On Food & Culture
These fish tacos are a variation of the famous Baja California fish taco. I omit the wheat flour batter, thereby focusing exclusively on the flavor and texture of the freshly-made corn tortilla. It also foregrounds the sweet fresh fish. I use tomatillo salsa to continue […]
Cilantro Rice, Arroz Con Cilantro, is aromatic, light, and it foregrounds cilantro. The story of cilantro is the story of how human beings constantly interact with each other, often in unexpected ways, exchanging ingredients, traditions, and the love of food. Cilantro, also named coriander, is […]
Perfect for Sunday dinner, this corn squash guisado is totally Native American. Even the technique is native. A “guisado” is a stew you cook stove top (over a fire. It’s something like a sauté but with liquid added and then cooked slowly so that flavors […]
“Machacado Con Huevo” uses the basic element, salt (sodium choride), to dry and preserve meat. It’s a traditional breakfast dish based on a technique that we inherited from our native Texas ancestors who handed it down to each subsequent generation. Over thousands of years, a […]
Fresh Serrano salsa ranchera has a bright taste and lots of nuance. I make it in a molcajete, but if you want to double or triple the recipe for a party, use a blender. It’s great on tacos, breakfast eggs and on rice and pinto […]
Inviting, delicious, eye-opening. There was mouth-watering picadillo, nopalitos salad, salsa ranchera, crema mexicana, shark empanadas and much more. The creamy flan Napolitano was luscious. Pot-luck never tasted so good. But it was the stories and memories that that made this recipe swap dinner special. The […]
Returning to Houston from Galveston Island, “Gringo’s” caught my eye. The sign is dazzling. It also exquisitely illustrates the aspect of Tex-Mex food about which I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Restaurants cook Tex-Mex dishes because we seek identity, discovery of who we are. […]
Verdolaga, purslane in English, is the indigenous Texas Mexican herb that I love to serve for company. It is my “go to” recipe for a delicious green side dish that goes with absolutely anything. Verdolaga grows plentiful for most of the year in central, southern […]
Chicken poached in a garlic-cumin broth is from Hidalgo, in the central Eastern region of Mexico, the homeland of the great Toltec culture. Toltec art and the huge monuments are well-known and iconic of MesoAmerica, but a lesser known fact is that the region has […]
In Chicago I presented a slide show about how cooking is memory, relationship and ethics. I also conducted a cooking workshop to demonstrate how to make gorditas, working with dried chiles, cactus, corn masa, and pinto beans. No lard, thank you. It was a 4-hour […]