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Want to show off your secret food pleasure? Statesman photo shoot on Friday
After yesterday’s post about secret food pleasures, the #secretfoodpleasures hashtag kind of took on a life of its own. Throughout the day, I was reading tweets from people all over the country about their love affairs with pickle juice and ice, hot Cheetos and nacho cheese, popcorn and M&Ms, banana and mayo sandwiches and a couple of unmentionables that had more to do with pleasures than with food.
My photo editor and I were brainstorming ways to visualize the relationship that we seem to have with these foods, and she suggested, why not have people come here so we can photograph them with the foods that make them go weak in the knees?
So, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, swing by the Statesman, 305 S. Congress Ave., just off Riverside south of Lady Bird Lake, with your guilty/secret/not-so-secret food pleasures and we’ll snap your photo for the story that’s running next week.
It shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes, unless there’s a bunch of people here at the same time, and if you want to email me to give me a heads up that you’re coming, the photo staff would appreciate it.
Now, the only problem is deciding which of my secret food pleasures to bring…
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SXSW Eats: Bourdain, Colicchio to talk social media and TV
Food is always a huge part — both officially and unofficially — of the South by Southwest interactive, film and music conferences (you can click this link to see all the crazy food events, panels, parties, etc from the past three years), and this year is no different.
The madness is just a month away, so if you’re starting to work on your schedule, here’s a look at some of the panels and events already on mine:
• The Bacon Takedown (above), a cooking contest that challenges home cooks to create sometimes wild and crazy dishes that involve bacon, returns for the third year, this time at 2 p.m. at Shangri-La on March 11.
• Earlier that day, The Food Experiments, another cooking competition born out of Brooklyn, will host The Taco Experiment at noon to find the best homemade tacos in Austin. That competition will take place at noon on March 11 at ND at 501 Studios.
• Two food celebrities — “No Reservations” host Anthony Bourdain and “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio — will will talk about so-called transmedia and how social media allows them to create interactive television on two different panels. Bourdain and his “No Reservations” crew will present on Tuesday, March 13, while Colicchio will appear with fellow Bravo star Andy Cohen in a panel on Saturday, March 10.
• Like last year, the SXSW staff has arranged some of the food-related panels to be in the same location on the same day. On Sunday at the Driskill, you can hear about how food trucks are using social media, how open data can improve access to and the quality of food and how Brooklyn became such a hotbed for culinary artisans, including Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar and Joshua and Jessica Applestone, who recently opened a Fleisher’s Meats in the borough. There’s even a session about how to “reprogram,” aka dig up, your yard to turn it into a food source. You have to have an interactive conference badge to attend the panels.
What’s missing from this list? The Rachael Ray SXSW party, of course, which hasn’t been announced yet. After the blockbuster parties she’s hosted in the past four years, I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t return, but as soon as I find out, I’ll let you know.
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Houston-Austin connection grows through food
In today’s food section, in addition to a fun profile by the indefatigable Ricardo Gandara of Tony Sousa, who is in charge of dry-aging meats at Lone Star Food Service in East Austin, you’ll find my most recent column about the growing food ties between Houston and Austin.
Uchi Houston and Farmhouse Delivery are opening in Houston within a week of each other, and within the next week or so, Houston’s Trentino Gelato will launch in Austin with eight flavors of gelato created by Austin culinary notables Bill Norris, Iliana de la Vega, James Holmes, Jack Gilmore, Plinio Sandalio (who moved from Houston to Austin just a few years ago), Laura Sawicki, Shawn Cirkiel and Ned Elliott. (You can find the gelato at both Central Market locations.)
The connection between Austin and Houston seems to me to be much stronger than that between Austin and Dallas or Austin and San Antonio, but it’s worth noting that Greenling Organic Delivery has expanded to Dallas in recent weeks, and the Hopdoddy owners recently announced that they’d be opening the first Hopdoddy in Dallas in October.
