Home > Relish Austin > Archives > 2010 > August
August 2010
New farmers market to open in Salado
Salado, the small town just north of Austin off Interstate 35, is getting a farmers market.
Starting this Saturday, farmers, ranchers and artisan food purveyors will be selling their products at the Adela’s Farmers Market at 302 N. Main St. from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Market managers Jennifer and Kelly Angell, who also own Adelea’s On Main Bistro, say that to help kick off the fall season of the market, there will be live music, oven-fired pizza and wine by the glass available for sale. Kelly Angell says that the market will accept Women, Infant and Children vouchers as well as SNAP, formerly known as food stamp, benefits.
“As chefs we really care about where our food comes from and it’s frustrating to think we have to drive all the way to Austin where you can find the widest variety of local products in one place,” Jennifer Angell says. “We, like most people, don’t have the time to hunt down local farmers and go to each individual place in order to get the freshest ingredients.”
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‘First Kitchen’ blogger Natalie San Luis: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Natalie writes about the successes and failures as she cooks in her very first kitchen. She had a great post this week with a checklist for incoming students (or just about anyone setting up a kitchen) on what basic food and equipment you need for a kitchen.
“I started the blog because I love writing and I wanted to document my experience learning how to cook,” she writes. “I stuck with it because feeding people makes them happy, which makes me happy!”
Good luck to Natalie this school year and the rest of you lucky enough to be in the classroom.
(Yes, I said lucky. Some of us secretly wish we could be students forever.)
What three things are always in your fridge? Eggs (we go through them like crazy), romaine lettuce for quick salads on the run, and red curry paste.
What’s your favorite condiment? Definitely sriracha sauce! The kind that comes in the big bottle with a rooster on it and a green lid. It tastes good with everything.
What’s your go-to late-night study snack? Homemade roasted garlic hummus. I make big batches at a time because my roommates and I eat it on wraps, vegetables, crackers, chips, and pretzels.
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The magical allure of Roger Ebert and his rice cookers
Roger Ebert has made the best out of a really terrible situation.
Four years ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic lost the ability to speak and eat due to thyroid cancer. It’s an unthinkable scenario that would probably put most of us into a downward spiral from which we might not recover.
Ebert, on the other hand, has become as prolific as ever, continuing to write movies reviews and a hugely successful blog and Twitter account (220,000 followers and counting).
If you haven’t read the Esquire article on him from March, you really should. It’s an incredible story, much more in depth and meaningful than the rice cooker article I wrote for yesterday’s paper inspired by the fact that Ebert, who is fed through a tube in his stomach, has a cookbook coming out next month.
Even though I really liked reading his cookbook (Ebert such a witty writer that the book doesn’t even have any pictures), I’m not quite convinced that a rice cooker is as helpful a piece of kitchen equipment as, say, a slow cooker.
The one redeeming dish I made while researching the story, however, was this infinitely adaptable garlic chicken on fragrant rice, which I’m not kidding you, was just about the best rice-based meal I’ve ever had. You could swap pork, shrimp or even tofu for the chicken and add any number of vegetables or other seasonings. This dish is truly a one-pot wonder.
Garlic Chicken on Fragrant Rice
1 cube chicken bouillon
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 cups jasmine or basmati rice
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 green onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, minced
1 chicken thigh, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
a handful of vegetables such as bell pepper, broccoli, squash, asparagus, cut into pieces
Dissolve the bouillon cube in the water. Place all the ingredients except the chicken and vegetables in the rice cooker. Stir, then place the chicken and vegetables on top. Turn on the rice cooker. When the rice is done, mix the rice so that the oil will be evenly mixed with the rice.
— Adapted from a recipe by John in Calgary in ‘The Pot and How to Use it’
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Locally grown seaweed? In Austin? You read that right.
In a landlocked city like Austin, “local” and “seaweed” aren’t two words you’re likely to read in the same sentence, but Lewis Weil is changing that with his new company, Austin Sea Veggies.
After reading an article about how many of the world’s commercial seaweed beds are being contaminated with pollution, he started researching how to grow seaweed in aquaculture beds. He found a few varieties that grow well and taste good and is now selling them at the Sustainable Food Center’s Farmers’ Market at Sunset Valley on Saturdays.
“There’s a lot more interest than I thought there would be,” Weil says. He knows there’s a certain novelty to his product, but he thinks Austinites are just open to finding interesting ways to use new products. “It works well as a green or an herb in a salad, miso soup or sandwiches,” he says. “Or you can use it as a filling in sushi or served with rice.”
He sells two varieties of seaweed (the coarse, moss-like ogonori and a large, thin-leafed sea lettuce) together in a mixed packed ($5).
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East Austin food trailer park adds drive-in movie theater
This week, Frank is opening a miniature drive-in movie theater in the back of the space at 2326 E Cesar Chavez St., which currently boasts three food carts (Old School BBQ, Along Came a Slider and Iggi’s Texicarian), a retail trailer (Wondercraft) and a two-level gallery space. The drive-in officially opens with a showing of “Grease” on Thursday night at dusk, “Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure” on Friday and “American Graffiti” on Saturday.
