texas, our texaaaaaaaas...

I thought with a fancy new camera, I'd be blogging lots more.  For some reason, however, I haven't touched this thing in a while.  This time I've got post graduation and pre move-to-New-York-and-job-hunt-all-day-every-day has been really lazy.  While I love it, I need to get on some serious memory making, 'cause I've got about a month left in this lil' city I love so much.

stoplight instagrams

I spent yesterday afternoon sitting at one of my favorite coffee shops (Jo's), watching the cutest little sparrow eat my muffin,  (Don't worry, I was done with it.  I don't plan on eating after a bird.)  

The littlest sister met up with me for a little adventuring on South Congress.  We sat at Jo's and did a little prep work for one of the projects I talked about in this post.  I'm making a version of Wood & Faulk's wool camera wrap and I found the most gorgeous woven fabric to work with.

After a bit of fabric shopping and pizza (HOME SLICE! - an important part of the list), we walked along the bridge and up Congress to take lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures.  (Don't ask me why Larisa made a to-go bag beard...)

capturing a master instagrammer at work... 

We walked around the Capitol for a bit and I remembered how much I love the building.  It makes me feel so Texan-y.  (Just go with it.)  The guards at the door got a kick out of our sister act and Larisa might have almost sneaked up a closed off staircase.

Nobody got caught.  Don't worry.

Old man loafers and moccasins.  We were meant to be.

i just need a few things to feel content

Red lipstick and my favorite royal blue grandpa cardigan.

Tom Yum from one of Austin's best Thai places and a good book.

Getting to check a place off my list and eating large amounts of peanut sauce? How do you get any better?  

all I dreamed it would be.

After seeing the Austin episode of No Reservations, I was determined to visit Franklin BBQ.  It's been on my to do list forever and seeing Anthony Bourdain rave about it finally made it all happen.  The second my friends Amanda and Will heard about it, they were up for the adventure.  Adventure?  Well, Franklin isn't a normal restaurant.  It opens at 11:00 Tuesday through Sunday and closes when it runs out of food.  If you want a meal, better show up early and get in line.  So we did.

We got there around 9:00 AM, so we were pretty far up in line - luckily, because the line stretched out waaay behind us.  People were geniuses and brought camp chairs and coolers.  We thought we were so prepared with our Baileys and hot chocolate, but we learned our lesson for next time.  (In related news, I'm a homemade dark hot chocolate making master!)  We made do with sitting on the ground (right in the handicap parking spot, so luckily, no cars pulled up) and counted down the hours.

Will put his sweet doodling skills to use personalizing our cups.  (That's Stephanie, Amanda, and Will in  brisket, ribs, and sausage, respectively.)  As it got closer to 11, someone walked down the line and asked us what we were planning on ordering.  When the numbers added up (to whatever amount they'd made that morning) those people in line got the "Sorry, by the time you order, we'll be out of ribs/brisket/everything" speech.

Once they opened the doors at 11, it was only 30 minutes until we got to the counter.  Those 30 minutes were torture.  We were so excited and inching up the line while seeing and smelling the BBQ was just too much.

The walls were lined with awards like this... I agree Austin Chronicle voters: this is the best brisket in the history of the world.  Seriously.

Aaron Franklin, the owner, is the one you order from and he cuts and serves every piece of meat you eat.  He was super friendly and so kind about how much we were geeking out over the food.  It was kind of embarrassing, but he was sweet about it.  We ordered So. Much. Food.  5 or 6 people would have been stuffed if they'd eaten all we ordered.  Of course, we ordered it all: brisket, ribs, pulled pork, turkey and sausage.

Example of our over ordering?  As we were figuring out how much of each item we wanted, Aaron suggested 3 ribs.  Our answer? 7.  (Duh! 2 for each of us and one I'd promised to bring to my dad...)  That's how we approached everything - err on the edge of too much, stay way away from too little.

See what I mean?  Notice the BBQ for 10 and the single serving size beans and potato salad.

