15 December 2001
Multicultural Saturday
This shaping up to be a very multicultural Saturday. I just returned from a trip that began with lunch at Darband's Shishkabob, an excellent little Iranian hole-in-the-wall cafe that Robb Walsh (one of the best damn writers in Houston) reviewed this week. Unlike some of my displaced Houston friends, I'd never tried Darband's before, although our offices used to be located not that far away. The food is excellent, and cheap! I ordered the lamb shishkabob, and Callie had the beef shishkabob, and we shared hummus and yogurt/cucumber. We wound up trading food (I preferred the beef, Callie the lamb -- hard to tell which one of us is of Greek descent and which one of us grew up in the cattle country of Oklahoma, huh?). Several hours later, I'm still stuffed. Yum! And for all of 13 bucks. Yep, 13 American dollars. Amazing.
The entire area sort of reminded me of some of the seedier parts of London (particularly a Pakistani area that is located along the old haunts of Jack the Ripper), because the strip centers along this particular stretch of Hillcroft are just lined with Indian and Pakistani and other middle eastern/central Asian hole-in-the-wall style cafes, and most seem to be both authentic and cheap.
Afterwards, I ventured to the Heights for a haircut. The Heights is my second favorite area of Houston after Montrose, and is a multicultural experience in its own right. I had never been to the shop I went to today, as the lady who cuts my hair had just moved there. I don't know what to say about it, other than it's a typical Heights joint -- which will have meaning for Houstonians and displaced Houstonians.
I drove by the Chinese consulated on my way home, and was pleased to see the yellow-shirted protestors out front. It's been a while since I've seen them, and I wondered if they had given up. They haven't. One of these days, I need to have my digital camera with me to capture the whole thing.
One of our friends is having a holiday party this year, thankfully the only such party I'm going to wind up attending this year. She's having Trish Murphy and Mary Cutrufello come in to perform, which is excellent. Our friend is very involved with a local charity, and her charge for "admission" is to bring a toy for a teen (the charity runs a children's home). That strikes me as a wonderfully beneficent and thoughtful thing to do. And much more effective than, say, donating afghans to Afghans (or some such nonsense).
So in total today, we have: Iranian culture, Heights culture, Montrose-Chinese culture, and Texas-music culture. I think the Dallas suburbs have a little catching up to do (though they ARE good at trumpeting themselves).
Addendum (4:58 pm): I just returned from a trip to UH necessitated by the discovery of an overdue interlibrary loan book. The trip through the Third Ward counts as an additional multicultural experience!
[Posted @ 03:36 PM CST]
