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June 2011
Local chefs host benefit for injured Carillon food and beverage director
The Austin restaurant community is rallying behind Daniel Curtis, the assistant director of food and beverage for the Carillon who was seriously injured in an accident over Memorial Day weekend. (David Alan of TipsyTexan.com has a nice introduction to Daniel for those who haven’t met him.)
Curtis is in a rehabilitation facility in Houston, and local chefs Josh Watkins, David Bull, Shawn Cirkiel, Shane Stark, Philip Speer and Paul Qui are hosting a benefit at 6:30 p.m. July 13 at Grand Ball Room at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center (1900 University Ave.) to help pay his medical bills. Cocktails by the Tipsy Texans and music by the Derailers. Buy tickets ($75-$125) or make a donation on the website.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating out
Lago Vista burger gets national attention in Wall Street Journal
It’s not quite Hatch chile season yet, but a reader alerted me to a burger that people who live in Lago Vista know well: the Hatch chile burger (far left) from Bam’s Roadhouse Grill.
And now, after a big burger spread in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, people outside the small lake town west of Austin know about it, too.
Toronto-based food writer Chris Nuttall-Smith calls it a “beautifully trashy central Texan contender,” which Bam’s Roadhouse owner George “Bam” Look took as a great compliment.
“What I loved about it was the other four burgers were from chef so-and-so from Boston, Atlanta, Vegas and New York and then there’s little old burger from Lago Vista, Texas,” Look says.
(That’s Michael Schlow, Linton Hopkins, Bradley Ogden and April Bloomfield, who was recently profiled in the New Yorker, if you’re keeping tabs on which so-and-so chefs he’s talking about.)
Look says he’d actually forgotten that anyone with the Wall Street Journal had called until his chef called him one Saturday and said the article was in print. A regular brought in a copy as proof. “I cracked up,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Stuffed burgers, like the cheese-chile-bacon-filled one featured in the WSJ, are a specialty, but Look says the chicken-fried steak and catfish are just as good. The 66-year-old West Texas native lives in Austin and commutes to Lago Vista to run the restaurant, his first, which he opened eight years ago.
Like many business owners in Lago Vista, Look says he’s fighting the drought and the economy. “If there’s no lake, it hurts. If there’s a flood, it hurts.”
Hopefully, a little love from the Big Apple will help him out a little this summer.
Screen grab from the WSJ.com.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Cooking, Recipes
Austin Food Trailer Alliance uniting food cart community
With more than 1,300 mobile food vendors opening, closing and moving all the time, it’s hard to keep up with the Austin food cart scene, even for owners.
A few months ago, Tony Yamanaka, who runs FoodTrailersAustin.com and is the marketing coordinator for the Better Business Bureau in Austin, launched the Austin Food Trailer Alliance, which had its second meeting last week. (Cincinnati and New York City have similar alliances.)
Yamanaka saw an opportunity to help connect people involved in the industry, but mostly, he wanted to give them a voice. When the Austin City Council approved changes to the regulations that govern the mobile food vendors last year, Yamanaka says that both trailer owners and outsiders were misinformed.
“People weren’t really sure what was going on,” he says. “I didn’t want that to happen again.” Yamanaka says that trailer owners are usually eager to help their peers, but they might not know others in the industry who work on the other side of town.
Trailers are still a relatively new aspect of the food scene, and people who are looking to open one, even those who have worked in the restaurant industry, aren’t entirely sure what to expect. R.J. Oliver, who runs Bufalo Bob’s Chalupa Wagon at 600 S. Lamar Blvd., says he talked to a lot of trailer owners before opening his own, but it hasn’t been easy. “I’m new to this industry, and I’m trying to network as much as possible,” he says. “It’s hard to get people to realize what you have.”
Yamanaka also sees the alliance as a way to help connect trailers with potential customers. “You might know 10 trailers off the top of your head, but there are so many more out there,” he says. He hopes to set up trailer tours and other events to introduce Austinites to trailers they haven’t tried.
By building a network of people with various skills and specialties, Yamanaka wants to encourage alliance members to help one another find new locations, learn how to use social media to attract customers or troubleshoot problems that only fellow trailer owners would understand, like how to build a grease trap in an Airstream or dispose of gray water properly. Yamanaka hopes members will also go in on large purchases together so they can get a discount on things like recyclable cups or grease disposal for biodiesel.
The Austin Food Trailer Alliance, which is free to join, meets once a month, usually on a Monday. They haven’t set the date for the next meeting, but you can stay abreast of news through the group’s website or Twitter page.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Eating a big slice of Whoopsy Pie
No reporter likes to have a run a correction, but I’ve never had to run one that tasted as good as this one.
In May, we published a recipe for a Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie from Leah Tackitt, an Austinite who had won a pie contest with this dessert. Due to a series of miscommunications, we not only misspelled her last name (sorry about that, Leah), we also printed a recipe that had several errors.
With all the variations on abbreviating teaspoon and Tablespoon — our style calls for using tsp. and Tbsp., respectively — and the inherent complexity of cooking, it’s a wonder we don’t have to run more corrections on recipes, but it still sucks when we do.
With something like this, I wanted to double check that even the corrected version was correct, so I got to make Leah’s Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie this weekend.
After burning the caramel on the first try, I successfully caramelized the sugar on the second try and made what turned out to be a lovely pie that would make a very nice Fourth of July treat. Be forewarned, however: Don’t serve this pie without vanilla ice cream. It’s reminiscent of apple crisp on a pie crust, and the homemade caramel is just begging for some cold ice cream to go with it.
Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie
1 frozen pre-made pie shell
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. water
1/2 cup (1 stick), plus 2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup cream
5 tart apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch dice
1 tsp. nutmeg
4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Pinch salt
For topping:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch salt
1/4 cup butter, chopped in 1-inch cubes
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pre-bake the pie crust according to directions on the package, about 10 minutes. (You can also use a homemade or refrigerated pie crust, but pre-bake before filling.)
Place sugar in a heavy-bottomed sauce pot and fill with enough water to cover, about 2 Tbsp. Use your fingers to stir the sugar, ensuring there are no dry spots. Heat the sugar on medium heat, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 335 degrees. (Once the temperature hits 300 degrees, the temperature will rise very quickly, so be ready to pull the pot off the heat as soon as it gets close to 330 degrees to starts to smoke. There’s no saving burnt caramel, so if you cook it too long, you’ll have to start over.)
Stir in 1 stick butter and cream carefully by hand with a wooden spoon until all lumps of butter have melted. (The temperature difference may cause popping and will cause some clumping of the sugar. If this happens, just stir over low heat to melt clumps.) Set aside.
Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in medium skillet over medium heat. Mix together nutmeg and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add apples and spice mixture to pan and cook for about 3 minutes. Stir apple mixture into caramel and pour into pie shell. (You might have extra filling, depending on the size of your pie shell and apples.)
To make topping, mix flour, sugars, oats, cinnamon, salt and butter together, using fingers to work butter into dry ingredients until chunks are slightly larger than pea-sized. Pile crumble on top of the filling.
Put pie on sheet pan and bake in oven until the crumb topping looks toasted on top, approximately 20 minutes.
— Adapted from a recipe by Leah Tackitt
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Dan and Jenn Northcutt of Frank: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
With the Fourth of July around the corner, it’s officially hot dog season in Austin, but at Frank, it’s hot dog season every day of the year.
Dan and Jenn Northcutt are among the owners of the hot dogs-and-so-much-more restaurant in the Warehouse District, and as a chef, Dan gets credit for most of the inventive dishes on the menu. (I featured the fridge of fellow co-owner Geoff Peveto last year.)
At Frank, they serve more than a dozen hot dogs and sausages, all of which are either made in house or at Hudson’s Sausage Company on South Congress Avenue. (They just added Sonoran hot dogs, which are wrapped in bacon and deep-fried and topped with everything from beans to jalapeño sauce.)
Frank is one of the few places in town where you can get poutine year-round (that’ll make the Canadians happy), and I, for one, could make a meal out of their corn cup, made with grilled corn, cotija cheese, cilantro and lime juice.
What three things are always in your fridge?
High-end: Heirloom tomatoes, champagne, and Brillat Savarin cheese Low-brow: Pickled okra, Lonestar, and cheese whiz
What’s your favorite condiment?
High-end: Lemon-grass scented house-made aioli Low-brow: Miracle Whip
What’s your go-to late night snack?
High-end: Organic strawberries, Greek yogurt, and local honey Low-brow: Pimento cheese sandwich on white bread with a Coke!
Photos from Dan and Jenn Northcutt.
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Celebrating Canada Day in Austin and why Canadians are like fruitcake
UPDATE: The original post had the wrong number of birthdays for Canada.
On Friday, Canada will celebrate its 144th birthday and Canadian expatriates and Canadaphiles will be enjoying Labatt Blue beer and French fries smothered in cheese curds and brown gravy the 10th annual Canadians in Austin Canada Day party at The Paradise Cafe, 401 E. Sixth St.
Food has been the center of this party almost as soon as it started, says Andrew Bulloch, a software sales manager (below, leading the group in a rendition of “O Canada”) who moved to Austin from Ontario in 1996 and is the president of the Canadians in Austin group.
“Someone brought ketchup chips to the first party, and now we have a whole Canadian meal,” he says. Canadians (and their wannabe spouses, like me) can enjoy real poutine with brown gravy (not that cream or chicken gravy that Texans are familiar with, Bulloch says), salt and vinegar chips, back bacon sandwiches, Tim Hortons coffee, Molson beer and chocolates from the Great White North. “No offense, but our Kit Kats are way better than yours,” he says. “No high fructose corn syrup.”
(My husband, who moved to Austin from Calgary six years ago, will be sad that there aren’t plans to serve Saskatoon berry pie or soap candies.)
Bulloch took over the Canadians in Austin group and annual celebration after the original founders moved away from Austin, and he says the Canada Day party has become the group’s biggest event, attracting hundreds of people with connections strong and mild to our northern neighbors. According to the Census Bureau, there are almost 6,000 people in Austin who identify themselves as Canadian.
“They say America is a melting pot, where everyone gets thrown in the mix and melds together,” Bulloch says. “But Canadians are like fruitcake. We’re a little nutty, sure, but we keep our individual parts. If you get thrown in as a cranberry, you stay a cranberry.”
Bulloch says he hopes to more formally organize the group, starting with a meeting at 7 p.m. on July 13 at Paradise.
In years past, the group has hosted Boxing Day parties and potluck dinners for Canadian Thanksgiving in October, but he envisions a group that can give back to Austin through philanthropy and one that can help recent expats transition into life in Texas and help them with immigration issues.
To find out more about the group or to RSVP to the Canada Day party on Friday, email Bulloch at canadiansinaustin@gmail.com.
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The cure for tomato fever? Tomato jam, salsa, green gazpacho
Nothing like 35 pounds of perfectly ripe tomatoes sitting on your dining room table to make you get over your fear of canning.
It was a lot easier to buy that many than grow them, which makes me appreciate what farmers have gone through to get so many ripe beauties despite the heat and lack of rain.
Tomatoes are one of the most work-intensive, volatile and potentially lucrative of the summer crops for farmers, and it’s been hit or miss for local growers.
