Last month, we went to the Austin Food & Wine Festival. It was: delicious, steamy, winey, humid, crazy, and amazing.

We’d gotten some blogger passes, which were weekender passes. On Friday night was a VIP event, which we couldn’t go to. So instead, we dressed up and went to Congress for dinner.

My favorite thing at Congress was the veal and sweetbread slider.

We ate a lot of other things too. They were all delicious.

We’d booked a hotel near the festival, so the next day, we walked to breakfast and then walked over to the festival.

Look, it was really hot. Hot outside, and sunny, and then even hotter in the tents. We’d arrived just in time for the grand tasting, tents filled with wine and food samples. So the tents were like saunas. We tried to cool off with some wine.

We went to a few sessions, including Tony Mantuano’s about pasta and Italian cooking. John was so inspired by it that we bought a pasta roller and cutter the next day.

We were really hot and sweaty after the sessions, so we went back to the hotel to shower and change, and then head to La Condesa for dinner!

I neglected to mention that we were there that weekend with Emily (aka Defining Delicious). We met up with her and her family at La Condesa, where we ate so many delicious tacos, but I neglected to take photos of any of them. But here’s a picture of one of the desserts.

After dinner, we walked around and stumbled upon the VIP Taco Throwdown, which we thought we couldn’t go to because we didn’t have VIP passes. But because we are so naturally charming, they let us in.

I was so full from dinner that I only tried one of the tacos, so I can’t say much about that. But I did meet Marcus Samuelsson and ran into Andrew Weissman (who was having drinks at La Condesa at the same time we were there. You guys, Andrew Weissman is my new best friend. He doesn’t know it yet though.)

It was a fun weekend. We stopped at the outlets on the way home and bought some pasta attachments to make our own fresh pasta. Between that weekend and all the fresh pasta we’ve been making, I’ve gained about five pounds.

Whenever I go to Austin, my head explodes from all of the awesome places I still need to eat. Austin is a fun city, y’all.

In my dinner club, we’ve been eating and drinking and sitting around each others’ houses for years now. We’re running out of things to cook. Themes to play off of. John and I have done a 4/20 dinner, breakfast for dinner, Italian theme, sandwich theme.

So when it was our turn last week, we wracked our brains coming up with a theme.

It was John’s idea to play off of fast food. We decided to do a McDonald’s theme, with chicken nuggets, burgers, fries, and hand pies. We even went to McDonald’s and asked if they would give us some Happy Meal boxes, fry packages and burger wrappers. Did you know they rotate Happy Meal boxes and bags every week? We would up getting the bags. And you can totally buy McDonald’s packaging for the price of extra sauce (five cents). It’s a pretty clever theme, isn’t it? What themes would you use for a dinner party?

The meal started with chicken nuggets, made extra delicious by double battering them. I found an article on Serious Eats that surmised that McDonald’s sweet sauce tasted like duck sauce with red pepper flakes. So that’s what we made.

They were a hit! Also, it’s super weird to process meat until it’s a paste. Really weird. And gross.

Next up, bacon cheeseburgers wrapped in papers, fries in paper packets, all in McDonald’s Happy Meal bags, complete with toy. There was a lot of vrooming going on for a bunch of grown ass adults.

We also made cherry hand pies, but no one took pics of them. Probably because they were so delicious, we forgot to. Recipes ahoy! I didn’t include one for the cheeseburgers, because we didn’t use one. I mean, they’re burgers. We used grass-fed beef, and thick cut bacon.

Chicken McNuggets

From For the Love of Food

• 2 boneless skinless Chicken Breasts (that’s 4 breast fillets)
• 1 teaspoon of Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of Parsley flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon of Oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon of Onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of Pepper
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 1 Cup of Flour
• about 1.5 Cups of Oil for frying (I used Sunflower seed oil)

1. Heat oil in a heavy-duty skillet (like a cast iron skillet) on medium-high heat while preparing the chicken nuggets – it should be ready to work with once half of your nuggets are ready to go in.
2. Cube chicken and place in a food processor. Blend chicken until it has all been taken apart and is a fine paste. Remove to a bowl and add salt, parsley, oregano, onion powder, and pepper, and combine well.
3. Pour out flour on a plate and have your beaten eggs in a small bowl ready to work with.
4. Roll the chicken paste mixture into 34 ping-pong ball-sized balls (smaller than a golf ball).
5. Roll ball a “chicken ball” in flour, then in egg, and then in flour again. Then, press the ball down to make a nugget.Set nuggets aside.
6. Sprinkle the hot oil with some flour and if it bubbles really quickly right away, your oil is ready for frying. Place as many nuggets as possible in the oil, and fry until the bottoms are golden, turn and fry until the other side is golden. Will take about 4-5 minutes per side. Remove to a towel-lined plate (to catch any excess oil).

