Vol. 1 No. 19

03.19.14 - VOL. 1, NO. 19 - WACOWEEKLY.COMFREE PUBLICATION

The Galaxy’s New StewardNeil deGrasse Tyson and the Return of Cosmos

meet the teamPUBLISHER/EDITOR IN CHIEF

Chris Shepperd

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matt Shepperd

EDITORIAL DIRECTORSara Gilmore

BUSINESS MANAGERLeisha Shepperd

MANAGING EDITORChris Zebo

CREATIVE DIRECTORBekah Skinner

ASST. CREATIVE DIRECTORKaitlin Vickers

WRITERSRandle Browning

Sara GilmoreCheyenne Mueller

Luke Murray

INTERNSHaley Clark

Katy DeLunaApril ElkinsAlex Gieger

Brittany HolmAvery MooreKelly Porter

Heydy SanchesKyla Spaugh

Camille Youngblood

Waco Weekly is an independent, publication and is not affiliated with

the city of Waco.

Opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views

and opinions of the editor, publisher or the newspaper staff. Waco Weekly

is not liable for omissions, misprints or typographical errors. No part of this

publication may be reproduced without the express consent of the publisher.

© Copyright 2014 Campus Press LP

03.20-03.26contents

Essentials:Listen 3Discover 6 Taste 11Play 12Look 14

Listen4 - Ashanti shakes the major labels and takes creative control. But does she pull it off solo?

Road Trip12 - This week, we’re taking you to a swank winery right here in the heart of Texas. Prepare to sip and swirl.

Look15 - Cheyenne gives a rundown of this week’s top 20 box office films.

Cover Story:

8 Science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson rekindles Carl Sagan’s Cosmos for FOX and introduces a new

generation to the wonders of the universe.

pg 4 • WACO WEEKLY • March 19, 2014 • wacoweekly.com

After 2008’s The Declaration, R&B songstress Ashanti left the major record labels and decided to create her own. Braveheart is Ashanti’s first album with her record label, Written Entertainment.

She began working on the album in 2010, and the title is inspired by Mel Gibson’s movie of the same name. The metaphor is that the major labels are like the Europeans in the movie, with their big shields and weapons; whereas the small labels are like the Scotts and have homemade weapons. Ashanti released album teaser singles “Never Should Have” in March of 2013 and “I Got It” in November 2013.

Braveheart opens with a five minute intro consisting of a spoken monologue for the first minute and then four minutes of Ashanti singing the same lines over and over. Artists don’t have to be edgy to produce great albums, but it would help if listeners were able to remember the music afterwards. Unlike Ashanti’s debut album in 2002, which sold over 503,000 copies within the first week of release, Braveheart is forgettable overall.

Album:Braveheart

Rating:

Sounds Like: BrandyKeyshia ColeCiara

Recommended Tracks:RunawayNever Should HaveDon’t Tell Me No

Release Date:March 4, 2014

ASHANTI

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LIST

EN

Reviewed by Katy De Luna

Tracklist:IntroNo WhereRunawayCountEarly in the Morning3 WordsLove GamesScarsNever Should HaveShe Can’tDon’t Tell Me NoI Got ItFirst Real Love

wacoweekly.com • March 19, 2014 • WACO WEEKLY • p 5

St. Vincent “St. Vincent”

American Authors “Oh, What a Life”

Brooklyn based American Authors debuted their first studio album with Oh, What A Life. The band was created in 2006 under the name The Blue Pages. Zac Barnett, James Shelley, Dave Rublin, and Matt Sanchez started making music their last year at Berklee College of Music. In 2013, they changed their name and label, and then Oh, What A Life was born.

It’s hard to really pinpoint American Authors style, but we can safely say they fit somewhere between alternative and folk. Their single “Best Day of My Life” is a commercial success and has sountracked advertisements in the United States, the UK, and New Zealand. “Best Day of My Life” is similar to Imagine Dragons, but imagine them with a banjo. With inspirations like Vampire Weekend, Youngblood Hawke, and Mumford & Sons, Oh What A Life is upbeat, quasi-innovative, and a fun listen.

Thrilling, sensational, bizarre, and incredibly refreshing. The new self-titled album by St. Vincent, also known as Annie Clark, is so diverse and genre-crossing and yet it has a kind of built-in consistency anchoring it. This new release is a huge transformation and possibly evolution from her previous album Strange Mercy.

Clark beautifully combines an ironic mixture of beauty and hostility, and the album is weighed down by very minor flaws, such as the album’s song progression (they don’t seem to be part of the same album, but they’re great on their own).

Overall, this is probably Clark’s best effort thus far. St. Vincent introduces new elements while remaining loyal to the sound DNA she established on Strange Mercy.

