19 minute read
couples turn to mini-ceremonies to follow social distance rules
Listen Up, Movie Buff s
8 fi lm-themed podcasts from Texas to check out if you’re out of eye space
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BY KIKO MARTINEZ
If you’re a fi lm buff but need a break from streaming all those movies and TV shows during quarantine, here’s an idea: try downloading a movie podcast. Same goes if you’re looking for more cinematic insight but just aren’t ready to go back to the theater yet.
Plenty of Texans are pu ing together movie podcasts right now, giving us a wealth to choose from across the vast landscape of digital platforms. We’ve made things easy and compiled a list of some of great ones to start with.
The Contrarians
Hosts Julio Olivera and Alex Ma is have some unpopular opinions. Which is exactly why they’re worth listening to. Currently on its 108th episode, their Austin-based podcast takes pride in “trashing movies everyone loves and praising movies everyone hates.” In recent episodes, award-worthy fi lms such as Boyhood and Blue Velvet are put through the ringer, while a critical bomb like The Hangover III is celebrated. Olivera and Ma is just started their series “Summer of Winona [Ryder],” so listen in if you want to hear why they think Beetlejuice doesn’t star the ghost with the most.
Delfi nPod
Fans of mainstream and blockbuster fare might want to tune in to the three diff erent active podcasts under the San Antonio-based Defi nPod network created by Emmanuel Delfi n. On the most prolifi c of those, Revenge of the Sequel — now on its 124th episode — Delfi n and crew chat about movies including Zombieland 2: Double Tap and Scream 4. Then there’s Countdown to Infi nity and Countdown to Skywalker where the topics of discussion are movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the entire Star Wars catalog, including that Baby Yoda show nerds seem to like.
Get Your Geek On
The San Antonio-based podcast Talkin’ Geek produced by Get Your Geek On, isn’t exclusively about movies, but the team of podcasters cover plenty of fanboy cinema, including Star Wars and Marvel properties, in addition to comic book and video game news. Recently, host Robert Haley said the group wants to take the podcast in a new direction and announced they won’t return with a new episode until pandemic restrictions eased up and they could get back in their studio. So, for now, push pause on these padawans.
How Have You Not Seen This?
From their living room in Houston, husband and wife Daniel and Tracy Carlson introduce each other to movies that one of them has seen and can’t believe the other hasn’t. The podcast has been going strong since late last year, and the couple has so far screened anything from Rosemary’s Baby to Four Weddings and a Funeral. During their most recent episode, Tracy shares 1983’s Valley Girl with her hubby, who enjoyed the rom-com’s poppy soundtrack and time-travel aspect, even if he found the screenplay far from tripendicular.
Mad About Movies
Now in its seventh year, this Dallas-based podcast is hosted by Emmy-winning producer Kent Garrison, fi lm critic Brian Gill and humorist Richard Bardon. Recently, the trio has been on a bad-movie binge, devoting an episode to the Will Smith debacle After Earth and a conversation about 1995’s Theodore Rex, which the podcast calls “the Casablanca of family-focused, science-fi ction, talking-dino movies set in the future that also star Whoopi Goldberg.” There has to be an Oscar for something like that, right?
Videodrome Cinema
Fairly new to the podcast game, this San Antonio-based show includes movie reviews, discussions and retrospectives from hosts Chris Lowell, Lionel Mendez and Nicholas Bass. Episodes cover a wide range of fi lm topics — from 1992’s Belgian black comedy Man Bites Dog to a couple of shows dedicated to the hosts’ favorite movie villains. Earlier this year, Videodrome Cinema went full meta when they reviewed their namesake, David Cronenberg’s 1983 cult classic Videodrome.
Laura Bustos
MMembers of the San Antonio-based CineSnob podcast record an episode.
It probably wasn’t as scary as the experience they had a few weeks later when they reviewed Cats.
Why Was This EVER Cool?
Hosts Cody Green and Shayla Williams are here to destroy your childhood. The Houston-based podcast, which just hit its 100-episode milestone in March, features a conversation about a movie the duo liked when they were kids. Green and Williams rewatch the fi lm, usually from the ’80s or ’90s, then ponder their podcast’s title question. In a recent episode, they revisit director Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet and brand it a “disasterpiece.”
