Tex-Mex

Sundays in October might be my favorite days of the year. The leaves are starting to put on their annual show, the air is crisp, and there a...

“What is that incredible smell?” asked a friend as he walked in the door. I pointed to the stove where shredded pork was simmering in an ear...

This last week of August is confusing. For me, Labor Day marks the end of summer, but with the return to school, the beginning of football s...

This time of year, I start to go chile pepper mad. Okay, I admit that I’m always cooking with chiles, but in August and September they are ...

In Southern California, there’s a dish called carne asada fries. It’s a pile of French fries topped with carne asada, cheese, and a variety ...

The other night I dreamt that I was in Texas. It was the end of my visit, and I hadn’t seen many wildflowers while I was there, but as we pu...

There’s that big game happening this week, and in honor of the host city New Orleans, I thought that it would be a fun idea to make a Cajun-...

For the past few weeks, like many folks this time of year, I’ve been sneezing, coughing and feeling wretched. But while this year may be off...

Three weeks ago on a Friday, I found myself back in Texas so I could give my talk at the University of Texas at Arlington. It went well and ...

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be giving a talk on the theme of “The Place of Memory” at the University of Texas at Arlington. While I’m not sur...

The song of the cicadas, the beginning of football and the arrival of Hatch green chiles always signal the end of summer for me. While I usu...

“How you feel about crispy dogs?” asked a friend from San Antonio. We were discussing regional variations of hot dogs, with my favorite bein...

It’s not often that you have two special occasions fall on the same day but every once in a while worlds collide. Like this year—with both D...

When I used to go home to Houston, my first stop after I got off the plane was a restaurant called Amalia’s. It was a Tex-Mex joint and on t...

Is there anything more magnificent than Texas in the springtime? Each day, there’s something new to see as the state awakens and begins to b...

Mom asked me what I’d eaten that day. I was visiting her in Houston, and she’s always amused by how much I pack into my belly in such a shor...

The other day, I was in a taqueria eating a sandwich stuffed with a spicy, saucy picadillo that was rich with tomatoes and chiles. It was de...

A year or so ago, I was visiting Texas in August and stopped by my grandma’s farm to say howdy. She asked if I was hungry, as she’d just co...

When I first moved to New York, one of the dishes that was lacking was migas. That Texan breakfast staple of eggs scrambled with fried torti...

The first time I heard of tamales used as a stuffing was in Mary Faulk Koock’s The Texas Cookbook , where she tells a story about a friend o...