Release Date:Mar. 4, 2014

Release Date:Mar. 4, 2014 Reviewed by Heydy Sanches

Reviewed by Katy De Luna

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Above All Else Raises Fists and Awareness About Keystone Pipeline at SXSW By Chris Zebo

The “Don't Mess with Texas” spirit is alive and kicking in director John Fiege's latest documentary, Above All Else. In the film, which premiered March 10 at SXSW, Fiege trained his camera on people affected by TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline as it snakes its way from the Alberta tar stands to refinery facilitates near the Gulf of Mexico. When the pipeline crossed the Texas border, a group of landowners, ranchers, activists, and concerned citizens galvanized a grassroots movement to contest Texas' eminent domain laws and the questionable propriety of TransCanada Corp.

At the center of the many landowners featured in the film is David Daniel, a late-forties, red-bearded, East Texas landowner who rouses his similarly threatened neighbors and also invites a young group of activists to stage a tree-sit on his property. Daniel, a retired high-wire circus performer and stuntman, purchased his land in the remote East Texas pines to raise his daughter away from the world's problems… but the problems came anyway, knocking on his door in the form of 4-foot-wide steel pipes, monstrous industrial tree harvesting machines, and—worse—men in suits with seizure papers.

The Keystone XL pipeline is a $7 billion dollar project proposed in 2008 with support from Washington, albeit reserved and at times clandestine. The sheer force of corporate power and political impotency weighs heavy upon the landowners, but Daniel reinvents

his retired stuntmen skills as he scales the pines on his property and erects an elaborate tree fort bulwark. The fortress in the trees is stationed with an envoy of local activist volunteers who live “Above All Else” day and night, hoping to deter the encroaching tree gnashing machines from clearing Daniel's land for the pipeline.

Fiege and executive producer Daryl Hanna, the actress/activist known for her roles in Kill Bill 2, Blade Runner, and Splash met with us the day after the film's premiere. For more information about the Above All Else, visit aboveallelsefilm.com.

WW: How was the reception to the film at the premiere yesterday?

Fiege: It was amazing. It was very emotional, very passionate.

Hannah: I think it was the first time I've ever experienced people standing up and screaming at the screen before the credits were even done. And pretty much everyone stayed after the screening for the Q&A, and there was a visceral anxiety and tension of outrage in the room. It was really potent.

WW: What were some of the things you were hearing from the audience? Fiege: Well, near the end, we kind of wrap up where things are [with the pipeline

situation]. People have a lot of heightened emotions about their views of the situation.

Hannah: People were pissed. There was definitely some screaming about the large green groups that hadn't lent support to the people who were fighting these eminent domain issues on the ground.

WW: Eminent domain is quite a blurry issue. You attempt to define it in the documentary, but even after hearing what it was, it's hard to be sure just what it is. Or maybe it's just denial that such a thing exists and it's hard to wrap your head around it. What is it, if you were to describe it to a layman?

Fiege: One of the characters in the film is Julia Trigg Crawford, who has been at the vanguard of that eminent domain fight in the courts in Texas. The way the system works now is if you want to build something through Texas, and your company believes that it's for the common good—however you might define it—then you check a box on a form that says, “Yes, we are a common carrier. We will be allowing other companies to use our facility. So we should be given the right of eminent domain.”

So that's what the company did to build the Keystone XL pipeline. And there's dispute as to whether that pipeline—which takes oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast mostly to be sent abroad to be exported—is really in the public good.

There's some pretty low bar as to what qualifies as a common carrier. You know, if you take some oil from another company in your pipeline, you're a common carrier to a certain percentage. The law is written in a way that pretty much any company can come in and say that what they're doing is for everyone's benefit and that they should be given these enormous powers of eminent domain to take people's private property.

Hannah: And then there are all these additional issues; like because it isn't actually crude, they don't have to put money into the cleanup fund. So when something happens, if there is a spill, they won't be responsible for the cleanup; taxpayers will be responsible for the cleanup. There are all kinds of sideline issues that go along with it that you wouldn't believe.

WW: John, how did this story fall into your lap? Did you go looking for it, or did it find you?

Fiege: It's a little of both. Four years ago, I got cancer, and I started developing a film about how fossil fuels and the chemicals that come from them have saturated our economy and our culture and cause things like cancer and climate change. So I started asking myself, “How do I tell a story about this? How do I tell a story about what people can proactively do to make changes?”