While Green Gate Farms and Johnson’s Backyard Garden are reporting bumper crops, other farmers say it’s just gotten too hot too fast for the fruit on their plants to ripen. Katie Kraemer of Tecolote Farm east of Austin says the high winds, hot temperatures and lack of rain in the past three months mean their tomatoes are sitting on the vines and not ripening with any speed at all. They are having to cut their summer community-supported agriculture program short and hoping the fall CSA will help carry them through the winter.
However, just up the road at Green Gate, farmer Erin Flynn says they were able to keep their transplants from freezing in the greenhouses in February and were able to get their plants in the ground early this year.
“We took a risk by planting early,” she says, but now they have more tomatoes than customers to buy them at their farmstand, which is open Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m., Fridays from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 8310 Canoga Ave.
“Although we have mountains of gorgeous tomatoes, selling them before they spoil is a real challenge…If we don’t find customers to pay a fair price at the right time, we don’t get paid for months of work.”
Johnson’s Backyard Garden overplanted tomato plants this year and are selling their tomatoes in bulk online. Dai Due chef Jesse Griffiths is hosting a tomato workshop ($30) at 10 a.m. Sunday at the farm near the airport, where he’ll be teaching canning basics and how to make ketchup and salsa.
If you’re new to canning, I’d recommend taking a canning class or buying a book or two to help you learn the correct way to do it. Botulism is rare, but it’s still a risk that’s not worth taking.
Plus, you’ll need recipes to work from. I quickly discovered in my research that you can’t just make up a big batch of your favorite salsa, boil it in some jars and assume that it will be safe to eat in December. I’m not a fan of using recipes for things like salsa and tomato sauce, but you have to follow a recipe that has been tested to make sure you have enough acid in the final product to keep whatever you are making from spoiling.
For salsa, I used a recipe from Sherri Brooks Vinton’s “Put Em Up!” (Storey Publishing, 2010). That book was also my guide for putting up about 10 pounds of whole tomatoes, which my husband will happily be using this fall in his famous “hot dish.” (Growing up, we called this mix of ground beef, pasta, tomatoes and onions goulash in my family, but he insists on calling it a hot dish. He’s the one who eats it, so I’ll let him call it whatever he wants.)
Marisa McClellan’s website Food In Jars is another great resource for beginning canners. McClellan is in the middle of writing her first cookbook, but on her site, you’ll find tons of recipes, including one for tomato jam. I put up about four pints of this tomato jam in a number of half- and quarter-pint jars that I’m already planning on giving away this Christmas.
But why wait until Christmas to give the gift of tomatoes?
Even with all the tomatoes we’ve been eating and putting up, perhaps the greatest joy has been sharing the bounty with my tomato-loving neighbors. (I even packed up a canning starter kit, above, for my neighbor Teri who has been itching to learn how to put up produce.)
They’ve been getting heirloom tomatoes that are just screaming to be sliced up and enjoyed on a BLT sandwich, and many of them got a jar of garlicky green gazpacho made with Green Zebra and sunburst tomatoes from Boggy Creek Farm.
It’s a good time to be a tomato lover, so take advantage of this year’s crop before it’s too late and all the perfectly ripe tomatoes are just a fond memory of this otherwise unbearable summer.
Tomato Jam
5 lb. tomatoes, finely chopped
3 1/2 cups sugar
8 Tbsp. lime juice
2 tsp. freshly grated ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. red chili flakes
Combine all ingredients in a large, non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce temperature to a simmer. Stirring regularly, simmer the jam until it reduces to a sticky, jammy mess. This will take between 1 and 1 1/2 hours, depending on how high you keep your heat.
When the jam has cooked down sufficiently, remove from heat and fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch of head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and twist on rings. Process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars from water bath and allow them to cool. When jars are cool enough to handle, test seals. Store jars in a cool, dark place for up to one year. Makes 4 1/2 to 5 pints.
— Marisa McClellan, foodinjars.com
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Dad, chef and market forager Jack Gilmore: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
I have the pleasure of spending Father’s Day with my dad in Missouri this weekend, which is why I’m a few days late in posting this week’s Fridge Friday.
Jack is one of those gracious guys who just keeps on giving. To the farmers he buys from every week. To his restaurant, Jack Allen’s Kitchen. To his neighbors in Oak Hill who lost their houses in wildfires earlier this year. To his wife, LuAnn, and sons, Bryce and Dylan, whom he’s inspired to go into the restaurant business.
When Bryce first opened Odd Duck trailer, he was using his dad’s kitchen at Jack Allen’s to do the prep work. He had so much success with his Odd Duck trailer that he opened Barley Swine just down South Lamar Boulevard late last year.
Within months of opening Barley Swine, Food + Wine magazine named Bryce as one of the top 10 new chefs in the country.
Now, Odd Duck is in the hands of Bryce’s younger brother, Dylan.
From his own very successful restaurant, proud papa bear Jack gets to watch his sons do what he inspired them to do, which is all any parent can really hope for.
What three things are always in your fridge? Almond M&Ms, great local cheese and farm fresh eggs
What’s the one item you wouldn’t take the last bite or sip of because you know it’s your dad/son’s favorite? Never take the last M&M
What’s your go-to late night snack after long nights in the restaurant? Cheetos
Photo by LuAnn Gilmore.
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Don’t throw away that pickle juice, plus jalapeño fennel pickle recipe
A friendly summer reminder from your favorite food writer not to throw out your pickle juice.
Sure, you can drink it in the form of a pickleback, but since cucumbers are in season, you might as well slice up some ‘cukes and throw them right back in that vinegar to make quick pickles.