CineSnob
Podcasters and fi lm critics Cody Villafana and Jerrod Kingery at San Antonio-based CineSnob.net run the weekly CineSnob Podcast, now on its 163rd episode of reviewing recent theatrical and VOD releases. The pair’s other podcasts include Re: MCU, in which they rewatch and reevaluate Marvel movies, and Quaranstream, during which guests such as actor Greg Sestero (The Room) talking about the pandemic’s impact on the entertainment industry. The show ends with everyone trading streaming recommendations for those lonely quarantine nights. Full disclosure: This writer is the founder and editor of CineSnob.net.
Other notable Texas movie podcasts include After the Credits, Customers Also Watched, Double Toasted, Highly Suspect Reviews and Junkfood Cinema, all from Austin. Houston also boasts GUTS, Texas Podcast Massacre and Houston, We Have a Podcast, while Dallas represents with Reel Me In.
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Find more fi lm stories at sacurrent.com
Slow Start
San Antonio restaurants are reopening their dining rooms. Without fi nancial help, how many can survive?
BY LEA THOMPSON
After weeks of inactivity, the familiar sounds of servers refi lling water glasses and fl atware clanking against plates are returning to the dining rooms of San Antonio restaurants.
On May 1, Texas Gov. Greg Abbo allowed eateries statewide to reopen their dining areas at 25% capacity, but restaurant owners and their employees are facing a struggle to survive, much less return to normal.
“We reopened now so we could stay in the game,” said Jean Francois Poujol, owner of SoHill Café in Beacon Hill. “If we closed everything and waited any longer, it would be even harder to restart. We’re just months into 2020, but it’s going to take at least a year for us to recover from all of this.”
Poujol recently reopened the Italian restaurant, permi ing dining at fi ve indoor tables. In keeping with state safety guidelines, he replaced laminated menus with disposable ones, added hand-sanitizer stations and implemented social distancing practices, such as spacing tables six feet apart.
Even after those moves, the bulk of SoHill’s business still comes from curbside, delivery and to-go orders. What’s more, the Italian eatery’s connected sister restaurant Julia’s Bistro remains closed.
“Following the regulations is easy. The hardest part is not knowing what happens next, not knowing how to welcome customers back,” Poujol said. “Some people are so scared to venture outside, which I understand. Others are excited, but it’s hard to tell and hard to make people feel really welcome with a mask on.”
When the stay-at-home order was announced in March, many local eateries simply shut down. Others pivoted to new business models, transforming into makeshift mercados or launching delivery and curbside services.
But every facet of industry felt the economic pinch from COVID-19, even the city’s most established restaurant groups. Los Barrios Enterprises, which operates busy San Antonio dining establishment, had to layoff 200 employees.
Los Barrios has received a Paycheck Protection Program loan, struck a deal to produce ready-to-eat meals for H-E-B grocery stores and hired back nearly 100 employees. Even so, CEO Louis Barrios said he’s worried about the future.
food
“If we can’t get our [trained] employees back, we’re not going to be able to serve the customers in a timely manner. If employees wait until their unemployment runs out to come back to work, then they might not have a restaurant to come back to,” he said. “There will be restaurants that go broke. Are the 200 we hire going to be our previous employees or someone who was smart and came back when the restaurants started to pick up? That’s where all the tension lies at this point.”
Local chefs and owners are looking to local, state and federal offi cials for help that extends beyond new safety regulations and PPP funds. Chef Lisa Astorga-Watel, who recently reopened Bistr09 in Alamo Heights for limited indoor and patio dining, worries that restaurants are facing a long and lonely road to economic recovery.
“There may need to be more fi nancial support packages, as the PPP just passes on funds to workers and landlords but doesn’t do anything for the overhead of a small business by itself,” she said. “There’s nothing really available to those employees who don’t qualify for unemployment. All we can do is feed them.”
The Bistr09 staff is doing what it can to move forward, focusing on ambiance, safety and hospitality to maintain patrons’ dining experiences. But employees are working under a cloud of uncertainty. Will more people begin to show up for dinner? When will residents feel safe returning to dining rooms?
Sanford Nowlin M Jean Francois Poujol says it will take at least a year for his restaurant to recover from the crisis.
