GourmandeMom™

The Quieter Side of Holiday Parties: Bringing Back the Kaffeeklatsch (and Kuchen)

As the holiday frenzy winds down I am looking forward to quieter times with family and friends, which reminds me of one of the most charming holiday parties this season: a good old-fashioned kaffeeklatsch.

We were told our invitations did not include an invitation to our significant others (i.e, the husbands of the married folk).  As part of getting schooled in our friend the hostess's German heritage, we learned about the tradition of the kaffeeklatsch. Women would gather and enjoy each other's company, conversation (gossip) over cakes or other simpler sweets and coffee. 

And so on a quiet Sunday afternoon, early in the holiday season, we arrived for the kaffeeklatsch.  The living room was casual and set up with a yummy sugary pastry and china coffee cups.  

The more formal living room just the next room over was set up to the nines, with more china, a china coffee pot, creamer, plates, silver knives and forks, and finely starched delicate linens with crochet.  We were told that the more formal setting in here, contrasted to the casual living room à propos of the kaffeeklatsch, replicated the kaffee kuchen ritual.  This ritual would generally not take place at home for the pastries were so fancy for this: one would generally go out for this ritual and have -- cake. 

We got things started off right with French 75 cocktails.  Then it was time to move in for the conversation and cake.  We tried to adhere to the formality of German custom and call each other "Frau" this and that, but that did not last long.  

I wanted a seat at the dining room table very badly and maneuvered myself to get one.  I was just so tickled with the German carols, the china, the silver, and the sweets all around.  And maybe the French 75 kicked in too by then. 

My seat was especially prime because it allowed close proximity to the cakes for viewing and then serving.  There were two tiny multi-layer cakes, one adorably perched on a cake stand. One was Black Forest Cake, of course; the other was Italian Wedding Cake.

The world is divided into those who in the food realm tend toward the salty and those that tend toward the sweets.  I have always been in the salty group and rarely get too excited about cake.

I especially have never been fond of Black Forest Cake or anything that tried to combine cherries with chocolate (except for biscotti) because it's just way too sweet. To get into the German theme though, Frau Wiley here went for a slice of the Black Forest Cake.  

We learned that whipped cream was a must: it would be served in a crystal bowl and just placed on the table for self-serving.  It could be used to stir into your coffee (yes, please), but also for the cake.

Seriously?  Whippped cream on the cake? Just right there, plop a dollop of it down on the already-frosted cake?   Yes.

I have a newfound appreciation for German food traditions (I am mostly of German heritage after all).

The cake selection was superb, from our favorite local bakery Upper Crust Bakery, and the Black Forest Cake was not too sweet.   It was just right.  And a dollop of whipped cream made it even more festive and, well, lighter it seemed. 

There followed, as we were seated so ladylike around the table, conversation and story-telling.  It was delightful and so civilized.  It was just plain old conversation with some new friends, and with some friends whom we see a lot of, but somehow we just don't seem to have enough space and time to really talk.  

Here's to all my over-extended, stressed-out mom friends and mover-shaker single women friends:  let's say yes to more times of treating outselves to fine china, silver -- and cake and whipped cream!  

But I would not say no to a French 75 beforehand.

Merry Christmas!  Kick back and enjoy some quiet now.

 

Old World and Illegal becomes Legal and Cool: Tenneyson Absinthe Royale...Interview with Tenneyson's Graham Wasilition

Browsing through the 6,000+ pictures on my iPhone, I ran across the pictures from the formidable food fest at the Swiss Ambassador's abode in Paris the last night of my 4 summer weeks in France, which helped me recall the absinthe tasting that night, which then reminded me of an absinthe I love way more than that one--a white absinthe called Tenneyson.  And that reminded of my pre-France trip fact-finding mission into another connection between Austin and France: Tenneyson Absinthe Royale.

Austin resident Graham Wasilition is almost twenty years younger than I.  But interesting nonetheless.  He is the founder and managing partner of the company that produces this white absinthe that is Tenneyson Absinthe Royale: distilled in the Jura mountains in Pontarlier, France—in the historic venue of La Distillerie Les Fils d’Emile Pernot, which was founded in 1890 and is in a charming corner of la Franche-Comté. 

It may first catch your eye as a gorgeous piece of glassware.  And indeed the bottle for this white absinthe has its own great story.  To get the right look for the distinctive etched (French) glass bottle, Graham has the same people in Poland who do the beautiful work for the Belvedere vodka bottle bestow their fine craftsmanship on the Tenneyson bottle.  The bottle, once etched with that distinctive scroll design, is shipped back to France to the distillery in Pontarlier.    

The bottle is filled with the end product, a result of aromatics distinctive to absinthe -- wormwood, anise, fennel -- plus other botanicals.  It is then corked and shipped to the US, to be placed on the shelves of cool bars and stores in seven states in the US, including Texas.  

(The man Graham hired to be responsible for the look and feel of Tenneyson’s packaging in that distinctive bottle is Mormon and has never had a drop of alcohol in his entire life.  Tenneyson (named after a famed absinthe drinker, the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson), scored a double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2011, for the spirit itself as well as the packaging.)  

All of this is going on from Graham’s home base in Austin, Texas.  And at Graham’s ripe old age of 29. 

We meet at Contigo.  Graham orders a Negroni, which he requests be made with Tenneyson.  On tasting this libation, I have a new-found appreciation for Campari.  I usually dismiss Campari for its icky pinkness, but it becomes the right counterpoint to the Tenneyson aromatics in this Negroni.  “Campari,” per Graham, “is perfect when the sun is still up.”  I like a good maxim for day drinking.

Graham orders his cocktails mathematically.  A “1-1-1,” in the case of the Negroni. Or later, it would be “3-2-1” for a martini, to describe the proportions of the gin, the dry vermouth, and the Tenneyson.  My Malbec choice now seems very boring. 