French Fries

From Serious Eats

1. Place potatoes and vinegar in saucepan and add 2 quarts of water and 2 tablespoons of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Boil for 10 minutes. Potatoes should be fully tender, but not falling apart. Drain and spread on paper towel-lined rimmed baking sheet. Allow to dry for five minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil in 5-quart Dutch oven or large wok over high heat to 400°F. Add 1/3 of fries to oil (oil temperature should drop to around 360°F). Cook for 50 seconds, agitating occasionally with wire mesh spider, then remove to second paper-towel lined rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with remaining potatoes (working in two more batches), allowing oil to return to 400°F after each addition. Allow potatoes to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Continue with step 3, or for best results, freeze potatoes at least over night, or up to 2 months.

3. Return oil to 400°F over high heat. Fry half of potatoes until crisp and light golden brown, about 3 1/2 minutes, adjusting heat to maintain at around 360°F. Drain in a bowl lined with paper towels and season immediately with kosher salt. Cooked fries can be kept hot and crisp on a wire rack set on a sheet tray in a 200°F oven while second batch is cooked. Serve immediately.

Cherry Hand Pies

From Bon Appetit

I am so important to the world of food that I am taking my important self to the Austin Food & Wine Festival next weekend. I expect Tyson Cole and Tim Love will get into fistcuffs over who will feed me from silver spoons. Gail Simmons will establish herself as my new best friend, and Andrew Zimmern will ask my the secret to my impeccable hair style, as he longs to grow a bob as razor sharp as mine.

He wants my hair, guys.

OK, so none of that stuff is going to happen. And tens of people don’t come up to me, it’s more like threes. BUT! I will be attending the Austin Food & Wine Festival. Waspy Redhead got me the hookup to be one of their blogger peoples, so I have a press pass.

I am super excited, guys. Not just at the prospect of becoming BFF with Gail Simmons, but about the excellent food and wine I’ll be scarfing down like my life depends on it.

Look at that schedule! I hope these events are near each other, because I plan on attending all of them.

There’s still plenty of time to buy tickets, so get yours now if you want to go. I managed to get a hotel within walking distance, so I won’t have to drive. I am a wise and sensible lush.

And if you’re in San Antonio, I’ve got 2 more reasons to attend – Andrew Weissman and Jason Dady.

If you’re going to be there, leave a comment! We should hang out!

It seemed like a ridiculous question at the time. It’s just toast. Have you ever seen a toast recipe before? I haven’t. It would look ridiculous, a parody of a recipe. Step one: toast bread. Step two: put things on the bread. Step three: eat. Ridiculous, right?

Avocado toast isn’t a new thing. Lots of people eat it. I’ve been meaning to make it for awhile, but I always forget to use the avocados for breakfast, instead using them for a dish. Or I get in the habit of eating cereal for breakfast.

Then TheKitchn posted an article on ways to eat avocados for breakfast and reminded me how much I want to eat this. Look at it. I kind of want it right now, even thought I’m not hungry.

I haven’t been working out lately. I’m feeling sluggish, mentally, physically, emotionally. I also continuously struggle with how to help my dad be healthy. How to get him to eat more vegetables. How to get the processed foods out of our house. How to keep his body healthy so his mind can heal. And I’m trying to make those changes myself, to be healthy so I can take care of my father and myself.

So it’s a simple little thing. Whole grain bread, lightly toasted, half a ripe avocado mashed on top, and sprinkling of kosher salt. I could get fancy with some lemon pepper or red pepper flakes. I could add a little lime juice, or brush the bread with olive oil. But it’s about the simplicity of it, making a small change to an everyday routine. It’s about starting my day off on a delicious note, setting the tone for everything that will follow.

It’s also about balance. Look, avocado toast is not the healthiest thing in the world. It’s a lot of fat on top of a carb. But you know what? I don’t want to drink a kale smoothie or eat egg white omelets with no cheese. I still want to enjoy my food, and I want my dad to enjoy his. We just have to learn how to balance the good with the bad.

Basically, I wrote this whole post because I thought it was funny when John asked if I was going to blog about it, and then it seemed like a good idea. To take the idea of blogging a recipe of toast and turn it around.

In January, it was held at Aquarius Boutique, and San Antonio Tidbits was selling the tickets, which included a tank top and a $50 gift certificate to the store. That sounded like a pretty good deal to me.

