A Trip to Tolar

We headed south from Keller on I-35, then the 820 loop that skirts around the edge of Fort Worth. At Benbrook, we found Highway 377 and turned southeast. We were out of the big city now, though the developments tightly clustered along the highway belied that fact. At Granbury we crossed the Brazos River, then departed the main highway for a less traveled one. After a few miles, we turned onto Brushy Road, which was so narrow we were grateful not to see another car. We ambled along the road, slowing once to show Archer an egret and a crane fishing a stream, until we came around a bend to arrive at our destination. A small patch of land in the middle of open fields, not a soul in sight, not a sound in the air except the lightly falling rain and our own voices. The Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in Tolar, Texas.

I had hoped for a gravesite directory, but this country cemetery had none. We started in one corner and fanned out, and through sheer luck, found it after only a few minutes. The headstone lay flat on the ground, at the base of a shorn tree stump. This was the final resting place of Andrew J. (Bud) Robertson, my newly discovered great grandpa.

His date of death was 1936, but the headstone looked much more recent – someone has taken care of his final resting place. In the weeks that I had been planning this trip, I often wondered if I would feel overwhelmed by emotion or disappointed by its absence. Instead I felt quiet and peaceful, as I often feel in a sacred place.

Someone had the idea to look around for other members of the family, and we discovered several Robertsons occupying nearby plots, clustered together in two lines. I took pictures, then looked them up when I got home:

• Susiana Robertson – The odd spelling did not match any siblings, but after looking at the dates, I realized this is likely Andrew’s mother, though it is spelled Susannah on FamilySearch
• Nancy Robertson – Andrew’s oldest sister
• Mary Robertson – Andrew’s older sister
• J.D. Robertson, Andrew’s younger brother
  • Susie Robertson, daughter of J.D. and NE Robertson. Susie died January 1905 at five weeks old. The stone was engraved with ” Weep not, papa and mamma, for me, for I’m smiling in Heaven for thee”
• Joe and Hattie Robertson. Joe was Andrew’s youngest sibling
  • Two headstones, from January 1907 and January 1908, both marked with the same inscription “Infant of J.U. and H.T. Robertson. Weep not, papa and mamma, for me, for I’m smiling in Heaven for thee”

Bud Robertson was born in Alabama, but it seems the whole clan moved to central Texas except his father, who died in Alabama in 1888, and older sister Susanna, whose birth in Alabama is the only thing I could find about her. Older sister Maggie is buried in Rochelle, Texas, 125 miles southwest of Tolar. I was startled to find that older sister Sarah is also buried in Tolar, but we didn’t see her headstone. Nancy, JD Robertson’s wife, is also buried there, but I did not see her headstone either. I may have to take another trip.

On Alcohol and Cooking

Yesterday, while eating at an Irish café in The Woodlands, our server offered the house specialty for dessert—bread pudding. As full as I was from the shepherd’s pie (delicious!), I was tantalized by the idea of dessert.

I love bread pudding. It falls into the category of desserts that I would term “poor people dessert.” These are usually the types of eats that are created when someone says, “We have a lot of _________ that is about to spoil. How about we mix it with sugar and some other ingredients and see what happens?” Bread pudding, rice pudding, banana bread, and cinnamon tortillas are all in that category, and I love all of them.

Despite my interest, I knew that I needed to ask questions, especially about the sauce the chef would use. In response to my query, the server confirmed my suspicion: the sauce was cooked using Jameson Irish whiskey. I decided to pass. I had ice cream in the freezer anyway.

Later, I started to wonder why I am so dead set against eating things cooked with alcohol. I’ve heard that alcohol evaporates during the cooking process. If that’s the case, why should I care? Why not enjoy the bread pudding?!

It all boils down (yes, I said it) to the argument that alcohol evaporates during the cooking process. When someone first told me this, I accepted it as true. But over time, I’ve wondered how this could be. Why would anyone pay for an ingredient, which is often expensive, if it completely cooks out? I assume they mean the alcohol itself cooks out, but the residual flavors remain. If that is the case, why not use the unadulterated flavors directly?

However, last night I decided that my logic was ill-informed. I am neither cook nor chemist. I didn’t want to succumb to fallacy, so I decided to investigate. It only took ten minutes on Google to find out that no, I was not making an incorrect assumption. Here, from FoodNetwork.com, which used research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

The longer you cook, the more alcohol cooks out, but you have to cook food for about 3 hours to fully erase all traces of alcohol. A study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data lab confirmed this and added that food baked or simmered in alcohol for 15 minutes still retains 40 percent of the alcohol. After an hour of cooking, 25 percent of the alcohol remains, and even after two and a half hours there’s still 5 percent of it. In fact, some cooking methods are less effective at removing alcohol than simply letting food stand out overnight uncovered.