For $10, you can park your car in one of six spaces that has its own old school audio box that you can hang on the window. If you’d rather sit on a blanket, in a fold-out chair or on one of the benches or tables, the movies are free.
On Tuesday night, we checked out a sneak preview of “American Graffiti” projected on the back wall of the drive-in space. My hometown in Missouri is small and quaint enough to still have a full-sized drive-in theater, and although this drive-in definitely qualifies as “boutique,” I can assure you that it provides a real taste of the nostalgic drive-in experience.
You can grab a bite to eat at one of the trailers or fixins for s’mores from the concession stand set up in an old boat, break open a BYO bottle or six-pack, sit back and enjoy watching a movie outside. Frank says that, starting Friday night with “Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure,” one night a week he’ll be screening kids’ movies and that each of the food cart operators will have a day of the week to pick the programming.
You can count on movies being shown Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights around dusk, and the schedule of films will be posted about a month in advance on the Web site. At 8 p.m. on Sept. 3, the Alamo Drafthouse is screening “Der Golem” as part of its rolling roadshow series.
Photos by Josh Frank.
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Meet and greet with ‘Next Food Network Star’ contestant Brad Sorenson
Brad Sorenson didn’t win this season’s “Next Food Network Star,” but he got pretty close to the finals, winning millions of fans along the way.
Make reservations online or by calling 451-1218.
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Saying ‘thank you’ with veggie-stamped notecards
You might have noticed things slowing down a bit on Relish Austin in the past few weeks.
The heat is easy to blame, but I’ve got another excuse: I’m just a few weeks from delivering baby No. 2.
Over the next two and a half weeks, I’ll try to keep posting interesting and newsy bits of food content, but come the second week of September through mid-November, I’ll only be posting about once a week while I’m on maternity leave.
And before you know it, I’ll be back, high temperatures will be in the 60s, the holiday season will be upon us and, hopefully, Relish Austin will be back up to its multi-posts-a-day glory.
Thanks for your patience and dedicated readership as I make this transition from working mom of a toddler to working mom of a newborn and a soon-to-be-4-year-old.
And speaking of thank yous, I wanted to share some cool notecards I’ve been making in the past few days with Julian. Renee Studebaker’s okra column earlier this summer gave me the idea to use okra as a paint stamp, and I realized that pepper tops and other vegetables would make fine stamps as well.
With some cheap paint from the hobby store and cardstock and envelopes from the big box office store, I’ve been making these colorful cards that I’ll be sending out thank you notes on to the people who’ve gifted us some baby items at several recent showers.
And — spoiler alert, Mom — they are so quick, fun and cheap to make, I’m already thinking ahead to Christmas and making extras that I’ll be giving out as gifts.
Thanks ahead of time to you all for your virtual support. I wish I could drop a handmade thank-you card in the mail to each of you.
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Austin stars in ‘Food Truck Revolution’ on Sunday night
So many food trucks, so little time.
Producers from the Cooking Channel breezed through Austin earlier this summer to shoot a special called “Food Truck Revolution” that will premiere on Sunday night at 9 p.m. The show explores how Austin’s quirky nature contributes to the thriving food trailer scene and how it compare to others cities with a lots of food trucks.
Look for an appearance or two from yours truly during the hourlong special, which reairs Monday at 1 a.m. and again on Aug. 29 at 7 and 11 p.m.
Photo by Mike Sutter for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Hatch Madness: Putting famous green chile peppers to a blind taste test
With a little marketing help, Hatch chiles have become the rockstars of the pepper world.
Few produce items, much less peppers, have as many rabid fans as the green chiles that come from the small town of Hatch, N.M., but I’m sure garden blogger Renee Studebaker isn’t the first to wonder what all the fuss is about.
Chuy’s started hosting a green chile festival 22 years ago, but Hatch fever really caught on when Central Market launched its Hatch festival 15 years ago. Austinites suddenly had a ready supply of the peppers, both raw and roasted, that they could freeze and enjoy year-round. Central Market is now the largest buyer of Hatch green chiles, and the company now produces and sells dozens of Hatch products, including sausages, tortillas and even gelato.
But are Hatch peppers really that much better than Anaheims, your garden-variety green chiles that are available year-round? To find out, I asked Jill and Kevin Lewis of Austin Slow Burn to do a blind taste test for a new series I’m starting on Relish Austin called Feed Me Blind. (See footnote for more information on how to participate or send in suggestions.)
When it comes to peppers and all things hot, there are few people in Austin as knowledgeable as Jill and Kevin, who’ve been making some of the best salsas and fiery foods in Austin since the mid 1990s. They are fixtures on the hot sauce scene, and Hatch season is just about the busiest time of year for them.
We shot this video on Tuedsay in the Statesman studio, where I served them two quesadillas: one made with roasted hot Hatch chiles that I bought at Central Market and the other made with roasted Anaheims from H-E-B.
