Home > Relish Austin > Archives > 2009 > June
June 2009
Missing home, eh? Food will help celebrate Canada Day
I’m a Canadian by marriage, but my husband and I didn’t meet there. He had just moved to Austin from Calgary when we met, so his “paaastas” and “aboots” were as strong as his Canadian nachos were cheesy.
He quickly found out that he wasn’t the only one itching to move south from the Great White North to Central Texas. Canadians in Austin can’t brag to friends back home about the weather right about now, but they can celebrate Canada Day tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Paradise Cafe, 401 E. Sixth St.
The Canadians in Austin club hosts its eighth annual Canada Day Celebration with poutine, back bacon, French Canadian pea soup, Tim Hortons coffee, Bloody Caesars and a cake for Canada’s 142nd birthday. E-mail here to RSVP.
So, Happy Canada Day, eh?
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Downtown farmers’ market to open, close an hour earlier
To compensate for the afternoon heat, the Austin Farmers’ Market downtown will open and close an hour earlier through October. Starting on Saturday (July 4), the market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon.
“This is a small way that we can gain some independence from the hotter than usual summer we see coming up,” says pun master and market director Suzanne Santos.
The hours will change back to 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 31, which is the same week the Wednesday farmers’ market at the Triangle will change from its summertime hours of 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. to 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
To reward the early morning shoppers this week, the first 100 shoppers will receive a free reusable water bottle.
Also on Saturday, check out a chef demonstration by Jessica Maher of Dishalicious and Spoon & Co. and the second annual Farmer Olympics, which both start at 10 a.m.
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Spreading shade, kiddie pool love to save the garden
Up until a few weeks ago, I could easily recommend growing a backyard garden in Central Texas. For five months, our fun family project resulted in quite a lot of delicious, homegrown vegetables without too much money or effort.
Enter June, and with it came more than a handful of 100+ degree days. I expected a dry heat, but I wasn’t convinced it would mean the end of our backyard bounty.
Oh, how green was I.
We’d followed the guidelines, planting what we should at the right time, watering and feeding the plants frequently and adding compost and mulch as needed.
(Remember my post about mulching two weeks ago? Apparently I didn’t mulch enough, so I re-mulched this weekend, spreading four bags of Texas Native hardwood mulch over my beds. When they say “several inches of mulch,” they mean “twice as much mulch as you think you need.”)
But no matter how much mulch you place on the ground to hold in the moisture, the searing sun will shrivel just about any leaves. So I broke down and spent $30 on 40 percent shade cloth this weekend to give the plants a break from the direct heat.
When I ran out of shade cloth, I reused some of the green plastic fencing we used to keep the birds and dog out of the garden when we first planted. (I finally see the value of every square inch of shade I can provide these beds.)
I won’t know for a little while if the extra steps will help enough so that I’ll actually get some produce off these plants before the next planting season begins in August.
So what does this kiddie swimming pool have to do with growing food? Besides a much-needed cool-down after all that work in the garden, we’re reusing the water from the pool to water the beds. In this drought, the only way in good conscience that I could put water in that pool was if I knew I could reuse it to water the plants.
What I didn’t know was that by watering the just-mulched plants with a bucket instead of a shower sprayer on a hose, you achieve a much deeper watering.
Watering by bucket, just like spreading mulch, hanging shade cloth and all the other thankless, fruitless work I’ve been doing over the past few weeks, certainly isn’t sweat-free labor.
But I guess if gardening were easy, they’d call it watching TV.
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Find summer cocktail bliss in overripe peaches, garden herbs
This squishy peach is your key to summertime happiness.
Overripe fruit, especially peaches, are perfect for muddling, a technique that requires only a long blunt utensil and a strainer. When you combine the extracted juice with a few other ingredients, including — if you’re lucky — herbs from your backyard, you can make a cocktail that tastes like summer.
Muddled fruit isn’t reserved for summer or peaches or adult beverages, but overripe peaches just so happen to be plentiful right now (I found lots at the City Market near my house this weekend. Farmers’ markets are also a good place to find overripe fruit, sold at a discount price.), so peach cocktails are what I’ve been drinking.
Classic muddling involves a small baseball bat-like pestle and a pint glass. I’m more likely to press the fruit through a strainer with a strong spoon or a lemon reamer. (You could probably squeeze the juice out of the fruit with your hands if the peaches are as ripe as you are desperate.)
Summertime Bliss
1 oz. peach juice, about 1/2 a peach muddled
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
2 dashes bitters
3-4 sprigs of mint, lemon verbena, lemon balm or other garden herb
2 oz. gin or vodka
Combine ingredients in a Boston shaker with ice. Shake at least 10 seconds, strain and serve with a sprig of herb as a garnish. Makes one drink, but you can easily double the ingredients to make two.
I can’t speak for every nursery in town, but a stroll through the herb section of The Natural Gardener gives me hope that all is not lost in the summer heat. I came home with lemon verbena, lemon balm, Thai basil and sage to add to the lemongrass, mint, thyme and other basils already growing.
After one whiff those herbs, my garden frustrations eased and my mind went back to cocktails. You could add just about any of those herbs to a number of drinks, but instead of chopping them up into little pieces or muddling them, just give them a good smack between your hands to release the aromatic oils before adding to your drink.
Here’s a recipe for a lemon verbena liquor that you could mix with lemonade or sparkling water:
Lemon Verbena Liquor
1/2 cup fresh lemon verbena leaves
4 cups vodka
2 cups sugar
Chop fresh lemon verbena leaves and put in a jar. Add 4 cups of vodka and let sit, covered, for two weeks, shaking every once in a while. After two weeks, add 2 cups of sugar and shake to dissolve. Let sit for two weeks. Strain out the leaves and bottle the fragrant liqueur, which you can add to desserts or serve with seltzer or other drink.
