Austin Food Roundup : Part 3

It's snowing sideways in Bloomington today, snowflakes coming down fast like rain. It's been over a month now since the trip. I can't help thinking that psychologically I've spread these posts out so I can re-live it all over again. Or maybe I'm just lazy. So, finally, day three of my lovely little trip to Austin.

Steph made us delicious yogurt parfaits for breakfast. Berries and dark chocolate peanut butter and granola and whipped honey and vanilla yogurt. Perfect way to start the day.

Mikado, Redux

For as long as I can remember I've hated writing. I wouldn't call myself a bad writer, just kind of uninspired and unimaginative. In school I was always the one to wait until the last possible minute to write a paper, staying up way too late to fulfill the minimum word count. And I hated it, I gave myself countless stress migraines avoiding assignments then, finally, agonizing over every word. In college, I scoured class descriptions and syllabi to find the courses that didn't require long papers and essays. I thought if I was writing about something I really enjoyed (food!) it would be easier. It is, at least a little bit. But not quite enough.

Austin Food Round Up : Part 2

The second day of my whirlwind Austin trip involved more delicious Mexican food and 100% more food trucks! Steph started us out Saturday morning with a fantastic frittata full of tomatoes, artichoke hearts and spinach. Plus some yummy fresh fruit and yogurt.

Austin Food Round Up : Part 1

Last weekend I was lucky enough to visit my awesome friend Stephanie down in Austin, Texas. She was a fantastic host, carting my friend Jessica and I to all sorts of delicious restaurants and unique shops. I had so much fun that it was painful to come back home to icy Indiana.

Cafe Pizzaria

Well I haven't updated in a while, oops. So how about some pizza? Cafe Pizzaria is definitely a Bloomington institution. It's been around forever. In fact, they claim to be Bloomington's first Pizzeria. You can certainly feel it in the restaurant. It's dark and worn inside, but in a cozy kind of way, with lots of private booths. Unlike most of the Bloomington population, I really didn't start eating at Cafe Pizzaria until rather recently (when I was little my family's traditional pizza place was Mother Bear's Pizza.) Actually, I don't think I ever ate there at all until college. Now I probably have lunch there every other month or so.

Fettuccine with Peas and Prosciutto

I made this pasta for the first time over a year ago with my friend Katy. We were planning her wedding and all of the sudden it was 7 pm and we were starving. I remember we were so indecisive, we spent at least half an hour trying to decide whether to go out to eat or make something at home. Finally we settled on this recipe out of the Everyday Food cookbook, mostly because Katy already had a pound of fettuccine and I had frozen peas.

It's pretty darn tasty. And it only takes around twenty minutes start to finish. Prep the garlic, lemon, prosciutto while your pasta water heats up, then start cooking the garlic when you drop the pasta. Totally easy. The lemon adds a brightness that really makes the dish. Going back through the recipes I've blogged, pretty much all of them feature lemons. When I was little I ate lemons as if they were oranges. So I guess it isn't surprising that so many of my favorite recipes include them.

NYC Food Round Up : Part 3

On Saturday Katy and I headed straight for Chinatown after a quick coffee stop at Starbucks. We wandered around for a while, buying Asian candy and miscellaneous little dishes and souvenirs. And then we headed for Prosperity Dumpling.