Could they tell a difference? Watch the video to find out:
Think you could taste the difference between Coke and Pepsi? What about farm fresh eggs versus store bought? Ketchup made with high fructose corn syrup versus ketchup made without it? We’ll be putting foods (and the people who swear they can tell the difference) to the test on Feed Me Blind, an occasional series on Relish Austin. Have a favorite food or drink you know you could pick out by taste alone or a suggestion for two items we should test? E-mail me at abroyles@statesman.com, and maybe I’ll ask to put a blindfold on you to find out if you’re right.
Photos by Mike Sutter and video by Jenni Jones for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Hatch Madness: Central Market recipe contest, classes and Chuy’s special menu
The only thing hotter than the temperatures outside this time of year are the green chiles being trucked in from the small town of Hatch, N.M., by local grocery stores and restaurants.
The beloved Hatch chiles are hotter this year than most, says Lee Crenshaw, a longtime produce buyer with Central Market who helped create the Hatch mania that now descends on Central Texas every August.
“Hatch peppers are a variety of Anaheim peppers,” but in order to be called Hatch peppers, they have to grow in or near Hatch, N.M., Crenshaw says. “The soil and climate is what gives those peppers distinct characteristics.”
This year marks the 15th year of Central Market’s Hatch festivities, but now you can find both roasted and unroasted Hatch peppers at dozens of stores around Central Texas, including H-E-B and Whole Foods (the peppers cost $1.29 per pound raw and $2.79 per pound roasted at Central Market and H-E-B, $1.99 per pound raw and $6 per pound roasted at Whole Foods.) Both Whole Foods Market stores in Austin will be hosting free Hatch events from noon to 3 p.m. Aug. 28.
Home cooks have until Aug. 19 to submit their recipe online into Central Market’s annual No-Holds-Barred recipe contest. Two winners, one for both the Westgate and North Lamar stores, will go home with 75 pounds of roasted Hatch chile peppers and a $100 gift card. Marianne Roeder was one of the winners last year with her roasted chile and corn pizza (see recipe below).
Chuy’s annual green chile festival, now in its 22nd year, kicks off Aug. 30, runs through Sept. 19 and will feature six new dishes laced with — or in some cases drowning in — Hatch chiles, including chile-spiced grilled tilapia roja, spinach queso blanco with pepper jack cheese and chiles, roasted pork enchiladas with a green chile salsa costeña and Hatch green chile fajita beef tacos. You can also buy the spicy Hatch green chile sauce in the stores ($6.39 for 16 ounces, $11.59 for 32 ounces).
Don’t know a thing about Hatch? Check out some of the Hatch-themed cooking classes at the North Lamar Central Market and the Whole Foods Market downtown.
Central Market classes include: Hatch quick-fire challenge ($50) at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 30 featuring Parkside chef Shawn Cirkiel and Central Market executive chef Larry Guilbeau, Hatch chile fiesta ($50) at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 2 with Aunt Pearl Burras of Greater Tuna fame and Hotter Than Hatch with cooking instructor Scot Loranc at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 4 ($40).
At Whole Foods Market, Indian culinary expert Chaya Rao will teach a Hatch chiles and vegetarian global cuisine class ($45) at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 26.
Roasted Chile and Corn Pizza
For crust:
2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp. turbinado sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. instant yeast
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
2 roasted Hatch chiles, finely diced
1 cup water
For sauce:
1 7 ounce jar tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
1 Tbsp. chile oil
1 tsp. cumin
salt, to taste
Toppings:
About 14 oz. grated part-skim mozzarella cheese
Chopped onion
Chopped green bell pepper
Chopped tomato
2 roasted Hatch chiles, chopped
Roasted corn, cut off of the cob
About 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
For crust, mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add softened butter and mix thoroughly. Add cilantro and chiles; mix well. Slowly add water until dough forms a smooth, non-sticky ball. Cover and let rise in a warm place 1-2 hours until doubled. Gently deflate and split into two equal pieces, let rest 10 minutes then roll into circles and place on greased pizza pans.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together tomato paste, wine, chile oil, cumin and salt. Spread a thin layer of sauce on pizza dough, top with mozzarella and desired amounts of toppings. Sprinkle Parmesan on top and bake 30 minutes or until done. Makes two pizzas.
— Marianne Roeder
Photos by Larry Kolvoord for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Break world records, cupcake piñata at Cupcake Smackdown 2.0 on Saturday
For the second year, food blogger, baker and social media guru Jennie Chen is hosting a Cupcake Smackdown to celebrate one of our favorite desserts.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, eat cupcakes from local bakeries, take a swing at a cupcake piñata, launch a cupcake from a cupcake cannon and help attempt to break two world records (the most jaffa cakes eaten in one minute and the most people simultaneously frosting a cupcake) at the free event, which is taking place at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts and the Westin near the Domain in North Austin.
Donations benefiting Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Keep Austin Dog Friendly and Lights, Camera, Help will be accepted.
Photo by Larry Kolvoord for the Austin American-Statesman.
