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October 2008
“Baked” bakers: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
(What’s in Your Fridge Friday is What’s in Your Fridge Thursday this week because the fridge owners are going to be at a book signing tonight at Whole Foods. Read on…)
Quit The Man, stock up on flour and sugar and create a baking sensation in a tucked away corner of a city already full of bakeries. But Matt and Nato stood out: their homemade marshmallows fluffy, their brownies legendary. Their hip take on baking soon caught the eye of everyone from Oprah to Martha Stewart and within a few years of opening Baked became more than just a store.
Baked and its bakers, who specialize in cutting edge flavor combinations, became a baking sensation.
Matt and Nato, who also sell marshmallows, brownies and granola online, have just released a book called “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking”, and tonight and Saturday are your chances to pick their brains on all things baking.
They will do a free cooking demonstration tonight at 5:30 p.m. at Whole Foods downtown, and at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, they will do another free cooking demo at the Texas Book Festival.
First, have a glimpse into Matt’s fridge, then, after the jump, Nato’s fridge PLUS the recipe for their infamous brownies:
What three things are always in your fridge? Matt: Pecorino Romano, Hot sauce, butter…though there is always a few bottles of dark beer and a bottle of cheap white chillin’ Nato: Apple juice, Parmesan cheese, tomato paste…combined with a few boxes of pasta, this is sustenance for weeks
What’s your favorite condiment? Matt: Hot sauce goes on everything…pizza, pasta, eggs, you get the idea. Nato: Mayo. Wish I could say that I whip it up myself, but that is not the case…the jarred stuff will do just fine.
If you had to live on a single baked good for the rest of your life, what would it be? Both of us: Chocolate chip cookies…it’s the perfect way to start and end a day…
The Baked Brownie
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbps. dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate (60 to 72 percent cacao), coarsely chopped
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp. instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the side and bottom of a 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder together.
Put the chocolate, butter and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.
Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.
Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not the whisk!), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve.
Tightly covered with plastic wrap, the brownies keep at room temperature for up to 3 days.
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Your A-List: Best Ice Cream
With a dozen locations around Central Texas (as well as one in Houston and another in San Antonio), Amy’s Ice Creams has become an Austin institution in the 24 years since the first location opened on Guadalupe Street north of the University of Texas campus. The freshly made ice creams come in dozens of flavors, which many patrons enhance with mix-ins including candies, nuts, chocolates and cookies.
Starting this weekend at the Burnet Road, Mira Vista and The Wood locations, if you buy a pint of the limited edition Hill Country Crunch flavor (honey vanilla with pecans and chocolate chips), you’ll get a copy of the Hill Country Conservancy’s “Here Forever” album, which is a compilation of music by Texas musicians including Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Asleep at the Wheel to promote preserving the Hill Country.
Others receiving votes
- Marble Slab, 5 percent
- Baskin Robbins, 4 percent
- Cold Stone, 4 percent
- Ben & Jerry’s, 3 percent
- Maggie Moo’s, 3percent
- Dairy Queen, 3 percent
- Austin Scoops, 1 percent
- Kaleidoscoops, 1 percent
- Carvel, < 1 percent
Write-ins: Sandy’s, Viva Chocolato
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When market changes are a good thing
Enough with roller coaster stock market changes! The Austin Farmers’ Market has a few changes coming up you should know about:
- The winter hours for the Triangle market at 46th Street and Lamar Boulevard begin today. To accommodate the ever-shortening days and upcoming time change, the Wednesday market will go from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. until spring.
- Next Saturday, Nov. 8, the downtown farmers’ market will have its regular hours (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) at the location at Fourth and Guadalupe streets but it will be open again from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the new Mueller development where the old airport used to be off Airport Boulevard.
The afternoon market, which will be held in Browning Hangar near one of the Mueller neighborhood parks, will feature cooking demonstrations for both kids and adults, live music and, of course, food samples.
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Enjoying a sandwich free of high-fructose corn syrup?
The news about Jason’s Deli eliminating high-fructose corn syrup from their food products has people talking over on the Statesman’s business blog.
But don’t forget that there is far more HFCS in the soda you are washing that sandwich down with. Jason’s says that it is considering changing its drink options to HFCS-free sodas. You can have your say on its Web site.
Seems like we haven’t seen the last of the HFCS debate, fueled recently by those commercials sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association.
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Cookbook winners and next week’s giveaway question
For next week’s giveaway, we’ll stick with a Halloween-related question and book.
