Beer me

Sampler cups with tickets --- ready to drink!

 We went to the Texas Craft Brewer Festival yesterday which was a lot of fun! For just $20, you are able to sample 6, 4oz craft beers from 40 different Texas brewers, in a sample glass that you get to keep. Several breweries had special beers made just for the event and there were hourly tappings at multiple tents throughout the day.

Exploring the map of 40 breweries, and special beer tappings every hour!

At Revolver brewery tent

 I found a new favorite beer called Blood and Honey from Revolver Brewery. To be honest, I was first intrigued by the name (much to what we're all thinking, it does not have real blood in it) but then as I read the description [An unfiltered deep golden ale made with malted two row barley and wheat. The brew is finished with Blood Orange zest, local Fall Creek Farms Honey and other spices that bring special flavors to this unique beer], it sounded wonderful! On top of that, the people behind me in line were there for their second serving, so I knew I would LOVE this beer.

Rain, sch-main. Gimme more beer!

To add to all the excitement of the good beer, delicious food from the local Austin food trucks, we had a thunderstorm. It didn't really take us by surprise, because it was expected to be rainy all day. However, we had a good amount of time without any rain, but crazy humidity. And then, the water works broke free, along with wind. It helped make the place cooler but mostly everyone took shelter under the covered stage area. There were some die-hard beer fans who stayed in line for the next special beer tapping. I personally enjoyed getting wet in the rain. It was too darn hot before and you only live once so there's no point being prissy, worrying about your clothes or your hair.  Al and I had a great time and will probably go again next year :)

Fall Festivals

So fall officially started on September 22nd but there wasn't the big hoorah or marketing emails that I received way back when Summer started. What I have been getting a lot of are festival emails. I get it, the weather is nicer, which in Texas means, not swealtering hot, so it's the perfect time for outdoor gatherings! Even Watson is loving the cooler weather, as shown by his multiple outdoor petitions (he taps on the door when he wants to go out).

Here are a list of festivals only this weekend, so prepare to not sleep, just eat, drink and be merry this weekend!

• Texas Craft Brewers festival (we're going to this one)
• The Old Pecan Street festival
• AUSTOBERFEST
• Texas Mead fest
• Getting Sauced! BBQ-sauce contest/festival - yum!
• Austin Teen Book festival
• Annual Grape Stomp
• Hairy Man festival - yes, I know!
• Moody Cotton Harvest festival
• Texas Tribune Festival
• Austin County Fair Kick-Off Dance & Shrimp Boil
• Capital City Black Film festival
• Out of Bounds Comedy festival
• Dharma and Yoga fest

 

Austin beer tour

Austin is a craft beer town.

There is not just one great craft brewery here but at least ten and since Al's dad was in town, we decided to do a little beer tour of our own. We went to Circle Brewery for their Smokin' Beech Open house. This is a beer tapping even for the smoky Oktoberfest beer which was good but my favorite is still the Circle Blur, a hefeweizen.

We then went to Adelbert's Brewery, which has one of the coolest indoor setups for a brewery with an actual bar, with stools/tables, Foosball and darts. I had only ever tried one of their beers, but found that I really liked the Belgian style Dubbel and Tripels from Adelbert's. 

 

We also made our way to Black Star Co-op pub and brewery the next day. While we weren't really hungry, the food smelt amazing and we'll have to come back again to try the food, which I've heard lots of good things about. They have a great selection on tap and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather. A huge plus is that it's dog friendly so we'll have to bring Watson with us next time.

A bunch of oddballs

 
When we were in the NYC area, we'd often go to comedy clubs and watch stand-up comics, but since we moved here, we haven't done too many of those. So when I heard about a touring comedy festival coming into town, both Al and I jumped up at the opportunity to go see it yesterday. The Oddball Comedy & Curiosity festival had so many great talents at it, and we also got a chance to see the new Austin 360 Ampitheatre which is part of the Circuit of Americas F-1 venue.