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‘Eat Pray Love’-inspired pumpkin soup
Most of the recipe-focused stories written about “Eat Pray Love,” including this piece we ran last week, have to do with Italian section of the movie that came out last weekend.
It’s not quite pumpkin or soup season yet, but I certainly won’t be waiting for fall to try it out.
Thai Pumpkin Soup
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small pumpkin, skinned and chopped into 1-inch chunks (or 2 cans of pumpkin)
2 1/4 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarians)
1 2/3 cups canned coconut milk
1 Tbsp. hot sweet Thai chili sauce
1 Tbsp. lemongrass, finely chopped (grated lemon peel can be used as a substitute)
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
Fresh ginger, mined or grated with a Microplane
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped, plus more for garnish
In a large pot, heat oil and gently cook onion with brown sugar and garlic over low heat until softened (8-10 minutes). Add chopped pumpkin, broth, coconut milk, chili sauce, lemongrass and fish sauce. Season with ginger and freshly ground pepper. Simmer for about 25 minutes until tender (less if starting with canned pumpkin).
Remove and, if using fresh pumpkin, puree until smooth. Just before serving, adjust seasoning to taste. Mix in chopped cilantro. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with fresh cilantro.
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Eddie V’s chef Chris Bauer: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Don’t you wish your fridge looked this clean?
Chris Bauer, executive chef at Eddie V’s, says that the day he took this photograph, he’d just stock up a newly installed fridge in his kitchen. But because he’s a chef who also happens to be a single dad raising 6-year-old Ella, he tries to keep it this organized all the time. “I work weird hours, so it generally stays pretty clean,” Bauer says.
After graduating from Clemson University and the Culinary Institute of America, Bauer had stints at Brennan’s in New Orleans and Mizu, Finn and Porter and Barton Creek Country Club in Austin before taking the reins at Eddie V’s downtown.
What three things are always in your fridge? Produce from the HOPE farmers market, Topo Chico, juice boxes for my daughter
What’s your favorite condiment? Mayonnaise. I’m not a big ketchup guy, and mustard has its place. I love mayo and French fries.
What’s the first thing you pull out of the fridge in the morning? Super food. It’s a juice. Odwalla, fresh. The green stuff.
Photo by Chris Bauer.
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SXSWi 2011: Food finds in the Panel Picker
UPDATED: Friday morning with additional panel.
The South by Southwest Interactive conference is still months away, but now is the chance to vote on the panels that you’d like to see on the schedule next March.
Of more than 2,000 proposed panels, only a handful deal directly with food, and there are definitely some strong submissions that I’d like to see come to fruition. Others, unfortunately, lack focus, relevance or originality.
Babette Pepaj, founder of BakeSpace.com who launched her traveling workshop series for food bloggers called Tech Munch during last year’s SXSW, has compiled The List of all the proposed panels that are even remotely related to food (or submitted by notables in the food world).
There’s the obvious: iPad in the kitchen, how food brands are using social media to connect with consumers and using social media to market restaurants and food trailers.
The odd, but interesting: How to eat on the cheap, how the deluge of apps and online content is equal to digital junk food and exploring the power and media reach behind those who create food porn.
Now you’re talking: Vegan Austin food blogger Stephanie Bogdanich has suggested a panel about how food activists are using Web to build community and spread awareness about their cause.
The nice-idea-but-poor-timing/execution: An overarching how-is-technology-changing-how-we-eat panel, interactive online reference books, including cookbooks, a vague talk on how technology can help improve food infrastructure, and a panel on the changing ethics of food criticism that, I can’t help but point out, sounds mighty familiar.
I’m disappointed that there aren’t more proposed panels like last year’s E-Food Revolution: Interactive Tools to Feed the World or 2009’s Delicious Tech for Localism: Sustainable Food 2.0 that deal with using technology to improve food distribution or sustainable agriculture or to help people access and learn about nutritional information and fresh foods.
Have I missed any food-related panels of note? What do you think of this year’s potential food offerings? What kind of panels do you wish had been submitted? What panels are you excited about possibly seeing?
The panel I submitted with the help of food blogger and community-builder extraordinaire Mando Rayo, Building Community in a Blogger-Eat-Blogger World, has to do more with building an offline community based on shared interests and efforts online.
Here’s the summary:
Among bloggers, competition for page views and followers can be fierce, and as more people jump in, it feels like we’re all picking at the same slice of pie. How do you encourage bloggers in your online space to collaborate instead of compete, and better yet, how do you build an offline community whose members have real-life, meaningful relationships? Learn from Austin food bloggers who have used tweet ups, taco tours, potlucks and blogger events to create an offline community of more than 400 members. By choosing to become friends over foes, the bloggers have been able to give back to their city through fundraisers and awareness campaigns, such as the Hunger Awareness Project where bloggers wrote about living off food stamps and food pantry donations for a week.
For more food-related coverage of the South by Southwest music, film and interactive conferences, click here.
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In defense of ‘foodie’
If you want to insult someone who likes to eat, just call them a foodie.
As Americans have grown more aware and interested in food in the past decade, a scornful attitude has developed toward the name most frequently used to describe them.
