GourmandeMom™

Odd Duck Austin * Mark's Bread Ovens v. Poilâne

With the next Paris reconnaissance trip a long few months away - in April 2014 - and with budget constraints limiting shipments of Poilâne bread straight to me, I anxiously sought out the sur place resulting from the in-house bread program overseen by Mark at Odd Duck.  Ever since the Outstanding in the Field event with Bryce Gilmore at the helm and Mark at the bread oven, I've been anxiously awaiting Odd Duck's opening for a ready source of crusty, exquisitely textured homemade bread.  

Dinner there last night on December 30 - at the embarrassingly early time of 17h30 - met this longfelt need.  As I had dreamed it, bread was on the menu.  For $5, and I did not mind that at all--though a Poilâne miche -- 4 times the size of these sweet little loaves of carbohydrates --  is 9.05 euros last I checked (just now), which is about $12.30, making Mark's bread fairly pricey compared to the humongous size of a Poilâne miche. No matter.  Eating just the crust of this bread, with this butter, is a meal in itself.  With red wine of course.

Do I mind paying $5 for this bread, served alongside a huge gloppy delicious mass of homemade butter?  Non.  Though at Arro I was highly offended by the idea of having to pay for bread, I am getting used to the idea now.  

For Mark's bread, this bread made in those cozy warm bread ovens -- where we were seated last night, with views out through the glass out into the West, looking back over my left shoulder, as the sun was setting and the sky all orange and hot pink -- I will gladly pay $5.

On a scale of 1 to 10...the scorecard.

Vibe/Decor : 9.3

I arrived at 5 pm - so excited about feeling better, finally - and being out and about. I looked forward to having a glass of wine at the bar.  This was not to be.  No open seating there.  This is a dommage because the combination of glass, rich wood tables, the burlap on those oversized light fixtures -- it all cries out for hanging out and chilling.  

The cheery hostess helped mitigate my bitter disappointment at this: she promptly brought me a glass of wine.  And she was not troubled, as she had a healthy attitude to constructive criticism, by my pointing out the typos on the Deux (spelled Duex) Anges Côtes (spelled with no "s" and no circonflexe) du Rhône  Villages (spelled with no circonflexe) on the wine menu.  

Love the iconic 1950s dishware that reminds of CorningWare. 

Business Model - 9.8  

I love the reservations scheme.  It's my French alter ego thing.  Reservations are de rigueur, mostly, in France, as I hope I am getting across -- see the articles on this -- to anyone thinking about going to France. Though just as this is changing in the US (Austin, i.e., Odd Duck), France (Paris) is changing on this front as well.  I'd give it a 10, but for wanting to hang at the bar and that not being available.  Even at 5pm.  

Food - 9.6   

Hits included:

• Field pea fritters, almond, cumin

• Kohlrabi soup, bacon, romaine, cheddar

• Goat rolled in pasta, mole sauce, butternut squash, mesquite

The Field Pea Fritters.

The Soup.

The Goat.

Folks are raving about the chicken fried egg; I couldn't go for it.  That goat though. A pleasure.  Austin's French friends, in our sister city of Angers, already won over by Barley Swine in their past visits, will no doubt love this place as well.

The miss:

• Chocolate pudding, verjus, malted barley

I wanted that carrot panna cotta so badly, but with France nostalgia setting in, I went for the chocolate pudding.  It did include in its ingredient list "verjus" after all, one of my super fav restaurants in Paris (Verjus), a restaurant whose food is quite reminiscent of what Bryce Gilmore is doing.  See such national reviews of Verjus as this one in Saveur last year.  This choice was nothing special for me.  Just chocolate. A shell, some foam. I didn't get it.  But with expectations so high for all things coming out of the kitchen here, a single miss is not a horrible thing.

South Lamar used to seem way so very far away.  Mild crankiness set in anytime I had to venture south of Town Lake.  But with South Lamar bubbling over with gastronomic goodies these days, and Austin growing by leaps and bounds, south of Town Lake no longer seems like a trek.  

And reserving a bar seat at Odd Duck for a casual solo session of crusty bread and Côtes du Rhône may well become a new much-loved routine for me in 2014.  

 

 

The So-Called Refined Palate Wolfs Down Finger-Licking Good Burger From Paris's First Food Truck: Le Camion Qui Fume

Around Jaures metro stop...around the quais and stairways to one of the bridges up and over the Canal St. Martin.

"Jazz brunch" at Le Reservoir this morning was forgettable.  When asked a week ago when reserving whether I wanted the 11:30 am or 4:30 pm seating, I figured that meant the music would have two sets too.  Silly. Getting there for 11:30 meant waiting an hour for the opening act...nice enough - not jazz by any means - and then finding out -- when I decided to bail because it was a beautiful day and this was lame -- that the music advertised for the brunch that day and the reason I did this in the first place, Soul Legend, would be at 2:30 pm.  No need to stay inside on a beautiful day.  

Thank goodness later on, after an adrenal-system boosting nap back in the studio, I stumbled on Le Camion Qui Fume's site when I was looking for Tombées du Camion, the darling store with its vintage wares displayed at the Saturday market in Place des Abbesses.

Back in David Lebovitz's writing about these burgers and this truck...I recall something about long lines of devoted groupies.  Le Camion Qui Fume (literally "the truck that smokes") is Paris's first high-end food food truck.  It took a while to convince the French public that a burger could be this good, and could be served this deliciously from a truck driving around Paris.  The convincing is all done now.

With Quai de Valmy, what the web site says is the site for the truck at 19-21h today, just a 4-stop metro ride away, and some edgy art center, Point Ephemere, being nearby for eating the burger and drinking some boisson, this was a no-brainer for the dinner plan.  

The very funky Point Ephemere: it photographs better than it looks in real life.

Like Franklin Barebecue in Austin, Texas, the Camion has stated hours for wherever they may be on a certain day, but when they run out of food, they are done for the day.

A burger is 8 euros.  A burger and side is 10 euros.  Include the cheap beer I got at the nearby funky venue of Point Ephemere, and the side of coleslaw I ordered at the Camion just to try it, and this was all of 14 euros thereabouts.

The Camion Qui Fume Drill.

Here are the steps to getting, enjoying, and savoring this burger. (Before leaving home though, bring more napkins.) 

Stand in line.

Place order.  This requires you to pick one out of the specialty burger items on the menu.  I picked "barbeque."   Here is the entire menu from the site:

BURGERS
. Classique : Boeuf Haché Maison, Cheddar, Laitue, Oignons, Pickles, Tomate, Mayonnaise
. Campagne : Boeuf Haché Maison, Champignons Sauvages, Oignons Caramélisés, Gruyère Agé
. Barbecue : Boeuf Haché Maison, Cheddar, Bacon, Beignet d’Oignon, Sauce Barbecue
. Bleu : Boeuf Haché Maison, Fourme d’Ambert, Oignons Caramélisé, Sauce au Porto
. Porc braisé : Porc Braisé, Sauce Barbecue, Coleslaw
. Végétarien : Champignons, Cheddar, Laitue, Oignons, Pickles, Tomate, Mayonnaise.
. 2 + 2 : double steak, double fromage sur un burger au choix : + 5€

Pay.  

Once another paper receipt is generated with your number by a little machine connected to the order-taker guy's iPad, go stand in another line to wait for your number to be called once your perfectly cooked dripping juicy burger and side are delivered to you in a brown paper bag.

While waiting, enjoy listening to the music in the sound system over the nice speakers embedded in the truck's awning.  I heard while around there AC/DC, Joan Jett, and Shooting Holes by Twin Shadow.

Scurry away with brown paper bag and find a someplace to sit.  

Take burger out carefully.  Observe its heft. It is really heavy.  There is a lot of meat in this burger.  And it is drippy juicy. I did not know a burger could emit so much in the way of savory sauce-like meaty juiciness.   I cannot believe it is only 8 euros. There is a five-burger limit per person (in case you are taking away for friends back at the office--I cannot even imagine trying to eat this more than a few minutes after it is made).

Notice how the well-formed thick bacon is critical to this burger.  Note the big chunk of it teasingly hanging out the side here.  It is really thick.  Like chewy savory pork fat thickness.  [It is, in many ways, like that spectaular cured ham that Melvin's Deli Comfort over in Austin serves on another luscious gooey sandwich, that croque monsieur, which also resulted in a lot of finger-licking during a taste teste.]

Enjoy burger while sitting on metal rail thing along a (not-so-pretty as other stretches) stretch of the Canal St. Martin.  

Start planning the upcoming week's eating around when the truck will be next. 

Take long walk to redress some of what you have just inhaled.  (My long walk included checking out the peniches -  or house boats, parked along the quais of the Canal St. Martin.)

I walk all the way back to the Montmartre 'hood.  [Note: Do not take this walk that tracks the Line 2 metro from Jaures to Anvers at night (the "Barbes" quartier). And this is not to say that I commend anyone to do this walk at any time.  It's not too scenic but for the gorgeous metro line that is above ground here and the recently refurbished Luxor movie theatre.]

There is something to be said for Sundays in Paris when the day gets off to a really slow start, builds up to people everyone on the terraces, kids playing, and very little is open.  

I am glad I had to change that return date back to Austin:  I have one more Sunday in Paris before heading home.

 

 

More Refined Palate Gets Picky About Dining Out in France--but I probably need to stop helping all the Americans in Paris who are eating badly (Le Relais Gascon; Montmartre)

Last night while "dining" out in Paris (loose term; so not good--it was just consumption of food for energy...but I knew what I was in for), I realized not everyone cares that they are eating badly in Paris.  

I also get now why my French friends seem so, at first glance, or a first interaction over food, "critical."  Critical here mean discerning, analytical.  A huge cultural difference between "the French" and "Americans" is how we deal with analytical methodologies.  In France (generally), it is appropriate and expected and part of the cultural fabric to opine on the cheese, the bread, the meat - and call it bad when it is bad.  Or simply offer a suggestion that perhaps it is a little too ripe, or not ripe enough, or a little overdone on the baguette.  Etc.

We in the US tend to be, generally, more polite.  We agree sometimes for the sake of polite conversation.  Sometimes.   But now I get it on the food part.  Once you have been immersed -- and I feel that way going into week 3 -- into eating a different way, in a region (Loire Valley) overflowing with exquisite local, local produce and wines, you start to discern fine differences.  Differences between this wine and that wine; differences between this wine with that fish, and that wine with this charcuterie, etc.  And of course the astounding differences between good bread and bad, factory-produced bread.

 Terrace at current favorite restaurant...outside of Paris: le Favre d''Anne.  Rainy noon time so could not dine outside.

I know this is because of such meals at Le Favre d'Anne in Angers, beautiful sparkling wine appreciation time at Bouvet Ladubay, and surprisingly great service and food at the Provence Caffe in Angers after the theatre.   Last night I realized I finally understood what the foodie French call "industrial" cuisine.  

I did not get into the nearby really good restaurant, MIroir, for dinner here in Montmartre (the no reservation thing).   I knew it was a longshot. I went early and tried to use the "une personne, toute seule" (this really is what they ask me; it is translated literally as "just you, all alone?"), as a selling point.  No go.  Off I went to select a random place on the Rue des Abbesses.

I like to think of myself as the French culture wiki for foreigners.  I hope to be a good ambassador for Texas and the US in being a good tourist in France -- even in hard-to-please  Paris -- and I hope to help make France -- even Paris -- more approachable, manageable, and enjoyable for the uninitiated.

And at this time of year in Paris, there are many uninitiated.   

The Saturday flea market "brocantes" in the Place des Abbesses.  Photogenic wares.

I randomly selected for dinner Le Relais Gascon.  It had a cute, lively outdoor terrace area.  All I wanted was something in the red meat category to keep up the iron and protein intake. 

On my left, I see a woman having French Onion Soup for a starter.  That's never a good idea.   It is way too heavy to include over there in the "entrée" column. It makes sense though when I figure out she and her hubby are American.  And next to them, another couple, super happy, without a word of French, using all sorts of US colloquialisms that I know have to be impossible to understand for the server.

My food arrives. It is industrial cuisine.  I expected this.  Nothing special.  Just meat, some type of reconstituted sauce, and some onions thrown in for good measure.  I am not outraged.  I am just glad for tasty enough red meat and vegetables.

I look over, and the woman who started with the French Onion Soup is having served to her one of the enormous salads that I have seen coming out of the kitchen to many people.  The whole top layer of it is covered in thinly sliced (yummy-looking) sautéed potatoes.   I then later hear the woman on the left starting to discuss with her husband her choice for the French Onion Soup before the big salad.  

I just have to intervene in their conversation now. I am really concerned about the quality of their food experience in France and their impression of "French food."  I do not want them going home to the US thinking this meal was an example of French cuisine.  There is good cause for this concern because the hubby was having a "cassoulet" that did not even have a crusty top layer on it.  It was all soupy with some sausage floating around (I was looking on in horror). This is so wrong.

I tell them, once I apologize for butting in, as I could not help overhearing the conversation: "You realize, right, that this is not good French food?  I mean, places like Miroir over on the nearby street, that's the good stuff.  You generally need a reservation."   And yes, typically with a big main dish salad like that, it's too much if you are having onion soup as a starter. Usually not done that way."

Oh, he says, "What I had was good: I had the cassoulet."   [I figure out quickly that I need to cool it and not say, uh, yea, I saw that nasty thing you were eating and let me tell you, that was not cassoulet.]   