To win a luscious book about chocolate (“A Year in Chocolate” by Jacques Torres) or a guide to diners, drive-ins and dives by a frightening man with brass knuckles and spiky blond hair, tell me, what smell do you most associate with Halloween?
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Dutch ovens aren’t just for cowboys
October has to be the best month of the year to go camping, which means it’s also close to my favorite month of the year to cook outside.
“But what about grilling?!” I can hear you all shriek. Yes, grilling is the de facto American outdoor cooking activity, but lest we forget about the beauty of the one-pot wonder, the dutch oven.
Cowboys relied on cast iron dutch ovens for centuries because 1) stainless steel propane grills don’t transport well on horseback 2) the fewer dishes to clean in the nearby creek the better 3) you can cook just about anything over a fire in one of these and it usually comes out tasting delicious.
A few weeks back, we drove six hours north to meet my folks — who had driven six hours south — for a camping adventure in southern Oklahoma, which contrary to popular belief, is really quite a lovely place to spend a three-day weekend outdoors.
They brought all the cooking supplies, including the two most important items: the rugged French press for coffee and the trusty dutch oven.
They also came with coolers and food boxes full of any and every food item you could think of (better to be overprepared than underprepared is my dad’s camping motto), including a few recipes from Byron Bills’ Dutch Oven Cooking Web site. The self-proclaimed Papa Dutch has dozens of tips and recipes for cooking over coals.
Before the trip, my mom pre-mixed the dry ingredients for Papa Dutch’s Cherry Crisp Cobbler as well as marinade for a pot roast. We made the cobbler one night, lining the bottom of the dutch oven with foil to make it easier to clean. The next morning, we had the Mountain Man breakfast that we whipped together from scratch at the campsite. Later that day, in went the pot roast and vegetables.
Campfire smoke filling the crisp fall air. Three delicious meals. One magnificent pot.
Now is the time to get out and camp in Central Texas. What cooking traditions do you and your families keep? Do you have any dutch oven dishes to share?
A note about the apples in that photo: October means apple harvest in Southwest Missouri, and my folks brought two giant bags of Fujis from Marionville, a sister town to my hometown that is known not for just the delicious apples. White squirrels call two U.S. towns home and Marionville is one of them.
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Pumpkin hamburgers and zucchini fries
Some tasty tidbits from around the good old World Wide Web:
That pumpkin hamburger over there? It’s all real except the “bun” and “sesame seeds.”
If finding deals at restaurants dictates where you eat out, Frugal Feaster will likely become your new homepage. Want to know where you can get buy one get one meals? Curious where your kid can eat free? Desperate to find a better happy hour than the one you currently frequent? This Austin-centric site, which easily navigable and even gives a calendar of upcoming food events, is sure to have an answer for you.
The Texas Locavore has tips on finding a local turkey to sacrifice on the big T-day dinner.
In case you need a recipe for those pumpkin seeds you or your kids squeamishly pull out of a jack-o-lantern this week, here are several ideas for roasted seeds. Lemon pumpkin seeds anyone?
My favorite recipe I’ve found online in recent weeks? Blake Killian, from over at the New Orleans-based Blake Makes, created this recipe for baked zucchini fries.
Mental Floss settles some bets and intensifies others with its list of birthplaces of iconic American foods. The Pig Stand in Dallas gets credit for inventing the onion ring.
The James Beard Foundation will honor food bloggers for the first time next year.
American Ale, the oh-so-patriotic beer released recently by Budweiser in an attempt to tap into the success of the U.S. craft beer industry, is getting begrudging praise from Texas beer drinkers.
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Vegan blogger Diann Mayer: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
What 3 things are always in your fridge? Assorted fresh veggies, but always fresh broccoli, homemade beans, and almond milk.
What’s your favorite locally made product? That’s a tough one. There are so many wonderful ones to choose from and they are so readily available from Whole Foods. But I’ll have to go with NadaMoo vegan ice cream, plain vanilla flavor. It’s the best vanilla ice cream I’ve ever tasted. A veggie and pesto pizza from East Side Pies is a pretty great treat too.
