Korean Delights

by Celia Hayes

So, many of the headlines this week concern themselves with Korea, a country which I have some slight connection to; that is where my father was serving a tour when I was born. And a good few decades later, I did a year-long tour there myself. About the very first thing that I realized was that Korea in the 1990s looked nothing like the TV series MASH ... and only very little like what my father remembered. Dad and his platoon with their mobile radar set-up lived in several different tent encampments near the DMZ. I spent the year living at Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of a bustling and very cosmopolitan Seoul. The garrison was itself a fairly un-crowded green island in the middle of a very built-up city – rather as

Comfort Food – Mac & Cheese

by Celia Hayes

When my younger brother and sister and I were in elementary school, my father was a grad-student in hot pursuit of a doctorate in zoology, and my mother was – in the tradition of the time – a full-time stay-at-home mom. This was in the late 1950s to early 60s, and it was the commonly accepted practice. As there were three of us (later to be four) it was really the only practical option – and one of the reasons that it worked was that Mom was a fair to middling cook, very much into the traditional D-I-Y household arts (including sewing childrens' clothes and decorating our home with cast-off and inexpensive furniture. I would hasten to add that it was usually quality stuff; ages later, when Mom and Dad were

It's New, It's Huge, It's Buc-ee's New Braunfels!

Since we are somewhat experienced as long-haul road-trippers, we are – thankyouverymuch – aficionados of those beside-the-highway establishments set up to offer gas, food, conveniences, or even just a place to pull over to stretch one's legs and let the dog romp for a bit. Some of these places – like the Pilot Travel Centers and Flying J truck plazas – offer (or did offer, the last time we checked) amazing coffee, with half-and-half on tap, not those nasty little mini-containers of liquid chalk. And when I was stationed at Hill AFB in Ogden, Utah, we always used to calculate our commute to Southern California on I-15 to include a breakfast or lunch stop

Exploring Buda, Texas-Just 45 Minutes North of San Antonio

by Celia Hayes

We didn't spend all of last weekend watching the wienerdogs run; the Buda City park where that event took place was pleasingly located right next to old down-town Buda, so when we had enough of wandering around between pavilions, we walked along the three or four blocks that constitute Buda ... and looked around. It's one of those sweet, small towns which retain enough of their original late 19th century buildings to be quite charming, even if those buildings mostly run along one side of the street ... because the railway runs alongside the other. Buda's town founding fathers set aside a 150-foot wide reserve of land between Main Street and the International and Great

Spring and Tiger Pop

Visit Mission Realty for free online San Antonio home search

by Celia Hayes

Having a couple of dogs and a garden works very well at getting one out from behind a desk and a computer ... in that one of them – well, both of them – need to be watered frequently. The dogs must be walked, and the garden needs to be weeded and mulched. All these things must be performed often enough that anyone who has either or both is no danger of becoming fused to the task chair...

So – anyway, it's clear that spring has come early to the San Antonio metropolitan area: we started early vegetables in pots and planters a month ago ... and by the last week in February, the mountain laurel trees were in full bloom. Mountain laurels – those are

 MAARs Pizza Restaurant Review-2 Thumbs Up!

by Celia Hayes

Well actually, MAARs doesn't want pizza – they actually want you to want their pizza. The Red Hat Ladies group that we belong to tries to rotate around to various local restaurants in the north-east quadrant of San Antonio. We have a monthly dinner event once a month; nothing fancy or expensive, just good eating for a reasonable price. We swap gifts now and again, and dress up for Halloween, all good fun. My daughter insists that I need a social life with real people off the internet now and again, and since it was her birthday month, and since the birthday celebrant gets to pick the restaurant for that month, my daughter opted for pizza at MAAR's Pizza.

It's right around the corner from

What Park City, Utah Has to Offer to the Texas Vacationer

by Ben Fisher

There is nothing more that Texans love than stepping out of their hometown for a vacation that is filled with the highest levels of luxury and comfort, and that is exactly what a vacation to Park City, Utah offers. Park City, Utah is a mountain community that features three world class resorts that is an oasis of beauty and a hub of outdoor activities. Park City offers the Texan a truly memorable vacation, whether it during the summer months or winter, and for the ski enthusiast, there is not a greater place on earth to vacation than Park City. Whether from Austin to El Paso, Houston to San Antonio, Paris to Dallas, Pampa to Midland and all parts in between, Texans love

Local Color

by Julia Hayden

In a job that I had, several jobs ago, my immediate boss was a transplant from North Carolina, and one of the things that he often noted was how deep was the Hispanic influence on just about everything in this part of Texas. It is, after all, the Borderlands, where two different cultures mix and meld so thoroughly and have done so for so long that those of us accustomed to it. Of course we should dine on breakfast tacos, and the supermarket carry every imaginable variety of salsa, and listen to conjunto music, and have in our vocabulary a smattering or more of Spanish. It’s just the way that things are  . . .  and sometimes it takes a recent transplant, like my old boss, to notice it in a significant way.

For me –

Urban Street Food – Erick’s Tacos

While I’m not nearly as willing as Anthony Bourdain is to risk my health eating exotic foods in  . . .  ummm  . . .  exotic and off the beaten track venues, and I certainly draw the line at consuming tid-bits that I would have to muscle past my gag-reflex  . . .  I’ve always been pretty adventurous about street food, and taking a chance on a restaurant venue that may not look all that promising and first or second glance. I will always remember the little Chinese restaurant in my hometown – a tiny wooden shack, with peeling paint and a sagging roof, which appeared as if a good sneeze would bring it down all together.

We went past it for years, assuming that it was the kind of place where you’d get ptomaine

Created Sunday, 19 September 2010 13:

Books, Burgers, and Bun'n'Barrel

For a household wherein the last time we packed out from an overseas assignment and the movers had a pool going on how many cartons of books they would finish up with - the count eventually topped out at 65 - we have an unseemly greed for more. We do not disdain any opportunity to explore second-hand bookstores, rummage sales, Half Price Books, the massive yearly PTA book sale at the Blossom Athletic Center, and the regular sales at our local San Antonio Library branch. The management there very kindly puts out a banner at the well-trafficked corner of Judson and Nacogdoches, and I have scored some lovely book bargains there in the past, notably when it came to Texiana.

Yes,