Home > Relish Austin
Musician Amy Cook: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Musician Amy Cook says she’s an eat-local person, stocking her and partner Liz Lambert’s fridge from places like Farm to Market on South Congress Avenue. Lambert, the developer behind the hippiest of Austin projects including Hotel San Jose and the Saint Cecilia Hotel, and Cook are always on the go; Cook is touring in California for much of July and Lambert is working on El Cosmico, a trailer park-inspired hotel and art residence in Marfa.
Last week, after Michael Jackson’s death, Cook recorded this heartfelt tribute to the singer with her version of “Beat It,” which just might be enough to bring tears to your eyes in this otherwise jubilant holiday weekend.
Cook’s evocative voice and narrative songwriting can be heard on her next album, “Let the Light in,” which is produced by fellow Austin musician Alejandro Escovedo and will come out later this year.
What’s your favorite condiment? Hot sauce. We always have Cholula hot sauce.
What three things are always in your fridge? Topo Chico, pickles (don’t know why, don’t eat pickles), peanut butter, love butter.
What’s your go-to late night snack? Annie’s shells and cheese. i also like those pretzels with peanut butter inside.
I’m always on the hunt for interesting refrigerators. If you want to show off yours, take a photo of it (please resist the urge to clean or rearrange) and send it to abroyles@statesman.com.
(Photo by Amy Cook.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: What's in Your Fridge Friday
Massive amount of ground beef, fajitas in H-E-B recall
The recall late last month of 400,000 of pounds of beef from JBS Swift Beef Co. is hitting closer to home with H-E-B issuing a voluntary recall of the following products:
- Raw beef briskets with plant inspection No. 969 (EST #969) with sell-by dates between May 12 and June 20.
- Raw beef inside skirt steaks in a Styrofoam tray with sell-by dates between May 4 and June 20.
- Hill Country Fare Beef for fajitas with a sell-by date of May 23.
- Any fresh ground beef in a Styrofoam tray with sell-by dates between May 9 and June 20.
Let’s see: ground beef, fajita beef, skirt steaks, beef briskets. Some of the most popular cuts of meat this time of year. And look closely, folks, that’s six weeks’ worth of ground beef sold in Styrofoam trays that H-E-B now says could be infected. With sell-by dates going back as far as May 4, most of this beef has probably already been consumed.
Check your freezer, just in case.
A little more backstory about the expanded recall: JBS Swift initially only recalled whole cuts of meat, but because many places grind beef in-store, ground beef got wrapped into the recall. JB Swift wasted no time placing the blame on stores that don’t use the “antimicrobial intervention steps” they do.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Food in the news
Pig Roast 101: Barbecue beans for 1,400
I’ve been sitting on the pig roast story that ran in today’s paper for more than a year. My whole life, really, if you count the hundreds of times I heard my dad tell tall tales of his pig roasting days in college.
You can read the story for the full account, but the biggest one involved 1,400 people, 47 pigs and 145 kegs of beer (his initial recollection of 3,500 people, 24 hogs and 282 kegs of beer were a little off, but time skews most memories, doesn’t it?).
I asked him for a recipe from the massive parties, and this barbecue beans with molasses recipe was what he sent me. Thought you all might enjoy his sense of culinary humor.
Barbecue Beans with Molasses
In large container, add 55 1-gallon, commercial-sized, cans labeled “Pinto Beans” from restaurant supply company. Add one 5-lb bag of brown sugar. Add five 1-gallon cans of ketchup. Add eight large bottles of mustard. Add eight bottles of Worcestershire sauce. Add one to two bottles of liquid smoke. Add beer to obtain desired consistency.
Stir with shovel. Enjoy.
Serves 1,400.
All those beans make the pig roast we hosted for our wedding last year look more like a piglet roast.
Speaking of weddings, congratulations are in order for Maisie Goodman, the Round Rock culinary student in the story who found her passion for cooking when she roasted pigs in the military, and her longtime boyfriend Jake Stutes, who are getting married today.
No pig roast is planned.
(Photo by Jay Janner/American-Statesman staff.)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment
Missing home, eh? Food will help celebrate Canada Day
I’m a Canadian by marriage, but my husband and I didn’t meet there. He had just moved to Austin from Calgary when we met, so his “paaastas” and “aboots” were as strong as his Canadian nachos were cheesy.
