Hatch chile apple cobbler

Last weekend, I flew home to Texas for a family wedding. It was the Aggie branch of my family—a group that not only lives near College Station but they all also attended Texas A&M, a tradition began by my great-uncle Stewart who was an English professor at A&M back in the day.

The wedding was held in downtown Bryan, which is a charming small Texas town. Like many communities that have revitalized their center, it’s bustling with life and beautiful architecture. For a wedding, it was a perfect location as we were able to walk from the church to the reception and then to the hotel where we all spent the night.

Of course, the real joy of the wedding was spending time with my family. From enjoying Saturday-morning migas with my mom, to flapping our arms as we did the chicken dance at the reception—it was one of those perfect weekends that’s hard to describe with words or images. It just was.



It’s Hatch chile season, and when I booked my ticket to Houston for the wedding, I realized it cost the same for me to fly into Houston as it did to add a segment into El Paso, which is about an hour and a half away from Hatch, New Mexico. I’d always been curious to see the chiles at the source, so it was an easy decision to spend a day or so in West Texas.
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Tomato and cucumber salad with cornbread croutons

My first experience with panzanella, or bread salad, was at a late summer outdoor gathering many years ago in Texas. At the time, I was a little suspicious of the salad, as I thought that the large chunks of bread would be strange and soggy as they mingled with the juicy tomatoes and crisp cucumbers. But actually, it turned out to be brilliant. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys sopping up oil and vinegar with crusty bread, then this was your kind of dish.

When I heard about cornbread salad, my assumption was that it would recreate that Italian tomato and cucumber salad that I loved, with cornbread croutons standing in for the day-old bread. When I finally encountered it, however, I discovered that the Southern dish known as cornbread salad is usually layers of beans, corn, tomatoes, cheese, mayonnaise and, of course, crumbled cornbread served in a large, glass bowl.



That cornbread salad was good, but not exactly what I had in mind. Because of the heat, I was in the mood for something less rich that could showcase the glory of summertime tomatoes. My ideal salad would be lightly dressed tomatoes and cucumbers tossed with a handful of cornbread croutons.
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Spicy red onion jam

Have ever bought an ingredient just because it’s so darn pretty? That happened to me at the farmers market this week—I saw a basket of red onions and was dazzled by their deep color and delicate texture. They were exquisite and while I didn’t need them, I sure did want them. So I paid the farmer and proudly brought the basket home.

Then it occurred to me—what am I going to do with all these onions?

We eat a lot of onions in my family. My grandma grows them at her farm, and is always tossing them into dishes—raw or cooked. My mom is also an onion fanatic. If you ever hear her talk about her favorite Tex-Mex dish, you’d swear that the cheese enchiladas were merely a vehicle for her true desire—that shower of diced, white onions on top.



With an onion-loving lineage such as that, it’s kind of strange that I didn’t embrace them until later in life. Growing up, if a few onions made it onto my plate I’d quickly pass them to someone else. Fortunately, those dark days are long gone and it’s a rare meal where I don’t do something with an onion.
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