Austin!

I took a week off from the chill of Boston and headed west to see my folks in Dallas. E and I decided to take a couple of days and visit Austin. I'm in Austin right now. I'm loving this lil town. And culinary wise, it's been really good to us.

We arrived at the Austin Motel last night. A place I highly recommend for people looking for a bare bones, reasonably priced lodge. It's in a really great location with plenty of fun shops and good eats all around (more on that in a bit). The service is friendly and warm and since they were the first people in Austin to truly greet us, my initial impression was a good one.

We were excited to finally arrive and wanted to experience some good BBQ. In Boston, we have a couple of decent BBQ joints but nothing that is really crave worth in my book.

So after doing some Chowhound research (Yelp reviews are completely not useful. The level of snark and meanness just makes me think all places sux inclu. my own lil amazing shop, but I digress..) we found two places that sound promising: Mann's and Rudy's. So off we went. Unfortunately we arrived at Mann's only to find that they had closed. They close at 8pm. Eeek too early for us. Oh well so off we set to Rudy's.

Rudy's is a little overwhelming at first glance. It's set up almost cafeteria style but with three stations where you order your meat choices. When it was our turn: we already decided on ribs and brisket, we were helped by a young man by the name of Brad.

Let me just say service means everything to me and Brad was great. He was really into making sure we made the right meat choices. And started us out by giving us samples of everything including the sides. He patiently told us what each thing was and asked what we thought. He was a knowledgeable and really personable guide. We decided on the moist brisket, St Louis Ribs (based on Brad's rec), creamed corn, coleslaw and pinto beans. Unfortunately the St Louis ribs were sold out and so we went with the baby back ribs. After filling out our massive order of food, Brad topped it off with what had to be half a loaf of white bread.



We got all this food plus a soda for myself and beer for E for less than $30! Quite the bargain. And how did it taste? AWESOME! Ok so the babyback ribs were not a fave for either of us but they were absolutely smoked properly with a wide pink smoke ring and a good amount of char on the outside. But the most amazing part of the meal was the moist brisket. The white bread came in handy as I made myself a lil sandwich with the brisket, a little BBQ sauce, coleslaw and pickles. Oh man, I really had died and gone to meat heaven. The brisket was so delicious. It was melt in the mouth tender but with burnt bits that provided a bit of good texture change.

I decided that I wanted to marry the moist brisket.... Yeah, I liked it that much.



A great evening overall.

Today we woke up and went to check out but before we did so, we thought to ask the motel staff for a breakfast place recommendation. They said the placed next door had great food that included grits. Say no more! E wanted grits. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the place but it's right next to the Austin Motel and is very cute with a modern 50's motif.

The service was friendly and helpful especially since plain grits were not something on the menu. They typically put goat cheese and herbs into the grits and well E wasn't down for that. The server said that she didn't see them having a problem making them plain for her and so we ordered. Simple eggs, bacon, toast and grits for E and shrimp and grits plus a side of bacon for me. We also shared a fruit bowl (pineapple, grapes, cantaloupe) that was nice too.

Behold!




Everything was super delicious and there was a ton of it too. That seems to be a overarching theme to food in Austin and dare I say Texas? Food servings are very large...Not something I'm complaining about!

E and I spent a really nice day wandering around and getting a feel for the city. For snacks we got cupcakes at "Hey Cupcake". This place is nothing more than an air stream trailer. Actually, we saw that there were plenty of food trucks and rv's. It was kinda rad to see so many food carts. In Boston we hardly have any. The cupcakes were $2.50 (Boston people who complain about the price of cupcakes take note, it is a fairly standard price). E opted for a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting and I got a red velvet one. Both were really fantastic. Moist with plenty of tasty frosting. Another plus for me? The chocolate one didn't have a butterceam frosting but a really nice sugar and milk frosting. I tend to not enjoy buttercream so I was really into this. Also the red velvet one had an exceptionally well done cream cheese frosting. Later, we also split a slice of pizza from a place called Home Slice. It came recommended to us by a local who told us that they annually take a trip to NYC to study the pizza scene. Neat. We got a slice of the Marguerite to try. It was very good. The crust was nicely executed. Crisp and chewy where it needed to be. Good air bubbles in the crust but not enough char because the crust was a bit blonde and could have been cooked a bit longer. The toppings were good and we were pretty happy with the rec.

We were suppose to head back to Dallas tonight but we opted to try and stay for one more night. Asking the good folks at the Austin Motel to hook us up with a room. We made a bit more and got upgraded to the "Mediterranean" suite. It's a bigger room with one side of the room wallpapered in a cliched Mediterranean scene. It's a little campy and fun.

