Austin Eats

            Last week we offered some restaurant recommendations for Texas’s largest city: Houston. For this week, we thought we’d take a look at some spots to eat in Texas’s weirdest city: Austin. The city’s unofficial motto is “Keep Austin Weird.” As the capital of Texas, Austin features some unmistakable signs that you’re in Texas—cowboy hats and boots, seersucker suits, an obsession with football—and some that would make you think you weren’t—the influx of tech companies and international cuisine. Yet there is something undeniably charming about this welcoming city that features the best Texas has to offer. 

Torchy’s Tacos: This small Austin-based taco chain began in a food truck on South 1^st Street. Owner Mike Rypka had grown tired of life as a high-end chef and mortgaged his house to buy a food truck and set up shop in Austin. The menu features a wide range of tacos and a not-so secret menu of special tacos. For breakfast, we recommend the Migas taco. Migas tacos, which are an Austin staple, feature scrambled eggs, crispy tortilla strips, and tomatillo sauce. From the regular menu, try a Green Chile Pork taco—pork carnitas with green chilies and topped with cojita cheese and tomatillo sauce. Really though, you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu at Torchy’s. 

Torchy's in its glory 

L'Oca d'Oro: If you’re looking for a restaurant serving homemade pastas and Italian cuisine in a comfortable neighborhood setting, then L’Oca d’Oro is for you. The kitchen prepares the pastas, breads, cheeses, vinegars, and liqueurs in house. They have an expansive wine menu and warm and friendly service. The chef, Fiore Tedesco, first started to learn to cook in his uncle’s deli before working at some of New York and Austin’s finest restaurants including Grammercy Tavern, Roberta’s, Franklin BBQ, and Bufalina. Adam Orman, the restaurant’s GM, worked in San Francisco and New York before settling in Austin and working with Tedesco to open L’Oca d’Oro. 

Franklin in all of its glory 

Franklin BBQ: Opened in 2009, Franklin BBQ quickly took the barbecue world by storm. Led by pitmaster/owner Aaron Franklin, the restaurant offers a range of barbecue and sides. The fatty brisket melts in your mouth and tastes a little like foie gras. The ribs are tender and fall off the bone with the slightest tug. Even the turkey and sausages are packed with flavor. Be warned, the lines at Franklin are famously long. So if you want to make sure you get your share of these heavenly delights, make sure you get in line by 8 or 8:30 in the morning. Have no worries, the staff checks in with patrons and gives you an estimate of when you’ll eat. Also, it’s Austin, so patrons are encouraged to bring snacks and drinks and make a morning of it. 

Micklethwait in all its glory 

Micklethwait Craft Meats: About a half mile down the road from Franklin is one of Austin’s hidden BBQ gems—Micklethwait Craft Meats. In an unassuming little trailer that features free coolers of beer—the restaurant doesn’t have a liquor license—Micklethwait’s has some of the best BBQ in Texas. The brisket is mouthwateringly succulent and the pork ribs are tender and rich. Micklethwait’s also shines with its side dishes. Make sure you order the coleslaw—shockingly bright and refreshing and a nice contrast to the barbecue—and the jalapeno cheese grits. The grits are packed with a blend of cheese with a smokiness and texture that is reminiscent of queso. Also the lines at Micklethwait’s are nothing like those at Franklin. Where Franklin can take hours, you can count your wait at Micklethwait’s in minutes. 

Austin Cake Ball Shop: We’d be remiss if we didn’t offer you some kind of dessert option. Austin resident Stacey Bridges began experimenting with cake balls in 2008 after spending years as a costume designer. The resulting creations, little balls of cake covered in different coatings and frostings have become locally famous. The Austin Cake Ball shop features a rotating menu of flavors including chocolate, vanilla bean, red velvet, Mexican chocolate, birthday cake, chocolate mint, and s’mores. Best of all, you can order cake balls online and have them shipped anywhere in the United States. 

