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September 2009
Outstanding in the Field dinner at Johnson’s Backyard Garden
For 10 years, Outstanding in the Field founder Jim Denevan and a small crew have traveled around the country hosting farm dinners that feature an entirely locally sourced menu.
Outstanding in the Field served its 170th dinner yesterday — its fifth in Austin — at Johnson’s Backyard Garden, Brenton and Beth Johnson’s ever-growing farm near the airport.
Before the dinner started, the Johnsons, left, and Jim explained the roots of both the touring supper club and the farm to about 150 guests, most of whom traveled from Dallas, Houston and other Texas cities to enjoy a five-course meal cooked by Dai Due Supper Club chef Jesse Griffiths. Wines from McPherson Cellars in Lubbock and Stone House Vineyard in Spicewood were paired with each course.
(Many Central Texans might have shied away from the $180 per person meal because Griffiths, who shared the recipe for his famous apple cider-braised pork belly in today’s paper, serves similar locally sourced, family-style meals for $55-100 a person several times a month at his supper club.)
After the first courses of fish soup, cucumber and tomato salad and a charcuterie plate, Carol Ann Sayle and Larry Butler of Boggy Creek Farm made the rounds to explain to the diners how Griffiths uses their produce in his meals, including yaupon honey in a spicy mustard.
Just as the sun started to close in on the horizon, servers delivered massive bowls of perfectly grilled quail and antelope sausage that had even the only occasional meat eaters going back for seconds.
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Chickens, recycled garden beds at Austin City Limits
Chickens will be at the Austin City Limits Festival this year.
No, that isn’t the name of some newfangled band playing at the three-day event at Zilker Park starting Friday. Chickens of the feathered, clucking variety from Austin’s Rain Lily Farm will be part of a display of creative ways to reuse materials to landscape your yard and grow food.
As part of a project with Farmhouse Delivery, Rain Lily owners Kim Beal and Stephanie Scherzer have been putting together an array of container gardens made of tires, a vertical garden made out of old exercise equipment, a worm bin made out of an industrial spool and a moveable chicken trailer from bamboo and old bicycle wheels.
Beal says the project is meant to inspire ACL festivalgoers to find new uses for materials headed for the landfill, like 2-liter soda bottles that they’ve used as planters for herbs. To get people started, they’ll be giving away seeds that Scherzer has collected in the years since starting their East Austin farm.
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What to do with pork belly leftovers? Tacos!
Leftovers are just part of the deal with cooking pork belly. From a single 10-pound slab of pork belly I bought last week for a story that comes out tomorrow, I made three batches of belly, which gave us enough leftovers to feed our family and the neighbors for at least a week.
Most butchers will cut a pork belly to size, but you have to call ahead. (The pork belly I bought at Longhorn Meat Market was frozen solid and had the skin on, so definitely call ahead so you know what you’ll be getting.)
However, two of the best meals we’ve had during this five-day pork belly binge were made with leftover meat. A Fabi and Rosi-inspired spinach salad with apples, walnuts, blue cheese and crispy slices of pork belly was divine, but last night’s pork belly tacos with coleslaw were even better.
Cooked pork belly pulls apart nicely after it’s been in the fridge for a day. It was much easier than shredding chicken and twice as flavorful. When served with rice (topped with fried sage leaves, above), vegetables and this smoky ancho coleslaw, it was the best pork belly meal I’ve made so far.
Ancho Coleslaw
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. ancho chile powder (to taste)
1 tsp. smoked Spanish paprika
squeeze of lemon juice
3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1/2 medium cabbage, chopped
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
Put cabbage and red onion in a bowl. Combine other ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until combined. Pour over cabbage and toss. Let rest in fridge for about 30 minutes before serving.
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Hot Links: Safire on food, Reichl under heat, Outon still in
New York Times wordsmith William Safire, who died on Sunday, had plenty to say about food terminology.
Austin wine geek Ross Outon of Twin Liquors made his debut on “The Winemakers” reality show contest on PBS on Saturday, and Statesman beer columnist Patrick Beach says he made the first cut.
Food bloggers from around the world — and at least two from Austin — met up in San Francisco on Saturday for the BlogHer Food conference. Garrett from Vanilla Garlic (no, the conference isn’t just for women) had some great advice for finding your voice as a food blogger.
Another reason I wished I lived in Humboldt County: The dress-a-spud diorama contest, which this year featured pirates and mermaids.
Looks like the sad rumors about a struggling Gourmet magazine are true. Editor in chief Ruth Reichl and staff will have to cut their budget by 25 percent next year, which could lead to less frequent publication.
ABC News and the citizens of Diggnation finally figure out what all the Dublin Dr Pepper fuss is about.
The winner of Michael Ruhlman’s BLT from scratch contest went so far as to harvest his own salt from the ocean (and make a photo flow-chart to document it).
Slate contemplates what Vayniacs have known for a while: The Web has democratized wine-drinking. (Incredibly, the Slate writer fails to mentions Wine Library TV video blogger Gary Vaynerchuk, who has undoubtedly done more to bring the wine world into the everybody-has-a-say 21st century than any of the other sites he included.)
And lastly, I pulled out the good old VHS machine to watch “The Land Before Time” with my kid this weekend and suffered serious Pizza Hut flashbacks when I saw this commercial at the beginning of the film. I can’t be the only one who remembers the Spike, Cera, Littlefoot, Petrie and Ducky puppets they gave away as promo items after the movie came out?
Mermaid potato photo by extremecraft on Flickr, Land Before Time puppets from Collectors Quest.
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Weed-like purslane packs an Omega-3 punch
At a Friday afternoon visit to the Bastrop 1832 Farmers Market last week, I came upon a vendor selling this beautiful green plant. I hadn’t noticed purslane before, but I struck up a conversation with the farmer, Erika Bradshaw of Bradshaw Farm, who told me about the incredible amount of Omega-3 fatty acids found in purslane.
Apparently, purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant, and it can be used as eaten raw as a garnish or in a salad or added to a stir-fry, soup or any number of other dishes, even bread.
I added a few handfuls of purslane to a soup I made last week — served it with a slice of that homemade Addie’s Quick Bucket Bread that held up nicely in the freezer — to celebrate the return of fall.