Ok well, ok, as long as you are having a good time, I say.  We talk some about what they have seen and done.

Realizing they don't know what a cassoulet is, and do not realize or seem to care that they are having bad food, but are having a good time in Paris nonetheless, I am relieved. But I am alarmed because I am a little shocked that people come to Paris not really caring or thinking about the food.   

The sweet little Place Charles Dullin, Montmartre, with its theatre, just across the street from my building.

Their meal ends.  I watch as they try to settle up the bill without a word of French.   They are told no credit cards.   But how can this be. Surely the server is being really awful and giving them a hard time for the no-French thing.

But no.  The French woman on my right also gets the same rejection when she hands the server her VISA ("carte bleue" here).  She is stunned, rightfully so, and indignant when they say no credit cards.  She wonders where on earth they have this displayed to show their customers.  The server points to a tiny chalkboard sign behind the bar and some writing at the very bottom of the plastic menu. I am indignant as well.  This seems sketchy this cash only thing.  I chime in on this conversation as well.  

To make a point, I pay my bill mostly in change.  Good chance to get rid of most of those annoying centimes.  

The American using the colloquialisms says to the owner, when that couple learns this same information: "That's bullshit."  Very not effective to use American comebacks when you are in a foreign country. 

I have a nice conversation with the French woman.  I ask her where she is from (i.e., which part of Paris; whether she is from the quartier).  She is from the 15eme. She came over to this part of town to get some fabric.  

So you may want to avoid Le Relais Gascon if you are running low on cash.   Go hang out at Le Sancerre (not as "funky" as it used to be....but very "bobo" as they say: see here, e.g., or Le Vrai Paris.  (They take credit cards, surely.)  And I will try not to eavesdrop on your conversation and correct your dining experience.

 Apero time over at Le Sancerre, with good vantage point at the bar; no room on the terrace outside.

 

 

 

 

The Paris Tourist's Dilemma: Sundays, Mondays, and Restaurant Reservations (CheZaline, 11th; Day 5, Trip No. 18)

Paris can be tricky for food adventures because of the need to make reservations at most really good restaurants (keeping in mind "restaurant" does not include wine bars (many of which are fantastic eating options) or the omnipresent cafe). 

If you are serious about your food experiences in Paris, and you have been studying the blogs because of this interest, you need to just get over it and deal with the fact you have to make a reservation and plan your day accordingly.  Or just take your chances.  (As Wendy Lyn of the Paris Kitchen reports, some places are so difficult to get into they are not even answering the phone anymore to take your reservation---we're talking like 300 calls a day.)

[One reader of a certain blog complained on line about this practice in Paris.  She complained about how can she possibly know what she will be doing and when on a certain day to make a reservation in advance.  Another reader responded:  "When in Rome...when in Paris..."  Well said.]  

Take this reservation issue, and combine it with many cool places being closed on Sundays and/or Mondays in Paris, and you need to have a Venn diagram drawn up to figure out what to do and where to go and how to get a decent meal. 

Paris by Mouth, my go-to guide for where to eat in Paris depending on where I am on a particular day (it includes a nifty list of their favorites in each arrondissement), is indispensable if it is Sunday or Monday.   I look for where I am, or want to be, and check out what my limited range of choices is for that day.

And so it was on Monday, June 17, I found myself late, again, getting out of the apartment.  Emails took some time; the coffee ritual took some time; shopping down the street took some time.   Thus, I was still there in my eclectic hood that is the 11eme at the lunch hour.   The super hip elite spots of the 11eme were out of the question because of the day and the reservation thing (Bistrot Paul Bert, le 6 Paul Bert, Septime).

As I consider Le Verre Volé, over near Republique/Canal St. Martin, I realize I did not care to walk over there, and I recall they might require a reservation (that darn reservation thing again), even though they are "just" a (great) wine bar.  

I notice a never-before-read-about place on the Paris by Mouth list for the 11eme: CheZaline.  Sandwich place, unique, casual, the write-up reads: but what sold me was that (1) it was owned by a woman who was previously at the well-loved Le Verre Volé and (ii) it was about 45 seconds from where I was sitting in my apartment. Done.

When I arrive, nobody is there pretty much. Noon is rather early for the French lunch schedule.

This is no ordinary sandwich place I notice straight away.  

The case is full of abundantly fresh items -- evident from the fresh herbs overflowing out of practically every item in the case.  There are two very young, darling, quick-moving, efficient women running the show in this tiny place.  I am transfixed by the sandwich one of the women is making.  She makes a second one.  Hoping I can frame my question without drooling, because I was starting to salivate just looking at the sandwich prep, I ask her which sandwich it is that she is making.  She tells me, and I say when she has a moment, that is exactly what I would have as well.   It is escalope de veau - or breaded crispy veal scallopini - but this translation does not come close to describing how mesmerizing this sandwich is:  it just looked pretty.  Exemplary bread, fresh green lettuce and herb salad....

Did I mention the Paris by Mouth guide also touts the place for its simple, yet lovely and small selection of natural wines.  Another plus. And the New York Times reported on this little sandwich place's opening in glowing terms, as many other French foodie writers have as well, confirming just how lucky I feel to be living right around the corner from this place.  I love how the Paris food resource, Le Fooding, reports as a "plus" for this place the fact it is open on Mondays.  The Monday thing is an issue for Parisians as well.

Things I love about this place immediately:  sit at the counter inside, serve-yourself water from a pitcher that looks like an awesome vintage Saturday morning garage sale find, and a stack of clean shiny glasses for the water.  

But this sandwich.  One Paris write-up in Le Figaro of the place and what Delphine Zampetti, its owner, has done within the tiny confines of what used to be a small butcher shop, calls her sandwiches: "des sandwichs d’une nouvelle génération."   A whole new generation of sandwiches/sandwiches for a new generation. Indeed.

Bread is the ideal, for me, of a great baguette: crusty, chewy, richly colored baguette tradition on the outside, super crispy, yet thin crust.  The insides are perfect for absorbing the garlic and olive oil stuffs that are part of the mix of what makes this sandwich great.

The meat is an escalope de veau, as mentioned, but the secret "sauce" here is a mystery mix of tabbouleh, fresh herbs, garlic (lots), and finely, finely chopped hard-boiled egg.

I am not alone in my praise of this sandwich. In this blog by Rachel Khoo, she says this is the best sandwich she has had in a long time in Paris. 

As I sit at my prime seat at the counter (there are only 4 bar stools - get there early at an uncool hour as I did to get 1 of them), I watch the line form out the door around the outdoor tables.  Obviously the place is a huge hit.

Next time you are annoyed in Paris by the Sunday/Monday/reservation dilemma, consider it a challenge to think more creatively about where to eat.  

You may end up having the best sandwich you have ever had.

Austin Food and Wine Festival--to do and not to do and yes would do again

It's a smaller-than-I-expected event, this Austin Food and Wine Festival (only in its second year).   At first glance on entering I was underwhelmed.  But it grew on me.  And grew and grew.  And now I am thrilled at its manageability and the set-up, despite the pretty awful combination of Saturday's suffocating humidity, quasi-dehydration, and mixing tequila and vodka tastings in between the wine demos.  Bad idea that last one.  I thought I could do without Day 2.  But after sleeping off Saturday's sins, I was ready to go.  Pacing is everything for a food and (lots of) wine festival.

(Jealous of the folks who got there early for hands-on grilling class.  I think I saw someone Tweet that only VIPs were able to get into these popular first-thing-in-the-morning classes.)

Day 1 (for me), Saturday, started out well when the heart-stopping telltale colors of Veuve Clicquot were spotted right on entering.  Their super cute VC-themed Airstream was air-conditioned, so I lingered a long time checking that out.... Champagne was a great way to start the day...at 11 am or so.    

Finally we get in line for the H-E-B Grand Tasting Pavilion to open up for the masses.  We had only a "cheap" ($200 for early bird special) Taste Pass.   But now I know why the cost. There is a LOT of alcohol at this event.  A lot of water too have to say.  But there is a lot of alcohol at this event.  

At 12 p.m., folks with the Taste Pass can enter.  I need food, badly, after standing in the sun sweating after 3 small tastings of the VC champagne.  At first it was hard to find the food.  I must have been delerious.   But we found it.  And dug in.  

These grilled carrots, with a tangy yogurt sauce drizzled on them, just set out there in a gorgeous array of color for the taking: I took about 3 (small ones).

Thrilled to stumble across a stand for Pâté Letelier.  Have been following them for some time.  Now just need to get their goods into my fridge.
And then who can resist big baskets overflowing with beautiful bread?  Had to stop and ogle the bread and yes take more than a few samples. But this bread really needed to be savored.  And though the name did not turn me on, a pretzel roll bread, I took a sample anyway, and it changed my world.  The bakery is Flour, and this pretzel roll bread is really pretty astounding in terms of its taste and texture. 

These eye-catching displays of a kale and beet salad, crunchy tasty croutons, some bacon in there, a little feta, all encouraged me to have 2 of these in rapid succession.

Despite all this talk about the food and the wine (many, many samples on that Day 1 in the Pavilion), we did make it to some demos.  

Demos for Marcus Samuelsson, whom The Food and Wine Magazine Editor introduced as the "Swedish Ethiopian Urban Cowboy," were always SRO.  I love that he called Scott on his cell phone -- that judge on Chopped -- for us to tell him, in unison, that he was "too mean."  (Scott did not pick up; Marcus had us leave a message.)

But luckily we did make it to the Cinema and Vino demo with the bad boy of wine, Mark Oldman.  Only after standing there to make sure we got a seat - for like 30 minutes.  He's also a co-founder of Vault.com, so it is no wonder he is fluent in the pricing of La Tâche wines.  He had many women lined up afterwards to get their picture taken with him (my group included).  One woman had him sign her arm with a Sharpie.  Right next to Tim Love's autograph.  

With all the fun and laughing, etc. and sabering of the champagne bottle going on for that event (and it really was champagne--Bollinger), I ended up drinking my friend's wine tasting samples as well.  This was the beginning of the end for me of Day One.  

She drove home.  Just in time for me to rest up for the Sel et Gras festivity at the W's Trace from 9pm to midnight.  Cannot pass up a "Paris in Austin" night.   The music: exquisite.  French pop, Serge Gainsbourg, Air - cool electronica.  The setting: gorgeous.  Windows wide open. A cool night.  Sure the rain had them bring everything inside, but it was still lovely.  I just have a thing for Trace anyway. Trace's Executive Pastry Chef Janina O'Leary's desserts - yes, again, fantastico.  The black and white French movie - with Jean-Paul Belmondo, yes? - très sympa.  The frog legs were the tastiest ones I've ever had.  But we could have used some more savory stuffs. No worries: just an excuse to have more of Janina's chocolates.

Day 2:  I am surprisingly eager to get going.  I skip the champagne this time.  I am all about education this morning.  The goal is "anything French" so I hit Anthony Giglio's "French Underdogs."   Thanks to him I have fantastic French wine finds and a newfound compulsion to get an ice bucket.  (You just had to be there.)   Let's just say the horror of putting ice cubes in your wine is indeed confirmed, but cooling the (red) wine in more appropriate ways is very à propos and indeed necessary.

These folks in the audience were intense: they knew all the grapes that went into a Bordeaux, for example.  They knew obscure villages in Beaujolais.  I left happy. Entertained.  And not too tipsy.

Each day had some intense outdoor grilling going on.  On Day 2, there were little guys like this one getting a good fire on them:

Lots more meat the second day it seemed over at the Grand Tasting Pavilion. The brisket from Stubbs? Wow. Had no idea that they had this good of a brisket.  

I must say this shaved pork slider from Jasper's may take the cake for favorite foods (but the Day 1 kale salad is right up there).

How they described this: "Shaved Pork Sliders, Ancho Barbeque Aioli, Housemade Pickles, Maytag Blue Cheese Chips."  Yep, it was as tasty as it sounds.

One more class with Anthony Giglio, this one on wines of Sicily - who knew I knew so little about Italian wines?? - and then I was about ready to call it a day.

The striking vista the blue and green chairs made on the lawns of Butler Park - this picture from early Saturday -  was harder to discern by this time on Sunday because there was not a single available chair.  

Growing tired and slightly annoyed by asking many times - "Is this (empty) seat taken?" - and having the person say "yes" - I decided I could use my standing time more efficiently by making my way back to the car at City Hall (free parking!).

By this time, I also had a few heavy books in hand.  Yes, I bought a Mark Oldman book (signed).  Yes, I bought the Marcus Samuelsson book "Yes, Chef: a memoir") (signed).  And why not take a few more bottles waters on the way out.  

And so ended my First Austin Food and Wine Festival, and Austin's Second.  

Will I go again.  Yes.  Will I drink more water, wear the hat and not care what I look like.  Yes.  

One can imagine this event growing ever bigger every year.  So enjoy the smaller, manageable, even sort of charming aspects of this still rather new festival - and get an early bird special next year for a pretty good bargain of a ticket price ($200) in the big scheme of things. 

