Back Talk Preston Hollow

Briefing: Did you get yours?

I raced out the front door this morning, and was shocked –– shocked –- to discover that Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper doesn’t consider me affluent enough for its new free paper.

This is the day that The News starts throwing Briefing, which it's delivering to what it describes as "200,000 upscale households not already taking the traditional newspaper." What a disappointment for me. To think that I have worked so hard all these years to make something of myself, to eventually own a house in one of Dallas’ nicest neighborhoods and to make a living that my accountant insists is quite nice -- and not to make The News’ cut.

I’ll try to find a Briefing (maybe drive over to the Park Cities and swipe one?) and report back later today.

Technorati Tags: Dallas Morning News,newspapers,Briefing

Wine review: Koster-Wolf Riesling Trocken 2006

Dallas in August. Hot weather. Glaring sun. So why do so many people insist on drinking heavy red wines?

I don’t know. Instead, I drink wine like the Koster-Wolf (about $10 for a 1-liter bottle, available at Central Market) — light, low in alcohol, lemony, and cheap. Plus, it’s both food friendly and well-made enough to drink on its own. Think chilled, sitting on a shaded back porch in the evening just before the sun goes down. Or serve it with grilled or boiled seafood.

Trocken is the German  designation for a dry wine, but don’t be confused. It’s not nearly as dry as Americans are used to. But this doesn’t mean that it’s unduly sweet. Rather, it’s balanced by the acidity in the wine – as this one is, with the lemony flavor.

DART's $60,000 fiasco: No employees fired in accounting mess

Here's an update on the DART jewelry scandal discussed here on Back Talk awhile back, as the Morning News reports that DART's internal review has concluded and no DART employees will lose their jobs even though the mismanagement in this fiasco is breathtaking.

According to the DMN story, the problems — which involve a DART employee group that allowed employees to purchase jewelry from a vendor through payroll withholding — go well beyond simple mistakes. Instead, the review found that money wasn't withheld from paychecks, and it appears that hundreds of tickets sold by the committee to pay for a party were never paid for/invoiced.

La Duni opening at NorthPark

This month Advocate gave you a peek into the minds and kitchens of some of the top chefs that live in our neighborhoods. Among those culinary heavyweights who call Preston Hollow home were Taco and Dunia Borga.
The couple talked about the daily juggling act that comes with the territory of two chefs in one family--and how a mutual disdain for doing the dishes led them to buy two dishwashers for their kitchen.

One tidbit that didn't make it into the story, however, was mention of their newest venture: La Duni Latin Cafe at NorthPark. That location, at the north side of Center Park, is set to open next month. That's right next to Bookmarks, in case you're visual like me. You can expect to find all the same Euro-Latin blends there that you find at the original La Duni.
And if reading our candid chats with neighborhood chefs made you want to do a little dabbling in the kitchen of your own (which I certainly hope it did), consider snagging some of the La Duni recipes from the restaurant website (including the much-coveted cuatro leches cake recipe) and try them out yourself this Labor Day weekend.

Trinity bridge delayed 10 months

Someone didn’t do a very good job of bidding the contract, apparently. Even the people at Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper, who are about as supportive as humanly possible, are disappointed. Dare we even say surprised?

Which means you can watch your tax dollars at work, and not doing very much in the process.

Or, you can ask councilman Mitch Rasansky, an ardent Trinity supporter, what happened at his town hall meeting tonight.

Technorati Tags: Trinity River bridge

Property tax holiday: Think the city will give you money back?

When I heard John Cappello on the stump during his run for mayor last time around, two things stood out in: 1) The guy sure makes a lot of sense, and therefore, 2) He has no chance whatsoever.

And so it was that Cappello was crushed in the multi-man mayoral race, only to show up as a member of the city commission on which I sit — the Commission on Innovation and Productivity. Jim Schutze wrote about this commission a couple of years ago when we looked into whether the frequency used by WRR-FM and owned by the city should be traded to a private station owner; even though there was lots of money in that deal for the city and not too much downside, that idea went down in political flames before ever reaching the council.

