Stephan Pyles Adds Class

On your mark, get set, burn something. Or make a reservation for Stephan Pyles’ “just added” Holiday Entertaining cooking class on December 9 from 11am to 2pm. The first class sold out before I could type “another double eggnog, please”, so be quick. Pyles will share his personal insights and experience on holiday entertaining and demos will include a four-course meal or holiday buffet paired with matching wines and beverages. Tra-la. Call Lisa Moore at 214-999-1229, ext. 102. You’d better not pout!

Kay Bailey Hutchison May Have Senate Problems

The thing I love about Paul Burka is that he does actual reporting. He makes phone calls and stuff. Just to think of it gives me a headache. Today, for example, he actually talked with a Senate staffer who says Senator Kay’s ambition to run for governor may derail her moving up the GOP food chain with Trent Lott’s resignation.

Subprime Mess Will Cost Dallas $4 Billion

So says a report to the U.S. Conference on Mayors cited today in the DBJ.

Good Gay Dallas

I interrupt this post about a swanky e-pub dedicated to trendy and gay Dallas individuals to tell you that Emeril Lagasse’s “Emeril Live!” has been canned by the Food Network. BamBoozled! But back to the matter at hand, Gay List Daily. It’s like a gay version of Daily Candy. Maybe they should have called it Gayly Candy. Who cares. It’s here and it’s a sassy look at Dallas and it is addictive. Especially for an old fag-hag like me. (Can I say that anymore?) Juicy stuff. (Tip of the hat to C.S.) 

Why Is Dallas Growing?

Joel Kotkin says it’s because we’re not hip. Like Charlotte, Raleigh, and Houston, Dallas is family-friendly, and that’s what young, educated married couples want.

This Christmas, Give Your Daughter the Gift of Body-Image Issues

What do you get when you mix popular childhood playthings, blue eye shadow, and inevitable eating disorders? Why, it’s the new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Barbie dolls, of course! Pre-order now, and for a limited time, you’ll get a free NFL Series 15 Tony Romo action figure to teach your little DCCs-in-training that the girl with the tiniest thighs gets the guy. Self-loathing sold separately.

Watcha Doing Next Monday Night?

If your schedule is open on December 3rd, think about this: KLIF’s new foodie show “Taste Of” hosted by Dan Potter and chef Sharon Van Meter, will conduct a live taping of the show at the Milestone Culinary Arts Center. The guest will be cowboy cuisine stud muffin Grady Spears, who has created cowboy menus for restaurants he co-owned in Fort Worth and Granbury, Texas, and in Beverly Hills, as well as for the Bush family at the Texas Governor’s Mansion. He has been on Good Morning America and The Today Show, and has starred with baseball legend Nolan Ryan in The Cowboy’s Kitchen on the Food Network. He recently opened Dutch’s Hamburgers in Fort Worth. It’s nice to have a local foodie show on the air. Get over there www.milestoneculinary.com and get your butt in a seat by 6:15. The show will air on December 9^th at 2:00pm.

Gatorade Inventor, R.I.P.

As Keith Jackson has told us on numerous occasions, Dr. Robert Cade invented the sports drink in 1965 for the University of Florida’s football team. But Dr. Cade spent much of his time ’round these parts, attending UT-Southwestern and doing his residency at Parkland. The never-thirsty doctor died of kidney failure. He was 80.

Cynthia Izaguirre Hazanewjob

She’s replacing Jackie Hyland at Channel 8, according to Uncle Barky. She’ll sit alongside Channel 8 anchor and current backup Los Angeles Laker point guard Justin Farmer on Daybreak. Good to see the North Texas grad has overcome her famous gaffe.

Dallas Cops Not Snooping Through Utility Bills Like Austin PD

On a tip, I Was The State blogger and North Texas attorney Robert Guest discovered and confirmed that Austin police were combing through electricity bills — sans warrants — to justify home invasion searches and asset forfeiture raids. (Indoor pot growers apparently use a lot of electricity. So when cops saw large power usages, the residence was put in the crosshairs.) Austin TV news picked up the story. Guest reports today that Dallas PD and the Dallas sheriff’s department seem to have their priorities better ordered, and neither have such a program. For now.

Illegal Horse Racing Track Busted

To avoid prison sentences, Dallas’ Jesus Romero and Seagoville’s Martin Trejo pleaded guilty to running the Red River Playgrounds in Oklahoma, an illegal racetrack. This recap says the two copped to more than 50 felony counts and paid a total of about $74,000 in fines and court costs, but that’s hardly anything. I read elsewhere they were clearing more than $1 million per year. The “family-friendly” racetrack grounds were rife with drug paraphernalia, which is bad. And I’m guessing the horses’ health wasn’t top-of-mind without a track vet to keep malicious trainers in line, which is also bad. Just bad, bad, bad.

Enough Romo News. Let’s Love Chace Crawford.

No offense to Tony Romo, who is probably really hunky in person, but just take a look at cutie Chace Crawford, Carrie Underwood’s new boyfriend. Good Lord, is that boy handsome. And, he’s from Dallas.
The icing? He likes his drinks at the Loon, where every other boy who is way too young for me with a huge bank account and gorgeous eyes and a girlfriend goes for fun, according to an out-and-about FB’vian:

I saw Chace Crawford (rumored current love of Carrie Underwood) at The Loon on Thursday night. He was there with friends chilling by the back side of the bar. Wouldn’t have noticed him except his eyebrows were too perfect so I had to do a double take then it occurred to me who he was.

Hmmm…eyebrows were the only reason you noticed him? It wasn’t the sweat and pheromone surge of the twenty drunk Loon ladies hovering around him, twirling their straws provocatively? And, we’ve been practicing our twirling technique so if someone could let us know next time he’s there, it would be great.

State Rep. Allen Vaught to Be in New Matt Damon Movie

I profiled State Rep. Allen Vaught in our December issue, which is just hitting newsstands. When you read it, you will not find the following detail in it, as Allen just e-mailed it to me. So go ahead and print this out and paste it somewhere in the body of the story. Anyway, Vaught and the translator he worked with while stationed in Iraq “will most likely” (Allen’s words) appear in the forthcoming movie based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. The film, which looks like it will be released sometime in 2009, stars Matt Damon, and is directed by Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum). Filming begins in January, and, as Vaught says:

It focuses on the early parts of the invasion, and the disconnect between those of us in the field versus the people in the Green Zone. They want actual soldiers who were there playing soldiers in the movie, so we are rounding up a few soldiers to take part.

If you’ve seen Greengrass’ work, you know this is entirely in his wheelhouse.

Countrywide Bank, Show Me The Money!

Once again, it ran an ad in Sunday’s paper offering 5.3% interest on a CD. It is now Day 18 since my sainted Mother attempted to cash in her Countrywide CD. She still hasn’t seen the money. Yes, it could have been lost in the mail. Yes, Countrywide could just be the victim of cruel fate. Still, that’s 18 days without interest since she first tried to get her money back. Be careful out there.

Leading Off (Local Blog Edition)

1. Over on Blogmaverick, Mark Cuban announces he’s getting into the Facebook app biz, with something that looks a lot like an eBay competitor: Radical Buy.

2. Uncle Barky breaks down why you see more diet stories than interviews in sports bars (something about women and their watching habits) on local TV news.

3. And Alibaster K. Abthernabther gives us more gold: an open letter to Channel 8 sportscaster Dale Hansen regarding the annual airing of his “Thank God For Kids” video. A.K.A. (get it?) suggests other videos that Hansen should produce and have the Oak Ridge Boys score, including “Thank God For Puppies” and “Thank God For Mock Turtlenecks and Sports Coats.”