Graham’s entrepreneurial spirit is innate.   He was managing money early on as a Vice President of his fraternity at Virginia Tech, in charge of social event-planning and armed with a six-figure annual budget.  The business/social side of Graham’s engineer self got even more inspired while traveling the world for his materials science engineering gig at a local humongous technology company.  He was already thinking supply chains, distribution channels -- but for some of the classic Asian liquors.  Why not get Korea’s Soju in the US, for example. 

One day he gets a newspaper clipping from his mom that takes him down an entirely new road.  Absinthe Road (that certain road between France and Switzerland, with absinthe distilleries all over).  Mom’s newspaper article described the fact that absinthe was now legal again, after a long dark period of shame out of the public eye because of myths and misinformation that got it illegalized in the first place. 

Graham says to himself, “why not?”  Why not dig into this absinthe.   He digs deeply.  He consumes the contents of the Absinthe Encyclopedia (still in print and available here at amazon.com).   

He contacts the author, David Nathan-Meister.   Next thing you know, Mr. Nathan-Meister and Graham are developing a recipe for absinthe, with the goal of bringing something truly original to market.   They succeed.  They create a white absinthe.  One redolent of juniper and less in-your-face on the anise.   The result is not at all the scary green stuff that may lead to your thinking on all those stories/myths about hallucinations that gave absinthe its bad rap in the first place.  It is lovely.  Because it is strong on the juniper side, it makes for an easy, interesting substitute for gin in just about any cocktail.

How do you manage an artisanal product, crafted in a country (France) thousands of miles away from Austin, one that depends on the yield of the required aromatics to produce a quality product?   You get good people in France.   Graham's good people on the ground in Pontarlier is Master Distiller Dominique Rousselet.   M. Rousselet knows the terroir, knows the French growing season, knows how to get the best of the best at which time of year, and knows what tastes how at which times of the year.   All of the botanicals of this absinthe are from France: the quintessential wormwood is sourced there; the anise is mostly from Southern France.  For each distillation, suppliers send in their samples to Mr. Rousselet, for him to take only the best of what the land has to offer.  

They send Graham via FedEx some samples for certain batches.  Yes, from France.  They do not need to.  He trusts their judgment.  But he receives the packages, takes a good whiff of the stout aromas of the anise, fennel,  and wormwood -- and the select other botanicals that make his white absinthe unique.  He has samples going all the way back to the very early days.

As I would tell friends I was writing up a short, non-scientific piece about absinthe, they gasp.  Doesn’t that stuff kill you, make you hallucinate?   I too was a bit confused about all this:  how did absinthe, this forbidden pleasure so prevalent in Parisian literary lore of a certain era, roar back all of a sudden onto the cocktail scene?  

In checking out the myths about absinthe, this site on the key controversial ingredient, thujone, proved helpful.  For more on the naughty connotations of absinthe and its resurgence, see this lovely NY Times article, along with this one:  "Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder."

But at least a very short story on how absinthe is back on the shelves is in order.  It is back because, first of all, the science came through, cutting through hyperbole and rumors back in the day that led to people thinking, without any scientific backup, that absinthe was the cause of everything from tuberculosis to epilepsy.  See short concise history here. 

But hefty lobbying also helped get some laws changed.  “Absinthe” itself has not changed.  What has changed is what makes absinthe “legal”: what levels of one particular ingredient — thujone – can be included in the libation.   

For example, in the US the libation has to be “thujone free.”  “Thujone free” means it has no more than 10 mg of thujone per liter.  This is no problem because this is “classic” to absinthe production.  Thus, folks can still use the quintessential ingredient of wormwood and get the 10mg legal limit. Refer here again to Mental Floss's history of all this, via easy-to-digest bullet points.

So start thinking about a "Tenneyson and Tonic," or a "Tenneyson with [anything-you-might-think-about]" for a gin cocktail.  And then drink responsibly -- and let someone else drive.  Better yet, stay home and have an absinthe tasting with the neighbors...which has of course crossed my mind.  

 

 

Mi amigo from Paris...Tio Pepe

(so misleading...sort of sorry: this picture has nothing to do with sherry.  It is from another trip to France, however, to Angers, to check out l'Atoll, a lovely outdoor shopping forum with some super edgy design elements)

Some readers may recall, from last April's trip to Paris--that triathlon training/pre-pneumonia trip--that I had an encounter with a certain Tio Pepe.   I was in Paris looking for Verjus, for a long-awaited dinner reservation, and wandered in confusion around quirky multi-level, multi-staired streets around the Palais Royal, looking for Verjus, when I came across what I thought was the Verjus Wine Bar.  Which I thought would be a good place to while away an hour or so before the dinner reservation.  I was wrong -- about it being the Verjus Wine Bar that is.   I had stumbled into another (maybe even more perhaps) fabulous wine bar--one with a much longer pedigree in this charming quartier.  Juveniles.  Unknown to me at the time, but well-known now, it is one of the best wine bars in Paris for some. 

I asked for something cold and dry to just take the edge off before dinner in an hour or so.   What I got was a glass of something cold, crisp and white and bright - just what one wants if one is drinking something white rather than red.  

This was Tio Pepe, a Spanish dry sherry, fino style.  As I am in party-planning mode currently, and though already up to two signature drinks for the evening, I am recalling I just have to add Tio Pepe into the mix.

I so agree with Tim League's pronouncement:  not your grandma's sherry - in his BADASS Digest in which he includes my dear friend Tio Pepe.  (Caveat: It's an older 2011 article and refers to a sherry tasting at The Highball.  Long, long sigh that Highball is N/A right now.)  

Poor sherry...so maligned.  But I'm apparently not alone in my somewhat late to the party (as always) awakening -- to sherry -- thanks only to that wrong turn in Paris.  

Sherry is having a comeback, however, in the US and in London apparently, per this Food and Wine article, Sherry on Top:  "Given that sherry hasn’t been fashionable since the late 1700s or so, that’s quite a statement. But in London—and to some degree at restaurants in the US run by forward-looking sommeliers—sherry is having its moment."  

