Jeff Blank has owned Austin’s Hudson’s on the Bend since 1984, hailing acclaim for his adventurous flavor contortions which playfully tease the taste buds with dishes like Watermelon-injected Pork Tenderloin or Root Beer Ribs with Sarsparilla BBQ Sauce. Hudson’s creatively exotic, upscale/down-home menu includes venison, wild boar, pheasant, quail, trout, lobster, salmon, shrimp, Black Angus beef, rattlesnake, duck, escargot, lamb—let’s just say this guy knows his meat like no other Texan. Blank is the author of Cooking Fearlessly and Other Adventures from Hudson’s on the Bend and Fired Up: More Recipes and Adventues from Hudson’s on the Bend. He has been featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, Texas Monthly, Cooking Light, Bon Apetite, and Southern Living. Blank also teaches a series of cooking classes at his home overlooking Lake Travis. We sat down with Blank one morning at Hudson’s last week - sunlight filtering in through the wine glasses which stood at silent attention during these rare peaceful moments before the deliveries and phone calls begin, and long before the first customer touches lip to fork. Despite his multiple accolades, you will find no pretention here: Blank emerges from the kitchen, suntanned and smiling, to sit down and chat with Austinist in the midst of the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival.

When did you begin cooking?

Like everyone else, I have very humble beginnings. Back in the late 60’s, my folks built a house in Lakeway. When I was fifteen, I was the Beef ‘n’ Bun manager, and that was a hamburger stand open from Memorial Day til Labor Day. So that was my first job, as a hamburger flipper/soda jerk. Then I went to hotel and restaurant school after that and I had a restaurant in Aspen for seven years in the ‘70s and then I came back to Texas because I love Bill Clinton.

How did you become so adventurous in the kitchen?

When we started, American regional cuisine was just at its birth. Alice Waters was out in Berkeley doing Chez Panisse and Larry Forgione was in New York doing New England food, more regional. Before that, it was pretty much French, German ... cafeteria was the food of America. When we decided to do this one, we wanted to do regional cuisine of Texas. Texas is from Mexican spice to German spice to cowboy barbecue, so all those influences on this part of the world were very spicy. So, to blend those together—the spice and the adventure—was pretty natural. A lot of the things - like the rattlesnake cakes - were done kind of tongue in cheek, you know - almost as a joke. We got some rattlesnake game and we said, 'You know, let’s make it like a crabcake!' and then we sautéed it and put it on the menu, and it was received so well.So many New Yorkers or Californians here in Texas would bring their friends or business associates in and say, 'You have to try this while you’re in Texas,' or even ask us not to tell them.

Do you take into consideration what people are willing to eat or do you think it’s more important to just dive in and create your menu fearlessly too?

Well, both. We always like the shock factor. One winter we even put penguin on the menu.

And lion once, right?

Oh yes, lion. Lion didn’t sell well. Big cats ... just don’t sell well.

What about the penguin?

Well, it was questionable too.

They’re too cute!

Laughs What we were trying to do was get people’s attention ... and that worked! And we’ve found over the years that our regular clientele has learned to trust us - like, 'Okay, you guys cook African lion, so we’ll try it!' African lion was a unique one - again, tongue in cheek. When it didn’t sell (it was very expensive) we put a little lion on the same plate as a little lamb and called it the Biblical Special, where the lion and the lamb lay down on the same plate! Laughs heartily

What’s your favorite thing on the Hudson’s menu right now?

Gosh, you know, it varies. Right now I am real partial to the red snapper with a horseradish crust on top of dill gnocchi and an herbed corn broth. It’s really exceptional. On the wild game part, my favorite still is the mixed grill because there’s a little variety - there’s quail and there’s game sausage we make here, and there’s venison and buffalo. So you get a little taste of a lot of things.

Do you hunt?

I do, I do ... I’m not a real avid hunter, but I probably go deer hunting maybe two or three times a year and bird hunting about the same. But I’m not one of those crazy hunters that, you know, lives for it. I think it’s more like people expect me to hunt, so ... chuckles.

Obviously the Hill Country has really influenced your cuisine. Are there any other parts of the country you could see yourself opening a restaurant?

Not really. You know, other parts of the world interest me, and parts of California, because you get so much great produce and everything grows seasonally almost year-round. A real big theme of American cuisine now is what’s locally and organically grown, what’s at the farmers' market. It’s much more challenging and fun to cook things that are in season regionally. So that’s why I’d say Napa Valley, because you’re close to everything out there. I’ve jokingly kidded about wanting to open up a restaurant in Las Vegas. It’d be fun to have a huge hotel with a little Texas stone house inside the hotel, to create your own little world. But I believe that, when you leave your primary flagship money-making restaurant, you really dilute yourself. So what I’ve done is created different revenue streams to create more money. Obviously, it’s very difficult to stay in business for twenty-four years in the restaurant business. So by doing cookbooks, cooking school, and sauces, we’ve created other streams of money which will support us, like the deal after 9/11, or when the economy’s supposed to be turning down-- Believe it or not, at this very moment a cowboy-hatted gentleman appears at the door, as if on cue: “Good mornin’! How are y’all doin’? Sorry to be botherin’ y’all, I just need to get some cherry sauce.” Blank excuses himself and humbly rings the dude up for two jars of guava sour cherry sauce, a blend made to accompany venison.

