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November 2011
“Top Chef: Texas”: Are Texas and San Antonio getting their money’s worth?
Another winner from the business desk today: Reporter Gary Dinges got his hands on the once top-secret “brand integration agreement” that the “Top Chef” production company, Magical Elves, made with state’s Economic Development and Tourism Division and the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau.
We already knew that the state gave Magical Elves $400,000 to bring the show to Texas and that San Antonio coughed up $200,000 to be prominently featured, but Dinges’ story reveals all the juicy details: “Top Chef” producers estimated that they’d spend $80,000 on rental cars and $197,227 on per-diems for travelers. The state also insisted that the series wouldn’t show underage drinking, gambling and illegal drug use by its hosts and judges and that it would limit “explicit negative statements about the state.” (I wonder if that means they’ll have to edit out all the griping from the judges and contestants about how f%*#$ing hot it was during filming this summer.)
Dinges reported that the state estimates it will receive $15 million in exposure in exchange for the $400,000 payment and San Antonio predicts in excess of $9 million in “positive media value” for the $200,000 deal. Three episodes were taped in the Austin area, but the Austin Convetion and Visitors Bureau declined requests from Magical Elves to pay to be featured.
Lucy Nashed, the spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry who earlier this year denied to more than one reporter, including this one, that any sort of money had exchanged hands, said that so far, the state is “pleased with the outcome of our brand integration agreement thus far.” The San Antonio CVS is also happy with what they’ve gotten so far, especially that first scene in front of the Alamo.
Do you think the state and San Antonio are getting their money’s worth for “Top Chef: Texas”?
It seems to me that San Antonio is really getting the best deal here. Without that $200,000 payment, “Top Chef: Texas” likely would have passed over the city altogether, and now, for a couple of thousand dollars, the Alamo City is home base for the entire season.
The next episode of “Top Chef: Texas” airs tonight at 9 on Bravo. We’ll have a recap up in the morning. (Apologies for missing last week. Let’s blame the turkey.)
Photos from BravoTV.com.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Food in the news
Months after Sun Harvest merger, Sprouts closing half its Austin-area stores
Sprouts, the Arizona-based grocery chain, announced this week that it is closing three of its six Austin-area stores.
Brian Gaar has the full story in today’s business section, but the headline says it all. The company says that after it merged with the California-based Henry’s Farmers Market, which operated the Sun Harvest stores, it had too many stores too close together in Austin, a city with plenty of natural grocer options in the first place.
The stores at 2917 W. Anderson Lane, 2805 Bee Cave Road and 5601 Brodie Lane (above) will all close by Dec. 18, and most of the 120 employees at those stores will be relocated to the remaining stores, but 30 to 40 of them will likely be laid off, president Doug Sanders said.
I shop occasionally at the former Sun Harvest/now Sprouts on South Lamar, and I was surprised that of the three stores in the area (the other two are on Brodie Lane and Bee Cave), this is the one they chose to keep. It’s a smaller store than the other two locations, and it’s right across the highway from Central Market Westgate and Randall’s. (The Target across South Lamar also recently added more grocery options, too.)
The Brodie store, which was one of the first that the company opened in the Austin area in 2009, is much larger and is more than a mile from the HEB at Brodie and William Cannon. I haven’t been inside the Rollingwood store, but I presumed they’d keep the Brodie location as the primary South Austin store.
Gaar notes in the story that two new Whole Foods stores are opening next year: One in the Shops at Arbor Trails at South MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and the other in the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave.
I haven’t been other the Sprouts stores in Austin. Do you shop at them? Will you miss the ones that are closing in a few weeks?
Photo by Alberto Martínez for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment Categories: Grocery goods
Edible Austin’s fifth Eat Drink Local Week starts Saturday
The magazine, which publisher Marla Camp launched in 2007, has become a fundraising machine, bringing in money for local nonprofits and helping promote cookbook authors and chefs with events throughout the year.
In June, the magazine’s Edible Texas Wine Food Match raised $10,000 for the Texas Center for Wine and Culinary Arts, a food and wine educational center that will be built in Fredericksburg, and in May, Edible Communities, the network of more than 60 Edible magazines that includes Edible Austin, won a James Beard Award for Publication of the Year.
But Eat Drink Local Week, which starts Saturday, is Edible Austin’s biggest effort: a collection of events that showcase the vibrant food community and raise money for Urban Roots, the local nonprofit program that uses agriculture to teach and empower teens. (Urban Roots started out under the umbrella of YouthLaunch but recently became an independent nonprofit. This year, in addition to Urban Roots, Edible Austin will give a portion of the proceeds to the Sustainable Food Center.)
Last year, they raised more than $40,000 for Urban Roots, and this year, Camp says she hopes to double that.
View Edible Austin Eat Drink Local Week 2011 in a larger map
Throughout the week, more than 40 restaurants will offer special dishes made from all local ingredients, but the big news is that eight Central Texas’ chefs — David Bull, Bryce Gilmore, Sibby Barrett, Jesse Griffiths, Terry Thompson-Anderson, Zack Northcutt, Will Packwood and the staff of Cocina Alegre, a cooking and nutrition branch of the Sustainable Food Center — are participating in an online auction, the winners of which get a personalized dinner for eight.
As always, the Eat Local Week events kick off with the Urban Farm Bicycle Tour on Saturday ($30, free for children younger than 16), a self-guided tour that takes cyclists from Bicycle Sport Shop, the SFC Farmers’ Market Downtown or the Triangle to 20 urban farms and community and school gardens. After the tour, Springdale Farm is hosting a pig roast and harvest dinner ($30) at 4 p.m. Saturday.
On Sunday morning at 11, learn about local chocolatiers and coffee roasters at the Coffee and Chocolate Festival ($25), which will take place at Texas Coffee Traders, 1400 E. Fourth St.
Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, who have been sustainable agriculture advocates and pioneers since long before most omnivores knew they had a dilemma, are giving two sold-out talks on Sunday at Stateside at the Paramount.
The Alamo Drafthouse is serving a multicourse BeneFeast dinner to go with “Moonstruck” ($70) at 7 p.m. Monday, and from 4 to 9 p.m. Dec. 7, you can sample food and beverages from local chefs and stock up on gifts from local vendors and artisans at the Better Bites of Austin Holiday Fair at the Domain (free admission).
At 6:30 p.m. Dec. 8, cocktail and spirits enthusiasts will convene at the grand ballroom at the AT&T Executive Education & Conference Center for the annual Drink Local Night ($35), which for the first time will incorporate the Official Drink of Austin contest, a former Austin Convention and Visitor’s Bureau event that had waned in recent years.
Eat Local Week comes to a close Saturday, Dec. 10, with the Local Brew Fest ($20), an event showcasing the best craft beer made in and around Austin, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Black Star Co-op, 7020 Easy Wind Drive.