There's too much technical detail in that article for me.  But I heartily agree with the following based on my empirical study during that early spring evening in Paris. The Food and Wine article linked above reports for Tio Pepe, as one of "5 Great Sherries to Buy":

One of the world’s most popular sherries, this fino is also very good: dry, balanced and crisp, with a light minerally tang. Look also for the limited-production, unfiltered En Rama bottling (#25), which is more intense and exotic.

Yep, Tio Pepe, the time has come.  It has been a year.  A rough year, true.  But still. I have not held true to my promise to stay well-stocked with you in le frigo, lined up there along with my many bottles of random sparkling wines from many countries and the V-8 Splash, which many days substitutes (at least in my mind) for my son's daily vegetable servings when I am not making him haricots verts in garlic and olive oil (the only vegetable he appears to tolerate), which is often. 

But your day is coming, Tio, my friend.  We will see if you are available at (i) The Austin Wine Merchant or(ii) last resort, Spec's.  Hasta luego.

My First Downtown Austin Halloween (by accident) and safe travels home...whew. Seriously.

We were so looking forward to seeing our Argentinean friends and colleagues again in Austin.  It just so happened that the only night to enjoy cocktails and fine dining with them during their visit was October 31.  So it was that I left my son with a (gourmet) pizza and I headed out for my first cocktail-tasting stint at Second and Bar Congress, followed by steak, lobster, and more steak over at Ruth's Chris.

Here is a good rule of thumb when dining with Argentineans, especially those from the wine-growing province of Mendoza.  

Do not think they get plenty of great Argentinean wine at home so they won't want to have it here.  Wrong.  They want it here too.  And so it was that although I was so very ready and very willing to order my second "Congress GT" at Bar Congress....whoa that's a good cocktail....

C O N G R E S S   G T
Amarillo Hopped Gin · House Tonic · Citrus + Hops Bitters · Seltzer 9 

...I ended up having what they were wanting to have.  White wines.   Our costumed server pulled us out of a bind -- they had no Argentinean white wines -- by selecting just the right wines to make them happy.  They were so happy I asked her to write down the names of the wines.  (How secretly delighted was I that one of them was French.)  

(that's my bad writing down below there)

Then it was time for a nice walk in the cool night up Congress and over to 6th to Ruth's Chris.   Knowing the wine issue already...they came through for us here at Ruth's Chris too, bringing out for review and debate every single wine they had of Argentinean origin.  After lively debate about every single option, in that lovely Italian-esque sounding Argentinean Spanish, and some not too kind words about a Chilean winemaker who had a place in Mendoza (which did NOT count as an Argentinean wine), we settled in with two good choices that made our esteemed guests very happy.  Whew.

Things just got even better.   I learned I can still manage, sort of, dinner party conversation in Spanish.  I learned a lot about the steak prep and presentation (double broiler used; 500 degree plates used for serving); I learned that in Argentina "salad" is never a first course; I learned that there is a special word in (Argentinean) Spanish for when one tastes wine;  and I learned quickly that our several orders of spicy lobster on my recommendation (based on that tasting back at the Austin Film Festival Food event thing), were a huge hit among the carnivores.  

Dinner was then over, but of course one must have les digestifs.  They wanted scotch mostly.  We would walk to The Driskill.   

I say "we" - but it was really they and I straggled in later to find them.  I would get lost and stranded en route. I was stranded and lost at first because I was walking around dumbfounded by the spectacle of downtown Austin, 6th and Congress in particular, and all up and down Congress, and what this looks like on Halloween.  Yes, I do need to get out more.  

I never in a million years would have chosen to go downtown on Halloween if I had any idea it was like this.

But because our Argentinean friends could only make it this one night, there we were.

And the Driskill was just the right touch to cap off the night for us.

Not appropriate to post here what I saw at the Driskill in terms of the costumes on those many persons milling about and sitting and standing all around us.  Especially cannot post what I saw in the Ladies Room....

But the walk back to the car at Second, where the nice valets had told me 5.5 hours earlier that I had until midnight to get the car (barely made it), did yield share-able G-rated scenery. 

Well, that was all really fun.  But how was I going to get home?

No question but that I was not going to drive.

I could not walk home either from Second - well, actually I probably could....if I had 1.5 hours or so and better shoes.    I could take a taxi, assuming I could find one, but then the car would be left there downtown.

So I got a ride, for me and my car.  My trainer Angie started a company - Sober Monkeys - that, like other services like this, provides a service for getting you AND your car home.  I was starting to realize this dilemma earlier in the evening so gave Angie advance warning to put me on her probably/almost certainly list.  

Angie drove me home in my car, while a second driver followed in her car to follow me/us home.  Sure there's some paperwork in advance involved.  Sure it's a tad more expensive than a cab ride.  Maybe not more expensive.  But getting you, your car, and keeping everyone safe on a crazy night?  Priceless.  Use it.  

Angie did not even berate me on the way home for wasting away in one night all the pending good efforts of healthy eating and good workouts to get back into shape.

So :

• Thank you Argentina for giving us the lovely wine-growing province of Mendoza
• Thank you Bar Congress for hustling up the just-right white wines for our guests
• Thank you Ruth's Chris for cooking up ribeyes to please several discerning Argentinean men
• And, most of all, thank you Sober Monkeys for a safe ride home.  

 

 

Le Marche des Lices - Rennes - and why I need yet another picture of a pile of radishes??

(Le Marche des Lices, Rennes, France)

From my extremely comfortable bed in the surprisingly well-appointed-for-the-price Hotel Mercure in Rennes, I heard the bells of a nearby church ring.  It would have been easy to stay there for another couple of hours in that delightful state of cozy semi-consciousness.  But the lure of a market proved too much.  Despite jet lag still weighing me down, everything I had read kept nagging at me that I just had to get up and get the tired self over to the Marche des Lices.   The market is said to host some 300 products from all over Brittany.  Rennes is the capital of Bretagne, or Brittany en anglais, and this, the Marche des Lices, is the second largest market in all of France.   How could I lounge in bed when the second largest market in all of France was but a 12-minute walk away....

