Read Online Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins by Ellen Sweets - Free Book Online
Authors: Ellen Sweets
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veal, onions, herbs, bell pepper, celery, garlic, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce. The remaining vestiges of guilt over my dinner party absence earlier the week before vaporized concurrent with aromas of a baking meat loaf.
As the meat loaf rested, Molly whisked together lemon juice, garlic, and vinegar, incorporating a raw egg yolk and chopped anchovies into the olive oil.
It was a perfect birthday dinner: Caesar salad, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, baby green beans, and a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. As a special Molly treat I even had those candles that always relight no matter how hard you blow.
The year 2003 was memorable for another reason, though: Mollyâs cancer was back. Thank goodness for her Travis Heights friends and neighbors.
Say âTravis Heightsâ to locals today and they know youâre talking high-dollar real estate. Nice lawns. Nice landscaping. Hybrid cars. Taxes through the roof. At least one chocolate Lab, standard poodle, golden retriever, or some designer or rescue dog on every third porch.
Not so in the early â90s. Hookers trolled the intersection of Live Oak and Congress Avenue, almost right around the corner from Mollyâs house. The only neighborhood theater was on South Congress, and it showed triple-X movies all day and half the night.
South by Southwest, now one of the worldâs premier music events, was in its early gestational stage. Nothing much legal happened south of Riverside Drive, save for thrift shops, an occasional restaurant, the iconic Austin Motel, the old Hotel San Jose and the equally iconic Continental Club, whose musical attractions worked their way from â50s supper club status to â60s burlesque (remember Candy Barr?) through the blues, swing, rock, and rockabilly sounds of the â70s and â80s.
In short, the area in those early days had a quasi-seedy, kinda cool, funky, edgy look and feel. Artists and musicians sought out the neighborhood because it was affordable. Prescient entrepreneurs knew, to quote â60s R&B singer Sam Cooke, a change was gonna come. The area now has a quasi-edgy, fauxfunky, expensive look and feel. Molly moved into her house in the 1980s when it was a compact little bungalow on a spacious corner lot. Financing was made possible by the enormous success of
Molly Ivins Canât Say That, Can She?
Nothing like having a runaway hit spend a year on the
New York Times
best-seller list to underwrite a first-time home purchase.
As successive books followed suit, Molly had to do something with her money besides shell it out in taxes or give it away, more often than not without benefit of tax breaks. She decided one way to get relief was to buy a bigger house.
By the time she made the decision, however, she discovered that housing values and their attendant prices had escalated beyond her proletarian sensibilities. Besides, she liked her neighborhood. Sheâd become accustomed to the house where she had written the columns that catapulted her to even greater fame through syndication.
For what she would have paid for a newer, bigger house in a ânicerâ neighborhood, she could add on, expand to her specifications, and stay right where she wasâespecially since her neighborhood was getting nicer anyway.
Before the Great Renovation, a curvy stone walkway led to an entrance set back some twenty yards from the street. The addition featured a semi-secluded driveway leading to a front door that opened onto a garden room.
A pond to the immediate left was stocked with koi. Among the plants thriving in the humid atrium were dill, thyme, basil, and chives. A skylight allowed just enough filtered sun to keep the plants happy. An automated watering system maintained proper humidity for trees, shrubs, and bromeliads.
Just when there seemed to be nothing else to add, Molly installed a five-foot-tall birdcage that housed four pairs of lovebirds. Every now and again she would
As the meat loaf rested, Molly whisked together lemon juice, garlic, and vinegar, incorporating a raw egg yolk and chopped anchovies into the olive oil.
It was a perfect birthday dinner: Caesar salad, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, baby green beans, and a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. As a special Molly treat I even had those candles that always relight no matter how hard you blow.
The year 2003 was memorable for another reason, though: Mollyâs cancer was back. Thank goodness for her Travis Heights friends and neighbors.
Say âTravis Heightsâ to locals today and they know youâre talking high-dollar real estate. Nice lawns. Nice landscaping. Hybrid cars. Taxes through the roof. At least one chocolate Lab, standard poodle, golden retriever, or some designer or rescue dog on every third porch.
Not so in the early â90s. Hookers trolled the intersection of Live Oak and Congress Avenue, almost right around the corner from Mollyâs house. The only neighborhood theater was on South Congress, and it showed triple-X movies all day and half the night.
South by Southwest, now one of the worldâs premier music events, was in its early gestational stage. Nothing much legal happened south of Riverside Drive, save for thrift shops, an occasional restaurant, the iconic Austin Motel, the old Hotel San Jose and the equally iconic Continental Club, whose musical attractions worked their way from â50s supper club status to â60s burlesque (remember Candy Barr?) through the blues, swing, rock, and rockabilly sounds of the â70s and â80s.
In short, the area in those early days had a quasi-seedy, kinda cool, funky, edgy look and feel. Artists and musicians sought out the neighborhood because it was affordable. Prescient entrepreneurs knew, to quote â60s R&B singer Sam Cooke, a change was gonna come. The area now has a quasi-edgy, fauxfunky, expensive look and feel. Molly moved into her house in the 1980s when it was a compact little bungalow on a spacious corner lot. Financing was made possible by the enormous success of
Molly Ivins Canât Say That, Can She?
Nothing like having a runaway hit spend a year on the
New York Times
best-seller list to underwrite a first-time home purchase.
As successive books followed suit, Molly had to do something with her money besides shell it out in taxes or give it away, more often than not without benefit of tax breaks. She decided one way to get relief was to buy a bigger house.
By the time she made the decision, however, she discovered that housing values and their attendant prices had escalated beyond her proletarian sensibilities. Besides, she liked her neighborhood. Sheâd become accustomed to the house where she had written the columns that catapulted her to even greater fame through syndication.
For what she would have paid for a newer, bigger house in a ânicerâ neighborhood, she could add on, expand to her specifications, and stay right where she wasâespecially since her neighborhood was getting nicer anyway.
Before the Great Renovation, a curvy stone walkway led to an entrance set back some twenty yards from the street. The addition featured a semi-secluded driveway leading to a front door that opened onto a garden room.
A pond to the immediate left was stocked with koi. Among the plants thriving in the humid atrium were dill, thyme, basil, and chives. A skylight allowed just enough filtered sun to keep the plants happy. An automated watering system maintained proper humidity for trees, shrubs, and bromeliads.
Just when there seemed to be nothing else to add, Molly installed a five-foot-tall birdcage that housed four pairs of lovebirds. Every now and again she would
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