Today only, from 12:30 to 2:30 PM at the University of Texas’ School of Information, you’ll be able to find witty takes on famous (and infamous) books of all sorts, from A Million Little Pieces (James Frey) made of Reeces Pieces to the impressive Bon-Bon Quixote.

Here’s a book I’d much rather eat than read:

"Twilight Spam Musubi - Edible Book Contest" (photo by Flickr user Crystal Watanabe)

Got an idea? Whip that edible book up and have it in the iSchool’s first-floor Tocker Lounge (1616 Guadalupe, across from the Clay Pit restaurant) by 1:15 PM today to be eligible to take the cake! (Winners will receive gift certificates to BookPeople at Half-Price Books.)

Voting begins at 12:30, and winners will be announced at the end of the event—at which point all are invited to dig in and let them eat cake. All Austin residents are welcome to enter and to attend this FREE event, but bring your spare change if you want to pair your cake with some Amy’s Ice Cream—they’ll be on hand with literary flavors including James and the Giant Peach, Charlie & the (Belgian) Chocolate Factory, The Mexican Vanilla Bean Tree, and The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Chip).

Brought to you by the Art Libraries Student Association (ArTex) and the Student Association of the School of Information (SASI), this is one event that’s sure to be a mouthful.

For more info, check out the Austin Edible Book Festival website.

Hat tip to Elizabeth Murley for posting about this event on Facebook!

Informal Classes are back!

While the program has been significantly scaled back in size, and you’ll no longer be receiving a huge program of course offerings in the mail, they’re back online under the Continuing and Innovative Education portion of the UT website (which you can access here). Registration officially opened September 9, 2010, and the first classes will begin September 27. The newly redesigned website shows offerings under the headings:

• Active Life (including everything from local walking tours to golf and horseback riding instruction),
• Business and Personal Life (grant writing and private investigation courses),
• Creative Life (writing and visual art classes),
• Exercise and Dance (kung fu!),
• Language, Culture and Travel (currently only Italian is being offered here), and
• UT Odyssey (a special series of courses with UT professors and local scholars)

We’re pretty psyched about the return of Informal Classes, especially as they appeal to our thrifty need for continuing education. Sure, you can check out a book on grant writing from the library for free, but why not take a class with an expert for just $48? You can pick instructor Eileen “Ike” West‘s brain in person before, during or after class in addition to learning from her years of experience.

Now that’s a cheap date!

Our first impressions of the place were good. The service was super-friendly, and our waiter even offered us ice-water! (We’ve found it’s strangely rare for people to offer water in restaurants, and sometimes even harder to get them to actually bring you any, much less refill the glass. Happily, this was not the case at Thai Kitchen.) We gratefully accepted, and pondered the lunch menu, which was still in service at 3 PM even though it was clearly stated that lunch service ended at 2:30—score!

We knew we wanted Pad Thai, so we ordered 12A right away, then decided to add another dish so we could share #25, Green Curry with Chicken and Coconut (Hot-Hot). DC and I both enjoy a good green curry, so we were jazzed by the idea of one that was being billed as “hot-hot.” Along with our mains, we were also visiting on the right day for the soup du jour to be Hot & Sour (our fave), so we each got a bowl. DC thought the Hot & Sour soup could’ve been more hot (and sour, presumably), but I thought it was pleasantly understated. Hot & Sour soup is a great dish for warming you up on a cold, rainy day, and since Austin’s been experiencing a lot of these lately (including today), I was pleased with this dish.

Shortly after we’d slurped down the last of our soup, the waiter re-appeared with our mains. Super-fast service! We thanked him and got down to business, munching our egg rolls, and then digging into the Pad Thai and the Green Curry.

Now, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the Green Curry, even though it made my nose run. It wasn’t über-hot, but it definitely had a nice kick to it, and the accompanying veggies (bamboo strips, zucchini and the odd green pepper) were quite tasty. We avoided the rice (evil carbs!), but devoured the rest. DC even sucked the excess green curry sauce straight off the plate. That’s how tasty it was.

Delicious-looking Pad Thai (photo via Closet Cooking)

Sadly, this was not the Pad Thai of our dreams. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the deliciously savory Pad Thai we had been lusting after for weeks. Instead of a mildly spicy dish stuffed with rice noodles, chicken, egg, peanuts, shrimp and bean sprouts, we got a more sweet, peanutty-flavored dish that mainly consisted of rice noodles, a bit of egg and bean sprouts, and some chicken. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t what we were expecting. And since the Green Curry was so delicious, we were kind of disappointed. I mean, you look at the photo of the homemade Pad Thai that we featured on our previous post, Where can you get good Thai food in Austin? (and shown above for emphasis), and you salivate. Thai Kitchen’s Pad Thai, unfortunately, looked nothing quite as sexy as all that.

Still, we ate it all and were reasonably satisfied with the affair. So while I would definitely return to Thai Kitchen for inexpensive Thai food (our total came to about $17, before tip), I am still searching for the elusive Pad Thai that haunts my dreams.

Any suggestions?