 

Austin Angers Music SxSW 2013: the Chef Rémi Food Angle

Angers (Austin's sister city in France) had a brainstorm for the music showcases that Angers would bring to SxSW2013, ably assisted by Angers music venue Le Chabada. Why not bring along a French chef as well, a rising star in Angers, and host (French) food events along with the music?   Brilliant.  Only problems: (1) where to cook the food at a music venue (The Bungalow) that has no kitchen; and (2) where to source in Austin items that are omnipresent in France on a daily basis but not necessarily readily available in Austin.

This led to some interesting meetings and networking on the organizers' diligence mission in February 2013, including meeting with Slow Food Austin, and its biodiversity head Valerie Broussard, a trained chef, Francophile, and  "forager" over at Trace at the W Hotel.  

At first I was unclear on the concept of my Angevins friends.  I got that the idea that the music showcases would be preceded by a "brunch" by Chef Rémi Fournier, owner of Chez Rémi, a charming restaurant, in Angers.  It would be from 10 am to 12 pm, before the music kicked in.  I imagined perhaps some pastries.  Some sausage. Maybe some eggs.  

But when I heard that some interesting pork cuts were needed, and that pork blood also was an ingredient they needed (for one of Rémi's specialties, blood sausage, which I tasted in Angers), all of which they quickly had to re-source from another local producer (Sebastien to the rescue!) a week before their arrival in Austin--when the first one fell through--I started to realize there might be more to the meal than link sausage and maybe some pain perdu to stand in for brunch-esque item French Toast.

Thursday le 14 mars arrived.  This was the long-awaited day of so much advance planning, strategizing, logistics (i.e., organizing, and cooking at the Justine's kitchen and transporting the food for a "pop up" brunch off site).  I arrived at the Bungalow on Rainey Street at 10h30, after catching some KUTX live music time down at The Four Seasons.

What I saw was not what I was expecting.  Not by a longshot.  No pancakes.  No omelette station.

It was a long table, with row after row of lovely portions of visually stunning food arranged in tiny plates and bowls arranged for mouth-watering effect.  

Mussels; smoked salmon and lentils; duck tartare; tiny Spanish sardine bites over French lentils; bright red beet purée garnished with tiny delicate slivers of what looked like watermelon radishes but what I heard was just a lovely beet.  And yes, the blood sausage.  And more and more little bites.

And there was still more beyond these little feasts for the eyes.  Two huge pâtés--one duck and one chicken liver.

And piles of lovely little tart cornichons here and there.  

And yes, some lovely cheese, and yes, that is a rich St. Marcellin right there in the center.

And sure, why not a few pains au chocolat and croissants (from Bagette et Chocolat), for good measure.

No coffee, alas.  But this did not stop me (and others, to be clear) from digging in.

As 11 a.m. approached, and the duck pâté was crying out to be tasted, I dug in. With a glass of the fresh and almost effervescent organic white wine from Touraine, which they had managed to secure from a local wine distributor, I was set.  One bite in and I was hooked.  Chef Rémi had indeed pulled off something miraculous and magical under what looked like some pretty uncertain circumstances just a week or two earlier.

Justine's also came through again, providing its cheery wait staff to serve the wine that lovely (late) morning and into the early afternoon.

It is not often that one has such a feast laid out, with pâtés of this quality just there for the taking, on a cool spring day in Austin, surrounding by French speakers from all over France there for SxSW.  So I do not regret the copious (and repeated) combinations of pâté, cheese, bread, that I indulged in--which now has me on a boot camp, 6 days a week, for my post SXSW workout/super low carb regime.

I do regret that I obviously have a long way to go before I really learn one great French way-of-life lesson: moderation. 

 

 

 

 

Josephine House

Those of us of a certain age remember Jeffrey's, and its sidekick Clarksville Cafe right next door (which was always my favorite one, with those stunning Malou Flato tile murals).  They were, for a time, the only good and/or interesting places to eat in Austin.  Except for the great parties my University of Texas grad school Latin American Studies crowd had at Melissa's house.  Fast forward two decades. Explosion.  Hard to keep up with what has opened - and what has closed. 

A business meeting was scheduled for today.  At Josephine House, just barely open for business (as of 4 weeks ago).  It is right around the corner from the hallowed ground of Jeffrey's/Clarksville Cafe.  (Clarksville long gone from this location; Jeffrey's is getting a much needed complete revamp and is closed for now).

Sure, I thought épicerie on my first visit was pretty awesome, thematically and architecturally, and even a little envy-inspiring.  But this, this Josephine House.  I just want to pick it all up, with its huge oversized white-washed rustic wood boards, its original windows and black venetian blinds, its outdoor fireplace, banquette seating, the chairs, the white marble bar and countertops, and take it all home with me as my own little party pavilion in the back yard.  Or on the banks of the Blanco River.  Or somewhere in the Vaucluse.  

I walked in and just repeated over and over.  To the cook in the back in the kitchen, to the hostess:  "It's just so darn cute.  I can't get over it.  It is just too cute."

Outside has seating, casually scattered interesting wicker chairs.  Off to the side: a deck, a vintage (looks like) wood picnic table with iron legs, a nice and warm (cold day when the wind kicked up) outdoor fireplace used for cooking the steak for the sliced sirloin sandwiches, cozy little alcoves of upholstered banquettes for outdoor, slightly covered dining.  Lights strung up across.

Inside:  Light filled.  White everywhere on those broad, rustic, white-washed wood boards on the horizontal.  A marble bar to the left in the big front window of the house.  Small.  Cozy. Gleaming with adult libations and espresso machine.

More inside:  Off to the right, the "main" dining room.  It is petite.  What is really charming is the left side of the room:  all across one side of one wall, and a half a wall:  all white marble countertops just spread out with an array of lovelies.  A leek tart, a white platter bursting with the colors of slices grapefruit and oranges. Pickled vegetables.  Crockery piled up.  Abundant bouquets of flowers in antique silver trophy vases. Dessert goodies!  Breads!  What is happening to Austin - and can it get any cuter with these restaurant architectural design overhauls.

Still more architectural cuteness.  The quasi-open kitchen.  Quasi in the sense that above the marble counters are grey-washed rustic barn doors, on that awesomely industrial steel barn door hardware, that slide wide open to allow a look into the petite kitchen.

And yes, to whomever designed this, duly noted that spectacular scent in the WCs -- the women's one at least.  Updated vintage in the WC as well.  Yes, all duly noted. Duly noted looks like Sarah Richardson was here.

Bathed in and delighted by such architectural charm, I caved and said yes to a pre-lunch glass of wine.  A Muscadet from the Loire Valley.

Oh, right.  The food.  Lovely roasted chicken "ragu" cooked on the bone then taken off for me (not me personally, but for the dish as served) over some tasty polenta. The portion was not overly large.  Good thing, as the appetizer chosen, because that leek tart set out on the expansive marble countertop for ogling had gotten to me, was quite abundant for a starter course. (In hindsight, I think one is supposed to share those plates.)

Josephine House is open only for lunch right now.  And cocktails in the afternoon. How lovely does that sound.   Only light snacks, i.e., almonds, olives, available to go with your adult beverage. Yes, that sounds pretty swell.   Also open for private parties.  Adorable, yes, that too, but even better if I could just pack it all up for a private party in my own backyard.  

 

2013 City Guide: French Restaurants/Foods

"French," as in French food, is a complex term to define these days.  Paris would be, one might assume, full of "French" restaurants just as a matter of fact of being located in France, that lovely and charming but complex Hexagone of gastronomic glory.  But when some of Paris's best restaurants these days are run by Americans (i.e., much beloved Verjus, as reported in Saveur and here), deciding what counts as "French"--especially in terms of dining in Austin, Texas--is tricky.  In the end it just requires getting ok with very subjective parameters, and so it is for this Guide.  All my baggage (the French major thing, the living/going to school-in-France thing, the 17 trips to France for food and other business reasons) informs what I considered "French enough" for this Guide.  Do I love Lenoir with all my heart? Absolutely. Does Lenoir remind me of Paris dining (i.e., Verjus) with its dynamic culinary duo owners and emphasis on community and exquisite nicely portioned food and service?   Absolutely.  But if I include it here, it's a slippery slope and possibly quite divisive and controversial for what else gets included -- like whom to invite to a wedding once you've invited so and so.  I may well have missed some very arguably "French" treasures. Feel free to debate any difference of opinion or offer a discerning critique.  That is, after all, very French.  

Justine's Brasserie   First there was Chez Nous (see entry below after this one), a much-loved Austin icon for truly "French" French food.  Then Justine's came along in 2009 and really kicked up the French vibe in Austin.  Though off the beaten track for some out on East Fifth towards the airport, Justine's has a passionate following for this little white house, surrounded by ample courtyard/patio seating.  

(credit for picture here, but the cute picture of just the house does not reflect the current all tricked-out outdoor area)

When I want a Paris fix, I head here and settle in to wait, at the bar, and sip as slowly as I can some of the cocktails, such as my favorite version of a French 75 or the Enfant Terrible. Nice and tart, not sweet. Then I order up either superlative escargots (buttery and hot and garlicky with good bread to soak up every last drop of the hot butter that has fresh garlic infusing it), or a hearty assiette de fromages.  All this gets enjoyed, no, relished, while the jazz or Motown albums are playing on the turntable back behind the bar amidst the record library. If you find it too loud inside, which it can be, opt for outside seating in a still charming setting, near the black and white canopy and the Pétanque court.

Inside or out, you get the same great food, such as really tasty soupe à l'oignon gratinée, more escargots, a great steak tartare, coquilles St. Jacques basquaises.  Or there is also, in addition to the usual yummy French fare, the daily "market" menu, which kicks up the gastronomy level here with such items as cassoulet, done right: "flageolet beans, duck confit, sausage, bacon, bread crumbs" ($22) and with starters such as "dandelion greens, fried egg vinaigrette, crispty potatoes, country ham" ($12).  Crème caramel here is standard-setting and impossible to stop eating once you've started.  Justine's is one of the very few (good) real restaurants in town for late-night eating, as well as star-sightings.  Justine's has seen its fair share of them: David Byrne, Patrick Stewart, Kat Von D, to name a few.  

Chez Nous   

Before Justine's, way before Justine's, there was Chez Nous, which opened its doors in 1982--when a gallon of gas was just $1.30 and the Dow Jones high for the year was 1,070.  Nestled on quiet Neches Street downtown, just off the hustle and bustle of a crazy part of Sixth Street, Chez Nous early on won over our hearts and stomachs.  It remains a mainstay and has a firm place in the heart of Austin's Francophile foodie population, despite the kitschy wall decor of painted scenes of Paris Metro stations.  The menu remains classically French and consistently excellent.  A house paté is offered daily, and a recent sampling of the duck liver one delivered big on flavor.  It gets scooped up on what for me is more like New Orleans-style French bread (from Phoenicia).  Favorite classics here are the Salade Lyonnaise (with lardons, $8.50, and, really, cannot see having it any other way), the egg poached just right and ready to be broken into at the right moment to run over and slightly warm the greens.

The salade de crudités (photo at left; with the addition of chickpeas in addition to the traditional beets and celery root) may be better than mine, hard to admit, but the Trout Meunière I could never even deign to try to re-create.  It exemplifies  tasty goodness in a clean, classic execution ($14.50). But if that sounds too high-end for a weekday lunch, the usual French fare for lunch is here too: the croque monsieur, the croque madame, and a sandwich du jour even--in addition to spinach crepes, chicken crepes, and a steak frites, of course ($19.50).  

The dinner menu loses the sandwiches and crepes and adds heartier French classics, at a higher price point--worth every penny for a big night out for guaranteed good food.  The dinner menu includes such main dishes as lamb chops crusted in herbes de provence and grilled ($33.50), an Entrecôte Béarnaise ($32.50) and a pepper-crusted prime beef tenderloin finished off with a brandy, stock and cream sauce ($37.50). All main courses are served with a side of vegetables (caramelized grilled carrots last time I was there) and highly decadent cream puff-like balls of potatoes, which are their pommes dauphines.  A bargain: the "Menu du Jour" option at dinner.  For $28.50 you get a three-course meal, with three choices in each category.   Parking can be a challenge, but public parking garages ease tremendously what used to be a mild impediment to getting here more often.

Blue Dahlia Bistro

In what is becoming a well-developed, and charming foodie and retail area in East Austin, Blue Dahlia bistro sits on East 11th, close to the 11th Street/Rosewood intersection.  Though the beautifully composed tartines (open-faced sandwiches with various toppings and sliced into wide slivers) are served on a thicker-sliced soft, but still delicious wheat bread, and not the Poilâne bread used for Paris "tartines," I love Blue Dahila Bistro for, well, anytime.  It is especially nice on a long weekend to soak up the feel of the place here: at the outdoor patio seating to be out and about feeling urban, or inside where there are nicely hewn wood tables, including an inviting community table right up front in the sunny front window, near overflowing shelves of breads and a giant basket of baguettes on the counter.  A back courtyard is available too for dining, under an ample pergola with leafy vines climbing up into it--and ceiling fans.  

Blue Dahlia offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it really gets its French groove on at night, when it turns to such “Plats du Soir” (after 17h) as duck cassoulet; mushroom crêpes (with a yummy bleu cheese parmesan cream sauce); bouillabaisse with mussels, cod and shrimp ($15.95); and my two favorite classics of all the French classics: coq au vin (this one done with vin blanc and adding some prosciutto for good measure) and a boeuf bourgignon.  Though perhaps not so great a beverage for dinner (wine and beer available), but yes for breakfast or any cold afternoon: steamed milk with a side of Ghiradelli chocolate.  The bistro has gluten-free options available (both the original and Westlake locations), as well as local and organic produce, etc. as much as possible.  Check the calendar for happy hours, wine tastings, and music, at both the original East Austin and Westlake locations.  (East Austin location reviewed here.)