He quickly found out that he wasn’t the only one itching to move south from the Great White North to Central Texas. Canadians in Austin can’t brag to friends back home about the weather right about now, but they can celebrate Canada Day tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Paradise Cafe, 401 E. Sixth St.
The Canadians in Austin club hosts its eighth annual Canada Day Celebration with poutine, back bacon, French Canadian pea soup, Tim Hortons coffee, Bloody Caesars and a cake for Canada’s 142nd birthday. E-mail here to RSVP.
So, Happy Canada Day, eh?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
Downtown farmers’ market to open, close an hour earlier
To compensate for the afternoon heat, the Austin Farmers’ Market downtown will open and close an hour earlier through October. Starting on Saturday (July 4), the market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon.
“This is a small way that we can gain some independence from the hotter than usual summer we see coming up,” says pun master and market director Suzanne Santos.
The hours will change back to 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 31, which is the same week the Wednesday farmers’ market at the Triangle will change from its summertime hours of 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. to 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
To reward the early morning shoppers this week, the first 100 shoppers will receive a free reusable water bottle.
Also on Saturday, check out a chef demonstration by Jessica Maher of Dishalicious and Spoon & Co. and the second annual Farmer Olympics, which both start at 10 a.m.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally
Spreading shade, kiddie pool love to save the garden
Up until a few weeks ago, I could easily recommend growing a backyard garden in Central Texas. For five months, our fun family project resulted in quite a lot of delicious, homegrown vegetables without too much money or effort.
Enter June, and with it came more than a handful of 100+ degree days. I expected a dry heat, but I wasn’t convinced it would mean the end of our backyard bounty.
Oh, how green was I.
We’d followed the guidelines, planting what we should at the right time, watering and feeding the plants frequently and adding compost and mulch as needed.
(Remember my post about mulching two weeks ago? Apparently I didn’t mulch enough, so I re-mulched this weekend, spreading four bags of Texas Native hardwood mulch over my beds. When they say “several inches of mulch,” they mean “twice as much mulch as you think you need.”)
But no matter how much mulch you place on the ground to hold in the moisture, the searing sun will shrivel just about any leaves. So I broke down and spent $30 on 40 percent shade cloth this weekend to give the plants a break from the direct heat.
When I ran out of shade cloth, I reused some of the green plastic fencing we used to keep the birds and dog out of the garden when we first planted. (I finally see the value of every square inch of shade I can provide these beds.)
I won’t know for a little while if the extra steps will help enough so that I’ll actually get some produce off these plants before the next planting season begins in August.
So what does this kiddie swimming pool have to do with growing food? Besides a much-needed cool-down after all that work in the garden, we’re reusing the water from the pool to water the beds. In this drought, the only way in good conscience that I could put water in that pool was if I knew I could reuse it to water the plants.
What I didn’t know was that by watering the just-mulched plants with a bucket instead of a shower sprayer on a hose, you achieve a much deeper watering.
Watering by bucket, just like spreading mulch, hanging shade cloth and all the other thankless, fruitless work I’ve been doing over the past few weeks, certainly isn’t sweat-free labor.
But I guess if gardening were easy, they’d call it watching TV.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Food in your backyard
Find summer cocktail bliss in overripe peaches, garden herbs
This squishy peach is your key to summertime happiness.
Overripe fruit, especially peaches, are perfect for muddling, a technique that requires only a long blunt utensil and a strainer. When you combine the extracted juice with a few other ingredients, including — if you’re lucky — herbs from your backyard, you can make a cocktail that tastes like summer.
Muddled fruit isn’t reserved for summer or peaches or adult beverages, but overripe peaches just so happen to be plentiful right now (I found lots at the City Market near my house this weekend. Farmers’ markets are also a good place to find overripe fruit, sold at a discount price.), so peach cocktails are what I’ve been drinking.
Classic muddling involves a small baseball bat-like pestle and a pint glass. I’m more likely to press the fruit through a strainer with a strong spoon or a lemon reamer. (You could probably squeeze the juice out of the fruit with your hands if the peaches are as ripe as you are desperate.)
Summertime Bliss
1 oz. peach juice, about 1/2 a peach muddled
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
2 dashes bitters
3-4 sprigs of mint, lemon verbena, lemon balm or other garden herb
2 oz. gin or vodka
Combine ingredients in a Boston shaker with ice. Shake at least 10 seconds, strain and serve with a sprig of herb as a garnish. Makes one drink, but you can easily double the ingredients to make two.
