Trader Joe’s is finally coming to Houston, it seems. The old Alabama Bookstop on S. Shepherd at W. Alabama is set to become home to Houston’s first edition of Trader Joe’s, a California-based health food grocery store famous for its creative take-away foods, Hawaiian-shirted employees and “Two Buck Chuck” cheap wine. Besides having a fun new grocery store in our midst, this creative re-use of the two-year-vacant Art Deco-flavored bookstore – which was a movie theatre before that – is so much better than the demolition that some Houston preservationists feared.
Alain and Marie LeNôtre plan to open their student-run restaurant, Kris Bistro & Wine Lounge in early October. The restaurant, located within the Culinary Institute LeNôtre at 7070 Allensby, showcases local growers, local artists, international and French wines, microbreweries and aspiring chefs. It will be open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Friday. Kris Jakob is executive chef and namesake.
My Table contributor Mike Riccetti has published an electronic book with the self-explanatory subtitle, From the Antipasto to the Zabaglione – The Story of Italian Restaurants in America. It is now available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com in addition to some other sites, including, soon, iBooks. The book follows the food of Italian immigrants from port cities, Bohemian enclaves and the early cheap, table d’hôte eateries through the appearance of spaghetti and meatballs and the development of a recognizable Italian-American cooking with which America fell in love, to the introduction of fine-dining then alta cucina, sleek trattorias, regionally inspired spots and beyond. It is $5.99 and can be read on your PC and Mac with a free software download from the respective booksellers.
This Friday, September 23, the Houston Food Bank will have the grand opening of its huge new 308,000-square-foot facility at 535 Portwall. The new spot is four-times larger than the food bank’s previous warehouse/headquarters facility, making it the largest food bank (in size) in the country. To honor this day, proclamations have been issued naming September 23, 2011 Houston Food Bank Day in Houston by Mayor Annise Parker and in Harris County by Judge Ed Emmett and in Texas by Governor Rick Perry. The day will kick off with a convoy of 35-plus donor trucks (semis and bobtails) that will travel to the new food bank to fill the warehouse. The trucks will travel from a staging area at Northwest Mall down I-10, exit Gelhorn and U-turn to get to the new food bank. All of the participating trucks have pledged to donate a truckload of product to help fill the warehouse – the donation will be more than 1 million pounds. Four donors – H-E-B, Kroger, Walmart and Mountain King Potatoes – will unload their donations upon arrival. The convoy should be quite a sight. The grand opening ceremony begins at 10 am.
There will be a donation-based yoga class at the Urban Harvest Farmers’ Market this Saturday (September 24) at 9:30 am, in the field right behind the market (3000 Richmond at Eastside). The class will be led by teachers from local yoga studios, and all proceeds will benefit the Wildfire Farm Relief Fund established by Urban Harvest. Suggested donation is $12.