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SXSW 2013 - Rookie/Newbie Brain Dump on the 8 Days

As I prepare for real life again on Monday after 8 days of thinking, eating, walking, drinking at this, my first SxSW, I realize I can manage only a brain dump of a summary of the overall experience.  A mashup of random meetings and interactions and myriad suggestions and tips that led to the inspiring, the bizarre, and maybe even life-changing people and panels.

Memory Lane Stream Of Consciousness Brain Dump (from notes along the way)

Baconator attempted at lunch, over and over - oh why oh why is the dual-line system for this and the panky dog and the Cap'n Crunch and cous-cous delicacy SO confusing? Tired and cranky. Give up and try again another day for that pulled pork over slaw and spicy remoulade sauce in a bacon waffle cone. Head to Hackney House our East London connection with tech community; will backdoor into Angers somehow for technology enterprises and JVs, etc. etc. Follow up to follow.  Those Hackney House folks' sccents adorable.  Cannot understand them.

Back to Interactive. New to me buzzwords: market pane - huh? Oh: "market pain." Ergo SIRI: SIRI invented to diminish multiple steps/touches to web-searching that resulted in loss of users to get to transactional state (money/purchase). So true.  I give up after couple of clicks/touches.  

3-D printing is not weird printing fad to use and then look at through 3-D glasses but radical iteration of the first Industrial Revolution: e.g. I decide I need a pair of yellow flip flips or a toy figure of my own imagination and bam the Bre Pettis Makerbot can make that. THAT is 3-D "printing."  

Elon Musk...spectacular biceps -- flash: recall is TESLA guy and PayPal guy. SpaceX kind of mind-blowing: get it takes cool calm brilliance - arrogance? - to say we should go to Mars and I will do it if NASA will not.  Vision of reusable rockets here (after all we don't throw away a plane after one use, do we).  Elon shows us first - besides cameraman.  Via Johnny Cash Ring of Fire soundtrack successful test of reusable rocket.  Grasshopper.  Yes, I was there.  Saw it. One of the first.  Thank you EE for recommending I hit this.  Lessons here of failure, faith - yes money too, but failure and risk and failure again.   See also Twenty Feet from Stardom.  Failed - frustrated - paths to greatness for amazing black women those background singers (open with the Lou Reed song Take Walk on Wild Side); stories of why there, why stay, why and how cannot move up and out and the curiosities and cruelty of fate stomping down voices so magnificent: chills up and down and up again the spine.

Entrepreneur Lounge: Off site Fogo de Chao: tech companies/associations from Nantes.  Invites for them to meet the startup scene, Eve Richter, chamber of commerce heads, city leaders, way too many freely available Caipirinhas (below) boy that bacon-wrapped chicken and the sausage was great.  

Break time another lounge the Lounge Thing for SxSW not as glamorous as thought but great for charging phones.

Austin City Limits "Lounge" (okay alcove) at Convention Center. Decide to sit in there on couch and because tired and want to sit in green and red and purple light.  And charge phone. No care who else there.  Is band Orange County, CA just drove in ready to go on Beacon Lounge.  Beacon Lounge the fav.  (Well, no, Yahoo! lounge surprisingly cool at Brazos Hall.  Checked it out for architecture and ended up staying.)  When else are red bean bag chairs, outlet for phone, great salsa and chips all there for the taking?   Earlier in day had hearty oatmeal cookie with raisins for sort of protein at that lounge.  

Catch some of the Four Seasons live KUTX program one morning. Note: this is all the SxSW music I need.  No need for platinum badge.  Yep, this is the way to go. Hear Robin Hitchcock. Feel sort of in-the-know now.

Food Crawl Saturday with foodies:  Drag self to Long Center.  In drizzly rain. Get wristband. With 100s others.  Cannot deal with Tweeting and walking in rain to follow maps on secret site.  W cocktail instead.  Listen to music.  Meet up with Food Crawlers at Kenichi.  Food gal there met my Paris food startup acquaintance Cedric day before. Learn of BakeSpace, TechMunch: decide to attend food blogger seminar next day at Whole Foods in global HQ offices. In quasi-hangover state tell Serena next to me at the seminar that it would be cruel joke for me to win basket of Argentinean wine being given away that day because I am so tired of drinking and so do not need it.  I won it.  

