10 minutes.
Sometimes it’s forever. Waiting in traffic for 10 minutes, listening to a baby cry for 10 minutes (this FEELS more like 20 minutes, I’m certain), standing at the grocery store checkout for 10 minutes. 10 minutes at the DMV is a minimum. In fact, you need snacks for that trip because we all know it will be more like 60 minutes.
I had some weird food stuff going on as a kid. I’ve already mentioned my early love of beets. Things really got weird with breakfast, though. I HATED eggs, toast, juice, pancakes, freezer waffles, and thought cereal was only kinda “meh”. As an 8 year old, what else was even left for breakfast options? Luckily I had a nice mom who probably figured something was better than nothing, so she let me eat dinner leftovers for breakfast. Every single morning. Because some microwaved chicken with mashed potatoes or spaghetti sound appetizing at 7 am. Served up, of course, with a hearty helping of older sister eye rolling, because why did her little sister have to be so weird! Apparently my 8 year old self thought this was all just fine. My poor mom! A few years later once I finally got tired of leftovers for breakfast, I had a banana with peanut butter every morning for a whole year, then Special K with Strawberries the next. (I’m shaking my head just typing this.)
Confession: I have a really hard time paying money for pizza. Not much pizza goin’ on on my must-eat-in-Austin list. This is definitely not because I don’t like pizza, or that I don’t believe there is good pizza to be had in Austin (try here or here!). It really boils down to the fact that I’m cheap (I like to think of it as budget-minded). I have a really hard time paying $20+ for something that I feel like I could do a pretty dang good job of myself. For way less money. And I don’t have to pay an extra $1 if I want to add a scant few slices of jalapeno. (This is Texas folks, those little fiery gems should always be included.)
Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I wrote about my grandma and her sage advice along with some strawberry rhubarb galettes last time. Today, these cookies are for my mom. She loves lemon, hates chocolate, and is always looking for a good cookie recipe. These fit squarely into all three categories. Prior to these beauties, I’d never had a traditional Italian lemon ricotta cookie. After comparing some recipes from a few notable Italians who probably know what they’re doing (Giada and someone at the New York Times’s Italian grandma) and a few trial-and-errors of my own, I settled on these.
One of my favorite things about moving to a new city (or visiting one for that matter) is figuring out where all the good food is. Cities we previously lived in had a few highlights here and there, all which could be condensed to a short list. Since moving to Austin, I have the opposite problem. My list is MASSIVE, and every time we go somewhere new, it usually is mind blowing, and I just want to go back and try the green apple guacamole with pineapple, jicama, and mint or that eggplant parmesan pizza because their pepperoni pizza was the best I’ve ever had. Oh and I almost forgot the milkshake with miso hazelnut blondie and huckleberry jam swirls.
This weekend is Mother’s Day. My first, in fact. Which is exciting because I love being a mom. Truly, I do. I love that we dedicate a day to celebrating motherhood. For this Mother’s Day, I wanted to do something a little different.
While Nathan was in Mexico, I was super intrigued to hear what people in Mexico did to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. In my mind, it was going to be some HUGE party. I mean, if we in America celebrate this Mexican holiday, surely people actually in Mexico really party it up, right? Well, wrong. I was informed that the vast majority of Mexicans don’t do a thing for Cinco de Mayo. I thought it was the country’s independence day – turns out it isn’t. From what I’ve since gathered, the “holiday” is more about Americans drinking tequila and eating a bunch of Tex-Mex. A day to celebrate tacos? That is something I could definitely get behind 🙂
As I’ve mentioned previously, when Nathan got home from Mexico and we started dating again, we ate a lot of Mexican food. Tacos and sopes and tacos and tacos, remember? Yes, all very delicious. Well one night, to go along with all this Mexican food, Nathan told me he wanted to “make some water”. Hmmm. Ok. I thought water came “made”, but, yeah sure, let’s go for it. And that’s when my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of aguas frescas.