For dinner tonight we decided to do Tex Mex and again used Chowhound as a resource. E said that Jorge's looked good. She was able to make a reservation on Open Table so this time, we knew it was open ;)

When we arrived, E told the hostess that we had a reservation on Open Table and she kinda shrugged saying that sometimes it didn't work for them. Seemed odd but she looked anyway and sure enough there was our reservation. The hostess lead us to a table but quickly accessed that we'd be sitting next to a huge table of crazy acting children and their passive parents. So she led us away to a corner table that was perfect. We were given menus and looked over while we munched on very good chips and salsa.

We did sit for quite a bit of time and noticed that not only did we not have any silverware but we also didn't seem to have a server. Drink orders were not taken, nothing for literally 10 minutes. E finally got up and spoke to the manager who very quickly took care of the problem. But honestly we were upset about it at all. We just wanted to order.

E got a sampler entree and I got the chicken enchiladas. Again the portions were huge. And again the food was massively tasty. I didn't really love the taco that was part of E's dinner because the shell had been fried and the grease from the beef filling had made the taco a bit soggy. I tend to enjoy steamed corn tortillas for my tacos so it's more of a personal preference than anything else. But I really enjoyed my chicken enchiladas. I got them in a red sauce that was very flavorful as were the refried beans and rice that came with our dishes. We were both very satisfied. As witnessed here

We got our check and saw that they had given us a 50% off discount for the wait we had. It was a very pleasant surprise and one that we weren't expecting.

Overall, Austin has really embraced us and we're kinda enthralled. Infact so much so that we've been contemplating if a move might be possible for us. Let's just see what happens.

Here!

I swear I'm still here and I promise to blog more about food and less about my woes around my tummy/food in the new year.

XOXO

Sigh.

Thanksgiving dinner went well. It was a gluttony fest and I was happy to share it with E yet another year. The sticky rice stuffing I adored but E felt it was too sweet. Maybe I overdid the quantity of Chinese sausage or the soy. I'll continue to have to work to tweak the recipe. But now we own a huge bag of sticky rice so maybe I'll work on my rice pudding recipes next? I have a lovely one that calls for coconut milk, dried sour cherries and mangoes that I haven't made in a while.

The community servings pies were kinda well, average. I was a little disappointed in a couple of things:

1.) the crusts were clearly supermarket made. Blah to that!

2.) the apple pie sported a crumble topping that was not very crumbling. It was actually quite soggy by the time it got to us (10am in the morning on Wednesday) and had a cornstarch thickened apple filling (ala McDonald's).

I was really hoping for more. Luckily it's hard to really f up a pecan pie so I was pleased with that.

All in all it was a very nice Thursday off with the one I love the most.

So the reason for the pepto? I'm not really sure to be honest but I came home last night, ate some Trader Joe's Flaxseed Chips and then thought I was gonna die from stomach pains. It was pretty bad and pretty instantaneous and lasted almost all night.

And tonight as I was eating our turkey day leftovers I felt like everything tasted gammy and just weird. Lately my stomach and my taste buds haven't been really happy and I'm not sure what's going on. I usually have a stomach of steel and I'll happily eat just about anything. I will say that my employee's mom made me a lovely sandwich for lunch and I ate that no problem.

Sigh. I'm trying to figure out what's going on with me, food and my body these days but sometimes it feels like I'm not making much progress. E and I will be doing a juice detox later this week so hopefully that will help to reset some stuff for me.

Our Thanksgiving Day Dinner...

E and I didn't really feel like doing turkey this year so here is our T-day dinner menu:

Fried Chicken Legs
Sticky Rice Stuffing
Baby Bok Choy

Community Servings Pie (Pecan for me and Apple for E)

I'm really excited about this meal!!

I hope all of you have a really wonderful Turkey day with those you love.

Childhood is Calling?

My mom did make rice krispy treats when I was young. They were simple and seemed marginally more nutritious with the addition of rice cereal. When I went to college, our Dorm Mother (we actually had those...an adult woman who often had a family with them living in the dorm to look after us kinda like Edna Garrett on "The Facts of Life") made them for TV night but she used an entire stick of butter for one batch. They were overly rich in a way that was both addictive and kinda sickening. And when I became an adult, well rice krispies became prepackaged as a snack I'd eat during my office job. They even came in peanut butter and chocolate dipped. Certainly these were not the rice krispy treats of my past. I didn't really think much about rice krispy treats at all...

