food-o-file

Saturday, September 30, 10am-5pm

One of the most popular harbingers of fall has to be the aromatic melange of the Texas Herb Market on the beautiful grounds of the Zilker Botanical Gardens. Visitors can browse and shop at the booths set up by local herb farmers and artisans of herb-related products who'll be selling their freshly harvested wares. There will be food from Botanitas restaurant, the Herb Society, and Sgt. Peppers Hot Sauce Microbrewery and live music from Leeann Atherton & Johnny Mac, The Devils & the Dames, Erik Hokkanen & the Snow Wolves, and the Wood Shepherd.

The Zilker Garden Center will be the site of lectures, demonstrations and book signings all day by a host of herb experts such as John Dromgoole, J. Howard Garrett, Lucinda Hutson, Odenna Brannam and Mark Blumenthal. Of particular interest to children will be the one-day "Butterfly House," a small, plant-filled building which will host over 100 various species of Texas butterflies for Market participants to enjoy. At 4:30pm the butterflies will be ceremoniously released to live out their days in the Botanical Gardens.

BECOME A BETTER BREAD BAKER

Bread Baking Series I at Sweetish Hill

September 30, October 14, October 28, November 11;

$65 per person, 472-7370

Sweetish Hill co-owner Jim Murphy will teach a first-ever series of bread baking classes on Saturday afternoons at Austin's 20-year-old French bakery. Each three to four hour class will feature recipes and techniques for several different breads made with mixers and by hand, a glossary of bread terms, a bibliography of recommended baking books, and a light snack. There will be a special focus on naturally leavened, hearth-style artisan breads.

The first class will deal with natural fermentation, sponges, and sourdoughs; class two will present whole-grain breads, country French, harvest loaves, baguettes, and a bread soup bowl; Rye breads and puff pastry will be the featured attraction in the third class with pumpernickel raisin, Swedish Limpa, cheese twists, Palmiers, and apple turnovers; the final class will be full of holiday baking ideas for fruitcake, stollen, danish dough, and rugelach. Classes will be limited to eight students so call the bakery to reserve space.

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

Green Pastures Restaurant

Thursday, October 5, 7pm

The Faulk, Koock, and Buslett families have invited hundreds of their customers and their nearest and dearest friends to a gala evening celebrating the centennial of the stately South Austin mansion that is home to Green Pastures restaurant. Guests will enjoy cocktails and appetizers to the sounds of different musical selections in different areas of the house and the $50 per person tab will benefit the Allen Shivers Cancer Center. Happy Birthday, Green Pastures, and here's to your next 100 years!

SWEETISH DELIGHTS

Twenty Recipes for 20 Years by Patricia Bauer-Slate

(self-published, spiral, $12.95) Just when I think I've read all the cookbooks by local authors this year, along comes another wonderful book. From the charming watercolor portrait of the original Victorian home location on the cover, to the shared anecdotes and stories, this delightful history of Sweetish Hill Bakery's 20 years as Austin's premier French bakery is a winner. Friends and customers are, of course, a natural clientele for this slender, spiral-bound volume, but newcomers to the Capital City can learn something about how Austin developed into the great food city that it is today by reading Bauer-Slate's pleasant prose and sampling each of the twenty award-winning recipes. If you're expecting all baking recipes, think again, because Sweetish Hill has operated a bakery, a restaurant, and a deli in its lifetime and all those businesses are represented in the book. Twenty Recipes is available at all Sweetish Hill locations, Book People, Barnes and Noble, and the Bookstop at Sunset Valley. - Virginia B. Wood