On Food & Culture
This cornbread recipe was the Thanksgiving feature in the online magazine, Lone Star Literary Life. It’s my mom’s family recipe. Amá made this cornbread dressing every Thanksgiving. It’s different from other cornbread dressing recipes because there’s no sage in it, and it combines pecans, raisins […]
In the Texas Mexico region, (central, south Texas and northeastern Mexico) ,wheat flour tortillas are fluffy and pliant. They are all-purpose (AP) wheat flour delicacies, and we switch back and forth between these and corn tortillas, depending on the dish we’re enjoying. We always use […]
Tortillas de harina, wheat flour tortillas, have many variants along the Rio Grande and the US-Mexico borderlands. They are fluffy and pliant in the south Texas, northeastern Mexico region, while in Sonora they are super thin, almost translucent. New Mexico has its own delicious tortillas […]
Large white corn kernels pop open to form small little flowers. Brilliant the cook that invented this attractive dish. Cooked with special combinations of red chiles it is a traditional dish that is also cooked by native communities northwest of us, Pueblos in New Mexico […]
Direct, uncomplicated, profuse flavor. I think oftentimes we miss so much by complicating our everyday, wasting time with artifice. Just look at the beauty of what’s around, get real and go with it!We roast Anaheim chiles then eat them with hot yellow corn tortilla and […]
Guisado de calabacita con maíz makes iconic Mexican tacos that are unbeatable for depth of flavor and texture. No creams or cheesy additions are needed here. Paired with steaming, comal-roasted corn tortillas, this ancient combination makes beautiful tacos. Tatuma is the heirloom squash that’s been […]
This video was produced by The Southern Foodways Alliance and screened at the annual symposium where I spoke about “The Art of Cooking.” Filmmaker, Ethan Payne, succinctly, visually, shows the differences between tex-mex and the Mexican food of Texas, an important distinction. Making this distinction […]
Sinaloa Chilorio is a unique and famous specialty of the western coastal state. I’m serving it here with Ensalada de Bodas, another specialty of the northern Mexico region. Sinaloa Chilorio is similar to other chile con carne (chile with meat) dishes characteristic of Mexican cuisine […]
Holiday Buñuelos meant delicious excitement when I was growing up and our family celebrated new year’s eve. Amá would celebrate every new year by making buñuelos. They’re crisp and light. I serve them with no-dairy chocolate. I recall having a sense of wonder at how […]
Meatballs in tomato broth were a favorite recipe of my sister Gloria Fernández. She added rice to the meatballs, as do many family cooks in south Texas and northeastern Mexico. They are part of our traditional cuisine, with the flavoring and caldo, broth, different from […]