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Texas Monthly editor-in-chief Evan Smith: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Evan Smith has caught a lot of good-hearted flak for being a New Yorker — and a longtime vegetarian — at the helm of Texas Monthly magazine, most recently from Calvin Trillin in that New Yorker article about Snow’s BBQ in Lexington. (Yes, the same Snow’s I blogged about earlier this week.)
Meat-eating debates aside, Smith is a foodie. He and his wife, Julia, bring their two kids along to nice restaurants and have been teaching them the value of fruits, vegetables and good food since they were toddlers (his daughter’s second word was “taco” and his son has been a pad thai fan since age 3).
Smith’s devotion to nonprofits and do-good organizations, such as the Austin Film Society and the Texas Film Hall of Fame, is well known in Austin. A few months ago, he was recruited to be on the Sustainable Food Center’s capital campaign steering committee, which is helping raise money and awareness for the new facility to be built in a few years on donated land off MLK Boulevard in East Austin.
“When you get to know what the Sustainable Food Center stands for, you can’t not support it,” he said earlier this week. Along with friend and filmmaker Richard Linklater, Smith made a call for donations earlier this month through a letter sent to thousands of SFC supporters. (If you’d like to donate, visit the SFC Web site.)
“We have all become much more aware of the crap that’s in our food,” he says. The best thing we can do is to try to bring the best of what’s available into our homes, he says. Many times that means looking to our Central Texas farmers. “The work we do to support local growers ensures that more of what they produce will be available,” he says.
What three things are always in your fridge? Diet Coke, which I know is not terribly good for me in terms of Sustainable Food Center principles, but they sustain me. Some kind of salsa and fruits and vegetables. We’re a big fruit and vegetable family. I credit my wife more than anybody. My kids have grown up eating a fruit at every meal and a vegetable at lunch and dinner. Now at 12 and 8, they don’t know differently. From basic carrots and apples, to the more elaborate, like Brussels sprouts or pomegranates.
What’s your favorite condiment? Salsa. “Hurt me, but don’t kill me” is my motto about salsa. We are defined by the environment in which we live, so we eat a lot of Mexican food.
What local foods or food products do you show off to out-of-towners who visit Austin? Jaime’s Red and Green salsa, which I buy at Central Market.
By the looks of his fridge, he’s not lying about the salsa.
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