When in Texas, do as the Texans do and eat BBQ

austin restaurants seem to love austin food bloggers. so much so, they occasionally invite them to dinner. it’s really awesome that we’ve now become them. that's how andy, logan, rachel and i ended up at the county line, a bbq joint with locations in texas, oklahoma and new mexico.


honestly, after our first visit with andy's family during our texas scouting mission, we probably wouldn't have given it another try. on that trip i'd opted out of the all-you-can-eat madness, choosing a couple of meats, a salad and macaroni and cheese without being impressed. after inquiring about the mac and cheese, i was encouraged by the waitress to try their 'homemade' version. it was a dish of runny cheese sauce and noodles more akin to the stuff out of the box. the brisket and ribs were passable, the salad was fresh and the bread was springy and good. not exactly high marks in the categories that bbq restaurants typically aim for.

when the nice folks at the county line invited us back, we went hoping for the best, and hoping this talk about a tub full of shiner bock was true. the set-up was awesome. we were hosted at the county line location ‘on the lake’. looked more like a river to me…the narrow body of water lined the courtyard that was dotted with tables.

they made our menu options easy by laying out a spread. there were turkey and pork sandwiches, potato salad, pulled pork enchilada-thingys, baked beans and pickles from which to make a plate.

the sandwiches were dry and sent me looking for the bbq sauce that I had surely missed on the buffet.

the salad was a tasty take on the standard recipe and the beans were firm and pretty good. the pulled pork wrapped in tortillas, topped with all the tex-mex fixins, drizzled with a house-made spicy tomato and jalapeno sauce were the stars. I’m not even sure if these are a regular menu item; they definitely should be.

andy is a huge vanilla ice cream fan (how funny and plain jane huh? cute.) and said this fresh made version was rather icy and unmemorable.

the rumors had been true, ice cold texas-brewed shiner bock made an appearance along with wines produced locally by Fall Creek Vineyards which had a really nice representative on hand and a cute tag line, “where the sky fell in love with the earth and gave birth to wine.”

The drinks proved to be a great accompaniment to the view and we loitered and lingered on into the evening.

our soco neighborhood rocks

andy and i had an awesome date in our neighborhood the other night. started out at doc's motorworks, a slightly ramshackle eatery with some of the best outdoor seating, 20 or 30 tables snuggled together on a patio right on s. congress avenue. perfect people watching. monday night- we were kinda in luck...it was 2 for 1 burgers, but they weren't all that stellar. the patio more than made up for it. then we hit the continental club- a fabulously retro, old school country music, rockabilly, punk-y, red velvet curtains and miller high life having bar right up the street. it was crazy; i couldn't quit smiling. there were 70-year-old jimmy buffet look-a-likes and 20-yr-old hipster tattoed chicks doing the texas two step together. the dance floor was full all night to the sounds of dale watson on stage. he's a crazy ole country singer with a silver pompadour, and a voice that's a cross between merle haggard and johnny cash, who employs a stellar guitar player in his band. ah, sweet austin...

when life gives you limes...

we're water with lemon kinda people. thus we've noticed something rather interesting- there don't appear to be any cut up lemons in this whole town. we figure that's why every time we order, our server brings us water with lime and doesn't even bat his or her eye. it never occured to me that the only reason restaurants in south carolina have tubs of lemons is because of the copious amounts of sweet tea sold. here, where the hands-down winner of the drink popularity contest appears to be margaritas, they don't need no stinkin' lemons apparently.

we've come a long way baby...

one, of the 22 hours' worth, of moments that we spent on the road in that big ole truck...

Our place is getting there too. We're almost ready to start entertaining, don't you think?

insert hotdog weiner pun here

One of the first foodie events we accompanied boots in the oven to was this hotdog tasting party hosted by the friendliest local food writer, Addie Broyles. She was researching for an article she planned to write in Austin's newspaper. Simple in theory- a blind taste-test of 15 hotdogs.

Because we aren’t that Kobayashi kid of Nathan’s eating-competition fame, we chose to try niblets in round 1.

We jotted lots of greasy notes. Then came the vote, recorded on a midget chalkboard, where we unanimously separated the pleasantly oily, plump, crisp, flavorful weiners from the mealy, oddly uniform, limp dogs.

After narrowing it down, we threw the finalists back on the grill (along with the Hebrew National which lost on the flavor vote but was resurrected by Jewish lobbyists) and this time we tasted them dressed on a bun.

While the bread definitely toned down some of the saltiness and overpowering flavors in the various dogs, I still preferred the same hotdog from round 1…surprisingly, Andy and I were in agreement…even more surprising was the brand we chose-the HEB grocery store’s Texas Heritage Original Beef. The group of food bloggers voted again. Turned out that our taste buds weren’t too intoxicated by Tecate to pick the ‘weiner’ (c’mon, had to…).

Our fave tied for the overall number one with Nathan’s Famous Skinless Beef. No wonder that Kobayashi kid can eat so many…


Check out the professional’s recollection of the event in this newspaper story complete with cute pics: http://www.austin360.com/food_drink/content/food_drink/stories/2009/05/0520hotdogs.html

Who doesn’t love a good market?

