East Side Show Room

Photography by Jody Horton

East Side Show Room Chef Sonya Coté’s “The Showroom”—Pola’s Full Harvest Moonster (Houston) with beet vinaigrette (Springdale Farm, Austin); Pola’s Rawblucchon (Houston) with wildflower honey (Brazos Valley, Waco) and pecans (San Saba); Curried chicken liver mousse (Dewberry Hills Farms, Lexington) with candied bacon (Richardson Farms, Rockdale) and green garlic cremolata (Rain Lily Farm, Austin); Sweet Pork Rillette (Richardson Farms) with grainy mustard and pickled carrots (Finca Pura Vida, Fayetteville).

Stone House Vineyard

By Terry Thompson-Anderson

Angela Moench had a romantic notion about planting a vineyard in the Texas Hill Country back in 1996. Land prices hadn’t yet skyrocketed, and many scenic properties were still available for reasonable sums. So when Angela and her husband, Howard, a Houston physician, found a choice parcel situated on a high bluff overlooking Lake Travis, they purchased it and began planning their vineyard. The couple saw the vineyard as a natural complement to their passion for good wine and food, and an opportunity to become a part of the growing, evolving Texas wine industry.

Debra Broz

Debra Broz, Feeding; found ceramic objects, epoxy compounds, paint and sealer on painted wooden stand, 2010; 7 x 6 x 6 inches; courtesy of the artist

Pull Your Own Pork

By Fred Thompson 
from his book Grillin' With Gas (Taunton Press, April 2009)
Photography by Ben Fink, courtesy of Taunton Press

Few of us will ever cook a whole hog, but we all have the ability to smoke a pork shoulder. This recipe started out as North Carolina-style barbecue (remember, barbecue is a noun) and has, over the years, evolved from low-and-slow-cooked smoked pork in a vinegary sauce to a meat that works as a base for all the regional sauces, including Memphis and Georgia styles.

Champurrado to Die For

By Lucinda Hutson 
Photography by Lucinda Hutson

It can strike in the dead of night—the gnawing obsession for something profoundly desired or missed. It’s an almost desperate craving for a certain food, something usually unattainable at that very moment. Perhaps you’re dying for a beefy burger smothered in blue cheese, bacon and grilled onions, or an extravagant indulgence of crisp-seared foie gras with white nectarines. Often, though, the yearning is simply a hunger for comfort—for food that conjures sentimental memories or a sense of place.

Deconstructing Broccoli

Story and Photography By Carol Ann Sayle

Jesse Griffiths of Dai Due Supper Club teaches a class on deconstructing a pig—encouraging folks to use every part of the animal, wasting nothing. It’s good knowledge to have, especially in a time of lingering uncertainty and anxiety about our food supply and the economy. In the same spirit of thrift, I suggest we apply Griffiths’s deconstructionist ethos to even more things. How about something a little more common to the average kitchen, like broccoli?

Johnson's Backyard Garden

By Jeremy Walther
Photography by Jody Horton

For many small businesses, growth is an angel one day and a devil the next. And many owners have a conflicting attraction to, and hesitancy about, expansion. But some businesses have a different manifesto. For Johnson’s Backyard Garden (JBG), there’s only one way to do things: BIG. Run by Brenton Johnson, his wife Beth and 20 employees and interns, JBG is well on the path to BIG, but luckily that path isn’t paved with rusting metaphors of modern agribusiness—an industry which many claim is actually leading our nation into a very serious food problem.

Advancing Tradition

Advancing Tradition: Twenty Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press

On view at the Austin Museum of Art
823 Congress Avenue
November 26, 2010 – February 13, 2011

Bending Branch Winery

By Terry Thompson-Anderson
Photography by Phil Hammel

At a recent gathering at the Texas Pierce’s Disease Research and Extension Program facility in Fredericksburg, Dave Reilly, winemaker at Duchman Family Winery in Driftwood, made a provocative statement: “The days of frivolous winemaking in Texas are done.” For this he received a hefty round of applause that should reverberate throughout the Texas wine industry.

Making Ginger Beer

By Kate Payne
Photography by Jo Ann Santangelo

My love of bubbly water began overseas with the confusion over how to answer a waiter when asked frizzante? or naturale? A bottle of bubbling mineral water arrived after I ventured a guess. Since then, I’ve grown to believe real, effervescent mineral water to be superior, digestively, to flat water, and it has taken the place of sodas in my life in an all-of-the-fun-but-none-of-the-sugar kind of way.

Ask the Permie Pro

By Dick Pierce

Dear Permie Pro,
Q:  Is March too late to plant tomatoes?

A:  No! Planting season begins mid-January in Austin and runs through March. Beyond that, our daytime/nighttime temperatures get and stay too hot, so most plants get stressed and won’t set fruit. March is the time to plant lima beans, cucumbers, black-eyed peas, peppers and summer squash. It’s also tomato time!