In a post yesterday, my friend Katharine Shilcutt over at the Houston Press spoke pretty loud and clear on behalf of the anti-foodie movement: “Foodies are just in it for the big show: to talk up their meals, to rub elbows with chefs, to write nonsensical ‘reviews’ on Yelp and to scrabble together some bizarre version of popularity out of the whole shebang.”
Shilcutt, who prefers to call herself a food nerd, points us a piece by Jason Sheehan for Seattle Weekly in which he calls foodies:
Those coup-counting, lock-jawed, cake-eating, nose-in-the-air dimwits who, with sticks planted firmly in their flabby asses will make their weekly cruise out to the hottest addresses in town, get weak little culinary boners over year-dead trends, focused-grouped Frog-humping menus and anyone doing New American comfort food or French-Asian fusion in million-dollar spaces; who will swoon after “discovering” restaurants with 200 Yelp reviews, dismiss cheeseburgers and chicken-fried steak and sloppy tacos and Americanized Chinese food as beneath their notice, but go fucking bonkers for any restaurant that name-checks a farm on its menu.
If you scroll through the comments on both posts, you’ll find a quite a bit of backlash against their tirades on people who are just a little too obsessed with food. The running theme: Are not Twitter-obsessed food bloggers, including Sheehan and Shilcutt, the tastemakers at the heart of this food-crazed movement they claim to despise?
Food is important, interesting and worth getting excited about. It’s also intimate, polemic and worth arguing about. Names, labels and lines drawn in the sand just get in the way of a healthy discussion.
If you’re reading this blog, it’s because you enjoy eating food and possibly even cooking it, too. You might think it’s interesting that a store dedicated to Pop Tarts just opened in New York City or that there’s a new farmers market open on Burnet Road selling local produce five days a week. You, too, might make the occasional grilled cheese sandwich and want to get tips on how to make them better from a professional. You’ve probably heard of this Rachael Ray person and might get a chuckle at seeing her face made out of Cheetos.
You might or might not take a picture of that sexy slice of pizza you just bought at Homeslice and tweet it to your friends. Maybe you’re the kind of hungry Austinite who likes to be the first among your friends to try a new place and then tell everyone what the experience was like on Yelp. Maybe you even love food enough to, gasp, spend your evenings blogging about it instead of — or perhaps in addition to — watching “The Bachelorette.” (See blogroll at left.)
You might just be one of those dirty “foodies” everyone keeps bashing.
I’ve had some pretty interesting discussions with food-loving friends of mine about whether or not they define themselves as foodies, and the general consensus seems to be that the negative connotations that the word carries outweighs the benefits of having a universally understood word to describe people who are enthusiastic about food.
I’ve never had a problem with the word foodie. To me, it’s just a generalized term to describe someone like me who thinks/reads/cares/writes/tweets about food more than the average person. Sure, “foodies” in the past few years have taken this love of food a few steps too far to over-hype perfectly valid food trends (see: trailers, cupcakes, bacon, ramps) and to create cult-like obsession with high-end chefs and food glitterati, but what sub-culture in America doesn’t have its share of crazed fans who embarrass the rest of them?
It’s the difference between a fan and a fanatic. Imagine your run-of-the-mill Longhorn football fan and the sad schmuck guy who sobbed for three weeks after the team lost the national championship to Alabama and who, one of these days, will go into cardiac arrest after a bad call. It’s the difference between a fashionista who likes to flip through the September issue of Vogue and one who rings up $10,000 on a credit card at Neiman’s the day after it comes out.
Food — and the growing number of people who pay attention to where it comes from, how to cook it and where is the best restaurant eat it — just happens to be getting a lot of attention these days. Good for us for finally caring about something as important to our lives as what we eat three times a day, but do we really have to spend a lot of energy attacking the people who take it too far? Won’t they burn themselves out eventually?
It doesn’t matter what you call them/us. Until I find a better word, I’ll keep using “foodie” in a non-pejorative way (I’ve run out of ideas for alternatives: Food enthusiast? Gastronaut? Gourmand? Food lover? Food geek? What do you call yourself?) and continue exploring the complex, beautiful and ever-growing food world.
I’ll keep reading the hilarious blog Shut Up, Foodies! for a healthy criticism of the industry I write about and contribute to, but I won’t turn on my own kind.
Photos by ldanderson and silvertje via Flickr.
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Travis County Farmers Market on Burnet reopening Saturday
Updated August 24 with new hours of operation.
The Travis County Farmer’s Market, 6701 Burnet Road, closed in 2007, but Lexington farmer Eric Snethkamp (left, with Scott Spain) has reopened it as a Wednesday-through-Sunday farmstand market on Saturday.
“We signed the lease to the be only produce vendors,” he says, “but whatever we don’t grow, we’ll co-op with other local farmers in the area.” Snethkamp says he’s built a dedicated customer base, especially with his tomatoes and watermelons, by selling at smaller locations around town. “There are certain things we do very well, and we don’t try to be everything to everybody,” he says. He says they plan to host workshops as the year progresses and “we’ll add things as we grow and get better,” including honey by the end of the month.
