Dallas, TX

First: Fort Worth = Fort Worthless.

I drove through the Stockyards, and that was the biggest collection of fake cowboy/faux Western/tourist trap crap I have ever seen. It made me ashamed to be a tourist. So I decided to drive through downtown, instead. Sorry, Fort Worthians: I didn't see a single thing worth stopping for. I didn't even stay for Billy Bob's (the world's largest honky-tonk!). Dallas was classier, but very much a business center. There wasn't much atmosphere to the city.

My only real item on the Dallas itinerary was the Sixth Floor Museum--you know, in the book depository. It was a bit surreal. It was mostly parents and their small to preteen children. The parents looked stricken, grave. The kids looked bored. I kept picturing the 9/11 museum in twenty years (which, p.s., why do we not have one yet?), in which the parents are reliving that horrible day and crying, while the kids are just wandering around, looking bored and whining about the gift store.

I walked around downtown for a bit (see earlier comment about lack of atmosphere) and found myself at the Swirll winery and wine bar. I ended up chatting with the ladies there while I sampled various Texas wines (Becker Viognier = yum) and their own signature blends. I bought a bottle of German Muller-Thurgau-type white, and got a customized label put on it, commemorating the road trip. Now I have a great bottle for a special occasion.

I took another cooking class at Central Market, as well. As before, the chefs weren't as entertaining or informative as I would have liked, but the menu was much more interesting. We had fried okra salad, watermelon gazpacho with blackened shrimp, a balsamic glazed quail with jalapeno pesto on corn-tomato-cilantro quinoa, seared bison flank with green beans on beet mashed potatoes, and a canteloupe granita. Yum. The beet mashed potatoes were lovely--a deep, vibrant shade of pink, almost fuschia, but they didn't taste like beets at all. Fun with food.