tmariar

I know that a number of stores in town do private shopping events - i.e., allow a group or organization to come in to shop when the store would normally be closed. Often these are done as a fundraiser for the group, and the store will kick in a small percentage of its sales. I've gotten invitations to these, but usually from places geared toward women. Dress shops, purse stores, jewelry stores, etc. Does anyone know of any Houston stores that have done private shopping events in the past that weren't geared primarily toward women? I was thinking along the lines of a store selling books, or specialty foods, or cooking accessories, or something like that. But any suggestion would be appreciated, especially if you know the store has had such an event in the past. Thanks in advance.

That's good news - I was wondering if it was still going to happen.

This was a very nice event. The organizers did a great job. The Irvin House (1927 - Joseph Finger) has been beautifully maintained. I hadn't been to Morgan's Point in years - or to LaPorte. for that matter. I've got to plan a trip during the day to get a better look at the Sterling Mansion and LaPorte's Main Street. A number of talented people have gotten involved in the West Mansion preservation efforts. The updates were all positive, but Preserved in Time still has a long way to go to raise the money it needs, and needs all the help it can get.

Benvenuto, Mrs. Porchman!

That was really fun, y'all - thanks for coming out!

Thanks! I think we're five yes's total from PM's, with perhaps a maybe or two above - so, even if it's just us, it should be a good little group for a short-notice Weds.

I think it was absolutely the temperance movement, which was very much (though of course not exclusively) a women's movement. And the advertisers knew that the readers of a cookbook were going to be mostly women. Who could not vote in an election, but could vote with their household allowance. I'll look later to see if I can find anything about the status of the temperance movement in Houston at that time. EDIT: January 1905: "In Texas, our local option law has given us 'government by injunction,' 'blind tigers' and a 'jug trade,' which even enemies of the liquor traffic consider about as bad as the well regulated saloon. Not only so. The local option law, which we agree is essentially democratic, is said to be driving population and business away from the smaller places to the larger cities." June 1905: "During recent years the brewing industry has been the objective point of attack from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and I was requested to give the result of the campaign of education commenced two years ago by the Texas Brewer's Association, which undertook to prove the inefficiency of prohibition and local option as a temperance movement. It was an easy task, as there are numerous indisputable proofs of large increased consumption of alcoholic liquors in all local option districts." August 1905 (Fort Worth): "A temperance mass meeting, attended by probably 250 persons, about half of whom were ladies, was held in the auditorium of the City Hall this afternoon." The women's page of the Galveston paper at the time (called "The Woman's Century") included a regular column called "W. C. T. U." A sample piece from 1907: "One of the most important resolutions adopted by the National [WCTU] at the recent convention was one protesting against the custom of many magazines of describing their hero in glowing terms as holding between his lips an elegant cigar or cigarette while a charming woman sits by casting adoring glances at him as he holds the glistening glass filled with wine. They fail to say that at one end of the chain there is the cut-glass goblet and at the other the drunkard's grave."

That wasn't meant to discourage you. They've got mixed nuts, a cheese and sausage plate, hummus... things like that. But you always bring good snacks! The drinks are good - lots of cocktails - but not super cheap. Marfreless has been there since at least 1972 - not many Houston bars can say that. In 1968, it was the River Oaks Colonial Club, which may explain the mural over the bar. It's in the same building as the River Oaks Theatre, and will be gone if/when Weingarten tears down the theater.

Cool. They actually have some pretty decent food there, too.

Thanks, Alpha - sorry, didn't realize about your grandmother.

Sorry - don't mean to cut in on the Red Bluff discussion, but I only just saw the posts re Hot Wells. Also, there's a recent Houstorian post about Highland Park, an amusement park located on the property that is now Woodland Park in the Heights. If either of y'all have any information I could add to the Houstorian post, please let me know. Even just informal memories from you (LeeinMT) or your grandmother (Alpha), would be fun to add.

Musicman has broken my heart one too many times - I can't go down that road again. EDIT: Good lord, M - 9,350 posts? Quick, write 650 more so we can drink a toast to 10,000 on Wednesday.

