We had a great time at Austin Beer Guide's Winter Issue release party a couple week's ago at the Draught House Pub on Medical Parkway. We've long marveled at folks who turn the name of the pub into drought, as in the bone-dry, arid condition of Texas for roughly 9 months out of the year. As we ramped up toward attending, this regional, phonetic corruption repeatedly reared its head.
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It's important to have traditions.
When I'm coming home to Texas from such far flung locales as New Orleans, Cincinnati or Tuscaloosa, I always point my bike toward Ellinger, Texas so I can dust off my taste buds at Peter's Barbecue.
It's a quintessential roadside shack-style smoked meat joint.
The most notable photo we took all year long wasn't even in Austin. It was in Thorndale Texas and it brought us all sorts of unwanted attention from the local constabulary. The owner of Barron's Hamburger Haven found our picture taking to go against community standards so she phoned in the police who intercepted us in the parking lot. The hair raising tale is told here
Opened On June 17, 1957 in Santa Barbara California, Sam Battistone Sr and Newell Bohnett conceptualized the portmanteau Sambo's by combining parts of their first and last names.
The restaurant got famous by serving giant pancakes so big the eggs and meat that came on the combo platters had to be served on separate plates.
What would now be called Race Art festooned the walls. The art was inspired by the children's book "Little Black Sambo" by Helen Bannerman.
Wild times in Lubbock.
We loaded up the Econoline earlier this year and headed west to do a catering at a big fancy party out on the plains of West Texas. After a long day of grocery shopping and prep we hit the town for a night of drinking, barbecue eating and frivolity.
When your ace in the hole is one of the most talented bakers working in the United States the rest of the menu is all gravy. David Norman, the old dough puncher, spends his days up to his elbows in flour and yeast down on 6th street at Easy Tiger, easily the finest commercial bakery in Austin if not the whole of Texas.
We'd be perfectly content just eating hunks of bread and washing them down with ice cold Live Oak beer on the restaurant's very fine patio but there's more: in-house charcuterie program, local cheeses and a staff that stands among the finest in town.
Austin is blessed to have a national caliber eatery of this magnitude.
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We have deep love for small Mexican grocery stores. Austin's chock a block with them and La Moreliana is one of the finest. While their dry goods and sundries are certainly worth a visit, do not skip the diner in the back where a bevy of cooks are putting out some of the finest Mexican plate lunches in town.
Love desebrada? So do we. La Moreliana is right at the top of the heap in Austin, Texas for finest in town. Succulent, moist shreds of beef are slowly rendered and served in either plate or taco format. Outstanding.
I no longer earn my living as a baker but I still absolutely love the process of baking.
You can't freestyle if you want to achieve consistency in your baked goods.
There are rules and precepts that must be adhered to if you're going to be successful.
I find it oddly liberating to have to rigidly follow a recipe. It's the opposite of how I normally cook where I just fling myself all over the kitchen wildly chopping and sauteing everything in sight.
This is one of my favorite holiday baking recipes. These cookies stand about 2" tall and are stuffed with one of the great commercial candy bars: York Peppermint Patties. Obviously you may substitute any number of other bars if you're some kind of commie who doesn't like peppermint patties. Zero bars work really well as do Clark and Zagnut. I wish I could lay my hands on some Goldenberg Peanut Chews. Now that was a candy bar.
