A Shoebox of Love

I’ve heard these cookies called many different names: Russian Tea Cakes, Sandollars, Mexican Wedding Cookies. Whatever name you so choose to call them, these buttery, nutty, melt-in-your-mouth bites have a special place in my family’s history.

The summer after my parents started dating my dad headed north to Oklahoma to work in the oil fields while my mom returned to her native central Texas home. This was a simpler time, a time before cell phones, Facebook and email. With young love in the air, long distant relationships were fostered by hand written letters and in the case of my parents, shoeboxes filled with cookies.

I’ve heard of this summer and the cookie-filled shoeboxes for most of my life. Every time I make them myself, I can’t help but to picture my mom, age 20 with long straight blond hair, carefully placing each cookie snuggly in place and then rushing down to the local post office to have it mailed off to her beau.

My good friend Andrea has a love of these cookies as well, and seeming as her birthday is right around the corner I decided to mail her a special shoebox treat.

Made simply of butter, sugar, flour, pecans and a dash of vanilla and salt then finished with a hand tossed bath in a bowl of powdered sugar, one can truly taste the love that was put into these bite size treats.

Happy Birthday Andy and to Mom and Papa, may you continue to have many more summers filled with love and sweet treats.  

Japanese Farmhouse Dining

Austin, TX: a foodie’s paradise. The restaurant scene and food culture in Austin is booming.  The Austin lifestyle is quite conducive to the foodie lifestyle. I’ve heard it said that Austinites spend more per capita on food than anywhere else in the country. But what’s particularly great about the Austin food scene, is that the city has been able to escape a takeover of the major restaurant chains. When you eat out in Austin, one encounters a true local homegrown food experience with flavors and styles of all kind.

With an endless array of options, my sister and I enjoy partaking in different happy hours around town. We find this a good way to get a taste of a new restaurant. This past week we chose to go to Uchiko, sister restaurant to Uchi and known for their Japanese farmhouse dining. Japanese farmhouse dining, yes it may seem like an unusual combination but by the end of your food experience you’ll be kicking yourself for not coming up with the idea yourself, for they have seamlessly fused the two together providing a warm inviting dining area alongside the fresh  and exhilarating flavors of Southeast Asia.

The juxtaposition of rustic wood accents with the modern charcoal grey bar top creates a space where one truly feels warm, welcomed and relaxed. Not only is the space inviting but the service is as well. I have never encountered such a friendly and genuinely happy bartender. From his genuine smile to his inviting charisma, one couldn’t help but want to engage in conversation with him, making this happy hour, or social hour as Uchiko calls it, a truly social experience.

So enough about the structural elements and atmosphere, you’re probably wondering about the food. If you go for happy hour, available from 5-6:30pm daily, you will be presented with their Sake Social menu which has unbeatable prices. For just $3-6 you can sample an array of delicious and beautiful bites. I say beautiful because Uchiko is definitely one of those places that has incorporated eating with the eyes as part of the experience. The presentation is elegant and chic, and as each dish is presented to you, your server will take the time to describe every aspect of the dish to you. So if I may recommend the Koviche, fresh sweet melt in your mouth scallops alongside fresh chopped tomatillos with hints of kalamata and black lime. Or the Yokai Berry . . . .mmmm! Impeccably fresh Atlantic salmon with Asian pear and a few blueberries tossed in, garnished with dinosaur kale and yuzu, a very aromatic citrus fruit found in East Asia.

Another item on the menu is Kakiage, crispy tempura fried sweet potato fritters served with a chili dipping sauce. I think we would all agree that anything fried is going to be tasty, and vegetable tempura is great because you’re eating vegetables so you can feel good about it right?  . . . well maybe we all won’t agree on that last statement. But this dish took me back to one of my favorite childhood restaurants, Kitok. Located in Waco, TX in a rundown hole-in-the-wall building that is anything but inviting, Kitok is a family run Korean restaurant known for serving the best burgers in town. They are also known for their oriental fires, tempura fried sweet potatoes . . . sound familiar? So, as I sat at the bar of Uchiko and ate my order of Kakiage I chuckled at the fact that this suave Japanese sushi house was serving the same dish as my grungy hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurant from back home.

To top it all off and wash this meal down I would turn to the Larkin. While some might frown upon this choice, seeming as it is not sake, the Larkin is both easy on the eyes as it is in taste. Sparkling wine adorned with a sprig of grilled thyme and cured lemon. This cocktail is the perfect refreshing drink to pair with such a refreshing meal.

Mango Basil Salad

This is my favorite time of year. Schools are out for the summer, temperatures are reaching just high enough to take a dip in the neighborhood pool and your trusty roadside fruit stand is yet again open for business. The summer season brings an abundance of fresh produce, and for me, food lover and culinary enthusiast, all that good fresh produce not only gets my taste buds buzzing but my creative juices flowing as well.

I like to keep things interesting. Yes, of course eating is a necessary and vital act. So why not make it fun, delicious, different and yes of course nutritious. It’s time to change how we think about food. Eating is not just an act we partake in three times a day, but an experience. We first eat with our eyes, taking in all the different colors and textures displayed before us. Next, we might hear the sizzle of a fried egg or the squirt of juice that seeps from a perfectly roasted pork loin when sliced. Then we smell the various aromas wafting before us, and perhaps we become entranced in this familiar smell which takes us back to our grandmother’s kitchen. And lastly, we taste. We taste the creaminess of an avocado, the juicy burst from a vine ripe tomato, or the crisp refreshing bite of a slice of watermelon. Eating, is an experience.

So as I find myself standing in the produce section at my local grocery store today and I begin to eat with my eyes. It doesn’t take long before my eyes land on a mound of mangos (and if anyone knows me they know I love me a nice juicy mango). As my eyes drift upward, I notice that the sign says fifty cents each. Fifty cents each, what a deal! I load my basket up with mangos, one particularly ripe one for I know this will be my afternoon snack.

Four o’clock rolls around, my lunch is long gone and that mango sits on my kitchen counter taunting me. I can wait no longer. As I’m peeling and slicing meticulously around the large pit of my mango I’m suddenly not satisfied with just my mango. How can I make this a bit more exciting to eat? Now, this being a snack and the fact that I’m hungry now I don’t want to have to put too much effort into this. Earlier in the day I noticed that the basil in the garden was doing exceptionally well and that I had an abundance of it (time to make some pesto!). So, in the heat of my mango snack crisis I remember my basil and I think, “is it possible for mango and basil to be good together?” And this is how mango basil salad came about. Two of my most favorite ingredients together in harmony at last. You get the sweetness from the mango, and that peppery earthy bite from the basil.

While I just ate it as a snack, I highly recommend making it your new side dish for summer barbeques. Pair is with a nice juicy steak or a filet of tilapia. You’ll be bringing fresh new flavors to the table, keeping you and your friends always on their toes. Don’t be afraid to make unusual pairings. You might surprise yourself and make the unexpected . . . extraordinary. Be inspired by this season and its plethora of produce it has to offer.