I wrote a story about quick or fridge pickles and jam last summer, and in the year since, we’ve saved god knows how much money by reusing pickle juice.
Claussen pickles run about $4 a jar and last about three days in my pickle-loving house, but we’ll slice up fresh cucumbers either from our garden or the farmers’ market and stretch out that one jar for weeks.
I wasn’t getting many cucumbers in my garden recently and I thought it was just my lack of a green thumb. But when digging around under some of the cucumber leaves last week, I found this bad boy. A hoagie-sized cucumber that I sliced into spears and stuck in a container full of pickle juice left over from a friend’s near-perfect batch of crock pickles.
These two jars are full of fridge pickles that are just as briny and crisp as any you’d buy at the store or properly put up in jars.
John Bates, who makes just about everything from scratch, including the pickles, at his restaurant, Noble Pig, gave us this recipe for refrigerator jalapeño fennel pickles.
Jalapeño Fennel Pickle
1 1/4 lb. jalapeños
1 red onion
2 carrots
1 fennel bulb
4 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
4 1/2 cup water
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. kosher salt
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 Tbsp. whole black peppercorns
3 Tbsp. fresh Mexican oregano
Peel and slice carrots on a bias using a mandolin. Quarter the jalapeños. Peel and slice the red onion. Cut the fennel in half and slice on the bias. Mix vegetables and pack in jars.
Add red wine vinegar, water, sugar, kosher salt, sliced garlic, black peppercorns and Mexican oregano to a stainless steel pot. Bring the brine up to a boil and pour the brine into the jars filling them to the top of each jar. Seal each jar immediately. Refrigerate over night and enjoy.
— John Bates, Noble Pig
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In effort to cut waste, Austinites plan to open package-free grocery store this fall
A group of Austinites is hoping to open a zero-waste grocery store in East Austin this fall that, unlike traditional stores, doesn’t sell food in disposable packaging.
Customers at In.gredients will be asked to bring in their own containers or use the store’s reusable ones to buy items shipped in bulk instead of pre-packaged in boxes, bags or plastic.
In.gredients has started getting the word out about the project through its website, Twitter account and Facebook page.
Marketing director Brian Nunnery says that in order to open store as planned in October, they need to meet several fundraising goals before then. They have started taking contributions through Indie GoGo, but will be hosting other fundraising events later in the year.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Grocery goods
Gettin’ real in the Whole Foods parking lot
Hat tip to copy desk foodie Ponch Garcia for sending me this hilarious video by Fog and Smog, “a creative collective of culture vultures from the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles.”
Props to the Fog and Smog team for finding ways to include Master Cleanse, quinoa, Humbolt Fog and pinot noir under $20 in a rap song about a grocery store.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Grocery goods
Fishing with Jesse Griffiths and Hank Shaw
Hank Shaw and Jesse Griffiths don’t exactly fish for a living, but as foragers and hunters who make a living off living off the land, fishing qualifies as work, which is why I didn’t feel too guilty asking if they wanted to go on a fishing trip early on weekday morning a few weeks ago when the California-based Shaw was in Austin for the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference.
As advocates for local, wild foods, Griffiths and Shaw knew of each other’s work but hadn’t met until we gathered at one of Griffiths’ favorite fishing spots outside Austin just after dawn.
(Griffiths also occasionally teaches creekside cooking classes where students fish for their own lunch. Sign up for the Dai Due newsletter to find out about all of Jesse’s classes because they usually sell out by the time they make it to the events page.)
The dozens of small fish we caught went into a bright-orange fish bisque that chef Jason Donoho of Fino made a few nights later for a special dinner featuring dishes from Shaw’s book. Another dinner of Jesse’s was featured as part of a story that ran in Wednesday’s paper about bycatch and alternative fish. (Click here to see more photos with both the fishing trip and the story.)
Provençal Fish Bisque
This recipe is one of many in Shaw’s “Hunt, Gather, Cook.” He writes:
This is a curious, blended fish soup I’ve been making, in various forms, for many years. I like blended soups, which can seem creamy even without cream, although this one does have a little cream added at the end. They’re just, well, more refined than a typical country soup. And sometimes I feel the need for a touch of elegance, even on a busy midweek night.
This soup only takes about 30 minutes to make. Yet, eaten with fresh bread and a glass of wine, you feel like you’re sitting at an oceanside bistro in Provence. The flavor comes mostly from the stock (shellfish stock or a combination of fish stock and clam juice), the orange zest, and saffron. You cannot substitute something else for the saffron; its color and aroma are integral to the soup. A pinch of cayenne adds the faintest zing that brings everything together.
Use any mild white fish but bluegills are ideal. Other good choices would be cod, haddock, any flatfish (flounder, fluke, halibut, sole, turbot, etc.), walleye, crappie or rock cod.
Once the soup is blended and you add the cream in, don’t let the soup boil; it could break. And if you have leftovers, just heat them gently in a pot until warm enough to eat.
3 slices bacon, roughly chopped (or substitute 3 Tbsp. olive oil or butter)
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
1 large celery rib, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
Salt
1 lb. white fish fillets, roughly chopped
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. orange peel
Pinch of ground red pepper
Large pinch of saffron
1 quart shellfish stock, or 16 ounces clam juice plus 16 ounces fish stock or water
1/4 cup heavy cream
Dill or fennel fronds, for garnish
Cook the bacon on medium heat in a 6- to 8-quart pot until it is crispy. Remove the bacon from the pot with a slotted spoon. Set aside on a paper towel to use for garnish later.
Increase the heat to medium high and add the onion, celery, and carrot. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often, until the onion is translucent. Do not brown. Sprinkle some salt, to taste, over everything as it cooks.
