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SXSW Eats: Talking with Rachael Ray, Jimmy Kimmel at Feedback party at Stubb’s
It wasn’t just the weather at this year’s Rachael Ray’s Feedback party that was better.
By most accounts, the food and music also trumped last year’s party at Stubb’s, held on one of the coldest days of SXSW on record.
Margarita weather graced Ray’s fourth annual SXSW Feedback party, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the free booze, tacos, sliders, chili and “tost-achos” (click here for the recipe that we ran in Wednesday’s paper) that Stubb’s employees served during the duration of the day party.
(Even though more than 20,000 people were said to have RSVP’d in the weeks ahead of the event, organizers for a brief time opened up admission to just about anyone who showed up. After the venue filled to capacity, a line formed and people at the door instituted a standard one-in-one-out policy.)
Click here for more photos from the event.
Most of the people I talked to favored the jalapeño popper sliders, but my favorite was the pork taco and the “tost-achos”, essentially chili-topped tostadas.
Hour-long lines for food crisscrossed through the middle of Stubb’s outdoor venue for the first half of the party, but by the second half of the event, the wait was down to about 20 minutes.
But because you could hear both outdoor stages from just about anywhere in the venue — not to mention that drink lines were far shorter than the food lines — no one seemed to mind the wait.
Toward the end of The Cringe’s set — led by Ray’s husband, John Cusimano — ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons took over lead guitar while Cusimano jumped on keyboard. Ray, with a nice digital camera in hand, set up shop in the middle of the photo pit, snapping as many pictures as many of the photojournalists around her. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was also on hand to help introduce bands, including Free Sol, who get gold stars for loosening up the crowd early on.
Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, Fitz and the Tantrums, The Bravery and Wanda Jackson showed that the line-up was as diverse as any in the Red River district on Saturday afternoon.
Ray introduced many of the bands herself, each time enthusiastically — and authentically, it seemed — saying how humble and honored she felt to be able to feature them in what she calls her favorite city in America, “because it best exemplifies what it means to be an American. Individuality, acceptance of everyone, everything, every animal, every time of music,” she said later in an interview.
(A shameless plug: Before our interview, she said that at her hotel this morning, staff offered the New York Times, but she insisted on getting the Statesman to read.)
Unlike previous years, Ray’s team expanded the SXSW parties this year to include a three-day party in East Austin called Greenhouse, located in Big Red Sun on East Cesar Chavez Street. The parties featured performances by the Civil Wars, Those Darlins, Amy Cook and G Love, with trailers like Peached Tortillas, Mmmmmpanadas and Me So Hungry providing the food.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, SXSW
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By Callie Ray
March 21, 2011 11:57 AM | Link to this
I wished that I would’ve been there this year not just for the food, but for the rock band known as The Cringe. And seeing Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top would be the ultimate cherry to a rock n’ roll sundae.