Speaking of peaches, if you’re lucky enough to have a peach tree in your yard, like my friend Scott does, you’ve probably been thinning out these little peaches so the others can grow larger — that is, if the birds and squirrels haven’t beaten you to them. Scott brought these into work the other day, and they were much sweeter and tastier than I thought they’d be. They weren’t juicy enough, however, to muddle for cocktails.
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Fox 7 reporter Lauren Petrowski: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Fox 7 morning reporter Lauren Petrowski loves food, especially cheese and eating out, so when given the opportunity to blog for work, she decided to write that one mostly deals with food.
Petrowski has been covering the early shift at the station since 2007, when the UT graduate moved back to Austin from Corpus Christi.
What three things are always in your fridge? Cheese, wine, hummus. I am a cheese fanatic.
What’s your favorite condiment? Balsamic vinegar. It tastes great on vegetables. Mix it with olive oil and a little salt and sugar for an easy salad dressing.
What do you eat or drink in the morning to get you going? I start the day with V8. As a reporter, I never really know what I’m going to eat each day and many times it’s grabbing fast food at a drive-through on our way to a story. I love veggie juice and this way I get a serving of veggies. Of course, I also have at least one cup of coffee, usually two, to help keep me going. For breakfast I usually eat yogurt, then snack on cheese, nuts and fruit throughout the morning. An occasional doughnut might get thrown in that mix as well…
(Photo by Lauren Petrowski.)
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All-natural paletas are so cool when it’s so hot
The only thing better than aguas frescas to cool you down when summer hits is paletas, popsicle-like frozen treats in the myriad flavors of the fruit water sold at many Mexican eateries. Pop So Cools owners Manuel and Laura Flores have been selling paletas made with organic sugar or agave nectar at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market and at events in Central Texas since last year, and the couple just opened their first retail location at 11800 N. Lamar Blvd.
Manuel Flores says he was inspired to start making paletas for his two young children when he saw chef Rick Bayless on television making them for his daughter. The Floreses started playing with flavor combinations, and when their friends kept asking for more, they decided to start selling them commercially.
For $2 at both the new location and the Saturday market, choose from standard flavors such as watermelon, strawberry and mango and gourmet combinations including hibiscus mint, pineapple basil and banana cinnamon. Laura Flores says they will probably add as many as 10 more flavors by the end of the summer.
Open noon to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays.
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Head to Luling for seed-spitting, watermelon thumping
People flock to Luling for two things: barbecue and watermelon. City Market and Luling Bar-BQ keep meat-lovers satiated year-round, but this weekend, it’s time for the watermelon to shine as the city hosts the 56th annual Watermelon Thump.
At the festival, which starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday, enjoy a carnival, rodeo, parade, 5K run, beer garden and contests, including the popular watermelon seed-spitting contest on Saturday, where spitters vie for the first-place prize of $500. There’s a $500 bonus if someone breaks the world record of more than 68 feet, set in Luling in 1989.
Admission is free on Thursday and Sunday. On Friday and Saturday, grounds admission is $3, and entry to hear headliners Kevin Fowler on Friday and Stoney Larue on Saturday is $20. Kids under 11 are admitted free.
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Forget octomom. How about an octodog?
Boiled hot dogs are at the lowest end of the hot dog-eating train (which isn’t very long, all mechanically separated meat parts considered).
That is, unless we’re talking octodogs.
Oh, what four cuts of a knife can do!
This was a staple of many childhoods, and now that I have my own kid, I’ve revived the art of making hot dog animals (mainly marine animals, but I’m hoping to branch out soon).
You can buy devices to help you cut hot dogs into octodogs, but you can carve many an animal with just a knife. I made the snake and a seal/whale with just a few cuts as I waited for the water to boil.
Quick, totally edible (especially if there are ketchup and a bun involved) and way more fun than a regular dog.
Astute readers will have already seen the categories area of Relish Austin, where you can find What’s in Your Fridge Fridays (sorry for missing last week! I’ll make it up to you), Food in Your Backyard and Bloggerly Love, where I’m posting recipes and other interesting tidbits from local bloggers.
Now you’ll see 15 Minutes or Less, where I’ll throw posts that are about food or drinks that take little time to make.
I almost called it “Cook for a kid in 15 minutes or less,” but who am I kidding: When I’m making a quick bite for him, I’m just as likely to eat, so I try to make things as interesting as possible for an often frazzled and rushed working mom. Cheese quesadillas, anyone?
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Food videos keep getting weirder (and I love it)
One of the greatest things that has come out of this wonderfully meshed world of food and technology is oddball food videos. I’d throw “Bitchin’ Kitchen” and “Average Betty” into this category, but when it comes to weird, Thu Tran’s “Food Party” on IFC is tops.
Tran created and stars in these short, strange clips that in some surreal way connect to food. Filmed on cardboard sets with puppets, green screens and wacky characters (the food itself often comes alive), the show started as an online-only product, but now IFC is airing episodes on Tuesday nights as part of the Automat lineup of short videos.
On the weird scale, “Food Party” easily scores an 11 out of 10, but “Yo Gabba Gabba,” which I’d score an 8 1/2, is more my style, I just wish there were more videos about food, like this one where the vegetables are sad because they were left out of the party in the tummy:
From the guys behind the band The Aquabats, Gabba is one of the best kids’ shows on television because it’s quirky enough for both kids and parents to watch together. It also features hip special guests such as Jack Black, Mya and Elijah Wood and indie bands the Ting Tings and Mates of State. (My favorite musical performance, though, is this oh-so-catchy and cute song by The Roots.)
