Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Fall Home Tours

Mark your calendars for these fall home tours:


1. October 1-2 is the Austin AIA homes tour.

2. October 23-24 is the Houston AIA homes tour.

3. November 5-6 is the Dallas AIA homes tour.

The Architect and I won't be able to make it to the Austin home tour, so no live tweeting from me.  However, be sure to follow along in November as I live tweet my picks and pans from the Dallas home tour.  We will also be volunteering at the Dallas home tour on Sunday, November 6, house TBD.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Weekend Plans

1. Tonight everyone should find a patio and enjoy the first day of fall and these sub 90s temperatures.  The Architect and I will be hanging with the Dallas Beer Snobs and friends partaking in a magnum of Chimay they won a few weeks ago and grilling up some nice steaks.

2. Saturday is the DADA Gallery Walk - get the list of galleries and a map here.

3. Saturday is also the Dallas Culture Crawl - Starting at 6pm is the Deep Ellum Art Walk, followed by Neon Indian at the Granada Theater and ending with a midnight screening of The Big Lebowski at the Inwood Theater.

Monday, September 19, 2011

T-shirts for Architects

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this architect t-shirt from Bob Borson's Life of an Architect Blog.  Of course I had to get one my Architect.  The Architect was kind enough to pose for me just long enough to snap a picture of him in it.  I suspect that barrel aged Manhattan he is drinking may have helped.  You can purchase your own Architect, Interior Designer, Architecture Student and other designs t-shirt here.  You can pick from multiple colored shirts and ink allowing for a more customized shirt.

Read more about the design of the shirts here.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Weekend Plans

1. Oktoberfest in Addison - the only time you can wear a chicken hat, lederhosen and drink beer all while doing the chicken dance with thousands of your closest friends.

2. Concert Confidential benefiting La Reunion - music from Dovetail, Kirk Thurmond, Green River Ordinance.  There will also be libations and food.

3. Grapefest in Grapevine - if fruit of the vine is more your speed head west to this annual wine festival and grape stomp.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I'm an architect in 140 characters or less

The Architect sent this post from Archdaily discussing what it is like to be an architect in twitter form - 140 characters or less.

My favorites:

"I’m an Architect. Just like Mr. Brady, except with less wood paneling and fewer kids. The sexy staircase and the masonry oven in the kitchen can stay, and Marsha, of course."

"I’m an Architect, like Howard Roark from the Fountainhead, only fatter, and underemployed. "

"I’m an Architect. I make simple things seem complicated, by making them more complicated."

Read the rest here.

Friday, September 2, 2011

CLINK! Manhattan Cocktail

So, for the first recipe I post I’ll start with what I consider the granddaddy of all classic cocktails out there, the Manhattan (apologies to the Martini aficionados). First a little history:

The Manhattan was reportedly invented at the request of one Jennie Jerome, future mother of Sir Winston Churchill, in 1874. It was invented to celebrate the newly elected governor of New York, Samuel J. Tilden. The drink derives its name from the Manhattan Club where it was invented, not the island directly. Or so the story goes. There are many resources that document this story, but I liked the presentation by the Bar Mix Master best, including the photograph of Jennie Jerome herself. Another story suggests that the Manhattan is simply one of the five cocktails representing the boroughs of New York City (got that little tidbit from The Art of Drink).

Now that the academic stuff is out of the way we can get to the good stuff. Basically, the Manhattan consists of bourbon or rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters, garnished with a Maraschino cherry. There is some debate in cocktail circles about what the “proper” whiskey for a Manhattan is. I won’t get into that, as far as I’m concerned both bourbon and rye make great drinks, but they are very different in character. It probably depends more on your mood, the season, and what you have on hand. Bourbon makes a robust, “woodsier” drink that is very smooth. It is a strong drink, more like getting punched in the face. Rye, on the other hand, is spicier and has a lively mouth feel. It’s like getting slapped in the face. You can’t go wrong either way, unless of course you don’t like getting struck in the face. But I digress. There isn’t, or shouldn’t be, much debate about the recipe:

2 oz. bourbon or rye
1 oz. sweet vermouth
1-2 dashes Angostura bitters
Garnish with Maraschino cherry
(makes one drink)

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Please, please, please stir this drink until it is ice cold, 15-20 seconds. You might read recipes that call for this drink to be shaken, but they are mistaken (I will throw down the gauntlet on this)! Shaking a Manhattan fundamentally changes the character, taste, and color of the drink and simply should not be done. If you do it I’ll hunt you down and make you pay-every one of you! I’ll write a more general post about shaken vs. stirred sometime soon.

CLINK!

River Livers

Now doesn't that sound appetizing?  River livers are not a new food craze to hit Dallas.  It is apparently a new art installation coming to the Trinity River in 2012.

The eco-art collective Greenmeme is looking at Dallas for one of its "River Liver" installations.  From the Greenmeme website:

"The River Liver is an on-going investigation into the creation of constructed wetland sculptures that aim to raise awareness to water quality issues, water pollution and habitat loss. The sculpture's plants act as a filter, becoming a form of productive and protective infrastructure that actively break down some of the identified pollutants in the water."

Oh and these art pieces glow green at night. Neato.  More from Greenmeme:

"An LED "traffic light" would respond to changes in water quality. Navigators were encouraged to cast a River Liver off at it's new location, where it could attempt to remediate the lake. These illuminated the islands, experiment with translating water quality and a variety of other environmental data into coded light and color."

No word yet on what the Trinity River Liver will look like or where exactly it would be.  You can read a more in depth interview with the Greenmeme collective at Dangerous Minds and see pictures on the Unfair Park blog and at Greenmeme.