I’ll gladly visit one in any incarnation. Fortunately, the people I’ve jetsetted with also enjoy that scene, so it doesn’t seem odd when we spend more time tracing tight alleys through dingy markets than waiting in a herd to see some famous landmark or another. Love stateside, local markets too…farmer’s, Asian, meat…I don’t discriminate. Too bad some of the places I’ve lived aren’t as hip as Austin and can’t seem to get a decent marketplace together. Like Myrtle’s Market at the beach. Although it has a couple of dedicated vendors, it only operates for about a quarter of the year. Columbia, SC was a bit of a different story with the outdoor flea market on Hwy 1. They had rows and rows of local goods and managed to sandwich a sizable square of tables selling all sorts of Mexican treats like cheap avocadoes, a myriad of peppers and nopales in between the car stereo section and the black velvet religious painting section. Now there’s also the All-Local Farmers' Market that my buddy from Gervais and Vine restaurant in Cola has been nurturing. It’s held the 2nd Saturday of every month on the patio of Gervais & Vine in the Vista, and the 4th Saturday of every month in the parking lot of Rosewood Market according to localharvest.org. And I was lucky to have that alley way market in Joetsu-shi, Japan with adorable vendors and far-out wares, from grilled fish on a stick to shark steaks, from root veggies to rice balls. It was even more awesome when I figured out the method to its scheduling madness (twas only open on days that end in a 4 or a 9).

All this brings us to the market scene in our fab new city. These folks take their local produce and livestock seriously. Rachel, Logan, Andy and I packed the car and headed downtown several Saturdays ago. The Austin Farmer’s Market also operates on the north end of town on Wednesday afternoons. The variations in color, shape, size of the produce was dizzying.
There were unusual veggies like this beautiful kohlrabi (according to Wikipedia: a low, stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere. It has been selected for its swollen, nearly spherical, Sputnik-like shape. The name comes from the German Kohl ("cabbage") plus the Swiss German variant Rübe ~ Rabi ("turnip"))

There's so much variety...

There was also plenty of meat on offer.

All sorts of pastured livestock, naturally raised beef (which we made yummy blue cheese burgers out of subsequently), fresh feral hog and even a parked truck with an operating rotisserie on the rear that was turning out aromatic chicken.

There were herbs, flowers, baked goods, canned goods, crafts, musicians and empanadas served up with an invitation to use their microwave and enjoy it on-site, which we did.

These pictures are very telling of how awesome the local spirit and harvest are, more so than these words, but they still can’t do justice to the utter bounty. There are so many prospects for the fabulous foods there and each just begs you to figure out how to perfectly prepare and enjoy them.

What a day...

I have a couple of seriously dear friends whose gastronomical coattails we’ve been riding lately. Met Logan and Rachel, of boots in the oven fame, while in college. After graduation we went our separate ways- well, I guess technically they went the same way since they were getting hitched and all, but we managed to keep up with each other’s adventures via our blogs. It was in this forum that I saw our parallel love of food and drink develop. Now I’m super excited to find myself back in the same town with these guys and I’m very appreciative of them bringing Andy and I into the foodie fold in Austin.

It was through these guys that I scored an invitation to a stellar day of wine, food and friends a couple of weeks ago (unfortunately Andy was out of town photographing a wedding near Savannah, Georgia). We started off at a food blogger potluck. I didn’t expect the turn out to be so high or the buffet to be so long. Wow! I proffered up a wild mushroom and blue cheese galette which turned out surprisingly well considering I had very little in my kitchen to work with and had to borrow a frying pan and a plate for transportation/presentation. (Apparently I’m a better cook than photographer. Working at improving on both of these thangs.) Logan and Rachel made strawberry and pea shoot sandwiches that embodied one of those odd little combos that work out refreshingly well. There were yummy Thai ribs, soft and fluffy gougeres (a savory French pastry with cheese) stuffed with mozzerella, tomato and basil...
...vibrant edamame pesto bruschetta, blackberry pasta salad, enchiladas, pretty flatbread pizza...

...delicious duck confit sausages (that tasted a lot like chicken bog, which no one here has ever heard of, in a casing. I'm definitely going to parlay nanny's recipe into the centerpiece of a meal soon). One attendee hand-delivered Louisiana boneless chickens stuffed with all sorts of creole/bayou goodness like spicy crawfish and shrimp... ...and even a whole ham that a food blogger had brined forever and then boiled with hay (yep, like for the farm or your hamster’s cage). There was a whole slew of desserts too…margarita cupcakes, cookies shaped like texas…of which I neglected to really check out or photograph. I’m blaming that oversight on the lack of sweet teeth in my head. Thanks to the soup peddler for graciously lending his place for the shindig.

We left the potluck full and happy which didn’t preclude us from heading straight to another interesting event centered around food. Logan and Rachel had received an invite to a Cuban-style pig pickin’ that was as much a feast for the eyes as for the belly.

They had built this fire pit just for the occasion and put it to good use with a pig named Oreo that had been raised at Green Gate farms, about 8 miles east of Austin, using sustainable and healthy methods. Although there is something off-putting about knowing the name of the delicious pork you’re chomping on, there was also something really satisfying about realizing that he had been raised well, butchered responsibly and was being savored by a group that earnestly cared about his origins and lifestyle. Adam and Shelby have a beautiful house that's great for entertaining and they were really warm welcoming me, a complete stranger, into their home. Or perhaps it was just all the wine. Either way, this all bodes so well for our new adventures in Austin.