I was a vegetarian for years and haven't been eating meat for that long, so I don't have a lot to compare this BBQ to.  Nevertheless, this was the best thing I'd ever eaten.  I don't really have words to describe how delicious it was.  We devoured it, stopping only to repeat, "THIS IS AMAZING!" or "THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER EATEN!"  

The carnage.

All I can say is, you have to try this.  If you like BBQ, you'll love it.  It's not over hyped; it's so worth waiting in line; it's all I dreamed it would be.

no more sappy, I promise.

Just pure gratitude to the family and friends who drove for hours here and back to east Texas, bought plane tickets, re-arranged finals, adjusted family Christmas and birthday celebrations, and spent their precious holiday weekend to come and see me walk across a stage for 4.5 seconds.  I heard their cheers, crossed my fingers again that I wouldn't trip on my uncomfortable shoes, held on to my too small cap (Yeah right, one size fits all!  What about my giant head?  One size fits all normal-headed people.), smiled at the man I'd never met but evidently runs my school, and took the rolled up piece of paper that said, "Don't fail your finals or you won't actually get the piece of paper that we're pretending to give you right now!"

It was so worth it.

I wore my little blue shawl/scarf/stole thing all day and had the dumbest, giantest (that's a real word; trust me, I'm a college graduate) smile on my face when everyone asked, "Did you graduate today?"  I got a free strawberry lemonade out of the deal, so the whole tuition thing is almost evened out.  The family and friends all went to lunch at the group of food trucks on south Congress.  It was delicious (salted caramel creme brulee!) and as I sat there with a bottled Mexican coke and a fresh squeezed lemonade (as would be the theme of the day, It's my graduation and I can have both if I want!) I stared at all the people who loved me and realized again just how lucky I am.

After a mid afternoon siesta and a more comfortable shoe change, Hannah, Katrina and I headed over to the east side to meet up with Matt and Bri.  We had yummy tacos and margaritas at Takoba and more tequila shots and Hendrick's at Shangri La.  It was the perfect go-out-and-party-it-up night for a girl that never goes out and parties.  Despite my frustration at the EAST SIDE KING BEING CLOSED BY THE TIME I GOT UP OFF MY LAZY BUTT TO ORDER, we ended it at Lucky J's on 6th and Waller.  Chicken and Waffles!  Katrina and I split a cheese steak from a neighboring food truck; the star of the evening, however, was the chicken and waffle with bacon, swiss cheese, syrup and hot sauce.  I believe that's what's known as magic.

Those photos?  2 AM is the best time to take use a photobooth.  Fur-hur-shure.

I started off this post by once again being crazy sappy about people I love and ended it with descriptions of food.  So, pretty much life as usual.

thanks-lazing.

how my iphone saw the day...

Thanksgiving was fantastic.  I went all Julia Childs with Larisa and made a delicious dinner on Wednesday.  (My mother's Thanksgiving plans for Thursday were cancelled, but we went ahead with Thanksgiving a day early)  I refused to do anything on Thursday but lay around and take naps.  It was glorious!  Mama and I played Rummikub while Larisa made fancy hot chocolate.  We played old standards and sang "Someone to Watch Over Me."  (She has the best voice...)

It was all I wanted in a vacation.  For future reference, if anyone wants to impress anyone with their culinary skills, feel free to use this menu: slow-cooker turkey (I was super happy to have one less thing to schedule the oven for), HEB's pecan praline spiral-cut ham (the best decision I made), macaroni and cheese (from scratch!), roasted garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry-pomegranate sauce (A: why would you ever use the canned stuff when this is so easy? B: mine turned out a cranberry-orange-apple sauce 'cause I forgot the pomegranate juice), green bean casserole (nothing fancy, just the recipe on the can of fried onions... don't judge, it's my favorite!), and those magical canned crescent rolls with some rosemary-garlic butter.  

My favorite dishes (beside that fantastic ham) were the whipped sweet potatoes with coconut milk from The Kitchn and cornbread stuffing with sausage and apples from The Pioneer Woman.

this is what it would all look like if I was a professional food photographer...

via pioneer woman and the kitchn

The last two years I made Bobby Flay's pumpkin bread pudding with spicy caramel apple sauce and my brother said it was the best thing he'd ever eaten... So there's that.

cabin in the woods (part 2)

I spent the last weekend with some of my favorite people in the world in a pretty little cabin outside of an adorable little town out in the beautiful countryside...  It was perfect.

