Food Memory

Do you have foods that evoke specific memories? I'm eating Cheez-Its right now, and they remind me of my grandmother, my mother's mother. She lived with us one summer, and I would watch TV with her in her bedroom. We had these small rice bowls that we used for ice cream, and I'd fill one with Cheez-Its and watch TV with my grandma. She preferred unsalted peanuts.

She liked to watch old westerns, Wheel of Fortune, even Nickelodeon. She didn't understand a great deal of English, so she liked programs she could understand by the images. Westerns, it's pretty clear what's going on, no dialogue needed. We used to watch a lot of Hey, Dude!, because it was on a ranch and you could figure out what was happening pretty easily.

I remember that my grandma was there, but not particularly warm. I know now that she showed her love with food, that when she was trying to force you to eat a rack of ribs, she was saying "I love you." When she let me watch TV with her in her room, she was trying to be closer to her grandchildren. I didn't know that then, but I know it now.

Another food that takes me back are grilled cheese sandwiches and pickles. Plain wheat bread, plain American Kraft singles, and sweet pickles. My dad would make this for us after church on Sundays. It makes me think of the sweet relief of being home again, after sitting through church, of getting to wear non-formal clothes. It was a meal that prepared you for the chores you'd have to do on Sunday afternoons, dusting and weeding and mulching and washing cars.

We always ate grilled cheeses with sweet pickles. I'm not sure why. I think it's because my dad liked sweet pickles. To this day, the combo makes me think of a respite, a time to breathe a bit in between Sunday duties.

Beef with broccoli. My mom used to make simple Chinese dishes, meat, veg, brown sauce, white rice. I remember watching TV in the other room while my mom hacked a piece of meat into pieces, cooking it in the red electric wok. She'd take a few pieces out and lay them on a cutting board for my brother and I to snack on while we waited for dinner. In the rice bowls, soy sauce and cornstarch would mix to make a flavorful brown sauce. In goes the broccoli, in goes the meat, out comes dinner.

When I was really little, my parents tried to get me to eat broccoli by dunking it in the brown sauce. I would suck the sauce off of the broccoli, and then hand the broccoli back to them. I knew then it was the best part.

What are your food memories?

Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta

When John and I decided to go to Atlanta during the Christmas break, I knew one of our stops would have to be Flip Burger Boutique. The chef there is none other than Top Chef Season 4's gastronomy-loving, faux-hawked Richard Blaise.

We went there on a Wednesday for a late lunch. They don't accept reservations and it's a small place, so we were told we had a 45 minute wait. We drove 30 minutes to get there, so we waited. It gave us a chance to people watch and study the menu. The burgers are on the smallish side, so we had to choose carefully. There are a lot of intriguing things on the menu: a kobe burger, a foie gras milkshake, sweetbread nuggets. There was so much to choose from. There was a korean bbq burger with kimchee ketchup that I was this close to getting.

Ultimately, I settled on the ossobucco burger with french fries and a Nutella milkshake. They were totally worth the wait. The burger was juicy and flavorful and the milkshake had burnt marshmallows in it! It seems like all the burgers have something different about them. My burger had fried onions on it, and braised ketchup.

Christina got the same burger as I did, but with potato salad.

John got the venison burger and jalapeno slaw with a spicy chocolate mole shake. His burger was good, but not as good as mine. The slaw was delicious and not too spicy. We saw someone send their spicy mole shake back while we were waiting, claiming it was too spicy. But I thought this shake wasn't spicy at all. It tasted like a mild mole to me.

Success! I love a good burger, and these were some great burgers. And I'm always glad when other people enjoy our culinary adventures. I know not everyone loves trying weird and different foods as much as John and I do, but it's always good when they like it.

The Time We Tried to Go to Oktoberfest

Sometimes, John and I get all fancy and go to fundraisers and bid on things.

OK, not really. But when Kate told us she had some tickets to A Rhapsody in Blue: Arts & Eats 2009 at Blue Star. We couldn't say no. Five local chefs would be there. Plus, wine!

There was some great food there: lamb loin, foie gras, dessert mousse thing, mushroom crepes, cheese plate, and a savory flan. The chefs were churning out the food as 300 people lined up to eat it. I am literally waiting for him to cut me some lamb loin. I kept trying to take the plate and he kept stopping me, because he hadn't finished plating it.

They set up cooking stations right in the middle of Blue Star. I didn't think it'd be big enough for all the stations, chefs, and sous chefs, but it was.

Hey, look who it is!
Jason Dady! We chatted with him a bit about the marathon, how much foie gras he brought with him ($1100 worth), Hawaii. He said when I walked up, his sous chef said, "Is that ohmypuddin?" Ha, I'm Internet famous! My life is complete. He also yelled at Sam, "HEY SAMMY!" Ha!

So one of the items in the silent auction was a stay at an apartment in Berlin. John and Sam were really interested in it. They kept talking about what a good deal it was and how the four of us could all go for Oktoberfest next year. So I told them to go bid on it, if they wanted to. And they did!
See John's bid there? I was kind of freaking out now, thinking that we were committing to paying thousands of dollars on a trip to Berlin while we were very intoxicated on wine. I like to think about things a little more, and the spontaneity of this was freaking me out. Fortunately, I just drank some more wine to calm myself.

