The Edible Austin Tea Festival is a gathering of the Austin area’s fine tea purveyors and tea rooms who will sample and demonstrate all that is mysterious and wonderful about tea. Chef Jesse Bloom of Ecstatic Cuisine will offer tea-paired food plates for $10/ plate. Also featuring tea talks, demonstrations, traditional tea ceremonies and tea products for sale. Tea participants include Barefoot Botanicals, Buddah’s Brew, Jade Leaves, Sesa Tea, Steeping Room, Sweet Leaf Tea, Tea Embassy, Texas Medicinals and Zhi Tea. The Tea Festival is also a stop on the Urban Farm Bicycle Tour

A portion of proceeds go to Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin. 15 farm interns, ages 14-17, are hired to work from February to July, growing more than 22,000 lbs of produce every year—donating 40% of that to hunger relief and selling 60% at farmers’ markets and farm stands run by the farm interns.

Photo courtesy of www.youthlaunch.org

For more information, check out our Facebook invitation and Do512 Event Listing.

Our menu at the cafe will be totally locally sourced from Dec. 8 – 11, so please come out to support Central Texas farmers and try some seasonal delicacies!

(For more events and activities during Eat Local Week, check out Edible Austin’s event page and here to check out foods in season and farms and resources involved in next week’s festivities.)

Here are a few places around town that we look to for specialty foods for both events and ourselves.

Austin Farmers’ Markets: With locations downtown, on the east side, and in north and south Austin, there is no excuse not to visit a farmers’ market a few times a month. There is a fairly large variety of local, seasonal and often organically farmed produce, Texas meats and seafood, gluten and sugar-free pastries, samosas, locally milled soaps, and locally made sausage and pâté. These markets may not have everything you need for your week (limited bulk, no household cleaners, and few spices), but they are a fun and refreshing way to shop while supporting the Austin farmer and artisan community.

Greenling: This local grocery delivery service offers an extensive variety of local produce, meats, farm fresh eggs, dairy, and household items. It is easy to sign up for and they have a convenient weekly delivery system. My favorite way to use the service is to order the “local box” which costs $30 every two weeks and you get a very large assortment of the freshest foods that are in season. Greenling also gets extra kudos for the times when I was car-less and in college as their service offered a convenient way to still get in all my fruits and vegetables. Plus, it was a nice surprise at my doorstep when I got home from classes.

Thai Fresh: This cute, South Austin grocer is more than a grocer. They have a cozy restaurant and sell and serve meats (chicken, pork, and beef) that are exclusively raised in Texas. They also buy their produce from local farmers and teach cooking classes at your home or on site. Ecstatic Cuisine buys many of our Asian sauces and condiments form this great shop!

MT Supermarket: A HUGE Asian market with specialty rice, produce, housemade kimchi, crazy varieties of fish and shellfish, Japanese, Korean, East Indian and Chinese spices, as well as Asian housewares, beers and frozen desserts. The size and scope of this treasure trove made me giddy with excitement the first time I visited. Well worth a trip to far north Austin.

Asahi Imports: Smaller and more intimate than MT Supermarket, Asahi focuses more on Japanese veggies, snacks, gifts, sauces and frozen mochi ice cream. They also stock a wide variety of teas and even bento boxes!

HEB Central Market/Whole Foods/Sun Harvest: The go-to triumvirate for a host of reasonably affordable organic produce, meat, gluten-free flours, Paraben-free, vegetarian supplements and body care, bulk cereals, and spices. Whole Foods (the priciest of the three) and Central Market both originated in Austin and Sun Harvest has great weekly sales on produce, fruit, meats, and vitamins. (I also like that HEB and HEB-owned Central Market stores offer very locally respected health care benefits for their employees.) **Note: Not all HEBs are created equal. If you get burned by one, do a little research and try again. The locations off Brodie Lane, Westlake and 41st are all pretty good. Central Market is a higher end HEB, with a great wine selection, a salt and olive oil bar, good bulk section and nice meat and fish. Also quite a bit of ethnic food and specialty cheeses and desserts.

Here is Ian’s delicious recipe below. Enjoy!