You can imagine my surprise when today I spotted purslane on top of a dish by Jeffrey’s executive chef Deegan McClung, who is helping me with a story about pork belly I’m working on for next week. He used it as a garnish on top of pork belly, crab and moi fish served on a bed of charred poblano peppers, long beans and hearts of palm.
If you’re salivating at the sight of that dish, it’s available as a special tonight at Jeffrey’s.
Just goes to show that a weed as common as purslane isn’t always what it seems.
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“The Winemakers,” with Austin’s Ross Outon, premieres tomorrow
From Liquid Austin’s Patrick Beach:
Austin’s latest reality show contestant is preparing for his moment in the spotlight, and the show’s a real corker: PBS’ “The Winemakers” debuts at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and features Twin Liquors wine expert Ross Outon as one of 12 people competing for a shot at launching their own national wine label. To celebrate, Twin Liquors Marketplace at 1000 E. 41st St. is having a reception from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday . They’ll also be showing the broadcast in the store. Appropriately enough, the series begins its run during California Wine Month. Six episodes are scheduled to run through mid-November on Austin’s PBS affiliate, KLRU.
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TRIO chef Todd Duplechan: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Chefs Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher have quickly made an impression on the Austin culinary scene in the few years since they moved here from New York. They left two of the top kitchens in the country to come see what they could cook up in Texas, and Austin’s diners are better off for it.
Duplechan is the chef de cuisine of TRIO, the exquisite restaurant on the lower level of the Four Seasons downtown, and Maher is co-owner of Dishalicious and Spoon and Co. catering. They are both passionate about creating imaginative dishes with what’s in season and what can be bought from local farmers and ranchers. Nearly every week, you’ll catch them at farmers’ markets or food events, supporting the local food scene.
TRIO is one of hundreds restaurants that is participating in the GO TEXAN Restaurant Round-Up Week, which runs Monday through Friday next week. Restaurants across the state are offering specially created meals that feature the best of Texas’ meat, produce and wine. (TRIO is offering a $13 farmers’ breakfast and a $39 three-course dinner — $70 with wine pairings.) A portion of proceeds from the participating restaurants will be benefit the Austin nonprofit Caritas.
What three things are always in your fridge? Farm eggs from various farms around town - I love supporting local farmers. I’m also hoping to get some chickens of my own…as soon as my dog will let me.
Cold Brew Coffee From COOP Coffee (love it, love it) - We buy this from the Farmer’s Market in 1/2 gallon jugs so then all we have to do in the morning is stumble to the refrigerator and our iced coffee is ready. There’s no brewing or grinding beans, you just pour it out of the jug.
Mustard - Jess and I have a serious mustard problem. Every time we go to the store we gravitate to the mustard aisle and buy more. We have a lot of mustard stockpiled at home, but we also go through a lot.
What’s your favorite condiment? See above.
What’s your go-to late night snack? Popcorn with salt and pepper, eaten with chopsticks. Growing up my dad always ate popcorn this way because he said the oil getting on his fingers made him full faster. It doesn’t make any sense, but once you’ve eaten popcorn with chopsticks you become addicted.
Photo by Todd Duplechan.
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Hot Cuban sandwich for a rainy day
What better than a hot-pressed Cuban sandwich on a rainy day?
I got to try The Texas Cuban, one of Austin’s newest trailers, today with food photographer Penny De Los Santos, who is probably the only person crazy enough to get food from a trailer while it’s pouring down rain.
Good thing we fought the chilly raindrops. The El Cubano sandwich we split was awesome, as were the fried plantain chips that came with it and the croquettes and black beans we got on the side. The beans are vegetarian, disproving my long-held theory that meat is required to make legumes enjoyable to eat.
The Texas Cuban opened last week near the Plant K on South Lamar, and the owner says they’ll be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Look for more info on the place in next week’s 360.
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Hot Links: Austin chef shake-up, White House farmers market
Big news on the Austin chef scene: Mark Schmidt, left, formerly of Cafe 909 in Marble Falls, has left his executive chef job at Annie’s, and Asti chef John Bates has left to focus on his new venture, a restaurant called The Noble Pig. Chef Jason Donoho of Asti’s sister restaurant, Fino, will now oversee both restaurants.
Speaking of big-name chefs, the Sustainable Food Center has snagged Rene Ortiz (La Condesa), Tyson Cole (Uchi, Uchiko), Todd Duplechan (Trio), Shawn Cirkiel (Parkside), Laura Sawicki (La Condesa) and Jesse Griffiths (Dai Due Supper Club) to create a fundraiser dinner on Nov. 8 at La Condesa. This is the first of a series of chef dinners to raise money for the SFC, which is in charge of the downtown and Triangle farmers’ markets and a handful of other fantastic programs around town. You can buy tickets ($150) here.
San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic makes the call: the charcuterie craze has officially swept over the nation’s top restaurants.
The so-called White House Farmers’ Market, which is actually called the FreshFarm market and is located near the president’s house, opened last week. Presidential vegetables not included.
Who knew kiddie pools could be used as raised garden beds?
Have you tried Saint Arnold’s Divine Reserve No. 8 that came out a few weeks ago? Grab a few bottles now if you can, it’ll be gone soon. Good thing they are already working on Divine Reserve No. 9.
With the help of Twitter and Facebook, “media savvy chef” Rocco DiSpirito wants your help writing his next cookbook.
Norman Borlaug, considered the father the “Green Revolution” because of his work to develop drought-resistant grains, died last week. Even though he faced opposition because of his use of fertilizers and pesticides, his discoveries are estimated to have saved a billion lives.
Only now am I able to laugh at the “Freshman 15,” and you can too with this College Humor video.
Schmidt photo by Ralph Barrera for the American-Statesman, pool photo from Farm Natters.
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My kid’s first movie? ‘Meatballs,’ of course
It’s fitting that my two-and-a-half-year old’s first movie in a theater was “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”
We didn’t plan it that way, but when Statesman movie critic Chris Garcia gives a kids’ flick, food-related or not, a B+, I knew we had to see it.
