Hill Country Wine & Food Festival Profile: Paula Disbrowe

We've said it before and we'll say it again: your website project, www.dishola.com, is food porn at it's best. We've touted the wonders of Wheasville Food Co-op's Vegetarian Frito Pie and wandered through the favorite dishes of food celebrity Andrew Zimmern, but, most importantly, we've discovered new dishes. You must be proud of the site...

Thanks, we are extremely proud. Most of the credit goes to my partner in crime, Lindsey Simon, who has been the brilliant wizard behind the technical side of the site. The things he's created, like the sites amazing geocoding function that pulls up the address and phone for you. Dishola is growing daily, and will continue to morph into an ever-exciting destination. I love it that it currently offers everything from gorditas in Uvalde, Texas, to coconut desserts in Bora Bora, to your recent addition of the fries at the Alamo Draft House.

Your new book, Cowgirl Cuisine: Rustic Recipes and Cowgirl Adventures from a Texas Ranch, is clearly a little bit playful yet serious about good food. What are your favorite Texas dishes within its pages?

Boy, that's a tough one, but I'll say the Pear-Rosemary Quick Bread, the Smoky Red Chile Salsa, the bright and flavorful Carrot Habero Soup, rich and fiery Texas Beef Chili with Poplanos and Beer, Pot Roast with Coffee and Whiskey (the meat is tender and buttery and the broth is full of flavor), and, at the risk of revealing a deep fondness for whiskey..the Chocolate Whiskey Cake Rocks (it has the faintest whiff of black pepper and cloves). The Ginger Goat Cookies are also pretty addictive.

You and Rebecca Rather (of Rather Sweet Bakery) will be teaming up with the Texas Beef Council to showcase cowgirl cooks at the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival's Sunday Fair this weekend. We've even heard rumors of a chuckwagon. What should we expect?

Expect to see Rebecca and I in pearl snap button shirts and cowboy hats, smiling and laughing (that's right, we've been sipping wine all afternoon), and handing out tacos (smoked steak tacos with pineapple pico on maseca corn tortillas). We're hanging out with the Texas Beef Council.

What are your favorite Texas dishes?

Enchiladas Verdes, fresh corn tortillas, smoked sausage, puffy tacos from San Antone, grilled quail, Amy's coffee and sweet cream ice cream, Picosos peanuts from Helotes, Texas. I honestly think my last meal could be chips and salsa and a proper margarita (silver tequila, cointreau or controy from Mexico and fresh lime juice--keep that simple syrup outta there).

austinist is an Official Media Sponsor of the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival
photo courtesy www.dishola.com