Tacos Are for Weekend Getaways

In the first few years of my professional life, when I worked full-time as a high school teacher, we had a name for the month that stretched endlessly from the adrenaline-laden excitement of the first few weeks of school to the state-sanctioned respite of Thanksgiving break: Black October. Black October means that the honeymoon period of a new year is over, but it'll be a good long while before any prolonged separation. Now, even though I work managing a non-profit site, I'm still in education and the workload and wild mood-swings of the high school environment haven't gotten any easier. What has gotten easier is my ability to take a mini-vacation. My girlfriend insisted we needed the break (and she's usually right). Marfa was considered, but tossed out as too far for a relaxing three-day weekend. We headed to Fredericksburg, a Hill Country hit that's remodeled itself as the heart of Texas' wine industry, a little more than an hour west of Austin.

For lunch on the way, we were seeking out the kind of home-style road-side diner that's too often been swallowed by a Denny's or a Cracker Barrel. We chose the Hill Country Cupboard in Johnson City:


The Hill Country Cupboard advertises itself along the side of the road as having the World's best chicken fried steak. Neither one of us were game for trying it, but I heard, as we were finishing up perfectly average plates of migas, an older woman clearly say, "that was the best chicken fried steak I've ever had!" That seems like a pretty bold claim to me but it's true that this is a part of the country where people eat a lot of chicken fried steak. Probably she knows what she's talking about. I swear there was a version on every menu I saw this weekend, but no other place claimed to be the World's best... just saying.

We stayed at the lovely and adorable Kerrine's Cottage through the Main Street Bed and Breakfast. My girlfriend was ready to move in, except that said cottage is located in Fredericksburg which is populated primarily with knick-knacks and 65+ tourists.


Getting breakfast delivered to your private cottage: very rock star.


And my goodness! That looks like a breakfast taco! Part of my delicious rock star breakfast included tasty potato, egg, sauted onions and peppers, and bits of bacon that I picked out of my tortilla before diving in. The eggs were the perfect consistency, juicy but not runny, and everything was deliciously flavorful, especially the salsa which had just the right tinge of cilantro. The tortilla was just so-so, but maybe that had more to do with the fact that it was delivered rather than served fresh, but the trade seemed worthwhile.

We also had a fabulous time sampling Fredericksburg's wine offerings from their own local winery to Lincoln Street, a wine bar that takes itself rather seriously and where I ate about a pound of delicious cheese and olives while getting tipsy on some very nice Italian Cabernet.


After the cheese (and giggling over Stephen Colbert's assertion that he can't eat a twelve-egg omelet every morning for breakfast because sometime in the future his heart will explode) we decided to move around a bit. About fifteen miles directly north of Fredericksburg is Enchanted Rock, a domed mound of exposed granite that's just begging to be climbed.




Tacos in the Hill Country? Tasty. Retirees? Plentiful. Chicken fried steak? Supposedly the best in the world, but heretofore untasted.