What your favorite thing to cook for your nonvegan friends? The easiest way to win over nonvegans is with baked goods. My family recently declared my chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting the best dessert ever. The most impressive meals to prepare for nonvegans are those that are naturally vegan. Nonvegans aren’t easily fooled into believing they are eating meat. With cooler weather here now, I would prepare Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili with cornbread or Homemade Falafels and Lentil Soup. Of course there would be brownies or chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
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Tex-ify your next batch of pesto with pecans
Elaine DiRico, a subscriber to Johnson’s Backyard Garden CSA, sent out this recipe for a Texas-style basil pesto this week that uses pecans instead of pine nuts, which will add a lovely flavor and save you a few dollars (pine nuts are twice as expensive as pecans!).
2 large bunches fresh basil (2 cups packed)
1/4 cup chopped pecans
3 medium garlic cloves (unpeeled)
1 cup extra virgin olive oil (an approximate measurement)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
a few grinds of black pepper to taste
Bring a saucepan of water to boil, and quickly immerse the basil, counting to five seconds, remove and dunk in an ice water bath. This blanching will keep the basil green and prevent your pesto from becoming black. Drain and pat dry.
In a small skillet, toast the pecans over medium heat until just fragrant and changing color slightly. Remove to a bowl to cool, and add the garlic cloves to the skillet, toasting them until they begin to brown. Peel and set aside.
Combine all the ingredients except the oil in a blender, mortar and pestle or food processor and work until you reach the desired texture. In Genoa, where basil pesto began, the mortar and pestle are traditional. Once it begins to smooth out, begin to gradually add the olive oil, letting it form a thick paste. I usually add a bit of water towards the end, which my grandmother in law taught me to do — saves calories and oil both.
Pesto can be frozen, but keeps well refrigerated in a jar as well so long as you pour a bit of olive oil across the top to seal it.
After the jump, Elaine’s recipe for basil ice cream, which she says is good with a dollop of blue cheese.
Basil Ice Cream
1 can evaporated milk 1 1/2 cups whipping cream 2/3 cup honey 1 cup basil leaves, lightly packed 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon salt 4 large egg yolks
Whisk the yolks with half the honey until they become light and lemon yellow. In a saucepan, heat the milk, cream, basil, vanilla, salt and remaining honey. Heat gently over medium heat to 180 degrees, or until it just begins to steam, stirring to prevent scorching. Whisk the warmed milk, 1/2 cup at a time into the egg yolks until they are well combined, adding slowly so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs. Return the mixture to the saucepan and still over medium heat, bring it gently to 180 degrees or until slightly thickened, stirring or whisking constantly. (If you let it come to a simmer, the egg yolks will cook and curdle, so go slow.)
Place a large strainer over a bowl, and quickly strain the hot mixture. Cover and refrigerate or immerse the bowl in an ice bath to cool to 40 degrees. Process in an ice cream freezer according to the directions, then move to freezer for at least two hours before serving.
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A prize-winning journey in eating local
From the editor of the Statesman’s food section:
The American-Statesman food section’s experiment in trying to eat local for a week in April, 2007 took home a third-place award for Best Newspaper Special Food Project last weekend at the Association of Food Journalists convention in Houston. The article was based on food diaries kept by staffers Kitty Crider, Dale Rice, Ed Crowell and Renee Studebaker. They found it tough to eat only products from Central Texas for every meal for a week, but by expanding the local definition to the state of Texas there were enough options to feed themselves well.
Congrats, Ed, Dale, Renee and Kitty! (A side note: I got to spend lots of time with Mrs. Crider herself at AFJ last week. Kitty, who has graciously helped me on more than a few occasions in the months since I took her place, is quite happy cooking and writing at home these days. She still freelances for the Statesman.)
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If you can’t cook in space, how do you eat?
All that zero gravity means they can’t eat what they would at home. No microwaves to reheat leftover pizza. No scrambled eggs and fresh coffee to get their day started first. And worst of all, no ice cream. No freshly baked cookies. (No, not even the freeze-dried kind sold to tourists in science shops.)
It’s Michele Perchonok’s job to not only figure out which foods work and which foods don’t in zero gravity but also to feed — both nutritionally and psychologically — an elite group of scientists who are the envy of every third-grader in America.
Perchonok, who works on advanced food technology and shuttle foods at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, explained all the work that goes into the meals astronauts eat during their two week missions and the longer missions of those who live on the International Space Station.
She’s also working on long-range NASA projects including missions to the moon and Mars. (Just think about the hurdles of sustaining astronauts a 1,000-day mission to Mars, currently slated for 2035. They would have to bring up with them everything they’d need to sustain themselves, including seeds and soil to grow their own food and kitchen gear to do things like grind wheat or turn soybeans into tofu. They’d also need water and the tools to recycle and extract water from the cabin air, compost material and, yes, urine.)