I couldn't, and I didn't. I got up and got over there.

 

It did not disappoint.

The first assault on the senses was all saliva-inducing savory stuff: sausage and chicken dripping with butter and fat.  Waffles, or gauffres, steaming hot just off the waffle iron.  

The next assault is a visual one.  A mass of people.  Organized.  Focused.  Intent on the food, comparing the food.  This mass of people was organized in that there were vague yet well-defined lines moving slowly, deliberately.  And most had shopping baskets--real baskets, the woven kind, not the kind made of metal with 4 wheels and a coffee cup holder and a hook for the purse--winding up and down and up and down the many aisles of produce piled high and stretching, at some point, literally as far as the eye could see.

I have pictures of vegetable and fruit stands and fish markets and oyster stands from all over France dating back to my high school trips.

And there have been others like me, though not so much here at the Marche des Lices which is very not tourist-y at all despite its gorgeousness, but in other market strolls, who are snapping pictures just as insanely as I am.  And of nothing but giant piles of radishes, romaine, cabbages and garlic.

Why do we do this?  

I have an inkling why I do it.  We eat with our eyes so the pleasure of seeing the earth's voluptuous bounty piled riotously high has to be part of the visceral joy of eating ... Whole Foods Market gets this.  Their produce displays evoke this - even under artifical light - where we can indulge in a little fantasy life of market shopping in a charming old-school back-to-the-earth way. 

"Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front--to "prime" us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store. Consider the opposite--what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers? Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.

The prices for the flowers, as for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, are scrawled in chalk on fragments of black slate--a tradition of outdoor European marketplaces. It's as if the farmer pulled up in front of Whole Foods just this morning, unloaded his produce, then hopped back in his flatbed truck to drive back upstate to his country farm. The dashed-off scrawl also suggests the price changes daily, just as it might at a roadside farm stand or local market. But in fact, most of the produce was flown in days ago, its price set at the Whole Foods corporate headquarters in Texas. Not only do the prices stay fixed, but what might look like chalk on the board is actually indelible; the signs have been mass-produced in a factory." 

Of course I realize, somewhere at some level, that there is a well-studied marketing scheme all behind this, playing to my senses, as the author of this article quote above notes.   The author wrote this while taking in one particularly bucolic faux market setting: the Whole Foods store in Columbus Circle in NYC.  I get it.  I'm being played.  But I go along, enjoying the fantasy, because I want to.  We just can't all be in France at the Marche des Lices all the time after all.

But here at the Marche des Lices, there there is another big difference from the pretend market experience (aside from this being the real thing).  In Rennes, the Market is set up nicely to be a spectator sport as well.  Cafes are strategically placed up on the higher elevation of this Place.   I thought hard about sitting and watching. Drinking a double espresso at 10h with that Market stretched out before me was tempting.  But how much better to just be in it.  Not just watching it.

And so it was that I said no to the cafe and yes to getting really into the Market.

Ducking into the larget metal and glass structure - an halle - full of still more foodstuffs: the local honey, breads, confits, salts and herbs and spices, charcuterie...I dived into the laughter and the chatter of these happy smiling vendors, who let me sample and compare, for example, the difference between honey made from spring flowers versus summer flowers, and let me eavesdrop for a long stretch an extremely long-winded conversation about goat milk yogurt.

I only recently unpacked my suitcase.  

I think a certain government agency that will remain unnamed (but who left a little love note in my luggage about their gentle search of my bag) may have lost an item or two I had in the suitcase while handling it....but at least I still have my goodies from the Marche des Lices in Rennes: salt, spices ... and honey made from springtime flowers.

GM Olympics Day 5: The Tigress

The best lesson this week of these really exhausting GM Olympics may be the (re)affirmation that taking a chance, getting out of a rut, and trying something new, generally has a big payoff. 

Case(s) in point:

Foreign & Domestic:  Hung in despite the insane heat and my almost irrational, probably mostly hormonal, crankiness.  Though in retrospect, and after conversing with a couple seated next to us at the communal table at Lenoir Restaurant this past Saturday night (don't go, terrible, awful place, and you'll just be taking up the seat that I want to have there every week to enjoy what is, really a little Verjus (i.e., Paris Verjus), on South 1st in Austin, Texas....), F&D is really pricey.   That will not keep from getting back there for the Fried Chicken Biscuit (Fried Egg, Black Pepper-Cheddar Biscuit, Romaine Slaw, Lemon Jam).

Central Market; l'Aperitif:   Hung in there too.  Met some nice people, spoke some French, got a restaurant tip for inexpensive cous cous in Paris, and learned how someone from France could end up in such a random place as Lubbock, Texas. 

Tigress:    We almost didn't go.  Almost went back into a rut.  The dilemma was that it was after-work Friday afternoon cocktails.  We were hungry.  But it was too early for dinner (6 pm).   I did not know if Tigress had food of any kind.  Suspected it did not have any food.  Came so very close to just taking a right turn from 45th to head toward Vino Vino.   But in the end said what the heck.  This is all about breaking out and trying something new.  So I took a left from 45th to head toward West North Loop. 

Parking is interesting.  By that I mean challenging. Finding Tigress in the first place is challenging.  There is no sign.  Their web site shows a picture of the brown concrete block box of a building, with non-descript glass and metal door like you would have to any run-of-the-mill commercial building storefront. 

 

I park in a questionable spot.   We walk in.

Hmm.  This is interesting.  The immediate feel is brown, orange, vinyl, and a little clubby because of the hum of regulars at the bar.   And it looks uncomfortable with just a few square bar stools with no backs, and precious few tables. 