Add the fish, tomatoes, and the garlic and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, stirring often. Add the orange peel, red pepper, and saffron, then pour in the shellfish stock or whatever stock you are using. In a pinch, you could even use chicken or vegetable
stock, but the flavor of the soup will be different. Simmer this gently—do not let it get to a rolling boil—for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Get another pot ready. Fill a blender a third of the way with the soup and blend it on high (starting on low then increasing to high) for 1 minute, or until it is well pureed.
Work in batches to puree the rest of the soup. Pour the pureed soup into the clean pot. Put the soup on medium-low heat and add the cream. Stir well and taste for salt, adding if needed. Do not let this boil, or it might break. Serve garnished with fennel or dill fronds, and alongside some crusty bread. A dry rose or light red wine would go well with this; I’d suggest a Beaujolais or a Pinot Noir. Serves 4 to 6.
Photos by Addie Broyles and Holly A. Heyser.
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What would you do with 35 pounds of tomatoes?
What would you do with 35 pounds of tomatoes?
When you add up the 30 pounds of #2 Valley Girl tomatoes from Johnson’s Backyard Garden’s bulk tomato sale, my own humble 3 pound harvest of Romas and 2 pounds of yellowish orange sunbursts, I have about 35 pounds of tomatoes to put to use.
It’s an envious bounty whose sweet, signature tang I once wasn’t so sure of. (Bathing in tomatoes at the 2003 Tomatina capped off a youth spent trying to avoid tomatoes at all cost, even in pizza sauce.)
I’m not quite the tomato head of some of my gardening peers, but I’m getting there. This is the most successful year growing tomatoes I’ve had, and I just happened to buy an old school pressure canner right as local tomatoes came into season at the farmers market.
The first round of tomatoes went into salads, both regular and chicken, but now I’m branching out. Salsas and sauces are up first, who knows what’s next.
How would you eat your way through a big box of tomatoes? Do you have a favorite way to preserve them, ie drying in the oven or freezing?
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Eating locally
Sprouts taking over Sun Harvest stores
With Whole Foods Markets and Central Market getting all the attention in the natural/gourmet grocery scene, it’s easy for forget the dozen or so mid-range stores that sells plenty of gluten-free, specialty and organic products.
Sprouts, Sunflower Market and Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage are now spread throughout Central Texas, but Sun Harvest was here before they came on the scene. (Wheatsville Co-op, which opened in 1976, is in its own category.)
But not anymore.
As business reporter Brian Gaar reported earlier this week, Sprouts is taking over the two Sun Harvest stores in the Austin area as part of its merger with Henry’s Farmers Market, which operates Sun Harvest, that happened earlier this year.
Now there will be six Sprouts stores in the Austin area, but the transition in the former Sun harvest stores will be slow. “We’re always very careful not to change too much, too fast,” president Doug Sanders told Gaar.
Whole Foods Market has plans for two more stores in Austin in the next few years, including one in Southwest Austin as early as this fall. Trader Joe’s hopes to open its first Texas store in Dallas later this year, but it won’t be opening any in Austin anytime soon.
Photo by Ricardo Brazziell for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: Grocery goods
Annie Smith: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
A few months ago, I stumbled upon I Live Here: PDX, a blog that tells the stories of people who live in Portland, and tweeted that I thought it would be a cool project for someone to start for Austin.
I met Annie online and volunteered to write my own I Live Here story. It took a few months, but I finally wrote my story this week, and she photographed me yesterday at the Cathedral of Junk, where I lived when I first moved here six years ago. She posted the story this afternoon.
Anyone can submit their love letter to Austin; all you have to do is email Annie to get things started.
Annie is still on the hunt for a tech job that suits her, but in the mean time, she’s making beautiful photographs wherever she goes.
When I asked if I could show off her fridge, she hesitated when she opened it up and didn’t find much in there. After all, she just got home from a trip and is used to living across the street from a grocery store. “I still haven’t gotten re-accustomed to this ‘drive to the store and stock up concept’,” she says.
What three things are always in your fridge?
1) Cornichons, preferable Maille. I fell in love with cornichons while living in France and haven’t recovered. Go try them immediately. No really. Go. Now.
2) An avocado. Salad, sandwiches, eggs, toast - everything is better with avocado. I usually get the Haas because they are enormous, and for some reason I also have a knack for picking them when they are just right. I can’t seem to master the art of selecting the smaller ones.
3) Amy’s Veggie Lasagna. Technically in the freezer, not the fridge, but it’s my go-to “I’m in a hurry and I’m starving” frozen meal. Love. Favorite condiment? Mustard. Honestly I’m surprised I only have 2 types in the fridge today, I usually have 3 or 4.
Hardest food to photograph? I’ve never been able to get a good photo of pizza. Drives me crazy! But I do have an idea of what I’ll try next…
Photos by Annie Smith.
Permalink | | Categories: What's in Your Fridge Friday
Summer Garden: Tomatoes, melons, bell peppers and a cock-a-doodle-doo
No one doubts that it’s going to be a long, hot summer, but after the news today that we’ll probably have as hot a summer as we did back in 2009, I’m tempted to stop watering my garden and just stay inside until September.
But it’s hard to just give up when I’m getting dozens of ping pong-sized tomatoes like these….
…and a big ol’ charentais melon (which I originally heard as a “Sharon Tate” melon) that is doing far better hanging on its own than the nearby melon I tied up in panty hose for support.
These two beautiful bell peppers, the first I’ve ever grown, are just begging to be picked, but I’m going to wait and see if they’ll get a little color on them first. I’m not a big fan of green bell peppers.