Houston Eats

Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the United States. (Only New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago are bigger.) Yet when discussing Texas, we tend to think of Dallas or San Antonio, or even Austin before we get around to acknowledging Houston. The city has over two million residents and is one of the most diverse cities in the country. It is home to oil companies, energy companies, and famously NASA and the aeronautics industry. It has professional football, basketball, and baseball franchises. We’ve previously looked at the Space Center Houston, but for this week, we thought we’d look at some casual dining spots in Houston. 

Christy’s Donuts: Located in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Christy’s is located in a non-descript strip mall. An aging yellow sign stands on the corner. It’s unassuming nature masking the delicious doughnuts just feet away. The homemade doughnuts are crispy on the outside and fluffy and airy in the middle. The friendly owners and employees nearly always add a few extra doughnut holes in the bag. During a recent visit, one customer asked, “Which one of you is Christy?” The woman behind the cashier answered, “Oh, we have no idea. That was the name when we bought the place. We just kept it because people like the name." They like the doughnuts too. 

Jinya Bun 

Jinya Ramen Bar: Part of a chain of ramen places with several locations in the Houston area, Jinya features deliciously cream tonkotsu broth and fresh made noodles. The atmosphere is a little bro-heavy and much of the seating is at a long communal table. Beware that the seats at the communal table do not have backs. Atmosphere aside, the ramen is unbelievable, with pork, chicken or vegetarian options. The Jinya buns are a must-try—a steamed bun with slow braised pork, cucumber, mixed greens, and a homemade sauce. 

Dolce Vita Pizzeria Enoteca: Dolce Vita is an authentic Neapolitan pizza located in the Montrose neighborhood. The atmosphere is homey and comforting. It’s the ideal neighborhood pizza restaurant as it buzzes with the sound of locals unwinding after a long day. Dolce Vita boasts an impressive selection of Italian wines to pair with their char-crusted pizzas. The restaurant is the brain-child of Houston restauranteur Marco Wiles, who owns and operates two other Italian restaurants. Wiles’ nearby Da Marco restaurant features some of the best homemade pastas that you’ll find outside of Italy. 

Behold the glory of The Pit Room's BBQ and sides 

The Pit Room: Daniel Vaughn, the authority on Texas barbecue, named The Pit Room one of the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas. The restaurant features melt in your mouth brisket, tender pork ribs, crispy pulled pork, chicken, turkey, and sausages. The hidden gem of the menu is the tacos. The Pit Room make their tortillas in house and instead of using lard, they trim the fat from the raw briskets and incorporate it into the tortillas. The brisket fat gives the tortillas a depth of flavor that you can’t find in a regular old tortilla. They’re also a bit denser than an ordinary tortilla allowing them to serve as an effective barbecue delivery system. 

Amy’s Ice Creams: This Austin-based small chain has a single location in Houston and is well-worth a visit. Amy’s first opened in 1984, making handcrafted artisan ice cream and frozen yogurt. Amy’s has over 350 flavors that rotate throughout the year including their famous Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream. Amy’s is one of those ice cream places where they mix the ice cream right in front of you on a marble slab and they mix the toppings right into the ice cream. So you get a show and some delicious ice cream. 

2018 Saints Draft Review

            Last week, we offered a preview of the New Orleans Saints’ needs in the NFL draft. Now that the draft is over, let’s take a look how it went for the Saints. New Orleans entered the draft with 8 picks and thanks to a trade (discussed below) left Dallas with seven new players. 

Round-Overall Selection	Player	Position	College
1-14	Marcus Davenport	DE	UT-San Antonio
3-91	Tre’Quan Smith	WR	UCF
4-127	Rick Lenoard	OT	Florida State
5-164	Natrell Jamerson	S	Wisconsin
6-189	Kamrin Moore	CB	Boston College
6-201	Boston Scott	RB	Louisiana Tech
7-245	Will Clapp	C	LSU

            We’ll get to the other picks in a second, but we need to start with the Saints first round pick Marcus Davenport. New Orleans entered the draft with the 27^thpick in the first round. In order to move up to 14, the Saints traded with the Green Bay Packers. The trade is below. 