Ian’s Butternut Squash Gratin
1 large or 2 medium butternut squash
4 cups thinly sliced yellow or white onions
2 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried nutmeg
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2-3 cups heavy cream
1 cup grated gruyere
3/4 cup breadcrumbs (I prefer Panko)
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Cooking instructions: In a large saute pan, heat the oil and half the butter. Add the onions and thyme and then cook until the onions are caramelized and reduced to about 1 cup. While the onions are cooking, peel the squash and cut off the large butt end with the seeds. Nest, thinly slice the neck part into rounds. Ian uses a mandoline to get nice thin slices.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Toss the squash slices in this flour mixture to coat. Grease a 9×13 baking dish with the rest of the butter. Arrange half the squash slices in an overlapping pattern to form a layer in the bottom of the baking dish. Spread half the onions on top. Form another layer with the rest of the squash and then top with the other half of the onions. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and then pour the cream over the whole dish. The cream should almost come up to cover the layers.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 F degree oven for approximately 20-25 minutes or until the squash has mostly softened. Remove from oven and remove foil. Mix the breadcrumbs and nuts and spread over the top of the gratin. Return to oven and continue baking for 10-15 minutes or until topping is golden and crispy and squash is fully cooked.

Aurora Porter: Green Gate Farms is a little agricultural oasis east of Texas Highway 183 and north of 51st street in Austin, Texas. On Saturday October 24th just before sunset, 82 guests descended on the farm to attend a Slow Food Feast in the Field, where they could admire the early fall harvest and savor a thoughtful, simple menu cooked by the chefs at Ecstatic Cuisine. The feast proceeds went to benefit the Austin Discovery School, which offers, among other courses, an organic Junior Master Gardener program and a zero waste school lunch initiative.

Slow Food is an international, member-supported, non-profit organization that works to promote biodiversity in our food supply, gastronomic education in our communities, and facilitate connections between ethical and delicious food producers and co-producers.

Jesse Bloom is head chef and owner of Ecstatic Cuisine. Bloom says he has always been interested and inspired by the Slow Food movement.

Jesse Bloom: The menu was really about what was available. Slow Food is supposed to be all local and all organic, as much as possible.

Aurora Porter: On this mild late October evening, between an open field and the lettuce patch, Slow Food supporters ate a completely locally sourced meal, including butternut squash soup with goat milk crème fraiche, duck confit with Kefir pear, and Green Gate greens salad with pickled persimmons. Before the entrée, guests gathered at small tables near a Sweet Leaf Tea stand and built their own bruschetta with eggplant caviar, mushroom capanota, Cheesy Girl Chevre, and a Green Gate grilled green tomato caprese.

For the main dish, the chefs served smoked pork loin with persimmon lavender sauce, green beans amandine, sweet and spicy cabbage, a butternut squash gratin with caramelized onion, walnuts, and Veldhuizen Gruyere. Dessert was Mary Louise Butters’ Chipotle Brownies with Amy’s Mexican Vanilla ice cream.

Jesse Bloom: A couple of months before the event I was talking to the farmers trying to figure out what was going to be coming out of the ground and really the menu evolved like, up until the actual day of, because you know, no one actually knew what was going to happen, because the weather was do dry this summer and we were in such a big drought and then there was a ton of rain and so the tomato crop just never turned because there was no sun so we ended up using green tomatoes…we had planned to do a blackberry sauce and we couldn’t get local blackberries so we ended up using persimmons.

Aurora Porter: Bloom says the spontaneity and last minute fluidity of coming up with last minute menus makes the process that much more interesting for him. He said the main inspiration for the menu was all about the farm. The smoky pork loin was made from a pig that was raised on the farm and the green tomatoes in the caprese came from Green Gate tomatoes that didn’t turn in time for the event.

Jesse Bloom: We had a food blogger ask if she could have our butternut squash gratin recipe. A lot of good compliments about the food and the timing of the event.

Aurora Porter: Bloom says his company tries to do a donation charity event about once a quarter.