In addition to the prolific tomato plant that is giving off all those little red bursts of sunshine, I have two other tomato plants — the one above is a cross between a Purple Cherokee and a Brandywine — that are doing OK. They have several medium-big green tomatoes that seem to have stalled. Might just have to make this grilled green tomato salad from my friend Renee Studebaker of Renee’s Roots.
I think this is an Anaheim pepper plant that is also doing well. One big pepper and a handful of little ones.
The heat and squash vine borers (I think) got to the squash and zucchini plants again this year. We got two yellow crooknecks and not a single zucchini before the plants went south.
This might not look like much, but I let the cilantro plants go to seed and I’m hoping that the seeds will dry out, fall to the ground and reseed into a huge fall crop of cilantro. At least that’s the plan.
No cucumbers. Just flowers.
A few weeks after I pulled the shallots, up came the onions and garlic. Not too bad of a harvest when you look at them all lined up together.
Last October, I planted about 70 cloves of heirloom garlic. The results? Meh. Nine ounces of garlic by weight, about two dozen heads in all. Clearly, many of the cloves I planted didn’t make it and the ones that did were small compared to the originals.
Almost three pounds of shallots in all. I’m pretty happy with that.
I planted sets of red, white and yellow onions last fall and ended up with about three and a half pounds of medium bulbs. We ate our fair share of green onions throughout the winter and spring, so I’m also pleased with this harvest, as long as I don’t think about how cheap onions are to buy at the grocery store.
So, after the last of the summer crops finally bite the dust, I’ll be taking a serious break until it cools off. Fall tomatoes always seem like so much work, but maybe I’ll give them another shot.
But the biggest news in the backyard homestead might just be this:
Sure, Cotton is huge, bossy and late to start laying eggs, or so we thought, but after finding a few brown eggs with white feathers nearby meant that she was for sure a hen and would slowly increase production beyond the one egg or so a week we guessed she was laying.
That was until I started hearing her (him?) a few mornings ago. I caught the crow on camera this morning and think it might be time to take Cotton back to Callahan’s and get a laying hen instead of a maybe-rooster.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Food in your backyard
Five things I learned at the IACP conference
Well, that was fun.
The International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference wiped me out as much as South by Southwest Interactive Conference, but I learned so much and met so many enthusiastic food folks that it made all the panels and social events worth the energy and time away from home.
I sat down to write the top five things I learned that you might be interested to learn, too, and here’s what I came up with:
Taco Bell, Domino’s and a number of other national brands have figured out how to turn even the most negative publicity into a positive outcome for their companies, and this whole “contrition is the new PR” isn’t going away any time soon.
Before Cortez arrived, the Aztecs used corn as a currency.
Chicory, which famously gives a special kick to coffee in New Orleans, comes from the root of endive and has been used as a coffee substitute or enhancer for centuries.
Tea rooms, restaurants where women could eat without an escort in the pre-Civil Rights days, are a nearly forgotten element in women’s history. Millie Huff Coleman of Atlanta, who started a master’s program in women’s studies when she was in her 60s, is trying to change that.
The unspoken rule of succeeding in the food world — well, any industry, really — actually has a name: The Pork Chop Theory. Cookbook author Virginia Willis shared Nathalie Dupree’s advice that stems from the idea that if you put one pork chop in a pan, it’ll burn, but if you put two, they’ll feed off the fat of one another and cook up nicely. “Loving what you do is more important than money as long as you are supporting yourself as well as your contemporaries in other fields,” Dupree said in a recent interview with Monica Bhide. “The more we see there is room for all of us, and that another person in the field enlarges it and makes more for all of us, the better the field will be. Competition makes everyone grow.”
Permalink | | Categories: Chewing the fat
IACP Awards: Martin Yan, Amanda Hesser, Dorie Greenspan, Hank Shaw among winners
The International Association of Culinary Professionals celebrated the best in food writing at its annual awards ceremony Thursday night at the Paramount Theater.
It was the 25th year that IACP, the world’s largest association of culinary professionals that is holding its annual conference in Austin this week, have given out cookbook awards, among the most prestigious in the nation.
Among the winners were Dorie Greenspan for “Around My French Table” and “The Essential New York Times Cookbook,” which Amanda Hesser spent six years digging through the 160-plus year archive of the newspaper to complete.
Boggy Creek Farm in East Austin, considered one of the first urban farms in the country, won an award for community service, and Hank Shaw won best blog for the second year in a row.
Martin Yan, who was a TV pioneer in the late 1970s with “Yan Can Cook” and wrote more than 30 cookbooks, accepted this year’s lifetime achievement award. At the end of the ceremony, White House pastry chef Bill Yosses accepted an award on behalf of Michelle Obama, which recognized her efforts to promote healthy eating with the Let’s Move campaign.
Coleman Andrews, Alan Richman Sara Moulton, who were not at the ceremony, were also among the winners. You can click here to find a complete list of honorees.
Permalink | | Categories: Food in the news
IACP Panel: Food as front page news
Reporters and food writers used to be two separate jobs, but journalists who write about food can’t ignore newsworthy topics like sustainability, hunger, food safety, school lunches, public health, etc.
But as we learn more about how we eat affects our health and the environment, Americans are much more interested in political and newsworthy topics like school lunch reform, pesticide use and what exactly goes into that box of Triscuits we always buy at the store.
I wasn’t slated to be on the panel with Severson, but when I met her outside the session (we’ve known each other for some time on Twitter), she asked if I’d join her and White House pastry chef Bill Yosses to talk about what it’s like as a food writer today trying to write about the many aspects of the beat.
Throughout the entire session, Kim, Bill and I talked about various hot-button issues while interacting and taking questions from the audience, which included former Bon Appetit editor Barbara Fairchild.