Two Houston restaurateurs — Joe Phillips, who went to school at St. Edward’s University and runs the Oh My Pocket Pies food truck, and Scott Tycer, who went to UT and owns Kraftsmen Baking — put the connection into perspective: Lots of people go to college in Austin and then return with a certain nostalgia for their college days in our little (but growing) city, and, for Austin businesses, there’s a lot of money to be made in these large metropolitan areas.
But Phillips hit the nail on the head when he acknowledged the importance of the “weird Austin” brand. “We love anything that says Austin. Anything with a funky, relaxed dining experience that is open and feels free and super casual.”
Photo by Adam Brackman.
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What’s your secret food pleasure?
When I was a kid, I used to eat peanut butter and syrup on Eggo waffles just about every morning for breakfast.
It was a decadent treat that I’m happy to admit that I still indulge in every once in a while. Some people would call this a guilty pleasure, but just because I don’t broadcast to the world that I’m a sucker for cottage cheese topped with black olives, raisins, sunflower seeds and crunchy chow mein noodles doesn’t mean that I feel guilty about eating it.
It’s just a food pleasure — like Campbell’s chicken noodle soup mixed with handfuls of crumbled Premium saltine crackers — that I hold near and dear to my heart.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m doing a story about the special relationships we have with these sometimes weird or unique foods that we love eating as much as grandma’s brunch or a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant.
Whether you drink out of the milk carton and then squirt chocolate sauce in your mouth or go weak in the knees for Cheez Whiz on Cheez-Its, I want to hear about it. I’ll be publishing many of the responses in a story in next week’s food section, so leave a comment, send an email to abroyles@statesman.com or tweet your responses to @broylesa. Heck, you can even phone them in if you like by calling 912-2504.
So, what is your secret/guilty/indulgent food pleasure?
Photo by deedoucette via Creative Commons on Flickr.
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Openings/Closings: Fricano’s closes original store, The Flying Carpet moves up, Red House on hiatus
• Open: The Flying Carpet. Maria and Abderrahim Souktouri, who for the past few years have been serving Moroccan food and tea out of a trailer parked off South Congress Avenue, have moved the trailer behind an old house at 504 W. Oltorf St. that they have renovated and are turning into a tea house and restaurant. Right now, they are still doing all of the cooking in the trailer, but customers can eat inside the beautifully painted and revamped house-turned-eatery. The Souktouris are still serving their regular menu of flat bread sandwiches and salads for lunch and dinner, but they have added special order tagines, which you order a day ahead of time, that are filled with dishes like prune-stewed beef, preserved lemon chicken topped with French fries fish or bastilla made with filo, slow-cooked chicken and poached eggs. 744-5651.
• Open: The Egg & I, the first Austin location of the national breakfast diner chain at 2525 W. Anderson Lane. 452-3447.
• Open: Gusto Italian Kitchen + Wine Bar. The turnaround from La Sombra at 4800 Burnet Road was quick, and the new Italian restaurant run by the same owners has reopened in the same space as their Peruvian restaurant that closed last month. In addition to daily dinner service, the restaurant is adding lunch every day but Saturday. 458-1100.
• Open: Taco-Mex, the second location of the Tex-Mex restaurant at 2944 E. 12th St., whose original location is on Manor Road. 524-1880.
• Open: Dirty Birds BBQ, a barbecue trailer at the East Side Food Park, 2209 E. Cesar Chavez St. 348-6029.
• Open: Corner Bar, a bar at the corner of South Lamar Boulevard and West Mary Street.
• Opening Wednesday: Fresh Plus Grocery, the third location of the local grocery store chain at 2917 W. Anderson Lane in Allandale, which formerly housed Sprouts and Sun Harvest.
