An Indonesian in Mississippi. Not as catchy as "An Englishman in New York"
Penelope's eyes
♫ “She has her eyes, she has my Lily’s hazel eyes…” ♫ Oh… ehem. Sorry, got nostalgic for my college days for a sec there.
I’d been trying to get a good shot of this since Penelope was born, but she’d never stay still long enough or keep her eyes open enough to do so. She has these beautiful grayish-brown/brownish-gray colored eyes. Asians with eye color anything but black (very dark brown, but might as well be black) are rare, so this is an exotic look. Thank you, Denise.
There’s a new show on Cooking Channel called Food Truck Revolution. It highlights what’s apparently one of the hottest new trends in food–food trucks. Taco trucks have been around for a long time–not around here, but in other parts of the U.S.–but these trucks are different. How about sushi, Southern fare, Korean fusion, crepes, buttermilk pancakes, “gourmet” tacos, wagyu beef dishes, etc. from a truck? Suspicious? Maybe, until you see them in action. These are honest to goodness restaurants on wheels, and the food they’re serving up looks amazing.
Aside from the obvious interest in the food, it was also interesting for me to see how these food trucks operate. Many of the owners use Twitter to update their followers on where they’ll be and when. See, I’m usually a Twitter-phobic. It’s typically useless dreck from people displaying the banality of their lives for all to see. After all, how informative, interesting, or profound can you be when you’re limited to 140 characters at a time? But this is a good use of Twitter. With the proliferation of smartphones and almost all office workers having Internet access, a truck owner can tweet their location and that message immediately goes out to everybody following his Twitter account. Mass communication doesn’t get more direct and immediate than that. I never thought I’d approve of the commercialization of social networking outlets and in general it still makes me queasy, but in this case I don’t mind small local businesses using grassroots methods to keep in touch with their fans, especially with the ever-changing nature of the food truck business.
We caught the first episode last Sunday, another episode is coming this Sunday, 8/29/2010 and I believe it also reruns later that night. I don’t know how long this show will run or if it’s just a mini series, but it’s fun so we’ll watch it while it lasts and dream of the day that Jackson gets its own food trucks. There are rumors of a taco truck in Jackson, and I’ve seen a taco truck driving down I-55, but until I eat food from a food truck in Jackson I won’t believe it’s real, and even then we’ll be a long way from where bigger cities are with their food truck scenes. I look forward to a world where I can receive tweets from my favorite food trucks telling me what street downtown they’ll be on that day.
Seoul Restaurant
One last post about my trip to the coast. On my way out I stopped at Seoul Restaurant–unsurprisingly a Korean restaurant. It’s just one turn off the main drag in Biloxi, but when you drive down the street it’s on you might wonder like me if you’re on the right street at all since you drive through a residential area to get to it. Just keep driving for a bit, cross the train tracks, and it’s on the other side of the tracks on the left.
I believe this is the first Korean restaurant I’ve ever been to. To my knowledge there isn’t one in Jackson (please correct me if I’m mistaken–I’d love to go to one here), and I didn’t know much about Seoul Restaurant before I went other than a couple visitor reviews online, so for me this was a bit of a gamble but one I was excited to take. I’m not one to throw my money away at the casinos, but I’ll bet on good food any day.
Seafood gumbo
I had the privilege of being guests to members of the Pass Christian Yacht Club, which is why we were able to eat at their restaurant. They don’t normally let in riff-raff like me. Upon browsing the menu I was surprised to see how reasonable the food prices were. I guess they get you with the membership dues so they can afford to not charge crazy money for food.
A few of us got the seafood gumbo appetizer. The photo might look like a muddy mess, but if you know what you’re looking at you know there’s probably some good stuff in there, and there was–nice lumps of crab, shrimp, etc. Quite good gumbo. I’ve had better, but this one got no complaints from me.
Mary Mahoney's
I was down on the Coast with Brian, and he insisted on taking me out to eat at Mary Mahoney’s in Biloxi. Twist my arm a bit harder–I don’t think I’m quite convinced yet. Coincidence (or not) that I had made a mental note about Mary Mahoney’s while doing a pre-trip search for eateries on the Coast. Brian claimed Mary Mahoney’s to be the best restaurant in the area, so of course I was psyched.
Oh, and for the sake of some readers who get excited about restaurant posts only to find out much later that these restaurants are in a different city (*cough* Rebecca *cough*), I’ll try to state the city in the title if it’s not in the Jackson Metro area.
Oil clean-up site
Yes, I’m back!!! Boy, who knew having 2 kids would be so much work, especially with a colicky baby? Not me. I have some down time and figure what better way to return to the blog then to celebrate the end of the oil gush (ok, probably a bit premature, but let’s hope it’s true) with a blog post about oil? In a few years we’ll look back at these oil-filled days and reminisce fondly. Ah, the good old days when oil = bad, and environmentalism = good. Such simple, innocent times. “Ah, the Summer of 2010,” we’ll utter with a nostalgic sigh. Click for more
Lovely ladies
“Penelo-phernalia”… oh man, I’m so clever. So yeah, now that I’m mostly back from the land of the walking dead here are a few more pics. If our family weren’t so nice they’d already have the pitchforks out. 5 days without a single pic of baby Penelope–a travesty.
Penelope Iris Pamudji
Meet Penelope Iris Pamudji–7 lbs. 15 oz., 20.5″.
HP EliteBook 8540w
Got a new laptop at work: an HP EliteBook 8540w. Quick specs:
Brushed metal
The spread
We’ve tried the bread at Omonia before, but what really intrigued us was their menu full of tortas, tacos, empanadas, etc. When we stopped by the first time we were stuffed with dim sum so we only got some breads. This time we planned well ahead of time to be there with empty stomachs ready to enjoy a full meal. Click for more