The classic children’s book of the same name was one of my favorites when I was a kid, but I was a little skeptical because the animated movie strays so far from the original storyline. But when an often-hard-to-please Garcia likes something that my own kid also has an interest in, we decided to go.
He lasted through about 40 minutes of the surprisingly funny and entertaining sci-fi plot before he wanted to check out the video games in the lobby, but not before getting a taste of the magical feeling of being inside a theater to watch a movie with dozens of your (equally young and eager) peers.
Imagine seeing an imaginative, food-filled film on the big screen for the first time. You, too, would shout out, “Mama, hamburgers are falling from the sky!” or laugh a little too loud and jump up and down when a giant truck with big utensils comes on screen to scrape up extra food.
(At $5 a person on Sunday mornings — and kids get in free until they are 3 — I have a feeling we’ll have lot more chances to work on our movie-watching etiquette.)
Good thing we got to catch what is probably the best scene of the movie, where water-to-food inventor Flint Lockwood and budding meteorologist Sam Sparks get to frolic in the orange Jell-O playland that Lockwood has created just for her.
The movie might be hard to swallow for devotees of the book, but it’s a pleasure to watch, even if it’s not your first time in a theater.
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Dear summer: Don’t let the gate hit you on the way out
There’s little guarantee that today will be the last hot day of the year.
It is the last day of summer, however, and the gardener inside me couldn’t be happier to say farewell to this year’s oppressively hot season.
After months of triple-digit heat putting even my heat-loving plants in peril, I’ve been planting seeds for a fall garden over the past few weeks.
Broccoli, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, kale, carrots and garlic are in the ground, and I’ve already got some sprouts peeking out of the soil. My garden fairy suggested I use cotton burr compost as a way to add both nutrients and fluffy mulch-like material into the well-used soil of my two raised beds. (Because I didn’t have enough homemade compost, I also added a little bit of fertilizer to the third bed, which started as four tomato mounds in the spring and grew into a bed as I mulched over the summer.)
Because it’s still a little hot for lettuce, I’m keeping them under shade cloth. But with some of the seeds already sprouting, I should be eating backyard salads before Halloween.
A produce sticker is proof that I’ve been able to put the compost pile I started at the beginning of the year to use.
I’m also putting the last of the stevia and Thai basil to work. Stevia has been an easy plant to grow, and this weekend, I dried out some of the leaves so I can add just a hint of sweetness to tea without adding sugar or honey. I made this Thai basil pesto and froze individual portions in ice cube trays.
And I just can’t quit my pepper plants. Or maybe they can’t quit me. Out of the four plants I grew to maturity this summer, just three remain and as I start to celebrate the return of fall, one of them has finally — finally! — put off a few peppers.
Maybe there’s still time for a Squash and Pepper Summer Farewell…
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Free food (and delivery) offer from Schwan’s
Through the end of September, Schwan’s is inviting new customers to try any item up to $10 for free, including free delivery. The company, which started in the early 1950s in Minnesota and now delivers throughout the lower 48 states, offers a large selection of meats, vegetables, desserts and frozen meals.
To try a product for free, go to schwans.com/free to sign up for a free account, place the order and pick a delivery date (no credit card number required), usually within a week of ordering.
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Patrick Swayze, I’d carry a watermelon for you
In a Patrick Swayze remembrance today in the paper, I reflected on my adoration of his role in “Dirty Dancing,” a movie I’ve seen more times than I care to admit and whose soundtrack I’ve listened to even more:
It was hard to feel sorry for Jennifer Grey’s character in 1987’s “Dirty Dancing.” Frances “Baby” Houseman, a do-gooder trying on her big-girl shoes one summer at her family’s retreat in the Catskills, falls for the smooth-talking and even smoother-moving dancing instructor Johnny Castle. Few actors could pull off the role like Patrick Swayze, a classically trained ballet dancer whose mother was a dance teacher in his hometown of Houston.
Swayze’s masculine appeal drives the film, from he and Baby’s first meeting after she carries watermelons to the hip-thrusting afterparty through their dance lessons in the rain and in a lake and that sexy scene in the cabin where Baby officially leaves her overprotected childhood behind.
Swayze, with his sure steps and steady gaze, gave a generation of women a muscular, lust-worthy leading man who could do a mean mambo without the stuffy pretense. Sure, John Travolta gave us a rebellious, swift-footed hunk a decade before in “Grease,” but Swayze ditched the musical theatrics for a less slicked-back and ego-driven definition of cool. I’d rather swap places with Grey than Olivia Newton-John any day.
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WOXY.com: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
What better way to get to know Austin’s newest, most musically inclined citizens than looking in their fridge?
In August, the small, but nimble staff of WOXY, the Internet-only music station formerly based in Cincinnati, including general manager Bryan Jay Miller and DJs Mike Taylor, Matt Shiv, and Joe Long, moved their equipment and vast music library to the former adult movie theater that is now home to ME Television studios.
WOXY became the first traditional radio station to make the complete switch to online-only streaming in 2004 after two decades of ground-breaking alternative radio Cincy’s airwaves.
We’re, of course, ecstatic about the move to Austin, and although WOXY just started broadcasting from here last week, its studio fridge has already seen plenty of use. Austin native and WOXY newbie Paige Maguire snapped this picture on Thursday, which proves that local restaurants are helping ease Mike, Shiv, Joe and Bryan into our fine city.
What three things are always in the WOXY fridge? We’ve always got soda, iced coffee or sugar free red bull on hand - we’re pretty much all caffeine whores.
What will you never find in the radio’s fridge? Normally you’d never find leftovers, but local businesses have welcomed us to Austin all week with free food!
What is the staff’s favorite early morning or late-night treat? For the early birds, a treat is when there’s more coffee grounds than we remembered in the kitchen. Late night? We like to put on an epic tune and quickly zip over to Home Slice.
Photo by Paige Maguire.
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Former Clay Pit owners open fast-casual eatery Tarka
Fast-casual is a popular restaurant concept these days, and Tarka Indian Kitchen, 5207 Brodie Lane, is the newest eatery in Austin where customers order food at a counter and sit down to wait for a staff person to bring out their order.
