on the range

Thursday, March 31 marks the kickoff of the 26th Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival. What better way to celebrate the beginning of the festival than by having lunch with the folks who started it? Read More | Comment »

Craft brewing fans had only one tear in their beer at Tuesday’s House Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee meeting, but it could be a big one. Texas brewers and supporters (operating as Texas Beer Freedom) turned out in force to support House Bills 602 and 660. The former's passage seemed assured, but the latter's uncertain. Read More | Comment »

Pancake lovers know it's always a good time for a short stack. Get set for the gooey goodness, because on National Pancake Day, March 1, Shriners Hospital teams with IHop to bring you a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes! In return, diners are asked to leave a donation to Shriners. Find a location here. Read More | Comment »

I just got back from a meet-and-greet event at historic Saengerrunde Hall hosted by the Texas Brewers’ Institute intended to promote beermakers’ interests to state legislators and their staffs – in particular, House Bills 602 and 660 – and came away with two major news items: Read More | 2 Comments »

The Legislature is back in town – you’re gonna need a drink. Unfortunately, Texas’ stupid, arbitrary liquor laws make it hard on the businesses that would like to get one to you, especially beermakers. Two bills were introduced this week to help brewers out, but if history is any guide, it will be tough. Read More | 2 Comments »

So, to continue from my last post,we ended up tasting about 50 wines. At the end of the night, we put our heads together to make some picks. Read More | Comment »

In the middle of October, 2010, I got a phone call from Oz Clarke’s publicist asking if I would like to join him in a private tasting of Texas wines. Read More | Comment »

Competitions sponsored by liquor distributors are becoming quite popular. After all, it coaxes a faction of our finest mixologists into using the company’s product to create a new concoction. The latest competition was this past Sunday at Townhouse. The contest was sponsored by Bombay Sapphire Gin. Read More | Comment »

Dan Aykroyd spends more time than you might guess in Austin. The man known for his comedic masterpieces like Elwood Blues of the Blues Brothers, Beldar Conehead, the "wild and crazy" Festrunk boys, Fred Garvin-Male Prostitute, and Julia Child ("Oh, I’ve cut myself!") is also a very smart businessman. Read More | Comment »

Intellectualism and trivia bar games don't at first blush seem to have much in common (except, maybe, a bad rap), but the quizmasters at Geeks Who Drink aim to put a shine on both. This weekend, they get quizzy with Harry Potter. Read More | Comment »

Greg Cobb, an associate professor at Texas A&M University, took the time to map the locations of Texas wineries and the results are fascinating. Read More | Comment »

Today, people around the world will drink over 10,000,000 pints of Guinness. Tomorrow, heaven only knows how many pints will be downed in the name of St Patrick. Read More | Comment »

Anyone interested in the great wines of Burgundy should consider the last minute addition of the renowned Jacques Lardiere, director of winemaking at Maison Louis Jadot. Read More | Comment »

Wish you could be at the Oscars on March 7? Well, you may not get to walk the red carpet, but you can drink the same concoction being served to the stars at the ceremonies. Read More | Comment »

Chef Josh Watkins (who drew national attention as executive chef at the Driskill Grill) unveiled his refreshed “New American Grill” menu at a media party last Thursday at The Carillon. The food was spectacularly good; the downside is the University of Texas restaurant’s academic-institutional feel. Read More | Comment »

A group of French wine lovers welcomed Jean-Michel Cazes, owner of Lynch-Bages winery, for a celebratory dinner at Aquarelle on April 19. It was a homecoming as M. Cazes had been a graduate student at UT, earning a Masters degree in Petroleum Engineering. His visit was from a series of coincidences. Earlier this year, at UT, another French graduate student in Petroleum Engineering was reading an old Wine Spectator. Anne Burgot relates the story: "I saw this article about Jean-Michel Cazes, like me, did an engineering degree like me in Paris, and then came to Austin to do the same Master degree as me in UT in Austin in 1959, just 50 years ago! So many coincidences! I found that it was too much to be random. Since I love organizing events, I wrote him a letter to ask him if he would like to come back to Austin 50 years later and that I would volunteer to organize a wine tasting dinner at a delicious French restaurant I know." She never expected to hear back from him, but "two weeks later he sent me an email letting me know that he would love to come back to Austin and could be here in April." Indeed, Ms. Burgot spent four solid months working on the event, but at the end, she put together a benefit for the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas and filled all of Aquarelle's seats. Best for Austin, her newfound interest in wine and organzing have her hooked. Her next program will be to put together a quarterly tasting of wine for women. As for the dinner, food and wine were both loved by all. Aquarelle's five course menu was scrumptious, as were the wines, but the dinner was dominated by Almond Crusted Beef Tenderloin with Foie Gras and a Cabernet Reduction married with both a 1996 and 1988 Lynch-Bages. The wine of the night, for my purposes, was the 2005 Chateau Villa Bel Air, a dense and rich Graves loaded with violets and lavender. Thanks again to Ms. Burgot for her efforts and for these photos of herself with M. Cazes and of the Aquarelle kitchen team with M. Cazes. Read More | Comment »