The night started with mingling over cocktails and selecting our seats. We got to keep our plates, so we tried to choose some good ones.

To be honest, I was just glad to be out of the house. This was the week my father had a stroke, and I was considering not even going, because I was feeling guilty and didn’t really want to go. But I was glad I did. After the emotionally tumultuous week I’d had, it was good to be out doing something normal, eating food, chatting, meeting new people.

The food was good, but not spectacular. I imagine this has to do with the fact that it’s a pop up dinner, so there wasn’t a kitchen at the store, so much of the food needed to be prepared ahead of time. Everything was served family style.

It’s a great concept, and something different for San Antonio. For me, the funnest part was talking to the people around me. We don’t have a lot of family style dining here, so it’s fun to talk to new people.

Menu:

Arrival Cocktail: Roasted Cumin, Candied Serrano, Y Vodka, Agave, Soda and Lime
Farinata, Cheeses, Wild Guajillo Honey, Roasted Pecans, Dried Fruits, Citrus Gelee, Cured Meat Plate
Lacinato Kale with Shaved Reggiano, Julinenne of Root Vegetables, Raddiccio and Radish with Fresh Herbs, Baby Turnip Greens, Beet Stained Eggs and Warm Bacon Vinaigrette
Winter Vegetable Stew over Cous Cous
Stracotto over Creamy Polenta
Guava Cream Cake
Banana Pineapple Cake with Dulce De Leche Frosting
Dessert Cocktail: Y Vodka, Cardomon Rose Syrup, Blood Orange, Rose Sugar

If you’re in San Antonio and looking for a culinary adventure, I’d recommend going, just for the fun of breaking bread with new people.

Home-cooked meals these days are more about convenience and health, with my dad living with us. He’s at home all day, and he needs to be eating healthy, so it’s important that we have relatively healthy meals for dinner.

It’s also about convenience. By the time we get home and work out, it’s usually about 6:30 or 7. If we started cooking a long meal then, we wouldn’t eat until 9. That seemed OK when it was just the two of us, but now it seems unrealistic.

This recipe is pretty quick. Marinating the pork overnight worked out well, since all we had to do the next day was throw it on the grill. I sauteed up some bok choy from our CSA and some shiitakes, and made some rice. Voila, easy and tasty pork.

It makes a great lunch the next day too.

Recipe from Viet World Kitchen

Vietnamese Restaurant-Style Grilled Lemongrass Pork
Thit Heo Nuong Xa

Serves 4

1 pound boneless pork shoulder steak, about 1/2 inch thick

Marinade:
11/2 to 2 tablespoons granulated or light brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon chopped shallot or yellow onion
1 stalk lemongrass, trimmed and finely chopped (3 tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon dark (black) soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon oil

1. Cut the pork shoulder steak into pieces about 3 to 4 inches big. Set aside.

2. Put the sugar, garlic, shallot and lemongrass into an electric mini chopper and process to a fine texture. (Or, mince the garlic, shallot, and lemongrass individually, put them into a bowl, and add the sugar.) Add the pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce, and oil and process to combine well. Aim for a relatively smooth texture. The marinade will be chocolate brown. Transfer to a bowl.

3. Add the pork, and turn to coat well. Cover and set aside at room temperature to marinate for 1 hour. Or, refrigerate up to 24 hours, letting the meat sit out at room temperature for 45 minutes to remove some of the chill before grilling.

4. Preheat a grill to medium-high. Grill for 6 to 8 minutes, turning frequently, until cooked through. Nick with a knife to test. Transfer to a plate, loosely cover with foil or an inverted bowl for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

It’s all wine John’s bought for special occasions. It’s nice wine. It’s expensive wine. He says we’ll drink it on special days, or after it’s aged 10 years, or something like that.

And I’m sure we will. But I want to drink it right now.

My mother kept a lot of my grandmother’s gold jewelry in a safety deposit box. I inherited some of it when I got married.

It’s nice jewelry. And I wear it all the time. A gold bracelet with a work outfit, my grandmother’s baby bracelet on a gold chain as a necklace, a big gold necklace with simple dresses. I wear it all the time.

Some people believe in saving the best things for special occasions. It makes the event more special, and protects and preserves your valuables, the things you cherish and are worth a lot of money and emotional investment.

I’m not really like that. I believe in fancy dinners any time of year, drinking the best wine on a random Tuesday, wearing my best jewelry all the time. It makes even the most mundane things feel special. It makes every day a day of celebration, in some small way.