What are your thoughts on the restaurant scene in Austin?

Well, Austin is definitely its own little island in the middle of the state. Houston and Dallas have some great restaurants, of course, but we’ve found that Austin is more adventurous and just much more our type of clientele. When you go past those regions, if you don’t have chicken fried steak on the menu, you’re not gonna stay in business! So unless you’re in one of these little pockets, where the more affluent, sophisticated diners are, you’re not gonna make it.

What’s the kitchen like back there? I imagine a fearless crew of warriors back there…

Well, our kitchen back there used to be a garage. So the way Neil Young had his garage band, we have our garage kitchen. It’s very nice now that we’ve upgraded several times. People are amazed at what we do back there for how small it is. Saturday night, we’ll do 250 dinners max and it’s really a ballet of elbows, very tight quarters. We have eight cooks working in a space that’s very small. We do have a live fire back there so there’s lots of smoke and fire back there.

At last year’s Hill County Food and Wine Festival, you battled David Ansel, the Soup Peddler. If you could choose, what other Austin chef would you like to have a friendly Iron Chef-style competition with?

Tyson Cole - I’m a big fan of his food for two reasons. One, it’s so completely different from what we do. Plus, Tyson, besides being a great guy, is a really inspired chef—he knows flavor combinations. So if we were to have a grab bag of odd things, it’d be fun because he’d go one direction and I’d go the other direction. Other than that, I’m getting’ too old for that Iron Chef stuff! Before the Iron Chef, I did Ready…Set…Cook! on the Food Network. Not so much Hollywood - it was just open your bag and see what’s in it and you have twenty minutes to prepare something. I did six episodes - won six and lost six.

What about if you could pick any other chefs in the country, or even the world, to cook beside?

I love what Thomas Keller does; he has the French Laundry in Napa and Per Se in New York. I love his food, his inspiration, his creation and detailwork. I respect Wolfgang Puck for being a great businessman in the industry. Alice Waters, I’ve met and talked with her quite a bit. Her whole thing is sustainable, green, organic, and I just love that. She has done so much with educating children and chefs too in that regard. So if I were to choose three, it would be Thomas Keller, Alice Waters, and Wolfgang Puck. And of course Julia, but we’d have to bring her back from the other side.

This will be your twenty-third year participating in the Hill Country Food and Wine Festival! Can you disclose what you’ll be demo-ing this year?

One Friday night (at Stars across Texas), we’ll be doing a grilled peach that is wrapped in a house-made prosciutto venison. It’s gonna be grilled and topped with a little goat cheese from Pure Luck Dairy in Dripping Springs and then the whole dish is topped with a habanero spice so it should be hot, then salty from the prosciutto and sweetness from the peach. For years, we have done big things but there will be two hundred people showing up taking all these bites so we’re better off doing just a mouthful, a taste explosion! And then on Sunday, I’m demo-ing at the San Gabriel Park (Sunday Fair). I’m doing a venison backstrap rubbed with a dry rub of coffee, chili, and cocoa, then smoked and topped with a beer blanc. The French make a beer blanc and it’s a white wine butter sauce but in Texas we do a beer blanc with Shiner bock instead of white wine. Then I’m doing a grilled peach and the center is filled with goat cheese and spiced honey.

What are your thoughts on the Hill Country Food and Wine Festival as compared to other food events you’ve been a part of?

Gosh, I’ve watched it go from a small event representing Texas wines to huge growth so there are some benefits and some detractors. There’s a small food and wine festival in Buffalo Gap, TX which is at Tom Perini’s ranch and restaurant and that is the way the festival used to be. I love the smaller ones where you have a more intimate relationship with the guests. The Texas Hill Country Food and Wine is well organized, but it’s huge now! There will be 1200 people at the Friday night event and who knows how many on Sunday ... but one of the things I love about the festival is it’s the only time two things happen. We get to see all the chefs we like to see, all the local San Antonio, Houston, Dallas chefs show up and, in a very short amount of time, we get to visit, say hello, and renew our friendship. The other thing that’s really important to me is getting to see my customers, the foodies - people who are really romanced by food and wine show up at these events and we get to talk to them one on one. As chefs, a lot of times we don’t get to see them - they come in and dine and leave before we can come out and visit. So it’s great to put a face with a name and it’s great for the ego too - these are the people that really appreciate you…and the people who don’t have a great inspiration aren’t gonna bother to come up to you! So we’re thinkin’, “Everyone loves us here!” Laughs heartily