Information, tickets and VIP passes ($150) are available on the website.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally
French Quarter Grille carries on legacy of Mama Roux owners
“He always said that someday I needed to have my own restaurant,” Gore says. “After that memorial service it hit home. If I’m going to do this, this is the time.”
Gore partnered up with another former Gumbo’s employee, Scott Stolle, to not only open a Cajun restaurant, but a Cajun restaurant in the former Mama Roux location off Interstate 35 in Round Rock. French Quarter Grille has been open since May, and in a story in last week’s 360, the weekly entertainment magazine inside the Statesman, you can find out more about how Gore and Stolle are carrying on the Mama Roux spirit.
Photos by Laura Skelding.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating out
Ahead of Joe Gracey memorial on Sunday, Colman Andrews remembers his foodie friend
Joe Gracey, a pioneer of the Austin music who died of cancer earlier this month, will always be remembered as the influential DJ who lost his ability to speak, but it was his love of food — despite a lack of taste buds or, in his later years, an ability to eat anything other than liquids — that connected him with so many people around the world, including Colman Andrews, who founded Saveur magazine in the mid-1990s.
Gracey’s public memorial in Austin is slated for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater on Second Street, but last week, Andrews wrote a loving essay on his new site, The Daily Meal, memorializing Gracey and his gusto for life and all things good to eat.
Andrews had hired Gracey to write a number of food stories for Saveur through the years, including this recipe for Texas Coq au Vin, but their friendship lasted long after Andrews left the magazine. In his Daily Meal post, Andrews shares a number of emails — including one in which Gracey wrote, “I ain’t afraid of dying, but I will miss the oysters” — that they exchanged all the way through this fall:
Gracey made it to Aigne, [France] with Kimmie [Rhodes, his wife]. He did well for a few weeks, buying a grill and making fajitas for some friends who’d driven up from Spain and walking in the vineyards near the house (maybe thinking about that book?). On October 20th, he wrote, “France is great. Daughter is here but I feel very funky due to tailing off of radiation and chemo. I hope to recover fully before we have to leave! The little house is working perfectly with almost nothing left to buy or install or finish up. I still can’t damn eat but I cook some anyway.”
In a 2006 story about musicians who love to cook, former Statesman food writer Kitty Crider interviewed Gracey. “After I realized that I was not going to die, I was so awestruck at how much fun it was to be alive that I began to learn to cook and enjoy good wine, figuring that a day without good food was a day wasted,” he told her. “(Both music and food) can be viewed either as craft or art, or both. They are both ephemeral — you make them, you serve them and they are gone forever, which I like.”
A few years ago, I met Gracey because of his food blog, Letters to Graceyland and got to know him through the wonderful word of Twitter, but I never got to make good on promises to meet up with him when he was in Austin. It’s wonderful to get to know him a little better through this article from Andrews, but I’ll never forget that the day I became an aunt for the first time, the world lost someone as special as Joe Gracey.
Photos by Jay Janner and Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Bourbon pumpkin pie, anyone? Plus, a no-fail pie crust
Don’t let pie baking intimidate you.
“Easy as apple pie” might be a bit of a stretch, but pie doesn’t have to be as difficult as we have built it up to be in our heads.
At my family’s Thanksgiving last year, my college-aged cousin, who is just now getting into cooking and baking, decided she was going to make all the pies for our big dinner. Sure enough, she pulled off the feat with pies that tasted as good as they looked. (Everyone was so thoroughly impressed with her effort that the praise gushed even after the pies were gone probably still gives her confidence in the kitchen to this day.)
If she can make the Big Three (pumpkin, pecan and apple), so can you. In last week’s newspaper, we ran a big pie story that featured recipes for a chocolate pumpkin pie and a pumpkin pie that has 100 calories and less than 1 gram of fat per serving.
With the pie crust I made for the photo shoot, I made a pecan pie that didn’t photograph as well as the process pics — thanks to our talented photographer Deborah Cannon, who can make even my tiny, poorly-lit kitchen look nice — buy by god, it was a damn good pie that I’ll be making again tomorrow.
Some recipes, like pecan pie, don’t require you to bake the crust before filling with ingredients, while others, like pumpkin pie, need to be baked halfway first. This is called blind baking, and though it adds a step the process, it means you won’t have a raw, soggy crust.
When blind baking, you can use round inedible balls called pie weights to hold down the crust so it doesn’t puff up in the middle, but dried beans work well, too. (Just don’t forget to line the bottom of the crust with foil before placing pie weights or beans on the raw crust.)
Pie dough
This pie dough recipe, adapted from “The Pie and Pastry Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum, makes two crusts, which can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month. If frozen, let the dough thaw completely in the refrigerator before rolling.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup low-protein flour, such as Wondra
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
8 Tbsp. vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
12 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces and chilled
6 to 8 Tbsp. ice water
In a food processor work bowl with the blade attached, combine flour, sugar and salt, but before processing, put the whole container in the freezer for 10 minutes to chill.
Remove food processor work bowl from freezer and place on machine. Pulse to combine flour, sugar and salt. Scatter shortening on top of the dry mixture and process about 10 seconds, or until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Scatter butter pieces on top and pulse 10 to 12 times.
Pour 6 tablespoons ice water evenly over the flour mixture and pulse 6 times. With your fingers, pinch together a small amount of the mixture. If it holds together easily, you’re ready to go on to the next step. If it’s still too dry to hold together, add 1 tablespoon water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching again. If necessary, add the remaining water and pulse three more times. (You’re not going for a bread dough consistency here. The mixture should be in particles and will not hold together unless pinched.)
Pour the mixture on a clean countertop and divide into two parts. Flatten each half into a 4-inch round disk. Cover with plastic wrap and, using a spatula, lift off the counter and turn disk over. Fold the rest of the plastic over the disk, repeat with the other half of the dough and place the dough and the rolling pin in the refrigerator for at least an hour. (In a pinch, you can place the dough and rolling pin in the freezer for 15 minutes.)
Lightly flour your countertop, remove dough from fridge and place on floured surface. Starting in the center of the disk, press rolling pin lightly and roll outward. Rotate pin a quarter turn and repeat, repeating around in a circle until you’ve rolled out the pie crust to about 11 to 12 inches in diameter. To transfer the dough to the pie plate, loosely wrap the crust around the rolling pin and then unroll over the plate.
Bourbon pumpkin pie
For many, Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie is unthinkable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t jazz up the old standby. A judicious hand with the spices lends this custardy version a certain lightness of being. There is a bit of tang, too, from sour cream, and an underlying warmth from the jigger of bourbon (to amplify the depth of flavor, add some to the whipped cream accompaniment, too). Pie can be baked 1 day ahead and chilled. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Pastry dough
1 (15-oz.) can pure pumpkin
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 Tbsp. bourbon
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. salt
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 12-inch round and fit into pie plate. Trim edge, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang. Fold overhang under and lightly press against rim of pie plate, then crimp decoratively. Lightly prick bottom all over with a fork. Chill until firm, at least 30 minutes (or freeze 10 minutes).
Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.
