All three of my greyhounds were poisoned as a result of the latest recall from Natural Balance pet food.

The official diagnosis was stable kidney failure. After 36 hours of heavy IV fluids to have their kidneys flushed, Daphne and Phoebe are recovering and came home Tuesday night. They are still spending each day at the vet for more fluids and observation. Joey did not do as well and ended up at a specialty hospital in canine ICU. Yesterday he finally turned around and is on the road to recovery, but with the possibility long term kidney damage. He comes home on Friday.

What you need to know is that the food they were eating does not contain wheat, but still contained melamine — an industry chemical — which was found in rice protein this time around. They had no more than three meals of the tainted food, and several thousand dollars later it looks like they are all going to make it. The long-term effects, however, remain to be seen.

Bottom line: The FDA does not have a handle on what’s going into pet food. I STRONGLY URGE you to switch over to cooking food for your pets today. While it may be more work, think about what’s happened to us and you may think otherwise.

Symptoms that affected our dogs: Nausea, excessive drinking, excessive urination. If you see any of this in your pets I would call your vet, regardless of whether or not your food has been recalled since our dogs were sick days before the recall actually happened.

Technorati Tags: pet food recall, natural balance, melamine, food safety, rice protein, imports

While we like the same types of movies, TV shows, and music, my husband and I don’t have a lot of overlap in the books we read. Some friends of ours have come up with an interesting project that allows one to appreciate the tastes of the other: each year they read one book at the other’s request.

This is a great idea and we intend to do this one day, but not while I’m in graduate school. Instead, we have a new project: The Intellectual Devotional. Like many devotionals, this book contains 365 daily inspirations, but this one is purely intellectual in content.

Each day of the week covers a different topic:

• Monday = History
• Tuesday = Literature
• Wednesday = Visual Arts
• Thursday = Science
• Friday = Music
• Saturday = Philosophy
• Sunday = Religion

I picked it up for $10 at Half Price Books. Seemed like a harmless investment on a book that normally costs around $23. Our plan is to read one each evening and discuss. Hopefully we’ll uncover some new interests and learn a little along the way.

We start tonight. Wish us luck.

Technorati Tags: books, literature, reading, education

My birthday celebration continued into yesterday. I received a phone call from the front desk to come pick up a package. Inside that package was several dozen warm cookies, a pint of ice cream, and a couple of cartons of milk, courtesy of some of my girlfriends. A gift from their office to mine.

The cookies came from an interesting little company called Tiff’s Treats, a cookie delivery service serving Austin and Dallas. A very nice touch was that the cookies were warm when they arrived. We enjoyed very moist, very rich white chocolate chip and almond, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies all afternoon.

I believe I had six cookies in total yesterday. For the rest of the week I’ll be restricting myself of green tea, water, and some nice salads.

Technorati Tags: birthday, desert, cookies, delivery, gifts

Today my mom turns 63.

In honor of her birthday, I will list things she likes to do when she’s visiting me in Austin:

• Go to Whole Foods. When she’s here for more than a day or two we’ll often go each day and decide what to cook that night.
• Catch up on Lost. We started watching it about midway through the second season, and when she came to visit for a week last year that’s literally all we did. It was an awesome week!
• Stop by an Amy’s Ice Cream for a treat.
• Go shoe shopping at Karavel or InStep.

Happy Birthday!

Technorati Tags: birthday, mom, family

When I was a kid my parents’ church had Halloween parties every year. Believe it or not, they used to do things like this in the South.

I recall that one year I went to the church Halloween party as the devil.

Here are my very own hellhounds from this year:

Daphne the jester…

Phoebe the witch…

And Joey the pirate…

I head out to NYC on business until Thursday night.

technorati tags: halloween, greyhounds, costumes, dogs

We had friends over on Saturday night to carve pumpkins. Here are the finished masterpieces:

Yep, that’s Paul Stanley on the left.

technorati tags: halloween

Saturday night we had tickets with some friends to see Karl Denson at La Zona Rosa. We had all seen Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at Austin City Limits Music Festival a couple of years back and all became fans of his music. Besides, Austin has very few jazz acts come through each year, so if you’re a jazz fan you really don’t want to pass up opportunities to see live jazz.

Two years ago the four of us had seen Stanton Moore with Nicholas Payton, and before the show we stumbled upon Ranch 616, which is a short walk from La Zona Rosa. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience then, and we decided to go back last night.

Ranch 616 takes reservations, a great thing for a weekend night. We arrived early and were promptly seated. My husband and I ordered a round of Mexican beers, which were served with tiny glasses with what looked like art from prayer candles. On the next round, our friend had to have one as well since it was so fun to drink from these glasses.

For starters, we ordered the Camarones Rellenos, which is shrimp wrapped in bacon with cheese and peppers and lightly grilled. Four come to a plate, but they are large shrimp and this is actually plenty of food. Next came a round of homemade biscuits, which I believe were cooked in butter. These are very heavy biscuits, but also some of the best I’ve ever tasted.

Most of us ordered items from their specials. I had the Hawaiian snapper, a meaty piece of fish that was rubbed with fresh chopped garlic and grilled. This was one of the best pieces of fish I’ve ever eaten. It was flaky but also very tender, and had a nice light flavor without any fishiness. It was served with mashed potatoes that were infused with some sort of pepper, making them spicy and a nice compliment to the fish. The entree also came with fresh green beans that had been sauteed with shaved summer squash, and a crab cake. It was a lot of food but I found myself eating most of it.