Saints receive: 2018-1-14 

Packers receive: 2018-1-27, 2018-5-147, and 2019 1^strounder 

            This trade is a massive overpay by the Saints. The team clearly identified pass-rusher as a need and grabbed the consensus second-best pass rusher in the draft, but paid a huge price to do so. Using the draft chart developed by Chase Stuart, which looks at historical production of draft picks, the Saints paid approximately 187 cents on the dollar for the right to draft Davenport. By the Jimmy Johnson chart, which looks at the perceived value of picks, the Saints still overpaid by a measure of 157 cents on the dollar. If we value next year’s pick at the middle of the 1^stround, then the Saints traded value equal to the 1^stoverall pick in the draft. Even if the Saints win the Super Bowl and only give up the 32^ndpick, they’ll have valued Davenport as equal to the 3^rdpick in the draft. 

Stop trading up! 

            The trade up—which we accurately predicted last week—highlights a number of troubling steps back for a Saints team that was a surprising contender last season. First, it is part of a long pattern of New Orleans management of sacrificing future draft picks to fill current needs. For example, in 2011, the Saints traded their 2^nd round pick (56^th overall) and 2012 1^st round pick (27^th overall) to the New England Patriots in exchange for a 2011 1^st round pick, 28^th overall. In essence, the Saints gave the Patriots a 2^ndround pick in exchange for waiting a year to move up one spot in the draft. The Saints have consistently undervalued future picks in order to chase wins in the short-term. In an interview after this year's draft, head coach Sean Payton revealed the team’s ignorance regarding how to value draft picks when he justified the trade up by saying, “[the trade] appears to be a lot ... but shoot, what's our country's national debt?” 

            Additionally, the trade repudiated last year’s draft successes. After years of trading up, last year the Saints received extra 1^stand 3^rdround picks for wide receiver Brandin Cooks. They then used those picks on players who stepped in and were effective starters. Marshon Lattimore, Ryan Ramczyk, Marcus Williams, Alvin Kamara, and Alex Anzalone all played important roles on the Saints and were a desperately needed infusion of young talent. They joined 2016 draft picks Sheldon Rankins, Michael Thomas, and Vonn Bell to form the basis for the next potentially great Saints’ team. If the Saints had been so successful at drafting and developing talent over the past 2 years, wouldn’t they want to hold onto their picks or even trade down to get extra ones, to bring in even more young talent? Doesn’t every NFL team want as many young, cost-controlled players as they can get so they can spend the rest of their salary cap on elite level talent and depth? 

Marcus Davenport 

            Besides paying too much in a trade, Davenport is a talented, but unrefined athlete who may take several years to develop into a top-flight pass rusher. That hardly makes sense for a team that is in win-now mode as Drew Brees nears 40 years old. Last season, the Saints drafted Lattimore and Ramczyk, two experienced starters from Big-10 programs. Davenport played at UT-San Antonio whose opponents last year included Southern, Marshall, UT-El Paso, and Rice—hardly a murderer’s row of opponents. If the Saints are going to give up a ridiculous amount of draft capital, then they should at least spend it on someone ready to step in and play Week One. 

            New Orleans’ third round pick Tre’Quan Smith fills a need for the Saints at wide receiver. With the departure of Willie Snead, the Saints had need for competition at the 2^ndstarting wide receiver position. After Michael Thomas, 33 year old Ted Ginn, better known as a returner, was slotted in as a starter. Smith also fits the profile of the Saints using mid-to-late round picks on wide receivers and turning them into effective players. The rest of the Saints draft is fine--4th-7th rounders mostly serve as depth and occasionally develop into starters--but failed to address any of New Orleans’ other needs at tight end, linebacker, and quarterback. 

            In total, the 2018 draft represented a significant step-back for a team that spent several years investing in the draft and rebuilding around young talent. Now that they’ve hit double-digit wins again, the Saints are back to trading away their future in pursuit of another Super Bowl. 

2018 Saints Draft Preview

            From Thursday April 26 through Saturday April 28, the NFL will hold its yearly draft. As has become a DGA tradition, let’s do a little draft preview from the perspective of the New Orleans Saints. Next week, we’ll come back and see how everything went. 