• Moved: The South Austin location of Kerbey Lane Cafe has moved from its home at 2700 S. Lamar Blvd. and reopened just down the road at 3005 S. Lamar Blvd., which formerly housed a Blockbuster Video. The new location offers more than double the seating capacity of the previous South Lamar location, making it the second largest of the local chain’s five restaurants. Designed by architect Richard Weiss, the new restaurant features a clean, modern design with retro diner elements and three separate dining areas. 445-4451.
• Moving: Counter Culture, the vegan food truck at 120 E. North Loop Blvd. is closing this weekend so the owners can focus on the brick-and-mortar restaurant at 2337 E. Cesar Chavez St. that is scheduled to open in March.
• Closed: Fricano’s Deli has closed its original location at 104 E. 31st St. Fricano’s opened a second location at 2405 Nueces St. in the West Campus area late last year, and that shop remains open, serving from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
• Closed, for now: With the sale of the property at 1917 Manor Road, Red House Pizzeria and Bar is “on hiatus” as owner Carlos Rivero looks for a new space to reopen the restaurant. The restaurant group behind Eddie V’s, Moonshine and Hopdoddy has purchased the space, but no word just yet on what they plan to open there.
• Closed, for now: Get Sum Dim Sum, the popular fast casual dim sum eatery has closed its North Lamar Boulevard eatery and will be moving into a new location, which will be announced soon, says owner Foo Swasdee.
• Closed: True Grits Grill, the restaurant in Jonestown at 18645 FM 1431, closed last month.
Kerbey Lane photo by Matthew Odam for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Foodways Texas to host symposium in March on preserving food culture
The nonprofit is hosting a three-day conference March 23 through 25 at various locations around Austin to talk about all the ways that we are preserving — both figuratively and literally — the bounty of Texas food. “We’ll talk about preservation in our pastures, on our farms, in our kitchens, and in the stories we tell around the dinner table,” the website says. Last year, the group’s inaugural symposium took place in Galveston.
Panels will bring together a number of farmers, food artisans, craft brewers, chefs and food historians to talk about the state of food in Texas today, as well as the efforts to record the stories of the people who make Texas food what it is.
Also part of the symposium are a number of interactive dining experiences, including a chuck wagon brunch with Tom Perini of Perini Ranch Steakhouse, a seafood dinner with Justin Yu of Oxheart Restaurant in Houston and an 1840s farm dinner at Boggy Creek Farm with Sonya Cote of East Side Showroom.
Symposium tickets, which go on sale at 10 a.m. today for members and on Monday for nonmembers, cost $225 for members and $250 for the general public. You can also buy an $85 pass that will get you into the panels but none of the events with meals. (Don’t dillydally on those tickets. The group’s second annual barbecue camp in June is already sold out.)
You can find out about joining the group by going to its membership page.
Photos from FoodwaysTexas.com.
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El Greco: The most heartbreaking “Kitchen Nightmares” of all time?
Ouch.
After hearing months of chatter about Austin restaurant El Greco’s appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” the episode finally debuted last Friday night and it was everything I’d hoped it wouldn’t be.
The family that owned the business didn’t look like much of a family at all, with son/chef Jake Konstantinidis cussing at his mom, Athina, and aunt all the way up until the “make nice” segment, which even Ramsay said he wasn’t sure was going to happen. We find out that Athina and the rest of the family had poured $800,000 into the restaurant since opening it in 2007 and that Jake, who only showed up a few hours a day, was insisting that the food be reheated in the microwave.
After much yelling and name-calling (often times in Greek, with subtitles), the family appeared to have reconciled, and all the way until 35 seconds before the end of the episode, the production team led us to believe that things were looking up for both the family and the restaurant. “In the months that followed, El Greco received positive feedback from the community, and it appeared as though the restaurant was going to be turned around,” the narrator tells us. “But Jake and Athina’s insurmountable debt was too much to overcome and the mother and son were forced to close El Greco.”
No one in Austin had been able to confirm with the El Greco folks that they’d closed the restaurant for good, but customers had been reporting since mid-December that the restaurant hasn’t been open.
