I don't know about you, but as I made my way through a busy weekend, two questions seemed to be flowing back and forth between the Waco folks I encountered.
Wait, I should qualify this. The main question of the weekend was "Did you rush the field?" referring to the mass Baylor Bears celebration on the Floyd Casey Stadium turf following RG3's game-winning touchdown pass to Terrance Williams.
The other two questions, though, were "Did you make it to the Waco Downtown Farmers Market?" and "What are you doing for Thanksgiving?"
It's 12:37 p.m. and I'm using the WacoFork iPhone app to dial the new Hewitt Jimmy John's for lunch.
Ok, now I'm updating this blog with a little free-flow blogging about the general process of ordering the sandwich. After I called Jimmy John's it took them a second to figure out if my address was within their delivery area. Incidentally, I'm not at my house. My good friend Ronny Higgins allowed me to order the sandwiches from his house so that I might use a location within the Jimmy John's Hewitt delivery area.
I love living in Waco. Not many places I'd rather be.
I hope you appreciate the uniqueness of this sentiment because I seem to hear a different story quite often. Whenever I hear people put down Waco, I believe they're doing it to make themselves sound cool. This all reminds me of the Beach Boys song "Be True To Your School."
I mean it though, especially as a weekend like this weekend approaches. And by "approaches" I mean beginning in just a few hours. Perhaps suggesting that the weekend is going to begin on Wednesday night makes me seem like a hard-partying college frat boy. If that's what you think, then a) cut me some slack or b) please withhold judgement until you've read my list of suggested things to do.
One thing I like about our WacoFork venture so far is that the people who have joined up with us and written reviews have fairly blanketed local dining establishments.
Go through our restaurant directory either on a computer or on our new iPhone app and see how just about every local restaurant has at least one review. This trend is even more evident when we have a new restaurant open and it almost immediately garners reviews.
Such was the case with Cantina Texas, which opened its doors on Nov. 3 and elicited a quick reaction. As a matter of fact, two diametrically opposed reviews were written within the first week. Response to the new restaurant also erupted in the form of blog comments on a blog I wrote announcing the arrival of Cantina Texas back on Nov. 3.
Anyone who witnessed me walking through the Hillcrest Hospital parking lot, headed for the labor and delivery waiting room with a camera in my hands might have thought something like, "Oh, it's an expectant father readying to take photos of his new baby."
They would have been wrong. I take pictures of food.
(This is, mostly, an actual email received by WacoFork. It has been slightly altered in order to make it a better blog. The restaurant information is completely accurate.)
Dear WacoFork,
My husband and I live in Austin and my parents are in Dallas. We're going to be meeting in Waco for Thanksgiving dinner this year. I was hoping you might have some insight into which restaurants will be open for Thanksgiving dinner. We're trying to avoid the chains, but I'm not sure what other options are out there. Must have alcohol! :-)
Thanks,
Pilgrim
I didn't have to spend much time at Flavor Fest to taste what it was all about.
In fact it took me just 15 minutes to eat a delicious rice and pork dish from Cafe Viejo San Juan, pasta and a frank from Metro, an egg roll from Pho Cafe Saigon, chicken and dumplings from Uncle Bubba's, chips and salsa from Ninfa's, chips and salsa from Food For Thought, fajitas from Tres and peanut butter frozen yogurt from Oso's Oh So Good Yogurt. I might have consumed even more than this. It all happened so fast.
Something grabbed my attention last week. Something I think has the potential to be both a good bit of fun and a pretty good deal as well.
On Tuesday night, Power 108FM is launching an event called Flavor Fest at the Waco Convention Center. This is the first one and the local radio station has more than 40 restaurants signed up for booths from which they will provide event-goers with samples of food.
I used to be a football purist.
Maybe I still am. But, as recently noted, I'm broken up with sports and in no hurry to get back together.
I used to say, "give me football and you can keep all the marching bands and homecoming queens and parades and cheerleaders and everything else besides the actual football."
However, since I'm broken up with sports at the moment and have no desire to watch sports as a fan or spectator, I'm really looking forward to Baylor homecoming this weekend. (Upon editing of this blog, I realized this sounds like a knock on the Baylor football team. It's not. I'm just more open to hoopla and pageantry than usual).
I ate a cheeseburger at lunch today.
This is not news or even interesting. Where I ate the cheeseburger might be slightly more interesting, but still not astonishingly so. However, my revelation about the cheeseburger just might resonate with some people.