The market, located outdoors but under shade, is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Photo by Larry Kolvoord for the Austin American-Statesman.
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It’s Monday. (Again.) Are you going meatless?
Meatless Mondays have been around for a while.
World War I to be exact.
NPR aired a long piece this morning on the “founder” of Meatless Mondays, Sid Lerner, a former ad man who revived the World War I-era campaign in 2003 at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The original idea of reducing meat during wartime to conserve food staples is quite different than the reason many people, including star chef Mario Batali, and institutions like school districts and hospitals sign on now.
Reducing saturated fat was Lerner’s goal in bringing back Meatless Mondays, but for many, the environmental impact of cutting out meat once a week is as big a factor as the health benefits.
Each year, the meat industry generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined, and if everyone in America cut out meat one day a week, the impact would be as great as if we all started driving hybrids.
I’ve been trying to cut back meat consumption in my own household for more than a year, but for some reason, I can’t quite stick to Meatless Mondays.
I am 100 percent behind the concept (and who doesn’t like alliteration with a cause), but cutting out meat on the first day of the workweek hasn’t been as easy as I’d hoped. Meaty leftovers from the weekend often sneak into my lunch, and by the time I get home, I’m ready to fry up some sausages and veggies, toss with pasta and call it dinner.
I’d like to think that we’ve cut out enough meat across the board to make up for my Meatless Monday fail, but I’m curious to know if you’ve dedicated a meatless day the week in your household and why.
Photo via Flickr by mayhem.
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World champion hot dog eater to compete at Austin Ice Cream Festival
The four-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest champion, who also holds world records in eating pork ribs, chicken wings, steak and asparagus, will compete against ice-cream loving Austinites in an ice cream eating contest at 3 p.m. But be forewarned: Chestnut has been practicing. “I’ve done over a gallon” in six and a half minutes, he says. “If I can do a gallon and a half, I’ll be happy.”
Sponsor Pepto-Bismol will select five random challengers from people who’ve entered their names to compete against Chestnut. Other festival contests include a Popsicle stick sculpture contest, a screaming contest and a homemade ice cream contest. (Contestants making their own ice cream have to bring their own machines and ingredients to make the ice cream on site).
Entry to the festival, which is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., costs $5 and is free for children 8 years old and younger. Vendors including Amy’s Ice Creams and Austin Scoops will be selling ice cream and other foods.
Chestnut, who has a day job in construction management in San Jose, Calif., knows that brain freeze this weekend is almost inevitable, but as long as the ice cream is good, he doesn’t mind. “If it’s good food, I’m going to put it down,” he says, no matter if it’s tamales or matzo balls.
His first venture into competitive eating was about five years ago in Reno, when his brother encouraged him to enter a lobster eating contest. “Free hotel and free lobster, you can’t beat that,” he says. But hundreds of eating contests later, he says it has snowballed into something he could have never imagined.
Even though it’s only a weekend hobby, Chestnut is serious in how he prepares his body for the onslaught of calories. “I fast for several days and then recover by eating really healthy,” he says. “And I hate it, but I do run.”
How does Chestnut plan to recover after next Saturday’s contest? A trip to the Salt Lick for his favorite barbecue.
Photos from Pepto-Bismol and Larry Kolvoord for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Hot Links: A pie chart of what we eat, food podcasts, Meaty Monday Madness
MMM goes national: Olympic gold-medal swimmer and Austin food blogger Garrett Weber-Gale has a post on BonAppetit.com about Meaty Monday Madness, a monthly potluck for restaurant industry folks at the house of Mulberry chef Zack Northcutt (center). (The M.O.’s Matthew Odam wrote a story last fall about this underground dinner club, but the sexy pictures by Katrina Perry on Garrett’s post really do the party justice.)
Farewell, Brad: After getting kicked off the show with just a few episodes left, it looks like Austin cook Brad Sorenson won’t be the “Next Food Network Star” after all. Slashfood has a post-show Q&A with him, in which he talks about cooking at Asti Trattoria.
Maybe he’s a robot: The funniest Q&A of the week goes to Joshua David Stein at Eater who, after suffering through the PR speak of one of the most recognizable faces on Food Network, calls out Tyler Florence for only speaking “marketingese”.
Michael Batterberry: Founder of Food Arts and Food and Wine magazines, died last week.
Have a listen: Chocolate and Zucchini shares six of her favorite food podcasts.
Does this look anything like the USDA food pyramid? Americans, on average, eat 2,000 pounds of food a year. What exactly do we eat? Let Visual Economics show you.
Geek wear: San Diego’s massive Comic Con is over, but the Kitchn’s post on geeky and sci-fi kitchen finds is still as cool to nerd foodies around the world.
Selling the family farm: A New Hampshire farm that has been in the same family since 1632 is now on the market for $3.35 million.
Cheese-O! Rachael Ray, in Cheetos.
