Gay Pride...a week later!

So I know this blog is about food, and maybe I'm veering off topic a bit too much, but I'm gay, and last weekend was gay pride in a lot of cities. This is something that's super important to me, so I have to put in a mention, or five, of it. I grew up being called names and generally made to feel like sh**t about who I was. I even got assaulted once. So it's very, very important to me that we always have a parade, we always have a day of gay pride and we always stand up for ourselves.
Though Austin's gay pride was the first weekend of June, last weekend, June 27th, was the big day in Houston. My pal Julie and I packed up the car and headed south for the big day. Our wonderful friend Todd had gotten us all tickets in the VIP section of the parade. Pre-parade, we dined at Jenni's Noodle House, 3111 S Shepherd Dr. This was a mix of Asian cooking styles, but mostly Vietnamese. Julie had a tofu vermicelli dish that I found to be delicious and perfectly seasoned. I had the super fried rice, which was fried rice with all different types of meat and eggs in it. Superb. I gazed longingly at the five layer cakes in their refrigerator but I wasn't about to risk sugar shock right before a parade and especially with a bunch of gay guys in tow, they're more diet conscious than Beverley Hills housewives. Another time.

The parade was a blast. Being in the VIP section was terrific(thanks again, Todd). There was an open bar that was free, so Julie and I proceeded to drink our body weight in champagne. And though it's weird to mention, we had the only nice portapotties I've ever experienced. Yay VIP toilets! What I can remember of the parade was fun, though the floats were not quite up to the standards of years past. Perhaps it was the recession?
After the parade, Michael, Julie and I decided to uphold tradition and hit up our beloved House of Pies, 3112 Kirby Drive, for some greasy food to hopefully protect us against massive hangovers. Being drunk and thus not in super picky or decisive moods, we all ordered the sausage scrambler, which is southern comfort food at its finest. They split a really large biscuit on a huge plate and smother it in tons of sausage, gravy and scrambled eggs. As always, it was dee-lish.
The aftereffects? Julie was painfully hungover the next day, I was not. However, I was really sick the first part of the week, so something got out of whack. Ah well, the price one pays sometimes for pride.
I'm off to Memphis on Wednesday to see my mother, so hopefully, I'll have some food adventures to report back on. Happy Pride to all!