weekend update, December 17, 2012

Travel is a two way street.
There's this direction-

the direction that takes you to an unfamiliar place, where you are the foreigner learning the truth of Augustine's observation that the world is a book, and if you wish to read more than one page, you must somehow travel.
And there's the this direction-

when visitors come to you, and before your eyes, your familiar homeland is transformed into someone else's foreign place. And, if you're me, these lines of the Scotsman Robert Burns bagpipe through your brain:

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

to see oursels

as others see us."

Imagine. What if you took friends who lived,say, here

that's Brisbane, ya'll.

to your familiar grocery stores and restaurants? I wonder in what ways the food of your everyday life would seem new and strange to you when you tried to describe it to someone who had never tasted it.(What is an aunt annie's pretzel, and why is it delicious? American cheddar cheese is dyed orange. Explain?)
If you're like me,  you might realize all over again that American food is indescribably rich in origin, variety and tradition; that it's a moveable feast that you love even more than you thought you did. Which is alot. And you might then realize that you are a person who can get very, very excited about the diverse food of your diverse homeland.
And, if you wanted to show your friends something (anything) more scenically interesting than Dallas, you'd take them on a good old fashioned American road trip. Like this:

from Dallas to San Antonio to Fredricksburg.
with a few food breaks along the way

First stop, the Collin Street bakery in Waco, fruitcake capitol of Texas.
 

oh, c'mon. You know I meant the
capitol of the edible kind of fruitcake.
(hmm. should I have mentioned the
other kind as we drove through Austin?)

We stopped here in part to demonstrate that America is maybe, sort of, sometimes, catching on to the idea of fruitcake. You see, fruitcake is not the object of dislike and derision in Australia and Britain that it is in America. It is, in fact, a crucial component of many celebrations. (When considering this it is acceptable, though perhaps unkind, to bear in mind the reputation that British food has built for itself over the centuries.)
For real- I can tell you as a fruitcake convert that it's possible for it to be yummy. If you're intrigued, try this Aussie recipe for Donna Hay's Christmas cake. Translation tip: Sultanas are raisins. Tasty tip: substitute pecans or cherries or chocolate chips (or all 3) for the mixed peel.

On to another over the top Texas phenomenon.


Buck-ee's !!!!!!!

Buck-ee gains an Aussie fan

And then on to San Antonio, where we were well fed and where we, well, fed.

Liz, I love how you always find new friends to
share food with.

 For breakfast? Migas, chilaquiles,
and a stack of warm, pillow-soft tortillas:

Worth every gluteny calorie. I heart San Antonio.

And on to yet another of the cultures that added it's own flavor to the Texas melting pot, the German town of Fredricksburg. Specifically the excellent Rathskeller. You want inspiration? Copycook your way through this menu! After all, if these are on the wall, you know some serious frontier-style food is likely to land on the table:

to my knowledge, we ate neither the bear nor
the other half of the deer.

Back home soon, and back to our own familiar kitchen. Back to the familiar adventure of learning and loving and nurturing otherwise known as dinner.

And I want you to know that it matters.
Whatever you do today, or tomorrow, or did yesterday, to nurture the world. It matters.
 To nurture is to feed and protect. And when you do that, in whatever way you can, for any life that crosses your own, you administer an antidote to harms and hungers of all kinds.
What you do to love and feed and heal the world around you, even and especially the world nearest and most familiar to you, it matters.
Practice random acts of nurture. Maybe we can change the world.