Tonight is Tuesday and that means I’m just a bit behind schedule sending this out – it’s also past happy hour, so watch out.  Anyway – if by chance you’ve not eaten – we’ve started a new tradition of serving risotto on Tuesday evenings.  Tonight’s is a lovely mushroom risotto with chantarelle’s and shiitakes.  We’re also offering it with braised bison shanks from our friends Martin and Heather at Madrono Ranch – it’s really tasty  - do come join us.

Also needed to send note of the fact that we will be closed tomorrow evening for a private event with a local non-profit.  We do apologize for any inconvenience, but we’ll be open again on Thursday and we’d love to see you then.

bon appetit,

murph

Starting this week, we’re featuring delicious new risotto every Tuesday night. Tonight, we’re pairing purple hull peas with radicchio — a violet delight. And we’re serving up more of the butternut squash risotto introduced last week — both are strictly vegetarian!

Plus, tango tunes with Glover Gill — 9-10pm

Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week? Here are our offerings (the Buche de Noel is avail for Christmas only). We are also doing 2 Cranberry Bread Mailings this year! More info to come next week…in the meantime if you have any questions or want to go ahead and place your order, please email Lennie@TexasFrenchBread.com

Happy Thanksgiving from TFB!

Holiday Hours:
Wednesday 11/23 7am-3pm
Thursday 11/24 CLOSED
Friday  11/25 9am-10pm
Saturday 11/26 9am-10pm
Sunday 11/27 9am-5pm

Can I just say Octopus & White Beans and leave it at that?  Actually, in this case, blanched and grilled baby octopus, cannellini beans, roasted red peppers, sweet potato greens.  Wow.  This may well be one of my favorite things we’ve ever put on the menu – really.   Come join us.

We are very pleased to welcome back my dear friend Kara Bliss this Saturday Night.  Kara will be singing American Songbooks standards and old favorites beginning about 9pm.  $10 cover goes to pay the band.  Shoot us an email at the address below and we’ll save you a seat. Our old building gets a wee bit warm in this 100+ degree weather, so dress comfortably.  And don’t for get to BYOB!

It’s really hot out there. Good time of year for peppers, watermelon, seafood – that kind of thing. With that in mind, I thought I’d give you a heads up about a couple of new dishes on the menu this week.

First, we’ve got a new cold soup (only cold soups right now – don’t even think about a hot soup – you might cause who knows what kind of damage to yourself just by imagining eating a hot soup). Roasted yellow peppers, pureed bread from you know where, yogurt. Having a little trouble with the sourcing info on this one, but we’ll have it on the menu by dinner time, so come try it – it’s really good.

Next – we’ve got a new salad. Seared Texas bay scallops, watermelon from Angel Valley, arugula from Boggy, and local onions from Johnson’s Backyard Farm.

Hope to see you this week.

bon appetit.

Friends – we’ve been kind of not so happy the past few months – but now, all that is
in the past.  You see, for reasons that would take up more of this column
than any of you would likely read – we had been unable to get chickens from
our regular chicken suppliers – the lovely Jane & Terry Levan of Lexington
Texas, who’s chicken ranch is known as Dewberry  Hills Farm – ok, I guess
it’s a chicken “farm”.   Anyway – the wheel of chicken fortune having now
swung back to a more favorable chicken result – I’m pleased to announce that
the lovely little 2lb poussins from Dewberry are back on the menu effective
immediately.
Now – I tried like 15 times to get a decent shot of the finished product,
but all I could come up with was the one to your left – which to my eye,
falls a little short of doing justice to these juicy succulent perfect
chickens.  Let’s suffice it to say that we remove the breast/wing, and then
the leg quarter (minus the thigh bone) – we marinate these in garlic, fresh
herbs, lots of salt & pepper, and a ton of extra virgin olive oil.  When
they’re ready, we brown them in a sauté pan on the stove top, before moving
that pan to the oven to finish.  The key to cooking them perfectly is to
stop before you go too far.  You just have to be fearless – take them out
early – and leave them to finish slowly for 5 minute or so in the warm pan
on a shelf above the oven.  We’re serving them with some gorgeous local new
potatoes and carrots, and topping them with a butter and white wine pan jus.

Can’t express how pleased I was to eat them again last night – and I will be
eating them again tonight. Come join us.

One of the first dishes that Ben made that caused me to think we could actually open up and sustain a real nighttime restaurant was the Mezze Plate. We ran it late summer in 08 when we first openned and we’ve returned to it each summer since. Traditionally, the Mezze, of North African and Arab origins, features a pleathora of small, often vegetable dishes that are served family style when guests arrive as a way of welcoming them and sating their hunger after a long journey. Really great warm weather food – good with cold beer, or bubbly anything.

For ours, we make a garlicy lamb meatball, along with a hot/cold paring of sauces in the form of Harissa (a spicy, sumac infused red pepper hot sauce) and Tatziki (yogurt, cumcumber, dill). We make a quinoa tabouli to go with that, plus Texas green beans in tahini and some kind of preserved or pickled item – tonight we’re going with pickled beets & turnips from Johnson’s Backyard.

It will be back on the menu starting tonight – Friday 7/8.

Murph & Amalia

Hello fans of TFB – I’m a friend of Murph’s who is guest-posting today. This is my favorite picture of Mister Frederick Murph Willcott, whose 50th birthday is Wednesday, May 18, 2011. In the picture he is at a weight-lifting tournament with his awesome trainer Amalia Litras. They train at Hyde Park Gym, where he’s been a member for years. He looks so genuinely happy, because he is doing what he loves: connecting with people, thinking about sports, his health and winning a competition.

The celebration for Murph’s birthday will be private and quiet on Wednesday, at his request, because he’d actually like to take time off and rest a bit, as he’s been working 7 day weeks lately. But that doesn’t mean you can’t text him, or better, tweet @ him, he really likes twitter these days.

But if you can make it, please stop by Texas French Bread on Saturday, May 21, either for dinner early, or for a party after 8:30 or so. If you need a suggestion of how to show your love, he really likes French red wine.  Cheers! And a long healthy life of all the best quality people and food to you, Mister Murph.  Live long and prosper.