Artisan Bistro    A loyal following makes this their go-to destination out in Lakeway off Ranch Road 620.  With Austin getting smaller by the day it seems as it gets bigger, Lakeway is just not as far away as it seemingly used to be.  Do not be put off by the terra cotta stucco exterior of the small retail center where the bistro is located.  Get over it and just walk in.  (Well, they do really prefer that you make a reservation:  they run a lean, highly knowledgeable staff so they will adjust to make sure the loyal client base gets attentive service.) 

On entering you will see charming bistro tables, a black and white tile floor, and an open kitchen with shelves piled up high with brightly colored crockery, red, blue, the brown for the soupe à l’oignon gratinée, where you can watch Chef Cesidio d’Andrea do his thing. 

If you head for the long comptoir, or counter, as I do, you will get to enjoy your nice glass of wine while you order and watch Chef do his thing in the kitchen, by himself, with an efficiency and energy that makes one feel guilty for sitting there having a nice white Bordeaux.

But you may be distracted before you get seated by the area to your right as you enter the bistro. Here there are tables overflowing with pastries, breads, as well as gift items that would make perfect hostess gifts for a dinner party, such as a lovely bag of fleur de sel de gris, or basil infused olive oil.

Among the pains au chocolat, the croissants, the tarts, the macarons, there are also these little treasures you just do not see much at all around Austin.  A bell-shaped pastry that is the specialty of Bordeaux: cannelles.  But the real star in my book for the pastries here is a nod to French heritage and Chef's American surroundings: a breakfast bread/pastry that he calls French Toast.  It is crispy sugar on the outside, moist and custardy on the inside, reminding of the moist inside of a crispy-on-the-outside French Toast.  

 Artisan Bistro is open for both lunch and dinner (closed on Mondays (very French)), to star the French classics but with variations on the theme: a boeuf bourgignon, a Cassoulet Toulaisain, a Confit de Canard, and, for starters, some Duck Foie Gras “au torchon” roasted peaches ($14). Of course escargots are an option as well: by the half or full dozen ($9, $13).  For the lighter side, there is my favorite salad I order all the time in France (culinary rut): a hot goat cheese (chèvre chaud) salad, but this one adds sundried tomatoes and bacon.  (A not too widely known fact: Chef leads gastronomic tours.  A chateau in Normandy was mentioned upon inquiry into the details.)

Hopfields    Hopfields is styled as a gastropub, and may be more well known for its fine craft beers than its wine selection, but it’s very French.  Francophiles rejoice at seeing items not seen since the last trip to France, sandwiches such as the Jambon Beurre ($8), the Merguez Frites ($9), entrées (as in main course) such as a tarte du jour ($8; leek and manchego cheese being a favorite), moules frites ($16) and what is truly the superstar of this lean but high-quality menu:  a steak frites ($18). 

This is a superlative steak frites.  The cooks refuse to cook the steak anywhere above medium (or it used to be this way pretty much…Paris superstar artisanal butcher Hugo Desnoyer would so approve). The quality and cooking of this meat are superb. The steak arrives with a tart dijon mustard artfully swirled around the plate and a round of compound butter sliding off into meat juices and all of it blending into the fries sitting there alongside to sop it all up.   Dig in.  If the salade verte (with the charming departure from French tradition of adding of a wedge of camembert), leads to your thinking you are back in Paris at a café in the Marais, you are not off base here:  the house dijon vinaigrette is the recipe of owner Bay’s Parisian mother in law (Bay’s wife, co-owner Lindsay, is one-fourth French).  Along with the expertly selected craft beers and wine choices, you can also enjoy looking through the short but varied list of cocktails—such libations as the 75 Years in Provence or a Port of Havana run $8; some others, such as the Au Fait (Madeira, honey syrup, grapefruit, bitters) run $9.

To accommodate the growing number of Hopfields groupies, the back patio seating area is larger--and full food service out there.  In addition to the pub format in the original space, they’ve expanded out into the back portion of the building to add a “traditional” dining room, comprised of charming small nooks that house a few tables where you can have traditional table service (on the pub side you just place your order at the bar).  A calm yet simply-staged glamorous, way-in-the-back place is there for bringing your cocktails, beer flight, or bottle of wine back to chill in a quieter seating area.  I’m partial to the original pub side of the house.  Sit at the community table and make some new friends, or just enjoy sneaking some of those frites doused in butter and steak juice off the plates of your old (as in longtime) friends while you polish off the Cotes du Rhone.  

Péché    Péché is already well known for serving up Prohibition-era cocktails down on 4th Street, in Austin’s warehouse district, in an upscale ambiance that evokes the lore of absinthe.  Péché just feels luscious and decadent as one slips into one of those banquettes and sips on an absinthe cocktail amidst the exposed brick, wood-beamed ceilings, and chandeliers.

But it is also well worth a visit for the good, French-esque food to go along with those cocktails.  Owner Rob Pate tells me he has indulged his talented cooking team with an additional two burners to work the food magic back there: from four burners to six.  Yes, all this food on just that small amount of real estate (very French).

Péché in my book has the best frites in Austin.  They are served up with chipotle and salsa verde.  The "Bar Menu" is seriously mouth-watering (they change it up every four months or so), and the more French of those items they are serving up now include a Roasted Marrow and French Fries with Truffled Egg ($20), add escargots for $7; or a hearty Pot au Feu, done here with brisket, ideal for those occasional chilly evenings in Austin.  In addition to the extensive bar menu there is a daily menu that is tweeted daily. Examples of recent offerings: crispy duck breast with red wine braised cabbage ($28); boullabaisse ($32); and charcuterie and cheese boards that could easily make a meal.  Péché has some great happy hour deals, lasting all day Sundays and Mondays (after the late afternoon opening), and is definitely a food destination in addition to a preferred destination for beautifully crafted Old World cocktails.

épicerie    This new addition to the Rosedale neighborhood on Hancock Drive, near Fonda San Miguel, comprises a charming blue bungalow, with fig ivy-covered courtyard walls, and bright orange lettering reflecting the venue's name that immediately connotes France.  An épicerie is a little grocery store, not to be confused with a larger, more commercial "supermarché" or "magasin alimentaire" such as a FranPrix and its ilk.  Non, une épicerie oozes charm--such as the Epicérie Générale across the street from my last studio rental in Paris, on the rue de Verneuil.

This Austin version of an épicerie is light and bright.  White painted chairs, light wood tables, white subway tile behind the counters, great light fixtures; shiny chrome and lovely marble platters display piles of homemade brownies and salted chocolate chip cookies.  The white painted shelves comprising the "grocery" include shelves upon shelves of wine, including a Stump Jump Sticky Chardonnay dessert wine from Australia, and numerous other food items, such as orange blossom honey and Mast Brothers chocolate.  Once you’re done, for now, drooling over the food items in the “grocery,” it's time to think about food at the café part of épicerie.  

Here too favorite French things are featured: there is a grilled comté (cheese) sandwich with tomato soup; an oxtail stew (with anson mills grits, japanese turnips, oven-roasted tomato; $11.99); a comforting roasted chicken (roasted chicken leg, grilled Brussels sprouts, French lentils, mustard; $12.99); tri-tip steak (with frites, grilled green onion, aiilo; $14.99).  Salads include an arugula salad, rounded out with a great French bleu cheese (forme d'ambert), pears, marcona almonds, all finished off with a sherry vinaigrette ($8.99).  Seating can be outside in a nice courtyard or in the sunny bright interior.  Owner Sarah Macintosh has hit on on something special here with the café/grocery concept.  In fact, I wish I had done thought of this.  

Bakeries & Creperies & Etc.

Baguette et Chocolat   Chef Tyson Cole of Uchi and Uchiko fame says this is his go-to place for anything chocolate.  The line here on Saturday mornings attests to the quality that gets a superstar chef over there out on Bee Cave Road (a/k/a FM 2244).  Regulars know to get there on a weekend morning earlier than later in case a favorite sells out.  Enjoying a basket of buttery flaky croissants and a couple of hot chocolates in the Lavazza cups, with Chantilly whipped cream overflowing and dripping down the sides of the cup, is a good way to start a Saturday or Sunday.  

Baguette et Chocolat has a considerable array of menu items--definitely something for everyone here: salads, crêpes, paninis, sandwiches (and, of course, the two croques: croque monsieur and his better half the croque madame).  The crêpes range from classic flavors and combinations such as the Paysanne (Mornay sauce with chicken, mushrooms and swiss cheese), to a Texas twist: the Texane (chicken, red onions and BBQ sauce). My favorite combination: the Cabri, mixing up for its filling some prosciutto, goat cheese and tomato.  The pastry case is so full of classic French pastries, if you close your eyes and squint you would think you were doing some window shopping at a Patisserie somewhere in France.  No mistake that: the owner, Chi-Minh, is from Versailles, just outside of Paris, and is a graduate of l’Institut National Boulangerie Patisserie (INBP).

Pick up a baguette tradition on your way out – if there are any left – and enjoy the Baguette et Chocolat experience for a couple more days at home.  

Le Café Crepe  

Housed at ground level of the Hampton Inn downtown on San Jacinto near The Four Seasons, the owners of now closed Dreyfus Antiques (I still miss that giant Eiffel Tower structure every time I drive down North Lamar), thankfully opened up Le Café Crepe a few years ago to accommodate what was apparently a pent-up need for something different downtown. The Café quickly gained a following for offering a delicious option for the downtown lunch routine.  Downtown diners are lucky they can get here just about any time – crowds permitting – because they do not have to deal with parking.  With downtown construction eating into already limited parking, access is a little tricky on a weekday, but always worth it once you settle in.

With charming interior décor, those cheery yellow walls and French signage, the Cafe's crêpes here are on the classic side, but with a nod to the local vibe with The Hampton (turkey pastrami, blue cheese, spinach, tomatoes, green onion, and avocado ($8.75)) and the allure of all things French (for some of us), with The Eiffel (chicken, provolone cheese, tomatoes, asparagus ($8.25)). And though the sweet crepes have classics as well, I am partial to one of the fancier ones, La Fromagère, with brie, pear, walnuts and honey ($8.10); the classics (nutella, la canella (cinnamon)) will run from a modest $5.50 to around $7.

En plus, and très français as well for spending an afternoon, there is WiFi access at the café. So while away an afternoon sitting outside, at a café table under an umbrella, and enjoy those classics with a big bowl-like cup of café au lait, or an Orangina.  (Or with wine and beer options as well, and save the coffee for after.) Construction downtown as of March 1, 2013 has Le Café Crepe boxed in for a time, but it is still open and still the place for a crêpes fix in the heart of downtown.  

Flip Happy Crepes (trailer)   

Austin’s most relatively famous creperie, Flip Happy Crepes, is a refurbished silver trailer (some say it’s an avion; in video footage the owners call it an Airstream) is just off Barton Springs Road, behind the building at 400 Josephine Street. Here, surrounded by condos and a vibrant commercial area of new eateries, is a plot of nature with giant trees towering over bright red picnic tables and colorful café tables and chairs.  Here sits Flip Happy Crepes, which received national exposure in 2007 when Bobby Flay of Food Network fame came to town with his Throwdown series to take on the crepes of owners Nessa Higgins and Andrea Day Boykin (they have been friends since kindergarten).  

Weekend mornings bring out families or those taking a pause while walking the dog on the Lady Bird Lake trail to linger here for a break.  Line up at the window for placing your order for sweet and savory crepes:  the most popular sweet ones being cinnamon sugar (ground almonds, buttery hot and sugary with whipped cream) and the vanilla pastry cream with blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries (pictured below).  If you’ve really worked up an appetite, the Peanut Butter Delight usually is ample enough for two persons, or one person who just did the 5-mile loop.   

The flavors on the savory part of the menu include classic French creperie items: roasted chicken & mushroom & caramelized onion, or another one with tarragon, mushroom, goat cheese, spinach and caramelized onion and tomatoes.  Other show some funky Austin flair, such as in the shredded pork with carmelized onions and white cheddar ($6.95). 

Worried about the kiddos not liking a full-sized crepe at the full price? Check out the Kids Menu: a "Mini Crepe" option exists ($3.75), for cheese only or ham and cheese or chicken and cheese, and a Nutella Roll-Up for a modest $2.50.  

Prepare for a bit of a wait – but enjoy the sun, the trees, and the fact that you’re in Austin.   Pick up orders are available, call 512.552.9034, but time it just right. You want that buttery hot cinnamon crêpe (pictured at left) the minute it’s ready.  Limited hours, so check the website frequently. 

Crepesmille (trailer)

On a crowded corner on South Congress at Gibson Street, away from the heavier concentration of food trailers, is the shiny Airstream trailer for Crepes Mille.  Run by two (very) young and adorably energetic women, this spot gets crowded with folks vying for room to sit at the picnic tables plus line up and place an order for one of these super funky creations.  There are deliciously well done twists on the classic crepes.  You will not see Oreos or Marshmallows on the menu for a typical crêpe stand in Paris, but the combinations here are right on and gorgeous upon arrival.  Case in point, one of the most popular:  The Parisian, including brie, milk chocolate, strawberries and whipped cream.