What other weird food videos are out there?
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“Next Food Network Star” is casting in Austin
Will the Next Food Network Star be an Austinite? Producers from the show will be holding a casting call in Austin next month for the 2010 season.
The Craigslist ad says “chefs, line cooks, home cooks, caterers or culinary enthusiasts” are invited to audition at the Hyatt Regency Downtown, 208 Barton Springs Road, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 17.
Bring a copy of your resume, a completed application and (most telling) not one, but two recent photos.
E-mail this person with questions.
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Farm eggs in jeopardy at restaurants, stores
Farm eggs — and the establishments that sell them — have been caught in a regulatory snare in the past few months.
City health inspectors have been cracking down on a city code that requires eggs that are sold in restaurants or in stores to be graded and labeled at least Grade B.
Problem is, farm eggs aren’t required to be graded.
“It’s not a change,” says Vince Delisi, a supervisor of consumer health for the Austin Travis County Health Department’s Environment and Consumer Health Unit. “It’s been part of the establishment rules.”
Under state law, grading isn’t required for eggs that are produced by a person’s own flock.
Delisi says farms can sell direct to consumers at either farmers’ markets or at their farms, but a retail establishment isn’t allowed to receive or sell eggs that aren’t graded.
So why don’t farms just have their eggs graded? Under the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Egg Law, producers who sell graded eggs also have to be licensed.
Delisi says his department has received confirmation from Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Department of Agriculture, as well as lawyers with the City of Austin, that its interpretation of the laws is correct.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the grading of eggs, but the Texas Department of Agriculture ensures that graded eggs are being sold under the correct label, according to Bryan Black, Assistant Commissioner for Communications for the state agriculture department.
“In Austin, there’s a growth of the buy local movement, which we certainly agree with, but we have to make sure they are in compliance with the regulations,” Delisi says.
“It’s sad that our food chain is coming to this and that we can’t support our local producers,” Emmett Fox owner of FINO and Asti restaurants, which serve food made with many locally-sourced ingredients.
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Party at the moon tower on Saturday
If you live in Austin and haven’t seen “Dazed and Confused,” stop what you’re doing right this second, even if it means pulling yourself away from all that Austin360.com has to offer, and watch it.
For the rest of you, which I hope is most of you, Saturday is your chance to party at the moon tower, just like the kiddos in Richard Linklater’s 1993 classic.
The South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery is hosting a moon tower party at 7 p.m. on Saturday (the “trailer park” is just down the street from one of the moon towners on South First Street).
Classic cars and motorcycles will fill the lot that is also home to the Torchy’s Tacos, Shuggie’s Burgers and Shakes, Treat and La-Dee-Dah trailers. Dress the part to win prizes. Sales from Shuggie’s will go to American YouthWorks.
And it wouldn’t be a moon tower party if it weren’t BYOB, so fill up your coolers before you show up, lest you be run off by a band of bell bottom-wearing thugs.
(Movie still from “Dazed and Confused”)
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Dai Due Supper Club meats, condiments for sale
Chef Jesse Griffiths, whose Dai Due Supper Club is one of the most exciting things happening in food in Central Texas right now, has gained quite the reputation for what he can do with locally sourced ingredients.
When it comes to meat, his waste-not-want-not philosophy means that he’s just as likely to serve pork cheek as pork chop at one of his dinners, and he’s shown countless people who take his classes how to use up every last piece of edible meat on an animal in a tasty enough way to make you wonder how “offal” earned its name.
An now, you can buy charcuterie, sausage and condiments directly from the chef (which isn’t a substitute for enjoying a full Dai Due dinner, but it will definitely hold you over until the next one.)
From Griffiths’ newsletter this week:
All of our sausages, pates and terrines are made with the highest quality ingredients, such as Richardson Farm pork, Countryside Farm poultry, Boggy Creek and Rain Lily Farm vegetables, Southern Style spices, local eggs and fresh herbs from our own garden. The selection will change weekly to reflect the herbs, fruit, meats and vegetables available at the markets.
Send your order to info@daidueaustin.com and you’ll get an e-mail back with details about how to pick it up. (Sign up for the mailing list to find out what’s for sale each week.)
This week, he’s offering duck boudin with tasso ham, country-style sausage, chorizo, fresh fennel sausage, chevron, smoked pork rillettes, Fireman’s 4 mustard and peach and rhubarb chutney. Griffiths also says that custom made sausages are also available.
(Photo by Cliff Cheney.)
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French-pressed and loving it at Once Over Coffee Bar
2009 must be Jenee and Rob Ovitt’s lucky number. After years of honing their coffee shop skills at Izzy’s Coffee Den in Asheville, N.C., they moved back to Austin to open Once Over Coffee Bar in March.
The location? 2009 S. First St.
In just a few months, the former motorcycle shop has become a favorite for South Austinites who come in for French-press coffee that baristas make in small batches all day, carefully made espressos and a shaded back deck. People can bring in outside food, an easy thing to do with El Primo taco truck right outside.
On Wednesday, check out Stitch and Twitch night, where novice and expert sewers play around with sewing machines and fabric. Bring your own machine, if you have one, or just come and learn from others.
Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
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Dripping Springs gets its first farmers’ market
Dripping Springs is getting a farmers’ market. Starting on Saturday, farmers will be selling seasonal crops at the northeast corner of U.S. 290 and RM 12 in Dripping Springs. City Secretary Jo Ann Touchstone says the market — a first for the city — will be limited to produce growers, but they might add food artisans in the future. The markets will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month through October. Call 512-858-4725 for more information.
