Sunday, September 29, 2013

The *New* State of Chilaquiles in Austin, Texas.

65 plates of chilaquiles. © Ryan Schierling
(FGHD editor's note: Updated February 2015 for AFBA City Guide)

As a lot of you know, we've been on a epic, epicurean quest – a grand gustatory gamble with breaking the fast deep in the heart of Texas.

We've been scouring Austin for the very best chilaquiles it has to offer. We've torn apart the town, top to bottom, for more than a year sampling both highbrow and humble versions of this traditional Mexican dish. 

There are no shortage of restaurants offering up their take on what shouldn't really be more than crisp fresh-fried tortilla chips (totopos) simmered with a red or green sauce until just slightly softened, crowned with a pair of properly-cooked eggs. With such a simple preparation, you'd think it would be difficult to screw up this classic.

We weren't looking for haute cuisine a la Mexicana, we just wanted an honest, reliable, simple Sunday morning comfort-food breakfast at a joint where everyone might eventually know us (and our broken Spanish).

There were standouts, certainly, but just as often there were store-bought chips, soggy and swimming in sub-par sauces, eggs that were under-cooked, over-cooked or not even offered as an option. There were some surprises, and there were some disappointments. 

There were also some stunningly brilliant breakfasts. 

If a restaurant presented only one sauce option for chilaquiles, Julie and I would typically order the same dish. If a restaurant had both verdes (green) and rojos (red), we'd order one of each. The majority of the time, we'd order eggs over-easy. If we knew the eggs were going to be happy eggs (see $9 chilaquiles), I'd go for sunny-side-up. Beans, potatoes and accoutrements (if available) were taken into consideration, as was the coffee or aguas frescas. The overall experience was key, but really, it all came down to the chilaquiles. 

We've done our due diligence, and now, we humbly present to you ten establishments that Julie and I both agreed have the finest chilaquiles in Austin. These are our favorites, the places we return to time and time again. 

These chilaquiles are the best of the best

Monday, September 23, 2013

"The boss" sauce.

Asparagus with "the boss" sauce (chèvre-lemon béchamel). © Ryan Schierling
No disrespect to the mother sauces intended. Really. I just didn't know what to call this one. It started out – honest and innocent – as a simple béchamel but from there it became a bit ambiguous as to where it belonged on the family tree of classic sauces. I searched the interwebs – for a couple of minutes at least – and couldn't find this one anywhere.

The mother sauces, being mothers, birth offspring by the addition of particular ingredients to them, and these new sauces assume different names. Béchamel, one of the five classic French Mother Sauces, is essentially a white sauce made with a light roux of equal parts flour and butter where the liquid component is milk. When cheese is added, it becomes a mornay sauce. That is if you are prone to oversimplification. While you may find any of a number of interpretations of mornay at your local fancy-schmancy eating establishment, mornay is classically made with parmesan and gruyere – these are traditional, specific, and hard/grate-able cheeses.

My cheese of choice, chèvredid not exactly fit this profile. It is a fresh soft cheese. And, for an added complication, this sauce is finished with freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Oh, conundrums!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

AFBA Photography Camp.

(L) Sopes con platanos. (R) Aaron Franklin. © Ryan Schierling

Summer camp!

Who wants to go swim in a septic pond, pick ticks out of their nether-regions and make arts and crafts out of yarn and popsicle sticks? Yes! No?

Then how about a one-day Austin Food Blogger Alliance summer photo camp, where you get to pick the brains of some of Austin's finest food photographers*, eat lobster rolls for lunch, shoot breakout sessions and have happy hour snacks? This all goes down Saturday, September 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and tickets are available for both AFBA members and the general public. 

*Melissa Skorpil, Mary Helen Leonard, Chris Perez, Jane Ko and Peter Tsai.

I'm going to drop in on as many classes as I can, because at no point in our lives do we ever stop learning valuable photography lessons. I will also be there because AFBA actually asked me if I'd teach a class, which we eventually called "Rig It" – which, really, is just about right considering how we shoot here at Foie Gras Hot Dog. Shoestring, ghetto, on the fly. You'd be surprised how far it goes. 

Honestly, pretty prose doesn't always command attention when you're working on a food site. As brilliant as the recipes and writing may be, there need to be photographs, and sometimes it takes a beautiful image to really draw the reader in. 

While the biggest and best food blogs certainly have fancy this and expensive that when it comes to photography gear, is all of that really necessary?  Well, I've also been told that Hemingway had a badass typewriter. High-dollar doesn't always equal high-concept or amazing imagery and you don't need spendy cameras and lenses or professional kitchens. It simply takes an educated eye and knowing what you want to convey through your photographs, and that's not expensive. 

If I dropped as much dough on camera equipment as Julie and I do on food in a year, I'd have the top-of-the-line, latest-and-greatest at my disposal. But we don't, and that camera bag full of gear is not as mandatory as you might think in producing high-quality images for your site. 

The class I'm teaching is intended to help you get the most out of whatever camera you're using, help you with manipulating natural and artificial light on the cheap, and give a few tips on backgrounds and aesthetics to make your photographs look amazing whether they're food or the folks creating the food. 

THE CLASSES

Food Photography 101 – Melissa Skorpil takes you through everything from how to plan a shoot to setting up lighting and using props.

Photo Editing – Mary Helen Leonard takes you through editing basics.

Don’t Fear the Manual Setting – Chris Perez will help you step outside your autofocus safety zone.

Rig It – Ryan Schierling teaches you how to get the most out of your camera.

Phoning It In – Jane Ko will show that gorgeous photos can come from your phone, too.

All About the Gear – Peter Tsai discusses the best gear for your camera.

*plus Breakout Shooting Sessions

Your ticket gets you hands-on training and photography best practices, a yummy box lunch provided by Pamela Jane’s New England Lobster Rolls (vegetarian and gluten-free options available), morning sips and snacks by Zhi Tea and  Better Bites Bakery, iced coffee by Chameleon Cold Brew, and happy hour snacks sponsored by Dinner Lab.

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