I can’t speak for every nursery in town, but a stroll through the herb section of The Natural Gardener gives me hope that all is not lost in the summer heat. I came home with lemon verbena, lemon balm, Thai basil and sage to add to the lemongrass, mint, thyme and other basils already growing.
After one whiff those herbs, my garden frustrations eased and my mind went back to cocktails. You could add just about any of those herbs to a number of drinks, but instead of chopping them up into little pieces or muddling them, just give them a good smack between your hands to release the aromatic oils before adding to your drink.
Here’s a recipe for a lemon verbena liquor that you could mix with lemonade or sparkling water:
Lemon Verbena Liquor
1/2 cup fresh lemon verbena leaves
4 cups vodka
2 cups sugar
Chop fresh lemon verbena leaves and put in a jar. Add 4 cups of vodka and let sit, covered, for two weeks, shaking every once in a while. After two weeks, add 2 cups of sugar and shake to dissolve. Let sit for two weeks. Strain out the leaves and bottle the fragrant liqueur, which you can add to desserts or serve with seltzer or other drink.
Speaking of peaches, if you’re lucky enough to have a peach tree in your yard, like my friend Scott does, you’ve probably been thinning out these little peaches so the others can grow larger — that is, if the birds and squirrels haven’t beaten you to them. Scott brought these into work the other day, and they were much sweeter and tastier than I thought they’d be. They weren’t juicy enough, however, to muddle for cocktails.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Drinks, Eating locally, Food in your backyard
Fox 7 reporter Lauren Petrowski: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
Fox 7 morning reporter Lauren Petrowski loves food, especially cheese and eating out, so when given the opportunity to blog for work, she decided to write that one mostly deals with food.
Petrowski has been covering the early shift at the station since 2007, when the UT graduate moved back to Austin from Corpus Christi.
What three things are always in your fridge? Cheese, wine, hummus. I am a cheese fanatic.
What’s your favorite condiment? Balsamic vinegar. It tastes great on vegetables. Mix it with olive oil and a little salt and sugar for an easy salad dressing.
What do you eat or drink in the morning to get you going? I start the day with V8. As a reporter, I never really know what I’m going to eat each day and many times it’s grabbing fast food at a drive-through on our way to a story. I love veggie juice and this way I get a serving of veggies. Of course, I also have at least one cup of coffee, usually two, to help keep me going. For breakfast I usually eat yogurt, then snack on cheese, nuts and fruit throughout the morning. An occasional doughnut might get thrown in that mix as well…
(Photo by Lauren Petrowski.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: What's in Your Fridge Friday
All-natural paletas are so cool when it’s so hot
The only thing better than aguas frescas to cool you down when summer hits is paletas, popsicle-like frozen treats in the myriad flavors of the fruit water sold at many Mexican eateries. Pop So Cools owners Manuel and Laura Flores have been selling paletas made with organic sugar or agave nectar at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market and at events in Central Texas since last year, and the couple just opened their first retail location at 11700 N. Lamar Blvd.
Manuel Flores says he was inspired to start making paletas for his two young children when he saw chef Rick Bayless on television making them for his daughter. The Floreses started playing with flavor combinations, and when their friends kept asking for more, they decided to start selling them commercially.
For $2 at both the new location and the Saturday market, choose from standard flavors such as watermelon, strawberry and mango and gourmet combinations including hibiscus mint, pineapple basil and banana cinnamon. Laura Flores says they will probably add as many as 10 more flavors by the end of the summer.
Open noon to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Desserts
Head to Luling for seed-spitting, watermelon thumping
People flock to Luling for two things: barbecue and watermelon. City Market and Luling Bar-BQ keep meat-lovers satiated year-round, but this weekend, it’s time for the watermelon to shine as the city hosts the 56th annual Watermelon Thump.
At the festival, which starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday, enjoy a carnival, rodeo, parade, 5K run, beer garden and contests, including the popular watermelon seed-spitting contest on Saturday, where spitters vie for the first-place prize of $500. There’s a $500 bonus if someone breaks the world record of more than 68 feet, set in Luling in 1989.
Admission is free on Thursday and Sunday. On Friday and Saturday, grounds admission is $3, and entry to hear headliners Kevin Fowler on Friday and Stoney Larue on Saturday is $20. Kids under 11 are admitted free.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
Forget octomom. How about an octodog?