We sit.  We peruse the menu.  We figure out we need to go up to the bar to order.  There is a friendly gracious blond behind the bar, cleaning glasses, measuring bright colored liquids into glasses, and chatting warmly and unpretentiously with those right there at the small bar.

The first round:

Moulin Rose (for me) (Tenneyson Absinthe, maraschino liqueur, simple syrup, lemon juice, fresh watermelon juice)

The Slingshot (Paula’s Texas orange, Paula’s Texas lemon, tequila, lemon juice,orange bitters, Peychards bitters, topped off with some Topo-Chico soda water)

 
On first sip, mine seemed overly sweet.  That maraschino liqueur for sure.  But it grew on me.  And grew and grew.  I realize I picked it because of the name - French-sounding of course, but also because of the allure of absinthe and the fact that it reminded me of New Orleans.  But being a French major, my English literature knowledge is weak.  On seeing Tenneyson in the description of the drink, I wrongly thought of Tennessee Williams.  Literary Melissa, however, begins describing the oeuvre of (British poet) Lord Alfred Tennyson, including quoting a few lines of selected poems.  Turns out Lord Alfred was a pretty avid absinthe drinker.  But wrong on this front too.  The name of this brand of absinthe has nothing to do with anybody literary  - but it is French.  Tenneyson Absinthe, I learn, is "[d]istilled in the historic Distillerie Les Fils d'Emile Pernot, located just outside Pontarlier in Eastern France ... formulated by David Nathan-Maister, author of The Absinthe Encyclopedia, and produced by Master Distiller Dominique Rousselet."

I am enchanted by the gorgeous cut of the stem on this glass (above).  I consider collecting vintage glassware.  This is truly the way to enjoy drinking such a lovely and thoughtfully composed cocktail.

By now I am realizing that there is a Tarzan movie showing on the small flatscreen in the place.  Original 1930s stuff.   By now we are hooked.  On the place.  So not pretentious.  Not stuffy.  Not clubby or unwelcoming as such a neighborhood trendy place could possibly be.  And by now the place is packed.  Standing room only.  I wonder where all these people parked....

Must definitely try another round.

The Corpse Reviver (for me) (Waterloo Gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice, and a few drops of Absinthe)

The Pegu club (Waterloo gin, Grand gala, lime juice, Angostura bitters)

 It must have been warm and friendly owner Pam who brought these cocktails over.   I tell her how much I love the glasses.  She tells me that this one, the one holding my yellow-hued Corpse Reviver, is on its last legs. It is one of her very favorites.  Maybe the favorite.  But it is so delicate that every time she washes it she wonders if that will be the last time and prepares herself for the loss.   I move it closer to the middle of the very small table.  No way I'm going to be the last person to enjoy a cocktail out of this very delicate glass, with tiny etchings of flowers and such a thin stem.

And so The Tigress ranks way up there: for lovely cocktails, enjoyed in vintage glassware, surrounded by brown, orange, and vinyl and a really diverse group of people - and maybe no one but me mesmerized by how shockingly racy the 1930s black & white Tarzan films are. 

 

GourmandeMom Olympics Day 3: L'Alliance Francaise d'Austin Aperitif

It doesn't really count in terms of new venue, new food, or new cocktail.  And after all, I had a twofer Tuesday night with both Foreign & Domestic and Aviary.  This was supposed to be my night off.  But it counts because of a couple of life lessons. 

The event was one hosted by the Alliance Francaise d'Austin.  For members and non-members, they host a monthly "apéritif" at different wine/food venues around town, as a place and time to practice one's French with other Alliance members.  I miss most of these events, but this particular one was being held 5 minutes away, at Central Market. So what the heck.

For the lessons:  First, the heat. Yes, it was hot.  Again.  All there was reserved for us was an outdoor table.  I of course shared my story of Foreign & Domestic from just the night before, including how ridiculous it seemed to be driven almost insane by the heat.  And in light of the heat and nothing going on right then in terms of people gathering, and having another informal outing after this one, I almost did not stick this out.   I almost left.  Someone else did in fact leave (the heat).  As nothing seemed quite ready for us anyway in terms of a table, etc., I instead went shopping and stocked up on vinho verde, the perfect summer vino with that low alcohol content and sparkly bubbly slight carbonation.  I was briefly annoyed that it was a little more than the $5 per bottle I remember it being last summer.   

I also thought I'd go ahead and get some already chilled white wine, as I had decided by then I would stick it out for a time and deal with the heat.  I poured a few tumblers of Mommy's Time Out for the group - because this was after all the theme of my week - my Mommy's time out of sorts with the son on vacation.

By then, our host, new President of the Alliance Française - herself française -  had returned.   On the long table we now had for us outside, under the covered patio part of the outside, covered with a bright red tablecloth, she laid out the spread.   Sliced French bread (cannot really call that a baguette) - and a platter of grilled chicken and a platter piled high with cheese, decorated witih edible flowers.  And then more - hummus and a spicy something akin to a romanesco sauce. 

 There were more bottles of wine - a nice Malbec rosé, a red, in addition to my Mommy's Time Out donation.  So lesson number 1?  The heat is not so bad and worth dealing with when there food, wine, and friends are involved.

And the benefits for sticking it out were plenty - ergo the more life lessons.  Because I stayed, I learned from a woman who was in Paris for le 14 juillet, part of her treat to herself - 6 weeks in Paris post M.A. degree (in education) - that for the big holiday and big party at the Tour Eiffel, la tour eiffel was decked out with a giant disco ball hanging there in the middle.  There were 70s and 80s classic disco tunes.  There were fireworks.  There was dancing everywhere as the speakers for the audio were all up and down in all directions from the Eiffel Tower.  Her pictures were great.  This one, from the Paris Untapped site tagged above, is not bad either, but the glittery ball does not show up so well amidst the fireworks.  Better is this footage available from this Chicago Tribune article/video.   I guess I missed all this news, lost in my reverie that day here over the J. Geils Band and my first trip to Paris  student days some thirty+ years ago.