I really, really liked the venue (see left) and even though we purchased lawn seats, we had a pretty good view. We saw Al Madrigal and Kristen Schaal from the Jon Stewart Daily Show. Also opening were Jeff Ross, Demetri Martin and Hannibal Buress who was absolutely hilarious. But everyone was obviously there to see the headliners, Brett and Jermaine from the Flight of the Concords and of course, Dave Chappelle. All in all, the show was a laughing good time and I can't wait for the next one!

At the ranch on 616

I'm sure you're starting to see a pattern but this is yet another post about food! Al and I went to dinner yesterday at Ranch 616 because I had bought one of the half-off vouchers online for it. We made sure we tired Watson out at his daycare, Doggy Day Out and zipped out as soon as he fell asleep!

Grilled 5 Spice Duck Breast

Divorced Quail

The place is a little off  the west side of 6th Street which is the nicer, grown up part of 6th and it was easy enough to find (free) parking on a Wednesday evening. The venue is quite funky with a mix of Austin weird meets antique shop. We opted to sit outside since it was a cooler summer evening with a pleasant breeze.They have an interesting selection of drinks and Yelp reviews say that they're all good. Even though they claim they are not to be bucketed in with a food genre, them seem predominantly Tex-Mex using local ingredients and cooking styles. The one exception was Al's dish which had a Chinese influence with 5 spice, hoisin and bok choy. I ordered the divorced quail which allowed me to try two types of quail; one buttermilk fried and one tomatillo grilled. Both of our dishes were very tasty but I think the dessert took top prize. It was a cinnamon sugar crusted nacho platter topped with fresh berries, chocolate sauce and vanilla bean ice-cream. So simple but absolutely divine.

Cinnamon tacos with berries and ice cream

What a good weekend!

Watson passed his 'Obedience 1' class at Zoom Room! Yes, he still has more obedience classes to go to, but we're so  proud of him. He even got to visit the dog park and make some doggie friends.

Watson with his "Certificate of Excellence" and my roses from Al!

Watson and friend checking out the little dog park, from the big dog park.

Al made some delicious stir-fry shrimp and I made a raisin-topped bread pudding with a yummy brandy sauce. Both were our first attempts and came out very well.
 

Mel x2

My cousin Melody came to visit us right after we got back from vacation and if it was any one else, I'd probably want to pull my hair out, because we haven't even set up our house up properly. Mind you, the house that we just moved into 2 weeks before vacation. Anyway, Melody is one of my favorite cousins, was a bridesmaid at my wedding and also my only cousin on the East coast while I lived there. It was Mel's first visit to Austin, so we gave her the works - BBQ, Mexican food, burgers, happy hours with our new friends, Rainey street, breakfast tacos, and as much time as she could handle with Watson. Here are a few pics of us stuffing our faces at hopdoddy and having lots of fun together!

We got a yard...

...and a house to go along with it too!

So we had to move all of a sudden because our apartment complex, Riata was not as enthused with Watson as we were. We put on our extremely motivated hats and have been looking ever since Riata asked us to get rid of Watson! I have to give lots of credit to Ms. Patti Simon too who went above and beyond to help us find our new home.

Pictures here are of the wonderful home we were able to find with such short notice. We love it and are happy to be here minus all the drama in the past 2 weeks. Best of all, we still have Watson and he loves the yard too.

YAY for us all finding good homes!

The end product

It sure took me a while, but I finally got around to glazing the pottery pieces that I had thrown at Firepit ceramics. Unfortunately the completion came with a push and some sad news - the ceramics studio was closing, but at least I have these wonderful pieces to remember the studio and the wonderful people I met there.

Chip and dip pre-glaze

Chip and dip post-glaze

All my 2013 pieces thrown and glazed at Firepit Ceramics

Save the drama for yo mama - part 2

So if you've been reading, part 1 was all about the incident and immediate problems. I was hoping that would be it, but no, we had lasting problems which made it impossible to skip a part 2. 

