Pies Pies Pies and Tarts, Tarts, Tarts – call us (512.499.0544) or email us at info@texasfrenchbread.com to place an order for your holiday feast.

Hi folks – we’d really love some help spreading the word about our farm-to-table dinners. We’re going to start sending menu teasers through our new Facebook fan site. Would love to have you as a fan – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Austin-TX/Texas-French-Bread/182932607880?ref=mf&v=wall.

Also, with EAST (East Austin Studio Tour) coming up next week – wanted to mention that Jennifer Chenoweth, our artist-in-residence here at 2900 Rio – is stop number two on the tour. To learn more about Jen and her work, or if you want to visit her during EAST – look her up at http://www.eastaustinstudiotour.com/ – check out her work at http://www.jenchenoweth.com/ – or check her austinist tout – http://austinist.com/2009/11/10/east_interview_jennifer_chenoweth_o.php

Well – Jeeze.  I don’t even know where to start this week.  Many thanks to Michael Guerra for bringing a big group over from Zach Scott this week.  Apparently they are all working on a new 400+ capacity theater for Zach.  Anyway – Tuesday night was very well attended this week.   So well attended that I forgot to email everyone and tell you the menu on Wednesday.  Wednesday was not quite as well attended – but that’s alright – we’re here to stay PEOPLE.

One thing I wanted to be sure and mention is that Judy has been back in the house baking this week.  To date she’s made a shaker lemon tart (it has whole lemon slices in it – so you better like it tart – kind of like her salad dressing).   I also saw her at work on several pear crumble pies/tarts, and she’s revised the dough for our rustic apple tart.  Should be yum for sure.

Kara Bliss will be back in the house on Saturday December 5th and on New Years Eve – so plan ahead.  If you haven’t seen her sing – you’re missing it.  Her set list from her most recent engagement with us included songs by Tom Waits and Ricky Lee Jones, as well as Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, and Irving Berlin to name just few.  Pretty good stuff, sung by our favorite singer.  I’ll get you more info on the upcoming shows as things develop.

Booking Kara has made me think more about our over all mission and where we want to head next.  We definitely want to create a home base where more different kinds of communities and cross pollinate one another.  We always felt like we should have something going here several nights a week – maybe music one night, some kind of salon discussion next, and then perhaps art or theater on another.  The trick is – how to do it well, how to pay for it, and how to package it in a form that people can wrap their heads around.  More soon…

Hope to see you all in this weekend – best,

Murph

For you long time TFB patrons out there – sad to say, we finally closed the Red River store on October 15.  Opened in 1982 as the newer larger location where our bread bakery could be housed (we had substantially outgrown the original store at 3400 Guadalupe), the venue was the site of some of TFB’s best work.  But as we’ve grown in our efforts at our Rio Grande cafe over the past few years and moved our bread baking operations over – we began to suspect that with only a few blocks separating the two stores, we were probably canabalizing our own market.  So we decided to really get serious and focus on our nighttime bistro business here at our flagship store, and have taken the risk of closing down the Red River store.  We hope this will free up a lot of our time and energy that can be devoted to making the part of this business were are most in love with as good as it can be.  Still – change is always bittersweet, and it seems worth noting that the Red River store was our best and most profitable endeavor for many years.

Hope to see you all here at 2900 Rio Grande tonight,

Murph

God I so totally suck at keeping this website and the menu up to date. People keep trying to get me to join face book and I’m thinking, I’ve already got a website, email blast software, an online menu, and so on. Now I’m supposed to keep up with that too. You want me to twitter to??? huh?

Well anyway – here’s some news – keep it under your hat. My favorite singer – Kara Bliss McGregor will be singing at TFB this Saturday Night at 9pm – hope you can make it. She is awesome.

WE JUST GOT A MESS OF BEAUTIFUL WEST COAST SARDINES IN.  ALL AUGUST IT WAS “YES, WE HAVE NO SARDINES TODAY.”  YOU LOVE THEM, THEY LOVE YOU.  WHAT’S TO DISCUSS?  COME EAT ALREADY.

Well Friends,

You know him, you love him  – he’s been living and working with family in the old country in Italy for the last few months, so he’s well rested, looking good, and ready to make Coq au Vin for you! Ladies and gentleman (and more importantly from Jude’s perspective Ladies) – for one week only – we give you ….