My husband ordered the grilled mahi mahi from the specials menu, and also thoroughly enjoyed his. This was a fillet of mahi mahi that topped two seafood and sour cream enchiladas… very tasty.

We split the grasshopper pie, which had a creme de menthe and vanilla liqueur ice cream base with an Oreo crust. It was served with fresh strawberries and drizzled with chocolate sauce. The pie was definitely big enough for two people. Despite the alcohol infusion, this pie was light and an easy cap to a great meal.

The wait staff was top notch and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

We arrived at La Zona Rosa about 8:45 for a show that was supposed to start at 9 pm. The Karl Denson Trio didn’t come on until well after 10 pm. The show was good but by the time he came on the meal and alcohol from dinner had started to weigh on me and I was pretty tired. But nevertheless Karl Denson didn’t disappoint and the crowd really enjoyed the show.

technorati tags: austin, restaurants, music, food, dining

Tuesday night a very old friend of mine — one that dates back to kindergarten and 1979 — came to Austin for the evening to go to a show. We had the pleasure of meeting her and her husband for dinner, and to try to catch up on the 12 years since we last saw each other.

The thing I love about old, dear friends is that it doesn’t matter how much time passes… you can pick up right where you left off. As I expected, it was a great visit with great conversation.

We took them to Malaga Tapas & Bar for dinner. This is a great place to take people when you’re not sure what they like to eat and drink, and you anticipate a lot of talking during dinner.

We got a table immediately and ordered the following:

• Ensalada de Sandia con Jamon Serrano - This was a nice salad that combines watermelon with serrano ham. I’ve always found the saltiness of ham to be a nice compliment to fruit, and this was no exception.
• Atún Mallorquino - This was seared tuna with a horseradish cream on the side. Very tasty… the tuna was just cooked enough to be tender and not lose its flavor.
• Piquillos Rellenos de Brandada de Bacalao - This is probably one of my favorite things on the menu. The easiest way to think of this is pepper ravioli. It’s pimiento peppers stuffed with fish, potatoes, and garlic and topped with cheese.
• Portobellos Aliñados con Vinagre Balsamico - I’m not a huge fan of portobello mushrooms, but the balsalmic vinegar made this great. The mushrooms were surprisingly moist and did not have the strange texture that usually makes me not like mushrooms.
• Lomo a la Plancha - This was very thinly sliced beef tenderloin, served medium rare. I don’t really eat red meat but this was really good.
• Ravioli Madrileño - This was chicken ravioli with marinara sauce, and was a very good, safe bet for a wide range of tastes.

Overall this was a great evening, and everyone was happy with the food choice.

technorati tags: austin, texas, dining, food, restaurants

Saturday night we took my parents to Stubb’s for dinner. We had to pick my dad up downtown after the UT game, and as we passed Stubb’s my mother commented that they buy the barbeque sauce. The weather being too bad to go to The Salt Lick, an idea was born.

We opted to sit outside since it had finally cooled off, which was great because my parents got to check out the amphitheatre.

We started with an order of onion rings and fried green tomatoes. While both were fried, neither was greasy. The onion rings are sliced to about medium thickness and served with Stubb’s Original Bar-B-Q Sauce. This sauce has a fluid consistency with a mild tanginess and lots of coarsely ground black pepper. The fried green tomatoes are sliced very thickly (about an inch thick) and are lightly fried in a corn meal batter, and served with ranch dressing. Both were very good, and an order of each was a little too much for four people.

I ordered the smoked turkey breast plate with mashed potatoes and fried okra on the side. The turkey was so tender that it crumbled upon touching it with a fork, and was not dry at all (as turkey breast can be at times). I also used a little of the Original Bar-B-Q sauce on this, which was a nice compliment.

The mashed potatoes had the consistency I liked — a little lumpy with skins every now and again. There was obviously a lot of butter and milk in the potatoes, as they were way too creamy to be only potatoes. The gravy was a nice, standard white gravy, which I had them serve on the side. Because of the creaminess of the potatoes I only needed a little bit. The fried okra was of course good, but it’s also hard to mess this up unless you put too much salt in the batter.

My family also enjoyed plates of beef brisket, sausage, and pork loin with additional sides of cole slaw and potato salad, and all complimented on how good everything was. None of us had saved room for desert this time around, but we’ll catch it next time.

Overall it was a great experience with great service, and I was amazed at how not crowded Stubb’s was at 7 pm on a Saturday. Highly recommended as a place to take visitors when there’s not a show.

technorati tags: stubb’s, austin, texas, barbeque, bbq, dining, restaurants

I saw this article yesterday on CNN.com:

Researchers: Homes have more TVs than people

According to the article, there are 2.73 TVs per household, while there are only 2.55 people per household.

Is it just me, or is there something fundamentally wrong with this? I’ve also noticed what I find to be some additional disturbing trends with children and TVs:

• I see more and more children watching DVDs in the car on their way to school in the mornings.
• I’ve seen kids watching portable DVD players while out to dinner with their parents.

What ever happened to just talking to your kids, or having them interact with the rest of the world? I’m all for some entertainment, but this seems a bit much to me.

technorati tags: family, DVDs, TVs, televisions, consumerism, trends