Alice in Wonderland AKA Texas

Alice fell down the rabbit hole and somehow found herself in another land full of beef, Tex-Mex and cheap liquor! Some might call it heaven, others just call it Texas. 

Alice, or as we used to call her Utbi, is a childhood friend from California. Her parents were good friends with my parents back in Vietnam! Alice's dad sewed up my mom's finger when she ran it through a sugar cane press machine way back when! So yeah, we're basically family.

We don't get to see each other often (last time was summer 2008), but when we do, we pick up exactly where we left off.. like licking each others faces. Totes normal.

A few weeks ago, Alice visited Austin AND Texas for the first time! I knew I her trip was going to be food-centric, but I was still shocked by the amount of food we put away in the span of three days! 

We did take in a couple of Austin sites and sounds, but the bulk of time was spent chatting and chowing.

 

She couldn't get away from her hometown... 

On the first night, we had a good ol' crawfish boil! I bought the crawdads and Linda hooked it up with Zummo's sausage (gotta have the Zummo's!). We managed to eat around 19#, I had a few pounds leftover that ended up going into an etoufee.  

That night, we went down to Dirty 6th to mix it up a bit! Every visitor wants to see Dirty 6th, right?! Alice was blown away that there are pitchers of booze for sale... at the great price of $15! Shocking.

I don't even want to drink this... But I did. And I kind of liked it.

Here's a recap of where we ate that weekend: 

Brunch at Cover 3, where they have muffin tops! It's like an episode of Seinfeld!

Quick coffee stop at Mozart's on Lake Austin

Beers at the Draught House. We bring everyone here!

A pit stop at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood! I mean, you kind of have to go there, right? I guess we could have gone to Franklin's, but the Salt Lick is so much better ambiance! I mean, look at all that meat!

Yep, that's all for 4 of us!

Tacos at TacoDeli -- we didn't get to go by Torchy's for the queso -- so little time!

Another quick stop at Paul Qui's East Side King inside the Hole in the Wall. The ramen was good but nothing AMAZING, the pork buns were fatty but pretty good!

Do you know how to eat ramen? There's a tutorial guide on the wall, just in case!

Last but not least, a stop at Hopdoddy on Anderson. After eating so much meat over the weekend, I opted for a salad. 

While it was a short trip, it was great seeing an old friend and stuffing our faces! I can't wait to visit Cali this year!

P.S. I also sent her home with a dozen kolaches. omgeez.

*Half of the pictures are from Alice's Iphone.

SXSW: Spring Break for Grown Ass People

As an Austinite, there are certain things you can't avoid: traffic and festivals every other month!

I usually try to avoid most of the mayhem, but this year I promised myself that I would do a minimum of three SXSW things. After a staggering 10 day tech/movie/music marathon and roadways being chockful of people, I actually accomplished my goal!

In the end, I'm glad I got out and I actually enjoyed the crowds!


Here is my SXSW 2013 recap:

Sunday 

Started off at the Austin Chamber of Commerce mixer at Max's Wine Dive. 

 

The food was delicious and the Deep Eddy vodka was plentiful. I got a chance to finally meet some of the folks I usually chat with in person -- which is always nice!


Later that night, I got to watch a live taping of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen! I'm a loyal watcher of the show so it was a treat to see Andy less than 10 feet away from me. 

 

I had a blast with Natalia, Edward, and Hannah! Miss Kenya "Gone with the wind fabulous" was one of the guest's that night. 

After the taping, we proceeded to Rain. Oh lookie, Andy showed up here too! Go figure.

Wednesday

After work, a group of us went to the W Hotel for the VH1 Music + Pop Culture Event. 

We waited in line for close to an hour, but we finally made it in... right as Youngblood Hawke was about to take the stage! 

Music, drinks, friendos, cool ranch Doritos... what more can a girl ask for?? 

I even got to chat with VH1 Top 20 host, Jim Shearer, as well as some of his producers.

 

I complained about the show's dvr settings: they have the two-hour show broken up into two shows, instead of having it just as one, really jacks up my dvr timer. But I told them that I'm glad that they air the show in HD now! YAY!

Saturday

My sis decided to come up for the weekend for SXSW festivities and I'm glad she did! We had a fabulous time!

To kick-off the morning, we went to Rachel Ray's Stubb's party. RR has been hosting this party for several years and people love it. 

  

 

{the host with the mostest}

At 11 a.m., the line to get in was backed up towards I-35, CRAZY. Thankfully, we were able to get in without a hitch! The weather was beautiful and the crowd was great!

 

Tequila, vodka. rum, beer, and lots of food. The drink lines were short but the food line was intense. There wasn't a real line, it was more a large mass of people trying to filter into a line. But after 45 minutes of close encounters with random people, Linda and I made it to the food line.