Jesse Bloom: We are going to be at the Zhi Tea festival in December…that’s December 5th at the Zhi tea gallery on Bolm Road. December 5th through 12th is Edible Austin Eat Local Week and we will be running all local food in the café all week long, so that’s a huge thing. We’re gonna be doing our own cured bacon. I’m definitely looking forward to that.

Aurora Porter: Ecstatic Cuisine caters weddings, business lunches, parties and food-centered events in Central Texas and also serves lunches at Region XIII five days a week. To view photos of the event check and read blog posts and news about upcoming events, go to Ecstaticcuisine.com.

Jamie’s Dinners has made many of my friends and family members very happy. This book has loads of simple, fast and yet still special and interesting recipes for the cook in need of inspiration. I have adored Jamie Oliver since my teens for his amazing food, quick wit, and indomitably sunny personality. His new TV show set in the US premieres in November and I am super psyched.

The Man Who Ate Everything is unbelievably hilarious and smart collection of short stories by Jeffrey Steingarten, Harvard Law graduate, Vogue and New York Times contributor and leading American food writer. Though Steingarten can occasionally read as snobby or long-winded, his attention to detail and brilliant sense of humor are almost unmatched in the world of food writing. His yeast-bread baking attempts and pig butchering fiasco are classic.

Vandana Shiva is one of my HEROES. Her books and papers on environmentalism, eco-feminism, and food are revolutionary. She challenges negative and established authorities from an educated and diplomatic perspective. Stolen Harvest examines the frightening and very real threat of genetically engineered seeds and crops on humans and the environment.

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. Pollan is an ardent proponent of local food. He contributes to the New York Times and also teaches at University of Berkeley in California. His writing style is dry, concise, and sort of masculine. He often does not seem to have much of a sense of humor, but his books are very informative and enlightening. This one is fairly short and could serve as a good introduction to those who are interested in changing their food habits for the better.

Kingsolver is sort of the polar opposite, stylistically, of Pollan. She is warm, engaging, and incorporates her personal life and choices into this book. Animal, Vegetable Miracle is the first Kingsolver book I’ve read, but I know many people that enjoy her fiction. This book chronicles her family’s move from Arizona, the land of imported food, to a farm on the lush south eastern coast. The book offers political information on GMOs and national food transport, as well as funny anecdotes and practical guides to raising animals as a family and growing loads of organic vegetables. The book’s website is also a great academic resource.

Ruth Reichl is one of my current food heroes. She’s the former editor in chief of the now defunct Gourmet Magazine, participates in all sorts of charitable food projects, and manages to be very down to earth and funny. Tender at the Bone is a hilarious and very touching memoir; it chronicles her  most memorable food experiences from her childhood and on. She is at the forefront of the sustainable food movement for a reason.

Heat by Bill Buford is another very funny, true tale of Buford’s time working for Mario Batali at Babbo in NYC and then his subsequent move to Italy to learn from some of the masters. Kitchen wenches the world over will cringe at the familiarity of his experience. Buford is self-deprecating and modest, but you can tell he probably knows his s**t in the kitchen.

As far as I’m concerned, the bible of cooking is ‘The Joy of Cooking’ by Irma Rombauer. The recipes are simple and easy to follow along with while I’m cooking. If you want a recipe for sofrito, an authentic Chinese stir-fry, or an old fashioned New England slump, it’s all there.

I would recommend anything written by Michael Pollan. A good start is with ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma‘. He describes what is going on with food in this country.

‘Healing with Whole Foods’ by Paul Pitchford is a way of looking at cooking through the lens of the Chinese five elements.

‘The French Laundry Cookbook’ by Thomas Keller is amazing. He is one of the best chefs alive. He has a way of taking food from the source and transforming it into a gourmet.

All of the Beautiful cookbooks, like ‘Southwest: The Beautiful’ by Barbara Fenzel and ‘Mexico: The Beautiful’ by Susanna Palazuelos are gorgeous, authentic, and creative.

‘Creating a World Without Poverty’ by Muhammad Yunus. This book is a must read for those interested in the developing world.  Yunus created the Grameen Bank and is considered the father and creator of micro-credit lending.

‘The Starfish and the Spider’ by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom is about a decentralized organizational business structure and the power of having a leaderless organizations.