Lunch: A light lunch of sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, and Dai Due headcheese.

Dinner: Leftovers from The Salt Lick - Baby Back Ribs, a spare rib, brisket, sausage, potato salad, and cole slaw.

Lunch: Braden and Kelly drove up from San Antonio and we met up for lunch at Coco's Cafe (8557 Research Blvd # 118, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 833-6588‎). Originally, they had suggested Din Ho Chinese BBQ but we had a couple of bad experiences there and Tina flat out refused to go back. We suggested Coco's Cafe next door to Din Ho which has a good reputation. We didn't know it was the same Coco's Cafe (in a different location) that we ate at a couple weeks ago.

We ordered several things to try. I had the pork belly with rice for my main dish (they called it Bacon Pork w/Rice - but I don't think it's bacon unless smoke is involved or it has been cured). My pork belly was chewy and tough.

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What I Ate: September 7, 2009 (Coco's Cafe, Burger King)

Lunch: Went shopping at Nordstrom in Barton Creek Mall (2901 S Capital of Texas Hwy, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 691-3500‎), so we had a nice lunch at the Cafe Bistro. We split a Bistro Club Sandwich (sliced chicken breast, organic baby greens, crisp bacon, roma tomato, avocado, french green beans with garlic aioli on toasted rustic bread) which was nice and flavorful - the bread, bacon, and avocado make the sandwich. The fries and Kalamata olive aioli served with the sandwich were excellent.

We also split the Chicken Artichoke & Goat Cheese Salad (organic baby greens, roasted chicken breast, marinated artichoke hearts, goat cheese, zest chiles and garlic croutons with dijon balsamic vinaigrette). We enjoy the casual but classy food at Nordstrom Bistro Cafe and the Barton Creek location prepares their food just as well as the others we've been to.

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What I Ate: September 6, 2009 (Nordstrom Cafe Bistro, The Salt Lick)

Lunch: I took a full day training class at Cabela's in Buda, Texas, so I ate lunch from their cafe - venison bratwurst with sauerkraut.

Dinner: Tina picked me up from Cabela's at around 8:30pm, so we headed across the parking lot to Cracker Barrel. I've only been to a Cracker Barrel once (I think it was in South Carolina) and I don't think Tina's been to one before. I ordered the lemon pepper grilled trout with corn, green beans, and hash brown casserole.

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What I Ate: September 5, 2009 (Cabela's, Cracker Barrel)

Lunch: I heated the remaining piece of Dai Due cider-braised pork belly. I cooked down the apple cider and onion braising liquid and mixed in a little slurry of corn starch to thicken and used it as a sauce. Then I paired it with sweet corn and wilted arugula with cherry tomatoes.

Dinner: After watering the trees on our home site again, Tina and I headed over to Olive Garden (we tried the exact same thing two nights ago) and this time got there early enough that they hadn't closed. It also helped that on Fridays they stay open one more hour. The lighting was dim and the table small, so I didn't have much room to work in. I decided to take the pictures, handheld, at ISO 6400 (HI-2 on my camera) at f/2.8 with 1/50 sec exposure. Even at 17mm (36mm equivalent if I was using 35mm film or a full frame sensor), there's a little camera shake. To reduce noise and color splotches (blue is most common), I took several shots in a row and merged them together, averaging the pixels (with Photomatix Pro 3.2). (This can be done with Photoshop CS4, but I'm on CS3 and am waiting for CS5 to upgrade.) Enough photo talk - we started with the salad.

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What I Ate: September 4, 2009 (Olive Garden)

Lunch: Leftover Chicken Pot Pie with arugula (and Champagne cherry tomatoes - not shown)

Dinner: Maestri Pastrai lemon penne with my jarred meat sauce with sauteed turnip greens

Lunch: After a busy morning installing fiberglass insulation into my new garage, we stopped in at a Steak 'n Shake for lunch on the way home. I decided to treat myself to a root beer float.

I also ordered a Double Cheeseburger with Bacon. I think they call it something else - like a Bacon 'n Cheese Double Steakburger or something like that. Ate it all.

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What I Ate: September 2, 2009 (Steak 'n Shake, Taco Cabana)

Lunch: I had to drive into North Austin to have my trunk fixed, so on my way home I decided to pick up some lunch. I swung into the Texas Pie Company in Kyle to pick up a Chicken Pot Pie. It turned out they only have 4 serving or 8 serving chicken pot pies during the week (individual serving sizes are available on Fridays only), so I bought one of those. They handed my directions and I discovered it would take an hour to bake in the oven. So, I drove one block down Center St. to the newly opened Mr. Spuds where I purchased a loaded baked potato. It came with butter, sour cream, bacon, shredded cheese, and chives (although the chives were really scallions). I took that home and ate a salad of fresh arugula with it. Baked potatoes are good. I might not have another sandwich at Mr. Spuds, but if I'm thinking of a baked potato for fast food, I'm headed there for sure.

Dinner: Since I had the Chicken Pot Pie from the Texas Pie Company (202 W Center St, Kyle, TX‎ - (512) 268-5885‎) was in my freezer and I had been thinking of chicken pot pie for the last several hours, I baked that for dinner. (I didn't have any sheet pans unpacked, so I ended up using the bottom half of the broiler pan that came with the oven in the house.) Tina and I ate half the pie which had a wonderful crumbly crust, flavorful gravy, and chunks of bland (but tender) white meat. Once we made sure to eat the breast meat with crust and ample gravy, every bit of the pie was delicious. We had a little trouble stopping, but once we had only half of the pie remaining, we thought it best to stop eating since we were content and didn't really need to eat more (we just wanted to keep tasting the crust and gravy).

Dinner: Dai Due Butcher Shop's made a cider-braised pork belly with pastured pork from Richardson Farms in Rockdale just northeast of Austin braised 8 hours with local apples from Love Creek Orchards in Medina, southwest of Austin. The pork was juicy and fell apart in the mouth. The fat was slightly sweet and succulent without any of the nasty taste of the clumps of fat you get in supermarket pork. Instead of the fat being gross - it was heavenly. The meat tasted of subtle cinnamon and cloves. We ate it with rosemary, olive oil bread and spinach.

Lunch: Leg of a rotisserie chicken from Central Market with sweet corn and spinach.

Dinner: In the afternoon we headed over to this month's Austin Food Blogger's Potluck. Today's potluck was in celebration of the Hatch chile, so I had brought Hatch chile infused chocolate truffles and a Hatch chile cheese spread and a box of Triscuits.

The spread we had for the dinner was pretty incredible with dishes ranging from sushi to cornbread to meatballs to baba ghanoush. Desserts were just as far ranging with brownies, cobbler, pecan brittle, and ice cream topped with a Hatch chile sauce. Food bloggers ate, drank, talked, laughed, and pretty much a good time was had by all.

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What I Ate: August 30, 2009 (Mighty Fine Burgers, Hatch Chile Themed Austin Food Blogger Potluck)