Starting March 12th, a vast number of music and tech insiders will in Austin for the annual South by Southwest festival, skyrocketing the city's Converse and iPhone per capita. Sadly, I won't be there, but everyone else will. Paula Disbrowe, a chef turned cowgirl turned Austin resident (more on her Feather Down Farm Days soon), had this tip for beating the crowds: "The Hotel San Jose is a bastion of cool in Austin. They're really involved in the arts scene so every year during SXSW they through a huge festival in their parking lot. We don't do the wristband thing at all—we just hang out at the hotel and listen to their amazing lineup of bands. There is fantastic food, too." Hear that, y'all?

More Austin tips:
Check out Foodspotting's guide to what to eat between SXSW sets
Austin's latest hot spot: La Boite

For the Irish Dairy Board's annual pre-St. Patrick's Day lunch, chef Cathal Armstrong went all-out, with a rich menu that highlighted Kerrygold butter and cheese, Irish smoked salmon, and other native dishes. ("Americans are patriotic at home," he said, "but the Irish are patriotic when they're away from home.") Armstrong uses Kerrygold exclusively at Eve, his much-celebrated restaurant in Alexandria, VA, and jokes that the saying in his kitchen is "Butter makes it better." At lunch, he made a convincing argument for giving that olive oil a rest: tender brown bread biscuits paired with smoked salmon and roasted rack of Virginia lamb over a fluffy Duhallow cheese grits souffle. The highlight, though, was Armstrong's Bakewell tart, made the way his mother used to: flaky crust, pink lady apple jam, and a custardy poundcake topping. It was the most satisfying dessert I've had in a long time and I've already emailed Armstrong for the recipe. I'll be sure to share it. In the meantime, I can guess what the main ingredient is: butter.

Anyone who thinks Boston doesn't have cuisine to match New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, has not met Tony Maws. At his restaurant, Craigie on Main, the chef goes all-out with a menu of bold, fatty, rich, sensuous dishes that are simultaneously elegant and refined (with the exception of his burger, which is a breathtaking tower of juicy beef paired with a mountain of shoestring fries). Last weekend, my friends and I grabbed a table in the bar (cocktails are excellent as well) and settled in for a feast, starting with a plate of Maws's rightly famous charcuterie: rustic terrine, unctuous foie gras, and velvety duck rilletes. Next: pillowy tempura cod cheeks, charred octopus with hearts of palm and lemon, and mussels swimming in a buttery shallot sauce. There was a heartstopping farro risotto topped with a poached egg and surprisingly light blood sausage and of course there was bone marrow - accompanied by nothing more than dainty sprinkling of chives and and toasted brioche. And, just when we thought we were done, we decided a burger was a necessary palate cleanser - our waiter didn't bat an eye when we asked him to hold off on our desserts and to put in a burger order instead. The profoundly beefy patty - a mix of extra fatty meat and beef cheek, among other things - was one of the best I've ever had. We finished things off with much-needed espresso, dense pain perdu, and a deconstructed peanut butter parfait. I'm already planning my next visit - I only with I could make it for this month's sure-to-be-epic Cochon 555, where Maws will take on area chefs to see who is the ultimate pig master. 

Photo courtesy of William Morrow.

I took one look at the cover of Sophie Dahl's new cookbook, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, and felt instantly envious. I'd love to be a glowy, photogenic British former model (with a writerly pedigree, no less) perched amid a scene right out of Anthropologie, with a pile of adorably dappled squash to her right and a cheery vintage thermos to the left. Right. Once I got over my knee-jerk envy, I fell in love with Dahl's grounded tone and homey yet stylish sounding dishes - the culinary equivalent of shabby chic design. Her Paris Mash sounds like my ideal home alone meal — a tussle of puy lentils, red onion, garlic, spinach, and herbs — while Monkfish with Saffron Sauce is an easy dinner party entree. Dahl's fairly loose instructions aren't great for the novice cook, who might need more explicit help, but the recipes are all straight-forward and manageable. The book is divided by both season and type of meal, which makes finding the perfect breakfast for persistent winter months a breeze — porridge with apricots, manuka honey, and creme fraiche sounds perfect right about now. Full Paris Mash recipe after the jump.