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Blogger recipe: Unprocessed queso from Food Renegade
Kristen Michaelis is a real food activist.
Through her blog Food Renegade, the Leander resident shares her passion for traditional foods — organic produce, fermented foods and beverages, raw milk and grass-fed and pastured meats and dairy products — and educates readers about the ills of a food system that relies on corn, antibiotics, pesticides and animal confinement.
Michaelis, who also owns a copywriting business and is a nutrition and wellness coach, says one of her goals is to help readers learn how to change what they eat in order to improve their health and prevent illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. “I want to give people the tools and confidence they need to radically change their diet, to rebel against the dominant food culture,” she writes.
Michaelis challenged herself earlier this year to create a recipe for queso that only used real cheese, rather than the processed kind that nearly every cheese dip in town relies on. She says that the results were even better than she imagined: smooth, creamy and rich. Home cooks won’t have to rely on cheese that comes in a box ever again.
Creamy Mexican Cheese Dip
1 egg yolk (from pastured hens)
1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder (or organic corn starch)
1 Tbsp. milk (from grass-fed cows)
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
8 oz. grated cheddar cheese
4 oz. cream cheese (optional)
14-oz. can diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained
salt and chipotle chile powder to taste
To create a thickener that will bind the cheese together and keep it from turning into a nasty, oily mess when it melts, mix egg yolk, arrowroot powder and milk until smooth. Next, pour cream and milk into a saucepan and warm over medium heat. Gently stir in the thickener and continue stirring until the cream starts to thicken.
Once your sauce begins to thicken, add in the grated cheddar cheese and small spoonfuls of the cream cheese (homemade from grass-fed cream is best). Lower heat to medium low, then continue stirring until the cheese melts and you have a deliciously creamy sauce.
Remove the sauce from heat, and stir in the tomatoes and diced green chiles. Then add salt and chipotle chili powder to taste, being sure to stir everything until evenly distributed.
(Photo by Kristen Michaelis.)
(If you write a blog about food, e-mail me and tell me about it. Maybe your recipe will make it into print.)
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Foraging for fruit in public spaces
The New York Times has a story today about foraging for fruit. Writer Kim Severson found folks in Portland, Ore., Oakland, Calif., Los Angeles and New York who are getting together to harvest fruit from trees in public spaces.
Severson’s article is packed with good information, but it didn’t include anything about Austin’s own fruit rescuers.
Scott Dubois of the Blue Green Project started Austin Fruit Rescue in early 2008 and has organized outings for “fruit rescuers” interested in collecting fruit, which they split between themselves, local food banks and property owners (if they’ve been given permission to picking fruit on private property).
Dubois says the group has recently gone dormant, but you can e-mail him if you are interested in joining when the rescues get going again.
Up next? Figs.
If you know of trees in public spaces, you can add them to the Google map:
View Austin Fruit Rescue in a larger map
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How Hurricane Katrina led to a new gluten-free grain mix
Wirth and Erdem didn’t know each other pre-Katrina, but a mutual friend introduced them and before long, they were creating a line of gluten-free grains for their new company World Wise Grains.
The first product, Arzu, a mix of quinoa, buckwheat and legumes, was released at the end of 2008. Erdem says they were inspired to create a nutrient-packed grain mix because of the lack of healthy food choices in schools and hospitals. “We designed it to be a healthy food,” Wirth says. “We knew what we wanted in the nutrition panel and we worked backward from there.”
High in protein and fiber, Arzu can be made into a simple breakfast similar to oatmeal, but Wirth and Erdem say people are using it in cookies or with vegetables and meat. Look for a new product called Tasfa, which will include the Ethiopian supergrain teff, early next year. Arzu is available at People’s Pharmacy and in several shops inside Dell Children’s Hospital and Cedar Park Regional Hospital.
Wirth and Erdem will be hosting a tasting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday at the People’s Pharmacy at U.S. 183 and RM 620. You can also order online ($2.50 per 1⁄2 cup package, or $68 for a bulk order of 31 packages).
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Cute overload with Love Puppies Brownies
Austinite Joel Haro knew he had something special coming out of his commercial kitchen when he realized his catering business was churning out more brownies than anything else. The Culinary Institute of America graduate, who moved back to Austin in 2004 after working in New York restaurants, decided to focus on what he knew people wanted, and Love Puppies Brownies was born.
“I wanted them to be fun, upscale, but also something that everybody would enjoy,” Haro says. He also wanted them to be affordable. At $16 per dozen, brownies come in six flavors, including “Trailer Park Chic,” a custom blond brownie with pecans and chocolate chips that Haro made for the La-Dee-Dah trailer on South First Street. You can order the brownies online and have them shipped, or Haro will personally deliver them.
(Photo by Mike Sutter)
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Mulch, homemade compost to the rescue
Despite temperatures creeping up to triple digits this weekend, I got some much-needed work done in my garden.
By much-needed I mean do-or-die.
As I was fretting last week, the heat was making it so that just about every plant, from the watermelon to peppers, was needing watering every day, sometimes twice a day, just to keep the leaves from wilting up. Mulching, I was told, would held dramatically. By layering a few inches of fluffy organic material on top of the soil, the water wouldn’t evaporate so quickly. I also hadn’t added more than a handful of turkey compost to the soil since I planted the first round of seeds in January.
My garden needed some good old fashioned TLC.
