Posted by Lia Bulaong, May 2, 2007 at 4:30 PM
Ed Crowell, Kitty Crider, Dale Rice, and Renee Studebaker of the Austin American-Statesman all spent an entire week in April as locavores, trying their best to eat only food that was grown and manufactured within a 200-mile radius of Austin. Crider points out that "while Texas is a large agricultural state, Travis County is not," and so while there were many things they chose to do without (bananas, tortilla chips), there are also foods they expanded their definitions to include (oranges from the Rio Grande Valley, seafood from the Gulf), and others they rationalized into keeping like coffee, tea and spices saying, "after all, this country's pioneers traded afar for those things, too."
All four writers kept detailed diaries of where they shopped, what they ate and how they made it during their seven day experiment; they all ended up cooking much more than usual and eating out rarely, if at all. The diaries are an interesting read whether you're already a locavore, just thinking about, or think it's hogwash because at the very least you're bound to learn something about how other people make creative use of what they have at hand, which is really what cooking is all about. Crowell had a lot of difficulty finding food but concluded, "I'll continue to use more local foods because the fresh taste is better and I'd rather trust food from a farmer met at a market than an anonymous string of growers, packers and transporters."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 4, 2007 at 9:30 AM
Austin area meat eaters and music lovers will tell you about the wonders of Stubb's, the barbecue restaurant and live music venue on Red River founded by the late chef and pitmaster C. B. Stubblefield. The recently published Stubb's Bar-B-Q Cookbook has recipes from the restaurant as well as Stubblefield's personal cookbook, as well as photos and stories from his colorful life.
The Austin American-Statesman's Kitty Crider shares the book's recipe for Korean Steak, Stubb-Style, created after Stubblefield served in Korea and "discovered that Koreans and Texans have much in common: Both love beef, chili peppers, and grilling over a charcoal pit."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 16, 2007 at 12:40 PM
The 29th anniversary of Austin's pandemonious potted pork festival is coming up—this year's SPAMARAMA® will be held April 7, from noon till six. There's a SPAM™ cook-off, of course, with cash prizes going to the winners of the Open and Professional categories, as well as the People's Choice Award; the SPAMALYMPICS™ features storied events like "the SPAM® Disc Shoot, the SPAM™ Call (remotely similar to a hog call), the SPAM™ Can Relay and the SPAMBURGER® Eating Contest". Keep Austin weird, indeed.
[via Weird Eats]
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 7, 2007 at 6:06 PM
The yearly South By Southwest conference in Austin is coming up this weekend and so Virginia B. Wood of the Austin Chronicle put together Smoke Trail, a guide to eleven purveyors of delectable BBQ around the city center: "Central Texas is nationally known for great barbecue, and we consider the capital to be the burnished buckle of that famous barbecue belt. In part because Austin is where the South meets the Southwest, we've got it all here – the mesquite-smoked West Texas cowboy style, the German/Czech sausages and dry-rubbed smoked meats, and the soul-satisfying deep South style of meats smoked over hardwoods and slathered with sauce. Working on the assumption that many of our March visitors will be concentrated in the core of the city, we're featuring 11 worthwhile joints located no farther than a brisk walk or short cab ride from major central-city attractions."
(Iron Works Barbecue is right behind the convention center and very tasty, I've had lunch there a few times while attending SXSW in years past. Having said that, my favorite meals in Austin have been at The Boiling Pot, a five minute walk away from the convention center—no bbq, but you won't miss it because the seafood is spicy, delicious and served by the bucket.)