New foodie friends, including lawyer who does Foodie Is The New Forty.  Note foodies are very thin.  Why do I feel so fat. Will deal with later.  Try cold brewed coffee.  Chameleon Coffee.  Tried at TechMunch demo day at Whole Foods with Horchata. Realize may never live in France because unsure can live without Horchata.  Food panel with Addie Broyles and others so surprisingly substantive and thoughtful: the whys and what-fors of food porn, molecular gastronomy, over-eating/doing (ironically, was my question to the panel....).  A re-Tweet by Addie.

Chef Remi for the Angers bands' big invasion of combining the music and food cultures to bring it all here for the Austin Angers scene gets hooked up for pork blood and other pork items (or reasonable substitutes under the circumstances and they are superb substitutes).  High 5 Trace at W and Slow Food Austin.  Sebastien comes to rescue.  All under control.  

I decided one day in late late late a.m. in cavernous Austin Convention Center that with protein depletion and inadequate hydration movie popcorn and red wine in a chair sounds good.  Why. Why do this to self.  Because I feel like a kid playing hookie and it feels bad (i.e., good) to do so.  But now yes those buttery kernels are stuck on my mid-section and require weeks of ab work and paleo.

Walmart run to help Chef Remi for coolers to get the food over to Bungalow for the showcase and the brunch preceding.  Gladly.  Drop off at Justines and hang out and wait.  Photo ops.  Justine's delicately lovely in a.m. before masses invade.  I check out kitchen.  Chat with Pierre en francais. Direct electrician as Pierre had left.  Stir some things on the stove.  Chef Remi arrives.  Approves coolers.  I leave.  I get TexMex at Joe's on way back to downtown.  Get parking.  Movie No. 2:  Finding the Funk.  Great seat. Call from home.  Leave.  All works out.  Go back to downtown.  Park again.  Take Nantes, France delegation to party out in country.  Sun setting over in the hilliness of Nutty Brown Road.  Lovely.  

Next day brunch via Chef Remi spectacular success duck tartare really something duck pate chicken liver pate all so lovely.  Austin-Angers music showcase stunning in colors and sounds and diversity amidst this superb food spread.  Stick around for rest of afternoon.  Charge phone.  While racing to outlet to charge phone, again, meet Episcopalian minister. Talk Jesuits and Pope and community and music.  Promise to go to his panel. (I did not make it.)  

Meet gluten-free Chef People's Pharmacy learn about French Paleo cookbook.  Meet Austin Music Foundation peoples and jazz trumpet awesome guy Jeff Lofton and his cool wife Dean.  Great glasses she had. We talk about and talk to people about jazz venues in France.  Get free CD.

Titi Robin Trio rocks it with the virtuoso guitar of Titi and that percussion. No wonder they are the band from this trip chosen to be on Fox morning show to spotlight in prime spot.  Get French Paleo cookbook signed.  Listen to Erin Ivey,  mpish voice and guitar.  Pause needed away from this Bungalow place.  Ice cream at new fav Ice Cream Social. Madagascar Vanilla and Salted Caramel the chosen flavors.  Topped with Cardamon Toasted Coconut.  Must nap. 

Friday wake up early to get band (Titi Robin Trio) for TV spot.  Get them south of Ben White.  7 adults in the MDX and the instruments.  Funny.  Stop at gas station en route.  Drive to Fox Station on 11th.  Do coffee run for band.  Translate some timing issues.  Agent Amelie handles better.  Nerves on edge from too much coffee too little sleep too many Brazilian cocktails.  Spot done.  Cut.  Done.  Get car. Drive to Justine's for the Friday brunch with the official peoples and later the bands. 

All food now.  No worries. Lovely day.  All the important people are there already.  

(Le Chabada co-director Francois here with moi in bloated state and Consul General of France, in from Houston Frédéric Bontems).

Again the nice Cultural Attache, Sylvie, from day before event also.  Austin Mayor.  Sunny skies.  Breeze.  Tables - pain au chocolat - coffee. Olivier whipping up espressos inside as adeptly as he handles those French 75s at crush time. I ask him if French 75s can be done.  He says oui.  I say see you soon.  Victoria joins me with wine.  (That white wine - the "vin nature" - so good.)  French friends shocked (again) with me but do not care so much by now as so relieved made it to here and so happy they are having this wonderful moment.

More wine.  More duck pate and duck tartare.  More music and bands. Victoria buys French 75s for us.

(Part of the Austin-Angers PsychFest decor for the stage at Justine's...I felt about like this gal here.  Just not as thin.)