Cookbook author and herb extraordinaire Lucinda Hutson told me during a tour of her eccentric gardens last week that the Sylvan Formula from the Natural Gardener is her hands-down favorite because it provides not only mulch, but also compost and other plant-fortifying ingredients.
So late yesterday, I made a trek to John Dromgoole’s place out in Oak Hill and spent $24 on two bags of Sylvan, compost tea and some additional fertilizer.
What I didn’t have to pay for was a bag of compost. All those food scraps we’ve been composting for the past six months had magically transformed into a dark soil quivering with life, right. What a joy it was to mix the Ladybug fertilizer with my very own compost to spread on the soil before topping it off with the mulch.
Look at the difference in the top left and the bottom left pictures. Doesn’t the watermelon already look so much happier?
Over the past few weeks, I’d purchased transplants of eggplant, peppers, lemongrass and stevia, which were all suffering terribly in the heat. A little compost here, some mulch there, and they were looking perkier, too.
My herb garden of mint, bergamot and thyme also looked much nicer after mulching.
The zinnias are trucking along, producing vibrant colorful flowers despite (or probably because of) the heat.
And last but certainly not least, just-sprouted plants. Seedlings in June? I’d had my doubts when the Central Texas planting chart said now is the time to start winter squash seeds, but there they are, just as cute as all those little plants that first poked out of the ground in February.
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Readers’ picks on where to watch Horns in College World Series
Tonight’s a big night for sports fans in Austin.
On ESPN and ESPN360 at 6 p.m., the Longhorn baseball team takes on Southern Miss in the first round of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
On ABC at 7 p.m., it’s the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Orlando Magic in the fifth and possibly final game of the NBA Finals. The Lakers are up 3-1 in the series.
I’m betting that most of the watering holes with televisions will probably have both games on, but this being a UT town more than an basketball town (even with former Mizzou coach Quin Synder at the helm of the Austin Toros — Long time no see, Quin!) I asked folks on Twitter where was the best place to watch the Longhorns in their first College World Series game in four years.
Here’s what they said:
Restaurant critic Mike Sutter and Pat Beach of Liquid Austin: Cover 3, Cuatros, Doc’s Motorworks on Congress, Little Woodrow’s on Sixth, Third Base
Raeanne Martinez on Facebook: Third Base is good if you don’t plan to eat. Blergh.
Ben Marroquin on Facebook: Two of my fave: Third Base and Billy’s on Burnet
ATX on Twitter: Third Base
DtotheRyver on Twitter: Some fun UT bars are @Cuatros, Posse East, Schultz’s, @LittleWoodrow
Gary Novosel on Facebook: “If it’s beer you crave then Little Woodrow’s on 620/Bee Caves.”
It’s worth noting that Austin360 readers have picked Third Base and Lavaca Street Bar as the best sports bar in the past two A-List contests.
What die-hard baseball bars have we missed?
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Blogger Alexandra Richmond: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
“My freezer has breakfast and desert and dinner and snacks. It’s versatile and always has treats of some kind,” she says. It’s those treats will tide her over between meals out, which become blog fodder for Austin is Delicious, Richmond’s food blog that mixes restaurant reviews with news about going out and enjoying Austin.
What three things are always in your freezer? I always have ice, Cafe Du Monde and Morningstar Farms. I stockpile and when I get low run right to the store.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever frozen? Quinoa isn’t strange, is it? When I was a kid I stuck a snowball in the freezer to throw at someone in July, but doesn’t everyone do that? P.S., it didn’t work. Don’t try it! Ice ball, ow.
What’s the one thing you would miss if you had to live with only a freezer and not a fridge? I would really miss soy milk in my coffee and fresh fruit and greens. But maybe I could freeze soy milk into ice cube trays and drop it in my coffee like that! Is that cheating? Fresh pineapple trumps frozen, I think. But dropping frozen chunks of fruit into a cocktail is the best. Try frozen strawberries in a cocktail to use in place of ice. Then when you eat the strawberry it tastes all booze-y. This totally works great with champagne! This is my fave cheapo brunch trick — a box of white wine and frozen berries becomes almost elegant.
I’m always on the hunt for interesting refrigerators. If you want to show off yours, take a photo of it (please resist the urge to clean or rearrange) and send it to abroyles@statesman.com.
(Photo by Alexandra Richmond.)
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Tomatoes are for giving, but hands off my squash
I’m not the world’s biggest tomato fan.
OK, let’s be honest. I don’t like to eat them, especially raw, unless they are dressed nicely and served with mozzarella and olives or roasted just right and served with pasta. I love tomato sauces and ketchup (although “catsup” doesn’t really count as tomatoes), but there’s just something about tomatoes that puts people into two camps: the haters and the fanatics.
I’ve been trying to like them for a long time, but I haven’t quite gotten there. Not even attending La Tomatina — the yearly festival in Buñol, Spain, during which thousands of revelers (isn’t everyone in Spain a reveler?) play, dance, wrestle and bathe themselves in more than 100 tons of tomatoes — could convert me. (In fact, wading knee-high through squashed tomatoes probably did more to turn me off from the red devils than twenty years of canned sauce.)
In yet another attempt to train my palate to enjoy the squishy, juicy seed-filled fruit, I’m growing my own tomatoes. But in the back of my head, I’ve known all along that I’d be just as happy to give them all away to friends for whom a homegrown tomato is a sign that heaven exists on earth.
So far, the critters and the stink bugs and leaf-foot bugs haven’t prevented me from doing just what I intended: Eat (with a pinch of backyard basil, left, and a smile on my face) a few slices of tomato here and there and give the rest away.
As for the lone squash that finally appeared, I won’t be so generous.
