Doing it up BIG in Texas
A remarkable group of food and beverage executives and corporate chefs joined “Deep in the Heart of Austin,” our Flavor Foray May 8 to 10, 2018. It was a whirlwind of inspiration and education meeting creative chefs, makers and bakers, millers and distillers, urban farmers, and wine makers who are catapulting this live music capital into the gourmet stratosphere.
Andrew Reiner’s photo album will guide you through our journey from our opening kick ass lunch at Loro where Asia meets Texas BBQ to our tour of the library of the future where the Cookbook Café even has a bar. Kevin Fink, chef/owner Emmer & Rye, conducted a very scientific class on fermenting. Kevin Taylor, executive chef, ATX Cocina, took us through the process of nixtamalization to make fresh masa. Chef/owner Sonya Cote literally brought farm to table at the magical urban farm Eden East. Executive chef Andre Natera and executive food and beverage director David Garcelon took us on an amazing behind the scenes kitchen tour at the brand new Fairmont Hotel where we tasted divine scramble eggs topped with summer truffles and smoked brisket as good as anything that requires standing in line. A drive out to Texas hill country took us to Barton Springs Mill where we met miller James Brown and mesquite missionary Sandeep Gyawali and sampled Jester King beers made with mesquite and bread. At Apis and Pizzeria Sorellina, chef/owner Taylor Hall expounded on bee keeping and treated us to the best pizzas this side of Italy made from Barton Springs Mill flours. Across the road we got an up close lesson on regenerative farming and saw the most adorable day old piglets. Then on to a tasting at Spicewood Vineyards. After a short drive to Driftwood, we visited Desert Door Distillers to taste Sotol, a spirit similar to mescal made from desert spoon cactus also called Sotol. At the Driftwood tasting room of Fall Creek Vineyards, we were treated to wines, a feral pig butchering demo by chef Jesse Griffiths of Dai Due followed by an amazing choucroute garni. On our final day we started with a breakfast as big as Texas with the amazing breakfast burger at Hopdoddy, now a leading contender in the better burger wars with 24 locations across the Southwest. Then on to the greener than green library. And finally a leisurely lunch on the front porch at Launderette. No one left hungry.