If the combined effect of the busy corner and the line and the tables feels too claustrophobic, just be patient because heaven awaits:  grab the crepe (figure about a 5-7 minute wait most days) and take it to go.  Walk down esoterically scenic South Congress, with a big smile on your whipped cream- or powdered sugared-face once you take that first bite of crepe: a hint of a crispy outside, yet tender, with butter or chocolate or whatever you selected. Lots of lovely combinations are available in addition to The Parisian, such as The Caramelized Pear and French Toast, but make up your own crepe too for $5.  Pick from a line-up of fillings, such as almond butter, honey butter, or classic crepe ingredient nutella, then pick a topping from another list of toppings, such as bananas and bluebell Ice cream.   Do not worry that whipped cream is not on the list of options for a topping.  You will be asked when they call your name and you pick up with crepe.  Enjoy mixing it up with the South Congress crowds among other nearby hotspots, Perla’s and Hopdoddy, and maybe even work up an appetite for another one.  Check the web site for their current (limited) hours.

Etc.

Melvin's Deli * Comfort (trailer; 53rd/Duval)

Melvin's, this cute red trailer, makes this list because of one food item.  No, better to call this item an event.  It is the Melvin's Croque Monsieur.  It does not matter where you are in Austin between the hours of 11 and 2 on a weekday (the only hours Melvin's is open for business). You really owe it to yourself to have Melvin’s Croque Monsieur.  Sure, it’s a little out of the way for some, at 53rd and Duval, but you should really have this Croque Monsieur.  But have it only if you really like great (Gruyere) cheese, finely cured high-end meats and bread and béchamel sauce all mixed in together with a stout Dijon mustard.  If you don’t like cheesy messes, then you can skip this.  And if you're not into finely crafted and cured meats (such as the superlative ham on this food event), then you can skip this.  And if you’re being really French and not too keen on eating a café classic with your hands, this may not work for you.  But you’d be missing out.  Other sandwiches coming out of this humble trailer are also recognized around town by foodies because of the fine meats. But the croque monsieur is the show-stealer.  Eat it while it’s hot.  Right there in the parking lot where the trailer is parked. 

P.S.

Thanks, Austin Food Blogger Alliance City Guide, for giving me an excuse to go eat more and park illegally all over Austin getting the pictures.

 

Le Hot Dog (but before, Les Papilles)

It had been a great food day already.  I did not need much else.  I considered a simple goat cheese tartine, on Poilane bread, at Le Pick Clops, a favorite from long, long time ago trips to Paris.   I settled in at the bar at Le Pick Clops for an aperitif and some of the popcorn they were serving therewith.  With the Michael Jackson tunes going (Pretty Young Thing, Beat It...), and the place bubbling over with activity when outside was bitter cold, it seemed right to stay all night.  But the unwelcome conversation from someone next to me, about trash pick-up services in Nantes, Paris, Lille and Toulouse, finally got the best of me.

In what I thought could be a flash of inspiration (after two small glasses of red wine), I decided to brave the hot dog stand there on the rue Vieille du Temple.  There was a line after all.  How bad could it be?  ....

I see they have a Tex-Mex version.  Chile con carne.  I order it, saying I'd like to check that out as there is a fair amount of Tex-Mex in my part of Tex.  I started to be a little afraid though, so asked the proprietor what the most popular hot dog is. He said people mostly go for the "onion confit."  Well, I'll take that instead then.  And when he showed me the "chile con carne" I was glad I made that call. The "chile" was just black beans and corn.  I ask him how popular the place is, who the clientele is. He was a little evasive.  I get the hot dog.

Now, I am not a big fan of hot dogs. But the last one I had was awesome. Grilled outside on an open fire on a beach, with a toasty bun likewise grilled outside over the open fire.  I walk back toward the Hotel de Ville with the dog.  At least it is warm.  One bite.  Oh.  Not quite the crispy grilled beach-side dog of recent memory. One more bite to confirm maybe I'm missing something.  No.  Not missing anything.  It can be disposed of.  Too soft; too bland; too - just not right at all. At least lunch was spectacular.

Lunch was at Les Papilles.  It had been on my list for a couple of years.  It is close to home base.  It is a Saturday.  I figure a nearby & casual wine shop/spice shop, whose menu says you can tailor your meal to as large or small as you like, would be a great option for a wintry snowy day.   

The lunch did not get off to a great start.  I walk in; hardly anyone is there.  Great!   But it is a little more formal than I envisioned.  I ask whether I can sit just anywhere - hilarious - and the proprietor asks me :  Vous connaissez le restaurant?  I pause for a very long period of time pondering this question.  I think to myself: Well, I'm here aren't I?   So yes, I know the restaurant.  Not sure what he means, so he repeats in English.  Ugh.  Dude.  I KNOW what you're saying : I don't get what you're getting at. What he was getting at was this:  reservations only, one set meal for the day, no choices.  Ah, sure, I'm cool with that.  He guides me to a table for 2 right in front of the front door with the 20 degree wind whistling through.   I question (nicely) whether there is something else maybe not right next to the door where it is Siberia?  No- only thing left that is not reserved.  Well, I will be delighted to take it then, I say.  And when he turned down a couple that came in right after me, because there were no more places and they had not reserved, I smugly settled in, wrapping all my scarves around me.

As I settle in, he tells me I can pick whatever bottle of wine I want in the place to accompany my lunch.  One entire wall of the restaurant is nothing but rows and rows of wine bottles.  Well, I only need like 2.5 glasses I mention to him. He offers up why don't I start with a glass of white, then red (they will choose) and handle it that way. Perfect! 

The first course was a cauliflower soup, with swirls of lovely olive oil through it, poured over creme fraiche, lardons, thick buttery garlicy croutons.  Posted on that yesterday.   I noticed, later, that every table got a tureen of soup.  But as I was just one person with no one with whom to share, I alas on this set menu got the same amount.  In short, I should not have had those extra ladles of soup.  Oh, but it was so, so very good.  I could have stopped there and been very happy.

Next, some very slow cooked pork - terrine - almost but not really - simmering in some tiny white beans, snow peas, roasted carrots. Served in a copper vessel. Again, I think this was for 2-3 people.  But I was one.

I know there is a cheese course coming, and a dessert - a banana panna cotta (!) - so I just cannot do this lovely dish justice.  I do take my time with it though because of the group of people next to me.  Obviously very wealthy - (American) parents and their adult son - with exquisite taste in wine, and frequent visitors to this place. They were planning their trips around the world for the rest of the year.  But I would soon get to hear all about, without really even trying, the son's upcoming marriage, the parents' concern about how to handle his fortune and inheritance - the pros and cons of a pre-nup, etc. Fascinating.  All discussed in an extremely nice way, with the son against the idea, as it did not seem like a nice way to welcome someone into the family.  Even more hilarious : They were definitely from Texas, and maybe even Austin.  

When the proprietator checks on me and my status with the lovely porc, I know he is dismayed at my not finishing it.  I know this is such bad form in France.  But I just cannot.  I look up at him.  I tell him, imploring him:  "I can't, I just can't - I know the cheese and the dessert are still to come."  Oh, but the cheese....it is very small, he says, smiling.

Sigh.  I go in for just a few more bites.  They were good ones.  Glad I did.

Finally, his helper clears that all away.  And then, yes, the really lovely bleu cheese.

I was into Hour 2 of the meal by now.  

I had been reading a French newspaper from 2 days ago to make sure the American aristocrats next to me did not censor their conversation because it really was so intriguing.  Not the subject matter necessarily.  I was just really impressed at how well all of them handled the touchy subject.  No drama.  Just logical arguments, a conflict in their points of view. 

The food finale finally came.  The banana panna cotta.  And then I had to order coffee.  Just seems incomplete to have that kind of lunch and no shot of espresso after.  And the bill came.  It was not bad at all for this experience.  I will definitely go again - with a larger group of persons besides one (1) - and I will reserve.  

And I will not be trying a hot dog again in Paris. 

 

 

 

The First 16 Hours in Paris (A+) but first, l'Avant Comptoir

I read a lot about Paris.  Food, restaurant, wine bar reviews.  But I know enough from flawed experiences that someone else's good review and experience may not be mine.   It was with optimistic anticipation that I nevertheless headed to l'Avant Comptoir yesterday, a wine bar, for a quick re-fueling after 6 a.m. Paris arrival at CDG, RER trip into the city, coffee with my hosts--where we discussed the U.S. jury system and the purview of the judge and jury in questions of law and fact--and a five-hour nap.

The obvious choice was to use the first of the limited, not already-booked nights in Paris to try the Verjus wine bar.  The restaurant, yes, sublime experience in April, but need to get in and try that wine bar my fav food writers love so much.  Closed.

What now.  Paris by Mouth's list of wine bars, by arrondissement, comes in handy. If I am not walking all the way to Palais Royal in the bitter cold, I should try a new place that is close.   L'Avant Comptoir, already on the list I always keep in my head (when my post-45 ailing memory can recall the list), is on their list.  Done.

It is a short walk away, over at the Carrefour de l'Odeon.   Straight shot down Boulevard St. Germain.

Enter.  Let's see what this is all about.

Unassuming at first.  A group of young 'uns from a country in Asia is placing a large order for crepes and gauffres (waffles).   I ask them, after politely waiting and studying the food items signage hanging from the ceiling, if they are waiting for wine.   (When I am hungry, and food/wine is just right there, I do not mince words). They were not.  I squeeze by and settle in at the counter (the "comptoir") and work on figuring out the drill here.

I ask if I order right there, from the master organizer of everything I figure out (and whose name is Eric/Erik/Erich (with red hair, en plus)).  I admitted I wanted a little help with the red wine selection.  Well, he says, what do you like?  "Uh, everything?" I say. (Bad start to new year's reoslution to increase wine vocabulary).

He says, smiling:  "What matters is what interests you right now."

Me: "Well, I just arrived from Texas this morning.  I have not slept much, have not eaten much, and am starving." (rough English translations from the French, or what I recall of it...)  

He ponders.  He turns around look through the wine array.   I order in the meantime what Dorie Greenspan must have been talking about as "voluptuous" in terms of some fried ham croquette thing.  

Dorie was right.  Yes, voluptuous might just work as a description here.

The wine comes.  One sip in and I am writing the name down to email Austin Wine Merchant and see how this can become the new go-to red wine at Chez Liz. Because what do you know, it is a Cotes du Rhone.  I'm not sure I need to drink any other wine for the rest of my life. 

At the comptoir, there are plates of enormous blocks of butter, with butter knives plunged deep into them. There are giant crocks brimming with cornichons, wire baskets of a Poilane-like bread.   And Eric the Red is preparing all of the delectible bites in a space the size of tiny Manhattan closet, a tiny "kitchen," right there (cooktop and toaster oven), with all the ingredients incredibly well-arranged in plastic containers in a tiny regrigerator.  

As Eric left the bottle of my new favorite wine right in front of me, I ask if I just help myself, as he had chosen to place the entire bottle right there in front of me. He smiles again and says, non, though it does look that way, j'arrive to pour your wine for you.  (I really love having wine poured for me.)

Next item to order: I opt for the foie gras brochette.   Eric asks if I am from California - non, I say, foie gras still legal in Texas.  Thankfully.

More orders for crepes at the window.  Eric manages the food orders, deliveries coming in.  He handles all the food prep - except the crepes and gauffres. He handles the friendly banter with old and new friends.  He speaks great English to the English couple that had come in and, to my surprise, just stared ordering in English without even asking if he spoke English.  It is an amazingly well-orchestrated operation in this small space.

The fois gras brochette arrives: hot, seared tiny pieces of yummy fatty melt-in-your-mouth foie gras, roasted red pepper bites in between - a balsamic vinegar tangy glaze. Now this just feels dream-like.

I tell Eric this wine could not be more perfect for me tonight.  He chose well.  Thank you.  And when he launched into the tutoyer with me too, I get that everyone gets the friendly tutoyer, not just longtime friends.  And, enfin, I say:

"Monsieur Eric - I will need the addition when you have a minute."

He stops in his tracks.  Stares at me.

"Madame Texas, I will get that for you right away."

He smiles and asks my name.  We shake hands.  Tell him I will see him again very soon.  

I wonder why people never listen to me when I try to steer them away from what they think is a quintessential Paris experience.  A friend of a friend told me her family would be dining at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower over a holiday.  I had on good authority from  American almost-chef friend that the food there was lifeless and a waste of time.  This was someone who could afford to eat and drink anywhere and everywhere in Paris - and has, so knows full well there is far, far better food to be had in the city.  I tried to subtly suggest to the friend of a friend not doing this - a stupendous waste of money.  Why not hang out and see what Paris is really like?

I said something to Eric like this place was "pas mal."  He smiles, getting the joke, because he knows it is awesome, and says I came at a good time to really enjoy it. Not the huge crowd (I can barely move by now it is getting so crowded). 

I step out into Paris and it starts to snow.  

Later on, in a cozy cafe on the Ile St. Louis, over French Onion Soup, and a nice chat with a table of Professors from Toronto, whom I let have the last of my carafe of Bordeaux as I could not polish it off, I watch the snow come down harder, and watch snowball fights in the street in front of me.  

