Horchata, a refreshing rice and almond beverage

I have to admit that the first time I had horchata was not in Texas. Nope, I had it at here in my New York City neighborhood, at a local Mexican-food cart I frequent on Sundays. Now, this cart doesn’t sell it year round—when it’s cold they have champurrado instead. But recently, when the sun was shining and you didn’t need more than a light jacket to keep the breezes at bay, my vendor beckoned to me and said in Spanish, “At last, I have horchata!”

Horchata is one of those drinks I never really thought about making at home. For me, it’s always been a street treat—a refreshment I’ll grab on warm days when I’m shopping for chiles in Queens or the perfect cool chaser to a fiery taco.



But last week I received an email from a reader who had fallen in love with it when they lived in Texas, but were unable to find it where the now lived. They asked if I had a recipe and so I decided to see what I could find.
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Mexican hot dogs with pineapple salsa and chipotle mayonnaise

When I was a young Texan, all the other kids teased me mercilessly at birthday parties and backyard barbecues because I liked to put mayonnaise on my hot dogs. I know, right—who does that? My family certainly didn’t teach me this as I come from a long line of mustard eaters and obviously, none of my friends put mayonnaise on their hot dogs either. Imagine my shame when I had to ask the hostess for a jar of mayo so I could dress my hot dog. It was terrible. But on my last trip home, however, I finally figured it out. I’m not weird at all—I’ve just been eating Mexican hot dogs my whole life.

To the uninitiated, a Mexican hot dog is a dog that’s been wrapped in bacon and fried. Sometimes it’s served in a split bolillo, but often it’s found in a regular bun as well. Toppings often include pickled jalapeños, guacamole or fresh avocado slices, beans, and generous squirts of mayonnaise, ketchup and salsa, though a dash of mustard isn’t completely unknown.



Mexican hot dogs are popular in the Mexican state of Sonora—and are sometimes called Sonoran hot dogs—though you can certainly find them in other parts of the country. While Arizona has had a thriving Mexican hot dog scene for years, they have recently become quite popular in Houston as well. And that’s where I had my first Mexican hot dog—outside the Fiesta near my mom’s house. The bacon-wrapped dog was a beauty, drenched in mayonnaise and jalapeños—I had at last found my ideal dog.
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Cowboy cookies

My plan had been to write about baseball this week. But then the Astros didn’t do so well on Opening Day and I got word about an award this blog won so, well, I decided to bake cowboy cookies instead. I hope you don’t mind.

Cowboy cookies probably have very little to do with cowboys, but this doesn’t mean they’re not good. Typically, a cowboy cookie is defined by the presence of brown sugar, cinnamon, oats, chocolate and nuts. And some people doll them up even more by throwing in some coconut and raisins as well.



My assumption is that the recipe for cowboy cookies was probably originally found on a package of oatmeal or brown sugar. I couldn’t find proof of this, but a little digging did reveal that the recipe has probably been around for at least 60 years as I read a document written in the early 1980s that said one woman's recipe had been in her family for over 40 years. And yep, it was the same one we all use today.
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