Poblano chorizo potato salad

Going on a picnic or having a cook out? I’d like to offer you a suggestion—this bowl of poblano chorizo potato salad.

Now, when I lived in Texas, my friends and I went on a lot of picnics. These were never fancy, overly planned affairs. Instead, we’d simply decide that we’d rather eat at a park rather than at home. And just like that, we’d raid our refrigerators, grab a blanket and dine outside.

The key to these joyful meals was their spontaneity. Sure, we were busy people with school or jobs to occupy our time. But for some reason, it didn’t seem strange to just drop in on someone and suggest going on a picnic—or whatever the whim was that day. Gathering with people was a whole lot easier.

When I moved to New York, however, I learned that this was no longer the case. Schedules have to be coordinated, reservations have to be made, histories have to be considered. Sometimes you can spend a month trying to coordinate a one-hour meeting. It’s exhausting.



At first, I thought I was the only one who felt this way about New York, and I was simply being nostalgic for those relaxed summer evenings eating outside back in Texas. But after consultation with other Texan transplants, I learned that the challenge in getting together with friends is common amongst all New Yorkers. It’s just the way things are done here.
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Corn and black bean salsa recipe

Goodness! Where has this week gone? I can’t believe it’s already Saturday! I reckon this is what happens when you have a book coming out almost a month—your life starts to get a little busy.

Take this week for instance. My publisher came over to my apartment to shoot some videos for the book. As you can tell by the lack of videos on my site, this is uncharted territory for me—so I spent most of my prep time wringing my hands and wondering why my publisher even needed video. I was a nervous wreck. But on the day of the shoot, it all went well and turned out to be surprisingly fun.

There were a couple of other moments when I had to be in front of the camera this week, too. At least these were still shots, so I didn’t have to worry about talking. Though one shoot was so complicated, all the furniture was shifted around my apartment to accommodate the equipment needed. As such, my couch ended up in my sliver of a kitchen. And that pretty much sums up my week—everything is a bit topsy-turvy, and instead of me being in the kitchen, my living room furniture has ended up there instead.



This is not to say, however, that I am complaining. On the contrary. I’m having the time of my life. While I am most comfortable when I’m cooking, doing all these other activities has taken me way out of my comfort zone and this is thrilling. I was recntly reading a book where the main character has to do something bold that he's never tried before, which gets his heart racing. When he’s done, he says to himself, “I’ve done my cardio exercises for the day!” And that’s exactly how I feel.
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Pecan-peach ice cream

This pecan-peach ice cream is a mistake. A delicious mistake that turned out just dandy in the end, but still, it doesn’t quite fit in with the theme I had in mind. Let me explain.

See, “Friday Night Lights” is airing its grand finale on Friday and I had a hankering to make a special treat for that occasion. Now, I realize in this era of DVRs, on-demand TV and the Internet—a final episode of a show doesn’t garner quite the pomp that it did back in say, the era of “MASH” or “Seinfeld.” People now watch shows on their schedule, not the network’s, so people getting together to watch something on TV doesn’t happen as often as it used to because there are many other opportunities for viewing.

“Friday Night Lights” has suffered from more fragmentation than other shows, as this final season appeared on two networks, with one airing the final season last winter. Not to mention, the DVD of the final season also has been available for months. So when I was discussing my excitement about watching this final episode with some friends, one said, “I saw it months ago. Hurry up and watch it so we can finally talk about it! ”



My arrival to “Friday Night Lights” was late, I admit. But after spending a few weeks on a marathon bender trying to catch up with the previous four seasons, watching this final season each week has rewarded me with the gift of anticipation—something lacking when you have all the episodes readily available. And yes, I’m very anxious to know what happens to the East Dillon Lions, Coach Taylor, Tami Taylor, the Riggins brothers and the rest of the characters, but sometimes it’s good to be patient.
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Lemon-and-lime icebox pie with a chocolate graham-cracker crust

The summer I was 10, I had an Elsie the Cow T-shirt. It had been a freebie at a swim meet, and so a bunch of my friends had the shirt as well. As it happens when several people have an identical item of clothing, you’d often find a group of us riding our bikes around the neighborhood, all sporting the same shirt. If people didn’t know any better, they might have though we were a young gang of gung-ho dairy lovers. But no matter how we felt about milk, the main reason it was a popular shirt was because it looked good.

Some T-shirts are better than others, and Borden’s marketing department had done well with this one by making it a red-and-white ringer tee with a clean graphic in the upper right-hand corner. Yep, that Elsie shirt was pretty fashionable for the early 1980s. Heck, I even remember wearing it on the Fourth of July with a pair of blue shorts for what I believed to be a stylish, patriotic look.

I hadn’t thought about that shirt in years, but I was recently reminded of it while cooking with sweetened condensed milk, which featured a smiling Elsie the Cow on the can. You know the one I’m talking about. But did you also know that sweetened condensed milk has Texan roots? Yep, its inventor, Gail Borden, spent much of his life in Texas and contributed to the state’s early history.



Besides conceiving canned milk, Borden’s life was packed with achievements. For instance, during his time in Texas he helped write the state’s constitution; was a primary developer of Galveston Island; created the state’s first topographical map and surveyed the future site of the city of Houston. (He also famously got into a brawl with Sam Houston, but the details on that are a bit murky.) And, there are even two Texas towns and a county named after Borden.
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