Sure, several kinds of masala and curry are available on the well-thought-out menu and the food doesn’t take long to arrive, but other Indian standards such as saag, tandoori chicken, tikka masala, vindaloo and kabobs also fight for attention. And the fast service doesn’t mean Tarka — which means the sizzling sound of sauteed ingredients — isn’t serving some of the best Indian food in town.
General manager Rajina Pradhan, who opened the popular downtown Indian restaurant Clay Pit a decade ago but sold it last year, says she teamed up with the new Clay Pit owners, above, to open what they hope to be the first of many fast-casual Indian restaurants under the Tarka name.
Wine and beer are available, but at lunch today, my dining companion Chaya Rao, a chef instructor in Austin, and I had Limcas, a delicious Indian lemon lime soda distributed by Coca-Cola. After devouring vegetable kebobs (her), chicken tikka masala (me), a side order of garlic naan and Madras soup, we decided that, unlike many fast-casual concepts around town, the food at Tarka doesn’t taste like the cooks cut corners to get the dishes out faster. Chaya went so far as to say that it’s the best Indian food she’s had in Austin.
Parents will be delighted to see a kid’s menu, including chicken fingers with masala fries, basmati rice with chicken or vegetables and a mild tikka masala curry over rice.
It will take several trips to try everything we wanted on the menu, from the samosas, chaat and curried mussels to specials, including pan-seared tilapia, that are served only after 5 p.m.
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Bullock sister writes about life as a baker in new book
Gesine Bullock-Prado, (second from left) baker and sister of actress and Austin restaurateur Sandra Bullock, got to know Central Texas while she was here to help open Walton’s Fancy and Staple on West Sixth Street earlier this year.
In the book, she chronicles the ups and downs and funny and not-so-funny moments of becoming a full-time baker, and the book includes 19 recipes for treats such as scones, espresso cheesecake and apple pie, some of which are available at Walton’s.
Walton’s staff photo by Jay Janner for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Learn to garden while helping others grow food
Spring gets all the attention when it comes to gardening, but fall is actually the best time to start one in Central Texas.
The volunteer-run Green Corn Project has created more than 140 organic gardens in Austin for schools, community centers and for families in need, and several weekends a year, the group hosts Dig In days, where volunteers and members of the community form teams to build new gardens across the city.
The best part? People with no experience growing food can learn about biointensive gardening methods while they help create a source of food for fellow Austinites.
Upcoming Dig-In dates are this Saturday and Sunday, as well as Sept. 26, 27 and Oct. 10. For more information or to sign up, call 512-249-3171.
Photos by David Huebel of the Green Corn Project.
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Texas’ first whiskey hits the shelves
It’s hard to be a first in a state like Texas, but Chip Tate, founder of Balcones Distilling in Waco, has released Texas’ first whiskey, Baby Blue.
Tate says the whiskey, which is distilled twice and aged in new oak barrels, is also likely the only whiskey made from blue corn, which gives the spirit hints of buttery masa corn meal, toasted almonds and dark chocolate. “It’s not just any blue corn, but Hopi blue corn,” says Tate. A full-flavored midnight black blue corn is ground and toasted before distilling, according to Tate, who is a longtime beer brewer. Legally, it could be labeled as a bourbon, but it is not essentially bourbon-like in character, he says.
Also now in distribution from Balcones is Rumble, a rum-like spirit made with Texas wildflower honey, mission figs and turbinado sugar that tastes similar to a single-malt whiskey, aged mescal and even a young cognac, Tate says.
You can find the new products at Bess Bistro, Ranch 616, Grapevine Market, Spec’s and Austin Wine Merchant.
Photos by Jerry Larson for the Waco Tribune Herald.
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Seaweed stars in Asia Fest’s Iron Chef competition
For four years, Foo Swasdee, owner of Satay and Get Sum Dim Sum restaurants in Austin, has put on the Asia Food Fest to promote all types of Asian food. This year’s event was on Friday and Saturday at the Texas Culinary Academy near the Domain.
The “Iron Chef”-style competition on Saturday is always one of the highlights, and I had the privilege to judge alongside Texas Monthly’s Pat Sharpe, Kevin Quinn of the TCA and Ronald Cheng, owner of the dim sum favorite Chinatown.
Last year’s Iron Chef winner, Chad Pritchard of Fat Daddy Pizzaria in Killeen, who is also a TCA graduate, went head-to-head with chef Cheng Lin of Hayashi Sushi and Grill, who earlier in the day won a spot in the finals in a preliminary cookoff.
In a large, high-tech classroom kitchen packed with audience members, Swasdee announced the secret ingredient: nori, or dried sheets of seaweed.
Just like the Food Network program, the chefs had an array of vegetables, condiments, spices and proteins to work with, and they had to create three dishes in one hour.
Chef Pritchard took the Italian-Asian fusion route, with a shrimp in milk and nori broth (complete with nori spaghetti!) and this seared duck with pasta tossed in a hoisin-based sauce.
Chef Lin stuck with the Asian-theme and made scallops with fried nori and two fried rolls: one with duck and the other with banana.
We had a tough time deciding between the two, especially when our initial point totals came out exactly the same for both chefs. In the end, chef Lin’s balance of flavors, speedy kitchen work and consistent success with the secret ingredient won our vote.
Group photo by Lisa HoLung.
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How to stay afloat in the food blog deluge
Food blogging has exploded like a can of Diet Coke in the freezer.
Thousands of new blog posts, exploring every aspect of food imaginable, are generated every day. It’s not like we’re new at this blog-reading thing, but how do you stay on top of your ever-growing bookmark list?
RSS feeds. If you’re not using one and you read more than a handful of blogs, you should check out this video explaining how they work and get to work subscribing to your favorite blogs.
You’ll save time and clicks of the mouse, which of course will allow you to spend more time tweeting and finding more blogs to read. (It’s a dirty cycle, one that I’m not sure exactly how to break…)
I couldn’t do what I do without Google Reader: New blog posts from the 266 blogs I subscribe to come to me rather than me going to them, saving me untold hours in a given year and feeding me some of the best content and ideas in food that exist on the Interwebs.