We drank wine, cooked way too much food, and sat on the porch swing with our coffee, and talked, talked, talked... Heaven.

(go-to yaya snacks: fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil; brie, fruit and crackers... wine and coffee, duh)

Those are pretty much the only pictures I have of the weekend and that's awesome.  We put away phones, computers and TV for the weekend (except for cuddling up to watch the entire BBC miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice - I love you, Colin-Firth-as-Mr-Darcy!) and talked, talked, talked.  We are Olympic-level talkers.  We played a card game fraught with competition and still loved each other when it was over (very important!)  We stayed in our pjs all day and kept the thermostat down low so we could cuddle up with blankets and sweaters.  Texas first world problems.

I shall leave you with the best picture anyone has ever taken.  Do I really need to explain why I took the decorative flag off the wall to wear as a cape on our sojourn down to the property's pond?  I didn't think so.

thanks, Loryn, you're the best instagrammer ever.

do judge an energy bar by its wrapper

I might have only chose this bar from Cafe Medici today because of the cute packaging.  The coconut and mango were just a happy surprise - it was really good.  Organic, raw, vegan, gluten-free: this is obviously local to Austin.

(I'm a sucker for guys with beards and well designed packaging.)

give credit where credit is due.

I'd like to thank the fruit cup that I got at the campus store where I bought a blue book for giving me such confidence on this upcoming test.  I know I'm going to do well, but not because of the large amount of studying I've been doing the past two days.  I'm going to do well because your giant size and surprising variety of fresh, beautiful fruit has put me in the perfect frame of mind.  I'm gonna drink this giant bottle of water I bought as well, finish the last, ripe strawberry and then go in that giant hall and write an amazing essay about the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.

You're the best, fruit cup.

(That's a giant bottle of water, by the way.  Don't let the proportions 

skew your perception of how big this fruit cup was.)

we're real chefs...

Last night, my friend Justin and I made dinner in his new apartment.  It was super fun to just go to the grocery store and make up dinner on the fly.  I'm such a professional chef, man...

We made a cream sauce with Fontina, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, rosemary and chives...  I'm sorry, let me correct that.  We made a giant pot of soup.  Why did we make so much sauce? I don't know, but we've got leftovers for months.

The meal was delicious, penne with that sauce(soup), balsamic-marinated chicken, salad with berries and almonds, and a glass of prosecco.

We watched Cabaret afterwards, and I fell asleep during the movie.  Shocking, I know.  Or not.  Mom, I'd like to take this moment to thank you for all of the genetic traits you passed on to me; some of them, like your singing voice, I'm happy to share.  But, did you really have to give me the inability to stay awake through a single movie?  Thanks for nothing.  

just to make me happy

Loryn said it best, but I am damn lucky to have such great friends.  Loryn, Bri and Amber took me out on Saturday for my birthday and helped me cross off things on my "eat before I move" list.  We started out with a mad dash in the rain to Perla's for oysters and wine.

As you can see, we chowed them down (well, Amby abstained), taking advantage of our waitress's offer to choose a variety of oysters from all over the country.  I think the New York and Maine oysters were the group favorites, but it was so fun to have a "tasting" and get to compare the West/East coasts.

After a few glasses of sauvignon blanc, malbec and pinot noir, we headed down the street to Enoteca for a delicious meal of calamari, caprese salad, pizza with prosciutto and a fried egg, and linguine with seafood and arribiata sauce.  It was so good.  After dinner, they had a few glasses of prosecco (perfect!) and a yummy flourless chocolate cake brought out.  (The rest of the cake is still in my refrigerator and taunting me with its delicious, delicious calories...)  The girls got me the most beautiful flowers that sit on my dining table, reminding me that I have people in this world that love me more than I could ever deserve.  They weren't all there on Saturday (and some of them were taking the picture above), but I'm so blessed to have women in my life that would spend their Saturday afternoon running around town, finding places that I'd love to eat at (and that I could check off my blog-to-do list!), arranging for flowers and dessert to be there when I arrive... just setting up the perfect night to make me happy.  When did I get so lucky?

