gravelpot

The downtown Austin Farmer's Market, which is just finishing its first season, is a project of the non-profit Sustainable Food Center. As such, they only accept true "farmers" into the market, and only ones whose farm is within 150 miles of Austin (a generous definition of local, for sure, but that's what they had to do to guarantee a critical mass of farms). The Burnet Rd. "Travis County Farmer's Market", by contrast, is a for-profit venture, and I have only ever seen "peddlers" there, rather than growers.

Questions regarding the use of a baking stone in a home oven: 1) Is it better to put the stone on a rack in the lower part of the oven or to put it on the floor of the oven itself? 2) I made a pizza on my baking stone last week and ended up setting off the smoke alarm in my house when I took the pizza out and the cornmeal left on the stone turned into black crispy bits. The crust was phenomenal, but I don't want to torture my dog everytime I feel like making pizza or bread. Any advice on how to avoid this phenomenon? Thanks. Great lesson. P.S. I made my first starter using water organic raisins as the "accelerator," and it worked beautifully. After soaking the raisins for five days, the water started to bubble like crazy. I drained the raisins out and mixed the water with flour, and went in a normal fashion from there. I don't think that the flour and water were mixed together long enough before the mixture started bubbling to account for spontaneous fermentation, but that's just a guess based more on gut feeling than actual empirical knowledge. I definitely feel that, for a certain type of person anyways, creating the starter from scratch is an integral part of the mystique of sourdough baking. It was like being in junior high school science class again! Anyways, this starter recipe is also in the bread section of "Fields of Greens" which was written by the head baker at the Tassajara Bread Co.

Last night was the first episode I had seen since the premiere. My impression was that everything seemed far more staged -- every "private" conversation that Rocco had with an employee seemed completely scripted, and he ocassionally gets this strange robotic look on his face when he's clearly doing something that the producers told him to do, such as when he sent Gideon home after he had been called in with his best suit and sling on. Or when he ran out after Topher to call after him to come back. Hack acting. I also thought that I heard a lot of dubbed lines that must have been tacked on during editing. It just added to the overwhelming sense of "unreality". The food writer for my local alternative weekly paper suggested skipping "The Restaurant" and renting the "the truest movie ever made about how restaurants operate. . .'Dinner Rush.'" I agree. And as a bonus, you can see the guy with the "evil eye" ring doing what he would probably prefer doing for a living to hosting at Rocco's -- acting.

I'm sure many folks here have read Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" (if not, I highly recommend it). Of the many disturbing aspects of that book, one of the most disturbing is the explanation of the various ways in which fast food chains capture their next generation of loyal customers. All of the happy meal toys and playscapes and other crap create all of these happy mental associations with eating fast food, which will last for the rest of their lives. Try taking a 5 year old to a local burger joint when he finds out that he doesn't get a toy with his meal! And now they've developed this new concept of the "big kids meal", a la McD's "Power Kids Meal", which is essentially foisting what used to be considered an adult-size burger and fries on pre-teens. My 5 year-old nephew's favorite fast food now is KFC, because their kids meal comes in a "laptop", which is a laptop-shaped cardboard box with a toy and games and puzzles printed on it. His parents brought one with them for him to eat the last time we went out to Chinese food. All I remember about the food is that it had a roll of fruit leather in it. I don't think that there are any easy answers to the conundrum of how to get your kids to be more adventurous eaters. For me, I was a pretty unadventurous eater until I was in college. Moving to San Francisco in my mid-20s jump-started a whole new series of food adventures. I won't claim to have a "highly-developed palate", but I've certainly gone way past my parents in terms of what I enjoy eating. Certainly geography is destiny in some ways, too, or at least it used to be. Growing up in Texas, I never had the opportunity to try many ethnic foods, or many types of fresh seafood. But I ate plenty of Mexican food! I think a lot of that has changed in the last 10-20 years with many more types of food being available year-round and nationwide. So paradoxically, while many Americans are eating more generically than ever, I think that the opportunities exist for people to eat more eclectically than ever. It's just a matter of taking advantage of the opportunities. (I suppose this is much more true in the cities and on the coasts than in rural areas and the midwest).

$6 for 3/4 lb. of very good meat, cooked *to order* in a real kitchen, with bacon, cheese, and very good vegetables. And fries. In a quasi-fancy sit-down restaurant. Yep, that's a real good deal.

My wife and I checked out the Roaring Fork last night, and I agree that this is certainly a best-of-class burger. It didn't click in my brain until I was about halfway through it that 12 ounces equals 3/4 pound! So, it's probably the biggest burger in austin, if nothing else. In fact, my only criticism of this burger is that it's too big! Regarding your comments on the drink offerings, I don't know if they've changed things since you went, but they definitely had Shiner (bottles only), as well as Dos Equis, Bass, and Fat Tire to provide a little beer variety. I don't know why a place like that wouldn't have draught beer, but there you go. Austin folks should get down there before this deal ends. It seems that they're using the burger as a loss leader, so take advantage of it!