Line shell with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until side is set and edge is golden, about 20 minutes. Carefully remove weights and foil and bake shell until golden all over, 10 to 15 minutes more. Cool completely.
Whisk together remaining ingredients and pour into cooled shell.
Bake until edge of filling is set but center trembles slightly, about 45 minutes (filling will continue to set as it cools). Cool completely. Top with lightly sweetened whipped cream. (You can add 1 teaspoon bourbon per 1/2 cup cream, if desired.)
— Andrea Albin for Gourmet magazine, 2009
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Cuneo’s rum cake is light on the booze, heavy on the nostalgia
It’s been 50 years since Cuneo’s Bakery on Guadalupe Street closed, but people can’t seem to forget the bakery’s legendary rum cake.
Monica Kass Rogers, a longtime food writer in Chicago who digs up long lost recipes for her site, LostRecipesFound.com, received a request for Cuneo’s rum cake earlier this year. She was able to track down Rita Bruton and James Kennedy, whose dad, Ray Kennedy, was the production manager at Cueno’s for many years. After Kennedy left Cuneo’s in the early 1950s, he worked another 25 years at Ms. Johnson’s Bakery. Ray Kennedy was in his 60s when he retired, says his son, James. “A lot of people tried to get him to open a specialty shop, but when we retired, he was ready to be done.”
Ray Kennedy died in 2003, but his children still had the recipe for the famous cake, which the Statesman ran in 1977 and Kass Rogers adapted for home cooks who aren’t baking on a commercial scale.
When Kass Rogers served the cake to guests at her house, she realized why memories of the cake outlasted the bakery. “People were going crazy over that cake,” Kass Rogers says. “It really has something to do with that syrup. … One of my sons says this is now his favorite cake ever.”
Next year, the site will evolve to allow readers to help one another track down lost recipes, but for now, it’s Kass Rogers who gets to hunt down almost forgotten favorites. “Everybody has a recipe that they’ve loved, but lost,” she says. You can read more about Kass Rogers’ hunt for the rum cake - and find stories about other recipes and tell her about one you’ve always wanted to find - at LostRecipesFound.com.
When I got to work this morning, I had an reader email about this article, which ran in Food Matters, that made me laugh.
Thanks so very much for the historic article about Cuneo’s Rum Cake.
My mother was chief deputy county clerk in Longview, Gregg County. She had to come to Austin during the first week of December every year for a conference concerning new laws which would become effective or other such matters pertinent to county clerk operations statewide. I remember it was always the first week of December because she was never home for my birthday.
She always took orders from other courthouse employees for the famous Cuneo’s Rum Cake for upcoming Christmas parties. Every year she would “bootleg” 30 to 40 cakes back to Gregg County. She often commented that if she ever had a wreck with all those rum cakes in her station wagon and their attendant aroma, the highway patrol would lock her up so far in a back cell of the jail they would have to pump her sunlight.
Sterlin Barton Thrall, Texas
Cuneo’s Famous Rum Cake
For cake:
4 cups cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup shortening
6 eggs
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1/2 tsp. orange extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
For butter-rum syrup:
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. corn syrup
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. rum extract
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously grease 10-inch angel-food tube pan. Trace and cut out a paper liner for the bottom round of the tube cake pan. Place in the bottom round and grease again over the paper.
Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In bowl of a standing mixer, beat sugar and butter and shortening together. Slowly (one or two at a time) add eggs in, beating between additions. Beat for three minutes. When batter is fluffy, add extracts. Mix in dry ingredients in two batches, alternating with the milk.
Pour batter into the prepared tube pan and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Test for doneness by poking a toothpick into the center of the cake. When the toothpick comes out clean and crumb-free, the cake is done. (Be sure to bake this for a full 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees. The cake forms a crust as you bake so touching the top won’t indicate doneness.) Remove cake from oven and let rest for 15 minutes.
While cake is resting, make butter-rum syrup. Stirring constantly, mix sugar, salt, water,corn syrup and butter in small saucepan and heat until syrup begins to thicken and bubble. Remove from heat. Let cool slightly. Mix in rum extract.
Using a sharp knife, loosen cake from sides of the pan. Invert pan onto a foil-covered plate and remove pan center, using a sharp knife as needed to separate pan center from what is now the top of the cake. Remove paper from top of cake. Brush or pour syrup all over cake. Remove cake to a clean platter and serve. Cake keeps well wrapped in foil.
— Adapted from a recipe by Ray Kennedy
Photo by Neal Douglass, Austin History Center.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Chewing the fat, Cooking, Recipes
Openings/Closings: Noble Pig, Royal Fig, Noodles & Co. expand
• Opening Nov. 25: Noble Pig Deli and Charcuterie, an extension of the Noble Pig sandwich shop at 11815 RM 620 North. After the success of the sandwich shop, Noble Pig owners John Bates and Brandon Martinez decided to offer a place where customers could just buy bread, charcuterie and condiments, including bacon, rillettes, pickles, chutney and a variety of mustards, which are all made in-house. 382-6248.
• Open: Blue Dog Pizza, a trailer selling stone-baked pizzas at 601 W. Live Oak St. 800-9186.
• Open: Co-op Market, a small grocery store next to the University Coop at 2304 Guadalupe St. The store features mostly convenience items, but also sells beer and wine. 476-7211.
• Open: The Seedling Truck, a food truck featuring “farm fresh rustic cuisine” and operated by Royal Fig Catering chef Dan Stacy. The roving truck will serve lunch, dinner and weekend brunch that changes with the season. Menus, locations and hours online. 761-1721.
• Open: Saigon Street, a Vietnamese mobile eatery at 5310 Airport Blvd. that serves dishes including pho, banh mi sandwiches and noodle dishes. 925-5609.
• Open: Noodles & Company, the second Austin location of the Colorado-based noodle chain at 24th and Guadalupe Streets near the University of Texas campus. 420-0016.
• Coming soon: Austin Cake Ball Kitchen & Bar, a restaurant extension of the Austin pastry company, at the Domain, 3401 Esperanza Crossing.
Permalink | | Categories: Openings/Closings
Paula and Glenn Foore of Springdale Farm: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Hardly a week goes by that Paula and Glenn Foore aren’t hosting an event on their East Austin farm.
Springdale Farm hasn’t been around as long as many area farms, but as is the spirit in the Austin food community, the Foores have been welcomed with open arms.
Since 1985, they’ve done landscape work around Austin with their business, Texas Trees and Landscape, but once their three girls started graduating and moving out of the house, they got the bug to start a full-fledged farm.
They have a weekly farm stand at 755 Springdale Road on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and sell tons of produce to local chefs, but many Austinites are getting to know Springdale — and the Foores — through the many events hosted on the farm. Just this week, East Side Show Room chef Sonya Cote kicked off her new Homegrown Revival supper club with a dinner on the farm (the next HR dinner — a feast of seven fishes — is slated for Dec. 14). During Edible Austin’s Eat Local Week in early December, Springdale Farm is a stop on the Urban Farm Bicycle Tour and the site of a pig roast later that day, and on Dec. 19, A Torrid Affair returns to the farm for another supper club dinner.