Musicman, Crunchtastic, and I - and possibly others - are meeting for drinks tomorrow after work. Please join us if you're free. Date/Time: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 5:30pm (until 7 or later) Place: Marfreless (downstairs) - go here for location (it's near the River Oaks Theatre) and a photo of the entrance If it's your first time or you don't recognize anyone, just ask the bartender where the HAIF folks are.

From this week's building permits and liquor license applications, it looks like: (1) There's a new bar planned for 5219 Washington ("ADDITION AND CONVERT RETAIL TO BAR") - The Reddi Room moved to this location in 1995 - I was out of town then, but I think it must have closed soon after. Looks like there was a Viviana's Nite Club there in 1998, but its liquor license expired in 2006. (2) The Dubliner applied for a Liquor License (under the name "Auld Dubliner") (3) Busty LaRue's license application is still pending (4) The Social is adding a kitchen ("BAR/LOUNGE BLDG ADDITION FOR KITCHEN")

Interesting... in checking to see who all was part of the Foley family, I found this mention - which I'm going to cut liberally so I don't have to type out a lot of hard-to-read names: 9/29/06, Houston - Thursday evening there was a delightful automobile ride arranged for the pleasure of Miss Estelle Dunlap of Waxahachie, who is the guest of Mrs. Ray Weiss. A Dutch supper supplemented the enjoyment of the occasion, those participating being Miss Dunlap, . . . and Mr. Howard Hughes. The list of those participating in the automobile party given by Miss Rose Foley and Miss Blanche Foley Thursday evening included . . . Mr. W.L. Foley, Misses Foley . . . Messrs. . . . Henry Stude, . . . Pat Foley, . . . John Foley . . . . I think they were two different automobile rides, but it was interesting seeing Hughes pop up. Anyhow, the above isn't conclusive on the Foley issue. I'll look more. UPDATE: So the next article I found suggests that the John Foley mentioned above was not necessarily John J. Foley - there was at least one other John Foley in town (sadly, the Galveston paper archive ignores middle initials in name searches). It was an article I'd already seen researching the Donnellan crypt. In January 1900, Bishop N.A. Gallagher sued to recover property at Caroline and Franklin that had been claimed "by the Donnellan heirs." The defendants named in the suit included some Donnellans, some Kennedys, John Kennedy Foley, Rosa Lee Foley, Blanche Foley, and some others. The disocese was challenging a deed by which the Donnelly heirs claimed possession. The article noted: "This case will resurrect some musty old records that have slumbered in the county clerk's office for about half a century. This property was once operated by the buildings of St. Joseph's Infirmary, which was destroyed by fire." Still looking. Saw a February 1901 reference to John J. Foley in a jury list. Nope - never saw anything beyond what's listed above suggesting a connection between John J. Foley and William L. Foley or the Foley Brothers.

Phone numbers: Both Houston and Galveston got a new telephone system around that time. The telephone system that Galveston had in 1904 required users to call the operator in order to make a call, whereas the new system just required the user to lift the receiver. The new system also used "composite wires" that would carry multiple calls, so that calls would not be interrupted or blocked by other users on the same wire. The article I saw said that the new system would require all new equipment at every point from the central exchange to the phone itself. No mention of new telephone numbers, but it wouldn't be that strange for that to be part of it. And if the equipment was all new, it makes sense that the old numbers could/would be left in place during the transition, as long as they were identified as old numbers. I bet they'd know for sure at the telephone museum. Ads/Addresses: There are tons of old advertisements in the online archive of the Galveston newspaper (at newspaperarchive.com), which displays as OCR'd pdf's. There are usually a few Houston ads as well, but when I do address searches I tend to find them more often in news articles (the Galveston paper had a Houston office and had a page for Houston news). You can also get addresses from the city directories in the library, of course. Don't know if y'all saw it, but the cookbook included an ad for Otto Vogt's Lone Star Market, which someone asked about a month ago. I thought that was a funny coincidence. Food: One thing I'd like to know is what is "wenget", one of the recipes in the cake section. I haven't gotten anywhere trying to find out. I mean, the recipe is in the cookbook, so I know what goes into it. I'm just wondering if it was a made-up name or a recognized dish of some sort. I was also surprised there weren't more fish recipes, especially (but not only) given there were so many oyster recipes. And I found it interesting that pecan pie had not yet made its mark in the area, despite the apparent popularity of pie and abundance of pecans. I didn't put this in the summary, but in doing a little research, I saw that in that time period Lap Cake orders were often taken by Catholic churches around Thankgiving, so that people could pick up their cakes at church a few weeks later in time for Christmas. Glad others found the book as interesting as I did.