It was a short walk home over the Seine, past the Christmas trees now covered with snow.  Not a bad first 16 hours in Paris.

Paris Prep at Lenoir ... and Service as Service Should Be

I had the illogical compulsion in this holiday party/holiday get-together season to get in a dinner at Lenoir before Christmas.  Maybe because the last (and first) time I went, I vowed I would go once or twice a month.  At least.  Or maybe it is because the Paris/France trip is looming, and my France longing is in full swing, and Lenoir reminds me of Verjus and Paris.  And now suddenly it is a few months later and no second time, much less a third or fourth time, for a return trip to Lenoir for that long-ago promise.  We know how these things go.  

So I made the reservation.  Couple of noteworthy points for that recent visit.

1.  Service here is as service should be.  (We had Clinton helping us out.) That is to say, it is more French than what we sort of think is ok and expected in the USA.  By that I mean there is no intrusive frequent slew of inquiries into how is everything. Instead, there is the just right amount of ensuring all is well and the just right amount of attentiveness and intuitiveness to know when something might be needed.  Compare with Freedmen's from the Thursday night mescal cocktail night (was a rough week), and the 3-4 persons who each made a round about every 5 minutes to interrupt and ask how things were for us, while I was busy solving the week's problems with a friend.   I like the place, really, but brilliant streams of consciousness over the great cocktail were interrupted far too often for my 47-year-old brain to get back to that stream after assuring everyone several times that everything was fine.  (Sort of cute in the over-eagerness.  Loved the smoked turkey though.)

2.  Back to Lenoir.  I liked everything we had.  But one item was exceptional. Fortunately Anne was there early enough to beat me for the 7:30 reservation and get seated at the bar to be there when someone else, who was eating dinner at the bar, exclaimed over whatever she was eating:  "Oh my God.  This is amazing."   Anne found out what it was.  We each ordered it.  It was this:

butternut mole tortelli / roasted brussel sprouts / amaretti crumble / lime butter

We asked for bread so we would not have to lick our plates to get the last of the crumble and the butter off. 

We asked how long this unearthly delight would be on the menu - forever?

Clinton told us:  yes, lots of good reviews on this one, yes we'll keep it on the menu----for a couple of weeks.

Oh.  This is sad news.  Just a couple of weeks.  The window of this happiness opportunity will be closing soon.   Run.  Go try it.  The tang of that lime with the crumble texture and the crispy Brussels sprouts (chopped up tiny and crunchy, as a garnish almost) with the smooth richness of the butternut mole - it's pretty darn awesome.  Served up in that nice (French-like again) small portion. Just enough to thoroughly enjoy it.  Not too much a serving so as to get too full and not fully appreciate the next course.  

Well done, and see you very soon, Lenoir, before 2013 rolls around here any day now.

 

 

 

"Pretentious Food Jerk" (a Craig Thornton term - way better than "foodie") and Food Life from afar (while cleansing/detoxing)

(seriously overlarge cauliflower purchased on veggie loading trip to Central Market)

I like food.  And wine.  And cocktails (like wine more).  And like enjoying those things with my friends and family.  And also like those things at the many solo "aperitif" times in my kitchen with TSF Jazz, Paris's 24-hour jazz station, keeping me company.

But sometimes enough is enough.  And so it is that I am on this 21-day cleanse thing.  "Purification," rather, under the supervision of my functional endrocrinologist.  How perfect to get back to basics and detox the system between that crazy time of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  How much weight do we gain in this time?  I am forestalling that.  But it means going to some parties and exercising such extreme will power that it surprises even me. 

Now into week 2, day 8, and now that I'm in the cleansing groove and feeling great after a couple of (typical) rough days at the beginning, a funny thing has happened. By withdrawing from the food world, at least in part, I can observe.  How I act with food, interact with it, use and abuse the tasting of this and that.   How I use and abuse it in social settings.  Some events I've almost not attended, for how on earth could one possibly enjoy an evening with the girlfriends at the W and not have a precious glass of red wine.  Or one of those gorgeous cocktails. It was awkward, but in the end it made no difference at all. I still reveled in the sultry coolness of the place and the company of friends.  No wine did nothing to diminish the evening. Shock.  It may have enhanced it.  

But all the more shocking now: how insidiously our popular culture has immersed itself in processed foods.  When you've had a protein drink, some supplements, and a nice sparse green salad at the only place at the airport such a thing could be found ("no nuts or seeds, no cheese - not even a sprinkle - and dressing on the side, please"), the airport food landscape of french fries, Coke, and Cinnabons looks grotesquely surreal.

(baking sheet of torn pieces of washed and dried fresh organic kale, drizzled with 1 tsp of extra virgin olive oil and sea salt and paprika to be baked for 15 minutes or so at 350 - careful to not burn them. And, well, I may have had just about the whole "serving" that baking sheet made...they shrink when they cook!)

In this intense state of mindfulness about food and food experience, I pick up the December 3 issue of The New Yorker at the airport: "The Food Issue."  I almost read it cover to cover - the food articles.  They are exquisitely written. 

Of note for now: "Annals of Gastronomy: Toques from Underground...the rise of the secret supper club," by Dana Goodyear, focusing on freak of nature wunderkind anti-chef, Craig Thornton and his Wolvesmouth dinners in L.A.   He's young.  Creative.  Sort of insane I think.  As every true artist probably is.  Example:

 "At a dinner last winter, when he learned that one of this regular guests was about to turn forty, he proposed cooking a forty-course meal to celebrate.  It was a typical Wolvesmouth dinner, miniaturized and quadrupled, and served in four hours. (Course No. 24: 'chicken liver mousse, pickled pear, watermelon radish, brioche, fleur de sel' No. 31: 'lobster, celery root remoulade, black sesame, cherry-white soy vinaigrette.')." 

He is very anti-bad food and anti-establishment and fame (for now), while catering to and relying on the "foodie" and the "foodie movement."  And here I and millions of others would agree with him.  

Hate the word "foodie."  (Page 52)

Of his two alternatives, "super food asshole" and "pretentious food jerk," I am leaning toward the latter.

The New Yorker article tells us: he is 30 and skinny.  Doesn't drink or smoke.  Rarely sleeps.  He once drove across the country, losing 15 pounds en route, because he could not stand to eat road food along the way.  (Page 46).

So I get it now.  This purification thing is a forced realization of the everyday toxins of the popular food culture.  It reminds that a pretentious food jerk is really, at bottom, nothing more than someone taking a stand against the Cinnabon as an accepted norm and insisting on quality over quantity.  

My mom recently asked me where this love of food--how it looks, tastes, is made and experienced--comes from.  Don't know.  I know I had this early on in that previous life of mine, where I vocally detested and abhorred chain restaurants. I did not have the "foodie" vocabulary back then (early 1990s), but I considered it a waste of a food experience - and calories.  (When I was treated to a birthday dinner at a chain restaurant I should have clued in that this relationship was not looking good for long-term possibilities.) 

If it is pretentious to demand that the calories I choose to expend be good ones, well-grown, seasoned and consumed with thoughts given to the food system that created it, so be it. I am a PFJ.

(part of the Thanksgiving photoscape...(one of many) platter(s) of bacon) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Circuit of the Texas: Soirée Beaujolais / Après-Party chez House of Pies / Stephan Pyles: and Best Service Award Goes to ... House Of Pies!

I missed all the international vibe in Austin this past week and weekend.  Instead of the Circuit of the Americas, I was doing a Circuit of the Texas: exotic Austin/Houston/Dallas/Austin.  Instead of fancy cars whizzing by me in displays of driving prowess, I was stuck on I-35 going 5 mph or sometime as high as 20 mph, then 75 mph for 30 seconds, then back down to 5 mph, bumper to bumper, all the way from Waco to Temple on Saturday afternoon.

But the week and weekend were très international nonetheless amidst meetings. French food and wine, and tapas inspired by Eastern Mediterranean, Spanish, and Indian cuisines and - however you want to characterize the 24-hour cuisine of House of Pies on Westheimer 'round midnight.  

Out of all that food, and all that wine in all those places, I have to hand it to House of Pies.  We had the best service from perhaps the most helpful, perky waitress ever: the perfect combination of helpfulness and efficiency and cheeriness.   And that's not just because I was so happy to have a "vegetarian" omelette with tater tots at 12:30 a.m.  The run-down and scorecard:

1. The 29th Annual Soirée Beaujolais - French American Chamber of Commerce, Houston.

Of course Beaujolais Nouveau is not a fine wine at all, but the festive nature of the publicity stunt, uh, event and all the brouhaha is infectious.  I finally got my chance to attend this event in Houston, but I still would not have actually gotten there but for Maureen.  

I had looked up the prior years' photos to figure out what to wear and was disappointed that there was nothing visually interesting about the event at all: just a tired, staid obsolete hotel ballroom and some wine and food tables.  Big deal.

I would later eat crow, along with everything else I ate.  This was some party. They had to shut the music down and turn the lights up and extra bright to make us stop dancing.  

On first walking in, there are tables all over the place stacked high with not just Beaujolais Nouveau but plenty of other wines. And there are stations of foods lining the room - a fondue with beef tenderloin, airline chicken in a rich reduction on a purée of pommes de terre, paté on many trays garnished in a really lovely way with cornichon, a duck confit with that white bean purée with a touch of truffle oil, desserts - macarons of course.  

(These below were reinforcements, waiting to fill in the macaron tree as its constitutent parts were slowly devoured.  Maureen knew someone at the LeNotre booth displaying these goodies.  She talked.  I had a chocolate macaron.) 

Some of the food lines for the really prime items were far too long, so there had to be something else enjoyable.  And that would be the music.   

First, the accordionist upon entering the venue. Cliché. Loved it.

Second, the solo singer doing Edith Piaf.  Maureen was long gone by now meeting and greeting dozens of friends, not understanding why I needed to stop and eat in between all the talking with many old friends from my Houston days and new friends.

Third, when the crowd was all happy happy on confit and wine, after the can-can dancers, we picked up the pace and moved into the dance portion of the evening.  Cheryl Lynn, Got to be Real, and Jacques DuTronc - some French pop music from the 60s - really got the party started.  

Indeed.  I have found my people and my place.  A place where people dance while balancing a glass of red wine in one hand.  Who knew you could have such a great party in a harvest gold-toned hotel ballroom. 

2.  House of Pies, Houston.

Stroke of genuis on where to eat après la soirée: House of Pies on Westheimer.  I was beyond thrilled and delighted.  Had never been there.  Brown paneling.  Everywhere. Tones of orange and moldy red.   Old brown wood appliqué choo-choo trains on the walls as sculptural art.  So awesome. 

This venue choice was particularly amusing in that Maureen had a sparkly pair of Jimmy Choo strappy heels on.  I have a feeling those are not the first designer shoes to be at House of Pies post midnight.

The food - well -  it was fine.  It hit the spot.  Eggs and "tater tots" it turns out are a perfect coda to dancing with red wine in hand after a night of heavy lifting with confit and paté and macarons.

And despite the exemplary and stellar service of our server, A+++, we could not stay awake for dessert. 

3.  Stephan Pyles Samar (Dallas)

And then it was time to get to Dallas - to reunite with my Leadership Texas class of 2007 and celebrate 30 years of the Leadership Texas program, whose founders include many pioneering, outspoken Texas women, such as the late great Ann Richards.  Sure, there was a great keynote speaker at the conference - Patricia Sellars, Editor at Large, Fortune Magazine, with some different spins on women/entrepreneurship/bringing your whole self to work - but a group of us kicked off the heady stuff by meeting for dinner at Samar by Stephan Pyles.  Once you get over the pretentiousness of the name - which sounds like an overdone perfume commercial - you can focus on the food.   It was a good choice by our Dallas contact: small plates/tapas, and some large plates, feeding our frenzied intent to taste as many dishes as we possibly could.

As between the engineer from TI, the PR agency owner, the software company manager, the entrepreneur/self-made company owner, we were an opinionated bunch and ordered promptly, efficiently, and abundantly: 

• Spanish “Omelet” with Caramelized Onions, Potatoes, Romesco and Pequillo Pepper (C-; I had to comment that though the one at Malaga in Austin is far better, these are still not quite the real thing; my friend Melissa does that real thing version)
• Sautéed Rock Shrimp with Garlic, Brandy, Parsley, Dried Chilies, and Grilled Baguette (ordered only after confirming they were not frozen and were fresh caught; one of our group comes from a family that owns shrimp boats: B-) 
• Olive Oil Poached Corvina with Celery Root, Serrano Ham, Truffles, Olives, and Salsa Verde (D (but I only had a bite))
• Crispy Brussel Sprouts with Pomegranate molasses, Lemon and Red Beet Greek Yogurt (A+++++)
• Spanakopita Stuffed with Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese, Apple Chips and Maple Labne (A+++)
• Haloumi stuffed Squash Blossoms with Pomegranate Olive Salad and Tahini (A+++)   
• Roasted Baby Beets with Akawi Cheese, Candied Walnuts (A+)
• Chickpea Flour Tempura Vegetables with Yogurt, Tamarind and Mint Chutney (these were A+ until we got the other dishes; I give it B+)
• Spinach and Paneer Samosa with Mango Date Chutney (A- ... we were slowing down by then).

At home, the final day of Formula 1, I was back in Austin, at a park in the middle of nowhere in Cedar Park, settled in a chair, watching my son at baseball practice.  