Lunch at Justine's with Victoria.  For like two hours.  Thierry is our waiter.  New guy.  Never seen him before here.  I drink water.   She leaves for next engagement. Chat with Francois, Germain. Wonder if more friends can come or I will head downtown again for movie.  Amy arrives.  Admire amazing decor the Justine's team did.  Francois tells us they did all this.  

More music and sitting on bench with Amy and Francois in the sun ... through German hard rock group.  Paris acoustic group.   Discuss ideas of "the real Texas" with Francois and Amy.  Bands over now.  Official Justine's dinner time rolling around. Day Drinking at Justine's and lunch: marvelous.  I ask Pierre if he will continue.  Non.  

Sun setting.  More friends arrive.  Francois invites us to stay for dinner with the Angers contingent.  Amy stays.  I stay.  More wine, Chef Remi gives me gifts and intel on his new restaurant.  Chef pulls off the "sabrage" maneuver on the champagne - the champagne used for the Austin-Angers toast earlier in the day.  So classy those French.  Champagne (small, moderate amounts) for us all.  

Melanie, here with the group to donate her time to make a documentary about the Austin-Angers connection, now tells me she needs to interview me before I leave to go home.  Melanie: you realize I have been here since 10H30 a.m. and starting on the organic white wine at 11 a.m.?    No worries.  It works.  I am done. Will pick up the coolers next day.

While in line for Twenty Feet from Stardom earlier in week met Fitz, lawyer from Colorado.  Learn about free CLE on Saturday.  Look at CLE program see lawyer from Paris there.  Will go.  Wake up Saturday.  Go downtown. Get parking.  Get coffee.  Go to CLE.  Copyright reform underway.  Interesting.  Massive issues of Pandora, Spotify (good thing heard those talks earlier in the week); costs of content.  Costs of negotiating.  Battlegrounds for how the digital economy for music will be managed. What is fair for artists/consumer/the company that provides the service.  

Walk to Milk and Honey.  Walk back to Convention Center.  Paris lawyer talks about alternative financing for music groups and tax issues in US and France.  Talk to Paris lawyer at break.  Exchange cards. Meet Montreal company and cool publisher guy: Montreal indie music scene huge: 200+ indie record labels.  Get free CD.  Meet Venezuelan Latin dubstep gal.  Get free CD.  (Really love this CD.)  

Last gasp: movie at Stateside Theatre all the way back up on Congress. While in line, more music, bands, peace march down Congress.  Couple next to me in line, in 60s, in their "retirement home" condo downtown, do movie part every year. Had seen 12 movies so far this year.  Prince performing across the street that night from their condo.  

Glad stayed in line for Good Ol' Freda.  Nice to be in cool dark place.   It was then nice to be done with the movie.  It was nice to walk outside, into the fray of the Saturday night of Vampire Weekend of SxSW getting ramped up.  

And it was very nice to take off le badge, walk to the car, and drive home.  And sleep.

 

 

Considering Valentine's Day

I have been thinking much these past few days on Valentine's Day: specifically, the fact that the romantic dinner is so the thing to do on Valentine's Day with a Significant Other a/k/a boyfriend or girlfriend, and the angst that this ritual can pose to the outsiders, those in a rut of singlehood, and to even the most seemingly successful, together, and hip of single women.  The day is just a big in-your-face reminder that, yes, you're on your own - go get your own flowers and artisanal chocolate - and you're, yes, in a state of being that is contrary to the societal inclinations toward considering "normal" as the couple and not the Table for One person.  

(Spread at Mollie's Annual Pink Tea)

For many years, this holiday, or whatever it is, conjured up for me about the same level of warm fuzzies as do memories of P.E. class at my small Catholic grade school and my being inevitably among the last dregs of the class to be picked for whatever awesome team sport was on tap for that day.  (To this day just hearing "dodge ball" makes me flinch.)  

But this year is different.  I wonder what on earth I would actually want from a beloved Significant Other, if I had one, on such a day.  I realize I don't know.  If I don't know, I wonder how on earth a guy in this equation is supposed to know.  (As it seems to me, again from observation only, that it is typically the female in the equation that has the expectations about this day along the same lines as daydreams about the gorgeous trimmings of The Wedding Day and the Dress but not so much the realities of Marriage.)

