Mint chocolate cookies and cream ice cream

What's your favorite ice cream? For most of my life, mine's been coffee. But when I was a teenager, two flavors—mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream—fought for my attention, with both of them making regular appearances in my freezer via half-gallon buckets made by those good folks in Brenham, TX.

In order to satisfy my craving, my usual practice was to fill my bowl with scoops of both. You’d have to eat quickly or the ice cream would soon be a cold soup, but I didn’t mind since as the ice cream melted and melded together, the two became one with the cool mint balancing to the sweet chocolate cookies. A few years later, another ice cream company agreed the two belonged together and came out with that combination in commercial form. But by then I’d moved back to coffee as my ice cream of choice, and I forgot about how much I had loved the two.

This weekend, however, I found myself flipping through Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, a delicious new ice cream cookbook by the owners of San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Creamery. When I was last in San Francisco, a dear friend and I stopped there as she has the good fortune to live close to the shop. There was a long line but she said it was worth the wait. The honey lavender ice cream was highly recommended by most, and it was as wonderful as promised.

That said, I didn’t take too much notice of their other flavors when I visited so reading the book was like revisiting their shop with a bit more time to linger. For longtime fans, their take on honey lavender recipe is in the book along with a host of other classics such as vanilla, chocolate and yes, coffee. Though it’s not all traditional, as there are recipes for more unusual flavors such as ginger, basil and peach leaf, too.
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Crispy dogs with bacon-jalapeño dipping sauce

“How you feel about crispy dogs?” asked a friend from San Antonio. We were discussing regional variations of hot dogs, with my favorite being the bacon-wrapped Mexican hot dogs I enjoy at the Fiesta market by my mom’s house in Houston. His, however, was the aforementioned crispy dog, which is a cheese-stuffed hot dog wrapped in a corn tortilla and then fried.

“That sounds like a flauta,” I said. He agreed it was similar, but it also reminded him of a Tex-Mex corny dog. But no matter how you define it, what’s not to love about melted cheese, juicy sausage and a crunchy fried tortilla? Yep, ever since our conversation, I’ve had a serious craving for a crispy dog.

Though here’s the thing—if you want to order a crispy dog at a restaurant in Texas, you should go to San Antonio, as they seldom appear on menus anywhere else. While its origins are a bit murky, the beloved west side restaurant Malt House says it started selling them in 1949 and believes they were the first, though they soon became popular at other places around town such as MK Davis and Ray’s.

For more history, I called the Malt House and spoke to the manager, Ivan Gonzalez. He graciously shared with me several stories about the restaurant, which his father took over in 1990 when the founding owner Herb McEwen died. His belief was that McEwen started selling the crispy dog to appeal to his customers who wanted both American food and Mexican food, making this truly a Tex-Mex dish.
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Peanut butter crisscrosses

At a recent Hill Country church bake sale, I was faced with a difficult decision—which dessert to try? There were pies, cakes, and cookies, and while they all looked good I was limited to just one. It was a tough choice, but a nice woman made it easier for me when she pointed to a pan filled with peach cobbler and said, “You want that one. My mother made that cobbler and it’s the best.”

And that’s the truth—your mother’s dish is always the best. There’s just something about your mother’s (and grandmother’s, and great-grandmother’s) cooking that makes you happy.

Why is this? I reckon because it’s made with love.

A reader once commented on my great-grandmother’s buttermilk pie. While my great-grandmother’s recipe called for the same ingredients and method as his grandmother’s pie, he admitted he was still partial to his grandmother’s version. And that’s exactly how it should be, I said. Your mother’s (and grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s) cooking is always the best because it’s filled with good memories of the one who made it.
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Tex-Mex hot brown sandwich with green chile Mornay sauce

It’s not often that you have two special occasions fall on the same day but every once in a while worlds collide. Like this year—with both Derby Day and Cinco de Mayo occurring on the fifth of May.

The Kentucky Derby has a long tradition in American culture and people have been lining up to watch the first race of the Triple Crown since 1875. But Cinco de Mayo is more of recent fascination in the United States, and it’s a celebration that Americans have embraced more out of a love of Mexican food more than any desire to salute the Battle of Puebla, which is what the day honors. (Despite popular belief, it’s not Mexican Independence Day—that occurs on September 16).

Actually, Cinco de Mayo isn’t even celebrated much in Mexico except in the state of Puebla where the battle holds deep significance. But no matter—Americans love a good party so Cinco de Mayo has become a big deal the past few years. And I’m not complaining—I’ll take any excuse to serve up plates of my beloved Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine.

That said, the Kentucky Derby holds a place in my heart as well. My grandparents went to graduate school in Kentucky and my grandma enjoys telling stories about the excitement that surrounded the day. Since my grandparents were poor college students they never made it to the actual race but this didn’t stop them from enjoying the festivities, which included eating plates of hot browns.
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