There’s no doubt that the demand for newsy food stories is great, but from my perspective, making time to write big exposes about the agriculture industry or high fructose corn syrup is the hard part. When newsrooms are being whittled down a few positions at a time, the remaining staffers have to help fill in the gaps by writing more stories.
Another point I tried to make is that it’s important for journalists to see issues from many different perspectives.
It would be easy to read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and become an advocacy journalist whose only goal is to support the sustainable food movement. Even in Portland, Ore., where eating locally is considered mainstream, only three percent of total food purchases come from farmers’ markets. Grocery stores might not be as sexy to write about, but the vast majority of people get the vast majority of their food from traditional outlets.
This applies to cooking, too. Molecular gastronomy is a hot topic, but it’s not that important when you consider that many people are still unsure about how to chop an onion. Fancy cooking techniques are fun, but they seem a whole lot less relevant when you consider the number of people in your community who don’t have reliable access to food staples in the first place.
The trick is to balance lifestyle and news journalism to keep audiences both entertained (and filled with ideas for how to get dinner on the table) and informed about the consequences of what they eat.
One of the biggest pitfalls is reducing these complex food issues into black or white choices. Having reported on school lunches, I’ve found out that the chocolate milk-in-schools debate isn’t as clear as Jamie Oliver makes it seem. Several audience members went back and forth citing conflicting scientific reports about high fructose corn syrup.
It’s easy to vilify big ag, for instance, but when Tyson Foods donates millions of pounds of mass-produce chicken to food banks every year to feed people who can’t afford any chicken, much less the sustainably raised kind from your local farmer, the conversation gets a little more complicated.
Which is why we need food writers — in addition writing recipes that encourage people to cook in the first place so they don’t have to rely on the dollar menu — to do the digging.
Permalink | | Categories: Food in the news
IACP Panel: What are the most-searched recipes around the world?
We can learn a lot about cooking trends by looking at how people search for recipes.
During the first full day of panels and sessions at the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference, Lynn Woll of the Seattle-based AllRecipes.com and Rita Wheat of a global marketing agency called G2 presented the findings from a February 2011 survey of more than 2,500 AllRecipes users from around the world that asked them all kinds of questions about how they search for recipes, which devices they use, how often they read the recipes reviews, etc.
The panelists didn’t address the fact that their survey is skewed because it is coming from people who are already searching AllRecipes.com, but there is still some insight to be gained from the results.
- Chicken is the No. 1 search term on AllRecipes.com around the world, with cake coming in second. Regionally, these vary widely. In the U.S., the world’s best lasagna is the most searched for recipe. The other top searches: Pumpkin pie in Germany, Jalisco meat juice in Mexico, apple crumble in Australia, pressure cooker pork in France, deviled eggs in the Netherlands, chocolate chip cookies in the UK and, perhaps most interesting, ginger milk in China.
- 78 percent of responders said they cook at home on a daily basis, with 37 percent saying they’ll be cooking more at home in the next year. Why? To eat healthier, said 77 percent of responders, compared to 60 percent who said it was so save money.
- Blame it on the cold weather or the fewer number of daylight hours, but across the board, people around the world cook more during the cold months.
- Mexicans prefer brand name products, while most Germans said they were happy to use store brands.
- Cupcake is one of the fastest rising searches outside the U.S.
- Blender is one of the top 10 searched terms in France, while slow cooker, grill and bread machine are on the rise in other countries outside the U.S.
- Only 1 percent of recipe searchers start their search in a social network. 14 percent start in their inbox with something like a newsletter, while 42 percent start at a specific site and 43 percent starting at a search engine.
- More than half the responders look at five or more recipes before choosing one or combining several.
- 51 percent said they want a recipe from a “cook just like me,” over a well-known publisher or media outlet or a professional chef, celebrity or brand. Only 24 percent prefer a recipe from a well-known food blogger.
- 81 percent said a recipe must have a photo before they’ll cook it. 70 percent want to read reviews or ratings before deciding to cook it.
- 40 percent of smart phone users use their devices when shopping for food. Sixty percent of them are searching for recipes, while 37 percent are referencing a shopping list. Only 19 percent are looking for coupons.
Permalink | | Categories: Cooking
IACP: White House pastry chef gets in the garden with UT Elementary students
Bill Yosses, executive pastry chef at the White House who has earned the nicknamed “the Crustmaster” from the president, says it’s still cool enough in D.C. to be harvesting broccoli, kohlrabi, Swiss chard and kale and that he’s particularly excited about the blueberries, blackberries and raspberries that are ripening on bushes on the White House grounds.
“We’ve also had a bumper crop of rhubarb this year,” he said today after helping University of Texas Elementary School students harvest the last of their spring crop. (You know what that means: Rhubarb crisp for the first family. )
Laura Skelding AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Yosses was in Austin for a Chefs Move to Schools event at UT Elementary, where he helped harvest the last of the students’ spring crop earlier today.
The school has 20 4-foot-by-8-foot raised garden beds in the back of the school property and is one of hundreds of U.S. schools participating in Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools program, which pairs up schools with chefs to help students learn cooking skills and healthy eating habits.
“The things you are learning in the garden and the memories you are making are so huge, so important,” Yosses told a group of about 20 students at an event that was also part of the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference. (He later spoke at a rally at the capitol with Food Network star Ellie Krieger.)
After telling the students about his own recent vegetable discovery — carrot lemonade — Yosses asked the kids what they liked from the garden that they hadn’t tried before. “Sorrel,” one student said. “It tastes like lemon lime soda.” Yosses laughed. “I think I was 30 before I tried sorrel,” he replied.
Yosses, dressed in a light gray suit, led the students outside so they could harvest vegetables to take to Whole Foods Market’s Lamar Culinary Center, where they later cooked and served several dishes to their parents and IACP attendees who were tagging along.
