Food

Buttermilk Pie

For many of us, the holiday season means pie, and lots of it. While pumpkin and pecan pies will likely be on the menu at your holiday feasts this season, buttermilk pie is a favorite here in Texas, ...

The Mesoamerican Milpa

The next time you pick up a pack of corn tortillas, take a second to appreciate the ease of buying such a delicious staple. Centuries of work went into that rather simple-looking product derived from ...

God Save the Pudding

When we brought our four small children from “England’s Green and Pleasant Land” to Texas in 1975, we felt it imperative that they learned our long-standing British traditions and customs. It ...

A Gift of the House

Sobremesa is a term common to Spain and parts of Latin America. Translating as “around the table,” the word reflects the act of gathering and lingering beyond the meal. It’s when the dishes are ...

Chile con Queso

In the late 1500s, Spanish explorers arrived in the area around what is known today as El Paso, Texas, along the Mexican-American border. With them, they brought livestock, such as cows and goats, ...

Mapping the True Texas Hold'Em

If you want to read a book about Neapolitan pizza, Chinese dumplings or American hamburgers, you have many choices. But where’s the book that maps and makes sense of the societal, cultural and ...

Gazpacho Borracho

Hooray! It’s the season for eating outdoors—starlit suppers, Sunday brunches and fiestas al fresco. On weekends, many Tex-Mex families celebrate tardeadas—leisurely, afternoon backyard ...

Wurstfest

by Rebecca Persons Caught in a whirlwind of twirling dirndls led by lederhosen-wearing partners, while chicken hats bob atop a crush of sausage lovers, visitors to New Braunfels’ Wurstfest might ...

Terlingua

by Whitney Arostegui Terlingua, Texas, is what anyone might call a ghost town—a term particularly apt because of the town’s proximity to the Chisos (Spanish for “ghosts” or “phantoms”) ...

Chicken & Rice

by Mary Bryce • Illustration by Bambi Edlund No one told me how much of life is just saying goodbye. Because I was on a plane today, and then on a bus, and somewhere in between the two, I saw ...