            The Saints currently hold the following picks in the NFL draft. Notated as round-overall pick: 1-27, 3-91, 4-127, 5-147, 5-164, 6-189, 6-201, 7-245 

In total, the Saints hold 8 picks over the seven rounds of the draft, but only two in the first three rounds. They traded away their 2018 second round pick (59^th overall)for a 2017 3^rd rounder that the Saints used on Alvin Kamara. While it’s unadvisable to trade future high round picks to fill present needs, this trade has worked out well so far. 

Alvin Kamara in action 

            Coming off a surprise 11-5 season that saw New Orleans’ defense make the leap from atrocious (31^stin Football Outsiders DVOA in 2016) to outstanding (8^thin 2017), the Saints re-signed quarterback Drew Brees to a two year, $50 million contract. Using past performance as a guide, the Saints are about to go all-in for one last Super Bowl push. They’ve brought back some familiar faces, including tight end Benjamin Watson, offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod, cornerback Patrick Robinson, and defensive end Alex Okafor. They signed Tom Savage to replace Chase Daniel at backup quarterback and paid linebacker Demario Davis and safety Kurt Coleman top of the market money. 

            While the Saints are down their second round pick, it would not be surprising for them to try and move up in the draft. Over the years, general manager Mickey Loomis and head coach Sean Payton have shown extraordinary confidence in their ability to evaluate draft prospects, repeatedly trading away valuable picks in favor of specific players. All while ignoring the bevy of evidence that suggests that teams overvalue their scouting acumen. 

Loomis and Payton 

            While Saints fans should be heartened by last year’s finish, New Orleans has significant needs on both sides of the football. Let's take a look at their biggest needs. 

1. Pass Rush—While the Saints finished 6^thin adjusted sack rate, nearly all of that production from defensive end Cameron Jordan. Jordan had an otherworldly season with 13 sacks and 48 tackles. The next closest players, Alex Okafor and Vonn Bell, had 4.5 sacks. Without Jordan to rush the passer, the Saints are vulnerable to opposing passers tearing up the secondary. 

2. Linebacker—With the trade of 1^strounder Stephone Anthony last offseason, the Saints have relied on mid-career veterans to man their linebacking corps. Last year, they replaced 31 year old Dannell Ellerbe with A.J. Klein, Manti Te’o, Craig Robertson, and Michael Mauti (average age of 27). At some point, the Saints need to invest in a long-term linebacking prospect whom they can develop internally, rather than paying premium prices on the free agent market. 

Brees 

3. Quarterback—With Brees signed for two more years, the Saints need to seriously consider his future replacement. And no, Tom Savage isn't a viable replacement. In his age 38 season, Brees had a 72.0% completion percentage, but threw for only 4,334 yards and 23 touchdowns, his lowest totals since joining the Saints. Using Pro-Football Reference’s approximate value, Brees tied for the 2^ndbest season ever by a 38 year old quarterback with an AV of 14. No quarterback, however, has ever totaled 14 AV in their age 39 season. When the end comes for aging quarterbacks, it comes quickly and the Saints need to start planning for the future. 

4. Tight End—Following the departure of Jimmy Graham, the Saints have failed to replicate his production from the tight end position. New Orleans paid Coby Fleener a small fortune to catch passes from Brees. In his two seasons in New Orleans, Fleener has averaged fewer than 500 yards per season and 2.5 TDs. This offseason, the Saints resigned Benjamin Watson to a one year contract. Watson’s 2015 campaign was the best performance by a Saints TE since Graham left. He caught 74 passes for 825 yards and 6 TDs. Now, however, Watson is 36 years old and on the tail end of his career. Having a young pass-catching tight end will help diversify the offense and give Brees another pass catching option. 

            Check back next week where we’ll review the Saints draft.  

Jazz Fest 2018

            The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, otherwise known as Jazz Fest, is a yearly celebration of the music and culture of New Orleans. The festival runs every year on the last weekend in April (Friday-Sunday) and the first weekend in May (Thursday-Sunday). The Fair Grounds Race Course, a horse racing track in Mid-City New Orleans plays host to the festival. The music begins at 11:00 AM and runs through 7:00 PM. Jazz Fest attracts tourists from across the country and the world. It is the second biggest event in the city each year—only trailing Mardi Gras. The festival brings in over $300 million annually. 