Non-restaurant social coupons: Slashfood points us to Blackboard Eats, which is essentially the Groupon for artisan food products and gifts like coffee and a lobster of the month club.
Ice balls: Ideas in Food shows us how to make spheres of ice without fancy equipment.
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| Thought For Food - Cereal, Foot-Long Cheeseburger & Ecobot III | ||||
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Food report: Stephen Colbert is as hip to the food news (foot-long cheeseburgers, Lucky Charms, etc.) as Eater. Well, almost.
Life after ‘Gourmet’: Looking for a new food magazine to read? Tasting Table tells us about four new ‘zines, and Swallow makes its grand debut with the help of Eater.
I’m a piglet: Via Austin Food Journal, gluttony pants.
Hunger no more: If you liked that Esquire profile of Roger Ebert in March, you’ll enjoy this piece on Utne about the psychological effects of losing your appetite written by a man who has also can’t eat food.
Frozen market: NPR tells us what local paleta company Good Pops already knew: Ice pops are so cool right now.
Call me Abby: Also from NPR, a fun piece about the made-up “coffee names” that people, often those with uncommon given names, use at places like Starbucks.
Do you want local fries with that? Grist chimes in on McDonald’s latest “localwashing” campaign in Washington state.
More farmers markets: The USDA reports that there are 16 percent more farmers markets in the U.S. than there were last year. That’s almost 900 new markets in 12 months.
Puttingweirdthingsincoffee.com: And you thought putting salt in coffee was strange.
Tony’s tunes: Anthony Bourdain’s guest DJ set on KCRW.
Photos from Katrina Perry, Christian Bowers, Slashfood, Grist and Ideas in Food.
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Probiotics are all the rage, even for yogurt haters
Don’t like yogurt? You’re not alone.
To some taste buds, no amount of sugar in the world can overcome the tartness inherent to yogurt. And believe me, judging by the amount of sugar in most commercial yogurts, the yogurt-makers are certainly trying to make it palatable to everyone.
Thankfully, I’m in the yogurt-lovers camp. I eat them all: Greek yogurt, plain yogurt with a little bit of honey stirred in, drinkable yogurt, frozen yogurt and, as of the past few years, Jamie Lee Curtis-endorsed yogurt (mainly because there’s usually a killer coupon for Activia in the Sunday paper that brings the cost down to about 25 cents a cup).
Probiotics — and the booming probiotic-enriched product industry — are the subject of a story I wrote for today’s paper. Food manufacturers are finding ways to incorporate the good-for-you microbes found naturally in fermented foods including yogurt, miso, tempeh, buttermilk, kefir, sauerkraut and kimchi into everyday products such as cereal, bread, tortillas, chocolate, hummus and, according to a press release I just got today, ready-to-eat desserts like cheesecake.
Because women make up more than 80 percent of the yogurt market (please tell me you’ve seen this Sarah Haskins video mocking yogurt commercials), many of the probiotic-fortified products are targeted toward men.
Keeping your digestive system on track in this junk food- and antibiotic-packed world isn’t easy (this certainly isn’t a gender-specific problem), but it isn’t all about keeping you regular. Scientists are finding that certain strains of bacteria and yeast might help lower cholesterol and blood pressure and ease ulcers, tooth decay, vaginal infections and possibly even prevent colon cancer.
It will be interesting to see how far food manufacturers take this probiotic craze before the pendulum swings back and people start looking to naturally fermented foods to maintain a healthy gut.
In the meantime, I’m content getting beneficial microorganisms into my system by eating things like mangoes swimming in White Mountain’s gloriously rich and tart (not to mention Austin-made) Bulgarian yogurt and its 90 billion cultures-per-serving glory.
How do you like your yogurt? If not yogurt, do you eat other fermented or probiotic-enriched foods? Has Ms. Regularity, Jamie Lee Curtis, had anything to do with your decision?
Top photos by Thao Nguyen for the Austin American-Statesman.
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How to make a better grilled cheese sandwich
Making grilled cheese sandwiches isn’t rocket science.
At least that’s the way Amy Hildenbrand, co-owner of the grilled cheese food trailer Austin Daily Press, sees it.
Start with good bread and cheese. Add meat and/or veggies and don’t forget the sauce. Press between two hot surfaces, and you have an easy, comforting meal that, if you build it right, can taste downright gourmet.
Hildenbrand, left, along with her business partner Cory Nunez and his girlfriend Melani Feinberg, are getting ready to make their national television debut on Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” which premieres on August 15. The show, hosted by Tyler Florence, follows seven food trailers on a competition-filled road trip across the country.
Ahead of the series, Hildenbrand gave us some tips on making your own out-of-this-world grilled cheese sandwich.
If you’re making a sandwich with more than two slices of cheese, you’re probably going to want to press it with heated elements on both sides or else the middle isn’t going to get hot and the sandwich will just fall apart. “A $40 sandwich press from Target works just as well as a $300 one from Williams-Sonoma, and you can pick up cat food at the same time,” she says.