Boiled hot dogs are at the lowest end of the hot dog-eating train (which isn’t very long, all mechanically separated meat parts considered).
That is, unless we’re talking octodogs.
Oh, what four cuts of a knife can do!
This was a staple of many childhoods, and now that I have my own kid, I’ve revived the art of making hot dog animals (mainly marine animals, but I’m hoping to branch out soon).
You can buy devices to help you cut hot dogs into octodogs, but you can carve many an animal with just a knife. I made the snake and a seal/whale with just a few cuts as I waited for the water to boil.
Quick, totally edible (especially if there are ketchup and a bun involved) and way more fun than a regular dog.
Astute readers will have already seen the categories area of Relish Austin, where you can find What’s in Your Fridge Fridays (sorry for missing last week! I’ll make it up to you), Food in Your Backyard and Bloggerly Love, where I’m posting recipes and other interesting tidbits from local bloggers.
Now you’ll see 15 Minutes or Less, where I’ll throw posts that are about food or drinks that take little time to make.
I almost called it “Cook for a kid in 15 minutes or less,” but who am I kidding: When I’m making a quick bite for him, I’m just as likely to eat, so I try to make things as interesting as possible for an often frazzled and rushed working mom. Cheese quesadillas, anyone?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: 15 Minutes or Less, Playing with your food
Food videos keep getting weirder (and I love it)
One of the greatest things that has come out of this wonderfully meshed world of food and technology is oddball food videos. I’d throw “Bitchin’ Kitchen” and “Average Betty” into this category, but when it comes to weird, Thu Tran’s “Food Party” on IFC is tops.
Tran created and stars in these short, strange clips that in some surreal way connect to food. Filmed on cardboard sets with puppets, green screens and wacky characters (the food itself often comes alive), the show started as an online-only product, but now IFC is airing episodes on Tuesday nights as part of the Automat lineup of short videos.
On the weird scale, “Food Party” easily scores an 11 out of 10, but “Yo Gabba Gabba,” which I’d score an 8 1/2, is more my style, I just wish there were more videos about food, like this one where the vegetables are sad because they were left out of the party in the tummy:
From the guys behind the band The Aquabats, Gabba is one of the best kids’ shows on television because it’s quirky enough for both kids and parents to watch together. It also features hip special guests such as Jack Black, Mya and Elijah Wood and indie bands the Ting Tings and Mates of State. (My favorite musical performance, though, is this oh-so-catchy and cute song by The Roots.)
What other weird food videos are out there?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
“Next Food Network Star” is casting in Austin
Will the Next Food Network Star be an Austinite? Producers from the show will be holding a casting call in Austin next month for the 2010 season.
The Craigslist ad says “chefs, line cooks, home cooks, caterers or culinary enthusiasts” are invited to audition at the Hyatt Regency Downtown, 208 Barton Springs Road, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 17.
Bring a copy of your resume, a completed application and (most telling) not one, but two recent photos.
E-mail this person with questions.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
Farm eggs in jeopardy at restaurants, stores
Farm eggs — and the establishments that sell them — have been caught in a regulatory snare in the past few months.
City health inspectors have been cracking down on a city code that requires eggs that are sold in restaurants or in stores to be graded and labeled at least Grade B.
Problem is, farm eggs aren’t required to be graded.
“It’s not a change,” says Vince Delisi, a supervisor of consumer health for the Austin Travis County Health Department’s Environment and Consumer Health Unit. “It’s been part of the establishment rules.”
Under state law, grading isn’t required for eggs that are produced by a person’s own flock.
Delisi says farms can sell direct to consumers at either farmers’ markets or at their farms, but a retail establishment isn’t allowed to receive or sell eggs that aren’t graded.
So why don’t farms just have their eggs graded? Under the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Egg Law, producers who sell graded eggs also have to be licensed.
Delisi says his department has received confirmation from Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Department of Agriculture, as well as lawyers with the City of Austin, that its interpretation of the laws is correct.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the grading of eggs, but the Texas Department of Agriculture ensures that graded eggs are being sold under the correct label, according to Bryan Black, Assistant Commissioner for Communications for the state agriculture department.
“In Austin, there’s a growth of the buy local movement, which we certainly agree with, but we have to make sure they are in compliance with the regulations,” Delisi says.