“It won’t ma er if they increase the restaurant capacity to 50% if no one shows up,” Astorga-Watel said.
San Antonio’s COVID-19 Economic Transition Team recently shared its recommendations for safe business reopenings. Those include new marketing plans, a proposal for the city and county to help provide protective equipment for small businesses and the new “Greater. SAfer. Together.” campaign to inspire public confi dence.
Still, many San Antonio restaurateurs caution that it’s not enough. The industry has long operated on razor-thin margins, and COVID-19 has exposed its unsustainability. Owners are now looking to San Antonio offi cials for additional fi nancial relief options, business support and leadership.
“I would like to hear more from the city – not just what to do for now, but like a plan for businesses to get out of this,” SoHill’s Pujol said. “We’re all losing money, and businesses are going bankrupt. No one is ge ing out of this unscathed. What can we do to make sure that our businesses can survive? Time is an issue here. I still haven’t received my disaster loan. At fi rst, they said it would arrive in a few days, now it’s been weeks. Every day makes a diff erence.”
Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com
The Take Away: Braunda Smith Lucy Cooper’s Texas Icehouse owner’s approach is ‘weird but it works’ BY NINA RANGEL
Name: Braunda Smith Job/Title: Executive chef and owner of Lucy Cooper’s Texas Icehouse Birthplace: Alabama Years in Bar Industry: “A lady never tells.” Impact: Brought funky, laid-back charm to the Northside Money quote: “When people think of Chef Lucy, I want them to think funky Southern and goddamn delicious.”
Tell us about your background, and how you got where you are today.
I guess I have quite the story to tell. I started my path in cosmetology, then went on to the medical fi eld, eventually taking a break to be a military wife and travel the world, raising my babies. Cooking was always a passion, and then I learned that I could make money selling cheesecakes and catering small events for military spouses — and that was all it took for me to follow the food to the money. About 15 years ago, I got back in the service industry, working, learning and absorbing every single aspect if how this business runs. I like to call that time “Bar University.” From a smidge and pinch of all of my experience, Lucy Cooper was born.
How are you coping with the eff ects of the shutdown on your business? Tequila?
Honestly, I have been taking this time to reconnect with my kids and ge ing my home in order. My husband and I are complete workaholics, typically working seven days a week, 12-plus hours a day for years. I have been cooking with my girls and teaching them so many of my secret recipes. We fi nally fi nished unpacking our home after four years, and I think Jesse and I are on quarantine project No. 15, doing li le things around the house. I made the mistake of bringing the label maker home, so my whole house is labeled and organized. I think we have kept too busy at home to really fall into what could be a very dark place of worrying about the things we have zero control over, like the possibility of our business being shut down and no real clear idea of reopening.
What do you wish more people understood about your approach to food and drink?
My approach to food is pre y unique. I have this saying, “It’s weird, but it works!” I think my time in so many diff erent places, learning the culture and foods of diff erent regions, gives me a unique perspective on combinations that one might not think of ever pu ing together. Also, if you have ever had a conversation with me you know how Southern I am. There’s no ge ing away from that. When people think of Chef Lucy, I want them to think funky Southern and goddamn delicious.
What’s your favorite thing about being in the hospitality business?
I love feeding people! I love the warm fuzzies that I get when I have poured my heart and soul into a dish and I can see a guest and know that I have made their tummy smile. I love going out [to the dining room] and talking to the guests. Everyone has a story, and when they share their story with you over your food, nothing compares to that feeling.
What made you decide to limit accessibility to Lucy Cooper’s to guests who are 21 and up?
Jesse and I have six kids, so we know how precious those moments of adult time can be. There are so many places out there that have blurred the line between bar and restaurant. Our goal was to make Lucy’s the place to go feed your soul with some great food, and you could feel free to just be an adult without the kiddos around. Braunda Smith
Do you have any words of wisdom for people thinking about going into business with their signifi cant other?
Jesse and I have literally been connected at the hip from the moment we met. We have tried to go into other fi elds of work, away from each other, but somehow those separate projects always managed to bring us back together. We are the exception to the rule — together 24 hours a day and happy as clams. We are defi nitely be er together.
What’s next for you?