From the beginning, I wanted to grow food that my family eats and squash, zucchini and green beans are at the top of the list, which means we’re coming into the prime garden time, that is, if I can keep the ground moist (buying mulch is on the top of my to-do list this weekend).
The squash plant hasn’t been as generous as the zucchini, putting out just one squash so far this season. The green bean plants have been flourishing, but no peppers or eggplant yet. We just plucked this bad boy, left, from the cucumber plant, and served it with what has become our daily moz, tomato and herb salad to go with dinner.
I’m also hoping the mulch will help this teeny tiny watermelon make it to adulthood despite the searing heat.
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Mangoes aren’t just for margaritas
If the only thing that comes to mind when you think mangoes and cocktails is a sugary sweet margarita, you’re really missing out.
Bill Norris, the acclaimed bar manager at FINO, created this cocktail just for my article on mangoes in Wednesday’s paper. (Word on Twitter is that he’ll be making these Mangada Coolers at FINO tonight to celebrate its birth in print.)
Norris says this cocktail is inspired by the classic Mexican street food combination of mango, chile and lime. The guajillo pepper syrup imparts a mild smoky heat to the finish, he says.
Mangada Cooler
1 1/2 oz. Treaty Oak or other quality light rum
1/2 oz. Ron Zacapa Centenario Solera Grand Reserve 23 or other quality dark rum
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1/2 oz. guajillo pepper syrup (you can buy these at stores including Central Market or Fiesta)
4 pieces 1/2-inch diced mango
Topo Chico sparkling mineral water
Lime wheel for garnish
To make guajillo syrup: To two cups of water, add two cups sugar and four guajillo peppers, slit lengthwise. Bring to boil, reduce heat to a simmer, stir to dissolve sugar, cover and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Pass through fine mesh strainer to filter out solids. Stored in refrigerator, the syrup will last for 10-14 days.
Prepare the mango by removing skin and roughly chopping fruit into 1/2-inch cubes. In a mixing glass, muddle lime, mango and guajillo syrup. Add Treaty Oak and Ron Zacapa rums. Shake with ice and double-strain (use a tea strainer over the glass to catch any stringy mango bits) into iced Collins glass. Top with Topo Chico and garnish with lime wheel.
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Are Rockstar Bagels worth the hype?
Drummer Joe Humel’s hands are about to get even more worn out.
The New York native, who toured with bands on and off since the 1990s, got used to the rock-star life and the wear and tear on his cubs. But now his hands are getting used to the baker’s life, during which he gets up early and stays up late hand-rolling bagels for his newest venture, Rockstar Bagels.
He’ll be staying up later and later after the enormous amount of press lately, including this item in tomorrow’s food section:
“I always wanted to make bagels,” says Humel, 35. The self-described jack of all trades wanted to break away from touring and start his own business, so in January, he started spending up to 12 hours a day researching bagels online. In between watching videos and poring over recipes, he would bake batches of bagels in his kitchen, tweaking the recipes until he made a bagel that reminded him of home.
“I’m still tweaking all the time,” he says, but he’s getting busier by the day, filling orders from 15 coffee shops and stores, as well as personal orders via e-mail. He and two assistants are rolling by hand and baking more than 2,000 bagels a week in a small kitchen off West Fourth Street.
So what of the claim that New York’s bagels are better because of the city’s tap water? “New York has fantastic tap water, but Austin has great tap water as well,” Humel says. He’s planning on bringing back water from his next trip to New York to do a side-by-side test, but the bagels — which are made with malt instead of sugar and come in plain, salt, poppy seed, sesame, garlic, onion and “everything” — are already a hit with former New Yorkers used to lamenting that Austin doesn’t have any good bagels.
Places to find Rockstar Bagels include Summermoon Coffee Bar, Cherrywood Coffeehouse, Blue Dahlia Bistro, Cafe Pacha, Spider House Cafe and Royal Blue Grocery. To order bagels or find out where else to buy them, go to the Web site.
But are they worth their weight in New York tap water?
I brought back a half dozen bagels to the office last week and specifically asked the former New Yorkers for their opinions. All-in-all, they were impressed, especially, they said, considering there haven’t been any bagels with the right crust and fluffy inside that come close to what they used to get in The City.
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Learn about compost, herbs at free Natural Gardener classes
The Natural Gardener, the organic gardening mecca in Oak Hill, hosts tons of classes to help both newbies (me!) and veterans (Renee of Renee’s Roots) learn everything they need to know to grow plants in the strange climate and soil conditions of Central Texas.
From the Web site, here are the free classes they have slated for this summer:
9 a.m. on June 13 — Betsy Ross of Ross Farm, Sustainable Growth Texas, and Soils Alive! presents “Compost Tea: The Power and Importance of Soil Biology.” We are very excited and privileged to host one of the region’s authorities in compost tea and soil biology, Betsy Ross. Betsy has been a certified Soil Foodweb Advisor since 2004. She operates, with her family, a 530-acre ranch in eastern Williamson County. “Betsy Ross Grass-fed Beef” is sold through Whole Foods, Peoples Pharmacy, and Greenling Organic Food Delivery, as well as online and on the farm. No corn, hormones, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides are used. She is also the CEO and a founding partner in Sustainable Growth Texas, a biological services company. They manufacture liquid compost extract and blend it with biological and organic amendments to promote soil quality and crop growth. They treat pastures, prairies, orchards, lawns, revegetation sites and farms. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about the benefits and uses of compost tea from Texas’ foremost expert on the soil foodweb!