Thursday, Day 4, was supposed to be a day off too, as I sort of had a new nice experience on Day 3.   But no.  I went to another new place La Cocina de Consuelo after a swim workout for an overly hearty chilaquiles breakfast.   In terms of what I thought about it... well, I went there again, on Day 5, for dinner.   It is for sure the go-to for Mexican food now.  When the son gets back, we'll be back there - for my third time in one week. 

But I for sure will not be taking to him to my other new favorite funky new place, which is Tigress, over on West North Loop, serving up classic classy cocktails in vintage glassware - and all in a small concrete building decorated with faux leather painting inside and streaming a loop of Tarzan movies.  

Four Seasons Lobby Lounge Work Session

As I did not want to re-schedule the already re-scheduled client meeting, at our usual venue of The Four Seasons Lobby Lounge, I opted to get there early and work on the work due in 1.4 days.

On this particular weekday at 3 p.m. in the Four Seasons Lobby Lounge, it is packed.  Lots of other people had the same idea.  The bar was full of groups of people with laptops, iPads, power cords and spread out on the comfy couches and low coffee tables with papers and notebooks everywhere. 

I scored a great table, right next to an outlet, with a view of the windows onto the beautiful outside grounds and blue sky that afternoon.

But amidst all those lovely soothing earth tones of the bar there are bursts of color everywhere here and there.  On every table there are books.   I figure out they are scrapbooks.   They are orange, red, blue - and each with a vintage-esque photo inset into the cloth cover.

Looking into the book while powering up the laptop, I notice it is Watermelon Month.  Specifically, "Ode to the Texas Watermelon" month.  All for the month of July.

And in homage to watermelon month, perhaps, there is this homespun down on the hip farm type themed scrapbook-y menu book, with lovely font for the menu items therein.  Also there, on the first page into the scrapbook, there is an array of watermelon-themed cocktails.

I have a meeting.  And a lot of work to do.  So I order a salad (late lunch).  And water.  (By the time the client and consultant get there, there will be plenty of other libations on the table.  It was wiser to pace myself.  And hydrate.)

I got a fair amount of work done.  We the work group make some good progress. And while client and consultant got overly geeky technical with technology matters, I worked on my work, sketching out some ideas and doing some research.   

But the whole afternoon at The Four Seasons for work was just so lovely, right there next to an outlet, the sunlight from the banks of the lake streaming in -  in a good way, not a hot, glaring way - and with people at my beck and call to go get me water, iced tea, anything.....I wondered why I did not do this more often.  

And then I got the bill.  And then I remembered why.  But the idea is still a good one.  But for a few weeks, I am back to La Croix water and Goldfish breaks at the office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When a salad dresssing is like a madeleine [post chamber music concert dining at Hopfields]

A few months ago one of my usual baristas at my local favorite Starbucks told me, after I had maybe mentioned the most recent time away in Paris, that I should try Hopfields, which he described as a French-themed Gastropub with a wide beer selection.  The beer selection description through me off - not a huge beer fan.  I would recall that tip from time to time, however, because of the alleged French connection, but would then quickly forget the information, as happens to me a lot these days as to lots of things. 

When Melissa and I opted for dining après the Austin Chamber Music Center Summer Music Festival concert this past Friday night (that night was a gorgeous performance by adorable Brazilian men comprising the Brazil Guitar Duo), we had that dilemma as frequently happens in Austin, sadly, of where to eat late(ish) at night.  She mentioned Hopfields.  I mentioned my longtime forgetfulness of getting over there.

I looked at the menu on line.  I sighed with longing for France.  Really?  A "merguez frites" sandwich ... who but a real French street cred place would serve merguez?   [Merguez is a spicy North African sausage that the son lived on during one trip to Paris while craving Tex-Mex food; it's a lamb, or sometimes beef, sausage.]

And the cocktail menu...what's not to love about a cocktail being served at a French-themed Gastropub called "75 Years in Provence."  

[As part of my French major at Sweet Briar I did an intensive winter break study course in Marcel Pagnol - and ever since then "Provence" (and who can forget the Peter Mayle frenzy about the Luberon, Vaucluse, etc. (my favorite book of his though is his novel, Hotel Pastis)) conjures up for me rough, magestic terrain of Cezanne landscapes, lazily stirring the contents of a glass of pastis out on a courtyard overlooking fields of lavender, sitting at a rustic, worn 400-year-old wood table salvaged from a vineyard down the road, and olive trees all around, their silvery leaves fluttering in the sunlight.  [Note: I have never done anything like this, but who would not ponder such a life upon looking wistfully, as I do far too often, at the Provence abodes on the Haven in Paris site....]

To optimize the numbers of Hopfields items I could try, I started with the simple salade verte.  And then ordered, to follow, a tomato and manchego tarte.  Seemed very provençal.  I had had only a few sips of the glass of Cotes du Rhone when the salade verte arrived.

I sighed.  It was so very lovely to look at.  It was as if the entirety of the most lovely and perfectly formed head of bibb letture was placed just right and opened up just right in the shallow bowl.  Melissa transfers something from her salade verte to mine.  I interrupt my reverie on how beautiful this lettuce is to see what the deal is.  Ah, a wedge of brie.  Or Camembert.  I get hers.  [She hates cheese. I love cheese.  Dining out works well.]

And then I ruin the masterpiece of nature by cutting into the lettuce (bad form in France, but I'm in Austin). 

"Oh.  Oh.  Wow."  I sigh.  It is so, so very perfect.  It is so France.  It is the quintessential French vinaigrette  - for me.  And so I have my own Proustian moment.   This dressing reminds me of sitting in the kitchen for a simple Sunday evening supper with the family I stayed with for one month in Paris the summer after high school.  It reminds me of a particular salad my friend Elizabeth would order, when we were on the (Sweet Briar) Junior Year in France, at a cafe over near the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where she was taking art history classes.  It is, in short, la belle France set in a beautiful perfect bowl of seasonal greens.   