“It’s sad that our food chain is coming to this and that we can’t support our local producers,” Emmett Fox owner of FINO and Asti restaurants, which serve food made with many locally-sourced ingredients.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally, Food in the news
Party at the moon tower on Saturday
If you live in Austin and haven’t seen “Dazed and Confused,” stop what you’re doing right this second, even if it means pulling yourself away from all that Austin360.com has to offer, and watch it.
For the rest of you, which I hope is most of you, Saturday is your chance to party at the moon tower, just like the kiddos in Richard Linklater’s 1993 classic.
The South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery is hosting a moon tower party at 7 p.m. on Saturday (the “trailer park” is just down the street from one of the moon towners on South First Street).
Classic cars and motorcycles will fill the lot that is also home to the Torchy’s Tacos, Shuggie’s Burgers and Shakes, Treat and La-Dee-Dah trailers. Dress the part to win prizes. Sales from Shuggie’s will go to American YouthWorks.
And it wouldn’t be a moon tower party if it weren’t BYOB, so fill up your coolers before you show up, lest you be run off by a band of bell bottom-wearing thugs.
(Movie still from “Dazed and Confused”)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
Dai Due Supper Club meats, condiments for sale
Chef Jesse Griffiths, whose Dai Due Supper Club is one of the most exciting things happening in food in Central Texas right now, has gained quite the reputation for what he can do with locally sourced ingredients.
When it comes to meat, his waste-not-want-not philosophy means that he’s just as likely to serve pork cheek as pork chop at one of his dinners, and he’s shown countless people who take his classes how to use up every last piece of edible meat on an animal in a tasty enough way to make you wonder how “offal” earned its name.
An now, you can buy charcuterie, sausage and condiments directly from the chef (which isn’t a substitute for enjoying a full Dai Due dinner, but it will definitely hold you over until the next one.)
From Griffiths’ newsletter this week:
All of our sausages, pates and terrines are made with the highest quality ingredients, such as Richardson Farm pork, Countryside Farm poultry, Boggy Creek and Rain Lily Farm vegetables, Southern Style spices, local eggs and fresh herbs from our own garden. The selection will change weekly to reflect the herbs, fruit, meats and vegetables available at the markets.
Send your order to info@daidueaustin.com and you’ll get an e-mail back with details about how to pick it up. (Sign up for the mailing list to find out what’s for sale each week.)
This week, he’s offering duck boudin with tasso ham, country-style sausage, chorizo, fresh fennel sausage, chevron, smoked pork rillettes, Fireman’s 4 mustard and peach and rhubarb chutney. Griffiths also says that custom made sausages are also available.
(Photo by Cliff Cheney.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally
French-pressed and loving it at Once Over Coffee Bar
2009 must be Jenee and Rob Ovitt’s lucky number. After years of honing their coffee shop skills at Izzy’s Coffee Den in Asheville, N.C., they moved back to Austin to open Once Over Coffee Bar in March.
The location? 2009 S. First St.
In just a few months, the former motorcycle shop has become a favorite for South Austinites who come in for French-press coffee that baristas make in small batches all day, carefully made espressos and a shaded back deck. People can bring in outside food, an easy thing to do with El Primo taco truck right outside.
On Wednesday, check out Stitch and Twitch night, where novice and expert sewers play around with sewing machines and fabric. Bring your own machine, if you have one, or just come and learn from others.
Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Drinks
Dripping Springs gets its first farmers’ market
Dripping Springs is getting a farmers’ market. Starting on Saturday, farmers will be selling seasonal crops at the northeast corner of U.S. 290 and RM 12 in Dripping Springs. City Secretary Jo Ann Touchstone says the market — a first for the city — will be limited to produce growers, but they might add food artisans in the future. The markets will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month through October. Call 512-858-4725 for more information.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally
Blogger recipe: Unprocessed queso from Food Renegade
Kristen Michaelis is a real food activist.
Through her blog Food Renegade, the Leander resident shares her passion for traditional foods — organic produce, fermented foods and beverages, raw milk and grass-fed and pastured meats and dairy products — and educates readers about the ills of a food system that relies on corn, antibiotics, pesticides and animal confinement.
Michaelis, who also owns a copywriting business and is a nutrition and wellness coach, says one of her goals is to help readers learn how to change what they eat in order to improve their health and prevent illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. “I want to give people the tools and confidence they need to radically change their diet, to rebel against the dominant food culture,” she writes.