As if growing food didn’t keep them busy enough…
What three things are always in your fridge? 1) Lemongrass tea. We keep a few bundles from our Wednesday and Saturday farm stand fresh and brewed at all times. 2) Cream. Can’t miss our morning coffee with just a splash of cream! 3) “Pepper-something”. We’re always working on perfecting recipes, and we miss peppers so much when they’re out of season that this year that we’ve canned up chipotle peppers in adobo sauce! Fermented chili paste, pickled peppers, smoked peppers, dried pepper flakes…
What’s your favorite condiment? Chipotles in adobo sauce. We like it on sandwiches or spooned into soup or a pot of beans - for a little added depth of flavor!
What’s your favorite go-to late night snack? Confession time, I guess - we both have a weakness for salty chips. We’re open to other suggestions, but it has to be finger food; has to be crunchy; has to be salty.
Photo by Paula Foore and Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: What's in Your Fridge Friday
“Top Chef: Texas” recap: Snakes, plates and quinceaneras
Who knew Padma had such a sense of humor?
Well, the best line of last night’s “Top Chef: Texas” episode, edited slightly for sensitive readers — “I better see some mothereffing snakes on some mothereffing plates” — was probably written by the producers, but Padma said it with such conviction that it was easily the highlight of the third episode.
This was the first episode with all 16 contestants competing in the traditional “Top Chef” format. (The first two episodes were dedicated to whittling down 29 contestants to the top 16, which included Uchiko’s Paul Qui. Andrew Curren of 24 Diner was among the 13 who lost in the first round, but he managed to hang on by a thread in the Last Chance Kitchen. More on that below.)
La Gloria chef Johnny Hernandez helped introduce the quickfire challenge to use snake meat. Qui produced a Asian barbecue snake that I thought easily looked the best of the bunch, but Hernandez didn’t like it. Dakota’s dish of beer-battered tempura snake ended up winning her immunity from elimination and a cash prize of $5,000. Not too shabby for the first quickfire, I’d say.
Snake was an interesting choice as the first quickfire, but it makes sense. Even though snake isn’t as prevalent in the Texas diet as its presence on the show might suggest, rattlesnake round-ups (and the subsequent dishes made from the harvested meat) are one of the fun, quirky things that happen in our great state, but they aren’t nearly as common as the focus of the main challenge: quinceañeras, the 15th birthday party celebrations that are a rite of passage for most girls in almost all Latin cultures.
The contestants had to cater for the quinceañera of sweet girl named Blanca. She told them what kinds of food she liked, and the teams tried to create a menu that appealed to her and her family.
It didn’t look good for contestant Keith as soon as he picked out precooked shrimp at the store. Adding insult to injury, his team served enchiladas made with premade flour tortillas, which clearly put them in the bottom of the heap.
Keith complained at the judge’s table that his teammates turned on him, using the old “they are throwing me under the bus” excuse, but they judges had no problem sending him home, or rather, to the new Last Chance Kitchen webisode series, which gives chefs who lose another chance to get back in the competition.
Clams were among the ingredients they had to use in a single dish, and though Andrew thought he had a strong dish, head judge Tom Colicchio ended up picking Keith’s dish as the winner, which officially ends Andrew’s stint on “Top Chef: Texas.” (Or so we think. They are always changing the game, so who knows if he’s really out for good.)
Photos from BravoTV.com.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Chewing the fat
Eating out on Thanksgiving? Options abound
Don’t want to mess with making an entire Thanksgiving dinner yourself, not to mention cleaning up after one? Many restaurants in the Austin area are offering special Thanksgiving menu options, and here are a number of them. Is your restaurant (or your favorite restaurant) missing from this list? Email me at abroyles@statesman.com.
• 24 Diner(600 N. Lamar Blvd., 472-5400): Open all day and night serving their full menu as well as a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. $24 per person.
• Alamo Drafthouse(All Austin locations, 476-1320): Enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with your movie at showtimes that start at 8 p.m. and earlier.
• Bakehouse Restaurant and Bar (5404 Manchaca Road, 443-5167): An all-you-can-eat dinner with table service. Turkey, ham, squash casserole, yams, fresh breads, pumpkin pie and more. $14.95, $6.95 for 12 and younger. $11.95 for take out. 10:30 a.m. to midnight.
• Barton Creek Resort & Spa (8212 Barton Club Drive, 329-7923): Thanksgiving buffet featuring cherry chipotle-glazed ham, braised short ribs and sauteed baby shrimp tagliatelle pasta from noon to 5 p.m. Cost is $62.95 for adults and $22.95 for children ages 6 to 12. Children 5 and younger cost $1 per year of age.
• B. D. Riley’s Irish Pub (204 E. Sixth St., 494-1335): Turkey dinner with all the trimmings ($12.99), plus the full dinner menu. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Buca di Beppo (3612 Tudor Blvd., 342-8462): Turkey with Italian sausage stuffing, pumpkin cannoli. Call for prices. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Cannoli Joe’s (4715 U.S. 290 W., 892-4444): Brunch and dinner buffets, with turkey and fixings alongside Italian standards. $17.99, $5.99 for children 4-12, free for 3 and younger. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• The Carillon (AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, 1900 University Ave., 404-3655): Thanksgiving brunch. $55, $16.95 for kids. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Carmelo’s (504 E. Fifth St. 477-7497): Special turkey dinner. $19, $12 for kids. Regular menu available. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Congress 200 Congress Avenue, 827-2760): Five-course prix fixe menu at $95 per person, with a selection of two different menus.
• Corazon at Castle Hill (1101 W. Fifth St. 476-0728): Three-course fixed-price lunch. $29.95. 12 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Cru a Wine Bar (238 W. Second St., 472-9463; 11410 Century Oaks Terrace, Suite 104 in the Domain. 339-9463w): Three-course, fixed price dinner. $35, $17.50 children younger than 12. Noon to 9 p.m.
• Estancia Churrascaria (The Arboretum, 10000 Research Blvd., 345-5600; 4894 Highway 290 West, Sunset Valley, 892-1225): Traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, as well as Estancia’s Southern Brazilian offerings. Lunch ($31.50) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner ($33.50) from 3 to 9 p.m.
• European Bistro(111 E. Main St., Pflugerville, 512-835-1919): Four-course fixed-price menu. $39.95. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Finn & Porter (500 East 4th Street, 493-4900): Three-Course fixed price menu $45, $20 for children as well as their regular dinner menu. from 5 to 10 p.m.
• The Frisco Shop (6801 Burnet Road, 459-6279): Thanksgiving dinner from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Hank’s Garage(115A San Jacinto Blvd., 512-520-8060): $25, children 6-12 $15, free for 5 and under. 12 to 8 p.m.