Buttered bread works just fine, but mayonnaise on the outside will give you a deeper flavor and crispier crust. For a real taste-explosion, try clarified butter or ghee. Hildenbrand: “It’s like freebasing butter.”
(An old trick leftover from my own childhood: Garlic salt on the outside of the bread.)
Hildenbrand says it’s important to layer the ingredients correctly from both slices of bread to the middle. Smear mayo, mustard or any kind of sauce or dressing (just about any salad dressing or spread will do: ranch, honey mustard, Italian, vinaigrettes, tapenade or even cream cheese) on the slices, then add cheese and keep meat and veggies in the middle. “Cheese helps seal the sandwich together,” she says.
“You have to have enough cheese to stand up against the bread,” she says. At Austin Daily Press, they use about six slices for the thick French bread, but sandwich bread can only withstand about two slices, maybe three.
We all know the usual suspects (Cheddar, Monterrey Jack for cheese, ham for meat), but just about any cheese will work. Feta, fresh mozzarella and provolone are a few of Hildenbrand’s favorites.
French bread works best because the soft insides absorb the extra liquid and flavors. Things get messy if you use pita, tortillas or flatbread, but you can get away with using an English muffin or a bagel if you heat up the bread slightly to soften it before making the sandwich.
As for meat, don’t stop at lunchmeat. Try meatballs cut in half or leftover steak or roasted chicken cut up into small pieces.
Raw tomatoes, white onions, pickles and strong greens such as arugula or spinach add texture as much as flavor. (Potato chips are another way Hildenbrand likes to add texture to a sandwich. Just make sure they are hearty kettle chips or else they will dissolve into the cheese.)
Grilled vegetables take a little more effort because you have to cook the veggies before making the sandwich, but this is where leftovers can come in handy. “With grilled vegetables, you want some bite to them, but it’s less about how you cook the vegetable than it is about finding the balance,” Hildenbrand says.
“You don’t want two inches of grilled squash between two slices of bread. It’s just like making a regular meal, you don’t want to overload on one particular part of the plate.”
Photo of Austin Daily Press team from Food Network.
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Swimming in okra, rotten tomatoes, it’s time to put garden to bed
Hello, August.
Farewell, summer garden.
I finally pulled my tomato and green bean plants this weekend. The cucumbers might make it another week, if the shade cloth I just put over them does any good.
But the okra, if you can believe it, are still going strong. Almost every day, I pluck a seed-filled green pod from one of the three okra plants that are now almost six feet tall. (Not an okra fan? See if this recipe- and fact-filled column by Renee Studebaker can’t convince you to give them another try.)
About once a week, I’ve picked enough okra to fry up a big batch using Renee’s slime-proof technique of coating them in a mixture of flour and cornmeal. (I dip the slices in an egg-and-milk bath before coating them, just to be sure the flour sticks when I drop them in the peanut oil.)
I’ve run out of dead leaves for my compost pile, which means I had to resort to shredded newspaper to keep the pile from getting too soggy. Now, I just need to keep my eyes peeled for bags of yard waste that my neighbors have set out to the curb. Anyone have any other ideas for alternative sources of brown for a compost pile?
I can’t believe the basil hasn’t burned up yet, but I’m sure that’s coming soon, too.
And, oh the pretty zinnias. Once again, they continue to add color and attract butterflies no matter how much heat summer throws at them.
All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with how the summer garden turned out. I’m going to let the beds rest (well, and let the okra and basil do what they do) during the month of August and hopefully squeeze in a few fall crops before I have this baby the second week of September.
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Grape chardonnay sorbet is greater than the sum of its bitter, week-old parts
The wonderful thing about ice creams and sorbets is that the whole is often greater than its parts.
I’ve been meaning to try this Vietnamese coffee ice cream (day-old coffee, sweetened condensed milk and milk, how simple is that?) for a month now, but last week, I found myself with a bag of mediocre grapes and week-old chardonnay.
The bitter-skinned grapes just weren’t that enjoyable to eat, and if I’m only going to have one glass of wine, it’s not going to be a flat white that was only so-so with a freshly pulled cork.
Unsure of exactly how the wine would affect the consistency of the final product, I blindly whipped up this grape chardonnay sorbet and, to my surprise, it turned out great.
Bright flavors and a beautiful texture means I’ll be experimenting with using old wine in sorbets in the not-so-distant future. (Hello, 100-degree weather! I can’t believe it took until August for you to finally show up.)
Grape Chardonnay Sorbet
3 cups green grapes
3/4 cup Chardonnay or other white wine
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
In a food processor, puree grapes until skins are mostly broken down and the mixture is mostly liquid. Strain out the solids through a sieve or a colander and pour the liquid in a bowl. (I ended up with about a cup and a half of juice.) Whisk in Chardonnay, sugar and lemon juice and freeze in your ice cream maker, according to the manufacturer’s directions.
Oh, and if you missed it this weekend, my colleague Ricardo Gándara had a great profile about the guy at Amy’s Ice Creams who comes up with most of the company’s unique flavors. They have more than 1,000 recipes on file, which I bet is a collection that not even David Lebovitz could rival.
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