I guess the ideal is that the SO would know you so well he could come up with something interesting.  [You know, in my case it would be easy. I could be surprised with, for example, an order of a case of a certain wine that I loved somewhere, sometime, and Tweeted about.  (Except I would perhaps note the fact it is wrong for an ordinary busy single mom to have so much red wine in her house at one time.)  Or I could be surprised with a certain outrageously decadent salted caramel chocolate bar over $10 at Antonelli's (wrapped up and presented very nicely of course), which I cannot bring myself to buy for myself but would not turn down if someone else showed up with it. (But for the fact it is Lent and that outrageously decadent chocolate at this price is a bad choice for a time of year when decadence avoidance is more the norm....See?  It's complicated.  Even for me thinking of my own appropriate token of thoughtfulness.)]  

But does one really want this forced thinking on what an appropriate sign of affection would be on this particular day just because everyone else, so it seems, is on that bandwagon?   Seems like one would gladly trade a bust on this one overcommercialized day for a healthy, fun relationship the 364 other days of the year.

One big problem I have these days, as 50 looms closer than I like to think (and I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up), is that because my food-centric life has recently been so, well, fulfilling in terms of going to great places and being with great people, that a non-spontaneous going out again for Valentine's Day almost sounds like a chore.  Indeed, it has been a fantastic food week already leading up to 14 February:

1)    Friends from Angers, France arrived to prep for the SxSW indie rock bands they are bringing for SxSW.  Had lunch with them at Second and their P.R. agent. I of course wanted to use this as an excuse of having wine with lunch.  (Only one other person joined me.)  And on Wednesday we visited with (1) Iliana de le Vega at El Naranjo - she truly is a lovely person in addition to being a spectacular cook - and (2) Valerie Broussard at the W Hotel, as a "forager" or scout of the best of the best produce for the restaurant, Trace, and so in touch with local produce, local farms, and game for future collaborations with our sister city Angers.  

2)    Had dinner with new or putative potential friends at Winflo Osteria who just wrote me here, on the blog, and thought it would be neat to get together with me for dinner.   Yes, that definitely counts as pretty dang awesome (though if Hugo (Desnoyer) wanted to track me down this way, sure, that may be a few degrees cooler in the cool things column).  

3)    Party-giver extraordinare neighbor had her annual Pink Tea on Saturday, and continues the streak with a small dinner party on Saturday.

(Mollie's Pink Tea spread...I'm not a sweets person really, but these cupcakes...not sure what she put in them.  Delish.)

3)    Gratitude is front and center this week:  I am grateful that after much away time the past few weeks, it just feels so right to be (mostly) at home and cooking (sort of) real meals for the son, whose smile on his face when I walk in the door from a long trip, despite his best efforts to hide it, he cannot suppress because it is so involuntarily genuine and spontaneous.  

In light of the blessings of friends and family, I wonder why we (i.e., some womenfolk) persist in thinking this one day is the barometer of our lives in general -- in terms of "success" or "failure," even though most of the single moms (mostly lawyers) I know do not have the energy left, if they were honest with themselves (which I am on this front), to even entertain the option of a relationship beyond a few dates. 

In short, I am looking forward to thoroughly enjoying Thursday evening at home, making something perhaps with my overload of turnips from my Greenling Local Box, drinking a lot of water given the wine and great food overload these past few days, making sure the son has finished his note cards for chemistry class, and - if I'm really lucky - I'll catch an NCIS marathon.

And I will have no one else to blame for what is this year, for me, the perfect Valentine's Day. 

 

Best Laid Plans Gone Awry (Frenchie Night a Bust) / The Unexpected Steps Up To The Plate

I have been stalking Frenchie, one of the most sought-after reservations in Paris, for some time.  And then, after months of attempting, a friend in Paris gets me a reservation weeks before my trip.  I am agog.  I look forward to this - for all those weeks - to Thursday night, January 24, at 19h.   Yea, I made it there.  Barely.  But because of something like a stomach flu that morning, I was not in prime form. Indeed, I could not eat the main course at all, and barely held it to gether to take a stab at the beautiful entree.   Yes, after all that anticipation and longing and yearning.  The best laid plans...just sometimes are not the best thing at all.

Instead, I prefer to look at the Frenchie bust amidst some amazingly unexpected and wonderful food events here.

