Thai Fresh

By Jody Horton

Chef Jam Sanitchat presents Thai Fresh’s Pad Ka Prow Nuer (Spicy Basil Beef): Marinated shoulder roast from Bastrop Cattle Company (Bastrop); peppers from Milagro Farm (Red Rock); onions from Simmons Family Farm (Niederwald) and fresh basil from her own garden.

Budget Cuts

By Kristi Willis
Illustrations by Bambi Edlund

There may be no food more quintessentially Texan than beef, yet with cattle prices skyrocketing, consumers and chefs are having to get creative to keep steak on the plate. Many ranchers, like Debbie Davis of Bandera Grassland, sold off part or all of their herds because of the drought. “I’m going to have enough beef through 2012,” cautions Davis, “but 2013 is going to be pretty slim. There just aren’t that many animals out there.” 

Prickly Pears

By Amy Crowell
Photography by Marla Camp

Worth Its Wheat

With a degree in horticulture and sustainable food systems newly under his belt, 23-year-old licensed irrigator Jeffrey Wylie was looking for the next big idea. It wasn’t long before he’d set his sight on farming the out-of-production family ranch in Mullin, Texas.

“My dad thought I was completely crazy,” says Wylie, “but he let me have 50 acres of bottomland to work with.”

Inwood Estates

By Terry Thompson-Anderson
Photography by Dustin Meyer

Dan Gatlin and his wife, Rose Mary, built the Inwood Estates Vineyards winery and tasting room in Dallas in 2005. When their first two wines were released on August 1, 2006, they were immediately embraced by wine enthusiasts around the state, and soon points beyond. Restaurants were quick to add Inwood’s wines to their lists, and today, over 200 Texas restaurants feature them. Wine writers continued to spread the news of the exceptional wines produced by this new winery—“new” being somewhat of a misnomer.

Green Corn Project: Garden Part

By Helen Cordes

Do you yearn to grow your own veggies, but you’re stuck with less than stellar soil? Consider getting some friends together for a lesson in creative shoveling skills! “Double digging”—a technique of loosening and aerating soil, often as deep as two feet—has been used in each of the 600-plus food gardens that Green Corn Project volunteers have installed over the last decade.

Green Corn gardens are established where they’re needed most, and that often means planting in backyards and schoolyards where the soil has been neglected for decades. Double digging allows roots to grow deeper and access water more easily. Compost is added to the newly loosened soil and the once-hard dirt is transformed into a luscious, fluffy medium that’s ideal for robust plant growth. Double digging takes a bit more time and muscle power, but with the typical Green Corn team of four to six volunteers, the digging becomes a time to chat and trade garden lore as multiple spades and forks fly. 

And all of the extra work and tending ultimately pays off the most for people like Jude Filler, who sought a Green Corn garden after cancer left her in need of fresh, organic vegetables.

Scrambled Eggs

By Terry Thompson-Anderson

As a new bride, many, many years ago, I did not know how to scramble an egg—even imperfectly. Nor did I know how to make coffee in the shiny, new electric percolator that we’d received as a wedding gift. It wasn’t until my fine Southern cook of a mother-in-law took me under her well-floured wing that I learned these and many other culinary skills.

The Leaning Pear

Photography by Jody Horton

Local Fried Green Tomatoes from Montesino Ranch (Wimberley) with Oma's & Opa's Farm sunflower sprouts (Fredericksburg) and Buttermilk Dill Dressing (dill from Wholesome Harvest Farm, Seguin). Prepared by chef-owner Matthew Buchanan of The Leaning Pear, Wimberley.

The Eggman

By Andrea Abel
Photography by Andy Sams

The late afternoon sunlight casts a warm glow across the green pastures of Jeremiah Cunningham’s 90-acre Coyote Creek Farm near Elgin. As if heaving a collective, contented sigh at day’s end, birds chatter, wind whispers, hens mill about and cattle low. “Animals murmur prayers that wise men only wish they could say,” says Cunningham. “How fortunate I am to have this place to live.”

Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden, The Lantern, 1979, Lithograph, 28½ x 20 inches. Courtesy of the Estate of Romare Bearden; © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

From Process to Print: Graphic Works by Romare Bearden

On view at the Austin Museum of Art
823 Congress Avenue
August 28 - November 14, 2010

How to Make Stock

By Jesse Griffiths
Photography by Carole Topalian

Of all the fundamental kitchen staples, stock remains one of the most mysterious and myth-shrouded. But the fact that more people aren’t combining essentially two items, bones and water, to make a nutritious, simple and delicious cornerstone of home cooking is probably because of a vast underestimation of how easy it really is (and you don’t even really need the bones). Begin by repeating this mantra during stock-making to declutter the mind and set yourself free: “It’s better than water.”   

Tales from the Darkside

By Ryan Sloan
Photography by Silas Parker

Darkside Fermentation is the very definition of a nanobrewery. The tiny operation isn’t housed in a stand-alone production facility or even a brewpub, but rather in the storage room of The Root Cellar Cafe in San Marcos. There, brewer, owner and jack-of-all-trades Silas Parker crafts a range of locally sourced, spiritually inspired, Belgian-style brews, and the Central Texas craft-beer community is starting to take notice. 

Thirst

By Carol Ann Sayle

The plants droop in the torrid afternoon sun, hopeful that the day’s torture may eventually fade. Leaves slump to flank stalks—channels of nutrients and moisture—shielding them from scorching rays. It’s alarming to see, especially for farm harvesters Andrea and the Two Marias. They chastise me for not pouring the plants a drink or two—on ice. “¡Tienen sed!” They are thirsty, they explain seriously. I remind them that this is the plants’ natural defense—a parasol, if you will, in Spanish or English—against further desiccation.

Cattle Call

By Robin Chotzinoff    
Photography by Bill Albrecht

Like any self-respecting rancher, grassfed beef producer Pati Jacobs wakes early and stays busy.

“I get up at five, listen to NPR for an hour and start in,” she says. “I do the website stuff, go over mail orders, call restaurants…. Wink is interested in our beef, and the Culinary Academy of Austin is coming tomorrow to watch us process a calf. I handle whatever comes up.”

They Grow Gardeners, Don't They?

By Susan M. Cashin
Photography by Carole Topalian

In 1973, county extension agents in the state of Washington found themselves drowning in a sea of questions and cries for help from urban dwellers wanting to learn how to garden. To satisfy this demand, the state developed a curriculum and training program for a volunteer force called the “master gardeners.” Little did the agents know that their program would quickly take root in most land-grant colleges across the United States, as well as in several Canadian provinces.