I took photos of the crazy food and packaging and put together this photo gallery with more fun facts and tidbits about eating in outer space.
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Cookbook winner and next week’s giveaway question
Congrats, Katharine and Sheryl! You are the winners of this week’s cookbooks. In addition to the newest Williams-Sonoma cookbook, I’m also giving away a copy of “Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Money Saving Meals”.
The question: What is the holiday food you would be happy to never ever eat again? Too-dry turkey and ambrosia were the objects of the winners’ dissatisfaction, but cranberry sauce, green bean casserole and several incarnations of gelatinous salads and sweet-potato casseroles were also on the list. (I’d be happy to never eat one of those marshmallow-covered casseroles again in my life, too!)
Next week’s question: What is your favorite food or drink blog?
I’m giving away a copy of “Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris” written by madam food blog herself and author of Chocolate and Zucchini, Clotilde Dusoulier.
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Stortini chef Kristine Kittrell: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Chef Kristine Kittrell’s Manor Road eatery brings Italian food as bright and flavorful as the restaurant itself. The menu at Stortini, which is named after Kittrell’s grandfather, includes plenty of sandwiches, pastas, pizzas and some stand-out items, including homemade sausage and gelato, prosecco poached pears and — are you ready — crispy risotto balls.
What three things are always in your fridge? Apple lemon ginger juice from Central Market, Wateroak Farm goat milk and yogurt, Raspberry quince iced tea
What’s your favorite condiment? Vietnamese chili garlic sauce
What’s your favorite midnight snack? street tacos in Mexico City
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An experiment in live-tweeting
I’m in Houston this week for the Association of Food Journalists’ annual conference, and my inner astronaut is giddy about a food-related trip to NASA today. Also on our field trip, we’ll be going to a big rice company and eventually to a Houston Central Market for a craft beer and food pairing.
I live-tweeted some of the panel talks yesterday and plan to do the same today. You can check out the so-called microblogging in the Twitter badge below or by clicking here. (No, you don’t have to sign up for Twitter to read my posts.)
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Cookbook winner and next week’s giveaway question
In the second week of our cookbook giveaway, Emily Barrett is the (randomly selected) winner of the very colorful and surprisingly profound “Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin.” Congrats, Emily!
Thanks to all the commenters for your favorite Thanksgiving tasks!
The question for next Tuesday’s giveaway of the new Williams-Sonoma Cookbook:
Now, a treat for everybody else: Kenny Shopsin’s recipe for chicken-fried hamburger, after the jump.
Chicken-fried hamburger
From “Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin”:
peanut oil for deep frying
1 3/4 pounds chopped meat (20 to 30 percent fat)
salt and pepper
4 extra large eggs
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
all-purpose flour for dredging
butter for the buns
4 Martin’s potato buns, or whatever hamburger bun you like
whatever burger accouterments you like
Preheat a deep fryer or a large potful of peanut oil over high heat to 375 degrees.
Form the meat into four 7-ounce patties a little flatter than you’d do for a basic burger. Season the patties with salt and pepper.
Whisk the eggs and cream together in a shallow bowl. Put the flour in a separate bowl or pie pan. Dredge one of the hamburger patties in the flour and brush off the excess. (This is important. If you don’t brush off the excess flour, it will fall off in the fryer and you will end up with bald spots on your burger crust.) Dunk the floured patty in the egg-and-cream mixture, lift, drain, and repeat, dumping the patties back in the flour and then back in the egg and cream, until you have gone through the process a total of three times.
Now you should have a reasonably heavy coating, and you’ll also have a hardened coating on your fingers because for some reason it sticks to your fingers even better than it sticks to the burgers.
Carefully place the burger in the oil and repeat with the remaining burgers, being careful not to overcrowd the deep fryer or pot. Cook the burgers for 3 or 4 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. While the burgers are cooking, butter and lightly toast the buns in whatever way is convenient for you. Serve deep-friend burgers like you would any hamburger, on toasted buns with whatever (expletive) you like.
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Interested in an Appetizer with Addie?
These “Appetizers with Addie” (so-called even though appetizers are not a requisite part of deal) started at the Ginger Man in June. We headed to North by Northwest for another happy hour in July and last week a group of 10 or so of us packed dozens of boxes of nonperishable food at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas for people affected by Hurricane Ike.
