Dan and I were so lucky to be able to attend the Super Bowl this year, to watch his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Green Bay Packers.  The outcome wasn’t quite what we hoped for, but it was a good game and we had a great time! Warning to our readers who are looking for food-related content: not much in this post. We just wanted to document this historic (to us) event, so if you don’t prefer lots of random, mediocre-quality sporting event photos — check back in a day or so and we’ll be back to the recipes and food photos. But if you’re curious for a peek into the Super Bowl Sunday of a couple of Steeler fans, read on. Continue reading “Super Bowl XLV”

Dan’s brother Sean and his lovely wife bought us the most wonderful and creative gift for Christmas this year — an exclusive tasting menu at a very upscale local restaurant. At his namesake eatery, Chef Stephan Pyles has a small area (only 4 seats) where he hosts and cooks his “Fuego” tasting menu.  The menu features seasonal ingredients and showcases an array of molecular gastronomy techniques, from airs to reverse spherification to virtual smoking.  We were presented four courses with seventeen separate dishes, each beautifully presented and demonstrating true genius.  It was easily one of our finest dining experiences.  (The photos do not even come close to doing this meal justice – we didn’t bring our good camera and the lighting was low.  But hopefully you get the idea of what an amazing time we had.)  Continue reading “Fuego at Stephan Pyles”

Since it is the Sunday after New Year’s and technically still “the holidays,” we’re going to sneak in this post about our Christmas — better late than never!  Not to worry, we’ll also post an actual food-related entry soon.

This year, we traveled to Dan’s mom’s house in Central Pennsylvania for Christmas (and just barely managed to get out of PA on the day of the big East Coast snowstorm).  Then I made a quick trip to Houston to see my family the week after Christmas (poor Dan had to work and couldn’t make the trip).  Here are some highlights from both visits (which is not to imply that this is a short post – it’s not at all.  You have been warned): Continue reading “Christmas Tidbits”

We were very lucky to be gifted this holiday season with one of Dan’s all-time favorite culinary presents — the Greenberg Smoked Turkey.  This is the second year we have received one, and I’ll be honest — if we had not gotten one as a gift, we probably would have ordered one on our own.  But, Dan’s friends and colleagues in East Texas came through and sent us one last week.  Hooray!  And if those friends are reading – thank you so much!
Continue reading “Greenberg Smoked Turkey”

We had a great Thanksgiving this year.  We hosted my family — 8 of us total.  Not all of the family could make it (Hi Amy and Lisa – we missed you), but we celebrated the most important aspects of the holiday — family, food and fun (in whatever particular order you prefer).  Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Continue reading “Scenes from Thanksgiving”

Thanksgiving is perhaps the biggest foodie day of the year.  Everyone sits down for a turkey day feast with certain expectations about the food, which can create a huge amount of pressure for the cook — given that the meal is largely the focus of the entire holiday.  There are so many dishes that *need* to be on the plate to make the meal a success, and the timing of getting all of these different parts of the meal to come together perfectly and at the right time can be intimidating.  But we spent a good bit of our weekend carefully planning for the big day, and we think we are ready!

As you may know, the way we are able to cook so often here at FoodieLawyer is because we always try to plan ahead.  You may not know, however, that I’m a list-maker.  The above photo shows just 4 of our lists so far to get ready for the big day.  Two grocery lists (one for Central Market, the other for the regular grocery store), a list of all the food items we’ll be serving and a list of Big Things that need to be done each day leading up to Thursday.  Not pictured are my separate to-do list (non-food related items) and Dan’s Thanksgiving Day timeline, only because we haven’t finished them yet (add those items to the list of Big Things to be done!) Continue reading “Thanksgiving Prep”

Some of you may have noticed a lack of activity around here for the past week.  There are two very  important reasons (pictured on the left) why we were too busy to post. Our much-loved niece and nephew and their parents came to visit! We had a great time, especially on our outing to the Dallas Zoo. Continue reading “Review – Dallas Zoo”

Friday night we drove out to Fort Worth and spent the night there in order to attend a special event on Saturday morning.  Taking the concierge’s recommendation, we went to a really nice dinner at a restaurant near the hotel called Grace.  If you ever find yourself in Fort Worth and in need of a dinner that is delicious, seasonal and a little on the fancy side, we highly recommend it.  (And we apologize in advance for the low-light, low-quality photos — still a little shy to bring out the big, good camera at a restaurant). Continue reading “Reviews – Grace Restaurant/BT Walk”

Dan and I used to live in a different area of town than we do now.  Just west of downtown is an older neighborhood called Kessler Park and within that neighborhood is a cool little area called Bishop Arts District.  There are restaurants and shops and occasionally they shut down the streets for art festivals.  We went to one on a sunny Saturday a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Continue reading “Bishop Arts District Art Festival”

This is Big Tex.  He welcomes visitors to the Texas State Fair in a loud, booming voice.  The Fair runs for about 4 weeks in Sept/Oct every year and is a fun way to spend a Fall day in Dallas.  There is lots to do there — from games and rides to shopping to concerts.  You can see livestock, as well as fun shows like pig races and dogs doing tricks.  And, of course, there is the food.  Lots of it fried and some of it delicious.  Once-per-year kind of food.  We went to the Fair last week and took about a million pictures, which we culled down to the 50 or so in this post (you’re welcome).  It’s a long one, but worth it if you want to see a little bit of what the Texas State Fair is all about. Continue reading “Texas State Fair”