But I’m finding one of the coolest parts of Google Reader is the ability to share blog posts of interest to Relish Austin readers.
Most of the links in the Hot Links posts come from items I’ve been sharing all week as I go through blog posts, but — here’s where it gets meta — now you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the items I think are worth sharing.
Are you a Google Reader addict? What’s the one blog feed you can’t live without? As you can tell from my recent Hot Links posts, I’m addicted to Serious Eats, Slashfood and Eat Me Daily.
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Hunters, sausage-makers flock to Hudson’s
Variety is the name of Hudson’s game.
Hudson’s Sausage Co., 1800 S. Congress Ave., has been processing hunters’ deer and other wild game since it opened in 1969, but the store has expanded to sell sausages and other meats in a small retail section at the front of the facility. You can buy hardwood-smoked beef, pork and venison sausages, jerky, chorizo, chop steaks, snack sticks and fajita meat.
Central Market also recently signed on to carry Hudson’s venison and wild boar sausage links ($6.50 for 12 ounces) at most of its stores in the state, and Hudson’s meat is carried at several restaurants in the area, including Frank , the Frisco Shop , Railroad Bar-B-Que and Ken’s Subs, Tacos & More.
Supervisor Scott L. Grumbles (left, with Hudson’s Sausage owner Barret Klein) says Hudson’s will process everything from buffalo to wild hogs and elk, and during the deer hunting season this fall, he expects to process more than 6,000 deer for hunters. But you don’t have to be a hunter to make sausage at home, and the company sells casings and pork trim for do-it-yourselfers.
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Dripping Springs Vodka distiller Gary Kelleher: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Kelleher distills the vodka more than twenty times to create a premium spirit found in bars and liquor stores all over Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona. This fall, they’ll be moving into another distillery in Dripping Springs, which unlike their current facility, will be open for tours.
What three things are always in your fridge? Unsalted butter, flour tortillas, Hot Salsa from Eastside Cafe.
What’s your favorite condiment? Dalmatia Fig Spread with Orange is my fave of the moment; Di Bruno Brothers is a nice one.
What’s your go-to vodka cocktail? Dripping Springs Texas Vodka and San Pellegrino water, no lime.
Fridge photo by Gary Kelleher, mug shot by Erich Schlegel for the Austin American-Statesman.
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A lesson in peace, love, bread-slapping from MFK Fisher
(Making bread) is pleasant: one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells. But it takes a lot of time. If you can find that, the rest is easy. And if you cannot rightly find it, make it, for probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
I’ve always loved to make bread. More specifically, it is the act of kneading bread that I have found so rewarding. In her 1942 book “How to Cook a Wolf,” MFK Fisher couldn’t have more accurately expressed how I feel about making bread nearly 70 years later.
Not only did I deeply connect with her chapter about bread, it also just happened to feature a recipe called Addie’s Quick Bucket-Bread, which came from another feisty Addie, a friend of Fisher’s.
I say feisty because what other kind of women in World War II would use this description in slapping and shaping bread:
Addie slashes her dough into pieces with a sharp knife and then slaps it into shape as if it were a Bad Boy…but any good recipe gives as logical, if less lusty, a procedure.
I set out to make this bucket bread for a food book club meeting tonight where a group of cooks, bloggers and foodies will discuss and eat dishes inspired by Fisher’s book about cooking in uncertain times.
Although Fisher published the book during World War II, when basic commodities were being rationed, there are many lessons to be learned now, when we’re all trying to stretch our food budgets while at the same time feeding our families hearty, nutritious meals.
In another generational mash-up, to make Fisher’s bucket bread, I used several bread-making techniques outlined in Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” which came out earlier this year and breaks down cooking and baking into ratios instead of recipes.
Ruhlman does a great job of explaining, both in his newest book and his blog, the nuances of each step of baking, important information that many older cookbooks, including Fisher’s, leave out.
Instead of completing the kneading and rising cycles in three and a half hours, as Fisher suggests, I completed the first round of rising last night, kneaded the bread again and then let the dough rise for a second time in the fridge overnight. (It nearly poured over the edge of the pot. Note to self: Buy a bigger bowl.)
The slow rise made for light, tender dough, which I shaped into three loaves and a boule, which I baked in a Dutch oven with the lid on for the first 30 minutes. (Here are the pages in “Ratio” that fully explain this technique.)
After less than an hour in the oven, I pulled out these gorgeous loaves. The sight of the perfectly browned boule, which I’m resisting cutting into so I can show off at the book club tonight, gave me the deepest satisfaction, the kind best described by MFK Fisher at the end of the chapter called “How to Rise Up Like New Bread”:
Cut for yourself, if you will, a slice of bread that you have seen mysteriously rise and redouble and fall and fold under your hands. It will smell better, and taste better, than you remembered anything could possibly taste or smell, and it will make you feel, for a time at least, newborn into a better world than this one often seems.
And with the rain and smell of good bread lingering in the house, I feel like a newborn, too.
Well put, Ms. Fisher.
Addie’s Quick Bucket-Bread
1 cake fresh yeast [or 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast]
1 cup lukewarm water
3 Tbsp. shortening
1 quart whole rich milk
1 1/2 Tbsp. salt
3 Tbsp. sugar
10 to 12 cups all-purpose flour
grease, butter
Dissolve the yeast in the water. Melt the shortening in the milk, but do not let it boil. Combine the two liquid mixtures in a big bowl. Into another big bowl or kettle sift the blended salt, sugar and flour. Pour the liquid gradually into the flour, mixing well, and when feasible knead until smooth. Put the dough into a heavily greased pan, cover with a clean napkin or towel, and let stand in a warm place until double in size. Knead lightly, and let rise once more (about 3 1/2 hours altogether). Make into loaves (Addie slashes her dough into pieces with a sharp knife and then slaps it into shape as if it were a Bad Boy…but any good recipe gives as logical, if less lusty, a procedure), put into well-greased pans, and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Brush butter on the tops when once they start to brown, and again when the loaves are removed from their pans.
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Adding some chewy umph to your yogurt
Fiber has been all the health rage for quite some time, but yogurt-makers — and Jaime Lee Curtis, it seems — are finally figuring out what some of us have known for years: yogurt is a great vehicle for beefing up your fiber intake.