And then, we were outbid with a bid of $2500. John and Sam decided that they wouldn't go higher than $2000, so we lost that Berlin apartment. Part of me is sad we lost, but part of me is relieved we didn't get it. We can always go to Berlin sometime, but maybe we can think about it for more than 5 minutes, and sober.

So that's the story of the time we tried to go to Oktoberfest. Even though we didn't win that auction, it was a superfun night and I got to play one of my favorite games, Pretentious Art, and I got to eat great food and drink great free wine and wear tights and see people wearing some crazy outfits. Also, I ran a half-marathon and got an iPhone and it's Dinner Club tonight and I'm having dinner with Melissa tomorrow and bottling some wine on Saturday and seeing Nicolette at Casbeers playing with the Melissa Ludwig Band and then it's my birthday on Sunday and then Lyla and Stephen are coming on Monday to take their engagement photos here and then we go to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. So it's been a pretty awesome week and it just keeps getting better! It's like a whole week of birthday for me!

Il Sogno

Sooooooo, I am kind of a foodie. Kind of. I like food. No, I LOVE food. I like to cook food, and serve food, and read about food, and write about food, and take pictures of food. I like to try new food. I love to try new restaurants.

If you're not familiar with Andrew Weissman, he's one of the most prolific top chefs in San Antonio. He has the flagship restaurant, Le Reve, which was on Gourmet's top 50 restaurants IN THE COUNTRY. I've been before, and it is phenomenal. He also has Sip, a coffee shop, Sandbar, a seafood restaurant, and Big'z, a burger joint.
His latest restaurant, the much talked about Il Sogno, was supposed to open at the beginning of this year. That didn't happen. Rumors said it would open this summer. But it wasn't until an article this past week in the San Antonio Current that I had some answers - Il Sogno would open soon, July or August. Construction was still going on, but it would open.

Il Sogno is located near a new area, the Pearl Brewery, which is an old beer brewery and is now home to lofts, restaurants, and, every Saturday, a farmer's market.

I follow the farmer's market on Facebook and they said on Friday that Il Sogno would be opening for breakfast on Saturday. As big fans of Chef Weissman, John and I had to go.

We showed up at 7:50 am for the breakfast. I ordered the coddled eggs, John ordered the speck and provolone panini and we split a bread basket.

It was AWESOME.


So awesome that we had to come back with Kate and Sam for dinner the next day. Here's the Bismark pizza. Can you tell it has an egg on it? A delicious, delicious egg? Because it does.

They serve grissini as you sit and wait. We also had a duck flatbread, scallops, hog ragu, and rabbit. The ragu? Was knock-you-on-your-ass fantastic.

They didn't have their liquor license yet, but they gave us wine anyway! This picture is courtesy of the adorable French sommelier from Le Reve, who was at Il Sogno on Sunday. He has taught us about the tiny bubbles in champagne, and how much he likes Sam's shirt.

I can't wait to go back!

What I did today instead of spending money

-Went to the Pearl Farmer's Market this morning. We bought lamb chops, beets, kohlrabi, onions, blackberries, spinach, leeks and peaches. I've eaten two peaches today, and we roasted the beets, cooked the lamb chops, and ate the spinach and onion in a salad. We're going to eat the leeks tomorrow. Clearly, we don't believe in delayed gratification.

Also, this doesn't count as spending money, because John paid for it. :) Hey, if I don't spend it, it doesn't count, right?

-Cleaned out my closet. I made a pile of stuff to give to Goodwill and rediscovered clothes that are cute but I don't wear them. It's like having new clothes!

-Organized the pantry. It is a crazy unorganized mess in there, but I straightened it.

-Cleaned off John's "work bench" aka his table in the office. (I'm beginning to realize most of my day sounds like what my friend Christine would call "married stuff." Mostly domestic crap.)

-Finished my mom's Mother's Day gift. Pictures to come. I like this idea so much, I'm going to do one for my dad for Father's Day!

-Thought about going to get ice cream, opted instead for pudding I had in the fridge.

-Cleaned the kitchen.

-Played with Buster. He's our 1.5 year old mutt. He's a good dog. I'll have to write a post on him someday.

Crawfish Boil

Have you ever been to a crawfish boil? It's basically a big backyard party with lots of live crawfish, who get boiled and eaten. Very popular along the Gulf Coast. My husband John and I went to one recently, thrown my a coworker of his. About 40 people where slated to come, so there were 5 pounds of crawfish per person, which is about right. Crawfish are mostly shell. You have to twist the tails off and shell the tails to get to the meat.

My parents are both from the South and they met in college in Louisiana. I've heard a lot of stories about crawfish boils, but my favorite one is the time that they put all the live crawfish in a kiddie pool in the backyard and then they (my parents, not the crawfish) started drinking. In the drunken melee, all of the crawfish escaped into the woods. My parents and everyone else drunkenly tried to catch them, but they were gone. That is my favorite crawfish story - the one where they got away.

The crawfish boil John and I went to didn't have any such mishaps. It was afternoon of crawfish, corn, sausage and brownies. Good times.