The goal of these gatherings is simple: To connect people in Central Texas who love food.
Tech people, PR people, food bloggers and home cooks, no matter who shows up, there’s always plenty of food (and non-food) related talk and everyone seems to walk away with fresh ideas that somehow relate to food.
This next month, we’re headed out to Spicewood Vineyards, the winery I wrote about a few weeks ago for our annual wine section. To avoid conflict for you Longhorn fans, I pushed the date to Sunday, November 9, at 2 p.m. Feel free to just show up, but if you get a chance and you’re on Facebook, please RSVP.
“Appetizers with Addie” has been a great way for me to meet and get to know dozens of Central Texas foodies in the few months since I started this job, and I love the randomness of bringing people together who otherwise wouldn’t meet.
If you have an idea or want to host one of these events, let me know. I’ve already talked with the guys behind TacoJournalism.com about a taco tour and am looking into a cooking class for early 2009.
Don’t be shy; come introduce yourself!
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The first rule of Oyster Club…
Ask questions!
That’s the whole point of Oyster Club, says Marla Camp, publisher of Edible Austin, a sponsor of the monthly foodie club that raises money for the Rude Mechanicals theater company.
(Marla, the tireless voice of local food and art in Austin, is also vice president of the board of directors of the eccentric performance group that occupies The Off Center in East Austin.)
Oyster Club, though grounded in those lovable, delicious, slimy sea creatures, is about offering a place where people can eat — and learn — about all the wonderful foods our corner of the world has to offer, Marla explained to nearly 100 people who met for the group’s first gathering last night at The Plant at Kyle.
The second rule of Oyster Club: Don’t leak the location to outsiders!
This month’s OC, postponed a few weeks because of Hurricane Ike, was held at The Plant at Kyle, which I’m only allowed to tell you provided Texas scenery as breathtaking as the Gulf oysters were fresh.
Roberto San Miguel, who sells direct-from-the-Gulf seafood at the downtown farmers’ market every week, provided the oysters, gigantic shrimp and what Texas Monthly food editor Pat Sharpe called the best snapper she’s had in Austin.
Chef Jim Doss supplemented the raw oyster feast with Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters Bienville and paella, while chef Todd Duplechan grilled the shrimp and red snapper. Paula Angerstein of Paula’s Texas Spirits, the Tipsy Texans and Dr. Oolong of Zhi Tea served cocktails.
Throughout the year, club members will sample local food paired with some of the best music, film, dance, art and architecture Texas has to offer. You better hurry up if you want in. It costs $100 to join, which pays for membership through April, the last of the “r” months during which it’s supposedly safe to eat oysters. (It’s actually OK to eat them year-round.)
As of this morning, Marla says there are 15 spots left.
You can join by contacting the Rude Mechanicals.
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Pok-E-Jo’s co-owner Danny Haberman: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
When he isn’t hopping from store to store, making sure the brisket’s pulling apart just right, Danny’s helping preparing for what will sure to be a busy holiday season, especially with this deal they have to buy a whole turkey dinner for 56 bucks.
What three things are always in your fridge? The three B’s: Brisket, Beer and BBQ sauce.
What’s your favorite condiment? I know I’m biased, but the Pok-e-Jo’s BBQ sauce is truly my favorite.
What’s your favorite thing to do with leftover Pok-e-Jo’s turkey or ham? A smoked turkey sandwich on Texas toast topped with melted cheddar cheese.
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Cookbook winners (and a surprise)
Thanks to everyone for telling such wonderful tales of Thanksgiving side dishes! We’re going to do a story the week of Thanksgiving with some of these dishes (and photos and recipes!) so don’t be surprised if you hear from me in the next few days about coordinating that.
Now for the real surprise: Christina, Natanya and Just a girl will all three be getting cookbooks this week. There were just too many great comments and e-mails (nearly 30 all together!) to only give away one cookbook.
Part 2 of the surprise: We’re going to be giving away cookbooks each week through Thanksgiving (and heck, maybe even Christmas!). Because I’m going to be in Houston at the Association of Food Journalists’ conference for much of next week, here’s the question for next week’s giveaway:
What Thanksgiving-related food task or errand is your favorite? Baking pies with grandma the day before? Eating donuts during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade?
Leave a comment or e-mail me and I’ll pick a winner sometime next week.
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Squash and Pepper Summer Farewell or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat
My happy culinary tale of realizing how wonderful really spicy food can be must start by telling you about joining a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program two weeks ago.