Activia with added fiber is a relatively new product from Dannon, and I’ve been buying lots of it lately because the newspaper has $1 off coupons nearly every week and my regular grocery store usually has it on sale for $2 for a four-pack (which means I’m paying 25 cents per cup, which is a great deal even if you weren’t looking for the extra fiber).
But for years, I’ve been adding wheat germ or wheat bran to yogurt to make it a little heartier.
Wheat bran, the outer shell of a wheat kernel, has an impressive 12 grams of fiber per ounce, which is about third of your recommended daily fiber intake. Wheat germ, the grain’s central core, has less fiber but more protein.
Wheat bran and wheat germ are both products removed from wheat when it’s made into flour, but they shouldn’t be used interchangeably in baking.
However, when it comes to yogurt, oatmeal or smoothies, you can add either for a boost of fiber and nutrients.
(And if you’re lucky, Jamie Lee will invite you to talk vaguely about your bowel movements on a national television ad!)
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What’s brewing for Addie’s Eat-Ups this fall…
It’s been a busy, ridiculously hot summer for all of us, so you’ll forgive me for not hosting a eat-up in August.
I’ve been putting together monthly food meet-ups for more than a year through the Addie’s Eat-Ups group on Facebook, and I’m thrilled to announce a series of beer-related events this fall.
The Fall o’ Beer came about from some guilt I’ve been feeling about abandoning beer in the past few months as I’ve explored cocktails and wine. Fall is the perfect excuse to revisit my long lost love and learn a little more about beer while I’m at it.
We’ll tour some local breweries, learn about brewing beer at home and try some of the finest craft beer we can get our hands on.
To kick things off, let’s catch up over a pint and some of the best Indian food in Austin at the Whip-In on Sept. 22, which also happens to be the Health Alliance for Austin Musician’s annual fundraiser day, when 5 percent of the sales at restaurants all over town go to support local musicians. Check out the event invite on Facebook for more details and to RSVP.
I’m still working out the details for the rest of the events this year, so if you have ideas or want to help (I’m looking at you, Austin beer and homebrew freaks), shoot me an e-mail at abroyles@statesman.com.
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Volumes of food at Texas Book Festival
If Halloween candy is already on the shelves at grocery stores, that means the Texas Book Festival is around the corner.
The free festival, which takes place the first weekend in November, is one of Austin’s best public events, showcasing the best of the book world. Big-name authors are always a draw — Buzz Aldrin, Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Walls among them this year — but cooks will be thrilled at the food lineup for the festival, which will take place at the Capitol on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Frederickburg resident and owner of Rather Sweet bakery Rebecca Rather, whose newest book, “Pastry Queen Parties: Entertaining Friends and Family, Texas Style,” comes out Oct. 13., will be there, alongside cookbook authors Lidia Bastianich, Ellie Krieger and Guiliano Hazan.
Wyatt McSpadden will talk barbecue, Robb Walsh will talk oysters and Texas State educator James E. McWilliams will dig deeper into what it takes to create a sustainable food system.
Other authors of food-related books slated to speak include Woody Tasch, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Melanie Haupt, Jason Sheehan, Glenda Pierce Facemire and Jonathan Safran Foer, the “Everything Is Illuminated” author whose first non-fiction book, “Eating Animals,” is about vegetarianism.
The schedule of events will be released in the next few weeks.
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As UT drops trays, will students drop pounds?
College dining halls just aren’t what they used to be.
The University of Texas this semester joined hundreds of others across the country in removing trays from their cafeterias as a way to cut back on the amount of edible food thrown in the trash every day.
You remember loading up trays when you were in school: five or six plates and bowls, with just a taste of each of those glorious options offered in the all-you-care-to-eat dining halls.
I remember it well. Maybe a little too well because I have pictures to prove what all that food did to my body.
Most college students eat at the dining halls for the years they are living on campus. But even though I moved out of the dorms my sophomore year, I worked as a tour guide for the rest of my time at Mizzou, which meant at the end of each tour, I got to eat with the prospective students and their families in the dining hall.
Despite all that walking around campus, multiple plates of food — no matter how you crunch the calories — doesn’t bode well for healthy eating habits.
Cutting back on food waste (up to 60 tons, UT officials hope, or about $250,000 worth of food) is a great move for the institution, but it’s a swell step for students like me whose eyes are often bigger than their ever-bulging stomachs.
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Hot Links: Buddha-shaped pears and the end of cupcakes?
Fun bites from the food Interwebs:
If you can’t get enough sexy food photography (or maybe if you’re ready for a change), check out this freelance cartoonist’s food sketches and paintings, which you can buy on Etsy.
Are cupcakes dead? Slate says yes, The Atlantic says no.
A must-read for compost lovers: 75 things you can compost but thought you can’t.
Check out these buddha-shaped pears and heart-shaped watermelons, from our friends across the Pacific.
Chef Eric Ripert’s new show on PBS, “Avec Eric,” premiered on Sunday. I didn’t get a chance to watch (which surprises me because I’m addicted to KLRU), but after reading this Eat Me Daily report, it seems Ripert might actually have something to say in his quest for culinary inspiration.
Reports are coming in from the 300+ “eat-ins” that took place on Labor Day in support of Slow Food USA’s campaign to overhaul school lunches.
Not sure what to do with quinoa? The Kitchn gives usseven recipes to get you started.
More fun kitchen supplies to add to my Christmas wish list (are you reading, Mom?): magnetic spice jars and frame plates.
The Houston Press has the top five foods to sneak into movie theaters (I’m partial to chocolate-covered raisins and a calimocho mixed ahead of time in a Nalgene bottle.)
Photos from Boing Boing, D-Vision and Riki’s Phood Blog.
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Putting booze to work in a second-hand ice cream maker
I’m going to out my favorite thrift store, and Thrift Town fans are going to hate me for it. The store at Manchaca Road and Stassney Drive in South Austin has one of the best selections of both appliances and clothes, and I’m a frequent purchaser of both. (Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are going to hate me for the latter.)
