Someone had asked me how to get a lot of comments on a blog last week. So I answered that it was pretty simple: “Put up a recipe with corn syrup in it.” Since I’m in Texas, however, there’s another way to rile up the masses and that is to write up a barbecue joint. Honestly, there is nothing that divides Texans or Kansas City-folk more than the proper way to prepare and eat this most divisive of all foods. (Chili notwithstanding.)
The hardest part about traveling and teaching classes, which I’m doing this week in Texas, is that I’m not on vacation and hence there’s almost no time to do all the things in the various cities where I am that people tell me I should do. Or I should rephrase that and say that I don’t have the time to eat all the things that people tell me I should eat.
It’s exquisite torture to be in a town famous for, say, barbecued ribs or fried oysters po’ boys and not be able to get me some.
I woke up this morning, and could not even make it through to the second half of my flagel.
My stomach was stuffed from yesterday, which began at Baked in Brooklyn, then extended through to a burger and fries at Shake Shack, across the border to Connecticut for steamed lobster, then back into New York City with a quick detour through the Apple store, then home to polish off the box of cookies I absconded with from the boys at Baked. Because, you know, I had to eat them while they were still fresh. Right?
So you can imagine that I didn’t wake up with much of an appetite.
However…
Every time I go to Austin, it seems like I’m running into town, doing a class, then racing on to the next city. So this last time, I slipped in under the cover of darkness, and arrived a day early. Sure I wanted more time to gorge on Texas bbq and Mexican food.
But what I really wanted to do was spend some time at Tèo, lapping up gelato.
The Lee family has become, I’m sure much to their chagrin, part of my extended family. Or more likely, I’ve become part of theirs. I’ve known Matt Lee’s mom for years and when she told me her son owned an authentic gelato parlor, I dialed my lawyer and had him draw up the adoption papers.
Let’s hope they sign.
Matt, aka Matteo…aka, Tèo…learned his craft in Florence at Vivoli, and his gelato is the real deal. You won’t find him in the back dumping mixes into a machine.
Before I high-tail it outta Austin, I thought I’d share a few things I ate while here. The tour of ice cream shops around town will have to wait until I’m back home, but there were plenty of other things to sample….
Austin is the hip town…or city, in Texas. I say ‘town’ because it feels more like a big town than the capital of the state. There’s lot of quirky people here; tattoos, piercings, and general goofiness seems to be the norm and celebrated by all. No complaints from me either! Of course, there’s also some mighty fine Tex-Mex food, including unending bowls of chips and salsa, which are dangerous when heaped in front of me. I can’t resist polishing off the entire basket. And if there’s a margarita (or two) involved, all bets are off on how many I’ll pound down.
(That’s baskets of the chips, not the margaritas. Those I need to limit myself to one or two of. Unless they’re really, really good. Then I can perhaps manage an extra one, just to be polite.)
Migas, a lively scramble of eggs and crispy corn tortillas is my breakfast of choice (hmmm…crisp corn tortillas…anyone else see a trend?) I like mine sitting at the counter at Las Manitas, one of the last diner-style restaurants left in town. It seems almost all of Austin converges here for their hearty breakfasts, accompanied by endless amounts of the all-American bottomless mug of coffee, a habit I quickly reverted back to.
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