You don’t have to listen to Jim and Mike Richardson talk about their farm for very long before you know they are improvers. Their farm is a laboratory for experimentation with forage varieties, poultry houses, pig feeders, and grass-fed beef. Building upon the experience of Jim’s long career as a veterinarian and Mike’s enthusiasm and curiosity about farming, the two of them are well equipped to improve food production in Central Texas.
The Richardson’s innovations join a long tradition Read more [...] Modern Day Improvers
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You don’t have to listen to Jim and Mike Richardson talk about their farm for very long before you know they are improvers. Their farm is a laboratory for experimentation with forage varieties, poultry houses, pig feeders, and grass-fed beef. Building upon the experience of Jim’s long career as a veterinarian and Mike’s enthusiasm and curiosity about farming, the two of them are well equipped to improve food production in Central Texas.
The Richardson’s innovations join a long tradition Read more [...] 
Lew Weil, a molecular biologist, grows seaweed for his company, Austin Sea Veggies. In his garage, Lew grows ogo, edible seaweed that looks a little like material for a gelatinous bird’s nest. Where else but Austin, Texas, hundreds of miles away from any coastline, would you find a scientist hunched over an aquarium full of seaweed. Yes, Austin is weird.
But beware of weird. More often than not, an Austinian’s weirdness leads to innovation and an audacious capacity for leapfrogging the rest 
“No cakey-ass brownies here,” declares Miles Compton about his baked chocolate dessert. In a food culture that insists on knowing the farmer who grows its corn and the exact percentage of butterfat in a cookie, how is it that Miles is so successful with his somehow unknowable chocolate dessert?
Long-time Austin food columnist, the late Katie Crider said that Mile’s dessert is “anything you want it to be.” And she was right. Virginia Wood, another Austin food writer said the dessert was 
While pondering the nature of our food system, I find parts of it in places that seem unrelated, at first. A bakery in Austin may seem connected to the system through the production of bread, the loaves and croissants traveling from the baker’s commercial kitchen into the hands and mouths of hungry Austinians every morning. But the system engages other less apparent components of the system, like dairy companies, flour manufacturers, and truck drivers. A recent visit to the bakery shed light on 
Mary-Rose and Lefty Fisher’s farm, Rancho benedicion de Dios (translated Blessing of God Ranch), was awash in a much-needed rainstorm last week. Texan’s don’t mind the inconvenience of flooded streets when rain brings a break in the Texas drought. And on the day that I visited Mary-Rose in March, her pastures were green and the Black Angus cattle stood out, rivulets of water trickling down their big steamy bodies. As bovines are wont to do, they were ruminating after pulling at the green grass 
Yoed Anis makes sake in Texas. Born in Israel, but a self-proclaimed Texan, Yoed began his enterprise, Texas Sake Company, in the fall of 2011, propelled by his love of brewing beer and an attraction to a natural connection between the historical tradition of rice growing in Texas and the potential of brewing sake. Immigrants such as Yoed and Texas rice, the medium-grain variety used to make sake, both have long histories in Texas foodways.
From the late 19th century, Texas has been growing rice, 
A few weeks ago, my family challenged me to become a vegan for a week. For an enthusiastic omnivore, a week of what I viewed as deprivation was indeed challenging. As the days passed, I moved from curiosity to resentment to anger and then finally, acceptance. Two unexpected epiphanies came out of this experience. The first was that veganism can feel single-dimensional, like listening to an a cappella group instead of a symphony orchestra. Without meat, or at least dairy products, vegan diets feel 
To encounter Clancy Rose, Cuvee’s coffee roaster, aside one of his burnished Samiac machine is like meeting the owner of a Ferrari or Maserati. Words like “first crack” and “carmelization” tumble into the room, creating a continuous riff of geeky adjectives familiar to aficionados of high tech and high design. Clancy is one of five employees at a small Austin roaster, one that telegraphs technology in so many ways, not to mention in Clancy’s language and style. He relies on the shiny 
Oliver Strand wrote in a recent New York Times article that coffee can be either something you make or something you drink. One coffee roaster in Austin, Texas believes coffee can be both. Roster Joe Lozano and Manager Clay Roper combine the nuances and artistry of making coffee with the palate and gustatory delight of drinking coffee. Telling the story of how they accomplish this is one of their favorite pastimes.
Third Coast Coffee Roasting Company occupies an unpretentious space in a small 
If you want to find a happy man, look no further than David Pitre. His smile tells it all, the love and appreciation that he has for his work, the land, and even, yes, escarole. David and his wife Katie own Tecolote Farm, an organic farm located just outside Austin, Texas. Blue eyes sparkling as he describes their enterprise, David loves seeds, especially heirloom varieties that yield lettuce leaves brushed with burnt-umber that arrive on his farms with names like Marvel of Four Seasons. Lettuce