Hudson's on the Bend & Cilantro

Sunday we went to a cooking class at Hudson's on the Bend. It's the fantastic little restaurant way out of the way (by lake travis) but it continually gets voted the #1 Austin restuarant year after year. Impressive feat for a city that takes eating out so seriously. We've had reservations there a couple times, but have always opted for something a bit closer in. BOY were we missing out.

The class is at the owners' house which overlooks lake travis-- really cool house. You sip wine under a canopy and they go over techniques and tools while teaching you several great recipes (which they give you a printed copy of to take along your merry way). Most noteably was the most incredible lobster ever: they steam it briefly then "cook" it in 3-5 pounds of melted butter in a sauce pan over the stove. My mouth is watering just thinking of it. They they showed us their hot & crunch way of battering -anything- and smoked quail, various sauces, berries flambee, to name a few. Incredible. Smelled divine. And the owner and head chef were awesome- very knowledgeable, down-to-earth and entertaining, too.

Then we all went to the restuarant and enjoyed a full 4 course meal of everything we had just learned to cook. Amazing. FANTASTIC afternoon- I highly recommend it to anyone cooking enthusiast, foodie or restauant junkie for a special occasion, a random weekend or learning. Can't wait to go back. Okay... done gushing~

Here's the kicker: SO.... we learned during the class -among many other handy tidbits- that cilantro is the only natural substance known to actually REMOVE metals from our bodies. Sure enough! Who knew? This little bit of trivia keeps popping up in my head. Can't get it to stop. So I FINALLY have a way to remove all that mercury I've been harboring from eating so much sushi through the years. WHEW~ Don't know about you, but I'll sleep better knowing this!

And it removes aluminum and lead, too. Didn't even realize I could have that in here, too. But now I can happily get rid of it all while consuming a lovely little herb.

I kept thinking about this magical little fact until I decided to Google it to learn more about it... so I found article (among others) to learn more about this history of this brilliant finding. Which lead (no pun intended) me to learn about Chelation which is a fancy word for removing heavy metals from the bloodstream. Anyway, I sure Annie is proud of my research.

I don't know that i'll be making that incredible butter-cooked lobster in the price household anytime soon... but you can guaran-damn-tee that I'll be cookin' up a boat load of cilantro pesto and pico. Let me know if you're interested and I'll share the new cilantro recipes I discover =)