Julio-Cesar Florez, the chef behind the newly opened Gusto Italian Kitchen and Wine Bar, says that Anthony, one of El Greco’s primary cooks, is now “doing well” as a cook at his restaurant.
Although it’s interesting to read the back-and-forth on the restaurant’s Facebook page and on a few of the Chowhound boards about who is to blame for the restaurant’s closure and how much Ramsay’s intervention either helped or hurt the restaurant, all we know for sure is that an Austin family has closed a restaurant that they put a lot of money and emotional and physical effort into.
I haven’t been able to get a hold of the Konstantinidis family or any of the other staff to find out how they are doing, but I wish them well. If it was hard for us to watch, I can’t imagine how hard it was for them to see themselves through the lens of a national production team that won’t ever have a lack of struggling restaurants who want to be featured.
Photos from Fox.com.
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Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance
Are you ready for a taco cook-off, cereal milk ice cream and a deluge of foodies in Austin?
Tickets — and by that, I mean passes — for the Austin Food & Wine Festival, April 27-29, went on sale today on the festival’s website, and a $250 or $850 pass is the only way you’ll be able to get in on the Andrew Zimmern, Gail Simmons, Jonathan Waxman and Masaharu Morimoto action when they come to town in a few months.
The new festival is a pretty big change from years past, but I have a feeling that they won’t have a hard time selling passes, especially to out-of-town foodies looking for a non-SXSW excuse to come to Austin before the triple digit weather sets in.
A quick update on the Austin Food & Wine Alliance, the beneficiary of the festival that plans to give the money back to the community in the form of grants to culinary innovators:
At a meeting last week, I found out a couple of things of note about the alliance, which will also host a number of fundraiser events on its own throughout the year, starting with a Live Fire event on April 26. First, the board hopes to start taking grant applications sometime this summer, and alliance president Cathy Cochran-Lewis said she hopes that the grants will at least be in the neighborhood of $5,000 each. Second, just like any of the other food nonprofits in Austin, the Food & Wine Alliance is happy to be the beneficiary of the money you or your organization raise at your supper club/bake sale/salsa competition.
Now that you’ve had some time to process the news about the festival, what do you think of the changes from its predecessor, the Hill Country Wine and Food Festival? If you plan on going, whom are you most excited to see?
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So woo me: Where to eat this Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is on a Tuesday this year, which is bad news for lovers who have a hard time fitting a date night like Valentine’s in the middle of the week but good news for restaurant owners who always see a rush on weekend nights but rarely one of the caliber that Valentine’s Day will bring in the middle of the week. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rounding up the Valentine’s specials, both the weekend before and the night of. Have a special dinner to submit? Send the details in an email to Austin360.com producer LeeAnn Pendley.
• Alamo Drafthouse (Ritz 320 E 6th Street, 476-1320, Village 2700 W Anderson Lane, 476-1320, South Lamar 1120 S Lamar Blvd, 476-1320, Lake Creek 13729 Research Blvd, 219-5408, drafthouse.com): ‘Princess Bride’ quote-along and feast. 7 p.m.
• Austin Cake Ball Kitchen & Bar(3401 Esperanza Crossing Suite #104, 215-3633, www.austincakeball.com/kitchenandbar): Three-course prix fixe dinner menu. Feb. 10-14. $45 per person. $75 per couple.
• Aviary (2110 S. Lamar Blvd., 916-4445, verdesupperclub.com): Verde Supper Club presents ‘Intercourses: A Night of Aphrodisiacs’ on Feb. 14. Six course meal. $90 per person.
• Bistrot Mirabelle (8127 Mesa Drive Ste A100, 346-7900, www.bistrotmirabelle.com): Three-course dinner, including a complimentary glass of champagne. Feb. 14. $37.95.
• Braise (2121 E. Sixth St., 478-8700, www.braiseaustin.com): Four-course fixed-price menu Tuesday, Feb. 14. $49.95 per person, $99.95 per couple.
