St. Thomas on Friendship

"First of all, among all worldly things there is nothing which seems worthy to be preferred to friendship. Friendship unites good men and preserves and promotes virtue.

Friendship is needed by all men in whatsoever occupations they engage. In prosperity it does not thrust itself unwanted upon us, nor does it desert us in adversity.

It is what brings with it the greatest delight, to such an extent that all that pleases is changed to weariness when friends are absent, and all difficult things are made easy and as nothing by love."

St Thomas Aquinas.

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I still like Mi Cocina's. But has something changed downtown?

We decided late Sunday night, Mother's Day, to go out for dinner. Our first thought was Pappasito's because we hadn't been in a while and because we were going to walk along the river afterwards.

Bad idear.

Pappasito's had a waiting list pouring out to the driveway -- I discovered later that Mother's Day evening is one of their busiest nights of the year.

We drove over to 7th. La Familia is closed Sunday night, Chuy's, Patrizio's, and Gloria's: packed and pouring out the doors. This might bother some people, but I'm always happy to see restaurants busy especially when they are supposed to be.

We then drove east on 7th towards downtown to try Mi Cocina's, and found an only-half-full restaurant. Mi Cocina's it was. Marian and I both ordered the beef brisket tacos. I have to say they are as good  as you can get anywhere. Packed with brisket and just the right dabs of melted white cheese and fried onions. Perfect. And for $13 you get more food than I can eat at one sitting.

The change downtown? Why is 7th and the Pappa's area overflowing and downtown dead on the evening of Mother's Day? Grace wasn't open, I guess because it was Sunday night. Is downtown becoming more and more dependent on conventions and tourists and less of a draw for locals?

Thoughts anyone . . . anyone . . . Bueller . . . Bueller?

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Trader Joe's coming to town?

Word is grocer, Trader Joe's is coming to DFW.

As far as I have been able to tell it's just the D and not the FW. If you know differently let me know.

We shopped at Trader Joe's several times a week during our two year stay in Philadelphia. Trader Joe's is kind of a smaller, discount Whole Foods with tatts. Body markings, as well as ear, nose, and tongue jewelry were employee de rigueur. I am fairly certain I was the only Republican in the store at any given time.

But as non-hip as I am, I liked it. The prices are great and some items like the big bars of chocolate, the coffee, and the peanuts-only peanut butter are very good and inexpensive.

I hope they make it to Fort Worth.

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Eric Whitacre

I liked this so much I stole it -- from my son's blog:

From The Art of Choices blog: This second one is not for the faint of heart. It is fifteen minutes of utter harmonic bliss. Full of what have become known as Whitacre chords which are repeating diatonic clusters of Major triads with seconds and occasionally perfect fourths above. It is called When David Heard and the words are from 2 Samuel 18:33. It had not been set to music by any major composer for over four hundred years until Whitacre composed this. It's a very dramatic and powerful piece full of the wailing of a father losing his son. Do not listen to this piece unless you have the fifteen minutes to spare to fully enjoy the beauty and scope of the entire piece. Enjoy 

Not everyone will like this but for those who like complex harmonies sung VERY well, this is as good as it gets. (BYU singers, Lynn).

A few lessons learned, 1000 posts later.

I started this blog 1000 posts ago.

I did so because I like to write, I like to eat, I like to talk about food, and I wanted to learn what this new medium called blogging was all about. I had never read another food blog, as a matter of fact, I'm not sure if I had read a blog post of any kind.

Now, anyone who writes wants to think that he or she can write something worth reading, at least once in a while. Even though that goal is yet unreached on these pages, I have learned about blogging while trying. In particular:

1. Writing well is damned hard.
2. Posting something that is even remotely interesting to read, written well or not, is damned harder.
3. Most food blog readers are looking for an opinion: "Yes, I liked it," or "No I didn't like it."
4. The writing pros are right: cut the adverbs and adjectives.
5. If you have an opinion and you make it public someone will criticize not only your opinion but you for having said opinion.
6. Sooner or later you're going to say something stupid and something you regret saying. In my case, this is a frequent occurrence.
7. You are not the person people think you are if they only read your blog.
8. In re-writing, there is a point of diminishing returns, at some point you're making the piece worse.
9. Be happy with having just a pretty good, local, food blog. Mark Bittman is in no danger of losing his job.
10. You never know which posts will be the most read. "How to Make Oatmeal, Properly." is the most popular post in 4 years. Second is "Zestfest, 2009." The first is a recipe, the second is an announcement. Not exactly inspired writing, if you get my meaning.

For fellow blog writers who are interested in blog statistics, here are mine:

1. 1000 posts in almost 4 years
2. Of the 1000, about 200 pieces have never been publicly posted, they are, usually, opinion pieces of a  philosophical, political, or religious nature, or attempts at humor (emphasis on attempt). 
3. About 65% of readers come from search engines.
4. This blog gets 350 - 400 page views a day 
5. I have made $200 from the Google ads. That's about 20 cents per post. Each post takes me between 15 minutes to an hour to write. The longer, more essay-like posts take days and sometimes weeks.

I have made many friends through this blog, most of whom I have met but some not, and most of whom I would have never met if not for the blog. For that I am very grateful. I don't know if other bloggers feel that way, but I do.

Thanks for reading.

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