A few months later, the BP Oil spill happened

wacoweekly.com • March 19, 2014 • WACO WEEKLY • pg 7

in the Gulf of Mexico. So I went down to Louisiana and started shooting. And my cancer came back. So I fought cancer for like 2 years trying to develop this film. And toward the end of that process, I started to hear about the Keystone XL Pipeline protests that were happening in D.C. It really perked up my ears because it was a sea change in the environmental movement. The people were getting back into the streets and demanding change in a way they hadn't done since the 1970s. And I was like, “Wow! Here's a single project that hasn't even been approved and people are trying to stop it now, while they can, to prevent maybe another BP Oil spill.”

I live Texas, so I said, “Okay, I'm gonna hunt for land owners—people who live along the pipeline route in Texas who are opposed to this project.” I had no idea what I was going to find. We just started searching on the Internet for people who had already received some notice for it, or who were just posting their own material. And we found a couple of folks, we went up and met them, and we had our story—because they're just amazing people and charismatic, kind, warm, and wonderful people.

WW: How did you discover David Daniel? What was it about him and his role in all of this that made him seem like the best central character for the film?

Fiege: Well, David really is the one who started the fight in Texas. He's the one who most proactively educated himself. And we recruited other people, his neighbors—so by the time I arrived, David was the main character in everybody's eyes. And everybody who was engaged in the fight in this area—it's because of David. It was such an obvious fit.

He has a history as a circus performer, a gymnast, a stuntman. So his personal story is just so fascinating, and it's interesting he decided to do a tree-sit, because he had the skill to do it.

WW: Daryl, how did you and John join forces? How did you come into the fold and become producer?

Hannah: I had already been engaged with people along the northern route, and I narrated a brief documentary about the proposed northern route and the resistance it had encountered all along the way, from First Nations communities to ranchers and farmers. And when the southern route got sort of fast-tracked and it was largely ignored by the media, I felt like it would be important to go down and try to bring some attention to the fact that it

was being built. And then my manager had met David Daniel and John and had heard about the film; it was a natural fit.

WW: What was your initial reaction to the film, when you'd seen the final cut?

Hannah: I think I had a very similar reaction as the rest of the audience. It left me with a sense of outrage and heightened emotions and sort of ready to figure out what I needed to do to be receptive to helping defend these people's rights.

WW: Is that the take-away for the two of you from this? A hope that others will become engaged?

Fiege: For me, the way the story is covered in the media is being done in a very polarized way where real simple dichotomies are created between jobs and environment, climate change versus oil—you know, these things that don't do justice to the complexity and the importance of the issues. So, what I wanted to do was tell stories, human, universal stories from the individual's perspective that show the personal side of these struggles. It's not a black and white situation.

The take-away is an understanding of what the individuals of this pipeline experience went through, what their personal experience was—I think it's a very revealing, eye-opening film. Our main character, David, says this in the movie. He says, “People need to understand what's happening. People need to understand this situation we're in.” And he's referring to the unbelievable and unprecedented corporate influence on politics.

Hannah: And on our rights.

Fiege: The film doesn't have an agenda in and of itself. The only agenda is to truthfully tell the story about the people in the film. I think people will be hit by it very emotionally and very viscerally and want to learn more about these issues and become engaged.

Hannah: Yes. To me, that's the best take-away. Anything that inspires people to educate themselves further. The facts speak for themselves. Once people actually learn about it and don't just listen to the parroting on TV and the pundits, then we'll all be on the same side. We all need the same basic life-support systems: clean water, livable climate, etc. So at the very least, if this film can inspire people to do some research into these issues, that's a fantastic outcome.

A Universe Rebooted: Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Return of CosmosBy Chris Zebo

Preaching the benefits of innovation and discovery at SXSW is like, well, preaching to the choir. But that didn’t stop the world’s scientist laureate from proselytizing during a standing-room-only keynote address at SXSW 2014. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the indefatigable astrophysicist, author, lecturer, and now host of FOX’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, gave an ardent conversation at the Austin Convention Center to set off the festival’s Interactive segment. Journalist Christie Nicholson, charged with the task of interviewing the brilliant behemoth, tried desperately to interject questions and direction into Dr. Tyson’s adrenaline-fueled musings on everything from exoplanets to instilling curiosity in his children via cracked eggs.

She was hopeless and would have done better to kneel before the God of Geekdom and allow him to divulge his storehouse of intelligence upon his captivated audience. “The day you stop thinking about tomorrow, you stop innovating” was just one of a hundred insightful utterances Tyson blasted from his rapid-fire smartgun. You could feel the room’s IQ collectively raise a few points by the end of the hour-long address.

Tyson was on hand not only to address tomorrow’s innovators but also to support his new venture as

host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. The new series on FOX resurrects Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a 13-part television series that debuted in 1980 and is considered one of the most popular televised edutainment productions of all time. The original series explored the mysteries of the universe with Sagan as host, who was, at the time, the most celebrated pop-culture scientist in the world. The show introduced the scientifically uninitiated to abstract concepts such as time dilation, white dwarfs, and dark energy in familiar and engaging ways. It also introduced burgeoning, controversial discoveries that were becoming a challenge to civilization, such as the then nascent concern with something called “global warming.”