Michaelis challenged herself earlier this year to create a recipe for queso that only used real cheese, rather than the processed kind that nearly every cheese dip in town relies on. She says that the results were even better than she imagined: smooth, creamy and rich. Home cooks won’t have to rely on cheese that comes in a box ever again.
Creamy Mexican Cheese Dip
1 egg yolk (from pastured hens)
1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder (or organic corn starch)
1 Tbsp. milk (from grass-fed cows)
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
8 oz. grated cheddar cheese
4 oz. cream cheese (optional)
14-oz. can diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained
salt and chipotle chile powder to taste
To create a thickener that will bind the cheese together and keep it from turning into a nasty, oily mess when it melts, mix egg yolk, arrowroot powder and milk until smooth. Next, pour cream and milk into a saucepan and warm over medium heat. Gently stir in the thickener and continue stirring until the cream starts to thicken.
Once your sauce begins to thicken, add in the grated cheddar cheese and small spoonfuls of the cream cheese (homemade from grass-fed cream is best). Lower heat to medium low, then continue stirring until the cheese melts and you have a deliciously creamy sauce.
Remove the sauce from heat, and stir in the tomatoes and diced green chiles. Then add salt and chipotle chili powder to taste, being sure to stir everything until evenly distributed.
(Photo by Kristen Michaelis.)
(If you write a blog about food, e-mail me and tell me about it. Maybe your recipe will make it into print.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Bloggerly love
Foraging for fruit in public spaces
The New York Times has a story today about foraging for fruit. Writer Kim Severson found folks in Portland, Ore., Oakland, Calif., Los Angeles and New York who are getting together to harvest fruit from trees in public spaces.
Severson’s article is packed with good information, but it didn’t include anything about Austin’s own fruit rescuers.
Scott Dubois of the Blue Green Project started Austin Fruit Rescue in early 2008 and has organized outings for “fruit rescuers” interested in collecting fruit, which they split between themselves, local food banks and property owners (if they’ve been given permission to picking fruit on private property).
Dubois says the group has recently gone dormant, but you can e-mail him if you are interested in joining when the rescues get going again.
Up next? Figs.
If you know of trees in public spaces, you can add them to the Google map:
View Austin Fruit Rescue in a larger map
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally, Playing with your food
How Hurricane Katrina led to a new gluten-free grain mix
Wirth and Erdem didn’t know each other pre-Katrina, but a mutual friend introduced them and before long, they were creating a line of gluten-free grains for their new company World Wise Grains.
The first product, Arzu, a mix of quinoa, buckwheat and legumes, was released at the end of 2008. Erdem says they were inspired to create a nutrient-packed grain mix because of the lack of healthy food choices in schools and hospitals. “We designed it to be a healthy food,” Wirth says. “We knew what we wanted in the nutrition panel and we worked backward from there.”
High in protein and fiber, Arzu can be made into a simple breakfast similar to oatmeal, but Wirth and Erdem say people are using it in cookies or with vegetables and meat. Look for a new product called Tasfa, which will include the Ethiopian supergrain teff, early next year. Arzu is available at People’s Pharmacy and in several shops inside Dell Children’s Hospital and Cedar Park Regional Hospital.
Wirth and Erdem will be hosting a tasting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday at the People’s Pharmacy at U.S. 183 and RM 620. You can also order online ($2.50 per 1⁄2 cup package, or $68 for a bulk order of 31 packages).
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Eating locally
Latest comments
What amusing topic
... read the full comment by PeterMontee | Comment on Whipping up real change out of food policy buzzwords Read Whipping up real change out of food policy buzzwords
A little too late to recall meat already sold with dates that have passed. Most people buy and cook their meats with in the sell by dates. These meats being recalled have already been eaten. Stupid us for eating the meats with in the sell by dates.
... read the full comment by raisedby2straightparents | Comment on Massive amount of ground beef, fajitas in H-E-B recall Read Massive amount of ground beef, fajitas in H-E-B recall
Oh my gosh! I had the Canadian staple that is poutine a few years ago and have never looked back. Love it!
... read the full comment by Emily | Comment on Missing home, eh? Food will help celebrate Canada Day Read Missing home, eh? Food will help celebrate Canada Day
I imagine they split it into two 55 gallon drums. And I have my doubts that they used 55 gallons of beans. I bet it just seemed like that many when you’re opening them by hand…
... read the full comment by Addie | Comment on Pig Roast 101: Barbecue beans for 1,400 Read Pig Roast 101: Barbecue beans for 1,400
See more recent comments