The week after the first warning notice, we received a SECOND notice from Riata, saying that we had to get rid of Watson! Aaaaah! and that wasn't even the bummer, we had to do so in 24 hours, or they would come and take him or charge us per day he stayed on the premises. Now as conflicting as this is from the first notice, we investigated and found out that the upper management heard about it and they sent the eviction notice regardless of the first notice sent by the local management office. URGH! Talk about stress times a million! Also after a lot of calls we were able to board him with the Austin Boxer Rescue that we had got him from, until we decided what we would do next.

Yes, what were we going to do next??!? We still had a lease agreement till end of July, so we worked it out with the local office (who mind you, was on our side) and were able to break out of our lease early without any penalties. Then we decided to move to a house so that Watson would have a yard, but how were we going to find one in such a short time? After trying unsuccessfully to do it ourselves, we reached out to the realtor we met when we first moved to  Austin, Ms. Patti and she was just as motivated as us. We sorted through many listings and looked at houses every day and we were absolutely lucky to find one that we loved. So we put in our application and waited...

Save the drama for yo' mama - part 1

One thing I didn't want to do when I started this blog was be a complainer blogger, but of late, we've been put in a tight corner and I've been incredibly upset, stressed and livid all in the span of days. And since this drama is a part of my adventures in this place called 'life', here's how the story goes.

The incident: 
While I was walking Watson on leash, he was instigated by a neighbor yorkie (who at the time, we didn't even know was intact*) who walked underneath him and Watson ended up sinking his teeth into the smaller dog*. Unfortunate for the yorkie, his owner named him Turbo; had decided not to neuter him; and on top of it all, his owner thought it was adorable that Turbo acted like a big dog, barking at mostly anything that moved. Oh, I almost forgot, she was walking this ticking time bomb on a retractable leash in an apartment complex with practically 99% neutered dogs! You have to be absolutely stupid or naive to think nothing is going to happen.

The immediate repercussions:
Of course Turbo was in pretty bad shape as Watson showed him who was boss, all 10 times his weight, and from the vet report, crushed his shoulder, but as sorry as I feel for the little guy, I'm still quite angry with his owner. Not neutering is irresponsible and a recipe for disaster. Really, was she planning to breed him in an apartment complex? Really?!
And because the other dog was in such bad shape, we got a visit from Austin animal services and we had to put Watson under a 10 day house quarantine, which meant he was not to be off leash or meet any new people or dogs. Bummer, when his favorite past time is running. Next, we got a first strike notice from our apartment complex and if it happened again, we'd have to get rid of Watson. Yikes! we just adopted him and added him to our lease as 'our pet'.

*I was quite the mess as I couldn't understand why Watson would have done such a thing. We've taken him to dog parks, pet stores, farmer's markets and many restaurants and bars with nary an incident. Practically everyone who has met him knows him to be a docile, teddy-bear faced and lovable dog.  

I get around

When I first moved to Austin, I didn't know anyone except my hubby. Really. I was working at home and that didn't help either, so I looked to Meetup.com. It's a great website where you can find people with similar interests as you and schedule a time/day to 'meet up'. Not only does it help to make new friends, but encouraged me to explore places and events that I would have never been to otherwise.

 

The very first meetup that Al and I went to was with the Austin beer lover's meetup group. We met at this gem of a biergarten called Easy Tiger. I was excited but Al was a bit hesistant, afterall it did seem a lot like a blind date. However, after we both got warmed up, we met several interesting people and had a delicious time sampling the food and craft beers. And the best part, we made a really good friend, Corina who we're still meeting up with today!

That was one that we went to together, but there are some that Al and I follow separately because of our individual interests such as soccer and pottery respectively. I would highly recommend it to people of all ages, in all places with any type of interest. And keep in mind, it's what you make of it so don't expect too much of everyone else; only yourself.

Yappy Hour

So my apartment complex, Riata, is very dog-friendly and ever so often, they host a happy hour for dogs and their owners, entitled "Yappy Hour"!