Behind every great man is a great woman, and Sagan’s wife, Ann Druyan, was largely responsible for articulating Carl’s esoteric knowledge into something palatable for the masses. Druyan, a screenwriter who’s written for television and the silver screen (she adapted Sagan’s novel, Contact, for film), was left with a void vaster than a black hole when Carl passed away in ‘96.

Wanting to reboot the series years later, Druyan had someone in mind to fill Carl’s shoes if the series were ever to get greenlit. “About 7 years ago, I set out to do a

new Cosmos,” Druyan told us at the red carpet premiere for the series’ first episode at SXSW. “I had known Neil for several years, so with my first inkling of wanting to do this, there was no one else I considered for the job as host because he has the ability to connect. I knew he was the right one, and also there was an organic connection between Carl and Neil, which I felt was perfect for the writing of the story.”

That connection was forged many years ago when a young Tyson, still in high school, met Sagan 34 years ago, at the time the original series aired. Tyson was smitten by Sagan’s range of otherworldly knowledge and even more enamored by Sagan’s humble and giving demeanor. The two scientists, one budding, the other flowered, cultivated a strong friendship over the years. It was Sagan who inspired Tyson to become the person he is today. And now he is becoming, in some respects, the person he wanted to be 34 years ago.

“I think of the things they have in common,” says Druyan. “They love science and they love to connect with people. They have no snobbery; they have no disrespect for the audience. They are filled with a kind of passion to communicate. They’re kind and very generous. I can’t make comparisons beyond that. I love Carl with all my



heart, and I adore Neil. He’s just wonderful. I’ve know him for years, and we’ve been working very closely together for most of the last two years while we’ve been shooting.”

When Druyan approached Tyson about trying on Carl’s shoes, they both realized it would take much more than the combination of her writing talent and his celebrity status to get the show off the ground. And that’s when the most unlikely figure entered the picture, one who not only got financial backing for the production but also managed to square it up with FOX, a network...not exactly known for producing hard science shows with a liberal edge.

“Neil introduced me to Seth McFarlane,” Druyan says.

“Seth asked us to join him for dinner in Hollywood about 4 years ago. I sat down with him and he started making some really extravagant promises. But he kept every single one of them and many more. He’s made some really substantive contributions to the show. When you think of the wit and his targets in Family Guy and his other shows, he’s an enemy of foolishness. And in my book, that’s someone who’s going to love science.”

Having MacFarlane backing the show was a huge break for Druyan and Tyson. With MacFarlane at the helm, it also granted them access to some of the creatives within his universe of film and TV production, including Jason Clark. Clark, who produced MarFarlane’s blockbuster comedy Ted and has produced a number of high-grossing features in recent years (The Cabin in the Woods, Stuart Little, and the new animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman), was a fan of Sagan’s original series years ago. He was inspired by the series’ groundbreaking special effects, and when he signed on as co-executive producer of Spacetime Odyssey, he said he was excited to take the effects-side of the new production to a whole new level.

However, filming a series based upon theories set in unknown reaches of the galaxy was not an easy task. Capturing the unknown, according to Clark, would require some of the newest technologies available in the film industry. “When you read the script, seventy percent of it took place in space, and you can’t go there,” Clark says. “You just can’t get a camera up there. But that’s what the technology allowed us to

do: put the camera over Neil deGrasse Tyson’s shoulder and be there.”

In addition to capturing the imagination of the series visually, it was also important to capture the imagination of the audience without losing them in abstractions. It was also important to not dumb down the science.

“It was important to strike a balance between the educational value and the entertainment value of the series,” says executive producer Mitchell Cannold (Dirty Dancing, Little Monsters). “It’s really important to have the audience feel like they’re on an entertaining journey. At the same time, the stories we tell are all value learning. But they’re not told in a professorial way, you don’t feel like you’re at school; if you did, we would have failed. It’s really meant to feel like you’re on a theme park ride, and along the way, this stuff is coming at you and you grab as much as you can.”

Working with science luminaries isn’t always an easy task in show business. Translating the abstract into an entertaining medium took another kind of medium who could bridge the divide between TV and textbook, and that’s where Druyan excelled.