• Hoover’s Cooking (2002 Manor Road, 479-5006; 13376 Research Blvd., 335-0300): Traditional Thanksgiving dinner, plus options like jerk chicken and Cajun pork roast. $16.99 per person. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road, 477-1234): Brunch buffet. $54, $27 children 5-12, free for 4 and younger. 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Hyatt Regency Lost Pines (575 Hyatt Lost Pines Road, Bastrop. 512-308-4860): Brunch buffet. $49, $24 children 4-12, free for 3 and younger. Call for hours.
• Hyde Park Bar & Grill(4206 Duval St., 458-3168; 4521 Westgate Blvd., 899-2700): Thanksgiving dinner. $16.95 regular, $12.95 vegetarian, special price for children 10 and under. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Lakeway Resort and Spa(101 Lakeway Drive, 261-7323): Brunch buffet. $49.95, $16.50 for children ages 5 to 11. 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Luby’s: (Austin: 1616 E. Oltorf St.; 13817 U.S. 183 N.; 8176 N. MoPac Blvd.; 5200 Brodie Lane; 1410 E. Anderson Lane. Round Rock: 2000 Interstate 35 S. San Marcos: 200 Interstate 35 N.) The cafeteria chain and perennial Thanksgiving fallback will serve a dinner of sliced turkey or ham, cornbread dressing, giblet gravy, two sides, a roll and dessert for $10.99 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• McCormick & Schmick’s (11600 Century Oaks Terrace, Suite 100 in the Domain, 836-0500; 401 Congress Ave., 236-9600): Three-course turkey dinner with traditional sides and dessert. $23.95, $7.95 for kids. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Domain, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. downtown.
• ReVive! in the Wyndham Garden Hotel (3401 S. Interstate 35, 744-4841) Thanksgiving Day brunch buffet from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., featuring rosemary roasted turkey breast with traditional sides and brunch offerings. $21.95 for adults, $12.95 for children 12 and under.
• Romeo’s Italian Bar and Grill. (1500 Barton Springs Road, 476-1090): Deep fried turkey dinner, plus regular Italian menu. $13.95 per person. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with live music from 1 to 9 p.m.
• Second Bar + Kitchen(200 Congress Ave., 827-2750): Full menu available as well as a traditional Thanksgiving offering for $26. 11 a.m. to Midnight.
• Snack Bar(1224 South Congress Ave., 512-445-2626): Limited breakfast menu starting at 9 a.m. Prix fixe holiday menu from 1 to 8 p.m.
• Threadgill’s (6416 N. Lamar Blvd, 451-5440; 301 W. Riverside Drive, 472-9304): Thanksgiving standards plus many of Threadgill’s chicken-fried favorites and creative vegetable sides. Turkey with cornbread dressing and two vegetables is $12.95. 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Travaasa Austin (13500 Farm to Market Road 2769, 855-868-7282): Thanksgiving favorites, plus a few other dishes with a Southwestern twist, like butternut squash risotto with chipotle peppers and Texas bourbon pecan pie. $55, which includes a glass of sparkling wine or cider, plus tax and 18 percent gratuity tip. No children under 16. Reservations only from 1 to 5 p.m.
• Trace at the W Austin (200 Lavaca Street, 542-3660): Prix fixe three-course from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. $49 for adults and $19 for children under the age of 12.
• Trio at Four Seasons Hotel (98 San Jacinto Blvd. 685-8300): Buffet featuring traditional favorites and holiday dishes. $75 at Trio, $68 in the ballroom, $20 children 6-11, free for children 5 and younger. 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Photo from Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Eating out
Odd Duck Farm to Trailer closing
The lot at 1219 S.Lamar Blvd. is being sold, so instead of enduring the hassle of relocating and re-opening in winter, Gilmore says he will wait until spring of next year before deciding his next steps. Gilmore says he hopes to have a Sustainable Food Center fundraiser of some sort at Odd Duck during the trailer’s final days as a thank you to everyone and a celebration of their two-year run.
Odd Duck is open 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Photo of Odd Duck Farm to Trailer by Mike Sutter AMERICAN-STATESMAN.
‘Top Chef: Texas’ recap: Qui advances and so does Curren, kind of
“Top Chef: Texas” finally got interesting last night, if only for the fact that we finally got to see Austin chefs Paul Qui of Uchiko and Andrew Curren of 24 Diner.
The show, which was filmed in several Texas cities, including Austin, this summer, started with 29 contestants and within the first two episodes, the judges whittled them down to 16 by having them cook in groups and sending the “maybes” into a kind-of purgatory called the bubble.
Qui and Curren were among 10 chefs who cooked for the first time last night. Qui appeared to be cool and relatively calm, soaring past the first round of judging with a grilled trout with southeast Asian tomato salad. He makes the whole thing look so easy, it’s no wonder he’s an early favorite.
Curren roasted mushrooms, but tripped up on a poached egg. Miraculously, even though the judges called the dish “greasy” and “gritty,” they sent him to the bubble, which meant he had to cook again in the second half of the show.
When the bubble contestants went head to head, Curren tried to impress the judges with mussels and panna cotta, an odd choice that ultimately sunk him. He wasn’t one of the two bubble chefs who earned a spot in the top 16, but don’t count Curren out just yet.
This is the first season that “Top Chef” has offered an online-only web series called Last Chance Kitchen, where the defeated chefs get to cook one more time to try to stay in the running.
After failing to advance past the “bubble,” Curren and Janine, another “bubble” chef who didn’t make the top 16, went head to head in a pizza challenge, judged solely by Tom Colicchio.
Curren cooked a grilled Mediterranean pizza and took the risk of not using cheese, but Colicchio liked it enough to make him the winner of the first Last Chance Kitchen challenge.
The loser’s bracket, as Curren called it, is a long road: In order to really get back in the challenge, you have to defeat every defeated chef, but Curren is ready for the challenge. It keeps him in the challenge, but out of the spotlight of the primetime episodes. I’m not sure how they timed the Last Chance Kitchen challenges, but if every contest happens directly after a contestant is kicked out, Curren will definitely have an advantage of having fresh legs and a fresh mind instead of his just-defeated opponent.
Even though we’re two episodes in already, it doesn’t really feel like the show has started until now. The producers took a risk with starting with so many contestants, and I’m not sure they are going to repeat it. With so many names, backgrounds and personalities to keep straight in these first episodes, it’s hard to feel invested in the series just yet.
As always, the producers are packing more entertainment than information in the hour-long show, which might or might not be hurting an entire generation of young cooks, but it’s a formula that seems to work for Bravo.
UPDATE: I forgot to add another tidbit of Curren info. Just before “Top Chef: Texas” started last night, Curren beat Alamo Drafthouse chef John Bullington an Iron Chef-style contest at the Drafthouse on South lamar. The chefs created a four-course menu paired with “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” I was one of the three judges, and we agreed that Curren’s dishes were better than Bullington’s in three of the four courses. Bullington had won three of these Iron Chef contests in a row, but Curren easily defeated him this time around.
