A New Journey: The Austin Food Lovers’ Companion

5 comments

A blog is an organic, evolving space – if you have the courage to let it be. Sometimes growth and change come in small increments and sometimes they come in large swaths with new colors, ideas, and even names. And so today my blog takes its next big step — I’m optimistic that it’s a forward one – with a new focus and a new name, but with the same love of food and food in Austin as its driving force.

The Austin Food Lovers’ Companion Steps Forward

When I rebuilt and rebranded my blog three years ago as Fete & Feast, with the addition of the Austin Food Lovers’ Companion as a second focus area, I was passionate about cooking and entertaining but couldn’t keep my eyes off of the beautiful explosion of the Austin food scene. Since then I’ve helped start and helm a non-profit for food bloggers, which not surprisingly took time away from my own blogging. But in the end I see that break as a blessing. It’s given me the gift of perspective as I’ve taken a step back to really think about how I want to focus my blogging efforts.

If I had all of the time in the world — and let’s be honest some better food styling and photography skills — I would devote hours to writing about it all: entertaining, cooking, and all that is happening in Austin. But given that I haven’t won the lottery yet, a bit of practicality sneaks in and says that, for now, I have to narrow my focus and do one thing as well as I can. So, for now, I choose to apply my energies to celebrating food and food lovers in Austin.

What Food Lovers Can Expect

Every day I’m awed by the speed at which the Austin food world is expanding, morphing, and welcoming new players to the table. Yet somehow our lovely food town manages to keep its local charm and stay accessible. We aren’t New York, Houston, or San Francisco and it’s clear we don’t want to be. We want to be Austin – a town having a long term love affair with food and drink, reveling (possibly wallowing) in the sheer joy of that love affair. Thanks to the growth of artisan producers and urban farms, an influx of creative chefs and restaurant concepts and a growing fleet of food trailers, it’s just plain fun and exciting to love food and live in Austin. And I want to do my part to capture the feel of what it means to be a food lover in Austin and in my own small way help contribute to our local food culture. On these pages you can expect to find:

• Ideas for food adventures around Austin
• Ways to make even everyday eating activities – like lunch –  thoughtful and interesting
• A new spin on guides to eating in Austin; think pre– and post– marathon eats, happy hours you’ll love for the food, and more
• My take on new restaurants and bars as they open with a focus on what makes them unique and why you’ll like them
• And anything else we can think of!

The Big News: A Food and Drink Calendar

As part of my refocus, redesign, and renaming I’ve added a full-fledged food and drink calendar to the blog. For the last several years I’ve been creating (mostly, sort of) weekly posts called Foodie Bits that share all of the local food-related events I can scare up. It’s very much a labor — of love of course — but a long-form blog post just isn’t the right way to share this information. So now I have a fully-functional calendar with the ability to export events to your calendar, sort by categories of events, and see different views of the information. I’m beyond excited about what this calendar can become. While there are several other calendars of Austin events out there, none of them are devoted to food and curated by a food lover for food lovers. I hope you’ll find it useful and that you’ll discover new events and new adventures on its pages.

 I’m Not Done Cooking and Entertaining

To be clear, I still love to cook. And given how many great sources of ingredients we have in and around Austin, I couldn’t fairly talk about being a food lover her without some discussion of cooking and hosting. I plan to continue to share favorite recipes, party menus, and my own tips for having more than just a little fun in the kitchen.

What Do You Want to See?

My efforts here mean so much more to me when they are useful to others. If there are perspectives on food in Austin that you think aren’t being covered, or need a fresh look, please let me know. If there are ways I can make the calendar more useful, please let me know. And if you have a question or need something tracked down, please let me know. Just click the Contact link at the top of the message to send me a note.

Onward

I’m looking forward to this next blogging path. I hope you’ll continue on this journey with me – it’s ever so much more fun when we’re in it together.