Off the Record
By Austin Powell, Fri., July 20, 2007
Food for Thought
Local firebrand Trish Murphy stepped into the kitchen with the Food Network's Dave Lieberman to tape a segment for his webcast series, In Search of Real Food, which streams on Yahoo! Food beginning Tuesday. "Food is something that brings people together, like music," says Murphy one morning at Flipnotics' new Triangle location. Having honed her craft through family dinners over the years, she likens the process of song-doctoring to adjusting ingredients. "I'm more prolific with recipes than songs, though."
The session was recorded at Central Market, whose like-minded cooking classes, Austin Music on the Menu, held annually in early March and previously hosted by Guy Forsyth, Papa Mali, and Kevin Stack of Gorch Fock, among others, led to Murphy's involvement. Murphy performed live staples "Boiling Water," "The Trouble With Trouble," and "Thelma and Louise" and cooked up gourmet Southern cuisine, including pan-roasted mushroom caps with crab meat, fried-okra salad, and lemonade cupcakes.
"The most challenging part is trying to focus on what you're cooking while entertaining the crowd," reveals Murphy, who updates her website (www.trishmurphy.com) regularly with new recipes and restaurant recommendations. "It's very open and improvisational, like visiting with strangers in the kitchen."
If that doesn't whet your appetite, journalist Kara Zuaro noshes with your favorite indie rock acts. Her 256-page cookbook, I Like Food, Food Tastes Good, features recipes from Devendra Banhart, Death Cab for Cutie, Belle & Sebastian, and the Violent Femmes, to name a few. Okkervil River bakes a mean buttermilk pie, and Matt Simon of Voxtrot and Belaire, who have an in-store at Waterloo Records on Wednesday, contributes his Peanutty Black-Bean Tofu. Stay away from the Polyphonic Spree's punch.