What do you think of these first episodes and the Austin contestants so far? Any early favorites that you’ll be rooting for?
Photo from BravoTV.com.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
‘Top Chef: Texas’ episode 2 live chat
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
Parking in state garage near downtown farmers’ market no longer free
Since the Sustainable Food Center Farmers’ Market Downtown opened in 2003, it has been located near and, as of last year, in Republic Square Park at the intersection of Fourth and Guadalupe Streets.
And since it started, the Texas Facilities Commission has allowed market shoppers to park for free in State Parking N, a garage at Third and San Antonio Streets.
But not any more.
Late last month, the Sustainable Food Center got notice that starting Nov. 1, the garage would cost $3 from 7 to 11 a.m. and $5 for anyone entering the garage after 11 a.m., even for farmers’ market shoppers.
Part of why SFC chose that location as home for the market was the free parking offered to them as an organization of “mission,” says Suzanne Santos, who directs the three SFC markets. There are a number of state-run parking garages downtown that are free on Sunday mornings for churchgoers for the same reason, Santos says.
But Mike Lacy, deputy executive director of the commission, says that since the initial agreement, downtown Austin has evolved. “We have statutory obligation to generate revenue after hours,” he says. The City of Austin recently started charging people to park on the street after 11 a.m. on Saturdays at a cost of $1 per hour, but City Hall offers its garage free to the public until 5 p.m. on Saturday. “Change is what it is,” Lacy says.
When asked if the commission would consider charging on Sunday mornings, Lacy said, “We’ll probably look at all of that in time.” He says that the decision to change the policy on Saturday mornings at State Parking N was primarily market driven. There are just more people wanting to park downtown on Saturday mornings, he says.
He also noted that the market will continue to have access to 75 free spaces in the garage for vendors and volunteers.
Santos says that SFC is appealing the decision, citing a 2003 bill that says parking in state garages could be offered for free if nonprofits asked for it.
She pointed out that there are still more than 100 free parking spaces for farmers’ market shoppers in the surface parking lot across San Antonio Street from the garage. Only half of that lot is available for shoppers, though.
“Our surveys show that over 70 percent of the people who come to the market wouldn’t come downtown if not for the market, and 40 percent say they go and shop elsewhere in the area,” Santos says. “If you keep people from coming downtown, you will lose money from sales tax.”
Photo by Ralph Barrera for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Eating locally, Food in the news
Incorporating Paleo into my diet, with a grain of rice
Paleo seems to be a pretty divisive way of eating.
Any diet that is remotely restrictive is certain to push people’s buttons, especially when you’re asking them to take away sugar, soy, dairy, legumes and grains, but I was surprised as how reasonable the Paleo diet seemed when I dug into it last week.
In today’s Statesman, you can find a much longer article about the tenets of Paleo, including the stories of Austinites Melissa Joulwan and Kim Semenov. Joulwan, a founding member of the Texas Rollergirls who has a popular Paleo blog, The Clothes Make the Girl, and new Paleo cookbook coming out in early December, and Semenov and her husband run CaveMan Cuisine, a meal delivery service that she hopes to expand to Austin’s first Paleo restaurant.
Ask anyone who has gone gluten-free or given up grains, and they’ll tell you that grains — and, let’s be honest, a sedentary lifestyle — are really the anchor that’s sinking Americans into a pit of obesity that we can’t seem to climb out of. “But bread!” we collectively shriek. “How can you ask me to give up grains when wheat and rice have been the basis of our diet since the beginning of civilization?!”
It’s a complicated subject that Joulwan and Semenov know far more about than I do, but they make a compelling case that our bodies just don’t digest grain as well as they do protein and fruits and vegetables and, in some cases, cause an inflammatory response that can lead to arthritis and a number of intestinal and skin problems.
I’m as skeptical of newfangled diets as anyone, however, if we’re going to continue to evolve as humans, it’s important to pay attention to new science that might debunk long-held beliefs about what is good for us and what isn’t.
One thing that’s hard to debate is that cooking food from whole ingredients (eg, foods that don’t come in a package with a label) is better for you than eating processed foods, and that no matter how quickly you can slice veggies, it’s going to take longer to cook your meals than just pull something out of the freezer and throw it in the microwave.
Cooking with Joulwan last week, I saw how easy she makes it on herself by precooking ingredients like meat and vegetables on the weekend so she can cook meals more quickly during the week. It didn’t take much time for us to make Paleo Pad Thai with a peanut-like sauce made from sunflower butter (you can find the recipes with the story online), and I’m excited to try this faux-rice made with cauliflower.
I’m still not quite ready to drop dairy and grains from my diet completely, but it’s a good reminder not to build my diet around bread/tortillas/rice/pasta and dairy products just because they are handy.
Cauliflower Rice Pilaf
1 large head fresh cauliflower 1 Tbsp. plus 1 Tbsp. coconut oil 8 dried apricot halves, minced (about 2 Tbsp.) 1 1/2 Tbsp. raisins 2 Tbsp. pine nuts 1/2 medium onion, diced (about 1/2 cup) 1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 tsp.) 1/2 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon salt and black pepper, to taste
Break the cauliflower into florets, removing the stems. Place the florets in the food processor bowl and pulse until the cauliflower looks like rice. This takes about 10 to 15 one-second pulses. You may need to do this in two batches to avoid overcrowding (which leads to mush).
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, about 3 minutes. Add 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil and allow it to melt. Add the apricots, raisins, pine nuts, onion, and garlic. Stir with a wooden spoon to combine and cook until the onions are translucent and the nuts start to brown, about 5 minutes.
Push the onions to the side of the pan and add the remaining 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil. Add the cumin and cinnamon to the oil, then stir everything together—oil, spices, onions, nuts, fruit—so they all mingle in happy harmony. When you can smell the spices, about 30 seconds, toss in the riced cauliflower and saute until the cauliflower is tender, about 5 minutes. Try a bite, then season with salt and pepper. Serves 6.
Photos by Kelly West for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Cooking
Austin’s Hilah Johnson wins spot on YouTube Next Chef program
That Hilah Johnson is on her way to the top.
The Austin video blogger, who won blog of the year in last year’s Republic of Austin blogger awards and was recently profiled in the Chronicle, was picked as one of 16 video bloggers who get to participate in YouTube’s NextChef program, a 12-week crash course in becoming a rock star video blogger.
Johnson and the 15 other participants, some who live as far away as India and Australia, already have established cooking web series, but the NextChef program gives them equipment, training and networking to take their series to the next level.
Austin Lau, YouTube partner programs manager who is coordinating both the NextChef and NextTrainer projects, says the goal is to “turbo charge” video bloggers who are already making great content. And it’s no coincidence that NextChef starts just as the holiday season is ramping up.
“There’s a spike in searches around this time of year for (food) keywords,” Lau says. Each week, the participants will have assignments to complete, which will be hosted both on YouTube’s NextChef homepage and on their own sites.
