Madison native compiles Austin restaurant favorites
True to her Wisconsin roots, Paula Forbes roots for the Green Bay Packers, owns a cheese hat and happily visits cheese museums.
A Madison native, she’s considered Austin home since moving there in 2006, despite a brief stint living in New York. Melding interests in food, cooking and writing, she created a career writing about cooking, cookbooks and cocktails. Now, she’s written a love letter to her adopted hometown with her first cookbook, “The Austin Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from Deep in the Heart of Texas” (Abrams, $29.99).
After stints with Epicurious and Eater, Forbes is currently a columnist for GQ.com. She also talks cookbook news in her newsletter, Stained Page News. Question: What was the first cookbook you purchased? Answer: The first cookbook I purchased for myself was “The Joy of Cooking,” but both of my parents are very interested in food, so I grew up surrounded by cookbooks.
Probably the first cookbook I owned, gifted to me as a kid, was the Laura Ingalls Wilder (“The Little House Cookbook”). Q: How did growing up in Madison influence your approach to food? A: I was really spoiled growing up in Madison having access to the farmers market there. I didn’t realize that wasn’t common. Mind you, the markets have become much better since then, but when I first moved to Austin in 2006, I heard there was a year-round market. I showed up the first Saturday I moved here and there were like three stalls. I was just crushed. Q: After reviewing so many cookbooks, what were the musts when writing your own? A: My book is a restaurant cookbook. Ninety five percent of the recipes are from restaurants that gave them to me to put in the cookbook. One thing that was important to me was having realistic expectations of what people would cook at home.
I don’t have a problem with books that have recipes outside the grasps of home cooks, but I do think it is important to let people know what is and is not realistic for making at home. All these recipes can be made at home. They were made in my home. Q: What are the must-have recipes, the ones that define food in Austin?
A: There are a lot of recipes in the book that are iconic for Austin. You’re going to need a breakfast taco recipe. I was so lucky to get one from Veracruz All-Natural, one of the best restaurants in town. You’re going to need a migas recipe, scrambled eggs with bits of tortilla or tortilla chips in it; I have that from Mi Madres.
We have barbecue. The brisket recipe is not from any particular barbecue place. What I did was interviewed all the
pitmasters and combined their advice. Q: How do you define Tex Mex?
A: Tex Mex is a regional American cuisine that developed within Texas. A lot of people think of it as sort of slang for Amercanized Mexican food, which I guess is literally true. It is an American cuisine that incorporates a lot of influence from the
foods of Mexico as well as Mexican Texans, but that is oversimplifying it. That is putting a value label on it that is not necessarily fair, because a lot of Tex Mex is very intricate, made from scratch. Q: If you had to name one taste to define central Texas, what would it be?
A: What I say in the book is black pepper is what central Texas tastes like. The primary reason is because it is a defining characteristic in barbecue, a lot of it is salt and pepper seasoned and that is it. It also plays prominently in the Tex Mex and beyond that. A lot of the recipes will use like a quarter cup or half cup of pepper. That is really not that uncommon, but a lot of these things are cooked for a long time, so not as intense as it sounds. Q: What’s the one taste that defines Wisconsin for you? A: Cheese, that’s the obvious answer. I grew up in Madison, and the flavors that remind me of home the most are cheese and sausage. Q: How did an “everything bagel kolache” sneak into a book about Austin? A: Kolaches in Texas were brought over by Czech immigrants, but they’ve evolved. I know you can get them in Chicago and probably Milwaukee, and they’re very different here. This one is from a pastry chef, Amanda Rockman. Her family is from New York, so this recipe is her two cultures coming together. People have gotten much more adventurous with kolache flavors. Q: What cookbooks do you keep, or turn to over and over again? A: Most of my cookbooks I keep in my office. I probably have 1,500 cookbooks in my office. Then I have in my kitchen a tiny shelf with about 10 cookbooks. Those swap out. Right now, I have “Six Seasons” by Joshua McFadden. I have Alison Roman’s “Dining In,” the Lucky Peach “101 Easy Asian Recipes,”“The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook,”“Bravetart,” a couple of drink books, “Jerusalem” from Yotam Ottolenghi. Q: What else do we need to know? A: I’ve been telling my family in Wisconsin that there’s an okra recipe, it is my favorite recipe in the book, and it works well with green beans (if you don’t have okra). That is my No. 1 Wisconsin tip for the book. Table Chat features interviews with Wisconsinites, or Wisconsin natives, who work in restaurants or support the restaurant industry. To suggest individuals to profile, email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.