And now you are UP TO DATE

SUPER SOCIAL FOOD LEAGUE UPDATE: October finds us three strong (welcome, Emily!) and checking out Garrido's, purportedly for tacos although only one of us actually ordered tacos (good thing you joined the team, Emily!). You may notice that even though my company was very charming and attractive, I did not take any pictures of them. This is because I am just using them for picture-taking access to their food. Look how much pretty food I have to show you now!

Oysters Bocaditos on yucca root chips.

Coffee-marinated steak and caramelized onion salad with fresh corn.

Ceviche del dia.

Pork carnitas tacos.

Imagine how great it will be when there are a dozen FL members and I badger them into all ordering different things. I will catalogue every dish in Austin. No one can stop me. Ahem. Along those lines, here is a:

BLOGGERS IN TOWN UPDATE: Saturday night I went to Home Slice Pizza, aka House O' Transcendent Aromas, with Donna, Kammah, Maryann, and Shalini. They were charming and attractive. I...did not take any pictures of them. Let's call it a theme, yes? I DID take pictures of the pizza. Oh mercy, the pizza.

"White pie with spinach." Translation: "Cheeeeeeeeses, so many cheeeeeeeeeses for yooooooooooou."

"NO ONE TOUCH IT YET" I barked joked. Haha. I'm fun.

"Sausage, ricotta cheese, and roasted red pepper." Translation: "What even happened back there? I think I passed out."

And then I took home all the leftovers and everyone was very nice about it. Probably because they saw the gleam in my eye indicating that resistance would be...you know, not futile exactly because I'm pretty confrontation-averse, but certainly more trouble than it was worth.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER FALL PLANT SALE UPDATE: One downside of using a giant trough as a swimming pool at home is that your children will grow up thinking that giant troughs are swimming pools.

Aside from that distraction, the girls proved they were ready for some hard, and frequently unnecessary, work.

We were definitely getting that empty wagon up the trail.

We rewarded their efforts with some time in the butterfly garden.

Judging by his calm reaction, I assume it wasn't the first time someone has screamed "FUH-FWY FUH-FWY!" at him for ten minutes.

PINTEREST RECIPE UPDATE: I also rewarded my garden-workers with the following orange-hued meals, of which I would recommend any and all:

Sausage and white bean stew with Swiss chard.

Panisse with garlic-ginger sauce.

Sweet potato and caramelized onion shells.

Butternut squash and chicken mash.

Okay girls, seriously. It's time to go.

The seven year glitch

This post is about my lobster-slaying supervillain origin story.

2006: It begins.

No, it's not. It's about my honeymoon. More accurately, it's about my seventh anniversary, which was on Monday, and how I tried to mine pictures of my honeymoon for ideas about how to celebrate and kind of failed all over the place.

We spent a week or so driving to various B&Bs in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont because even when I was 26 I was 70. I know for a fact that we spent a great deal of our trip consuming food, because Dan was thoughtful enough to take several extremely flattering pictures of his new bride confirming as much.

I mean, honestly. What kind of a person--

Okay, maybe we were meant to be together.

But out of an entire weeks' worth of delicious foodstuffs, there were only two items that I could summon the ambition to make uglier versions of: broiled grapefruit and apple cider donuts.

That is barely a celebratory breakfast! Those donuts aren't even off-putting enough to join the Pantheon of Hideous Donuts! And for some reason I couldn't come up with aaaaaaaanything logical or theme-y or even appetizing for dinner, so (this is where things really break down) I made...copper pennies. Because the traditional seventh anniversary gift is copper? (Buries face in hands.)

No offense carrot salad, but you are what failure looks like.

My theory is that all my cells have now regenerated since my wedding day and the new ones are incapable of sophisticated theming. These are dark days, friends. Not, like, August-dark, but pretty sad all the same. I think I'll just go watch Exit Through the Gift Shop with Ivy again.

Tag.

The weekend I left my house multiple times

It's rare that I spend an entire weekend eating out, but sometimes there are very important occasions to celebrate and there's just no getting around it. Also, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but restaurants are awesome. Just between you and me I'm starting to think that cooking every meal is for suckers. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

Occasion number one was a great excuse for me to feel pretty old dive into some Mexican food: the 10th anniversary of Emily and Garrett's first date/our first double date with them me meeting Emily!

I'm wearing a Tulane shirt because I was trying to approximate what I wore ten years ago. Emily looks nice because she is an adult.

We went to the very same El Arroyo that we did that fateful Saturday long ago. It was basically the same experience if you don't count the fact that four children with an average age of 2.75 kept pestering us for some reason. I had the Plato Ligero because I'm trying to keep it, you know, ligero these days.

Soooort of.

And the big kids picked up the check, which I thought was really nice of them.

Solid move, guys.