First: the invitation of faculty at the University of Angers to sit in on the high-end intense wine-tasting class - and, even better, lunch with the gastronomy faculty, including Olivier Etcheverria and Jean-Rene Morice, and the well-known sommelier/wine professor/professional, Jean-Michel Monnier, also on the faculty, Although the chemistry of wine, aromas - and the physiology of taste through the nose and mouth were heady stuff, especially in French - I may have grasped, for the first time, just how one can actually start to discern the many layers of nuance in a wine.  Once you learn to taste and experience, all of that starts to come to light. Lunch with this group, discussing gastronomy, agriculture, tourism/economic development - and how it works with Austin's food scene - totally unexpected. Totally fortuitous.  Much good work and dialogue to come in the realm of Austin-Angers connections. 

Second, the surprise of such an unassuming facade, for such a tiny footprint of a storefront that is Chez Remi in Angers, could be such an utter delight inside: in terms of setting, the welcome, and the food.  Chef Remi will be in Austin for SxSW.  I hope he plans to make some of the creamy bright orange squash soup with chorizo that I had there as an entree (starter).  Pretty sure I am going to like anything he makes.   

Third, later that night, before the expectedly very classy meal at Une Ile, there was a quick stop for a pre-meal drink (sometimes my favorite part of a meal actually) with some Angers music professionals/agents at a wine bar: all organic wine. Great place to prepare the palate for the fine wines at Une Ile.  This is Le Cercle Rouge.  It is just the kind of ambiance I like: stone walls, rough and tumble mismatched furniture for seating, sort of loud music/surroundings for an old person such as myself, but not too hipster that I feel totally awkward.  I was with cool (and much younger) people so that helped.

Fourth, the generosity of the complete strangers I have been connected with to get insights into how France is handling its food system issues with technology and/or plain ole innovation.   As part of that effort, I am introduced via email to web developer/entrepreneur/food addict extraordinaire Cedric Giorgi, founder of Cookening.com.   (Cedric will be in Austin this March for SxSW.) Cookening connects people wanting to have the in-home dining experience - like a dinner party in someone else's home, when you get to meet other people, from other countries ideally, just as interested in eating and meeting new people as you are.  

Cedric not only says sure, let's talk when you're in Paris, but organizes a lunch for me, for Friday January 25.  After blowing me away with the menu for his dinner party the night before - crazy - he introduces me to folks from La Ruche qui dit oui, including Marc-David Choukron, joining us for my "Paris Food Startups 101" class of sorts.  (Marc-David was in Austin last year for SxSW.)  I meet them at a really nifty wine bar in Paris, Chez Pierre, in an area I've been having to be in quite a bit these days.  Delightful place.  Cute staff, informal, good food, fast, inexpensive. Cool furnishings: wood, stone, 1960s-ish simple furniture.  I learn there is a genuinely gorgeous cave down below, for private parties, with a huge long impressive table. Maybe for my birthday some year.... And it was very gratifying that Cedric felt sorry for me and my failed foodie dream at Frenchie.  He was amazed I could even get a reservation - impossible - he says, is the rule there for reservations.  Yea, I know.  Sigh.  

Fifth, I unexpectedly run into an event that allows certain myths to live on: the French beret.  On a bitter cold day, a very gregarious and generous man is bellowing out in the street, outside a restaurant, where he is standing with a hot cauldron of the classic winter libation in Paris, vin chaud.   He is just giving it away. He is wearing a beret.

And though not exactly part of the delight-of-the-unexpected theme, I just really thought adorable these French bull dog - tiles? - at a high-end tile shop near me on the rue du Bac.

 

Dear Austin: If a French chef from around the Loire Valley were visiting Austin...

Would you be interested in, for example:

• Going on a market visit/tour with him as he shops at local Austin markets for the dinners he will prep during SxSW?
• Learning about how French cooking and the French restaurant scene is evolving and comparing that journey to Austin's journey to becoming more of a foodie paradise?
• Attending casual, informative wine-tastings with him to learn about some of the fantastic regional wines that Austin's sister city Angers (i.e., the region around there) has to offer and that we would typically never see or taste in an Austin restaurant -- or any Texas restaurant or wine bar for that matter?
• Enjoy some small tastings and chat with him about why or how or whether the US (and Austin) (or their idealized mythical impressions) hold some sway in the French psyche and imagination (and vice versa)?

This could all happen - just brainstorming here.  Send me your thoughts about how this sounds - or what else you might be interested in - and we'll see about making it happen during SxSW and let you know about time, place, etc.