If you’ve never heard of a CSA, think of it like investing or buying shares in a farm. You pay for several weeks’ worth of fruits, vegetables and herbs (sometimes eggs, honey or other locally sourced products are included).
Then at a specified time and day of the week, you pick up a box or bag at some location around town of whatever the farm is harvesting and then take home with you the freshest of fresh produce that’s likely grown less than 30 miles from where you live. It’s always a grab bag of things, but most CSAs e-mail you a newsletter with what you can expect to receive in your box that week.
Mine costs $30 a week if you buy four weeks and $28 if you buy 10, and I’d say I’m getting my money’s worth. It would help if a certain someone in my house helped me eat all that eggplant, but the basil, squash, peppers and tomatoes are certainly not going to waste.
It was those peppers grown five miles from my house that led me to a major life revelation last night:
I’m not afraid of spicy heat anymore!
The spiciest food I’ve ever been able to handle is the equivalent of what a typical Texas-bred toddler, heck even my Texas-bred toddler, can handle. I have always enjoyed the Chuy’s salsa kind of hot (the fresh one, not the ketchup one).
But it was this bright, buttery and HOT squash pepper dish — paired with black beans, enchilada leftovers and some of that saffron rice in a bag that H-E-B sells for about $0.75 — schooled my wimpy palate. And, like any straight-from-the-garden dish should be, it’s s-i-m-p-l-e.
Squash and Pepper Summer Farewell
(Remember, the ingredient amounts are flexible. I think any garden-y dish depends on the level of heat in your particular peppers and the woodiness of your squash. Or zucchini, which of course would be a delicious substitute.)
2 Tbsp. butter 2 small hot and sweet peppers, de-seeded and minced 1 big clove garlic, minced 2 cups chopped squash (the stranger the variety and shape, the better) coarse salt pepper
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the peppers and garlic and saute for one minute, then add the squash and continue cooking until squash soften, about six minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
(Optional, for newbies: Pour glass of milk.)
Enjoy!
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Should gender matter when eating out?
When dining out, are men and women treated equally? The New York Times’ Frank Bruni raises that question today (and not surprisingly, set off a storm of comments doing so).
For decades, the restaurant standard has been to sit and serve women first, offering the wine menu and check to the man, and oftentimes the man expected to order for the table.
It’s no surprise that these traditional patterns are changing, but Bruni points out that maybe not so much has changed after all.
He cites examples recently where he ate with another man and two women and they were served different kinds of amuse bouche. The men were served a crispy chicken wing. The women? A chilled cucumber soup with trout.
Bruni goes into detail how some New York restaurateurs plan decor, lighting and even temperature depending on whether men or women are the target dining demographic.
He also talks with waitstaff and diners who claim that servers often aren’t as likely to let the woman take the lead in ordering wine if a man is present.
And because the stereotype remains that men eat and drink more than women, Bruni says that some servers say they see fewer dollar signs when an all-female table sits down to eat, and not just because they are assumed to order fewer menu items. He quotes “Waiter Rant” author Steve Dublanica:
“On a Saturday night,” (Dublanica) continued, “you get these two ladies who walk in and say, ‘We haven’t seen each other in ages, we’re going to talk and talk and talk,’ and they’ll sit for four hours. Women are more verbal than men. That’s a scientific fact. And I’m like, ‘Ladies, I have reservations for these tables. You’ve got to go.’ ” As a consequence, Mr. Dublanica explained, “Waiters are guilty of treating female diners as second-class citizens.”
Dining out in Austin, I haven’t noticed blatant unequal treatment of male dining partners and me, in fact, having read this Bruni article, I think servers and restaurateurs in Austin are doing a pretty good job dumping these mid-20th century gender roles out with the dishwater.
What do you think? Should men and women be treated differently at the dining table? What are your experiences with respect to gender roles in Central Texas restaurants?
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First-ever Relish Austin cookbook giveaway
I’m so buried in cookbooks I can’t even see what color my desk is anymore, so I need your help getting rid of some of them before the holiday deluge really hits.
How it works is this: I get a good number of cookbooks a week, put aside the ones I know we’ll eventually write about and put in a box the really bad ones, which go in a semi-annual book sale, the profits of which go to charity.
That leaves stacks and stacks of fabulous books without a good home!