The final event of the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is a shebang called "Sunday Fair", which takes place on the last day of the Festival. Last year it was staged at a big, shady park in Georgetown; this year it was held at the Vineyard at The Salt Lick in Spicewood. I think it always MUST be held outside of Austin, because it must be held in a big field where multiple enormous tents can be put up, and there has to be ample parking for thousands. I went to Sunday Fair with fellow food writer Ann Guidry and her baby Sam. The weather was PERFECT: In the low seventies and breezy and sunny. So perfect, in fact, that I believe attendance was greater than anticipated. The event was MOBBED! The Vineyard at the Salt Lick was not as nice as the park in Georgetown; there was no shade at all, and one could not sit on the ground because it had recently rained and the ground was muddy. (So muddy that hay had to be distributed to prevent some areas from becoming enormous mires.) There was a prohibition on bringing in collapsible chairs, so essentially, once you got there you were sentenced to be on your feet for the duration. Read More | Comment »

Chef Shawn Cirkiel at Parkside invited the Blogitariat down to his place for a Food Blogger Happy Hour to showcase an 8-course tasting menu. I have read about Parkside (particularly M.M. Pack’s Review, which interested me greatly) and I knew it’s general location, but I have never been. Based on the tastes of their menu I enjoyed tonight, Parkside completely lives up to the hype; this place is a real contender. The concept of the restaurant is one of simplicity: like a white plate, the bare-bones decor and airy basic-ness of the rooms serves to put the emphasis on the food itself. Even the descriptions of the “tastes” (”fluke, lemon, almonds”) were so simple that I wasn’t sure whether I was going to taste one thing, or three. I gather that the regular menu is also strangely plain in style. But, on to the tastes! First we sampled “Fluke, lemon, almonds”. It came in a little ceramic spoon, and it was very mild, simple, and delicious. Next, Crab Balls. These were served with fresh herbs, Greek oregano and tarragon, and a remoulade sauce. I very much liked the Crab Balls, mainly because they had an interesting texture: the outer fried shell was chewy, and the inside rather airy, which made a delightful contrast. Read More | Comment »

Every year as part of the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival, area vineyards host Luncheons that feature local celebrity chefs and Texas wines. So far, I would have to say that the Vineyard Luncheons are the most enjoyable part of the Food and WIne Festival; the food is incredible (chefs like to cook for an appreciative crowd, I think) and the settings are spectacular (Hill Country Vineyards in April, at the height of the wildflower season). The price for these luncheons is absurdly low in my opinion ($65); you would pay more for just the wine in a restaurant setting. I chose this year to go to the Stonehouse Vineyard Luncheon, largely because I really like Angela Moench, the lady who owns the vineyard, and I adore their Scheming Beagle Port. Angela won my everlasting admiration the day I met her, at a wine tasting event, when she informed me with a basilisk eye that other vineyards might try to salvage a bad year's grapes by fortifying the juice with added sugar and making "port" out of it, but that Stonehouse Vineyard's Port was made PROPERLY. I am the World's biggest Proponent of making things PROPERLY. My enthusiasm for doing things PROPERLY has no bounds. I knew immediately that despite our obvious differences, Angela and I were sisters under the skin. Read More | Comment »

A huge crowd showed up for Toyota's Taste of the Market event at the Downtown Farmers' Market on a blustery Saturday morning. Shoppers (and dog walkers) were amply rewarded with tasty tidbits while they strolled. An impressive line-up of local chefs was paired with area farmers and livestock producers in order to provide samples of delicious locally-sourced food items to the enthusiastic crowd. I was only there a couple of hours and I managed to sample FINO's rustic Spanish Tortilla topped with a slice of pork sausage from Peach Creek Farm, La Condesa's fish tacos with grouper from San Miguel Seafood, an earthy rabbit and bacon terrine from Dai Due made with rabbit from Countryside Farm and pork from Richardson Farms,a dainty square of Fete Accompli's Mediterranean Fritatta made with vegetables from Milagro Farm, and Lambert's spicy grilled pizza topped with Loncito's Lamb.

Toyota developed the Taste of the Market promotion that debuted in Austin last weekend as a venue to introduce consumers to the new Venza. They did plenty of advance promotion, paid chefs and growers to participate, and made a $5,000 donation to the Sustainable Food Center that runs the market. The successful event moves on to two popular farmers' markets in California this coming weekend. Toyota does seem to be everywhere just now - they also signed on as a sponsor for Bravo's Top Chef and awarded free Venzas to a semi-finalist in each of the last two seasons. I'm not suggesting we all rush out and buy a new Toyota, but I do find it very interesting that a major automobile manufacturer has identified enlightened foodies as a segment of the consumer market worth cultivating, and I'm always glad to see area farmers and food producers get the support they so richly deserve. Oh, and I am very grateful that we all got some rain. Read More | 1 Comment »