FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

A Quick Dallas Trip

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I had a whirlwind of a Dallas trip last weekend.  After Austin rush hour traffic died down on Friday, I hopped in the car and headed to Dallas for the CBS Baking Show open casting call.  I woke up bright and early to the tune of Juliette squealing and laughing and got to work in the kitchen.  I baked a mini pie for the casting call and a full sized pie for Ginnean for being a wonderful hostess.

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After the casting call, Ginnean, Juliette and I met up with our friend Phil for lunch in my old neighborhood (Uptown).  Bowery Tavern had some serious curb appeal and lured us in.  We sat down and I immediately had an I-just-survived-another-audition-what-am-I-thinking-kind-of-excited glass of prosecco.

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The incredibly adorable Juliette entertained us with napkin peek-a-boo and serious smiles while we waited for our food.

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I ordered the buffalo chicken salad with grilled chicken in lieu of fried.  And when the salad arrived I was beyond impressed by super green greens and an overall beautiful bar salad, especially since this salad only set me back 6 bucks.  If I were still an Uptown resident, I’d definitely hit up the Bowery Tavern for lunch on the regular.

A Proper Goodbye

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Welcome to Austin, a place where only mild convincing is needed to get a slew of your best guy friends to eat a Sunday feast at a completely vegan restaurant!  After our last Barton Springs trip of the season, we headed to Casa de Luz for $12 all you can eat vegan goodness.

Picnic tables, a setting sun, and a fast approaching cold front set the scene for our cozy, comfort meal.

We started with carrot ginger soup and salad, which was most everyone’s favorite (perhaps because it was the most familiar of flavors).

Soup and salad were followed by greens, mixed veggies, seaweed and rice.  My favorite were the greens because they were topped with a nutritional  yeast sauce and, because I’m a freak, I totally dig nutritional yeast.

We all decided that this would be a perfect way to follow up our 2013 Barton Spring Sundays.  Until then, it’s been real Barton Springs 2012!

 

 

Good Goes In

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Seven and a half years ago, fresh out of college with few friends already committed to the grind, I used to head across the street from my office to Panera Bread, solo with a magazine.  I’d eat french onion soup or the fandango salad, browse the latest fashion trends, and try to muster up energy to make it until 5 o’clock.  Today, things are different.  The 5 o’clock part is easy peasy, but I spend my lunch breaks at the gym, at home whipping something quick together for a blog post, or squeezing in last-minute errands.  Over the years, lunch has become progressively less relaxing.

So when I was given the opportunity to slow down a bit by enjoying an old favorite while putting together a lunch-time blog post, I couldn’t have been happier.  I ordered a bowl of french onion soup with a slice of super crusty bread and a roasted turkey and cranberry sandwich and sat outside in the sunshine.  Yeah, that’s right, sunshine sitting in December.  And double yeah, that’s right, I ordered bread on top of bread for lunch.

I forgot how yum sopping up soup with Panera’s crusty bread was.  And what made today’s Panera trip even better was knowing that my soup sopping supported an organization that donated over a half million servings of soup to food banks last month!

As part of the DailyBuzz Food Tastemaker Program, I received compensation to sample a Panera Bread soup.  The opinions in this post are completely my own and based on my experience.

@OxfordExchange

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As soon as Thanksgiving fullness wore off, Val and I started scheming about weekend brunch plans.  She suggested Oxford Exchange, the newest of her favorite places in Tampa town.  She described the concept and I was sold.

I woke up this morning beyond excited for brunch, appropriately humming Oxford Comma.

We sat in the main dining room, which was the perfect combo of light, airy, crisp, and cozy.  Every detail, from the wall tile to the ceiling panels to the light fixtures…  amazing.  Architecturally speaking, Oxford Exchange might just be the best restaurant thing Tampa has going on right now.

After I finished ooohing and ahhhing, I read through the varied, yet simple, menu.  My biggest brunch peeve is when a major breakfast component is forgotten.  That was certainly not the case with this menu.  Eggs, pancakes, oatmeal, lox, all covered.  We went with smoked salmon bagel and fresh berry pancakes and couldn’t have been more pleased.  The goodness and proportions were as equally thought out as the ambiance.

And when we finished up, the server brought us the check with a quote of the day.  It was the brunch equivalent of a fortune cookie, but cuter.