We went to our very first one yesterday and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but there were free drinks so we couldn't pass it up! They had many different dog services such as dog training, boarding, grooming, homemade dog treat bakery and even a pet photographer. Since we're new dog owners, this was really helpful for us and did I mention we got free frozen margaritas? Watson had a great time too. He got to sniff butts galore, eat as many treats as he could handle, and get lots and lots of fusses from all the vendors and other dog owners. He even got to meet four other boxers and his favorite playpal, Bella, the cocker spaniel puppy.

Needless to say, two margaritas each later and Watson full of treats, we all left very happy. And Watson even got a doggy bag filled with a frisbee, tennis ball and MORE treats! Lucky doggy!

Umm, it's hard to take photos of moving doggies.

 

Back to my roots

It's no surprise to anyone that Al and I are big foodies. We love to visit new places and try all types of cuisines but we always come back to Indian food as our favorites. When we lived in CT, we would have to travel about an hour to NYC to get some good South Indian vegetarian food, but in Austin, we only have to drive 15 minutes to Madras Pavilion. Yay! Another reason to love Austin!

Clockwise (L-R): Sambar, chutney, idli, vada

Mysore masala dosa

We frequent the weekend brunch buffet at Madras Pavilion and even though, everything is vegetarian, it is mouth-watering and righteous. I opt to focus on the breakfast part of the meal, which includes idlis (rice cakes), vadas (deep fried lentil rings), dosas (crispy rice crepes) with dipping condiments of sambar (spiced vegetable curry) and chutney (spicy coconut puree).

But there are also many typical lunch or dinner dishes to choose from, such as bhindi curries, Hyderabadi biryanis and even Indo-Chinese Hakka noodles. Last but not least, they have some sort of dessert to put out any fires. This time we got gulam jamuns and vermicelli payasam.



Lacha parathas with paneer makhani

Gulam Jamuns

 

Spring forward

Last weekend marked the change in daylight savings. I never had to deal with this when I grew up in the middle east, but ever since I've been in the US, we move the clocks behind during autumn and ahead for spring. We lost an hour but we gained more light that means we save energy in our house. This made sense when  it was started in World War I, but why the US still follows this strange practice when we have so many 'energy effecient' appliances today? The only smart places on the US mainland are the state of Arizona and Indian reservations. It does get confusing for me though, because I work with clients in Phoenix, and before last weekend, I was only 1 hour ahead. Now, I'm two hours ahead of them... hmmm.


Watson checking out the scenery

This time of the year also marks the onset of spring and it's more obvious in Texas than it ever was in the northeast. You can hear the birds tweeting, see the grass growing extra green and buds and flowers blooming. I really don't like winter, but it always brings on one of the most beautiful seasons of the year, so you learn to deal. Some of you can't be here with me to see it, but hope you can enjoy it through my photos :) 


The Texas longhorns loving the warmer weather

Spring blossoms

Team Ameri-cah!

A friend recently become an American citizen and hosted a very fun American themed party over the weekend. (I love themed parties!!!) Everyone was asked to dress up in red, white and blue. We had a playlist with songs that mentioned America, or US states or US cities, and even the food and liquor was supposed to be made in America. We actually had some Russian vodka and London gin but we made it American by placing American flag stickers on top of Russia and London on the bottles. Silly but we were drinking so it seemed legit at the time.

We also had fun accessories to wear like Uncle Sam hats, flag hairbands and blinking tiaras, everything in red, white and blue. The themed colours also extended to the jell-o shots made by the hostess and cupcakes made by yours truly. I'm already thinking of what the next themed party will be...

Doggie play dates

Watson had an impromptu play date this past week and boy, was it drooly fun! My friend from work, Sharon brought her adorable English bulldog, Pancho over and we took the boys for a walk around the complex and they seemed to get along really well. The cutest was when both of them turned their heads at exactly the same time to look at the mechanical gates, opening and closing for cars. Pancho is the cutest, wriggliest bulldog I've met and was even more active than Watson. He's got a bit of boxer in him, so that's why he looks like a mini-Watson, jumps around so much and uses his paws to box!