We ended the day with burgers at Hopdoddy and a Walgreens run for new toothbrushes.

It is so very good to be home.  

 

 

Lessons in Swiss Chard / Onion Creek Kitchens at Juniper Hills Farm

(view from my Casita Roja, one of the cabins on site at Juniper HIlls Farm, over the fire pit and bocce court; the Casita Roja is the only one on a second floor and ergo these types of views)

As much as I love food -- food per se, and food as a family and friends event, and food as source of nostalgia and general warm fuzzies -- I am not all that super creative or gregarious when it comes to cooking at home.  It is just the son and I, and there are only so many hours in the day with work and momhood.  I have purchased so much kale, with the best of intentions but that I have never used, it only pushes me deeper into my child-rearing-related food guilt.

(view from my Casita Roja looking down on another nearby casita; yes there are "cabins" to rent on the property; really, really recommend this)

So along with the shocking food facts and revelations about me that I do not like olives or oysters, it may come as no surprise that I'm a little late to the party when it comes to greens.  And swiss chard in particular.  

At the Fall Menu cooking "class" this weekend at Onion Creek Kitchens at the oh-so-very charming rustically scenic Juniper Hills Farm out near Dripping Springs, the list of dishes looked daunting:  

But we should have known, from the last visit there, that Sibby the cook/owner runs a tight ship in terms of timing, resources, dish-washing, and keeping (some) increasingly tipsy guest cooks from falling behind on the job.  

Forgot to set that iPhone timer for toasting those almonds in the convection oven?  Not to worry - someone magically appeared just in time to take them out and leave them on one of many stainless steel prep areas for you.  Going a little slow on the making the sliver in the 2 dozen large dried figs to insert the gorgonzola/goat cheese mixture topped with pecan then wrapped in strips of prosciutto?  Sibby appears and diplomatically offers up some tips to show you a more, ahem, efficient way of getting that important appetizer dish done in time.

It's not really a "cooking class," but you will learn some great new recipes and great prepping and cooking tips from consummate hostess and cook Sibby.  This night we were divided into two "teams," with each team executing the same menu.  Then individuals on each team decide on what they want to make.

We are not ones to stand idly by while others pondered what to make.  Mollie grabbed fast and grabbed well.  Recipes I mean.  She scored the Rosemary Almond Crackers recipe (does not nearly describe how delicious these delicate "crackers" are, infused with rosemary-rubbed sugar and shortbread-esque texture for the finished product). She also scored the swiss chard recipe that I had been eyeing:  "Swiss Chard with Creme Fraiche."  What's not to love about eating a good-for-you vegetable with creme fraiche.  Easy to make. Gorgeous to look at. It screams Christmas.

Start with 1.5 pounds of swiss chard that someone has already washed for you. 

Start tearing the leafy part off of the stems and ribs.  I loved this part.  I was a little more meticulous than Mollie...ahem...did it matter in the end?  Of course not.  A rib with a little leaf (or a lot) does not matter at all.

Off they go to boiling water.  The chopped ribs and stems first (4 minutes).

Then the leaves (2 minutes).  Drain.   Cool.  Squeeze out water. 

Heat oil in pan.  Add the well-drained swiss chard, which won't look like much at all by now after squeezing as much liquid as possible out of them.  Add globs of creme fraiche.  Add salt.  Add pepper.

Done.

Set it to rest and/or keep warm until the rest of the meal is done and it is time to serve yourself up a plate.  

In the meantime, enjoy lovely red wine - thank goodness Mollie brought some La Crema Pinot Noir along - and enjoy meeting lots of great new people (can't wait to try the wine bar in Bulverde we learned about!) while others continue to slave away in the kitchen.

Eat.  Drink more.  Vow to wake up early and swim the next morning at the lovely pool on the property near the "cabins" (assuming you are staying overnight).  

Or just look at the pool while walking around the cabins the next morning while drinking coffee made in your Casita.  Which is what I did.

I am back in Austin now after this soul-satisfying getaway.  And I am thankful, again, for friends who get me out and about and out of work mode.  I brought my laptop there to work, but I never even glanced at it.  (Tip: Don't bring the laptop.)  

I get back to Austin only to learn a dear, dear friend will have a portion of her lung removed on Thursday.  Even if not cancer, the lung has to go.  She will be in the hospital for a week.

More deep breathing and more living - without the laptop - are definitely the life lessons from this weekend.  

Lots of The Other White Meat and Spicy Peppers ... at the Austin Film Festival Food Party

(out on the balcony - cheese!  from Whole Foods; great presentation and fun gals with whom I could discuss the whole French/raw milk deal and my indecision of which cow to adopt in Normandie to support local (in Normandie, France) Camembert producers)

Last night I finally attended, after years of ignoring the flier I get every year, the Austin Film & Food Dinner held as part of the Austin Film Festival's week or so of films.  It was a fairly economical opportunity I figured to sample food stuffs from all the restaurants I've been meaning to try (Swift's Attic), or already like (Foreign and Domestic), or had forgotten about (Sienna; Ranch 616; Ruth's Chris) or never really seriously considered even trying as a serious food destination (Trace, at the W Hotel), or had never even heard of (Jack Allen's Kitchen, in Oak Hill).  

I had to get over the realization soon upon arriving that this was not a sit-down dinner, duh, and did so with one of the Speciality Cocktails (unclear if the spelling was for real on that), involving local Tito's Vodka and St. Germain.  I was dressed all wrong for walking through the Driskill Hotel grand lobby and foyers, going room to room, sampling foods, while balancing iPhone notepad, camera, drink in plastic cup, and plastic plates of various foods.  And that fact that my poorly chosen attire of a clutch bag and a long scarf did some damage at the Carillon table and their gorgeously plated tiny little feta cheesecakes with basil puree, apple butter, juniper streusel & candied marcona almonds did not help matters.

We finally got into the groove of things and just started eating.  First stop was Foreign and Domestic: BBQ Pulled Pork on a Bacon Cheddar Biscuit with B&B Pickles.  And a pumpkin pie macaron.  Odd combo to offer, but a lot of places had a savory and a sweet item.  Good thing we tried the macaron then and there.  One hour later, when we were sated enough to go for dessert items, they were gone.

Right after the pulled pork biscuit was a table featuring Pork Cheek Hash Empanadas, with Jalapeno Sauce.  Out of the first two items I had tried, this was my favorite.

But what's with the pork?  It did not stop there.  Over at Trace, there was pork belly.  Over at Jack Allen's Kitchen, some pulled pork.  We were obviously in the pork room, a room dedicated to The Other White Meat.  I had two helpings of what Jack Allen's Kitchen was dishing up: roasted corn salad, served alongside that pulled pork in a nice stewy sauce, alongside giant rustic chip with spicy pimento cheese. Two, yes two helpings.   

(The Jack Allen's Kitchen Team...they would later offer me a third helping, but by then I really had nothing left...so sad...really fantastic combo and served up stylishly in that brown paper box bowl.)

Worst food mistake: opting for the Frito Pie over at Ranch 616's table too soon in the evening.  Not because it was not delicious - though spicy hot with some hot pico de gallo - but because like they told us, and they were unfortunately right, it was stick to your ribs type food.  But we loved the presentation - served up in the mini-bag of Fritos corn chips and all the ingredients all coming together in that little bag - the crunch of chips, warm with chili, cooled off with spicy pico de gallo and sour cream.

Good thing that right before that our palate enjoyed the spicy fried lobster of Ruth's Chris.   They fry up the lobster pieces, then roll them around in what I could have sworn she said was a serrachi pepper mayonaise.  Like I said, balancing plates, phone, purse, that darn scarf, and trying to write down things my autocorrect on the iPhone garbled into something concerning "lepers" - it was rough.  

Over here, at the table for the Driskill, in addition to the popcorn-esque snack in the clever red Burger King-meets-Chinese-take-out packaging, they would have some ginger ice cream floats, over which they were pouring a blackberry sorghum soda. Odd tasting, still not sure if I liked it, but the ginger ice cream was just the thing for calming the tummy.

We did a decent job on the food items, but really did not do much justice at all to one entire room.  I did enough to grade, however, before the palate was overloaded.   My incomplete, totally biased and subjective list of winners and losers:

Best savory food item:   That roasted corn salad, pulled pork, etc. from Jack Allen's Kitchen.

Best sweet food item:  Pumpkin Pie Macaron from Foreign and Domestic

Best convo with chef folks:  Swift's Attic.  I loved that he prepared a separate tasting of his dish for my friend with intolerance for spicy foods.  But then, alas, it just did not taste just right.  I also loved how he was so not judging of my over-40/hate to drive at night self and was helping me understand the parking situation for those guys.  So going there.  Soon.

Biggest surprise disappointment:  Olive & June.  Love that place; right near chez moi, but that pasta was way too salty.

Best French/France-related food:  Whole Foods.

The only Camembert I have ever liked has been in France, the nicely flavored raw milk kind.  But this, this Camembert with that bit of sweet in the confiture and that touch of Marcona almonds, well done.   I may even check out the cheese counter again at Whole Foods because of this (as I am generally always typically at Antonelli's for any cheese purchases).

Will I go next year to the 11th Annual Austin Film Festival Food & Film Dinner?  Maybe.  But going with friend(s) is key, as are good walking shoes and a healthy appetite.  And your favorite stomach-soothing holistic medicine item, in the event you have been on no carbs or sweets for a week when you start eating fried lobster, frito pie, and pork belly, also is highly recommended.

(one last look at the cheery team from the Driskill and perhaps the best display of their food items)

Rennes - When en Bretagne....one must eat crepes...but not all creperies are worth a trip: Creperie Saint-Georges Is.

On the day I landed in Paris, I left Paris.  For Rennes.  This was a technology/diligence trip, and so western France would occupy my time for the first part of the trip.  The first stop was Rennes.   When I finally emerged from the hotel after a coma-like nap, a young hip gal with the heavy regional accent of Bretagne - Rennes is the capital of this region - told me that for the aperitif I sought in a nice ambiance, I specified, perhaps Place Ste. Anne was where I should head.  And so I did, passing all sorts of lovely and actually just exquisite architecture along the way. 

When one is sitting outside in a lovely Place such as this, i.e., the photo above, and enjoying the first aperitif in France, one tends to go overboard.  I had two aperitifs - and then realized I needed to eat. Soon.

No good calling the hotel to ask what they had recommended as the best creperie out of so many in the crowded creperies culinary space.  Too tired.  Faint with hunger.   I figured just any one of the nearby creperies on this bustling gathering spot would be a good pick. 

I would be wrong.

I picked one nonetheless.  And had more red wine.  But it could not disguise that the spinach in this crepe - which I thought would be a healthy choice along with ham, mushrooms, and hallmark of regional egg on top - for my first famous regional crepe in this the capital of Brittany.  

The equivalent of frozen chopped spinach this was.  A sour canned taste.  I was forced to order a dessert crepe: chocolate and salted caramel.  For someone who had been on no bread, no sugar, and in general just no complex carbs for weeks, this was manna.  Slowly, but not entirely, the sour canned spinach taste and memory went away.

Next day, I know better.  I ask at the Front Desk.  The nice young man does not hesitate when I say I made a mistake the night before and needed a great creperie.   The Creperie Saint-Georges, he says, and hands me a map.

I walk down the charming quais.  Then turned right and right again onto the cobblestone street, with lanterns and those hallmark half wood-framed buildings. It was perfect.  How ever did he know? 

I walk in.  It is unlike the 1970s mode creperies I recall from high school trips to Paris.  It is hip, warm, friendly, and bustling.  Mid-century modern chairs - avocado green almost, gold, lucite and shag up front. But all done up with a 2012 contemporary sensibility.  See it all here.

Even better, the music.  That lounge-y stuff that I on buying on iTunes (Soul Lounge, Gregorian Chant Lounge, Celtic Lounge).

I wanted to high-5 the guy at the hotel about now.

I walk through the cool vibe room onto that back terrace.

I am handed a menu. 

So many elegant choices for a crepe.

This is not the last night creperie-of-canned-spinach horrors.

This is about fresh farm cream and other locally sourced dairy, including all the goat cheese.

 

Even better, certain crepes had recommended wine pairings by the chef.  Have to have that.

I order the "George" something: with the chevre cendre (ashed) and pears, and lightly smattering of "lardons" (bacon).   I was unclear on the "glace (ice cream) a chevre" - how does ice cream enter into the picture?  But the pear and goat cheese with that ashen outside was calling my name. I ordered, and for 3.2 Euros extra, got the Chardonnay pairing.

"Black wheat" (ble a noir) is the composition for these crepes - darker it seems than the more traditional buckwheat.

Inside, the lardons are not overmuch and not greasy. 

Just enough to pick up and contrast that salty tasty with a sweet crisp pear, and several small layered slices of just melted oozy goat cheese with that telltale sharpness that I just never get tired of.

And that little bit of ice cream on the side on my lovely plate?  So used to "chevre" being used to refer to cheese, or that's just where my head is usually, I forget it is just the word for goat.  Therefore, if one has yogurt with "chevre" - it is yogurt made with goat milk.  And if it is "glace" - or ice cream - a la chevre, it is ice cream made with goat milk.

It was such a French, tiny, just-right portion.  It was a thick, rich vanilla taste, with a tart tangy bite to it.  I loved it.  Loved it all.