9 a.m. on June 20 — Lucinda Hutson presents “Culinary Herb Gardens from Around the World.” Life is a fiesta with Lucinda Hutson! She’s written two cookbooks, The Herb Garden Cookbook and Tequila! Cooking with the Spirit of Mexico, along with numerous articles for magazines. She also designs gardens and interiors, and is a much sought-after lecturer. Our very own herb garden is designed by Lucinda, and has been featured in Kitchen Gardening and Fine Gardening magazines, among others. Come travel the world with Lucinda and learn all about herbs on the way - without ever leaving Central Texas!
9 a.m. on June 27 — Roger Igo, Rosina Newton, and Sharon Truett offer a grounds tour of The Natural Gardener! This is the first time we have offered an inside look at the plants, the design and a little of the history of extensive grounds of the Natural Gardener. Happening the last Saturday of each month in June, July and August, this tour will be structured, but also led by attendees’ interest, so who knows how far we’ll get in an hour? Roger is the Grounds Master, Rosina is the Horticulturist, and Sharon is the General Manager of The Natural Gardener. Come have fun with this trio of old-timers.
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Lunch bombs away!
Greenling Organic Delivery is always coming up with cool ideas to interact with the community, even with people who don’t buy produce from them. Today, for example, Greenling founder Mason Arnold and company have thrown together a “lunch bomb” at Somnio’s Cafe, the South First eatery that gets nearly all of its ingredients from local sources.
“There are lots of restaurants around town striving to use local products and they need us eating there,” the Facebook invite says. “We’ll try to fill the restaurant up to let them know we appreciate what they do.”
Sure, Greenling gets great exposure for doing this, as do other food businesses, caterers, restaurants, etc. when they sponsor fundraisers or donate goods. But unlike bigger projects that take a lot of time and resources to execute, today’s lunch bomb is merely a bunch of like-minded people getting together to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant that is just getting its roots set.
I love seeing businesses think outside the traditional marketing box to support other businesses and bring the food community together.
Social media makes it easy to organize and get the word out, so it’s up to us to come up with the ideas.
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New farmers’ markets in the ‘hood
Farmers’ markets are packed this time of year, and the Sustainable Food Center has just launched a summer series of six neighborhood farm markets, which will go through the end of July. The markets, like their Wednesday and Saturday counterparts, accept WIC vouchers and food stamps.
View SFC neighborhood farm markets in a larger map
South Austin Multipurpose Center, 2508 Durwood, Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to noon
Northwest WIC Clinic, 8701A Research Blvd., Wednesdays, 9 to 11 a.m.
Dove Springs Recreation Center, 5801 Ainez Dr., Wednesdays, noon to 2 p.m.
Rosewood-Zaragosa Neighborhood Center, 2800 Webberville Road, Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
St. John’s Community Center, 7500 Blessing, Wednesdays, noon to 2 p.m.
Montopolis WIC Clinic, 1416 Montopolis Dr., Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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La Condesa chef Rene Ortiz: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Ortiz left the helm of the kitchen at La Esquina, a hip New York eatery best known for being a favorite of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Beyonce, to open La Condesa earlier this year.
A far cry from cheese enchiladas and neon yellow queso, La Condesa has already caught the eye of discerning Austinites by serving contemporary Mexican food — inspired by the Mexico City neighborhood from which the restaurant gets its name — using fresh, local ingredients, many of which Ortiz buys every week at the farmers’ market.
On June 27, Ortiz will be a featured chef at the downtown farmers’ market’s annual Watermelon Festival, and look for classes with Ortiz at Whole Foods later this summer.
What three things are always in your fridge? membrillo (quince paste) eaten for breakfast with cheese and apple or bread, pickled jalapenos (morena brand), salsa adobo (chipotle and adobo)
What’s your favorite condiment? paradise brand hot sauce from brooklyn (grapefruit and habanero)
What’s your go-to late night snack? serrano ham
(Fridge photo by Rene Ortiz. Ortiz photo by Jesse Herman.)
I’m always on the hunt for interesting refrigerators. If you want to show off yours, take a photo of it (please resist the urge to clean or rearrange) and send it to abroyles@statesman.com.
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Readers host their own hot dog taste test
A few weeks back, we hosted a hot dog taste test for a Memorial Day story about the best hot dogs.
What a surprise a week or so after the story was published when I got a poster in the mail from readers Lee Anderson and Dino Jobe, who had conducted their own taste test. They wrote a note that said the taste test made their Memorial Day party great.
And what do you know? Nathan’s and H-E-B’s Grillmaster topped their list, too (with an appearance by Ball Park in their top three).
Thanks, Lee and Dino, for sharing your taste test results! Wonder if you were as hot-dogged-out as I was…
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Summer’s backyard bounty: Tomatoes, cukes, zucchini
The heat is finally getting to our backyard garden, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
We held out as long as possible from clearing out the romaine lettuce and spinach, which both started to bolt a few weeks ago, and now we’re working on pulling the rest of the carrots out of the ground. (It’s become a fun game for Julian’s friends to play when they come over: everyone gets to pick a carrot and wash it off with the hose.)
The heat is a good thing for lots of plants. Tomatoes are ripening all over town, but blossom end rot was claiming my first few red ones. Now that I’ve evened out the water supply, the rot seems to be going away, and earlier this week, I picked the first edible, ripe tomato. My love-hate relationship with tomatoes is a subject for another day, but these homegrown tomatoes are making it onto our dinner plates in the form of a mozzarella salad just about every night lately.
(Since I haven’t managed to kill off the basil — yet — we’ve had fresh basil and onions to go with the tomatoes and cheese.)
Remember the zucchini plant I nearly killed? It’s doing much better, producing a few zucchinis at a time. The green bean plant is also finally putting out a few beans at a time.
