Vagina :: The Zine

Letelier’s Pâté Mixes Tradition With Local Flavor

Jackie Letelier remembers being sent to school in Chile with pâté sandwiches packed for her lunch. While other 8-year-olds might get squeamish at the idea of pâté sharing space with their Snack Pack, Letelier grew up in a culture that commonly eats the gourmet dish.

“I just love the flavor,” Letelier said. “I love the creamy, buttery texture to it.”

Now living in Austin, Letelier brought her love for pâté to the city and is about to celebrate one year of owning and running The Letelier Food Company, which offers an array of pâtés and preserves. Her recipes are a product of tradition mixed with love and local flavor.

“Being at farmers’ markets, you see all the fresh fruits and you end up buying a box of persimmons and seeing what you can do with it,” Letelier said.

The Letelier Company offers seven pâtés this season, with fresh ingredients locally sourced around Austin, including Pâté de Canard with thyme and apple brandy and Smoked Salmon Pâté with capers and dill. But Letelier’s best-selling pâté is her Pâté Maison. Starting with free-range chicken livers from Dewberry farms, Letelier poaches the livers in butter, soaks apples in whiskey and caramelizes onions. She adds Goodflow Honey, Hill Country lavender, garlic and spices to the mixture and purees it until it becomes extremely smooth. Letelier then pours the mixture into containers or molds and refrigerates it overnight.

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Savory Cupcakes Part III: Lasagna Cups

For my third and final try at “savory cupcakes,” I picked a recipe that thinks outside the muffin tin. While it was a stretch to call the first two recipes “savory,” Lasagna Cups are not exactly cupcakes. There’s no need for a mixer for these babies. Lasagna Cups take a main entrée and turn it into a party tray option. Or, for those portionally-challenged, it allows someone to enjoy this indulgent dish without the fear of binging.

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Austin Bakery Takes On Challenges of Special Diets

Meghan Krasnoff remembers not being able to eat the cupcakes brought to her class when she was a child. Being lactose intolerant kept her from being able to fully enjoy a lot of desserts. But after becoming a vegan baker and opening Sugar Tooth Bakery, she and other people with dietary restrictions can have their cake and eat it, too.

Sugar Tooth Bakery debuted at Maker Faire in 2008, where Krasnoff passed out 2,000 sample vegan cupcakes. Since then, her business has steadily grown and her treats can now be found at Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse.

“I always loved baking, but didn’t really consider it as a career until I started vegan baking,” Krasnoff said.

As an essentially one-woman show, Krasnoff has worked hard to get Sugar Tooth off the ground during the day while bartending at The Side Bar at nights. What started as baking mainly for her friends out of her house has evolved into a custom-order cake company based out of the Community Renaissance Market in south Austin. It wasn’t luck that got her here.

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