Johnson, whose videos are an informative as they are goofy, says she’s stoked for the opportunity to learn from experts and her fellow video bloggers, like Sara O’Donnell of the equally hilarious Average Betty, who is also among the participants. “We’ll not only get in front of more people, but…we’ll learn how to make better videos and how to market ourselves better.”
She and boyfriend/co-producer Christopher Sharpe have created 90 videos, so as they approach 100, they are thinking about ways to expand the show, both in frequency and content. (Johnson has also written and self-published two cookbooks, “Learn to Cook” and “The Breakfast Taco Book,” which have as much character as her popular videos.)
“It’s not going to change the way we do it…but it’s going to make us be better,” she says.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Bloggerly love
New farmers’ market on Sundays in Lakeway
Central Texas farmers aren’t letting the drought get the best of them, and neither are the people who manage the many farmers’ markets in the area. And now, customers have another market to choose from.
For the past month, Richie Romero has been running the Lakeway Commons Farmers Market from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays at the corner of RM 620 and Lakeway Boulevard in the Lakeway Commons Shopping Center.
“I moved out here from California, so I’m used to every town having a nice farmers market,” says Romero, a video-game artist who was also looking for a project that didn’t involve a computer. Romero had run a farmers market in nearby Steiner Ranch for more than a year but decided to move it to a more visible location.
The Lakeway Commons market has between 25 and 30 vendors right now, he says, including a number of farmers and food companies, including Bikkurim Farm, Comanche Oaks Farm, Round Rock Honey, Kala’s Cuisine and Dad’s Premium Granola, whose owners are pictured with Romero, above.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Eating locally
Snagging a bite and a quick chat with Andrew Zimmern
Even with “Top Chef: Texas” premiering and “Eat St.” filming around Austin, Andrew Zimmern managed to capture quite a bit of Austin’s social media attention last week when he was here with his crew filming an Austin episode of “Bizarre Foods America,” a one-season spin-off of his popular “Bizarre Foods” show on the Travel Channel.
He was tweeting from (and spotted at) everywhere from Lamberts Downtown Barbecue, Uchiko, the downtown farmers’ market and a number of food trailers to the barbecue hotspots in Lockhart and even a UT tailgate.
I caught up with him at Foreign and Domestic, where he was there to taste some of Ned Elliott’s unusual eats: scrambled eggs and pig brains, beef heart tartare and crispy beef tongue.
“I tried to get here the last few seasons,” he said, but when you have 24 episodes with only a few domestic locations each season, it’s hard to make it to many U.S. cities, which is what gave them the idea to do an entire season of weird eating in our own proverbial backyard.
The Austin food scene had been on his radar for a while, but this was his first time to really explore the city and surrounding area. He spent most of the week in Austin, but by late Saturday, he was on his way to New Mexico for the next adventure in eating.
He knows that his show isn’t so much as a travel guide as a voyeuristic experience for viewers who can’t just hop on a plane and explore a new city every week.
“We have a real yearning to see and feel what other people are doing in this country,” he said as his camera crew was setting up a shot and Elliott was preparing the first dish. And not just on TV. He cites this desire to learn more about the other people who inhabit this planet as the driving force behind the popularity behind all the diverse media outlets out there, including personal blogs. “We see ourselves in a different way.”
Zimmern recently added another job title, Food & Wine magazine editor, which means he’s already planning on coming back to Austin in April for the Austin Food & Wine Festival, which grew out of the longtime Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival earlier this year.
When I mentioned that the primary concern of just about everyone I’ve talked to about the new festival is that it will lose its Austin identity, Zimmern said it will be just the opposite. “Food & Wine is a curator and custodian for food and culture, and they don’t want to trample all over something.”
By then, Elliott had finished a not-so-bizarre plate of roasted acorn squash topped with curried coconut milk, pumpkin seeds and grapes, which they thankfully offered me a few bites of. (No one wants to show up famished to a food interview, but then again, no one wants to show up late because she grabbed a taco.)
The new season premieres on Jan. 24, and Zimmern said the Austin episode is the 10th of 16, so it will probably air sometime in late March or early April.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
After 24 years, Eastside Cafe owners part ways
For the past few years, Barger has been running HausBar Farm in East Austin, and all of the eggs and produce were going to the restaurant, but now that Barger has sold her share of Eastside to Martin, she’s selling the goods to Farmhouse Delivery and to other restaurants around town. She and partner Susan Hausmann have plans to turn the house on the 2-acre property into a B&B.
Martin says that she’ll still be keeping up the garden on the Eastside Cafe property, and that after the holidays, she’s going to start seriously looking for a space to open a breakfast-and-lunch diner modeled after Brown Sugar Kitchen, one of her favorite restaurants in Oakland, Calif.
She and partners Dee and Gary Kelleher of Dripping Springs Vodka haven’t settled on a name, but all of the options so far contain the word “pie,” which will be a fixture on the menu.
Photo by Mike Sutter for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: Food in the news
Tapas and Almodóvar at the Alamo Drafthouse
Tapas and a movie, anyone?
Almodóvar’s movies are quirky, complex, sexually charged and provocative, and in every scene, he captures the offbeat but vibrant spirit of Spain. I haven’t seen the newest movie — it doesn’t premiere until Nov. 11 — but Statesman film and restaurant critic Matthew Odam hints that it’s a good one.
The Drafthouse has a special going on this week that if you buy a ticket for opening weekend you can get into some other Almodóvar movies for free, but even if you can’t make the movie, here is a recipe for Bullington’s garlic soup with roast shrimp that he’ll be serving to moviegoers. (The Drafthouse also has a list of suggested wine pairings from beverage director Bill Norris on its website.)
Castilian Garlic Soup with Roast Shrimp
12 shrimp
1 Tbsp. sweet paprika
1/4 cup Spanish extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 quart fish or shellfish stock
2 1/2 cups crusty bread, torn into small pieces
Pinch saffron
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. Italian parsley, finely chopped
Sherry, for garnish
Peel the shrimp, slice in half and dust with paprika. Set aside.
In a sauce pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring once in a while, until the garlic begins to lightly brown and darken. Do not let it blacken. As soon as it browns, add the stock, bread and saffron. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning with kosher salt.
In a lightly oiled saute pan or under a broiler, cook the shrimp until bright pink. While the shrimp is cooking, ladle the egg into the pot of hot soup while gently stirring so it forms ribbons as it cooks. Ladle into 12 small cups or bowls. Set one shrimp atop each bowl of soup. Drizzle a few drops of sherry over the shrimp and soup. Sprinkle with parsley. Serves 12 small, tapas-sized portions.
— John Bullington, Alamo Drafthouse executive chef
Photos by Cory Ryan.
Permalink | | Categories: Playing with your food
Pastry chef Plinio Sandalio leaves Congress for The Carillon
Sandalio’s resume includes time as a sous chef at Soma in San Francisco and as pastry chef at Noe in Los Angeles. While at Noe, Plinio competed on “Iron Chef America” as sous to Chef Robert Gadsby. In 2010, Plinio was nominated for a James Beard award for “Best Pastry Chef”
“We are very excited to bring our pastry program to the next level with such a talented and innovative pastry chef,” said Carillon executive chef Josh Watkins. “Plinio Sandalio will be a great addition to our team.”
