QUILT MARKET : PART ONE

I was super lucky last weekend to tag along to Quilt Market in Houston Texas with Jacqueline and Chris from Soak. (Guess which cute bunny tagged along with me!) I’ve been curious to check out this huge trade show and quilt festival since I opened the workroom.

Funny thing is, this first post has nothing to do with the fabric or the quilts!

We left insanely early on Friday morning to catch a 6am flight. We had a stop over in Cincinnati and then got detoured to Austin because of bad weather. I actually really wanted to go to Austin, but all I got to see this time was the rainy tarmac from the open door of our tiny aircraft as we got extra fuel to make it to Houston.

I’ve never been to Texas and I was hoping for warm weather, but it was cold and rainy the whole time. I had packed my bathing suit for the trip, but didn’t even make it up to see the rooftop pool at our hotel.

One of the tricky things with traveling is finding good local food. I’ll admit that I didn’t do any research on Houston before the trip, so I certainly wasn’t prepared with any suggestions. By some chance, both Jacqueline and I spotted a cute looking restaurant outside the downtown core on a cab ride back to the hotel Friday night. I had the good sense to write down the name, T’afia, so that we could check it out online later.

Saturday night was the famous Moda dinner party. We had originally planned on going to this free dinner. After a bit of thought we made the best decision of the trip and made a reservation at T’afia instead.

If you ever go to Houston, you must visit T’afia. T’Afia is owned by Monica Pope and the focus is all local. Every Saturday morning they host a farmers market in their parking lot and develop their menus based on what’s available. It was one of the best meals that I can ever remember having. Absolutely everything we had from start to finish was delightful, including the service. It was so good that we wanted to return on Sunday night so that we could keep eating through the menu. I wanted to try EVERYTHING. Sadly, they are closed both Sundays and Mondays.

I’m listing what I had for dinner because I really don’t want to forget it.

• Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo, wrapped in bacon
• Butter lettuce, radicchio & cucumbers, pinenut, goat cheese, sherry walnut vinaigrette
• Yaokum Co. flat iron steak, roasted sweet potatoes, miso sauce
• Texas cheese selection: veldhuizen bosque blue & gruyere and paula’s hoja santa with house crackers and panforte
• Beet brownie with honeycomb and blue cheese
• Inwood Estates Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon

Before we left, we coerced our kind waiter at T’afia to give us a list of his recommended restaurants for our Sunday night dinner. We picked a Texas BBQ joint, Beaver’s. When we met up with Heather Bailey and her husband Isaac during the day, we invited them to have dinner with us. They brought along their friends Joey and Jona of Fabritopia. My mind is a blur of what we talked about during dinner but it was super fun and filled with laughs. Heather and I both tackled the ‘Pit boss Chickwhich’ sandwich for dinner (All-natural smoked shredded chicken made sloppy with “Ring of Fire” BBQ sauce, a fried egg, crispy cornmeal onions, cole slaw and pickle) and for dessert we all shared Candied Bacon Ice Cream, Brown Butter Ice Cream and Brownie Balls (Fried brownies, peanut butter and vanilla ice cream).

I have to tell you, I would go back to Quilt Market again just for all this delicious food. That’s not to say the fabrics were not amazing. They were! The next post is all about the fabric. Check out the first slide show of my trip…