It looks like public art. And the arresting Austin Open Table is just that. Yet the stylized picnic table with benches and festive light trees planted an interstitial space near West Cesar Chavez Street and North Lamar Boulevard invites a party.
Ellen Rozman and Andrew Ashmore
So the scamps with Homegrown Revival camped there at dusk on Saturday. These young farmers, foragers, cooks and artists put together a meal of wild and raw food, prepared under tents then served at the long table. Super cool idea.
Sonya Cote and David Barrow
Revivalists Sonya Cote and David Barrow — also a couple — hope to repeat the experience with different menus for the next several months, then take the show on the road. You may recognize Cote as the chef at Hillside Farmacy. Photographer Barrow is carefully documenting each Revival meal for a future cookbook.
Veronica Vallado and Carl Schultz
Several fascinating folks introduced themselves. One with the delicious name Tink Pinkard is a forager. He provided the flathead catfish — which, he was careful to explain, are not bottom feeders like their brethren — from the Colorado and Brazos rivers.
Lightly fried with a Boggy Creek Farms breading, they proved denser and tastier than the usual suspects. This dish, served family style, was refreshed with chilled Gaia melon and Armenian cucumber soup.
Other guests told of backyard farms and deeply rooted eateries in East Austin. A lovely way to start the evening. After I’d left, late summer greens with wild dove, smoked goat ribs with cream and duck fat polenta and raw goat’s milk ice cream were served.
Was it wrong to leave?