Food & Drink
Food Matters
Now Austin can go gaga over Aga
By Kitty Crider & Dale Rice
Nov. 30, 2005
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Benjamin Sklar/AA-S |
Unlike American cooking, where 80 percent is done on the stovetop and 20 percent in the oven, the reverse is true with the Aga. "My only complaint of the Aga is you can't smell the food," Campbell says, until you open the oven door. For people who cook by smell, that is a drawback.
The price might be another. The classic 4/2 Aga cooker is about $18,000 installed. The operational cost is said to be about $1 a day. The range, once it is up to temperature, holds its heat. It also gives off some heat, a welcome attribute in damp, cold, stone homes in England where Agas are beloved and even named like pets. But in Austin, that heat might not be so welcome six months of the year. However, that has not stopped Central Texans from buying the Aga. It's more like a custom gun or nice diamond earrings. It's a luxury. And when you move, you take it with you.
Calendar salutes Texas foods
Every year the Lower Colorado River Authority selects a topic about the water, land and people in its purview for its complimentary calendar. For 2006, that salute is "homegrown Texas" with a food calendar photographed by Billy Ray Moore. Texas veggies, berries, pecans, shrimp, grapes, peaches and more are included, along with 13 recipes contributed by LCRA employees. The recipes were selected and tested by Austin's Texas Culinary Academy. Also on the calendar are monthly listings of community food festivals and events. To obtain a single copy of the calendar, send your name and mailing address to info@lcra.org. Put calendar in the subject line.
AOL presents a cookie a day
Here's a different kind of Advent calendar: Beginning Thursday, AOL is scheduled to launch its cookie calendar, which offers a new recipe each day as a treat. Among the recipes will be Macadamia Butter Cookies with Dried Cranberries, Raspberry Stripers and Junior Mint Brownies. The recipes are free to anyone on the Internet. Sign up for the daily cookie calendar alerts by going to aol.com/holidays.
Soupies share recipes to benefit charities
Soup Peddler David Ansel may have given up his bike delivery for a truck, but he has not lost his community spirit. He and his soupies — his soup subscribers — have compiled their second benefit cookbook with recipes from, ah, soup to nuts. Unlike many fundraisers, 100 percent of the proceeds from this local effort go to Mobile Loaves & Fishes and to Paballo Ya Batho, which he says is basically a Johannesburg, South Africa, version of Mobile Loaves. Much of the $10 book, available at Book People, is handwritten, complete with scratch-outs. Some recipes lack ingredient amounts, others the number of servings. This is not a professional publishing effort, but it is homespun from the heart for a charitable cause. There will be a kid-friendly stone soup party Saturday at 2 p.m. at Book People in conjunction with this book. The public is encouraged to bring a small amount of an ingredient suitable for the vegetarian soup re-enactment.
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