Brisket tacos, Dallas style

When it comes to Super Bowl food, people usually make culinary specialties from the hometowns of the opposing teams. With no disrespect to this year’s contenders, Green Bay and Pittsburgh, at my Super Bowl party I’m going to honor Dallas, this year’s host, instead. And while there are several dishes that remind me of Dallas, one I love the most is a large plate of brisket tacos.

Brisket tacos, if you’ve never had them in Dallas, are soft tortillas stuffed with succulent strands of brisket, pulled from a roast that has been braised overnight. The brisket isn’t smoky nor is it fiery—instead it’s tender and juicy, with a rich depth of flavor that can only come from cooking the meat low and slow.



Another hallmark of Dallas’s brisket tacos is that there’s always melted Monterey Jack on the tortillas, and each taco is topped with strips of sautéed onions and poblano chiles. Some places also include a small bowl of the pan juices, turning the brisket taco into a Tex-Mex beef sandwich au jus.
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Boudin recipe, pork and rice Cajun sausage

A few years ago, a friend was visiting Toronto and found a Cajun store. He had grown up in Louisiana, so he called me, thrilled that he had discovered a source in the Northeast for some of his favorite Cajun ingredients. And yes, on hand were plenty of Cajun spices, store-made gumbos, and alligator meat. But the one thing this store didn’t have was boudin—a Cajun sausage that you also can’t find in New York.

“No boudin?” I said. “That’s a shame. Perhaps I should just try to make it myself.”

It took me a while, but five years later I finally did.

Boudin (also spelled boudain), if you’re not familiar with it, is a sausage that’s stuffed with pork, liver, rice, and a host of aromatics and spices. It’s what fuels road trips heading east on I-10 from Houston into Louisiana, as almost every gas station worth its salt will have poached or smoked boudin on hand, ready for snacking.



After you fill up the tank and stretch your legs, you grab a link, lean against the counter and squeeze the sausage until the filling oozes out the end, like toothpaste out of a tube. You take a big bite, wash it down with a cold beverage and continue eating until nothing but the casing remains. (The casing, which most don’t eat, is thrown away.) Of course, there are some fastidious types who prefer to eat boudin with a knife and a fork, but where’s the fun in that?
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Steak fingers with jalapeno cream gravy

“You’re not a fan of ‘Friday Night Lights? I can’t believe it!’” said a Texan friend to me, shaking her head.

Then there was my native New Yorker friend who said, “‘Friday Night Lights’ has made me fall in love with Texas. Tell me again why you don’t watch it?”

Finally, my dad threw his hat into the discussion. “Lisa, I tell you what! If there’s only one show you should watch on TV it should be ‘Friday Night Lights as it’s the best.’”

It soon became clear to me that by not watching “Friday Night Lights,” I’d been missing out on something important. So last week I got a Netflix online subscription and began viewing this show. And you know? Everyone was right—I am in love. The writing, the acting, the characters and its portrayal of small-town Texas life always remind me of home.

Now, I’m only halfway into the first season but this show set in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas has the power of making me laugh, cheer and cry—sometimes all at the same time. My high school days are long past but I know these characters, I know this way of life.

Take the Alamo Freeze—the ice cream and hamburger place on the show that is a fictional stand-in for a Dairy Queen. Many small Texas towns often will have only one dining option and it will be the Dairy Queen, which often serves as both a place to eat and as a community-gathering place. As Larry McMurtry has written, “Dairy Queens combined the function of tavern, café and general store; they were simple local roadhouses where both rambling men and simple stay-at-homes could meet.



Now, when you go to a Dairy Queen you may order an ice-cream cone dipped in crackling, crisp chocolate, a thick Blizzard milkshake chock full of goodies or a cheeseburger, both juicy and fat. But whenever I visit, I always order one thing: a basket of steak fingers.
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