As we forgot to order cocktails before the meal, we had those next (the "75 Years in Provence").

[photo by Melissa]

Sure the tart was nice too.  It came with a salad on the side.  But that salad was nothing like the simple green salad I had aforehand.  It was more redolent of garlic - though generally nothing wrong with that - and was comprised of field greens.  [I am just about ready to boycott field greens entirely because I cannot stand to see them anymore.  And they're hard to eat.  I'm on a crispy romaine lettuce kick these days.]

Hopfields is, amazingly lucky for me, so close to my house.  It is open for lunch.  It is open late at night. 

It cannot take the place of France, but it is a nice reminder of the immense pleasure that something so very simple as a well-conceived salade verte (and an extra wedge of cheese) can bring. 

Now if one certain waitstaff person there would not have repeated my order of frites (yes, one more item, just wanted to try them - out of this world), by pronouncing the "s" on the end, all would be very, very well with the world and my new favorite place so close to chez moi.  But I'm not complaining.  So long as they never, ever think about changing that salad dressing on the salade verte.

 

 

 

 

(My) New New Orleans - Part I

I remember the phone call from my dad the day Katrina hit.  I was sitting in my office in downtown Austin. 

“It’s gone. It’s all over.”

By this I knew he meant that every feeling, taste, and vista that was our idea of our New Orleans would never be the same.  But I could not really grasp then that even if it, the city, was not literally wiped off the map, the fine network of individual lives that have to get all bound up together to create a culture, a history – a soul...all those layers were maybe all gone.   I couldn't bear to watch the news.

Growing up in West Texas I felt like I had a secret double life.  Ok, if not exactly a double life at least an alternate reality.  That alternate reality was New Orleans.  We lived our daily lives in a small town of about 70,000 in the dry heat of West Texas.  With no good coffee.  Lots of Tex-Mex restaurants.  But no other type of real restaurant to speak of.  We did not have gorgeous mossy towering oak trees or jazz in sultry courtyards or freakishly large crepe myrtles bowing down under the weight of a ton of bright hot pink blossoms.  In short, we had no sultry.  We had mesquite trees. 

But several times a year, and mostly the summer, we would be with the New Orleans people.  When we did this pilgrimage by car, as we were crossing the Sabine River I would lift my feet off the floor of the car and not put them down until they landed, figuratively, on Louisiana soil, which crossing the Sabine River means you have done.  We would cross the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway.  That 18.2 mile stretch of I-10 built over and in a swamp.  And if you have to take an engineering marvel of a freeway, built in a swamp, to get somewhere, you get the feeling that you're headed into some serious foreign territory.

After we would exit I-10 East onto Carrollton Avenue, there was the obligatory stop at Ye Olde College Inn for the iconic roast beef po-boy (fully “dressed” of course, with mayonnaise).  No way to describe just how good mayonnaise tastes mixed in with au jus and the feeling of it all running down your forearms as you lift the sandwich up to take that first bite, when the outside of the French bread is still flaky crusty and the inside is hot, savory roast beef in a hot mess of mayonnaise and gravy juice stuff.  It's pretty good.  Or it was.  This po-boy does not exist there, that way, anymore. 

With that fix, we could continue on down Carrollton Avenue, down to the end to make that left turn onto St. Charles Avenue and into Uptown and around Audubon Park, into Uptown's towering oak trees, sidewalks and front porches, crawfish boils, Sunday walks to mass at a grand cathedral at Loyola University, and Mardi Gras beads from the last parade hanging from the trees still.  No tumbleweeds.  No dust.

Here, being Catholic (as we were, are) meant you were not a curious minority as can be the case out in West Texas.  Here in New Orleans we were part of the vast majority where memories and rituals of rosaries, candles, adorations of Mary, altars, and feasts for St. Joseph were merged into a collective communal memory of a very rich food life.  

 
This life also had relatives who did not timidly hug upon greeting you upon your arrival but kissed you on the cheek (!)...a life full of tales of crewes and their exotic, regal names - Rex, Babylon, Hermes - Mardi Gras queens and kings, bacon grease, alligator hunting, duck hunting, tracts and horses and boudin and cattle drives. 

All this is bound up in the memory of thick New Orleans accents around command central that was my grandmother’s large oval Scandinavian design table.  Here it became very obvious that the far cooler cousins of my vintage (there are 32 (first) cousins) – the ones who lived in Lafayette - had a firm command over their food personas at a very early age. 

At no more than 11 or 12 (in the 1970s) they were drinking something they called "café au lait" with breakfast and had strong opinions about how much filé to add to their gumbo.  They might as well have been smoking Marlboros at the table as shocked as I was by this libertine activity. 

To make up for the deprivation in West Texas these trips to New Orleans were Dionysian food fests.  We cannot eat this way now.  But eat this way we did then. 

There was this extraordinary ice cream place:  "Haagen-Dazs."  Exotic for us in the 1970s.  There was a French pastry shop, on Carrollton close to where the original Camellia Grill is now.  There were meals at all the old standards, by today's standards:   The Gumbo Shop on rue St. Peter in the Quarter and that praline sundae (a caramel sauce with pecans floating in it poured over a single scoop of vanilla ice cream in an icy cold metal dish), beignets out at Morning Call in Metairie, brunch at Brennans and Commander’s Palace – where Ella Brennan back then would be holding court - and The Bon Ton, Christian's, Casamento's, Stephen & Martin.  And a long ago lost tradition and lost art: nectar sodas at the K&B. 

I just went back to New Orleans for only the third or fourth time since Katrina.  This visit, I note the city is looking pretty darn perky: Starbucks is packed on Maple Street, Carrollton Avenue has been repaved - no more bone-crushing potholes - and there is a construction boom for high-end real estate around the Metairie Country Club. 

