1. Texas Olive Oil. We try to be as locavorous as possible for many reasons. But truly this is high quality olive oil, which I believe to be pure and unadulterated, unlike the rapport some other “imported” olive oils are getting. We love the lemon olive oil from Texas Olive Ranch and for my daughter’s 8th birthday present, we gave her a bottle of their basil olive oil as part of her birthday package. She gawked at it for a whole minute in front of all her little 7 and 8 year old friends. 
2. Cultured Cream Cheese. It’s hard to go back to Philadelphia after this. Cultured cream cheese has a faintly tart taste that falls back so it’s almost unnoticed. Great with bagels.
3. Scotch. I started enjoying the fine flavor of good scotch. But then it gave me heartburn. And I realized I’m not an Indian uncle. I really must be aging!! It’s still on my favorites list right now, but may disappear later.
4. Butter. This is most certainly not a new favorite thing of mine but since this is a new column for me, I need to put a few brands I like in here, such as Plugra or Lurpak for baking, softened Amul for spreading, Kerrygold’s garlic herb compound butter (they’ve done all the hard work for us!), Vermont Creamery’s excellent cultured butter with sea salt crystals, so enticing in its cute little basket and adored by all last Thanksgiving on our dinner rolls. My everyday butter is Double Devon salted butter (for buttered peas, buttered toast, buttered veggies, etc..). At this point on this list, you are probably realizing I spend a lot on food. I learned that from my parents who taught me to spend money on food, not clothes. Unfortunately, I do both.
5. Harmless Harvest’s 100% raw coconut water. Again, it’s hard to go back to those other brands. But with that crazy price, despite my efforts to try to realize that good food costs money, I may have to go back
6. Qia Chia Seed brand cereal. It’s not really cereal in the cold milk and cold sweet flakes in a bowl sense. But on the rare occasion that we do Breakfast for Dinner, I tried soaking some of this in cold milk and the kids lapped it up, like good little obedient puppies…I mean children.
7. Lattes at Hillside Farmacy. Yes a few good coffee and espresso shops abound in Austin now (check out the Austin Food Blogger City Guide list here). And my husband is his own barista and roasts his own beans, etc.. but I do like their lattes here. I like the size of the latte, the foam is perfect, and the beans are topnotch. Size and mug of latte is strangely important to me. If it’s a large cup, like a teacup, the latte gets cold too fast for my liking. Besides the foam tends to dissipate faster. And I just can’t drink 12 ounces of latte, so right now, Hillside has my favorite latte. I’ve loved Cafe Medici’s, Houndstooth’s, and JP Java’s before.
8. Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson. Reads like a novel. He’s an inspiration.
9. Blog communities. We have a really great one in Austin. I didn’t realize it’s rather uniqueness until recently. We published our very own gorgeous cookbook, which I blogged about earlier.
10. Grocery co-ops. I would drive by Wheatsville Co-op in college wondering who on Earth would shop there. Such a teeny store, no parking, and HEB had everything, and cheaper! (or so I thought at the time) Well, that is truly the thoughts of a college kid. Boy how I’ve grown up. As mentioned before here on my blog, I almost exclusively shop there now for the last couple of years, and a little bit at Whole Foods and Central Market. But we can get virtually everything we need at the co-op and much of it is local so I actually still don’t even belong to a CSA. Last Fall, I was hired to shoot some cooking videos for the National Grocery Co-op Association. They were finally produced and went online recently. Those videos will be available here on my site very very soon!

Stay tuned for this bi-monthly column on my blog on my favorite food finds (and more!).

What are your favorites right this second?

It’s been months since I’ve written, here or on paper. I have running thoughts, and I always want to write. But writing in peace on a table is a luxury for me right now, and I have had some other priorities in my life. But when the urge to discuss, to spill the emotions to whoever will listen, to expel the mental congestion and the whirling in the chest, the pen and paper are where I like to go.

And so, even though this is a food blog, today I’m writing about Newtown and its people. Sandy Hook and its teachers, like Lauren, whose funeral is today. The parents of those 20 kids and those precious ever-so-little children. Benjamin, Emilie, and the other ones whose names have stuck in my head. I refuse to talk about the shooter. He’s had enough coverage. I will remember Victoria Soto’s name forever. That day and this Christmas, I won’t forget. I’m also writing about the 23 year old Delhi medical student who lies in a hospital today fighting for her life, her internal organs permanently damaged from the brutality of something I can’t even bear to type the words. Therein lies more hate. Misogyny. And of course in the background is always the never-ending religious fervor in the world leading to violence. Your hate is despicable. But I won’t hate your hate. Because I won’t ever be like you.

A message for the evil-doers in this world: You have made me fear guns even more. You have made me see more hate and above all fear the hate in this world. You have made me look at the clock every day since last Friday, more and more relieved as the hands go toward the afternoon hours, eager to pick up my child at 2:45pm. But what I know is this:  you have made me have a fiercer love than ever before. And that fierce love multiplied by hundreds of thousands, no millions of people around the world have already overcome the fear. Love conquers fear. So you will never get us.