JUDE COCO!

I’ve been thinking about melons.  And how fresh produce is so much better for us than fake manufactured food.  There’s a great op-ed piece in the Times today by Michael Pollan on how related our food policy is to our health policy.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html?scp=2&sq=michael%20pollan&st=cse

Hi Friends,

Just wanted to point out a couple of quick notes about this week’s menu. First off – Ben’s rather popular squash blossoms are back on the menu. Come get them while they last.  OK – that’s one note – we’re kind of waiting for a weather shift before we add a bunch of new stuff, but we’re liking this menu a lot and you can see check it out – dinner menu.

Second, I want to thank Glover and the Tango folks for making Tuesday evening a really interesting event. It was interesting for me in the first instance, because we had a bunch of folks show up who a) had no idea that we were hosting the tango event, and b) didn’t realize that we weren’t normally open on Tuesdays.   I’m starting to get the feeling that we can just throw the doors open any night and quite a few folks are going to show up looking to eat, which is fantastic in so many ways.  

Anyway – we got it all worked out. We got everyone fed, and pretty much everyone hung around and watched the dancing – including me, and a bunch of folks who work here.  I was unware of this, but apparently tango dancing is about as much fun as you and a partner can have and still remain fully clothed.  More than once, I found myself watching and thinking that a youngish fellow who commanded even rudimentary tango skills, could do alright (you know – with the ladies).  I’m not sure he would need anything else - like a bank account – house – car – good looks, that kind of thing…  As dance goes – the tango is unbelievably romantic and uhhmm well – downright sensual? or is it sensuous? (that’s a little too close to lay vs. lie, and I just don’t know. In theory, my father is a linguist, so perhaps he’ll bust out and post a comment for us???) Pretty cool stuff regardless.  We’re going to do it every Tuesday for a bit, so a) this means we’re now open 5 nights a week – yeah! and b) you’ve got plenty of time to go find a lesson and come try out your mojo.

We’re cooking – come eat!

Murph

Hi Friends,

Spent the last couple of days in Dallas, I was late getting back, and I’m up against the clock here to get this posted – so let me tell you very briefly about a couple of the things we’re going to try this week – or you can go check our dinner menu.

First, Boggy Creek is just covered up in peppers, so we’re going to bring back the stuffed pepper appetizer. The difference is, this time we’re going to try one that is more like a chili relleno. We’re using poblanos, stuffing them with pork, queso fresco, and maybe some additional peppers – then we’re going to top them with bread crumbs and roast them.

Next, we’ve gotten in wonderful small Texas hard pears (also from Boggy Creek) – they are earthy and flavorful. We’re going to make a salad with these, Boggy Creek arugula, amaranth greens, and lambsquarters (that’s a lettuce, not the thing that goes bahhhh and jumps over your bed when you are trying to get to sleep) and we will top it with Pure Luck’s Hopelessly Blue blue cheese – should be yum.

Finally – we’re going to bring back our bruschetta, only this time we’re going to do it as a sampler with several different toppings that we’re excited about. We’re probably going to do some or all of the following: Crostini di Fegatini di Pollo (that’s a traditional Italian style chicken liver spread – when you say it, you’re going to want to gesticulate with your hands and splay out your fingers – kind of spit the name out with some ummph), prosciutto & arugula, Texas figs with chevre and pecans, olive tapenade with feta, and whatever else comes to mind. Ask one of us and we’ll tell you which ones we’re making that night.

We loved the pork chop, so we’re going to keep it on the menu. We’re going to keep the tomato pasta as long as we can keep getting local tomatoes from the McCall Farm crew in Blanco. Sardines won’t be available again until September.

Please remember that for now, we’re still doing an abbreviated menu on Wednesdays.

TANGO DANCING ON TUESDAYS

That said, next Tuesday we will be open from 6-10pm. We are going to clear the center tables to make room for Glover Gill who will join us to play tango music for dancers on our piano beginning at 8pm. Should be fun, please join us. We’re going to do a menu that’s a little more low key for Tuesdays and try to get everything prepped for Wednesdays beginning next week.

Come join us for dinner!

Murph