Leaning Toward Local

Matthew and Rachel Buchanan’s The Leaning Pear Café & Eatery in Wimberley is pear-centric—walls painted the many russet shades of pear flesh, two fruit-bearing trees in back of their 1870s-era building, and an ornamental specimen in front.

“We respect pears for their taste, whimsy and sophistication,” says Rebecca, who has clearly embraced the concept.

Ironically, though, the name was supposed to be Leaning Pair, to reflect the support the Buchanans gave each other during the first half of 2007, when they remodeled their building into a 50-seat restaurant, weathered Matthew’s diagnosis and treatment for testicular cancer, and kept going anyway.

Another impressive cooperative effort has been a solid commitment to acquiring the quality local food and produce Matthew learned to love at culinary school.

“Basically, we make gourmet food, salads and sandwiches,” he says, “and it’s the daily specials that showcase the bounty of the season.”

McPherson Cellars

By Terry Thompson-Anderson
Photography by Marla Camp

Is it something in the blood or in the soil that creates a master winemaker? For native Texan Kim McPherson, it’s probably a combination of both. Kim is the longest-tenured winemaker in the state, and literally grew up with the Texas wine industry. His father, Clinton “Doc” McPherson, was a chemistry professor at Texas Tech University and an avid wine lover and amateur winemaker. According to Kim, the family garage was always full of experimental wines in various stages of production, as well as all sorts of winemaking apparatus.

Chris Jordan

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, equal to the number used in the U.S. every 30 seconds.

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers
On view at the Austin Museum of Art
823 Congress Avenue
May 22–August 15, 2010

Q&A with Laura Weaver

Central Texas is lucky to be home to one of the only chemical-free commercial apiaries in the country. BeeWeaver Apiaries, managed by Danny Weaver, represents four proud generations of beekeepers and producers. Danny and his wife, Laura, have focused the business on a bee-breeding program that produces mite-resistant bees.

Edible Austin: What inspired the Weaver business?

Laura Weaver: In 1888, my husband’s great-grandparents were given 10 hives as a wedding present from the bride’s beekeeping brothers. Zachariah and Florence Weaver grew their apiary and sold honey from the back of their horse-and-buggy wagon each week at a farmers market in Houston. Their oldest son, Roy, took over the apiary and began producing queens commercially in the 1920s. BeeWeaver’s commercial package bee, queen and honey production business grew under Roy’s son, Binford, and later his grandson, Danny.

Making Pie Crust

By Terry Thompson-Anderson
Photography ©iStockphoto.com/ Robert Linton

I attended a culinary school that, at the time, taught a classic French curriculum. That meant no food processors, no stand mixers, no blenders, no Microplanes, no immersion blenders; just our two hands, big spoons and knives. Upon graduating, I vowed that I would re-create the wonderful French classics I had learned using modern American kitchen gadgetry so that everyday cooks could prepare them easily. The first thing I tackled was simple pie pastry.

When Enough is Enough

By Cecilia Nasti

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. —Annie Dillard

Remember January when you made those promises, a.k.a. resolutions? Mid-year is a good time to take stock and review your progress. Unfortunately, for a growing number of us, this evaluation process results in emotional and intellectual self-flagellation for allegedly falling short, or being otherwise deficient, in thought, word and deed during the previous months. Somehow our many accomplishments throughout this time period pale in comparison to our glaring perceived failures.

Winebars

By Veronica Meewes
Photography by Jenna Noel

As condos continually rise to meet our skyline and rush hour seems to start a little earlier each day, we watch as our quaint little city slowly morphs into a bustling metropolis. Yet amidst the background hum, Austinites old and new are forging a brave new cultural landscape—reinventing, readapting and reinterpreting our city to fit a new set of needs and desires. Enter one of Austin’s latest reincarnations: the wine bar. 

Montesino Farm

By Elizabeth Winslow
Photography by Jody Horton

The sun comes up much earlier on a farm—at least it sure feels that way. With the first crow of the rooster on Sunday morning, my children tumble out of bed and run out into the misty morning light to the fields in pj’s and rubber boots to help with the lettuce harvest. We’re staying at Montesino Farm in Wimberley, in the just-completed farm studios that owner Scott Mitchell built to weave agritourism into the farm’s operational model. The studios are more than just a way to bolster the bottom line, though.

Sunday Pizza Supper

By Paula Angerstein
Photography by Andy Sams

Growing up in Central Texas, my family, like many others, had the tradition of a hearty midday Sunday dinner (which translates to “Sunday lunch” for most others). This usually included a roast beef in the oven while we went to church, and vegetables and salads made up upon our return. After a lazy afternoon and a filling dinner-lunch, our “supper” later that evening would be something easy like bacon and eggs gobbled up in front of The Wonderful World of Disney, or maybe a handmade hamburger down at the domino club as a special treat.