Been a while since I've walked down Main Street in Fredericksburg. I must have missed Rustlin Rob's on previous visits but I had time yesterday to walk the whole strip, one side at a time, and I found what might be the wildest collection of hot sauces I've ever seen. While I like good salsas with my tortilla chips I've never been one to engage in the manly competition of seeing who can consume the hottest hot sauce and for how long. I'm a hot sauce light weight. Always have been. I think it's because, in my formative years, my parents, who were raised in the north and acculturated with "mild" (BLAND) cuisine, shunned hot sauces of all kinds and didn't see fit to have them available for us more adventurous kids in the house.
Anything hotter than ketchup was too hot for my dad and he'd let you know it. Red chilly flakes? Not in his pasta! And while my mother was more adventurous she drew the line at anything that had one grabbing for the ice water and having one's eyes tear up. But my brother, sister and I grew up mostly in San Antonio which is ground zero for great hot sauces of all kinds. Those that originate with jalapeno peppers all the way up the scale to habaneros and beyond. You think Tabasco sauce is fiery? You ain't endured nothin.
And yes, like most long term Austinites I do occasionally make my own hot sauce. It's pretty good.
I was momentarily tired of Austin's traffic and the general hustle culture in the city so yesterday morning I hit the pool early and then fired up the Subaru and headed West. In times past, when I was headed to Fredericksburg for a photo assignment in the Texas Hill Country (mostly to photograph vineyards and winemaking) I was generally in a hurry to get somewhere and took the most direct routes. Yesterday I was in no rush and wanted to savor the lack of traffic on the back roads; the two lane, rural routes that crisscross Texas.
Once I got about 28 miles from town on Hwy. 71 I started nosing off the main highway and onto the two lane blacktop that flows and swerves through ranch and farm country. Oh my God was it ever fun! On one stretch of road I didn't see another car for about 25 minutes. The curves on some stretches take the posted speed limits from 60 or 65 mph down to 20 mph on the hairpin curves. Some curves were nicely banked while others weren't banked at all. Or more exciting, they were negatively banked...
All-in-all it took about two hours going on the rural roads. It usually takes about an hour and a half on the more direct routes: if you go on the off hours and there are no construction slow downs...
Here we are a year and a half into my ownership of a Subaru Legacy Sport sedan and I could not be happier with that car! Ample horsepower, wonderful, tight bolstering on the seats, taut suspension and all the comfort I could ask for. If I owned an electric car instead I bet I could have saved about $30 dollars on round trip fuel cost. But you know what? I could also buy cheap wine in a box instead of something better... Life is short. It's not all about saving every penny...
When I pulled into the square in the middle of town, just off Main Street (love any street called, "Main Street") I pulled a photo backpack out of the trunk, consulted all the research spread sheets, took a couple of hours to re-read reviews, called a few friends to ask their advice, and then pulled a camera that seemed like the right choice out. Well, not really. I really only took along one camera and one lens so I didn't have to make any on location equipment choices. But I did need coffee and lunch and fortunately I was parked right across the street from The Kaffee Haus. It's a nice coffee shop situated in an ancient stone building. The exterior is nothing much to look at but the interior is nicely restored.
I ordered their avocado toast with the addition of a poached egg and a couple strips of bacon. I also ordered and was blown away by their baked in house macadamia nut and chocolate chip, toll house cookie. The avocado toast was the perfect portion for a light lunch but the cookie was one small step away from cookie rapture. All washed down with a latte coffee turbo-charged with an extra shot.
Fredericksburg has a bit of a split personality. On most weekends it's filled with people. Young people from Austin out to try the offering from different vineyards, stay in the far flung B&Bs and traveling West to find the latest restaurant refugees who've escaped from high stress, big cities to open smaller, cozier new restaurants. The town bustles with bus loads of bridesmaids who come (sometimes in odd costumes) to "party" at the surrounding vineyards with the brides in tow.