• The Carillon (AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, 1900 University Ave., 404-1900, www.thecarillonrestaurant.com): Seven-course dinner with wine pairings. Feb. 10-11 and Feb. 14. $120 per person. $80 without wine.
• Congress (200 Congress Ave., 827-2760, congressaustin.com/congress): Five-course menu. Feb. 14. $95 per person.
• EZ’s Brick Oven & Grill(3918 N. Lamar Blvd., 302-1800, www.ezsrestaurants.com/): Three-course dinner. Feb. 14. $25 per couple, exchange your two glasses of wine for a full bottle for $32.
• Fabi + Rosi (509 Hearn Street, 236-0642, www.fabiandrosi.com/): Four-course dinner. Includes wine pairings. Feb 14. 7 p.m. $75 per person.
• Fall Creek Vineyards (1820 County Road 222, Tow, 325-379-5361, www.fcv.com): Three course lunch with Fall Creek wine pairings at 11:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. Feb. 11. $34.
• Frank (407 Colorado St, 494-6916 www.jivetickets.com/concerts/frank-valentine-s-dinner-w-soul-track-mind): Special three-course dinner with Soul Track Mind. Two seatings at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. $100 per couple.
• The Grille at Rough Hollow (103 Yacht Club Cove, Lakeway, 261-3444, www.roughhollowclub.com/grille.php): Special Valentine’s tasting menu. Feb. 10 - 14.
• Hotel Saint Cecilia (, www.hotelstcecilia.com/): Feb. 14 6 to 10 p.m. $150 per person includes cocktails and wine pairings.
• Hudson’s on the Bend (3509 RM 620 N., 266-1369, www.hudsonsonthebend.com): Seven-course dinner with wine parings. Feb. 8. 7 p.m. $150.
• Hyatt Regency Downtown (208 Barton Springs Rd., 477-1234, www.hyatt.com): Pre-fixe dinner. Feb. 14 at 6 p.m. $49 per person.
• Manuel’s (310 Congress Ave., 472-7555; 10201 Jollyville Road, 345-1042, www.manuels.com): Three-course menu Feb. 10-14. $35.
• MAX’s Wine Dive (207 San Jacinto Boulevard, 904-0111, www.maxswinedive.com): A special evening of French cuisine on Sunday, Feb. 12th. Tickets include dinner for two with wine pairings. $150 plus tax and gratuity. Tickets purchased after Feb. 1 $199.
• Mesa Ranch Steakhouse(8108 Mesa Dr., 853-9480, mesaranchaustin.com): Four-course fixed price dinner. Feb. 14. $45 per person.
• Messina Hof Winery (9996 US Hwy 290 East, Fredericksburg, 830-990-4653, www.messinahof.com): Five course dinner paired with five different Messina Hof wines. Feb. 11 & Feb. 14. $80 per person.
• Paggi House (200 Lee Barton Drive, 473-3700, www.paggihouse.com): Four-course dinner. Feb. 14. $85 per person. Wine pairings available. Limited à la carte menu available.
• Restaurant Jezebel (Address disclosed upon payment. www.jezebeldining.com): Four-course intimate dinner held in chef Parind Vora’s East Austin dining room. Feb. 14 7:30 p.m. $120 per person.
• Sagra (1610 San Antonio St., 535-5988, sagraaustin.net/): Four-course traditional Italian dinner. Feb. 14. $45 per person, $20 for wine pairings.
• Soleil(6550 Comanche Trail, 266-0600, soleilaustin.com): Five-course dinner. Feb. 14, 5 to 9 p.m.
• Sullivan’s Steakhouse (300 Colorado St., 495-6504, sullivansteakhouse.com): Three-course Valentine’s menu for two. Feb. 11-14. $89.