Until those commercials with the mom and kids. Oh you know the ones. They're set in black and white with the cute kid all in awe over rice krispies. Damn you marketing! So when I was in the grocery store with E today, I told her I wanted to make rice krispy treats. E proceeded to tell me that she had never had a homemade rice krispy treat to which I was both shocked and amazed. I thought everyone had had homemade rice krispy treats. Sure the packaged ones were good but nothing like the ones you made at home.

So happily I made E and me some rice krispy treats but these I decided to change a little bit. I browned the butter before melting and folding into the marshmallows and mixing in the cereal. I didn't notice a difference in the taste profile at first but asked E what she thought. She liked them a lot and said she noticed the nuttiness of taste that the brown butter brought. I decided that clearly I needed to try another taste and so tried it again. And you know what? Browning the butter is a good move. I don't think you need to add extra butter to the recipe ala adding the freshmen 15 move that my Dorm Mother did, but I do think the added step of letting the butter heat until it gets brown is a nice one. A subtle but grown up taste to something I remember from long past.

I was glad to share it with E but with a new touch that is all our own.

A Spare Tire!

After a year of carrying about 10-15 lbs more than I want, I still haven't made much progress on losing it. I have to admit that there hasn't been a lot of sacrifice on my part in regards to my eating and maybe limiting my intake of tasty things.

However, I refuse to give up on losing the poundage! I'm going to try and be a bit more mindful of what I shove into my pie trap for the next month and step on the exercise and see where it all leads me.

Hopefully I'll find my way!

XOXO

I Suck

It's been way too long since I last posted. I even had a fairly good food trip to NYC that I never got around to posting about. The store has been sucking my mine. Oh sure, I always blame it on the shop but seriously, small business owners definitely know what I'm talking about when I talk about my lack of time and energy.

So what has gotten me out of my non-posting slump? A change of seasons perhaps. Fall is certainly upon us in New England. Luckily our CSA share doesn't end until the end of October so we've gotten to see what the change in seasons brings.

Tonight we're having a couple of friends over. One is an old friend I've known forever and another is a fairly new friend I'm introducing to E. Infact the old friend asked what time for dinner, I said 8 and she said she'd be here around 6:30. That's how we roll.

So when I went to the CSA on Monday, I knew I wanted some stuff that we could cook or share with friends. I was happy to see heads of lettuce and some last of the summer cherry tomatoes. I grabbed a couple of green peppers so I could make a salad and Beth's favorite salad dressing to go with it. I also was thinking of making an apple tarte tatin. In my family, the only apples we cooked with were Granny Smiths. We're a family that really enjoys tart with our sweet. So alas no GS were to be found but they did have plums. I found this kinda cool because I always only thought of plums as an early summer or late spring fruit. I didn't know they were still even really in season. So I grabbed a container of plums and decided that I wanted to try and make Evan Kleiman's plum sour cream pie. The recipe is here.

I also really wanted to try and make an apple tarte tatin. My friend Caroline makes one every fall and she uses puff pastry dough. So I went ahead and looked for a recipe on epicurious and found this one.

So I was going to attempt two new recipes. I wasn't 100% that either would work out well. Infact, I was a bit concerned that the desserts would be a big fail but I hadn't been baking in so long that I wanted to try something new.

I started by cutting up the plums. Look how pretty!




It seemed like a lot of plums and Evan didn't really say now many. So I decided to make two pies. I ended up doubling the sour cream mixture. Unfortunately, as I was pouring the plums and sour cream into the pie crusts I started to realize that maybe there was too much sour cream stuff and should have just stayed with one pie. My hunch was confirmed because the pies took close to 2 hrs to cook. Eeek. They looked cute coming out of the oven though:



Look! Pie crust cozies, teehee. Anyway, I let the pies cool and snuck a piece. The filling wasn't right at all. It was lumpy and not sweet enough. I was kinda bummed but hoped that the ice cream a guest was bringing would help disguise the issue.

I moved into the apple tartin.


I followed the recipe down to the letter and when it came time to flip, the middle of my apple tartin was completely burned. I was so sad. I even used less time than what the recipe asked for just because I knew our oven ran hot (damn electric!)

Sigh. Well luckily, Jenny did bring ice cream that that helped. It also helped that E made an amazing pasta dinner. But E making an amazing dinner is to be expected.

Since it's fairly early in the fall season, I think I will be attempting the apple tartin again. Watch out apple tartin, I'm gonna make you my bitch for sure! ;)