She had a decent menu going: 

 

The sliders was my favorite dish. The chipotle ketchup was good and the buns were fluffy!

This corn soup was everyone's least favorite dish, I think. The pesto dollop on top was not a good addition. 

The carnitas tacos were flavorful but nothing amazing. It didn't matter though, I was so hungry, I inhaled it before I even finished the food line!

Last but not least, the fried chicken. There were wings and tenders -- both were crispy and delicious with a smattering of honey.

After several hours at the RR party, we met up Micah and went to the Cedar Door for the ASOS party. 

ASOS is a British fashion e-tailer, so they had clothing on display. Check out these banana items! 

Red Touch Media was handing out free drives and allowing folks to download free music! Red Touch Media is an offshoot of RedBox... who knew they were going into music and such? Now I know. 

Micah was happy because they had Asahi Black at the party! 

{With Tyler, one of the folks with GiantNoise PR}

Once again, we saw Youngblood Hawke play at this shindig. Two times in one week! They apparently had 10 shows during SXSW -- not sure how they kept up the momentum, but they did. 

Here are some clips from their performance! They even did a Notorious BIG "Juicy" cover!

 

After a week of free events, I have to go back to the real world and actually pay for stuff when I go Downtown -- but I do have free sunglasses as a souvenir.

Prepping for Doomsday with Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Since Micah and I have been dating for 14 years, we kind of stopped giving Valentine's Day gifts A LONG TIME AGO and we're a-ok with that. I'll usually cook a nice dinner (if it's on a weekend) and that's that. 

To my surprise last night, I came home from work at 11:30 p.m. and found this on the counter!

Micah made chocolate covered strawberries + 1 banana and a plate of cheese and crackers! As well as a bottle of Rose. 

Definitely unexpected!

He said the strawberries weren't pretty, but they were still yummy! Tip for all the guys out there: use a double broiler when melting chocolate instead of direct heat.

Micah said all the guys at the grocery store had pre-made chocolate covered strawberries, so he definitely one-upped those fools!

So we ate the goodies, drank the wine and Micah made me watch Doomsday Preps. Romance at its best!!! 

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

Cooking "In the Box"

When I grabbed the dogs to go walking this morning, I noticed a Greenling box sitting next to the door. I thought I had accidentally ordered something (I was looking at turkeys on their website earlier this week), but when I looked closer I realized Micah had ordered it as part of my Christmas gift!

I've been a Greenling customer for several years now but I haven't purchased a Local Box from them in a long while -- I guess because I started my own garden and I felt that I wasn't getting the best deal with the box. I still think what they offer is great but not good enough for me to order once a month -- maybe every few months.

Since it's the cold season, there were a lot of turnips, leafy greens, and a huge head of cauliflower.

Thankfully I didn't have a ton of veggies sitting in the fridge so I had enough space for all the delicious farm goodies. The biggest thing that's sitting in my fridg is a 15# turkey that is getting happy sipping on a delicious brine for Christmas Eve dinner (another post).

Micah spent most of the day brewing, so I decided I would make use of some of the Greenling veggies and make a healthy dinner.

After some googling, I came across these two recipes:

1. Watermelon radish salad
2. Cauliflower soup


If you've never used watermelon radish before, I suggest you try!

The color is gorgeous and it has a nice bitter/peppery bite that is common in radishes, but not as obvious as a regular red radish.

I already had everything else in the fridge for the salad (avocado, lettuce, cilantro, shallots) - it was meant to be.

The salad is tart but very well-balanced. The biggest thing is the presentation! It's such a pretty plate of food!

 

{coming to you in technicolor!}

When Micah plated his salad, he said, "It really looks like watermelon!"

 

{sauteeing leeks. make sure you clean them of all the grit before using!}

The cauliflower soup was just we needed on a fairly cold night. I had leeks leftover from last weekend's dinner of mussels and two bags of yukon gold potatoes in the pantry. I love it when I have most of items already in my house!

Look at this ginormous cauliflower head. The cauliflower even had a tinge of purple.

I also had homemade chicken broth in the freezer so I used that. After simmering the veggies for 20 minutes, I threw everything into a blender (in multiple batches) to make a smooth soup. 

After giving the soup a whir in the blender, I put everything back into the pot and added one extra pat of butter plus some extra salt and pepper.

The soup was simple but full of creamy goodness but without the heavy cream! I love the texture and richness that cooked and pureed cauliflower ends up being. While I love raw cauliflower, I like it in this form as well.

{final product}

The reason I started using Greenling's Local Box a few years ago was because I wanted to diversify my cooking. I wanted to use ingredients I wouldn't normally pick up at the store. I veered away from that for awhile, but I might be coming back around due to the surprise Christmas gift!

Thanks, Micah! I really think it's a gift for him too, since the food ends up in his belly.