• Taj Mahal Indian Cuisine(12407 N. Mopac Expwy., 837-4444, www.tajmahalaustin.com): Three-course dinner for two. Feb. 14. $39.95
• Trace (200 Lavaca St. at the W Hotel, 542-3660, www.traceaustin.com): Two three-course menus will be featured on Feb. 14th, including a vegetarian option. $65 per person (with wine parings for $90). 5:30 to 10 p.m.
• TRIO at Four Seasons Hotel (98 San Jacinto Blvd., 685-8300, www.trioaustin.com): Three-course prix fixe pre-Valentine’s menu Feb. 10-13. $55 per person. Four-course prix fixe Valentine’s menu. Feb. 14. $95 per person.
• Vivo Lake Creek (12233 RR620 Ste #105, 331-4660, www.vivo-austin.com): Five-course menu. $65 per person. Add wine pairings for an additional $20.
• Zed’s (501 Canyon Ridge Drive, 339-9337, www.zeds.bz): Special prix fixe menu with champagne toast. $40 for single, $75 per couple.
• Z’Tejas(10525 W. Parmer Lane 388-7772, 9400 A. Arboretum Blvd 346-3506, 1110 W. 6th Street 478-5355, www.ztejas.com): Special sweetheart dinner menu. Feb. 11-14.
Rodolfo Gonzalez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Is cash mobbing the new Kickstarter?
Kickstarter and other social funding sites like IndieGoGo have done wonders for food businesses trying to get off the ground, but what about established small businesses that could use a little financial help?
Cash mobbing could be the answer.
Austinite Jason Jepson first heard of cash mobbing — a coordinated event similar to a flash mob that asks people to show up at a small business at the same time with $10 or $20 cash in hand to spend — through an article in the Wall Street Journal last month, and so he created @CashMobAustin, a social media initiative to bring a bunch of people to the same business on the same day to spend cold, hard cash.
“How many have heard about a place but maybe haven’t gone?” says Jepson, whose day job is director of PR of the Austin-based RevWorldwide. “I wanted to coordinate something easy and fun that lets people find stuff that’s unique to Austin.”
Austinites are good at shopping locally, he says, but there are plenty of businesses, including restaurants or food retailers, with great concepts that could use a little financial — and moral — boost, especially in this January retail slump.
The first cash mob is 11 a.m. on Sunday at the HOPE Farmers’ Market, which is still considered a newbie in the Austin farmers’ market scene even though many of the most up-and-coming food artisans, including Salt and Time, Dos Lunas, Red Rabbit Cooperative Bakery and Wunder-Pilz Kombucha, are regular vendors there.
Jepson says he’d like to do two cash mobs a month at everywhere from bars to clothing shops and that he’s hoping to hear from Austinites about places they’d like to mob. He says a local restaurant heard about the mobs through Twitter and contacted him, not to be the recipient of a mob but to support the mobs and other businesses however they could. You can email Jason at cashmobaustin@gmail.com with ideas or suggestions.
“Everyone brings 10 bucks and it makes someone’s day,” he says. “It puts a smile on your face and it puts a smile on their face. What could be better than that?”
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Openings/Closings: Long-awaited Lenoir, Easy Tiger opening in coming days
• Opening Friday: Lenoir, the prix-fixe restaurant at 1807 S. First St. from former Trio chef Todd Duplechan and his wife, Jessica Maher. I had the chance to try out the menu, which they’re calling French ethnic, during the soft opening this week. Among the highlights w1ere the wild boar osso bucco, chicken lettuce wraps topped with crunchy fried-then-dried sweet potato strands and the venison pho with made-from-scratch flat noodles and a rich broth. 215-9778.
• Opening on Monday: Easy Tiger Bake Shop and Beer Garden, 709 E. Sixth St., the newest (and much-delayed) restaurant from the 24 Diner team, including chef Andrew Curren, who appeared on this season of “Top Chef: Texas.”
• Open: Squealers, a food trailer at 1620 E. Riverside Drive serving bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches made with house-cured bacon. 703-7413.
