Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Betty Crocker red cover, my mother's copy. Started with the cookies!

-taco express does a gospel brunch/hippie church on sundays, live music and a crowd, 12 - 2pm, and they have great, cheap, tacos and horchata. it's on south lamar.
-east side cafe on manor road uses veggies from their own garden.
-a lot of people like salt lick or county line for bbq.
-torchy's and el chilito both have great tacos.
-thai passion is a good thai place downtown off congress. I also like titaya's on lamar.
-hut's hamburgers on 6th is a fun classic burger joint with shakes, fries, etc.
-some pricier/nicer options: jeffrey's has been around in austin forever. zoot and wink are good too.
-places for beer: dog and duck pub on guadalupe, opal divine's on 6th, draughthouse on burnet, and crown and anchor (good burgers) on san jacinto.
-daily juice has awesome juices and smoothies.
-for great pastries (austin doesn't have a lot of these, sadly), go to uppercrust bakery on burnet or sweetish hill on west 6th.

most of these are local restaurants or local chains :)

a spoonful of peanut butter dipped in chocolate chips. or a dark chocolate truffle. mmmm...

sardines! sardines and vegenaise on rice crackers. also handfuls of blueberries, but not usually with the sardines.

I usually wash my dishes in a dirty pot or dirty (large) mixing bowl, and it really does save a lot of water. I haven't had a dishwasher in a few years ("efficiency" apartment living), and boy, I really REALLY miss it sometimes. I cook almost every meal and eat at home frequently, so they pile up quickly.

Made this last night. The BF and I loved it! Very easy, very tasty. I really loved the addition of the cinnamon and cloves, something I never would have thought to include.

blueberries, all the way, no contest, absolutely.

hash browns get salsa, home fries get ketchup.

so many disasters - the most recent was an ice cream pie. I decided to make the ice cream, caramel sauce, crust, everything myself. And the recipe instructed me to "drizzle" the peanut butter. It was clumpy and sticky, and even melted and refrozen as ice cream it was nasty.