I’m still getting good use out of a $12 juicer I bought earlier this year, and on a Thrift Town adventure this weekend, I found an $8 ice cream maker that I just couldn’t resist.
Channeling my inner David Lebovitz, I took this recipe for nectarine ice cream and added a healthy teaspoon of Jack Daniels, which according to the Ice Cream Master, whose book “The Perfect Scoop” you can browse for free thanks to Google books, can keep homemade ice a little softer than it usually turns out.
Everything went smooth as Amy’s Mexican vanilla until I got to the actual freezing part. I didn’t let the heated milk and cream mixture cool enough before adding it to the machine, which meant the frozen container that the ice cream churns in warmed up before the ice cream got cold. I froze the creamy nectarine liquid anyway, and I couldn’t resist trying some this morning with breakfast.
The flavor was perfect — the whiskey was a wonderful complement to the stone fruit and vanilla — but the texture wasn’t right: Too icy and inconsistent. But I’m pretty sure if I thoroughly cool the milk mixture next time, I’ll be able to get the problems worked out.
Who cares if summer is coming to an end. It’s hot as blazes, so I know many of you are still making your own ice cream. Care to share any tips for a beginner?
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Rebecca Wallace Ford: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Rebecca Wallace Ford can, even though she says the Queen didn’t actually eat at the afternoon tea she catered at the Governor’s Mansion when Ann Richards was governor.
Wallace Ford, who founded Word of Mouth catering in the 1980s (her former partner owns it now), is the director of special services for the House of Representatives, which means she has a gorgeous office in the Capitol, where she supervises food service for the members’ lounge and speaker’s apartment.
A longtime power player in the Austin food scene, Wallace Ford started her career in food after fellow parents at her daughter’s school started asking her to make cakes for their parties. Pretty soon, she was catering the parties altogether. Eventually, Word of Mouth went on to be named one of the top ten wedding caterers by Bon Appetit magazine.
What three things are always in your fridge? Chardonnay (“My nine dollar nightly swill,” she says), 1 percent milk for my tea in the morning, Duke’s mayonnaise
What’s your favorite condiment? I use a lot of Dijon mustard, but who doesn’t.
What is your go-to breakfast? Bran cereal with half a banana and a sprinkling of blueberries.
Photos courtesy of Rebecca Wallace Ford.
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First impressions of Sprouts, the new kid on the grocery store block
Early this morning, grocery store geeks lined up for grand opening celebrations at the first two Sprouts Farmers Market grocery stores in Austin. I wasn’t there early enough for a breakfast buffet or bag filled with goodies, but I did stop by the Sunset Valley store around 9 a.m. to shoot a video and stock up on food for the Labor Day weekend.
The Arizona-based grocery chain is expanding rapidly, with at least two more stores planned for Austin. The blog post I wrote last week about the openings sparked quite a few comments about the location of the stores and the state of Austin’s grocery store scene.
So how does Sprouts size up to the half dozen other “natural grocers” in town? Sprouts offer organic, natural and mainstream products, but don’t expect to find a box of Cocoa Puffs or bag of Lays potato chips. And on the other hand, you won’t find a chocolate fountain, obscure sea creatures or cheese section the size of your living room.
The store, located at 5601 Brodie Lane in an old Linen ‘N’ Things, seems slightly larger than the Newflower Farmers’ Market at Manchaca Road and William Cannon Boulevard just a few miles away, and it has a bakery and butchery, which leads me to my favorite find: freshly made sausage. Few stores make their own sausage, but Sprouts is preparing more than a dozen kinds of MSG- and nitrate-free sausages, all priced at about $4 a pound. (I bought about three pounds of bratwurst and sausage on sale for $2.99/pound.)
Organic produce, like most grocery stores, takes up only part of the sizable produce section, and they had plenty of decently priced conventionally grown produce. Don’t forget wine (they’ve got 3 bottles for $10 on certain wines right now), beer and a good number of bulk items, including nuts, granola, flour, sugar, etc.
Joe Dobrow, vice president and chief marketer, was there for the opening, and he says the Rollingwood store (2805 Bee Cave Road) will open on Oct. 16. The Great Hills location (10225 Research Blvd.) is scheduled to open the first part of January, and Dobrow says they are looking for other locations in Central Texas.
Did anyone go to the Round Rock store at 110 N. Interstate 35 this morning? If you went to one of the openings, I’m interested to hear you first impressions.
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Show me your food tattoo
Tattoos.
I’ve got ‘em. Four to be exact, but none have anything to do with food — yet.
But I know you, dear readers, have food tattoos. Or your friends have them. Or your favorite chef has them.
I’ve got a story coming up about food tattoos, and I want to see the best that Austin has to offer. Can you beat a customer of Thunderbird Coffee who got a tattoo of the coffeeshop’s logo in exchange for free coffee for life? Or what about a friend of a friend who is getting a slab of bacon tattooed around his wrist?
E-mail me at abroyles@statesman.com to share your food tattoo or let me know if you’re planning on getting one in the next few weeks.
While you’re contemplating food-inspired skin art, Food Network Humor has 25 photos of food tattoos that didn’t turn out so well.
Photo via Food Network Humor.
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Hot Links: Hubby Hubby ice cream, food bloggers’ potluck
As of yesterday, it is legal for gays and lesbians to get married in Vermont, and to celebrate, Ben and Jerry’s is renaming its Chubby Hubby ice cream. For the month of September, you can find Hubby Hubby ice cream — in name only. The store doesn’t have plans to redesign the label. — in Vermont stores.
I was so sad to have missed the third Austin food bloggers’ potluck this past weekend. The Hatch-themed feast was at the house of Eat This Lens’ blogger Marshall Wright, who scooted back from Loncito Cartwright’s food salon on Sunday to host. I missed Hatch Chile Brownies with Grand Marnier Whipped Cream, Mutabbal (a spicy baba ganoush with Hatch chiles), Hatch Chile Arancini (fried risotto balls), Hatch-infused Chocolate Truffles and tons of other creative dishes. Next up? A beer-themed potluck in October. Look for details soon.