And then I ordered coffee.

And then I finished my coffee.

And then there was nothing left to order.  I had to leave.

Here, one pays at "l'accueil" - at the welcome desk up front. The two guys running this whole show, answering the phone, cheerfully and graciously welcoming every guest - a charming bookend to the creperie of horrors the night before.  I told of my mistake: that I ate the night before at a creperie up at the Place Sainte Anne.  He smiled and kind of rolled his eyes knowingly, but he said nothing.

And because it is "Festival Gourmand" in Rennes for about a month -- though I am missing the big finale weekend in a couple of weeks --  they stamped my card for me that I picked up at the tourism office.  If you go to 3 restaurants participating in the "Festival Gourmand" and have them stamp this card, you rank which of the visited restaurants you liked best and turn in the card at the tourism office for a drawing.

I did not turn mine in. 

But if I had, the Saint Georges would have been my No. 1 pick.

 

A couple of food things better left unseen...Honey Boo Boo's "Sketti" Night and the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte Secret Syrup

It is with some hesitation that I mention anything related to "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" because that would confirm that yes, I watch the show, briefly, when I happen upon it.  I am actually quite enthralled by it.  Apparently a lot of other people are too.  Ratings are way up and they are asking for raises.  Loving but vulgar is about right to describe the family.  Alana, a/k/a Honey Boo Boo, is freakishly articulate and bursting with spunky personality for what, age 7?  But I guess if you've been trained for years in the toddler pageantry scene, that's par for the course. 

I love best about the show the interesting turns of phrases in the family vernacular.  The mom's "what the hellever" is my current favorite.  She uttered it at the unsuccessful conclusion of an etiquette class for the girls, and the teacher's gentle remark that more work was needed.  Really.  Now, I've heard "what the hell ever for," but to use the phrase just to state one's disdain, as if to say "whatever" and say instead, eyes rolling, "what the hellever," I kind of love it.

But I did not love a recent food episode.   Mom was making "sketti."   The family's favorite sauce for "sketti"  on family sketti night is butter and ketchup.  I felt a little sick to my stomach.  But as grossed out as I was, I also was fascinated.  I could not avert my eyes.  But then they got out the big plastic brown tub of faux spreadable butter/margarine and were scooping that out, and then squeezing the ketchup out, and about then I was done.  I had to look away.  But for a minute, I did wonder how it tasted.  Would the faux spreadable butter substance take away enough of the sweetness of the ketchup?  Would this combination even stay together or separate when heated?  I should have watched to see if they did heat it. 

Not 12 hours later, I was in a long line at Starbucks, where I happened upon another food (beverage) item that I really wish I had not seen. 

I realize a lot of people are gaga over the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte.  Even really good friends of mine.  I always get just nice strong coffee ("grande bold no room"), so I don't entirely get this.  But I do get the thrill of it being that time of year, like now, when Starbucks rolls out the Pumpkin Spice Latte.   I get that it means fall is here - and for Austin that means just a tad bit of thrilling coolness in the mornings and at night.  Autumnal coziness I totally get because I become almost weepy with serious warm fuzzies when Starbucks changes the cups over from the signature white with green logo to those holiday red paper cups with snowflakes.  It means Christmas time:   ultimate cozy times, in front of the fire (if it dips below 60 degrees), curled on up on the couch surrounded by cookbooks and planning the holiday food spreads, listing to a little something Baroque on KMFA, a glass of red wine....

But the magic of the Pumpkin Spice Latte is better left unseen.  Because it is really nothing more than this icky sweet viscousy stuff that comes in a plastic jug, which someone had left out in plain view on the counter for all to see. 

It is a good thing the Festival Gourmand  will be in full swing in lovely Rennes, France when I am there next week.  I aim to have enough gourmet gourmandise outings to erase residual queasiness over the thought of spreadable-from-a-tub-butter-and-ketchup sauce over sketti.

 

 

 

(His) Pioneer Woman Sour Cream Pancakes and (Hers/My) Salad, Again.

The son had to experience the ultimate humiliation for a 15-year-old boy.   He had to go out in public, at a public event, and be seen in public, with not just his mom, but also his gregarious and really funny Aunt/Godmother, her two kids, the Aunt's good friend visiting from out of town and her four-year-old "cowboy" - who apparently every day dresses himself in full cowboy regalia.  Hat and boots.  The works.  He is adorable.  Cowboy Boy was I think the only highlight for the son to make this event not the complete kiss of death he expected it to be.  

Knowing full well what his reaction would be, I waited until late in the day on Saturday to mention.  "Uh, yea, well, we're all going out to dinner and then we're all going out after to a play.  Like a musical."   (And there was a University of Texas football game on that night too.)

I will not tell him, but I did see him crack a smile a few times during the performance.  It's too bad the full gamut of Olivia Newton John schmaltzy 1980s stuff was lost on him (it was Xanadu at Zachary Scott Theatre).   But he's lucky my sister/his aunt  and her friend were not on their A game.  We neglected to wear any sort of costume at all.  Sequined headbands would have been just the right subtle thing.

As a thank you for him, for tolerating the event (He: "Did I have a choice?"), I said I would actually cook.  Something real.   I almost went for the Pioneer Woman Lasagna .... but then, because Sunday was an all-day rainy day, breakfast for dinner sounded right.  He nodded pretty enthusastically at that option.   Pioneer Woman has a Sour Cream Pancakes recipe that would accomplish two purposes for me (i) get the son to eat something he loves with an ingredient he generally hates (sour cream); and (ii) try another recipe out of this really great cookbook.

Ingredients: mostly sour cream;  2 eggs, some vanilla, just 7 T of flour.  Seriously very little.  The kicker though is to cook them on a griddle with sizzling melted butter.   Just like she says.

I set out on the son's white plate, these three beautiful pancakes, a light crust from the butter on the outside.  I said: "They look a little dark just from the sizzling around the edges in the butter."  He nodded.  As if to say, yea, right. 

On the hard core Garden of Eden salad eating regime these days, I could not help it. Right before he made his appearance, I had to have a bite.  Just a bite of the smallest of those 3 still remaining crispy-on-the-outside-slightly tart/tender/very fluffy-on-the-inside pancakes.  

The one bite was so good I had to grab the closest bottle of open red wine for a quick pour and gulp to erase forever the memory of how amazing that one bite of the sour cream pancake was.  I told the son I was pretty sure he was going to like these.

He dug in.  His eyes went wide open - like in shock - and he looked up and said to me, amazed, and loudly, while the pancakes were like still in transit in quick succession for bites two and three:  "These are REALLY GOOD."   And then he asked if there were more before he was even done.   I could only imagine how they tasted bathed lovingly in a coating of just warm enough (fake) maple syrup.

Me, I had a salad.

I added grilled chicken to it. 

The next day, at Whole Foods downtown at the intersection of death at 5th and Lamar, I had a salad that could have fed a family of 8.  If only I could have such an array of vegetables available at every meal: beets, shredded carrots and cabbage and zucchini, curried cauliflower, green beans, edamame, eggs, cheese, toasted chicken--protein of all kinds--and everything bright and shiny and shredded already.  A salad bar at home.  That's what I need.

As the Internet was out at the office, I went mobile office for the day.  So in the two hours I had to kill/work there at Whole Foods, after I had been at the Starbucks on the other corner for an hour previously, I slowly worked my way through this not petite salad.   It was not as great as it looks, I have to say.  A little too much curried cauliflower, my fault, but doing without dressing meant I needed something to save the day. 

I should get out more.  Though I guess leaving for France in a week counts.  But Whole Foods now has this Artisan Cookie Bar.  Right next to the Salad Bar(s). 

That is just wrong. 

 

 

GourmandeMom Olympics Day 6 (and Closing Ceremony)

Saturday marked the closing ceremonies for my GourmandeMom Olympics - i.e., the one new food venue, or cocktail, or food or cocktail offering every day.  Good thing.  I could not eat or drink any more like this.  Even with the every day workouts.  And the son was coming home anyway the next day, and it would be back to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, take-out from Westwood's Court 7 Grill, and an occasional foray into Giada's new cookbook. 

(unintentional....odd but interesting lens/film choice by Hipstamatic (Salvador 84 Lens, DreamCanvas Film) outside of Lenoir, white-washed wood art and chairs)

I closed out the week of living large Saturday night, with a 9 p.m. dinner reservation at Lenoir Restaurant.  Verjus in Paris - that little jewel box of a restaurant I keep talking about - is virtually all windows.  Lenoir in Austin has not a single window to the outside in the restaurant - at least at night.  Yet they are very similar. 

Both are captivating: in tone, decor, and mood.  As well as in terms of the food and the wine and the waitstaff and the owners.  Food: exquisite tiny portions.  Wine: a wine list that even a VP of Sales for a wine importer/distributor can love (she was seated right next to us).  Decor: white/atonal. Plays of light and shadow making for a quasi-romantic, but not icky, ambiance.  And common to both is a he-and-she partner team of chef owners, dedicated to the point of obssession to using the best of local produce and creating genuine connections with their community.

Our seats were at the long communal table that figures prominently in the middle of the small space.  Square white blocks, open/hollow, are the seats.  The purse, the phone, the accoutrements (like the white wrap/scarf I left and the server tracked me down in the car to return it to me after we left), all go in the hollow space.  We sat across from each other, Melissa and I, such that to my left was the husband of the husband-wife duo seated next to us, and to Melissa's right was the wife of this globe-trotting couple.  The picture on the web site shows it all, but cannot quite capture the moody glow about the place.  The Austin Chronicle mentions the decor of whitewashed wood art and identifies the designer as Chris McCray.

Those lights above the table up close seem like simple residential foyer-type brass fixtures.  But in different shapes and sizes, clustered together, at varying heights, over a long wood table with a beautiful wood grain - it works.

The Communal Table. 

Last time I had this type of eating experience was at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe. For breakfast.  But the experience of a communal table is no doubt way more fun at night, especially when your dining companion/neighbors have finished off their time there with a lot of interesting wines and are rather friendly and outgoing.

And so it began...

As I was talking to Melissa about issues and concerns about the shortness of my dress, and almost regretting the choice given the type of seating, the woman next to Melissa tells me they were noting how cute my dress was when I walked in, so not to worry.  This is a good start.  We start talking.   We hear what they had to eat and drink.  And as we learn pretty quickly she is a wine importer, I really want to know what they had to drink.  They had a glass of this and that and a bottle of something else.   She let us have a sip of the red wine that they were finishing up.  Yep, right from her own glass.  I love these people.  And we ordered a bottle. 

Never, ever in a million years would I have entertained the thought to order this wine.  It was not French. It was not Spanish.  It was not even from anywhere in South America.  It was Austrian: the "st. laurent sattler, burgenland, austria 2009."

And we polished it off well before the last course, which was frightening - especially as we both had the passing thought, I think, which we did not share with the other - that maybe we needed another one (bottle)....?  But we managed ok, thankfully, without the Round 2.  We managed mostly because our wine guru for the evening left for us a portion of an exquisite additional beverage that was poured for her and her husband at the way end of their meal.  It was a gift, the server announced, from a certain sommelier across town (at a well-known culinary establishment), who heard she was dining there at Lenoir.  Yea...that stuff apparently really happens to some people.  I'm just so glad for the wine recommendation.  And the communal table.

How Lenoir works.  There are categories: Field, Sea, Land, and Dream (dessert).   You pick up to 3 for the prix-fixe meal.  An extra dish will be $10, but for those first 3, any three, the price is $35 total.  This, my friends, is a bargain for this caliber of food. 

Even better: they do not serve bread with the meal.  It will interfere with the enjoyment and complete focus on the actual meal.  Yes!   You may ask for it, however, so I am told.  The French way here is indeed the best way.   The food is too delicate.  You have to be all prepped and ready to really enjoy it. Why would you waste your palate and your appetite with just bread, regardless of how lovely the bread might be?  

From the "Field" category I ordered a bean salad ("summer beans / smoked mushroom / tomato water / pasilla").  Light, summery.   But the star of the night though, and for everyone around as well who ordered it and was raving about it, was from the "Sea" category: a fish curry (fish curry / watermelon / chili fry / preserved soy beans / dried corn).   I think I heard someone day that the fish was drum.  Pictures do not help here.  You just have to eat it to believe it.   There was the intense spice of the chili, the coolness of the watermelon, and drippings of a sort mixing together the remains of watermelon into the chili flavor.  Bread would have been welcome here.  To make sure not a drop was wasted.  But bread also would have been far too heavy a substance to work into that mix.

I also had, from the "Land" category, "roasted pork loin / smoked shrimp / okra / coconut sticky rice."   And much like at Verjus, I just sat back (figuratively, because otherwise I would have fallen backward off the square block), and relished the moment of staring, marveling, sighing, at the lovely food.  The portions are indeed small, be forewarned, but that works just fine, especially with the grouping of 3.   

It would be tempting to order 3 servings of the fish curry next time. 

Lenoir has monthly wine dinners.  Saturday August 5, the same night we were there, and my closing ceremonies night, was a Riesling night, described as "an evening of communal dining, starting in our backyard at 5:30 with a little music and light nosh before we head inside for a perfect meal of grilled fish, roasted chickens, pear strudel and lots of bright, crisp riesling representing different regions."   Sign up here for Lenoir's Newsletter. 

 

 

 

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.