It’s 90 Degrees. Get Thee to Sweet Ritual

Austin’s warming up, y’all. We’re hitting 90 degrees in our fair city. Know what that means? Sweet Ritual at 45th and Duval. A scoop of Bluebonnet in a cone will calm all that ails you on a hot day like today. Last week, when it was only 80 degrees but still, we stopped in for for two vanilla scoops chock full of chunks of dried apricot. Some of our favorite flavors include Cubano, Cookies & Cream, Toasted Coconut, Chocolate Chai, Cherry Springer, and Cinnamonkey Elephantastic. All vegan, all natural, with gluten free and soy free options, their own caramel sauces you can bring home in darling bear-shaped squeeze bottles and a freezer full of pre-packed pints to, there is every reason to feel good about walking into Sweet Ritual and eating ice cream for lunch on a hot day.

We follow them in all the ways and highly suggest you get with ’em on instagram if you’re interested in seeing shots of the ice cream sundaes of your dreams: @sweetritual

Recent Eats: Bouldin Creek Cafe

Image via bouldincreek.com

 

The other night, after we finished our book slingin’ shifts at BookPeople, we headed to Bouldin Creek Cafe on South 1st for supper. We sat at the bar and watched the bartenders/baristas/magicians whip out drink orders while folks worked on laptops at tall tables behind us. There’s a comfortable buzz to Bouldin I always enjoy, a mix of people working, drinking coffee, drinking beer, relaxing for long meals, sitting at outside tables with their dogs. I don’t think I can recall a single visit to Bouldin when there wasn’t a pup under a table out front. Or a single visit when I didn’t order a Purple Lady. (Champagne with a shot of lavender syrup. Violet perfection.)

While we waited for our food, Carolyn and her boyfriend Chris reminisced about Bouldin’s previous incarnation at 1501 S. 1st. It seems anyone who visited the old Bouldin has stories to tell of the characters who would frequent its tables, including former local celebrity and one time candidate for Mayor of Austin, Leslie (may his incomparable soul rest in fabulous peace). Carolyn and Chris have memories of Leslie busing tables and shooting leftover salsa, Austinites drinking beer and (ahem) relaxing with a greenery that wasn’t kale at nine o’clock in the morning. At that time, Bouldin Creek Cafe was one of a handful of places to get a good vegan meal in Austin.

While there are certainly more options now, Bouldin remains at the top of the list when it comes to the best vegan dining in our fair city. Here are the dishes we dug into the other night:

I couldn’t resist my favorite dish on Bouldin’s menu, the Tarzan Salad. It’s entirely possible that I could live the rest of my life on nutritional yeast, which coats the broccoli and portobello in this dish. They give you a good half of an avocado on this plate, too. This is one serious salad. 

Chris went for the enchiladas filled with chorizo and topped with a chipotle sauce, pumpkin seeds and vegan cheeze.

After chips & guacamole and a hefeweizen, Carolyn opted for the light (but filling) Tofu Broccoli Salad with ginger/miso dressing.

 

Thanks for the good eats, Bouldin! And we have to give a  special shout out to Eric, the man behind the bar who took care of us that night. His vegan lifestyle is what prompted him to work at Bouldin. Thanks for chatting with us and serving up our supper, Eric!

Anyone else out there love Bouldin as much as we do? Have fond memories of Leslie or any other colorful characters from the previous location?

 

VSG In the Kitchen: Feasting from Bryant Terry’s AFRO-VEGAN

Last weekend we cooked up a feast from one of our favorite new vegan cookbooks, Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed by Bryant Terry.

We posted about the experience over on our tumblr (we hadn’t created this WordPress site yet; expect future cooking posts to appear right here in the comfort of this little blog – we’re getting there, y’all). 

On the menu:

Texas Caviar

Creole-Spiced Plantain Chips

All-Green Spring Slaw

Sweet Potato & Lima Bean Tagine (Which totally freaking rocked!)

Who Are We? What’s Vegan Survival Guide All About?

 

Greetings! We are Carolyn Tracy and Julie Wernersbach, two vegans living and eating in Austin, Texas. This is our blog about vegan cooking, eating and living. Here you’ll find recipes we’ve made and loved, vegan eateries in Austin that are worth checking out, and updates about the process of researching, writing and creating our upcoming book, Vegan Survival Guide: Austin, Texas (History Press, release slated for January 2015).

In addition to being vegans, we’re also booksellers. We both work for BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in Texas, located in downtown Austin (corner of 6th and Lamar, come visit us, y’all). We love books. We love good food. We love books about good food… and so we’re writing one.

We hope you’ll keep reading, hope you’ll comment, hope you’ll tell us about the last best thing you ate and the last best book you read.

Thanks for visiting! Come back soon, y’all!