Jazz Fest poster 2016

            Jazz Fest features hundreds of performers and performances ranging from local musicians to internationally famous rock and roll bands. There are twelve different stages with musical acts playing all day from 11-7. Aerosmith is headlining this year’s festival and will also have performances by Sting, Sheryl Crow, Common, LL Cool J, Rod Stewart, Jimmy Buffett, and the Steve Miller Band. Jazz Fest also features a host of local musicians playing everything from jazz to zydeco to hip hop to bounce music. Show up at any day of the festival and you’ll find New Orleans artists like John Boutté, the Rebirth Brass Band, Trombone Shorty, Kermit Ruffins, Big Freedia, and a number of Mardi Gras Indian bands. Artists who have performed at the DGA crawfish boil like the Hot 8 Brass Band, Tuba Skinny, and Flow Tribe will all perform this year. 

            The festival began back in 1970 thanks to the efforts of the New Orleans Hotel Motel Association. The Association wanted to highlight New Orleans’ unique musical and cultural heritage to bring tourists to the city—where they would stay in local hotels and motels and boost the economy. The first two festivals, in 1970 and 1971, were held in Beauregard Square—now Louis Armstrong Park—and Congo Square. Admittance to the first festival cost $3 and had only four stages without microphones. Visiting musicians stayed at the homes of the festival’s organizers. The next year, however, the crowd began to grow. By 1972, the festival moved to its current host site, the Fair Grounds Race Course. In the mid-1970s, organizers began producing a yearly poster series to promote the festival. By the late 1980s, the festival was attracting over 300,000 people per year. 

Jazz Fest stage 

            Jazz Fest is owned and operated by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, which over the years has become an important civic institution. The Foundation uses the proceeds from the festival to fund education, economic development, and cultural programs. Since 1979, they have donated over $1 million to local schools, artists, and musicians. The Foundation owns the Jazz and Heritage Gallery, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Jazz and Heritage Radio WWOZ 90.7FM, the Jazz and Heritage Foundation Archive, the Jazz and Heritage Center, and the Jazz and Heritage Gala. Educational programs include the Don Jamison Heritage School of Music, the Tom Dent Congo Lecture Series, and School Day at the Fest. They provide grants to Raisin' the Roof (a program that assists southern-Louisiana musicians with home-buying costs), the Jazz and Heritage Music and Media Market, and the Jazz and Heritage Music Exchange. The Foundation also organizes and hosts a number of other festivals including the Crescent City Blues and BBQ Festival, Fiesta Latina, the Congo Square Rhythms Festival, the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival, Gospel is Alive!, Jazz Journey, the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival, and many others. 

            Every year Jazz Fest seeks to celebrate the culture of Louisiana. Make sure you check it out. 

Wikipedia Louisiana: The French Legal Tradition

            Picking up from last week, where we discussed the Louisiana Purchase, let’s explore Louisiana’s unique legal and administrative system that is descended from French legal traditions.  

            The laws and legal traditions that characterize Louisiana’s justice and governmental systems are different from every other state in the United States. Since Louisiana was originally founded as a French colony (and later became a Spanish one), its legal and administrative structures are derived from French and Spanish legal traditions. These traditions, in turn, stemmed from Roman legal principles. The other 49 states all rely on traditions descended from English common law—since the 13 original colonies were all founded by the English. Over the years, Louisiana lawmakers have bridged many of the differences between these traditions, but significant differences remain. The first is that courts based on the English common law tradition tend to rule based on precedents and are generally bound by them. The logic underlying this principle is that following precedents ensures equal and fair administration of the law. In Louisiana, judges are allowed to make rulings based on their own interpretations of law. The differences between Louisiana’s French and Roman legal traditions especially manifest themselves in civil and family law. As a result, the Louisiana bar exam is the longest of any state, taking twenty-one and a half hours.  