“She’s not a trained, credentialed scientist; she’s a screenwriter and she’s a writer,” Cannold says. “And she understood the need to tell stories from the heart and to tell them with passion, with magic, wonder, and awe. She had enough grounding in science that the science fed into the stories in a natural way. But in essence, what we had was the gift of a true storyteller who understood how to speak to the audience in words that

Everything about our civilization is on the back of someone who made a discovery that transformed who we are and how we live.- NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON


By Chris Shepperd

would resonate within the core values of science yet not lead with facts and figures.”

Druyan managed to bridge that gap 34 years ago, too. But back then, ironically, it was the scientists who felt affronted by her attempts to make science popular, not the general audience.

“Attitudes have changed,” she said. “For instance, when Carl did Cosmos, he was sort of punished by the scientific community for doing it. Now, I think most scientists of this generation realize how important it is for the public to understand the values and the methods and the ethos of science. This is a society that’s dependent on science and technology.”

It’s also a society that still has various inhibitions about science and its role in touchy debates regarding everything from geopolitics to religion. Tyson has been at the forefront of reverse-witch burning for some time now, setting fire to controversies smoldering across the cultural landscape. He’s unabashed about his appraisal of history, science, and the cultural milieu. For example, in the debut episode that screened at SXSW, an animated scene recounts the life of astrologer Giordano Bruno. The 16th century heliocentrist was charged with heresy by the Inquisition and burned at the stake for arguing the universe contained an infinite number of stars and that some of them might even be inhabited by other intelligent beings.

When asked why the scene was included in the episode, Tyson told us, “Because he’s a martyr. And people don’t normally think of scientists as martyrs. They’re scientists who are the first to think of something about our place in the universe, our relationship to nature, which more often than not conflicts with the prevailing philosophy, be it political, cultural, religious, economic.”

The place of these “heretics” in the historical record is gravely important to Tyson, and the series will feature others, as well. He believes redressing the wrongs of the past is pivotal if we are to advance as a civilization.

“What do you do? Do you say, ‘Well, okay. I acquiesce.’ If that’s how these searchers had behaved throughout the centuries, we’d still be in the caves wondering what was on the other side of the valley. Somebody’s got to go out there and say, ‘I’ve found a new truth. And these truths are not subject to your opinion or your philosophies.’ Everything about our civilization is on the back of someone who made a discovery that transformed who we are and how we live.”

Ever since the first series aired nearly 35 years ago, science has had to address a number of changes to the modern astrophysical paradigm. “The universe got a lot younger the last 35 years,” says Druyan. “It was a scientific consensus back in ‘79, ‘80, when we were writing the series, that the universe was about 15 billion years old. Now it’s only a young 13.8 billion years old.”

But getting the facts straight isn’t as important as bolstering the notion that science is making discoveries and improving our relationship with the universe.

“Cosmos is a celebration of how and why science works, what it has discovered about our place in the universe—not only space but time,” says Tyson. “I would like to think that at the end of an episode, and at the end of the series, you will feel the power to say, ‘I will now become a better shepherd of my civilization.”

#WalkAmericaChance Stephens is trekking across

the nation to raise money for the fight against human trafficking

Human trafficking is real. And Chance Stephens wasn’t okay with that. The 27-year-old Oklahoma City native and U.S. Air Force veteran had returned home from deployment and was transitioning to civilian life.

“It started with a trip to Utah. I was introduced to Tiny Hands International and knew that was something I wanted to get involved with. I didn’t have a rental car and I was walking everywhere. One day I thought, ‘If I can walk across this city, I can walk across America.’”

And so it began. Stephens boarded a plane to Santa Monica, Calif. last September and set out to walk to Virginia Beach, Va.

“I told Paul at Tiny Hands I wanted to walk across America to raise money and support for the work they are doing to rescue girls out of trafficking. He said, ‘You want to do what?!’ Then he told the rest of the staff and they were blown away. No one ever does this. Tiny Hands doesn’t have a walking team that treks across America,” Stephens said.

5 months and 1,200 miles into his journey, Chance was joined by Jacob Leonard. Leonard heard Stephens speak at his church and immediately connected to what he was doing.

“He spoke at my church and I immmediately knew I wanted to join him,” Leonard said. “It is awesome to see people connect to what we are trying to do. Everyone from people our age to 70-year-olds who give to Tiny Hands,”

For these two it’s more than just raising attention. It’s about raising money.

“It sucks that everything takes money. But we are trying to get people to give to Tiny Hands,” Stephens said. “Our goal is $160,000, which is enough to rescue 1,300 girls. The struggle is real, and Tiny Hands is doing something about it.”

You can connect with Chance and Jacob at achancefor.com or by searching #WalkAmerica on social media.


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STE

Randle Browning is a food writer and photographer who grew up in Houston, graduated from Baylor in 2010, and studied and cooked in kitchens in New England and the UK before coming back to Waco. When she’s not blogging, you can find her at Shorty’s Pizza Shack, where she slings pizza dough and serves frothy pints with her husband. Find her food blog online at crandlecakes.com.