Over the weekend, we also took Watson to the Doghouse Drinkery Dog park with our friend Antonio and his pug, Baxter. That was his first dog park outing and he had a blast! We were a little worried about leaving him off his leash, but he was really good and enjoyed sniffing around and playing with the other dogs. Some of his favorite friends were pugs and puppies, which makes me belive Watson thinks he's still a puppy! The best part, was that while he was running, we were drinking! And then when we came home, Watson was soooooo tired and passed out, the hubby and I were able to relax and have a lovely evening together.

Sharing the love

Today, we fostered a dog from the Austin Boxer Rescue. The dog's name is Watson and he is incredibly adorable, as you can see. The photos here are from the ride home. Watson was as excited as we were and kept looking outside at the houses and cars. Throughout the car ride, he was well-behaved and even took a nap on my lap, when we were stuck in traffic.  Awwww!

Both Al and I love dogs and have been wanting to get one for as long as we can remember. We had planned to do so last year when we were new to Austin as it's such a dog friendly city and we actually have more free time on our hands. We decided it was time this year and over the past couple of week's we've been contemplating between a dog and a cat, interviewing potential candidates too :) We went to a Boxer meet and greet last Saturday and after talking to a friend about fostering, we bit the bullet and sent in our form. Now, here we are with our handsome Watson and we're happy to say that we'll be helping him until he find his 'forever home'.

One year in Texas

The beginning of January marked one year since we moved to Austin, Texas, from Norwalk, Connecticut. Since we've moved here, we have had such a wonderful experience that the only negatives I could think about Austin was the lack of public rail transport, seasonal allergies and the summer heat; one you can actually do without and the other two, you can't help, so in reality, there is nothing bad to say about Austin.

Austin caters to so many different types of people, but I'll speak to what the hubby and I love. Our number one favorite is probably eating and Austin is one helluva place for that. You can find almost every type of cuisine and then some. To be honest, food was one of the reasons we decided to move to Austin. Al loves BBQ and I love burgers, so it was an easy decision along with the fact that both of us love to watch (and play) music and Austin is known as the 'Live Music Capital of the World'! Just this past weekend, we were out downtown on the well-known 6th street and caught an up-and-coming singer, Ben Cina and his band (left photo). When we walked down the remainder of the traffic-closed street, we came across a brass band (right photo) and people dancing in the street to their music. How fun is that!

The fact that you have a great work-life balance here, and warm weather to do all those outdoor activies is simply a bonus. I don't miss the snow and know my north-east friends are freezing at this very moment in 33F and below temperatures, while I bask in my 75F January heat.

And no place can be mentioned without talking about the people. Austin is a melting pot of people that have relocated from all over the US. I've met fewer people that were actually born in Austin than I can count on one hand, but I have met some. Regardless of where these 'Austinites' are from, they are all a very friendly, and fun-loving bunch. We've made some great friends over here and I'm looking forward to the next year, filled with food, friends and fun!  

Craftiness with clay

So I've been really bad at blogging. I keep thinking of things to write but haven't quite figured what I'm going to focus on. I have quite a few interests mostly revolving around art. I love to create and accessorize. While that is a simple statement, it really encompasses a lot. I've always loved to draw, paint and sketch. I even did woodwork with my dad and needlework another year. I've learnt the piano, guitar, organ and a summer on drums.

After getting married and looking for other fun hobbies, I found cake decorating, crafting and pottery. Yes! I create bowls, plates and other functional forms from mud and I absolutely love it. It's one of the most relaxing things I get to do after a long work day and the new studio, Firepit Ceramics, I've found is just fantastic. Here's a chip and dip bowl I made today. Mind you, it's the widest item I've ever thrown on the wheel, roughly over a foot long.