The 19th century seal of Louisiana 

            It is commonly and erroneously claimed that Louisiana’s legal tradition is based on the Napoleonic code. This is not true. While Louisiana’s civil code shares the same antecedents as the Napoleonic Code, the Napoleonic Code did not go into effect in France until 1804, a year after Napoleon had sold the Louisiana territory to the United States.  

            The administration of the state of Louisiana also differs from the other 49 states. Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes rather than counties. Functionally, parishes serve similar functions to the counties found elsewhere in the United States. Forty-one parishes have a form of government known as a police jury. The police jury serves as the legislative and executive government of the parish and together the police jurors elect a parish president. The size of police juries vary from three to fifteen members depending on the size of the parish.  When Louisiana joined the United States, each parish had a parish judge and justice of the peace who were appointed by the governor. Voters then elected the policy jury which was responsible for maintaining the peace and supporting the judicial branch. 

Louisiana's Parishes

            The remaining parishes have a variety of different governmental structures. The majority of the parishes have split the executive and legislative functions between two branches. They use a council-president system where the voters elect a parish president and legislative council separately.  Caddo Parish, located in northern Louisiana elects a parish council which then hires a professional manager to run the government. A smaller number of parishes, mostly in the major metropolitan areas, have merged the parish and city governments together. So New Orleans and Orleans Parish, Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, Lafayette Parish and Lafayette, and Terrebonne Parish and Houma all have consolidated governments.  

            Another area where Louisiana is different from the United States is how the state runs its elections. Next week, we’ll take a look at Louisiana and its jungle primary system.  

Introducing Wikipedia Louisiana

            Over the history of this blog, we’ve tried to educate our readers about Louisiana’s unique history. It’s a land of Cajuns and Creoles, crawfish and king cake, and Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima. We’ve explored the history of Mardi Gras, Christmas Eve bonfires, and the Natchitoches Meat Pie.  We’ve written way too many words about the New Orleans Saints. We’ve reviewed New Orleans restaurants and local attractions.  

            Since this is a blog as much about the State of Louisiana as anything else, we’re excited to launch a new recurring feature—Wikipedia Louisiana.  We’re going to use the popular online encyclopedia to highlight the unique features of our home state. So let us explain how this is going to work.  We’ll begin our adventure on the Wikipedia page for the State of Louisiana. Then we will highlight some feature of that page. For the next feature, we’ll follow some link off the Louisiana Wikipedia page to shed some light on some other part of Louisiana. Then the following week, we’ll follow a link from each subsequent page. This way we can explore some of the more interesting and less well-known parts of Louisiana’s culture and history. 

The Louisiana Purchase overlaid the modern US 

            For this week, let’s just start off with how Louisiana became a state through the Louisiana Purchase.  Louisiana became the 18^thstate on April 30, 1812. In 1803, the United States had purchased the then Louisiana Territory from the French government of Napoleon Bonaparte for approximately $15 million (equivalent to about $300 million in today’s money). The Louisiana territory included land would become parts of 15 states: Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado and parts of two Canadian provinces: Alberta and Saskatchewan.  The land purchase was the largest in the history of the young United States. 

Louisiana becomes American 

President Thomas Jefferson had initially wanted to purchase the port of New Orleans and not the entire territory. As a desire for cotton and other slave-grown agricultural products fueled westward settlement, Jefferson and other southerners wanted guaranteed access for their goods down the Mississippi River. The only way to guarantee that access came by controlling the city of New Orleans itself. New Orleans sat near the mouth of the Mississippi river and any ships passing out into the gulf or up the Mississippi had to stop off in New Orleans. The city had long been a hub of trade since the French founded the city in the early 17^thcentury. Jefferson wrote of his desire to control New Orleans that: 

There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce and contain more than half our inhabitants. France placing herself in that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us, and it would not perhaps be very long before some circumstance might arise which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. Not so can it ever be in the hands of France. 

Napoleon proved more than willing to sell not only New Orleans, but the entire territory. The diminutive French dictator had little interest in reviving French claims to North America and had more pressing concerns fighting wars against his European neighbors.  

            Since Louisiana was originally a French colony, its state government varied significantly from the other American states. Next week we’ll explore this phenomenon.