syrup and peppercorns. Not bad, eh? I’d pout that I have to go to Dallas to try it, but the Union Square greenmarket has a guy who sells really good buffalo. I might have to try to create my own recipe…

And that’s the news this week. Stay tuned for more next week!

EDIT: I have to rescind my comment that "I just really don't care." That's totally inaccurate, and I feel bad for saying it. The truth is that I care very much. However, there are a lot of battles to be fought out there in the search for sustainable, organic, and local food...and this is just one I don't feel like fighting. Certainly not enough to compel me to write the Times. Not to mention that I made such a fuss over this woman's letter...and I see they didn't even include it in the online version of that section. So this is all a moot point anyway...