Riffs, Roams and Raves: A Weekly Column

Riff: “9 to 5” in Lockhart The final show of the Dolly Parton musical “9 to 5” ended Sunday at the Gaslight Baker Theatre in Lockhart. Area stage stars and vocalists Tysha Calhoun, Ella Mae Mc-Carthy, and Rebecca Smootz played the principal roles of Violet, Doralee, and Judy who thwart their misogynistic boss, Mr. Hart, and turn their workplace into a gender-fair, award-winning company.

Doug Degirolamo, who played the smarmy Mr. Hart, was perfectly cast, nailing the role of his oversexed character with equally smarmy dance moves that elicited guffaws from the audience during his opening number.

Ella Mae McCarthy cinched her role as Doralee, the character portrayed by Dolly Parton in the 1980 film of the same name. Her melodious agile voice easily accommodated Parton’s Tennessee twang, and with a curly blonde wig, and warm charm, she wowed the audience throughout the play.

While the musical has taken some pelters since it opened in 2009, it is saved by three things, the message, the anthemic title song and the hilarious stage portrayal of Mr. Hart’s bondage.

In one scene of the Lockhart production, a video of the actors capturing Hart was projected on the back of the set. It broke up the audience and stole the show.

Roam: Blanco

This week’s roam took me to Blanco. A quick, 27-minute drive put me on the town’s square that is anchored by its handsome Second Empire-style courthouse. Second Empire is also known as “Napoleon III,” an eclectic mix of decorative and architectural styles. Built in 1886, the courthouse served the county for 40 years until an election put the county seat in Johnson City. According to its history, it was a Farmers’ Union Hall, the Town Hall, a theater, an opera house, library and fair grounds. It housed the Blanco County News and, from 1937 to 1961, was a hospital. Between 1971 and 1973 the building was the Blanco Museum of the Early West and became a recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Briefly it was even a barbecue restaurant before falling into complete disrepair. When a local rancher wanted to dismantle the building and move it piece by piece to his ranch, locals banded together to save it.

While chatting with store owners on the square, no fewer than three people spoke fondly of the courthouse and mentioned that the third floor courtroom was used in the remake of the film True Grit in 2010. That year I attended the memorial service for Charlie Tesar, a Blanco resident and former faculty member at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, in that same courtroom. A building like that can hold a lot of memories.

While escaping the heat I stopped at the Redbud Café for iced tea, antique browsing at Cranberry’s, took in whimsical metal sculpture at the “We Got It” shop and spent a little time chatting with the vendor at the “You Need It” shop owned by the same people. At the end of the square on Main street, a small house was being renovated into a coffee shop, billed by the construction crew as “the next Starbucks.” While not an exhaustive or particularly thorough ramble through Blanco, the excursion was enough to reacquaint myself with our neighbors to the west and to take in the flavor of the town.

Over an enormous pulled pork sandwich at the Old 300 barbeque on Fourth street, I eavesdropped on a group of men showing each other photos of a recent fishing trip, sneaked glances at a guy sporting a neatly waxed handlebar mustache and listened to a heartwarming selection of vintage country music over the sound system. Too stuffed to move, a friendly lady offered to take my tray and brought me something for my leftovers. Without notice, I was suddenly “verklempt,” overcome by affection for the culture of this town and other hill country places I visit, removed from the pace and urban values of larger cities who don’t particularly know who they are anymore. As I climbed into my car, the temperature gauge read 112 degrees. I drove a block or two to the Blanco State Park and saw people soaking in river water up to their chins. Just looking at them brought the temperature inside my car down ten degrees at least.

Rave: Oro Bianco Creamery If you haven’t had the occasion to stop at the Oro Bianco Italian Creamery in Blanco, drop everything and go. This creamery makes homemade gelati and sorbeti – Italian-style ice creams and sorbets – and rises straight to the top for quality. Their gelatos are made with water buffalo milk, a superrich milk that contains 8.5 percent butterfat, more than twice the butterfat of cow milk at 3.5 percent. Not only is the taste ultra-creamy, but the milk is lactose friendly for people with sensitivity in that area. The buffalo come from a herd, 400 strong, that lives at the Peeler Farm in Floresville. The animals are milked up to four times a week and the milk is driven to Blanco where it is pasteurized at Oro Bianco at low temperatures – but not homogenized.

The operation is the brainchild of lawyer Phil Giglio and Chef Fiore Tedesco. Together they launched the creamery in 2020 and went on to produce water buffalo mozzarella cheese. Tedesco is the chef and owner of the L’Oca d’Oro restaurant in Austin.

While Americans aren’t generally familiar with water buffalo milk, it has many benefits over cow’s milk. For one thing, it doesn’t contain a protein found in cow’s milk to which many people are allergic. It also has 43 percent less cholesterol, 58 percent higher calcium and high levels of the natural antioxidant, tocopherol, than cow’s milk. It is also high in conjugated linoleic acid.

CLA is a compound that has some benefits in lowering cancer and diabetes risks and supports bone and weight maintenance. Buffalo milk is an important ingredient in Southern Italian cuisine and is considered a superior foodstuff.

During my visit, I talked with creamery partner Adam Thompson who made me an “affogato,” a gelato with espresso poured over it. It was, hands down, the best ice cream dessert I’ve ever tasted. To say it was smooth is an understatement. To learn more about the only water buffalo creamery in Texas, go to orobiancomilk. com.