(Thanks Amby, for being our personal event photographer.  I love that first picture more than any photo we've taken in the last few years; it's really useful to have a best friend so talented.)

Before I leave (the food edition)

As some/most/few of you might know, I'm moving to the Big Apple in January.  I graduate in December and after that I'll be moving in with Evane and Hannah.  (Hannah and I live together in Austin, but she's moving up there in a month when our lease is up and Evane lives there now, going to St. John's University.)  It's scary and awesome and scary again, but I'm super excited.  I'll be looking for a job/internship with an interior designer (or firm) and I'm so excited to start doing what I love (and maybe get paid for it!)

I am not, however, excited about leaving Austin.  I love this town (and Texas!) and I'm determined to make the most of my four months left.  I thought I'd make myself a list of places I should try to go before I leave.  I'll start with food...

I want more great, fresh veggies at Eastside Cafe.  I want to try Vespaio (or Enoteca if I'm too broke.)  Same for Uchi/Uchiko.  I want frito pie at Vegan Yacht. I want BBQ at Franklin's, Salt Lick and Lambert's.  I haven't tried Barley Swine or Foreign + Domestic yet.  I want more happy hours at La Condesa and El Alma.  I need more lazy mornings and late nights at The Hideout and Epoch.

(Thank you Loryn for the beautifully instagrammed last two pictures!)

I want another P. Terry's perfect veggie burger.  I want pitchers of margaritas at Polvos. I want mexican vanilla with strawberries at Amy's Ice Cream.  Doughnuts so fattening and magical at Gordough's.  Veggie BBQ and strawberry honey lemonade at Mr. Natural.  I want pizza at Home Slice and East Side Pies.

I really want some more of that lemonade right now.

I wanna try Elizabeth St. Cafe and Noble Pig.  I've always wanted to go to Evangeline Cafe and Frank.  I never got to go to Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, because they closed.  Rude!  I've also never gone to Juan in a Million, which is weird considering how much I love breakfast tacos.  I love me some Titaya's (like more than anything in the world), but I also wanna try Thai Passion.  Why have I never been to East Side King or Olivia?

I want to have brunch at Moonshine again.  Great wine and local, fresh food at 24 Diner.  Tacos at Maudie's and Torchy's.  Breakfast at Bouldin Creek.  THE BEST FRENCH FRIES EVER!!!! at Hyde Park Grill.  Khuroos-E-Tursh at Clay Pit.  Oysters at Perla's.  Spinach dip at Magnolia's.  The chai latte at Genuine Joe's will haunt me forever.  I need more Protein 2000 at Veggie Heaven.  Calamari and killer employee discounted wine at South Congress Cafe.  Magical, vegentarianism-banishing burgers at Hopdoddy.  Late night pancakes with a good book at Kerbey Lane.

Most important and pressing issue about my move from Texas to New York:  Will they have a Shipley's there?!?!?!

That's really what I'm stressing out about.

Did I miss anything?

late night books and coffee.

This is what my late night coffee shop study sessions look like.
(As seen by Larisa - she's good at instagramming.  Follow her.)

Larisa doodles.

I study (and drink coffee.)

Coral roses in a Crown Royal bottle.

Sock bun and tattoos.

Unwitting photobomb.

THE BEST PIZZA EVER!

(Loryn and Amby, this is the Epoch, the one I was telling you about from Eastside Pies.)

monday.

Wake up early.  Wear a handmade colorful skirt.

Do homework on the bus.

Drink some oj.  Go to the financial aid office.

Listen to Adele.  Walk to class.

Read books by old Russian guys.

(Escape Hatch by Vladmir Makanin)

Make salted caramel dark chocolate brownies (from scratch!) with your sister.
Ruin the carmel three times.
 Discuss life after college.

Watch a traumatising documentary about natural birth and then decide to adopt.
Stay up late doing homework.  Go to bed.  Wake up.  Do it all again.