The Carillon is located in the AT&T Executive Conference Center Hotel at the University of Texas.
Congress says that their chef du cuisine Rebecca Meeker will oversee the pastry department while a national search is conducted.
“Plinio has an amazing imagination, and while we will miss him, we fully support his decision to challenge himself in a different area of the hospitality industry,” said Congress executive chef David Bull. “We have a talented and creative team, and will fill the pastry chef position as soon as we find the right fit.”
Photo: Plinio Sandalio at work at Second Bar + Kitchen in January. (Deborah Cannon/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Permalink | | Categories: Desserts
Austin, meet the döner kebap and the world’s smallest food truck
Do these guys look like the future of fast food?
Dominik Stein, left, and Michael Heyne are Germans who moved to the U.S. to enroll at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and start Verts Kebap, a company that aims to show Americans the beauty of the doöer kebap, a Turkish fast food staple throughout Europe.
Much is made of all the American fast food companies that have invaded Europe, in Germany alone, there are more than 17,000 mom-and-pop döner shops, compared to just 1,300 McDonald’s.
Similar to a gyro, but different enough to rile up both Greeks and Turks if you get them confused, döner kebaps are filled with a combination of beef and lamb that is seasoned differently than gyro meat and are topped with a dill-based yogurt sauce instead of tzatziki, which is heavy on the cucumber.
I first tried döner (pronounced “duhr-nah,” light on the “r”) not in Germany, but in Spain, where they seem to be as numerous as in other parts of Europe, and Heyne is right, the gyro and shawarma wraps that you can find here just aren’t the same.
But, for the Verts owners, it isn’t just about recreating one of their favorite foods from home. Heyne and Stein are dissatisfied with the quality of “healthy” fast food here. Most chains underestimate the number of calories per serving by using smaller-than-average portions when they calculate the nutritional information, but Heyne and Stein have tested and retested their sandwiches and they consistently come in at less than 580 calories per wrap, fully loaded with toppings and sauce. In their research, the places that do offer bonafide low-calorie options scrimp on flavor to hit the “healthy” mark.
As if the sandwiches aren’t enough of a selling point, the Verts owners have created the “world’s smallest food truck,” which isn’t an exaggeration if they are, in fact, using the world’s smallest car. The cabinets and hand- and utensil-washing stations tucked in the back of the car are so compact you’d think they were designed for a space shuttle, but Heyne and Stein went back and forth with city officials for six months to make sure they were in compliance with city code for mobile vendors.
It’s a cool operation that is really just getting underway. They are adding breakfast sandwiches (a breakfast taco/döner mash-up) this weekend and should have another truck on the road soon.
Heyne says they’ll be adding more brick-and-mortar locations next year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they expanded outside of Austin and, surely, Texas, soon thereafter.
Photo by Jay Janner for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: Eating out
‘Top Chef: Texas’ premiere live chat
After months of rumors, hype, hurt feelings, lawsuits and speculation about what the upcoming season of “Top Chef: Texas” will hold, the Emmy-winning reality TV competition that was filmed in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth this summer premieres tonight at 9 on Bravo with not one, but two Austin contestants.
Paul Qui of Uchiko and Andrew Curren of 24 Diner aren’t just the only contestants from Austin, they are the only chefs from Texas who made it onto the show, which has caused more controversy leading up to its premiere than any of the previous eight seasons.
In a conference call last week, judges Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio were frank about why the producers lumped together four cities that, arguably, would be worthy of hosting the series on their own and why they’ve relied on so many stereotypes (cowboy boots, ribs, rodeos, etc.) in the promotional material and, presumably, the episodes themselves.
You can read more from Lakshmi, Colicchio, Qui and Curren in the story that ran in today’s food section.
Join us for even more speculation, a little bit of snark and some interactive TV watching during a live chat here on Relish Austin at 9 p.m. tonight.
Production still from Bravo TV.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Live chat
Parkside’s Shawn Cirkiel to open Italian restaurant called Olive & June in old El Arbol space
Shawn Cirkiel isn’t turning on his Polish roots, but the chef/owner of Parkside isn’t just dabbling in Italian with his Backspace pizzeria that opened a year ago — he’s turning the former El Arbol space at 3411 Glenview Ave. into an Italian restaurant called Olive & June (the combined middle names of his grandmother and his wife’s grandmother), which he’s hoping to open early next year.
“The goal is to beat South by Southwest,” he says.
It’s been a decade since Cirkiel jumped into the spotlight of Austin’s food scene when he bought Jean Luc’s Bistro. Cirkiel, who was in his mid-20s at the time, ended up closing the five-star French restaurant three years later to put the wheels in motion for a restaurant that he could call his own.
He chose an unlikely space — a worn building in the heart of East Sixth Street that had housed Dan McKlusky’s steakhouse since 1990, and in 2008, opened Parkside, an upscale but comfortable eatery that serves things like raw oysters and raw fish dishes, guanciale (pork-cheek)-wrapped quail, grilled venison with pickled blueberries and marrow bones topped with an herb salad.
It’s mix of cuisines that’s hard to classify, which is why Austin diners perked up when Cirkiel went Italian last year when he opened a pizzeria behind Parkside called Backspace a year ago.
Like many chefs, Cirkiel’s travels to Italy have influenced his cooking, but the roots of his love of Italy go back to the Italian American hub of Arthur Avenue in the South Bronx, where his dad grew up and where Cirkiel remembers enjoying jovial family dinners as a kid.
The focus at Olive & June will be Southern Italian menu, “with a little Northern mixed in,” he says, with half a dozen antipasti and 15 to 20 even smaller bites called piccoli piatti, as well as handmade fresh pastas and entrées — with dishes like grilled swordfish topped with mint, capers and olive oil, roasted eggplant and breadcrumbs that play on the traditional meatball, baby lamb and polenta — but no pizzas. (You’ll have to go to Backspace for that.)
Italian food culture is based on the premise of eating what grows well where you live, so expect to find food that reflects the seasons, Cirkiel says. Eventually, he plans to add brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as Sunday nights that only feature the small plates and a family-style supper that would change every week.
With the help of his chef de cuisine, Justin Rupp, and pastry chef Steven Cak, Cirkiel will run all three kitchens, floating from restaurant to restaurant, depending on the day. General manager Harlan Scott will oversee all three restaurants as well.
They plan to turn the offices on third floor at Glenview Avenue into private dining spaces and to “soften” the look of the patio with a lot of greenery and flowers. “Imagine a cross between Santa Barbara and the Amalfi Coast,” Cirkiel says.
Updated 11/3 to correct name of Arthur Avenue in the South Bronx. Photo by Jay Janner for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Eating out, Food in the news, Openings/Closings
