February seems to be the time we stay home. It’s
cold, wet, and generally
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| Tessellating Fish |
dismal. All I want to do is make quilts or design bead
work, or read – and find new local places to eat. This month has been no
different. We haven’t ventured far from home, but we’ve experienced a few new
places. For information about my rating system, see Reading the
Reviews.
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| Four Carrots |
In our quest to find more yarn than we could
possibly use in a lifetime, Barb, Linnea, and I took a quick trip to Fort Worth
to a relatively new shop. West 7th
Wool (3612 West 7th Street, Fort Worth, TX 76107, 817-731-5044) has only
been open about a year and fills the niche left when
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Top and Bottom: Interiors of
West 7th Wool |
Jennings Street Yarn
closed. This place rivals my favorite yarn shop in Black Mountain, North
Carolina. W7W is welcoming, with places to sit and knit, friendly workers, and
folks who are happy to help you learn what you don’t know or fix what you
thought you knew. We spent quite a while just squeezing their luscious products
and looking at the finished pieces they had hanging within easy reach. The yarn
is arranged by weight rather than by fiber or manufacturer. This makes it easy
to locate what your pattern calls for, yet does nothing to remove the
temptation of branching out into other areas. We’ll definitely be going back!
To find out more about Fort Worth and about
Black Mountain, see Ride
‘em Cowboy, Flitting
around Fort Worth, Mountains
of Art, Back
to the Smokeys, Heading
to Hendersonville, Weaving
to Weaverville.
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| Three Carrots |
When Linnea is in town, we spend a substantial
amount of time beading. She makes amazing pieces of wearable art, and points me
in the right direction as I try my hand at designing. On one of our breaks from
those little globes of glass we took a ride into Denton to go to the Gobi
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Left: 2018 Award winner by Linnea
Right: 2017 Award winner by Linnea |
Mongolian Grill (#100, 717 S
Interstate 35 E, Denton, TX 76205, 940-387-6666). This casual restaurant serves
‘Chinese, Japanese, Thai & Korean dishes complement[ed by] customized
Mongolian grill items’. When we visited, there was no one in the restaurant.
However, they do a lot of take-out, since you can order online; and while we
were there, several more customers came to visit. Their Mongolian grill area
has lots of choices for this sort of meal and a recipe list that tells you how
to combine your selections for a good tasting dish. They also have a menu,
which is what we chose to use. Linnea had Crab Rangoon and a large bowl of
chicken with rice soup. She said both were quite tasty. I had a perfectly
adequate bowl of sweet and sour
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Top L to R: Menu logo, Crab Rangoons
Bottom L to R: Chicken soup,
Sweet/Sour chicken |
chicken with an egg roll and fried rice. The
chicken was crispy and the egg roll was nicely packed with meat and vegetables.
I was able to get both without onions – a pleasant surprise. The waitresses
were friendly and efficient, as well as accommodating.
To find out more about Denton, see Doing
Lunch in Denton.
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| Four Carrots |
I am always delighted to get my BirthdayPac in
the mail. This is a set of coupons for local food and clothing vendors in the
Keller area. I have no idea how I got on their list, but I’m glad that I did. This
year there were two new restaurants, one of which we’ve visited and one we’ll
go to next week. For some reason, perhaps its proximity to Fort Worth and/or to
 |
Top L to R: Menu, Mussels, Fresh bread
Bottom L to R: Dessert, Steak |
DFW airport, Keller has new restaurants opening on what seems a daily basis. Of
course, some of them vanish so quickly that we don’t have a chance to visit,
but Texas Bleu (124 S Main St,
Keller, TX 76248, 817-431-5188) may have some staying power. This is a ‘Sophisticated
steakhouse for updated, locally sourced American classics, plus wine &
cocktails’. Dave and I went in on a Wednesday evening and were surprised that
it wasn’t particularly crowded. The people there seemed to be business folks;
we overheard a lot or comments about increasing sales and attracting more
clients. The bar, located around the corner from the eating area, was packed;
again, these seemed to be business people. Our meal was very good. On Wednesday
nights a bottle of wine is half price and they will cork it to send it home
with you. I chose steak with roasted potatoes and asparagus. The filet was an
excellent piece of meat, fork tender, and cooked just as I like it. My only
complaint was that it was coated with too much salt and pepper; why hide the
taste of a great piece of meat with seasonings? The asparagus was large and, to
my surprise, tender from tip to base. The potatoes were potatoes. Dave had
Mussels Carbonara; he said it was excellent. The shellfish were tender and not
over cooked; the sauce was rich without being heavy. We shared the fresh fruit
crepes and ice cream; the ice cream tasted homemade. Our dessert was lovely.
This is definitely a place we’ll go on a special occasion simply because the
prices are too high for a casual evening out.
Happy New Year to all of you celebrating this Friday and may
the Year
of the Earth Dog bring you an abundance of love, good health and
prosperity!
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| Spring Tulips |
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