Now more than ever, I feel like I need these tiny celebrations. I feel like I need to celebrate the fact that I’m here, I’m present. I feel the need to bring my past in to my present, and remember that it makes me who I am, but it doesn’t define me. I feel the need to celebrate the fact that it is Tuesday.

Here’s another example: John bought me a very pretty ring for Christmas. It’s a ring I wanted. It’s big and shiny. It’s probably meant to be worn on special occasions, like a cocktail ring.

I wear it every day.

Maybe you like to save things for special occasions. But what I’m saying is, you should let those things make your everyday occasions special. Go out for a nice dinner for no reason. Wear something that makes you feel good. Cash in that gift card. Whatever. If we all save the best for last, we’re depriving ourselves of the best things right now. Why? Spread it out. Spread the best stuff out. Otherwise, you’ll have a life of OK and the last will be spectacular. I’d rather have a life of spectacular.

And I did. In more ways than I can count. Sometimes you can change your life, you can look ahead to what you want the future to be and make it happen.

And sometimes life changes you.

My father had a stroke last month.

It was sudden and unexpected. He lives near me, so we’ve gotten him treatment and pills and things to do. He’s staying with me while he recovers.

I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy, or because it’s any of your business. It’s not your business. I’m telling you this because I’ve been thinking about what to do with this blog.

Food and cooking and eating are still important to me. Hell, eating is important to all of  us, it’s how we stay alive. But writing about recipes and cooking seems trivial now, when I have a lot of other important things to think about. Things that are more important than writing this blog.

I’m also telling you this because I want you to know that I might be writing about other things for a while. This blog, when I first started it, was just about my life. It might become about my life again. I might want to talk about my dad, about strokes, about taking care of a parent.

Then again, I might not. I might want to use this space to escape from all of that. Where I can talk about something frivolous.

Through this whole process, people have told me to take care of myself. Part of that means giving myself permission and space to do what I want.

Right now, I don’t know what I want this blog to be, or what it will become in the coming months. I have no idea.

If you’d rather read stuff about food and not about my life, you can read other blogs for a few months. There are a lot of good blogs out there, and you shouldn’t have any problem finding them.

But I bet some of you will stick around. I hope you do, anyway.

I mean, I literally lost her. In San Antonio. I couldn’t find her for an hour and a half.

John’s parents are staying with us for the week. They don’t live in Texas. They’ve been here before and know our area a bit, but they don’t live here. She and I had gone to pick up John’s car from the dealership. We drove there together, she let me out, I got John’s car, and we got on the service road to go to my house. We weren’t far from the house, and I thought she was only a couple cars behind me.

But then I got home, and she wasn’t there. After a few minutes, I called her. No answer. She didn’t have her phone. But if she’d been following me, she shouldn’t have been more than a few minutes behind me, even if there was traffic or she got stuck at a light. Time crept on. I waited in the driveway, watching the cars go by. She wasn’t in any of those cars.

After 20 minutes, I decided to try to find her if I could. I didn’t know if she had any money, or if she knew how to get home. I didn’t know if she knew enough about where we lived to ask anyone how to get home again.

So I drove for about an hour, checking gas stations for the car, looking for accidents or cars pulled off the road. I was in an absolute panic, thinking that I’d let this happen. Thinking that she could be hurt, or gotten into an accident, or be crazy lost. I kept driving, because I needed to do something to try to help, and it was all I could think to do.

Finally, my father-in-law called. She’d found her way home, after being lost. I breathed a sigh of relief. I called John to let him know. I drove back home and hugged my mother-in-law.

And then I had many glasses of wine.

All this leads me to believe that having children is going to turn me into a walking panic attack. John called me last night, and I had to tell him, “I can’t talk now, I lost your mother!”

I’m telling you this story to explain one of my greatest fears when I think about having children: That I will literally die from a panic attack.

I freak out about a lot of things. I can’t help thinking of the worst. The planner in me kicks in, it starts considering scenarios and what I would do. I start to thinking, I need to look up the hospitals and start calling them. I should look to see if she took her wallet. I should drive down all the side streets and see if she’s there. If she doesn’t come back in another hour, where should we look? Should I call the police department and see if anything’s been reported?

I can’t help it, my mind goes to the worst things and starts planning. In many ways, this is a bad thing because I usually get worked up over nothing. It’s usually fine. Just because John isn’t answering his phone doesn’t mean he’s in trouble – it probably means his phone died.

Someday, I will probably get better about this. It’s useless to worry about everything that crosses your path. I know that. But I can’t help myself from freaking out.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say or ask right now, but I wanted to share that with you.