I’m hoping that you, the dedicated Relish Austin reader, will step in and take some of these books off my hands. Who wouldn’t want a copy of Giada de Laurentiis’s newest book “Giada’s Kitchen”? Or maybe you’ve been hearing about Kenny Shopsin’s memoir/cookbook that just came out.
Rather than force y’all to arm-wrestle (though that would be very entertaining, indeed), all I want is to hear about your best Thanksgiving side dish, a topic on my mind as we plan our upcoming holiday coverage.
We’re looking for out-of-the-ordinary tales of homemade egg rolls (a highlight of my Filipino sister-in-law’s Thanksgiving spread) or the gosh-darn-bestest potato and cheese casserole you’d be proud to serve to the Queen of England.
You can e-mail me or leave a comment below. We’ll pick a winner by the end of the week.
I’ll give away Giada’s book this week and Kenny’s book next week, so if you don’t have a Thanksgiving dish of note, be thinking about your favorite pre-T-day dinner task or errand.
(Related note: The System of Things requires that I approve comments before they are posted, and although I wish I really could dedicate my life to waiting for comments, I can’t, so it might be a few hours before your comment appears, especially if you post it at 2 a.m. Don’t let that stop you, though! I love each and every comment and will post them ASAP, I promise.)
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Chutney in a pinch
My attempt this weekend to make homemade samosas was a relative success, but halfway through the process, I realized we didn’t have any chutney and I was out of steam to try to make some from scratch.
I rattled through the condiments in my fridge door and found a jar of Austin Slow Burn’s Green Chili Jam that I bought awhile back at Central Market.
Jill and Kevin have been making salsas, jellies, jams and quesos out of their kitchen since 1994 and have won countless awards and prizes for their long line of Southwest-inspired products.
At this year’s Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, Jill beat Kevin in the specialty salsa category, taking first with her roasted tomato mango salsa, which she’s in the process of bottling for commercial sale.
“We found out that you grow as your kitchen grows,” Jill says, so with the expansion of their kitchen, they are hoping to sell more fresh salsas and maybe even a tomatillo ranch jalapeno dip.
You can buy their products at all the Central Texas H-E-Bs, Central Market, Spec’s and Whole Foods, as well as specialty stores in the area and several places online.
Stock up on a variety of flavors, which of course would make a perfect gift, for glazing meats, using in sauces or in any number of dishes, even spaghetti.
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Ephraim Owens: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
A jewel of the modern jazz scene and one of the best jazz trumpeters around keeps a freezer full of Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
Fast-forward through hundreds of shows at the Elephant Room and other jazz joints around town and a part in the 2006 documentary Before the Music Dies, Ephraim is making himself heard, playing with everyone from Erykah Badu to String Cheese Incident and his band Blaze, which the Austin Chronicle named the best jazz band last year.
You can catch Ephraim, who grew up in Dallas, tonight at Romeo’s Italian Restaurant on Barton Springs Road and Sunday night at Lambert’s Barbecue downtown.
What three things are always in your fridge? Leftovers, eggs and Topo Chico’s.
What’s your favorite condiment? Creole seasoning salt
After playing one of your late shows at the Elephant Room, what’s your favorite midnight snack to come home to? Anything salty or sweet, it depends on what my mighty palate is craving (it honestly could be anything)!
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Buy some wine, save the Alamo
Ed and Susan Auler, the owners of Fall Creek Vineyards who are credited with bringing serious winemaking to Central Texas in the 1970s, have released two new wines to raise money to help restore the Alamo in San Antonio.
The wines, a 2007 sauvignon blanc and 2006 cabernet sauvignon, sell for $9.99 a bottle and are already on the shelves at H-E-B. Susan Auler says she hopes Twin Liquors, Spec’s and restaurants around town will pick them up soon.
These aren’t just gimmicky wines to commemorate an anniversary or a way to get rid of extra grapes. A friend of hers who is a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas talked with Susan about how badly the Alamo needs funding to help restore it and Susan knew she could help.
“We plan for it to be around as long as the Alamo is around,” Susan Auler says of the Misson San Antonio de Valero wines.
“We’re native Texans and the Alamo is a national treasure,” Auler says. The reasons for selling the wines are twofold: “We want to help raise awareness of the need to be good stewards for the Alamo and to raise money for it,” she says.
This is the first wine that Fall Creek has sold to raise money for a philanthropic cause. However, the Fall Fest, which is taking place October 31 through November 2 at Horseshoe Bay near Marble Falls, has been raising money for Texas wine research and the Boys and Girls Club for the past three years.
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