Thanksgiving

My family came to Austin for Thanksgiving this year, and I cooked my very first turkey! My dad and the uncles and I went to the UT/AM game, and then on Friday the whole family trouped down to south Austin to visit the Cathedral of Junk, then out to the winery next to Mandola's in Dripping Springs, and then to Salt Lick for some barbeque. On Saturday, we all met up at the downtown farmers market for breakfast and shopping.

A few shots from the weekend:

Pictures of Fall

I took a photography course in college but had forgotten many of the fundamentals of shooting in manual mode, so I recently completed a photography class with my friend Krupa.


A few shots from the class:

Minneapolis (& Mary Tyler Moore)

I recently visited Minneapolis for work, and JANE(!) met me up there for the weekend. I had heard Minneapolis is a beautiful city, but I had my doubts, especially with the weather in November. Surprisingly, the weather was fantastic and got up into the 60's each day. 

JANE(!)

Bradstreet Crafthouse is a fantastic mixologist bar in downtown. JANE(!) and I used public transportation the whole weekend and traversed the city. We walked around downtown, ate at Piccolo, which Anthony Bourdain profiled in his Heartland show, and even ventured out to the Mall of America. 

Bradstreet Crafthouse is known for its throwback drinks and craftsmanship. Our bartender crafted drinks with an egg white, droppers, and flair.

We visited the Walker Arts Center and adjacent sculpture garden.

Jane and I ended our weekend on a high note with breakfast at Hell's Kitchen, with wild rice porridge (far better than it sounds) and corn beef hash. 

Cousins!

As I have transitioned into real life as someone who goes to work everyday, the blogging has slacked (note the one word titles and lack of witty repertoire).

In a continuation of the theme of brevity, here is a brief summary of my weekend with my FAVORITE COUSIN EVER (that means a lot coming from me, as I have approximately 20+ first cousins).

Since Caitlin was making her inaugural visit to Austin, I planned a weekend full of all things Austin, including:

Amy's Ice Cream
Chuy's
UT football
Sno Beach
Torchy's Tacos 
South Congress Cafe
HomeSlice Pizza
Kayaking on Town Lake 

She was here for a few days... girls have to eat!

FAME. Or something close to it.

Check me out making a guest appearance on someone else's blog (and by guest appearance, I mean, I'm in the photos... I haven't made it to the big-time yet where anyone would ask me to guest blog.)

For more food related blogging, visit Krupa's home at krupalicious.

Bye bye birdie

Those who know me well know I hate birds. A lot of people who don't know me well know that I hate birds. I generally try to refrain from using the word hate as it is a strong word, but my feelings about birds can only better be described as loathed, dislike just doesn't cut it.


Three and a Half Seconds About Life from Eran Hilleli on Vimeo.

Special Visitor: Grammy Visits Austin

This weekend, my grandmother came to visit me. If you haven't met her, you're missing out. She falls into the same category as my parents for me; as in, I like them more than most people like their parents/grandparents, and I like them more than I like most people.

Gram and I have travelled the world together, so her flying down to Austin was no big thing (reference Gram dressed like Harry Potter cavorting around Ireland with me this spring.)

Whole Foods Kitchen

The first item on our agenda was a top shelf wine tasting at Whole Foods. We sampled 5 wines and coordinating bruschetta. The final wine we sampled costs $200 for a HALF bottle...and it tasted like honey soaked chamomile tea - not my favorite.

From Whole Foods, we ventured over to Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, which is quite possibly my favorite Austin restaurant, but certainly on my top 10 list of Austin restaurants. 

We sampled a pork belly sandwich, lamb slider, and grits with a softboiled farm egg.

Wood burning grill at Odd Duck

Grits, Pork Belly, and Lamb Slider

Gram and I ventured over to the downtown Austin farmer's market Saturday morning after I ran around East Austin (sidenote: running on the east side does add a little pep to your step), and we bought persimmons, fresh gulf snapper, mushrooms, and local cold pressed olive oil for our dinner that night.

A happening Saturday morning at the farmer's market





We then trekked it over to South Congress, toodled around in some thrift stores, and then went to South Congress Cafe for brunch. We ended up sitting in the bar (which happens to be my favorite place to eat in most restaurants because it lends to the best people watching) and had an amazing brunch of mimosas, carrot bread french toast, and goat cheese and artichoke heart omelette.

MMM...Mimosas

Their carrot bread French toast was featured on the Food Network


 We finished up this fantastic weekend with brunch at Olivia, one of Gourmet Magazine's top 10 restaurants of last year. Olivia has their own garden in the back and embraces the farm-to-table movement.

Olivia

Whole wheat toast and a farm omelette with spinach, onion, goat cheese, and avocados

The star of this blog post couldn't be interrupted from her South Austin omelette (w/ lamb chorizo)