The squash plants are almost always flowering, but I haven’t seen any fruit yet. Same with the cantaloupe and watermelon plants.
Our lone cucumber plant has produced several cukes (so spiky!). I prefer my cucumbers pickled, so I’ll give pickling a shot once I get more than two cucumbers to work with.
The remainder of the onions (there are about 15 golf ball-sized white ones left) are waiting patiently in the ground for us to pick. Earlier this year, I planted onion sets in every free square inch of the two raised beds, which means after we pulled out the kohlrabi and broccoli, we found a bunch of onions growing quietly in their shade. Haven’t had to buy onions for a few months now, and these smaller red, yellow and white ones are so sweets and tender in every dish we’ve used them in.
I’m a sucker for zinnias. To me, they are the perfect flower: easy to grow, hardy enough for the dry heat and ideal for cutting and putting into vases.
Mine have finally bloomed, and I’m looking forward to a seed-saving class on Saturday at Green Gate Farms to learn how to harvest their seeds for next year.
UPDATE: The Gardenator has struck again.
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Austin Meets Houston Taco Tour
Who says Austin and Houston don’t get along? A group of curious Austin foodies and bloggers hit a single street in Houston last weekend to try the best tacos in the city, led of course, by new Houston friends who know about these kinds of things.
Team Austin: Mando Rayo, Penny de los Santos, Marshall Wright, Jam and Leo Sanitchat, Ian Knox and Nelson Flores.
Team Houston: Jay Francis, Katherine Shilcutt, Peggy, Juan Carlos and Geraldina Reina, David and Katie, Alison Cook and Robb Walsh.
We met up at Jarro Cafe at the crack of taco time, which isn’t until 10:30 a.m. if it’s a Sunday. About half of us hit up the breakfast tacos, with melted white cheese and not-too-greasy chorizo and bacon. Freshly made tortillas gave us all hope for the day. Passion fruit aguas frescas whetted our lips for the dozen other flavors we’d encounter within a 4-mile stretch of Long Point Road. Jarro has a trailer out front, but when the day is already heating up, take advantage of air conditioning when you can get it.
Next stop was Taqueria Cuernavaca, in a empty parking lot at the corner of Campbell and Blalock, just a few blocks north of Long Point. Choose from a handful of types of small, cheap ($1 each for the al pastor) tacos, but the best part is the servers will come to your car when you order. It’s a carhop (“mesera de coche”, I’ve decided it should be called), where you can order your tacos and Mexican coke and wait for the eager-to-help servers to bring it to you.
Before we even left Jarro, Jay Francis became our unofficial leader. Francis, a serious Chowhounder with a Houston Press blog, asked if we had an campero-style chicken places in Austin. Pollo Campero, which serves fried chicken in a style associated most with Ecuador, was en route to our next bonafide taco joint. We tried the fried chicken (salty, but good) and fried yucca sticks. Final answer: A delicious alternative to fast food. Not a truck, but a pit stop with crispy chicken skin.
El Ultimo Taco Truck, a taco truck next to a car wash, wasn’t just only our next stop, it was easily the best food on the tour. From pierna to campechanas, beef fajitas and the always-refreshing watermelon agua fresca, Ultimo really was the ultimate taco trailer experience. The parking lot of the car wash doubles as a shady area to wait for your amazing food.
After four stops, we were ready for a sit-down place with a bit of ambiente. El Hidalguense, around the block from El Ultimo, fit the bill. Three mariachi musicians and the smell of a borrego pit greeted us as we walked through the door, but the best welcome came as we sat at the table. The server brought out not only an amuse bouche, if you will, of tequila, but also a free flauta for everyone to get things going.
This place is famous for its mutton (borrego), which is cooking a pit next to a plancha on which a smiling woman is turning hand-pressed tortillas, but I preferred the beef taco, which was essentially a vehicle to eat the fiery tableside salsa.
By this point, we could eat no more. We’d been eating for hours, but Jay suggested a stop at Canino’s Produce Market before we headed back to Austin.
This indoor and outdoor farmers’ market should be a mecca for any serious eater traveling to or living in Houston. The front half is a big, single market with tons of well-priced produce (not necessarily organic or from Texas).
But walk through that market to the back to find the real jewel: smaller vendors selling three times the variety of what’s inside. This is easily one of the better outdoor markets I’ve been to in the States, and it reminded me a lot of the outdoor markets we used to shop at in Europe.
You can find fruits and vegetables (don’t pass up the pineapple samples) and every kind of dried pepper, seed and spice, including several kinds of real cinnamon bark. If you have a garden, look out for the fruit trees, and flower and vegetable transplants that you can plant at home.
At the very back of the lot are taco trucks and ice cream carts. You need a reward after perusing all those goods.
What a pleasure it was to be led through some of Houston’s best eats by Houston foodies who seemed honored to have us as guests in their fair food city.
View Austin Meets Houston Taco Tour in a larger map
(If you’re planning your own taco tour, here is a map of all of the recommended stops we considered.)
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Voice your food concerns tonight
Interested in starting a community garden? Frustrated with the lack of grocery stores near your house? Wish your kids’ school offered healthier lunch choices?
The Sustainable Food Policy Board wants to hear your thoughts on how to improve the availability of food that is safe, reasonably priced, nutritious and locally and sustainably grown.
The board is hosting one of its first large scale meetings at 6:30 p.m. on Monday at the Carver Library, 1161 Angelina St., and Edible Austin publisher and SFPB board member Marla Camp says the main goal of this meeting is gathering input from the community on which issues the newly formed board should tackle first.
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