My surprise was really more that those recipes were included in a cookbook of that era... I knew Mexcian and Cajun/Creole foods had their place in Houston from the get-go, but to the extent I'd thought about it, I guess I'd always thought of those dishes as being made by restaurants or street vendors back then. Nice to know they were being served at home as well, and not just in Mexican and Cajun/Creole homes. I noticed a number of German dishes, too.

Thought some of y'all might be interested in this, if you hadn't seen it already: Google Books has uploaded a copy of a 1906 cookbook published by the Houston Civic Club. It gives some great insight into how Houstonians were cooking and eating a century ago. If you don't want to click through all the pages, there's a summary of the different recipes included here. I was a little surprised - but only a little - to see things like chili, jambalaya, and gumbo appearing in a Houston cookbook that early.

1906 advertisement:

My thinking precisely. Oh good! I noticed the other day that, of the three article links that had the all-time highest numbers of clicks, two were to articles written by HAIF members. (And if Alison Cook is a HAIF member, then all three.) Well, if anyone does think of anything I should add, just let me know. Doesn't have to be a restaurant, bar, historic house, park, or whatever. Could be a big chicken, a Lombard Lamp (a gift from the city of Hamburg, as it turns out), a community vegetable garden, or something like that...

Thanks to both of y'all. Some of the photos are ok, some not so great. I've been following the any-picture-is-better-than-no-picture philosophy.

I saw a few comments above about this song... I like it, though I heard the Visage cover first and didn't realize it was a cover for a long time. The cover is no less creepy.

Thanks! I've been wondering about Flores' - whether it changed into Lone Star Culinary Spice Market. Maybe they're not connected, though, and there are just two spice shops very close to each other.

A few weeks ago, I made public a Heights-themed blog that I'd been keeping privately for a while for myself and a few friends in the area. It started out mostly as a list of Heights-area bars and restaurants (because I can never remember the places I want to try when it comes time to choose), and then I started adding on to it for friends who were new to the Heights and wanted to know about things to see/do close to them. I didn't really do any write-ups for the places listed, which would be too time-consuming for me - I just linked to others' write-ups, yelp, b4-u-eat, etc. In fact, on an ongoing basis, about all I've been doing is updating posts with new links I see (the most recently updated posts are on the front page). When I have more time, I've been adding new posts or photos. That's all I really have time to do. Anyhow, it's become an ongoing project and I figured it might be useful to others. The posts are categorized in three different ways: (1) by generic categories such as "restaurants" or "bars" or "shops" or whatever; (2) by some random tags like "BYOB", "art", "delivery", "patios", "trees", "steak night", "1880's", or whatever; and (3) "walk/ride" categories like "Norhill" or "Houston Heights SE" or "Studewood" or "Shady Acres" or "Durham" - geographic areas where you might take a walk or ride a bike. It's by no means comprehensive - it gets especially spotty in certain parts of what I've deemed to be the "Heights area" (which I defined pretty broadly) with which I'm not very familiar - like the Ella and T.C. Jester areas. That said, if you have time to check out the blog sometime and let me know if I've missed anything really great on your street or in your neck of the woods, if one of my tag lists is incomplete, or if I missed something good to use as a link (I try to link to HAIF threads when I can - but it's often hard to do because most HAIF topics cover a lot of places) - anything like that would be helpful. Constructive criticism is great, too, though I can already think of a dozen things that would make the blog better that I don't know when I'll have time to do... like add map links to all the addresses.

P - Please don't trouble yourself if it's too much bother, but I'd love to see just a list of the spots they covered. I've got my own list of Heights-area restaurants and am always looking for ways to check its completeness.