I think we will spend the foreseeable future just trying to navigate these uncharted waters as we deal with our new normal. My wish is that we all just fi nd a way to be kind to each other as we do that. None of us are going to know the 100% right things to do, and if anything is true about the restaurant business, it’s that no ma er what we do, it will be wrong in someone’s eye. I think what’s next for me is to continue to move forward with the growth of Lucy’s and just being me.
La Hora Del Vermut
It’s time for Texas to embrace Spain’s vermouth happy hours
BY RON BECHTOL
For all of Spain’s manifest contributions to the world’s cultural catalog — think Cervantes, Goya and Gaudí, for example — food and drink are strangely under-represented.
Oh, yes, there’s gazpacho, the occasional paella, and who can forget the recent craze in which anything served in small portions qualifi ed as a “tapa.” But let’s face it, Spain: in American minds, you’re no Italy.
That oversight is a shame, though, because there are so many ways we could be inspired by the country’s rich culinary history. No, I’m not going to toot the sherry trumpet one more time. Its virtues are many and varied, and the drink deserves a much wider audience. But the stuff ’s a hard sell hereabouts.
I am, however, going to take a stab at vermouth, a beverage that seems uniquely suited to Texas.
For the record, vermouth is a wine minimally fortifi ed with brandy or a neutral spirit and bolstered with fl avorings derived from roots, barks and other botanicals, one of which was traditionally vermut, (wormwood), as the Germans would have it. Sweet, red vermouths are generally thought to have originated in Italy, while France claims the white, and usually drier, version. It’s the red that the Spanish have generally embraced, turning it into a tradition that celebrates its versatility in La Hora del Vermut: The Hour of Vermouth.
As initially celebrated in fusty bodegas in Barcelona and Madrid, and more lately during a kind of renaissance replacing the gin-tonic craze in so-called vermuterias across the country, vermouth hours take place as a warmup to lunch. As lunchtime traditionally doesn’t start before 2 p.m., that means you could begin at around noon with a tall tumbler of vermouth poured over ice, garnished with olives and orange wheels, and served with, say, potato chips and briny bits of seafood.
You’ve got to love a culture that has you prepare the palate for lunch with drink and light snacks and again for dinner with more drink and tapas. We could be doing this here, folks, though I’ll be the fi rst to admit that before dinner is likely easier to imagine than pre-lunch, given our eat-and-run tendencies.
So, what do you say to joining me at 5 p.m. for La Hora Texana del Vermut? Call it a happy hour with a Spanish accent, if that helps.
In Spain, we’d be drinking Spanish red vermouth, and I happen to have three on hand: Vermu Lustau and Vermouth La Copa González Byass, both from sherry country, and Vino Vermut Lacuesta Rojo from Haro at the northern tip of the Rioja wine region near Bilbao.
The la er is the lighter of the trio but it’s no less complex. Neither sweet nor dry, it’s said to be com
posed of “almost 30 diff erent herbs, spices and aromatic plants … macerated in white wine.” Cinnamon and gentian notes stand out to me, along with a whiff of coff ee. The light bi erness on the fi nish makes it especially refreshing over ice with orange and a spear of rosemary. An optional splash of Topo Chico brings it all into the New World.
Of course, we aren’t actually drinking in Spain, so there’s no rule that says we have to down locally produced vermouth. Italy boasts numerous versions, so let’s go there. Many of you may already know the widely available Martini & Rossi, a classic component of cocktails such as the Manha an. The craft cocktail movement in the U.S. has also brought the deeper and richer Carpano Antica Formula to our a ention. That one is my favorite in a Negroni. Not as old as Carpano, which dates back to 1786, but still venerable at nearly 130 years is Cocchi Vermouth di Torino.
Cocchi’s back label boasts “rich and vibrant notes of cocoa, citrus, rhubarb and a balanced bi er undertone.” I got the cocoa and a whiff of rhubarb, but I was more tuned into what I will call cola notes — and these suggested a diff erent kind of garnish. Inspired by Cherry Coke — or a Manha an without the bourbon or rye — I squeezed a quarter of a lemon over the ice, added the Cocchi, then threaded some Luxardo cocktail cherries on a bamboo skewer and dipped it down into the glass. More Topo followed. Worked for me.
Que viva la España!
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