Consider a Brandy Alexander pie made with 3 tablespoons of brandy and 1/4 cup of creme de cacao. According to data from the Washington Post, the pie retains 85 percent of the alcohol in these ingredients. Main dishes follow the same scenario. In scalloped oysters, for example, with 1/4 cup dry sherry poured over the works and then baked for 25 minutes, 45 percent of the alcohol remains.

There is obviously a lot of variation in the results, so I decided to look at a recipe for bread pudding with whiskey sauce. I found one, again on FoodNetwork.com, that shows whiskey is cooked in the sauce for a little less than ten minutes. By my estimates, 50–75% of the alcohol is still in the sauce.

This amazes me. I realize that, in cooking, we are dealing with relatively small amounts of alcohol. Furthermore, the recipe above serves 12 people. But to put this in perspective, a shot of whiskey is less than ¼ cup. That innocent seeming banana pudding recipe has four shots of whiskey in it, at least two of which are still there when the sauce is served. Yikes.

That settles it in my mind. Alcohol does not cook out. To pretend otherwise is a choice that I’m not going to make. But before I conclude, I’d like to touch on a point which is tangentially related, but is more pernicious and damaging.

Purchasing alcohol and supporting that entire industry is amoral. Consider that in the United States in 2016, over 10,000 people died in traffic deaths involving alcohol impairment (which equals more than 25% of traffic deaths overall), according to the CDC. Perhaps more startling, in terms of statistical correlation, is this: “At least half of sexual assaults among college students occur after the perpetrator, the victim, or both consume alcohol,” according to the National Institute of Justice.

These facts seem incontrovertible, yet somehow, they get ignored or explained away. I assume, in a conspiracy-wary sort of way, that the reasons are tied to money and/or corrupt legislators. Nonetheless, I’m talking about my personal decisions here. And personally, the consistently negative impact that consuming alcohol has on the human race is reason enough to pass up this small snack, no matter how tempting.

A (Short) Passage to India

The only thing Christie unequivocally liked: samosas.

“Yes, yes, come here. I have something very special for you,” the man called to us from his booth. He found willing customers: two shy white people in front of a row of Indian food booths, unsure of where to start our little afternoon jaunt at the Diwali festival. We were eager to be welcomed.

Before Saturday, my only experience with Diwali was from The Office, therefore my knowledge was sparse: don’t wear shoes, and don’t wear a Halloween costume. When Christie saw an event posting for a Diwali festival at a nearby Hindu temple, and that everyone was invited (read: white tourists welcome), we decided to pay a visit. After all, a benefit of living in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the U.S. is being able to enjoy the many wonderful cultures around the world (without even going to the airport).

The temple itself was nicely situated slightly back from the road, and, just like everything in The Woodlands, surrounded by thick tree growth. Behind the temple was an empty parking lot, which today served as the grounds of the bazaar. Small booths arranged in rows contained everything from sarees to jewelry to fine china. We gave these a cursory glance as we beelined toward the object of our visit: the food.

“You will like this very much,” the man at the booth continued. He smiled warmly and described his dish. As I often do when I encounter people from outside the Southwest U.S., I stopped listening to the content of his sentences and focused only on the charming way he spoke: sharply rolled R’s, veed W’s, and vowels that seemed to flow together in my ears.

From what I did catch, confirmed by later research, he had Dahi Vada, chickpea flour balls the size of bonbons, soaked in a cool yogurt. “It will keep your stomach very cool,” he explained, again with his comforting smile. It didn’t sound like anything I would every think to make, so we bought a bowl, along with some Pani Poori, and headed over to a table to eat.

After this radical start, we decided to go for something a little more familiar: samosas, the empanada of the East. (One of these days, I want to write a book about the curious way that cultures from all corners of the earth make a different version of the empanada.) Not to be confused with mimosas (which is a joke I had to explain to Christie), samosas are a delicious, savory-filled pastry that I’ve enjoyed before.

It was at this moment that I had the awful realization that I was already getting full. I cursed the complete breakfast I’d had that morning, and we decided to make our way to the dessert tables. Sadly, I haven’t acquired as much love for Indian dessert as I have their entrees. Boondi ke ladoo and mysore pak didn’t quite do it for me.

But oh, that gulab jamun—khoya dough rolled into balls and fried, then drenched in a rose/cardamom syrup…that hit the spot. I guess it isn’t that surprising that the dessert that appealed the most to me is basically a donut hole in syrup. Hey, I may enjoy seeing other cultures but I’m still white.

We were full, happy, and getting a little sweaty in the humid heat. After a brief stop at the performance stage (we were too early, and only saw a few dances by 7-year old kids), we decided we were done.