We all have one: that food we just don’t like. Something we simply can’t tolerate -- an ingredient that can make a whole pot of soup inedible, a whole pizza flavored with that certain undesirable something.

I’ve noticed that while many people are honest about things like just not liking onions, or hating the texture of sour cream, chefs (and probably other culinary professionals) feel ashamed when they don’t like an ingredient.

I once confessed to a chef that I didn’t like olives. He said, “Then taste one every chance you get. Eventually you will sit down to eat one and enjoy it.” His idea was that it’s not acceptable to be a culinary artist (I know, I know) and just not like one of the ingredients--chefs should be able to see the value in everything they have available. But still, you’ll find that many chefs have some ingredient they secretly despise, from something as simple as tomatoes to something as “out there” as sea urchin or sweetbreads.

It’s been three years since I heard that advice about olives, and I’m here to report that I am finally showing signs of crossing over. I don’t know why I ate so many olives when I knew I wouldn’t enjoy the experience, but, as predicted, I’m starting to like them -- the kalamata variety, anyway. The others are still hit-or-miss.

This tapenade is sort of like an olive gateway -- the addition of capers, garlic, and parsley make it just familiar enough, and spreading it on sourdough toast gives me a lot of other flavors to layer with the briny olive.

Here’s one way to serve the tapenade: on toast with soft-boiled eggs and a drizzle of olive oil. But you could serve this any number of ways: mixed with olive oil for smothering crackly bread; stirred into hummus; spread on a sandwich or wrap; with ricotta cheese and tomatoes on toasts; on a mozzarella, basil, and tomato panini. The list goes on. Any way you look at it, tapenade makes a great refrigerator staple and an impressive (yet super easy) condiment for entertaining.

I made the eggs for these toasts in a sous vide, a machine that circulates water and keeps it at a constant temperature. It allows you to cook food in vacuum-sealed bags to an exact temperature. It’s great for getting a perfect medium-rare steak, but I used it for some 68 C eggs, which you can simply cook in the shell like you would when boiling eggs. Back in the restaurant in Ireland, we cooked eggs to maybe 60 or 65 and used the resulting yolks to make a paste (egg heaven). These 68 C eggs are slightly firmer. You can gently crack and serve them with some egg white still on, or just spread the yolks across toast and top with tapenade. I recommend the latter.

Ingredients:

2 ¼ (275 g) kalamata olives, pitted¼ cup (50 g) capers, rinsed1 garlic clove, peeled¼ cup fresh parsley leaves (optional)1 Tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juiceOlive oil + more for storage and servingPepper

Directions:

1. Add olives, capers, garlic clove, parsley, and lemon juice to a food processor and pulse until you reach a consistency between sand and gravel -- you want pieces smaller than rice grains.

2. Add olive oil gradually, pulsing to combine.

3. To store, cover with a layer of olive oil and refrigerate in an airtight container. The olive oil will solidify in the refrigerator to make a seal across the top of the tapenade. If using fresh parsley, I recommend using this tapenade or freezing it within a week, as the parsley can go wilty. If not, this should keep indefinitely -- as long as any other pickles or olives would in your refrigerator.

4. When serving, it’s common to thin tapenade with more olive oil, depending on your tastes. Bring tapenade to room temperature before enjoying.

If you want to serve this tapenade with soft-boiled eggs and don’t have a sous vide, just cover several eggs in water, bring to a boil, put a lid on it, remove from heat, and wait 7-10 minutes. Then submerge the eggs in ice water before gently cracking (by rolling against the side of your sink, for example), and slice them or rinse off the whites to reach the yolks.

Olive Tapenade with Capers and Parsley (Makes 2.5 cups)

pg 12 • WACO WEEKLY • March 19, 2014 • wacoweekly.compg 12 • WACO WEEKLY • March 19, 2014 • wacoweekly.com

TEXAS BACK ROADSfacebook.com/TexasBackRoads

When you think of a red caboose, it likely invokes train tracks and railroad crossings. The last thought on your mind is probably award-winning red wines, but at Red Caboose Winery, that’s just what you can expect.

Tucked away in the rolling hills of central Bosque County, Red Caboose Winery provides a very welcome surprise for travelers and oenophiles alike. With land purchased in 2001, owner and architect Gary McKibben and his son, Winemaker and Vineyard Manager Evan McKibben, originally set out to start a hobby vineyard, a plan that quickly escalated. Gary is a train enthusiast, and with his son, Gary, he started by planting vines and camping out overnight in an old Santa Fe red and yellow caboose, the winery’s namesake. Four years later, the winery was bonded and produced its first two vintages, a viognier and cabernet sauvignon.

