"I've got a golden ticket!"

"I've got a golden ticket!" as Charlie exclaimed to Grandpa Joe...

This is kind of how I felt when Addie Broyles (@broylesa) of the Austin Statesman told me last week that I got a ticket (after it was sold out) for her annual Austin Food Bloggers Bash put on by Austin360 and CLEAR.

With 2 tickets (not really golden, but computer printed) and a bottle of freshly-made limoncello in hand - as well as my husband as my date - we were off to start our annual week of SXSW fun. The event was held here in Downtown Austin at the Cedar Door as part of SXSWi (the South by Southest conference's interactive portion of the 10-day event). Since this party was for and about food bloggers, we naturally went using our online handles, namely @girlgonegrits & @tequilabob23. After signing in and having our picture taken, we were served the Cedar Door's famous Mexican Martini's, courtesy of Twin Liquors.



Of course, with this being both a party for foodies as well as a SXSW event, we fully expected some tasty food to go along with the drinks and we weren't disappointed. The spread was Texas soul food - AKA - Tex-Mex. Make your own tacos and nachos (minus the ballpark cheese goop) along with chips and salsa, the spread consisted of chicken, pork, beef and grilled vegetables as the main fillers. The chips were exceptionally tasty as were all of the meats and toppings. As the first wave of guests settled in, champagne was passed around and we toasted with Addie to another great year of great food and great people writing about it.



Out on the street was the "Ice Cream Man" whose sole mission is to travel the circuit of music festivals just to give out free ice cream - Hello! How amazing of a job is that I ask!?! Everyone can use a free ice cream and I didn't even care that the early evening temperature had dropped to the point that I was glad I had brought my sweater - I was ready! I went with a pineapple-basil ice pop and it was absolutely perfect, while my always predictable hubby went with the always perfect Blue Bell fudgesicle. We said our goodbyes to Addie, passed her a bottle of our 2010 limoncello and picked up a swag bag with cool goodies along with a few other sweet treats including some bacon pecan toffee from epicuriosites.com (all I can say when I bit into it is "oh mama!" - yes, it's that good) and a cool little snickerdoodle twinkie from Retro Bizarro Pastries.







After heading out, we walked maybe a block only to smell more delightful aromas coming from a food trailer serving up empanadas, which I took note of and promised to hit on the walk back. After popping into a few more "free drink computer geek" parties for my hubby, we found ourselves back at that food trailer, aptly called "Mmmpanadas". I went with the pineapple ginger version while @tequilabob had the green-chili chicken with chipolte mayo. Walking back to our truck, the rain started to come down but we didn't care because we were too busy indulging in those flaky empanadas with both sweet and savory fillings, each of us thinking the same thing - cause that's what you do after being married 20 years - that we will soooo be visiting this trailer again! Hand-in-hand walking in the rain, taking in all the energy of SXSW and realizing this is only the start of a great week in Austin. So yeah, I guess in the end, it was like getting a golden ticket... I'm jus' sayin'!