Throughout the year, teachers at UT Elementary incorporate the school’s garden in the curriculum for all 260 students, but about 20 of them participate in an after-school program called WellNest, which gives them additional lessons in physical education, nutrition and cooking.
Bob Knipe, who coordinates the program, says it gives students and their families a boost to help put the wellness lessons to use, and it’s working for students like third-grader Felix Sanchez, who has lost 12 pounds in the past year.
With Sanchez (above, cooking at Whole Foods) picking cabbage out of earshot, his mom, Suzanne, said that he first realized he’d dropped a few pounds when his underwear stopping fitting him right.
“Our whole family has a history of diabetes and high blood pressure,” she said. “Growing up, we ate enough, but not the right foods.” Suzanne Sanchez says her son finally realizes what he needs to do to prevent that from happening to him.
Photos by Addie Broyles and Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman and Charles Dharapak for the Associated Press.Permalink | | Categories: Eating locally, Food in your backyard
IACP Highlight: Dorie Greenspan on the evolution of cookbooks
Let no one say that Dorie Greenspan hasn’t embraced the future of cookbook publishing.
The author of 10 books about baking and cooking has teamed up with Geoffrey Drummond, a longtime TV producer and founder of CulinApp, to create “Baking with Dorie” an iPad app that has revolutionized the way Greenspan thinks about creating and sharing recipes.
Both are in Austin this week to talk about the evolution of cookbooks and technology at the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference.
(Dorie is also bringing Cookie Bar, a New York pop-up cookie shop that is a joint effort with her son, to Brush Square Park at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 3. She and her team will be giving away sablés, her signature French vanilla shortbread cookies whose recipe is below, out of an Airstream trailer until they run out.)
“I adore being online,” she says. “Cyberspace is where we’re meeting these days.” When she found out about Tuesdays with Dorie, a baking blog where a group of more than 300 bloggers bake one recipe a week from Greenspan’s 2008 book “Baking From My Home to Yours,” she decided to start her own blog in response. “It’s incredible for an author to see her book go out there and being used.” (Now there’s “French Fridays with Dorie,” a spin-off based on her new book “Around My French Table,” which is nominated for an IACP award.)
The new app takes “From My Home to Yours” to a new level. All of the video segments were shot in Greenspan’s Connecticut kitchen, which means she had to cook the entire book herself all over again, this time with a camera crew capturing every step. “I could have never imagined seeing these recipe I know so well presented in a way that is so new.”
By recording video of every single step of every single recipe, Greenspan can add a whole new level of instruction. “I was excited to do this because it makes the recipes so alive,” she says. “It’s me baking with you, while you’re doing it.” The best part is that instead of it being a 30 minute TV episode, Greenspan and her crew weren’t under time constraints to edit out certain parts to make it fit in a time slot.
Throughout her many years of recipe writing and teaching, Greenspan says she always tries to frame the dish — be it a cookie or a lamb and apricot tagine — in an accessible way so that it’s easy for people to understand and try to replicate at home.
“Every time I write a recipe, I think of it as being a teacher,” she says. “To be able to do this visually, to give people the chance to see every step and stop and go back if they need to have another look, I see it as a new way of teaching.”
A teacher Greenspan always looked up to was Julia Child, with whom she worked on cookbooks and television shows, and says that even though she was a stickler for doing things the right way, she was always open to new things.
Greenspan recalled a time when Julia had called her up to ask if she had a bread machine. Greenspan responded that no, she didn’t have one and she wasn’t really interested in having one. “She said to me, ‘Well, if you haven’t had one and you haven’t tried one, then you can’t say that’….She even had a personal computer before anyone on the block did.”
As a TV pioneer who brought cooking classes to the masses, Julia would have been thrilled at this new medium through which to teach. “She would love it for the same reason I love it. It’s another way to reach and to teach people.”
Sablés
For the cookies:
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp. salt, preferably fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
For decorating:
1 large egg yolk
Decorating, crystal or dazzle sugar (or even colored sprinkles)
Working in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add sugars and salt and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. The mixture should be smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the egg yolks, again beating until the mixture is homogeneous.
Turn off mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and the counter from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek - if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. (If most of the flour is incorporated but you’ve still got some on the bottom of the bowl, use a rubber spatula to work the rest of the flour into the dough.) The dough will not clean the sides of the bowl nor will it come together in a ball - and it shouldn’t.
You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you’re aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy (rather than smooth) dough. Pinch it and it will feel a little like Play-Doh.
Scrape the dough out onto a smooth work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long; it’s easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log. Wrap the logs well and chill them for at least 3 hours, preferably longer. The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Remove a log of dough from the refrigerator and place it on a piece of parchment or wax paper. Whisk the egg yolk until it is smooth, and brush some of the yolk all over with the sides of the dough, and then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with sugar.
Trim the ends of the roll if they’re ragged, and slice the log into 1/3-inch thick cookies. (You can make these as thick as 1/2 inch or as thin as 1/4 inch.) Place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving an inch of space between them. Bake one sheet at a time for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the midway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top; they may feel tender when you touch the top gently and that’s fine. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest a minute or two before carefully lifting them onto a rack with a wide metal spatula and allowing them to cool to room temperature. Repeat with the remaining log of dough, making sure the baking sheet is cool before you bake the second batch. Makes about 50 cookies.
(The cookies will keep in a tin at room temperature for about 5 days.If you do not sprinkle the sablés with sugar, they can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months. Because the sugar will melt in the freezer, decorated cookies are not suitable for freezing.)
— From ‘Baking From My Home to Yours,’ by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
Permalink | | Categories: Cooking, Playing with your food
