Costuming a Barbarian at Texas Renaissance Festival

Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF for short) runs every year during October and November in Todd Mission, Texas (just north of Houston).  There is something for everyone!  Costuming, jousting and other shows, shopping for handcrafts, festival eating, people watching, and wine/mead drinking.  As a casual costumer, I try to play along with their themed weekends (Oktoberfest, […]

Champagne Jell-O Shots: Sidecar Cocktail

I rarely drink anything other than wine.  I like scotch on occasion, but my go-to cocktail is the sidecar.  This brandy/cognac based cocktail originated some time in the 1920s during Prohibition.  Rather than just order sidecars at bars, I sometimes ask “can you make a sidecar?” and heavily scrutinize the bartender’s reaction.  Most bartenders immediately […]