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Chef Ana Sortun is known for her lovely Oleana, Cambridge's favorite special occasion restaurant. Two years ago, she and pastry chef Maura Kilpatrick opened a casual offshoot, Sofra Bakery, to showcase her glorious pastries, mezze, and spices. I'm a longtime Oleana fan, but I am deeply, madly in love with Sofra. I went with a group of friends for brunch on Saturday and ordered nearly the entire menu: dips and spreads in wild colors (owing to carrots, beets, or spinach), lush poached eggs in spiced tomato broth, chard-and-walnut filled flatbreads, and tender breakfast muffins sticky with orange blossom glaze. Stuffed and happy, I couldn’t resist stocking up on za’atar and tahini for my own kitchen.

Tokyo's Tsukiji Market
Photo: hitthatswitch / CC BY 2.0

For our March issue, I also asked chefs about up-and-coming food destinations. From previous experience, I know that, by and large, chefs are obsessed with Japan. Blame it on the soba, the tofu, or the sake, but they all love it. When pressed to pick the next big culinary destination, Japan was a constant, but they also had their eyes on some other countries.

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In 30 years, we'll all be eating weeds? Some veggie options from Restaurant Eugene's Linton Hopkins.
Photo: Jens Mortensen

For our inaugural innovations issue, I asked some of the world's best chefs to speculate on what the food world might look like in ten, twenty, thirty years. Their thoughtful answers made it clear that we're not heading toward Molecular Gastronomy 2.0; in fact, chefs seem to be most excited about things of the past: rescued seeds; rediscovered cuisines; simple cooking. Check out their ideas after the jump.
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I’d never thought about where cashews came from until I met Cyrilla Suwarsa, half of the entrepreneurial duo behind Nuts + Nuts, a direct farm to consumer company. In a twist on the old lemons into lemonade adage, she and her sister Caecilia have turned an unfortunate illness into a fledging food company that is invigorating the Indonesian cashew industry. Five years ago, when Cyrilla, a New York-based graphic designer, was diagnosed with lupus, she went home to Indonesia to recover. While she was there, Caecilia introduced her to locally grown cashews, which were delicious but having trouble reaching the global market. To help the farmers, Caecilia was buying bulk raw nuts, then roasting and spicing them using a family recipe. Cyrilla was hooked, and knew that other people would be too—if she added smart marketing and appealing packaging. She created the logo and branding for their new venture, Nuts + Nuts, and enlisted Java artisans to make gift boxes out of indigenous banana bark, wood bark, and pandanus leaves. These days Cyrilla is back in New York, where she handles the business and marketing side of the company, while Caecilia works in Indonesia, sourcing the cashews and creating new recipes. The proceeds, once the company gets off the ground, will go to the Lupus Foundation. As for the cashews? Completely addictive, especially the salty-sweet version. Eat up—after all, it's for a good cause.

After flirting with beer for years, without being able to commit, I may have found my perfect match. Goose Island, a much-loved family-owned brewery in Chicago, has developed a line of Belgian-style ales that have more in common with wines than typical brews. Brewmaster Greg Hall says the reasoning is simple: "I like to eat as much as I like to drink." Each of his Reserve beers can be likened to a different type of wine; not in the way they taste, but in the way that they interact with different flavors and ingredients. For example, the Sofie has a citrusy aroma and light effervescence similar to champagne, which makes oysters a no-brainer, while the Matilda is more like a white burgundy, so you could pair anything from shellfish to pork. Even the look is more in line with wine than your typical beer: gorgeous labels, oversized 650 ml bottles, and finicky brewing times (when I asked when one variety was going to launch, Hall said, "It's ready when it's ready).
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Thursday, February 25, 9:00 p.m., home.

If all else fails, make eggs. That’s my dinner motto, at least. It’s not rare that, after a long week of work and of thinking very little about cooking, I open my fridge to find it bare save for a box of baking soda and a jar of pickles. Somehow, too, eggs are always on hand. And really, an evening standing at my kitchen counter enjoying an omelette and a glass of wine and the latest issue of Vogue sounds like a glorious one to me. Here, I fried one Happy Hen egg (from Pleasant View Farms in Lancaster County, PA) over medium and placed it, along with a slab of zingy cheddar and crispy bacon, atop a skillet-toasted Bay’s English muffin. Smush on the top piece and there you have it. (I was inspired by one of Murray’s Cheese's melts.)

How do you take your eggs?