Of course, it's not a party without ice cream and cow sculptures and fruitless attempts to wring adorable memories out of said cow sculptures. I didn't exactly hit on "adorable" (eye of the beholder!) but I did capture...um...whatever was happening at this moment:

Feels like the two families are maybe staring in different movies here.

Also caught this conspiracy in action, although I'm not sure if the conspiring parties were Cash and Anna or Anna and her ice cream cone.

Seems like trouble either way.

After that it was time for a weekend visit from my parents and trips to Torchy's and Lucy's Fried Chicken in a celebration of... living in Austin? That's as good a reason as any! (No, it's not, don't care, tacos and chicken for meeeeeeeee.)

The fact that I can order a fish taco for breakfast pleases me immensely. Thank you for understanding my needs, kind taco vendor.

I don't really want to tarnish the following images with my imperfect words, but I will say that normally I don't find fried chicken to be worth the effort it takes to eat it but I will make an exception for this particular chicken any time and I mean any time.

As in, if you show up at 3:30 am with a bucket of this chicken I will sit up in bed and eat it.

And then I will say, "Thank you for the chicken, did you remember to bring me some Sweet Tea Pie?" because I'm pretty direct at 3:30 in the morning.

Sorry, Weight Watchers! Guess I'll just have to keep paying you...wait a minute.

Anna handled the Moon Pie with the solemnity it deserved.

Respect.

Along with my 10th Friendiversary and day-long Living Near Restaurants Is Great party, this weekend boasted an extraordinarily important holiday: National Coffee Day.

Ivy knows what I'm talking about.

I was so teeming with nervous energy moved by the occasion, I deigned to step back into the kitchen and whip up some Banana Coffee Oat Muffins with Chocolate.

That was a super good idea.

I was also pleased to note that my children are right on trend.

Brussels from heaven

Quick, let's harness some of that autumn excitement before I notice that the high is still pretty close to 100 degrees most days and cover Cookbook #92: Racing Weight (Matt Fitzgerald, 2009). Provenance: my own delusional self. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Reasons for putting it off: not actually a cookbook, embarrassment regarding previously noted delusion.

So, yes. Not a cookbook. And as someone who barely drags out of bed to jog two miles a couple of times a week, I probably don't need a detailed discussion of how to get down to a six minute mile or whatever. But there are a handful of recipes and I am technically registered for a race and I did manage to take away the message "eat more carbs" using my carefully honed people-hear-what-they-want-to-hear technique. So here we go!

Frittata with potatoes, spinach, and feta.

Baked apple, cranberry, and maple pudding. SO FALL-ISH!

White bean puree with tomato and basil on rye.

Banana cinnamon French toast. 

"Fish and chips."

These were all easy, serviceable carbs recipes, and I'm always happy to see someone suggest putting beans on top of bread. I do take issue with describing a perfectly satisfying meal like baked salmon with sweet potatoes and cucumber yogurt salad as "fish and chips" just to be cute because then all you can think about while you're eating it is how little it tastes like delectable pub grease and how much it tastes like dumb life-sustaining quality nutrition. Verdict: I assume I am significantly faster now.

Wednesday night was the second monthly meeting of the Austin Super Social Food League and I'm slightly concerned that by choosing the location we did we may have ruined the rest of the list for ourselves and also eating other food forever.

Delicious doom.

Yes, I finally had a chance to partake of the legend that is QUI and my only disappointment was not having several extra stomachs to house the bounty.

For my main dish I had the Black Sesame Ramen, which comes with an egg.

Regan had the Beer and Bacon Ramen, to which she added an egg. Very strong showing from Regan.

Before I proceed, I want to explain that the ramen above was quite tasty and in fact better than most things that I eat, on average. But I wish I had skipped ordering it and instead ordered two dozen of the following things:

Yoshi Mart Curry Buns

Brussels Sprouts Salad

Wait, you are thinking, Brussels Sprouts Salad? BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD, I say. This list of recommendations, upon which Food League is loosely based, describes it as "Life changing." That is obviously a hilarious overstatement until you eat it and realize that most other food is stupid and pointless. Verdict: Paul Qui is made of magic.

We then went down the street to Cow Tipping Creamery. It was very good. I had the "High Tea," which is vanilla soft serve with lemon curd, honey dust, and crushed tea biscuits. Think about how great that sounds! Then think about the fact that I would rather have had another curry bun.

It's an impossible act to follow, CTC. I will return to you after a a normal, mortal-crafted meal sometime.

Anyway, it's Fridaaaaaaaaaaaay! Let's celebrate by enjoying this moment of peaceful, non-whiny coexistence that is in fact so anomalous this week I'm sort of afraid to speak or breathe or blink or--

Ah, there we are. Gotta go guys, see you next week.