While the list of awards the winery has won is a bit dizzying, the wines are not the only reason to visit the winery. The steel and limestone winery building is beautiful, resembling a small resort. Visitors have the option of tasting wines inside the oak barrel-lined cellar or outside on the rock patio, which provides views of the 20 acres of vines included in the winery’s 200 tree-filled acres.

And if all of that weren’t enough, possibly one of the most intriguing aspects of Red Caboose Winery is the sustainable focus. Since the inception of the winery, Gary and Evan have approached the winemaking process with a “back to the basics” mentality. They looked at the earliest principles of wine making and sought to replicate many of those techniques. They also use green and sustainable practices in producing their grapes, including a 4-year composting process of all organic waste.

Furthermore, the limestone used in the rock patio along with the rock on the building was all harvested from the property. The cellar was sunken and surrounded with dirt to naturally keep the temperature cooler. Further cooling and chilling are provided with a geothermal system. Other electrical needs are supplemented with solar panels installed on the roof, providing net-zero energy consumption. Add in the fact that the winery captures and stores almost 19,000 gallons of water to assist with irrigation and you’ll soon realize that the way they make wine is just as green as the way they grow the grapes.

Maybe all that’s nice, but you’d rather just get together with some friends and enjoy a nice glass of wine around a fire pit on a crisp Texas evening. No worries, you can do that, too.

Insider Tip: If you truly want to please your palate, you might want to attend one of the winery’s monthly Cork & Fork events from February through October. These events fall on the last Friday of the month and include dinner and wine pairings. In addition, twice a year they host Camp Cork & Fork, an opportunity to camp after the regular event. The next Camp Cork & Fork event is scheduled for Friday, March 28.

Red Caboose Winery is located at 1147 CR 1110, just 4 miles northwest of Meridian, Texas. The winery is open Fridays 12pm-5pm, Saturdays 10am-5pm, and Sundays 12pm-5pm. Tastings are $10 and include all of their award winning wines plus a complimentary wine glass. If you have any questions, you can call 254.435.9911. For additional information, check out redcaboosewinery.com.

Sipping a Glass of Red Wine at Red Caboose WineryBy Jeremy Rinard of txbkrds.com


“Understand?” - i hope you do.

Across1 Chocolate sources7 “Dude! Gross!”10 Confetti-throwing Taylor13 Mike’s Hard Lemonade or Bacardi Breezers14 Place for SpongeBob’s pineapple15 Classical ___16 Diamond attendant17 I piece?18 Holstein or Guernsey19 Shrinking sea of Asia20 Emergency signals23 Rose-like flower26 Ending for theater or party27 Atlanta sch.28 What a hand stamp permits at a concert31 Clean, on-screen34 Mobster’s weapon35 Fortune-ate folks?37 Pre-med subj.38 Van Susteren of TV news40 Members ___ jacket41 Band-wrecking first name42 Sprint rival43 Jazz bandleader Stan45 Like healing crystals and biorhythms47 Suffix for south or west48 Hathaway of “Get Smart”49 Formed teams of two54 Wealthy socialite57 “Going Back to ___” (LL Cool J single)58 “___ y Plata” (Montana’s motto)59 Andy Warhol portrait subject60 German word in a U2 album title63 RSVP part64 “Where did ___ wrong?”65 Hunter’s gatherer66 Show with a Five-Timers Club, for short67 Manual alphabet, briefly68 Chips away at

Down1 American Red Cross founder Barton2 Happy as ___3 Athens, Ohio and Athens, Georgia, for two4 Police dispatch, for short5 Tic-tac-toe win6 Genre for James Bond or Austin Powers7 Beef-grading govt. agency8 Actor-turned-Facebook humormonger9 Deride10 Like some themes11 Do a laundry job12 Hound’s hands13 Scheme for a quatrain21 Like some crossword books22 Jump online, or a hint to the long theme answers24 1960s drug25 They say where your plane will land29 Fill up on30 Modern day “carpe diem”31 Light beam32 “Author unknown” byline33 Do major damage36 Roget’s wd.39 Highway: abbr.44 Commit a mistake46 Red blood cell deficiency50 “___ in Harlem”51 French stew with beef, wine and garlic52 Arm bones53 “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” singer Landon ___54 Whedon who created the Buffyvers55 “Happy Days” actress Moran56 Maynard James Keenan band61 “The Price Is Right” prize62 Org. for docs

2014 Jonesin’ Crosswords ([email protected])

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St. Patty's Day CelebrationMarch 17 starting at 4 pm

By Cheyenne Mueller

Based on characters from the Peabody’s Improbable History shorts from the 1960s animated television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Peabody & Sherman features the voices of Ty Burrell (Modern Family), Max Charles (The Neighbors), Ariel Winter (Modern Family), and Leslie Mann (This is 40).

