Guerilla-Made Food Maps

I've been working on a food-mapping project for the past several months called Food: An Atlas. The project is a non-profit venture launched by the CAGE (Cartography and GIS Education) Lab at the University of California at Berkeley. The project team intends to self-publish a map created by a network of content providers and cartographers over the web. The idea behind the project is to produce a food atlas in a short amount of time from a broad community of researchers. The Berkeley team, located Read more [...]

Cooks from Farm to Table in Austin

Texas peaches will soon disappear from the Hill Country roadside stands, removing star performers on local restaurant menus such as Peach Melba. Named after an Australian opera singer, Peach Melba was the invention of Auguste Escoffier, a nineteenth century entrepreneur who introduced the ice cream and peach dessert to the Paris Ritz. Demonstrating his creative culinary imagination, he convinced farmers in the Rhone Valley to grow thin-stalked, green asparagus for the British who paled at the white, Read more [...]

The University of Texas at Austin’s New Food Lab

The Food Lab (TFL) is based in the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD) of the School of Architecture (SOA) of the University of Texas at Austin (UT). The Food Lab provides undergraduate awareness of food issues, encourages and motivates students to engage with innovative food systems research, and provides support to startups that leverage University research. The Lab is a catalyst for scientific and cultural experimentation and innovation in the food system. We encourage the research community Read more [...]

Austin’s New Sipping Chocolatier

Austin is bursting with enthusiasm for food. Even better, our city fosters innovative startups that add to the richness and experience of the food scene. Foodies, food trucks, and fans of food in general have thrived and grown over the last twenty years, driven by the mix of musicians, college students, and artists seeking cheap and delicious food. Thus the food truck phenomena hit Austin first, giving our city a reputation for being a scrappy player in the food scene. The recent surge of interest Read more [...]

Miles of Mysterious Chocolate

“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 Read more [...]