Burned-out city streetlights: A city program reduces the problem

One good thing going on at city hall these days has to do with our street lights — have you noticed that more of the lights are working these days? That's thanks to a simple program funded by the council last year to hire one guy to drive the city's main thoroughfares and report burned-out or broken streetlights to Oncor, which owns 72,000 streetlights in the city and maintains all of the city 85,000 streetlights under a contract paid for by the city. In other words, we pay a maintenance fee for each streetlight whether the light is lit up or not.

Until last year, Oncor responded to calls when the lights were out — but only if someone called; if no one reported the outage, the streetlight likely stayed dark for awhile. Apparently, the city had a full-time staffer monitoring the lights until 2002, when the position was cut from the budget. Without monitoring, the number of working lights fell to 83% of the total in February 2007 along major thoroughfares. The Public Works & Transportation Department started working on the issue, and after some support from a city commission that I'm a member of (Commission on Productivity and Innovation), initiated a test program with funding for a part-time streetlight monitor. The position worked so well that the position was funded full-time in the 2007-2008 budget year, and the department is hopeful the position will be funded again this year.

Buzzbrews opens a new location

If you're a night owl, you now have a new late-night locale. Buzzbrews just opened a second location off Lemon Avenue, between Hershel and Wycliff. If you don't often venture to the other side of Central Expressway, you might not know about this always-open eatery. No worries, Advocate has you covered with a review in our East Dallas magazine.

If the menu looks a lot like the one at Cafe Brazil, that's with good reason: the same guy that started this place used to work there. Like its competion, this spot also serves up cofee, and a lot of it (hence the name). There's all sorts of fun flavors, like granny's snicker doodle, toasted marshmellow, Persian lime, Jamaican rum, and Polynesia pineapple--and lattes like the creme de caco, classic creme bruel, and kona macadamia nut.

I haven't had a chance to eat at Buzzbrews yet (although I hear the food is good)-- but the one thing I love more than food is caffine, so if there're are bottomless cups of good-and-strong coffee, I'm there. I'll do a little coffee taste-testing there soon and get back to you.

Artist Ciro Marchetti will feature neighbor on a tarot card

Unless you're up on your top tarot card artists, you've likely never heard of Ciro Marchetti. But in the tarot world, he's known for designing some of the most ornate cards on the market.

His latest deck of cards will feature Preston Hollow resident Megan Benanti. She actually goes by Nattacia Zeviar, her kabalistic name, when she reads tarot cards at Central 214 every Friday night.

We featured this Kramer Elementary mom in the Preston Hollow Advoate this month. During my interview, she explained the workings of tarot to me, even giving me my own reading. She also told me she'd recently sat for a portrait with Marchetti. He is using her as artistic inspiration for one of his tarot card characters in his latest deck, which should be out sometime within the next year.

Now, I've only scratched the surface of the tarot world--but I imagine that when a top tarot artist asks if he can feature you on one of his cards--well, it must be something like Emril offering to cook for you, or Bono writing a song about you.

First days -- and last days -- of school

As I was driving home from taking our youngest daughter to her first day of school this morning I began to think about "Last Days."  We concentrate mile markers on "First Days."  First time they walk, first words, first day of school, etc.  But I think the last days are just as meaningful and sometimes more poignant. 

Our oldest daughter drove off to her junior year of college this morning.  This was the first year she began the year with her own car.  And the first year we did not spend an entire day loading all of her things into our SUV, leaving room for the driver and two passengers.  She went shopping for things herself before she left to stock up on toiletries, medicines, bottled water, etc.  I had done that for the first two years. She packed up her room and loaded her car by herself last night.  My husband drove with her today in his car. Not everything fit in her smaller car so the overload went in his car.  But I stayed home to get our other two daughters off to their first days of school this morning.

I realized when Katy drove away last year was the last time I will shop for her "stuff" and pack up my SUV to move her back on campus.  She will most likely move herself back to her own apartment next year.  Last year was the last time our entire family drove her to college and helped her move into a dorm room.  I didn't realize as we were unloading box after box that all five of us wouldn't be in a dorm room together setting up a sister's room again.  Age spreads and school schedules will prevent that from happening again.