Before any drama unfolds, Mr. Peabody (a dog) and Sherman (a boy) timetravel to the French Revolution, so the audience understands what and how their WABAC (a time machine) operates. After an encounter too close for comfort during the revolution, Sherman begins his first day of school in modern times. Because of his particular knowledge for historical events, an unintentional rivalry begins between Sherman and a fellow student, Penny Peterson.

Penny originally begins as Sherman’s antagonist, and her whole existence is stereotypical to the core: she’s a blonde bully who acts like a young Regina George. She’s a smart gal and exceedingly selfish – her jealous scene in the lunchroom is what kicks off the whole movie – but she eventually evolves into a likable character. Even though she doesn’t adhere to the rules, she encourages Sherman to step out of his comfort zone.

While Penny has some redeeming qualities, the same can’t be said for the primary antagonist, the mean-spirited social worker, Ms. Grunion. While looking more like Ms. Trunchbull from Matilda, Ms. Grunion sports a pink pencil skirt/jacket combo and an unattractive brunette bob, which has become a trend for female villains in recent years (Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and Miss Hattie from Despicable Me). She’s absolutely hell-bent on destroying Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s family life, and although her reasons for doing so aren’t made entirely clear, there’s a few hints that suggest Ms. Grunion is a cat lady.

While journeying through the space-time continuum (ya know, battling King Tut in ancient Egypt, fencing against Robespierre during the French Revolution, and taking a casual flight on Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machine), the film does a fairly decent job of including bonafide historical events throughout the film, with a feel-good motif about love and family.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is 92 minutes and rated PG for some mild action and brief rude humor.

Mr. Peabody & ShermanAnimated (PG)


1. Mr. Peabody & Sherman

The time-travelling adventures of an advanced canine and his adopted son, as they endeavor to fix a time rift they created. PG (92 min)

2. 300: Rise of an Empire

Greek general Themistokles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy. R (102 min)

3. Need for SpeedFresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross-country race with revenge on his mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins. PG-13 (132 min)

4. Non-StopAfter receiving a series of text messages demanding a transfer of $150 million into an offshore account, an air marshal must prevent a terrorist attack and clear his name. PG-13 (106 min)

5. The Single Mom’s Club

The life story of Jesus is told from his humble birth through his teachings, crucifixion, and ultimate resurrection. PG-13 (138 min)

6. The Lego MovieAn ordinary LEGO, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil tyrant from gluing the universe together.PG (100 min)

7. Son of GodThe life story of Jesus is told from his humble birth through his teachings, crucifixion, and ultimate resurrection. PG-13 (138 min)

8. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson chronicles the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the world wars, and Zero Moustafa, a lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.

9. Frozen In a kingdom cursed to endure permanent winter, a young girl voiced by Kristen Bell teams up with a mountain man to rescue her sister and stop the curse in the latest Disney animated adventure. PG (102 min)

10. Veronica MarsYears after walking away from her past as a teenage private eye, Veronica Mars gets pulled back to her hometown (just in time for her high school reunion) to help her old flame, Logan Echolls, who’s embroiled in a murder mystery. PG-13 (107 min)

11. The Monuments Men

An unlikely World War II platoon are tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. PG-13 (118 min)

12. 3 Days to KillA dying Secret Service agent trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter is offered an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment. PG-13 (113 min)

13. Ride Along Fast-talking security guard Ben joins his cop brother-in-law James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta in order to prove himself worthy of marrying Angela, James’ sister. PG-13 (100 min)

14. 12 Years a Slave

In the antebellum United States, Solomon

Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. R (134 min)

15. RoboCopIn 2028 Detroit, when Alex Murphy - a loving husband, father and good cop - is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot cyborg police officer. PG-13 (108 min)

16. About Last Night Two couples journey from the bar to the bedroom, and their ties are eventually put to the test in the real world. R (100 min)

17. American HustleA con man, Irving Rosenfeld, along with his seductive British partner, Sydney Prosser, is forced to work for a wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso. DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and the mafia. R (138 min)

18. PompeiiA slave-turned-gladiator finds himself in a race against time to save his true love, who has been betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts, he must fight to save his beloved as Pompeii crumbles around him. PG-13 (98 min)

19. GravityA medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space.PG-13 (91 min)

20. The Nut JobAn incorrigibly self-serving exiled squirrel finds himself helping his former park brethren raid a nut store to survive, which is also the front for a human gang’s bank robbery. PG (86 min)

Documents

Vol. 1 No. 19