I find I am more accepting of New Orleans with her frailties still laid bare - the canopy of lush foliage over St. Charles Avenue is still not quite as lush, the "neutral ground" - that patch of green that divides St. Charles Avenue and hosts the trolley car tracks - is still sad and unkempt to my eye, for example.  But there is so much renovation and reinvention too:  The Roosevelt Hotel is all spiffy and chic now, for example.  We were told they will soon have live jazz in the evenings in the ornate yet hip grand lobby.  The Sazerac Bar, which looked pretty dang comfy and mod enough already, will be getting a makeover soon to match the rest of the way more mod furnishings elsewhere in the public spaces of the hotel.  (I'm not entirely sold on this idea in terms of historic preservation, but it's a good educational reason to visit again.)

And so I am way ready to get way more acquainted with the new New Orleans - its urban renewal to be sure but especially the restaurant scene. 

This all started with one lunch.  At Cochon.  And one really spectacular cocktail. 

This part of my old New Orleans has definitely not changed.

To be continued ... with Part II, or "Mom, did you really have to ask the waiter if he liked the gumbo??"

Giada, PW (Pioneer Woman) & Prosecco

I’m still agog that Giada was on Chealsea Lately.  But moving on – I have the cookbook now, weeknights with Giada, and I have to say the array of recipes is quite nice.  Nice in the sense that they are just different enough, just easy enough, and written well enough in a nice choice of font, that it made me want to start cooking again.  What’s not to love about these recipes with titles like “risotto with currants, pine nuts, and feta cheese” and the first dish I cooked out of it for the son, my first meal post-Paris and that aftermath: “whole wheat linguine with bacon, shrimp, and basil”-- And the pictures of Todd, Giada in cleavage, and their adorable little girl are not over the top.  

The one cookbook inspired two forays back into cooking:  dinner for the son, for whom I had not really cooked in weeks – out of Giada’s cookbook - and the son’s birthday cake, out of Pioneer Woman’s (“PW”) cookbook.   Both forays were accompanied by one of my absolutely favorite pastimes of all time, drinking while cooking.  I prefer to call it however the hour of the apéro.  I know the aperitif experience is not supposed to be done by oneself – because that’s just drinking alone, and doesn’t sound as nice as an aperitif ritual.  But what’s not to love about a holiday weekend of cooking in the kitchen, French radio on the iPhone, a good first draft done of a brief – and a nice crisp and cool Argentinean white wine and almonds with light dusting of sea salt. 

But there are hazards to drinking while baking. 

First, baking requires precise measurements.  They should be precise even for such a rough-hewn and simple but rich and decadent recipe as Pioneer Woman’s recipe: a classic chocolate sheet cake.  The kind with that dense moist cakey part, not too sweet, and the thick (chocolate) confectioner’s sugar frosting loaded up with vanilla and nuts and more dark cocoa powder and all of that poured over the cake while it is still hot.  All it took was half a glass of wine and I could not keep track of the flour measurement.  All I could find that was clean was the one-third cup measure: that meant I needed six (6) of those for two (2) cups.  I started, stopped, started over – twice.  It Is hard to count to 6 with certainty when over 45 and having a classy apéro/drinking alone in the kitchen.

Second, because I am not a spatial relationships or math person, I did not so great when I opted to go it alone and not follow the PW’s instructions and pour the batter into a baking sheet – used the old reliable baking pan.  I did some “rough math” in my head to increase the cooking time appropriately.   This would end up, I realized, most likely, with a molten lava cake in the middle.  But I figured once it cooled, then sat in fridge overnight, then came out for party time, it would be like a chocolate molten lava cake but with no running lava.  It was.  (See below finished product.)

Third, I had 3 partially full 2-pound bags of confectioner’s sugar.   The PW recipe calls for 1 pound of confectioner’s sugar for that frosting, which cooks up quickly while the cake is baking (which is a mere 20 minutes if you used the correct baking equipment, which I had not).   And no, I do not have a scale.  I just had to eyeball the amount (after 1 glass of wine) while pouring it into the butter and cocoa powder mixture.   As this all occurred, including my usual baking secret (add extra vanilla and nuts—always) into glass no. 2 of wine.  This occurred not only on glass no. 2 but also after serious sugar overload from taking walnut halves and dragging them through the thick chocolate batter in the big metal bowl and eating them.  Seriatim.  

This simple sheet cake.  I am seeing everywhere now, and it is touted as some secret delicious hip and groovy new dessert trend.  It is nothing new though.  It has been in my family – as in my growing-up family – since like forever.  It was our specially requested birthday cake for many years when we were growing up, and mostly when we were grown up (i.e., after age 35).  When I announced to mom and dad this would be the birthday cake choice for the son, and that it was from PW’s cookbook, they both had a critical eye to how she did hers.  Lard or oil, they asked.  Neither, I said.  Huh, they said. 

I did not fully appreciate the cake until after the party.  During the party there was too much self-analysis going on and monitoring of conversation with and among former spouse, his parents, the son, my parents – and making sure someone else, anyone, was having Prosecco besides just me.   

After the party though, after everyone had gone, and the son nowhere to be seen, ensconced back in the boy cave again, there was just me and the cake and the Prosecco and the French lounge music.  The cake I noticed had some odd, uneven edges based on the haphazard cutting and serving ritual (mine).  They were very annoying.  They were therefore evened out, little by little, with a fork and knife, by me (and remnants consumed also by me), into nice 90-degree angles and/or straight lines.  

Cooking tips – which I rarely have: 

(1)    Undercook the cake;

(2)    Add more vanilla and more pecans/walnuts than the recipe calls for; and

(3)    Save a square, or sliver or two or three, for when you can really focus on how simple yet good and complex this cake is (i.e., by yourself).  If you must enjoy this experience with a friend, I would refer you to Mr. Prosecco.