But on Wednesdays, like yesterday, some of the shops are closed because the mid-week traffic is so much less... productive.
Most of the people I saw on the main street yesterday were at least as old as me and for the most part in much worse physical shape. Big pot bellies, and a gait that seemed like they'd just come from knee replacement surgery. They shuffled along in packs for four or six at a time. Some lone couples as well. Old men sat on benches outside "boutiques" while their wives headed inside to shop. Not a soul had an actual, standalone camera. Not one person. But the cellphone cameras weren't getting much use either.
That's not a pretty face of retirement. At least by my reckoning.
But then things took a positive turn and I discovered the Hot Sauce Showroom. Heaven. Love the packaging, the logos, the names. Check them out below.
In the late afternoon I'd taken about 150 images around the main street and I was ready to head back to the promise of Austin: Big traffic, bigger traffic jams, 24 hour a day road construction but a city filled with young, excited and beautiful people. There's just so much energy here. Even in slow times.
But most important: I wanted to get a good night's sleep before this morning's swim practice. It turned out to be a wonderful set of 5x500s. One for each stroke and one more just for kicks. Toss in the warmup distance and there's your two miles. So nice. Swimming consistently and with effort is a scientifically proven aid to slowing down the effects of aging. Science indicates daily swimmers turn back the aging clock by ten to twenty YEARS. Kind of like an accessible fountain of youth. And isn't that what people have been chasing forever?
Only 70,000 masters swimmers across the USA. Seems like the promise of extended youth would be more popular. Oh well.
I took a Leica SL2-S and the recently acquired Leica R 35-70mm f4. Shot in raw. Worked well.
Only 70,000 masters swimmers across the USA. Seems like the promise of extended youth would be more popular.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there are only 70,000 left. :-)
Not to worry. We get a bigger and bigger crop every year. But since science and experience says this works why isn't every adult in America swimming every day?
DeleteKirk:. . . my brother, sister and I grew up mostly in San Antonio which is ground zero for great hot sauces of all kinds. Those that originate with jalapeno peppers all the way up the scale to habaneros and beyond. You think Tabasco sauce is fiery? You ain't endured nothin.
ReplyDeleteWell, there’s Texas (México) hot and Southwest Asian hot. Hace muchos años, I was assigned to a brief stint on the 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift on the rewrite desk at the Voice of America. We were an unusual collection of employees: two experienced editors, a few writers who preferred the relatively sedate night shift to its hectic alternatives, a couple of foreign service officers who were serving out their obligatory time in the States before heading out for a new international assignment, and several new hires—including my friend Ron and me.
One of the foreign service officers, recently returned from Islamabad, was unable to adjust to working nights, and his wife had a daytime job. “I never sleep during the day,” he explained. “So I cook.” And a couple of times a week, he would bring in a large pot of nihari, the classic Pakistani beef stew. “It’s rather spicy,” he always warned us with a bit of a smirk.
I’ve always liked hot food, but my friend Ron, a New Yorker, probably had never eaten anything spicier that a bagel with a schmear, and the color of his face when he took his first bite of nihari would do justice to Fuji Velvia.
Nevertheless, he persisted. He collected half a dozen plastic cups from our water cooler, filled them, lined them up in front of his bowl, and alternately took a bite of stew followed by a large gulp of water. He had to make more than a few trips to the men’s room before our shift ended, but as we were walking out of the building he told me “you know, that Pakistani stuff is really good.
Glad you’re still loving the Legacy, Kirk. And nice to see you still getting great images out of the SL2-S. Leica introduced an SL3 Reporter today. A REALLY great-looking camera but I’ll stick with my SL2. I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you why I don't swim every day
ReplyDeleteChlorine. With our super dry climate I get really bad skin irritations. No amount of showering or skin cream helps. You have the utopian swimming scenario. Not everyone has that kind of access.
Eric
I thought I was the only person left who liked their eggs poached.
ReplyDelete