Speaking of Austin food blogs, a few fun changes: Tasty Touring has undergone a sweet redesign, Fete and Feast now offers a number of helpful features including Cook’s Toolkit and Foodie Bits, a nearly comprehensive list of food events going on in Central Texas. Alexandra Richmond of Austin is Delicious is contributing cheap eats in Austin to 3 Buck Bites.
Kristi Willis of Austin Farm to Table is hosting another of her first Wednesday Picnics in the Park today at 6:30 at the Austin Farmers’ Market at the Triangle.
Master mixologist Bobby Heugel of Anvil in Houston has created this list of 100 cocktails you must try before you die, from the Absinthe Drip to the Zombie.
Eat Me Daily picked up on Bud “The Pieman” Royers’ Pie For Life offer. Instead of your traditional pie-a-month deal, the Round Top cafe, located just east of Austin, is offering a pie a month for the rest of your life, at the low price of $10,000. But as you can see from this chart, the price goes up the younger you are.
The White House released this video yesterday, with the First Lady and White House chef Sam Kass explaining how the presidential garden came to be and what’s happening with its produce:
I have a feeling these Lego cake molds will be on my Christmas list this year.
Kraft, makers of neon orange macaroni and cheese, is the is the only U.S. food company to make the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index.
Vegetarians now live in Julia Child’s Cambridge home, where visitors are now leaving butter sticks on the fence.
Mutabbal photo by Diann Mayer; Hubby Hubby photo from Ben and Jerry’s.
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Ride the Slow Food train for less and help make change
Don’t confuse the Slow Food movement with food you make in slow cookers.
Slow Food, which started in Italy in 1989, was created “to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”
The organization has spread quickly into smaller chapters with more than 100,000 members.
But now, instead of charging a $60 membership fee, Slow Food USA is offering donate-what-you-can memberships through the end of September.
Lucky for Austinites that the Slow Food chapter here has revitalized itself in recent months by hosting more events, classes and community events, including a free cheese-making class on Thursday and a potluck on Monday (Labor Day) to brainstorm about how to improve school lunches.
The cheese-making event from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday is the group’s monthly Slow Session, an informative and fun event usually at Habitat Suites, 500 E. Highland Mall Blvd. Cheese-maker Scott Evans of Austin Homebrew Supply will explain the basics of home cheese-making, including history and where to get the ingredients. The event is free, and you can RSVP here.
The Labor Day potluck at 11 a.m. at Rain Lily Farm, 914 Shady Lane, is one of nearly 300 “eat-ins” across the country that are part of the Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch Campaign, where food advocates are coming up with ways to get fresh, unprocessed foods back into schools.
The Austin chapter’s fall fundraiser will be a raw milk cheese tasting and talk with Cathy Strange, global cheese buyer for Whole Foods Market, at the Barr Mansion on Oct. 21. Kevin Brand of (512) Brewing Company will be pairing beers with the cheeses. Tickets are $50 ($40 for Slow Food members), and you can buy them here.
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Getting Lucky in Port Aransas
On our second trip to Port Aransas this year, we got lucky.
After the South Texas Food Salon near Dinero, we headed east for a quick trip to the beach. We rarely make hotel reservations when we travel, preferring to roll the dice and rely on the goodness of the universe to lead us to the perfect places to stay, eat and play.
This weekend, we hit the jackpot.
First stop: Port Aransas Brewing Company. I’d forgotten that since our last visit, when we devoured a fantastic mango and bacon pizza, the restaurant’s Stopher burger landed on Texas Monthly’s Top 50 burgers in the state list.
We split the burger, which was smothered in cheddar cheese and sandwiched between two slices of sweet, yeasty and chewy housemade bread.
Here’s where the luck began: our server gave us sweet potato fries instead of waffle fries, so we ended up with both, which was a good thing because I ended up liking the perfectly crisp sweet potato fries better than the ones we ordered.
After a bite to eat, we went hotel hunting and randomly pulled into what looked like your average cheap hotel on the main strip in Port A, a pink, nondescript America’s Best Lodge. We decided to stay there based on the fact that it was less than what we’d expected to pay during what is still considered the high season ($77 with tax).
But when we opened the door to our little room, we saw the real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: A kitchenette with a full-sized fridge, stove, oven and microwave.
Within minutes of unpacking, a cleaning lady who had seen Julian running in and out of the room gave us an unopened box of Lucky Charms cereal that a previous guest had presumably left behind.
Good thing the hotel was right next to an IGA, where we could buy milk and a few other ingredients to go with the pork roast we’d happened to pack in our cooler (just in case we found a place to cook, you see).
We ended up enjoying a very fine meal in our room, just a few steps from the hot tub and pool, which we had all to ourselves because the hotel was nearly empty on a Sunday night.
Our luck extended to our playdate with the beach, where a rainstorm took its sweet time to finally boot us back to the hotel, and to the Port Aransas History Museum, which is run by a friend of a friend, who let us have a look around on Monday, even though the place is usually closed that day.
If only we could get so lucky on every road trip…
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A mixing bowl for foodies, farmers, ranchers, chefs
For several years now, lamb rancher Loncito Cartwright has hosted get-togethers for food folks around the state to get to know one another and brainstorm on strengthening the network of farmers, ranchers, business owners, chefs, writers, bloggers and food advocates.
The so-called South Texas Food Salon was this weekend at his ranch near Dinero, an hour or so outside San Antonio.
We didn’t arrive until Day 2 of the three-day gathering, the star of which was — predictably — the meals made with vegetables straight from the farms of several of the guests and meat from Loncito and others.
Everyone had a role, from mixing cocktails using watermelon agua fresca to peeling potatoes for breakfast home fries to smoking lamb ribs.
With a kitchen big enough to hold a dozen cooks at a time and a dining room to accommodate everyone else, guests from all over the state got to share ideas, farming techniques and tales of how they’ve made it through this horrifically hot and dry summer.
Many of the attendees had crossed paths before, but it was nice to get to know each other in a laid-back place, where farmers aren’t just coming in from the field harvesting or chefs aren’t sweating from cooking on the line at a restaurant.
Cartwright knows so many passionate food people in Texas; he’s smart to get them in the same place to harness their energy and see what ideas/projects come out of a weekend together.
(For more photos, check out this post by photographer Penny De Los Santos.)
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