FOOD AND LIFE

Former Driskill chef David Bull launches online cookbook

Plus: Corvina Pizzeria opens in Round Rock, Aussie cupcakes at Sugar Mama's, the Austin Wine Festival, the Fredericksburg Crawfish Festival

Cuisine, through the virtual eye of David Bull

Even though chef David Bull left the Driskill Hotel in 2007 to oversee the culinary operations at the renovated Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas and the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio, he never left Central Texas. Bull and his wife, who is expecting their fifth child, have called Manor home for the past five years, and it's where Bull put together and tested many of the recipes in his first solo cookbook, "Bull's Eye on Food," an interactive venture available online only at www.chefdavidbull.com ($35 for a yearlong subscription, Keeper Collection).

Home cooks can search and sort the 80 recipes, read stories behind their creation and organize a shopping list through the site, which also features videos of Bull explaining cooking techniques. "You can't impart that level of information in a book," says Bull, who will be adding dishes, including seasonal grilling and holiday recipes, as the year progresses. "You can get a hardcover for life, but it doesn't change. `Bull's Eye on Food' will become my database for all of my recipes." If all goes well, Austinites soon will get to enjoy Bull's cooking in real life again. As chef-partner of LaCorsha Hospitality Group, Bull says he will be working on the planned Seaholm Plaza Hotel near South Lamar Boulevard as the project gets under way next year.

- Addie Broyles

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho with Jicama Hot Stix

This summery vegetarian soup is a good way to use up all those fresh tomatoes from the market or your garden. Bull says that of the thousands of ways you can prepare gazpacho, he prefers this one, which has a chunky feel in the mouth, thanks to the diced vegetables.

For gazpacho:

8 yellow tomatoes, quartered

4 cloves garlic, smashed

1/3 cup cucumbers, peeled, seeded and diced large

1/3 cup baguette, torn into large pieces

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1 large jalapeño, seeded and minced

2 tsp. cilantro, finely chopped

2 cups cucumber, small diced

2 cups red onion, finely chopped

4 Tbsp. lime juice

For Jícama Hot Stix:

1 jicama, cut into 1/4-inch by 3-inch sticks

1 tsp. arbol chiles, toasted and ground

1 Tbsp. cilantro, finely chopped

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1/2 tsp. sea salt, to taste

8 sprigs cilantro, for garnish

Place the yellow tomatoes, garlic, cucumber, bread, extra-virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar and salt in a medium bowl and marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Place everything from the bowl into a blender, purée until smooth and strain through a fine mesh sieve. Transfer the purée from the blender to a mixing bowl and combine with the jalapeños, cilantro, cucumber and red onion. Add lime juice to the mixture and season with salt to taste.

For Jicama Hot Stix, combine in a large bowl the jicama sticks, ground arbol chile, cilantro and lime juice and season with salt to taste. Ladle equal portions of the gazpacho into chilled soup bowls. Place the jicama sticks into the soup and garnish with sprigs of cilantro. Serves 8.

- David Bull, 'Bull's Eye on Food'

At Corvina, deciding on a wine might take time

Pizzeria Corvina Wine Bar & Marketplace has opened in Round Rock, offering pizzas, pasta dishes and roasted main courses of beef, chicken and fish cooked in an 800-degree, coal-fired oven. The restaurant, named for an Italian wine grape, fittingly offers more than 100 wines, favoring Italian regions, with 16 reds and 14 whites available by the 250-milliliter carafe, from $6 to $25, with 16 beers on tap, including Italian favorites Peroni and Moretti. Corvina specializes in house-made ingredients, including mozzarella cheese, fettuccine pasta, pizza dough, sauces, meatballs and breads. Pizzas start at $10, pastas at $11. Round Rock Crossing shopping center at 3107 S. Interstate 35, Suite 840. 512-310-2625, www.pizzeriacorvina.com. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.

- Mike Sutter

Cupcakes from Down Under at Sugar Mama's

With every tweet, the world gets a little smaller. Or bigger, if you're baker Jess Pryles, owner of Sugadeaux Cupcakes in Melbourne, Australia, who traveled thousands of miles recently to meet up with Sugar Mama's Bakeshop owner Olivia O'Neal. The two met each other through the microblogging service Twitter after both were featured on the New York blog Cupcakes Take the Cake. They struck up a virtual friendship and less than a year later, Pryles trekked to Austin for a week of guest baking at Neal's South First Street bakery. For five days starting Tuesday of next week, Pryles will serve some of her signature Australian treats, including the malt chocolate ball-based Malteser cupcake, the Cuban cocktail-inspired Mojiteaux cupcake and cookies made with wattleseed, which comes from the national flower of Australia. No Vegemite cupcakes, Pryles promised. 1905 S. First St., www.sugarmamasbakeshop.com

- A.B.

Texas Best back on shelves

Texas Best Barbeque is back. For years, the smoky, not-too-sweet sauce based on an Austin family recipe was one of the top-selling sauces in the country, says Alen Smith, whose great-aunt got the recipe from a teen who worked at her house in Austin in the 1930s. Smith was just 13 when he learned the recipe. He got the company off the ground in the late 1970s and eventually sold it. Years after Smith sold the company, things went downhill and the sauce was pulled from grocery store shelves. In 2007, Smith bought the company back, and the famous sauce ($3.99), rub ($5.99) and hot sauce ($1.79) are available at H-E-B and several other large retailers again. "We brought it back to the way it originally was," Smith says. www.texasbestbarbequesauce.com.

- A.B.