Dinner: Yesterday, I started cooking the short ribs for tonight's dinner. I vacuum sealed the short ribs with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and brown sugar. Then I placed the pack into a rice cooker filled with water being held at 56°C (133°F) and let it cook. The short ribs are pasteurized if held for at least 2.5 hours after the interior of the meat reaches equilibrium temperature. Since I wanted to convert as much of the collagen into gelatin as possible, I held it there for about 24 hours. (More time would be even better - but after 24 hours, most of the collagen has denatured.)

After I removed the short ribs from the water bath, I seared them on the grill while basting with the juices from the vacuum bag. I've had a fair amount of food prepared sous vide at restaurants, but never short ribs. This was also the first time where we've had short ribs medium-rare (because when cooking short ribs it's best to use a cooking process that will convert collagen to gelatin which typically results in a fairly high internal temperature). (Of course, we've had thinly sliced short ribs cooked medium-rare in Korean BBQ, but nothing involving relatively large pieces of meat.) The result is some of the most flavorful and tender (falling apart in the mouth tenderness) beef we've ever had. I don't think I'm ever going to braise short ribs again when I can sous vide them.

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What I Ate: March 21, 2010 (Mighty Fine Burger, Sous Vide Short Ribs)

Dinner: I ate Aidells meatballs served on sauteed arugula and seasoned rice.

Lunch: I ate the remaining two slices of Domino's Deluxe Feast Deep Dish Pizza.

Lunch: I sous vide cooked two pieces of sockeye salmon to 49°C (120°F) as an experiment. I found it to be well textured, but a little overdone for our taste. Next time we'll try it at a slightly lower temperature. Tina prepared a lemon penne with olive oil and broccoli with fennel side.

Dinner: I had dumplings.

Lunch: I ate the last of the frozen tamales from Costco for lunch.

Dinner: I picked up a Domino's Pizza "Deep Dish" Deluxe Feast Pizza without the butter-garlic sauce brushed on the crust. This one was better than the last take-out pizza we had, but still just so-so.

Lunch: We ate the leftover mushroom risotto and seafood with puff pastry from South Congress Cafe for lunch. The risotto was a little bland until we added a pinch of salt which drastically increased its quality.

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What I Ate: March 17, 2010

Dinner: We ate dinner with Jeff Potter who is soon to come out with a book called Cooking For Geeks (which I think has a good chance to be on par with On Food and Cooking - keep an eye out for it when O'Reilly publishes it later this year). Originally, we were planning on going to The Odd Duck, but due to the rainy weather, we decided indoors would be better. We went to South Congress Cafe (1600 South Congress Avenue, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 447-3905‎).

We split a calamari appetizer, which, as usual, are perfectly cooked (just long enough to be soft and tender without moving into the chewy stage).

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What I Ate: March 16, 2010 (South Congress Cafe)

Lunch: Tuna fish salad sandwich.

Dinner: Bowtie (farfalle) pasta with meat sauce.

Lunch: Costco - again. This time I got a Chicken Caesar Salad.

Dinner: After the premier of Elektra Luxx (where the digital projector failed before the last fifteen minutes, so no one got to see the end), I came home and ate the leftover steak and some grilled bell peppers.

Today's SXSW celebrity shot is of Carla Gugino, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Malin Ackerman during a Q&A period while we waited for the projector to be fixed (which never happened).

Lunch: While walking through the Austin Convention Center, I thought I smelled fried chicken. After that, I couldn't shake the desire to eat fried chicken, so I grabbed a three piece meal from KFC on the way home.

Dinner: Tina and I ate at Mighty Fine for dinner. I had a Bacon Jr. Cheeseburger with Grilled Jalapenos.

At SXSW, I attended a panel discussion by some directors who have worked in the horror genre. Quentin Tarantino was supposed to be on the panel but couldn't make it. We still had a pretty decent panel though with Robert Rodriguez, Matt Reeves, Neil Marshall, Ruben Fleischer, and Ti West. Here's a photo I took of Robert Rodriguez (one of my favorite directors) with Ruben Fleischer (the director of last year's excellent Zombieland).

Lunch: I spent the morning at South by Southwest and came home to take delivery of my new desk and help the installers mount my keyboard trays properly. Then I made crab salad sandwiches for our lunch.

Dinner: I gulped down nutrition bars and a burger while standing in line for Kick-Ass (which I got to see and thought it was really well done) and the sneak peek for Predators (which I did not get into). No picture unfortunately.

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What I Ate: March 12, 2010 (Kick-Ass Premier)