• Open: Moses Falafel, a kosher, vegan food trailer in the parking lot of Dell Jewish Community Campus, 7300 Hart Lane. (325) 370-9796.
• Open: Hana World Market, an Asian grocery store and market at 1700 W. Parmer Lane. 832-6606.
• Reopening next month: Hickory Street, the restaurant at the corner of Eighth Street and Congress Avenue downtown that closed late last year. Brendan Puthoff, owner of Third Base and Barcelona, and partners Nate Howry and Mason Wheeless have dropped bar and grill from the name and hired Camden Stuerzenberger, formerly chef at Bess Bistro and Walton’s Fancy & Staple. The renovated restaurant will reopen in February with seasonal dishes made with mostly locally sourced ingredients.
• Renamed: Madam Mam’s at 4514 West Gate Blvd. has changed its name to Sap’s. The Anderson Lane and campus locations will still be called Madam Mam’s.
• Open: Maoz Vegetarian, the first Austin location of the international restaurant chain that based in Amsterdam. The restaurant, located in the Triangle (4601 N. Lamar Blvd.), is known for serving Belgian-style fries and pita pockets stuffed with balls of falafel. 323-2259.
• Open: The Soup Coup, a food stand serving gourmet soups at 2604 E. Seventh St. 348-7687.
• Opening Thursday: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, the seventh Austin’s location of the California-based coffeeshop company, at Slaughter Lane Mo-Pac (Loop 1) in Circle C.
• Closed: Technique, the restaurant inside Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts near the Domain.
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Why do Americans love fortune cookies so much?
Americans are obsessed with fortune cookies.
I don’t have a clear answer to why fortune cookies, which are about as Chinese as crab rangoon, are so popular here, but it’s a subject that Austin food blogger Allison Wright explores on her blog, Not A Fortune.
I interviewed Wright for a story in today’s paper about the fascinating world of fortune cookies, which former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee has covered extensively on her blog/book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. Did you know they were invented in Japan and that more than 3 billion of them are made every year? In the 1980s, a U.S. fortune cookie maker (almost all the world’s fortune cookies are made here) tried to introduce the cookies in China, an effort that was so unsuccessful, the company stopped trying after three years, according to a 2008 NYT story by Lee, who made this video a few years ago to show just how foreign fortune cookies are in China.
What interests me the most is the rituals and superstitions we’ve created around fortune cookies. Some people insist on keeping every fortune they’ve ever received. Others, like Wright, can’t open a fortune cookie without taking at least a bite of the cookie. To some, the little scraps of paper are simply a meaningless source of “in bed” jokes, but it’s hard to discount the emotional impact that fortunes can have on people and the decisions they make.
In a guest post on Not A Fortune last year, a friend of Wright’s who’d had a miscarriage and was hoping to get pregnant again shared a story about just how comforting and foretelling a few words on a little piece of paper can be.
Photo by Alberto Martinez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Latest comments
Only $85 and no food. What a bargain.
... read the full comment by Realistic | Comment on Foodways Texas to host symposium in March on preserving food culture Read Foodways Texas to host symposium in March on preserving food culture
Trento is also offering an awesome menu. Yum!
... read the full comment by Nicole | Comment on So woo me: Where to eat this Valentine's Day Read So woo me: Where to eat this Valentine's Day
Now that Austin has become the playground for the rest of the country, Austinites can ill afford to play in it. What made our city so attractive to these events (Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, SXSW, ACL Fest) in the first place was its eclectic
... read the full comment by Carol | Comment on Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance Read Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance
Now that Austin has become the playground for the rest of the country, Austinites can ill afford to play in it. What made our city so attractive to these events (Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, SXSW, ACL Fest) in the first place was its eclectic
... read the full comment by Carol | Comment on Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance Read Austin Food & Wine Festival passes now on sale, plus new details on the alliance
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