Houston - 2014 | Andokides' Porch

Houston, TX - 2014

Following trips to New Orleans and to Tallahassee, I had a weekend at home before heading for Houston. Since 2010, my friend Sharon and I have had our annual date at the Houston Grand Opera, one of the country’s great opera companies. Thus far, we’ve shared three Britten operas, “Tristan und Isolde,” and “Das Rhinegold,” beginning a Wagner Ring Cycle.

Though the opera is the focal point of these trips, Sharon and I always have an outing. Sometimes she introduces me to parts of her city, including one of the most amazing grocery stores I’ve ever seen, Central Market, which on our visit, impressed me with the $98/pound proscuitto, among other things. We’ve also spent an afternoon with our cameras at the beautiful Cockrell Butterfly Center, park of the Houston Museum of Natural History.

Sometimes, we set out based on something I’ve read about Houston, usually involving food, and Sharon and I discover together some part of her city. Such was the case this year when, on the suggestion of a friend who knew my passion for bakery, suggested El Bolillo, as it turns out, one of the most spectacular Mexican bakeries I’ve ever visited, right up with Mi Tierra in Old San Antonio.

The main location for El Bolillo is in a neighborhood in Houston known as The Heights, a thriving market and restaurant area, primarily Hispanic, but also the home to the famous Canino Produce Company, a 20,000 square-foot produce market, and the Houston Farmer’s Market, an open-air bazaar featuring castanets, produce, house keeping supplies, christening dresses, and elaborate piñatas. Across the street from El Bolillo, we visited an amazing spice shop, all manner of spices and herbs in bulk, a greater variety than I have ever seen gathered in one place, and the most amazing selection of chili powders.

“Rhinegold” was spectacular--an arresting new production by a Spanish team, giants in contraptions that looked like they’d been made of old bumpers from 1960s-era Buicks, a moving, living mass of gold, and an amazing finale in which some thirty local gymnasts suspended from the ceiling and each other, close in a circle around the gods, the tower of Valhalla. I eagerly anticipate next year’s “Die Walküre.”

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