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Showing posts from 2011

Lemon Grass Pork

This is another knock out that Rose made from one of her international cookbooks. It's an absolutely delicious stir-fry which was wonderful over rice noodles though we agreed that we would have it with rice the next time. LEMON GRASS PORK 1-1/2 lb boneless pork loin 2 lemon grass stalks, finely chopped 4 green onions, thinly sliced 1 tsp salt 12 black peppercorns, coarsely chopped 2 tbsp peanut oil 2 garlic cloves, minced 2 fresh red chilies, seeded and chopped 1 tsp light brown sugar 2 tbsp Thai fish sauce 1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped Salt and pepper Trim excess fat from pork. Cut meat into 1/4 inch slices and then 1/4 inch strips. Put pork in bowl with lemon grass, green onions, salt, and crushed peppercorns. Mix well. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes. Preheat wok, add oil and swirl around. Add pork mixture and stir-fry over medium heat for about 3 minutes, until browned all over. Add garlic, chilies and stir-fry 5-8 minutes over medium heat unt

Christmas Baking

Just to show that everything old is new again ... or something like that ... I was going to write about Christmas baking. Found this in last year's archives and the order is almost the same, except that as the last week before Christmas comes into view I am rather behind in the baking. But we always pull it off one way or another. Anyway, I'm reposting this holiday goodness for anyone who cares to try the recipes. I kicked off the baking season, as I always do, with a batch of Amaretti . Those little almond meringue cookies that are so easy to make and even easier to eat. Next were Date Crumb Bars ... think homemade "Fig Newton" for these. Then I stalled out ... luckily Rose came home and with everyone at work has time enough to take up the slack. She began with some Chocolate Chunk Biscotti, which are so much easier to make than most people would ever credit. Next up were Chocolate Mint Filled Cookies . This recipe basically is a chocolate sandwich cook

It's only potatoes, you say. No. It isn't. [UPDATED]

And my sis has the whole story why at her blog, The Guideline. Guess what? I already was planning on making those potatoes. Haven't had them for years but they are "on my palate" whenever I think of the roast pork I am planning. Our family is definitely on the same page. UPDATE The recipe is freestyle. Check comments for Lisa's version and for mine.

Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

More of Rose's weeknight culinary delights. This one is from Cooking Up a Storm (recipes requested and restored to the Louisiana folks that lost them during Hurricane Katrina). Tom gave it to me for Christmas but I never got around to making anything from it. Which is clearly nuts, given how good this was. CHICKEN AND SAUSAGE JAMBALAYA Cooking Up a Storm, page 197 2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 lb chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes 1-1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning 1/2 lb smoked sausage (andouille, kielbasa), sliced 1/4 inch thick 1-1/2 cups yellow onions, chopped 1 cup green bell peppers, chopped 3 cups water 1 tbsp tomato paste 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped 2 tbsp green onions, chopped 1-1/2 cups long-grain rice Heat the oil in a large heavy pot. Season the chicken pieces generously with Cajun seasoning. Add the chicken to the pot and cook, stirring, over medium heat until evenly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the onions and

All I Want for Christmas is an Old Fashioned Pork Roast

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The kind with moist, tender roast pork and crackling fat. Yes, I said it. Kind of like this one I found on Leite's Culinaria . Or the fresh Roasted Pork Leg from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. Obviously, I'm ready to relive the days of my past when all pork wasn't dry and lean.

Rigatoni with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Blue Cheese

Here's another dish Rose chose that never would have appealed to my mental palate in a million years. But it worked beautifully. In fact, Tom said that it was like something you'd get in an Italian restaurant and wonder what they did to make it so delicious. High praise indeed, as he is not averse to blue cheese, but he's also not its biggest fan. I believe this came from one of my Cooking Light cookbooks. Rose cooked it for one of our meatless Friday dishes. It was no penance at all, I assure you! RIGATONI WITH SPINACH, TOMATOES, AND BLUE CHEESE Cooking oil 1 cup onion, chopped 4 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 cup chicken broth 2 tbsp flour 6 cups fresh spinach, chopped 1 1/2 cup tomato, chopped 1 lb rigatoni pasta, cooked 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese Heat oil in large pan over medium heat. Saute onions until golden brown. Add garlic and saute 1 minute. Whisk flour into chicken broth. Add chicken broth, spinach, and tomato to pan. Cook until spinach has released

Vietnamese Coffee

This one's for Jenny who read my favorable comments about In the Vietnamese Kitchen and asked if there were a recipe for coffee. I haven't tried it, but it looks like a danged good excuse to open a can of condensed milk! For that matter, it's a good reason to pick up a can of Cafe du Monde coffee, which I'm lucky enough to have stores carrying. (One of the perks of being this close to East Texas.) Coffee and Condensed Milk An opened can of sweetened condensed milk is a great excuse to indulge in Vietnamese coffee, called ca-phe sua. To create this jolting beverage, brew an inky-strong cup of coffee. Any full-bodied, dark roast will work, although a perennial favorite of Vietnamese Americans is Cafe Du Monde from New Orleans, which contains chicory. Regardless of the coffee, brew it in a regular electric coffeemaker or a stove-top espresso maker. (The small Vietnamese stainless-steel presses are slow and often don't work well.) If you are starting from beans,

Chinese Pork with Eggplant and Rice Sticks

Turn Rose loose with a lot of eggplant from our CSA and a recommendation that my Cooking Light cookbooks usually include lots of vegetables in main dishes ... and certainly get a really delicious result for dinner. She made this a few weeks ago. I loved it so much that I ate leftovers for breakfast ... three days running. The one change I might make would be to use either thicker pasta or serve it over rice. The rice sticks we had were of angel-hair pasta consistency and didn't mix gracefully with the mixture. CHINESE PORK WITH EGGPLANT AND RICE STICKS Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2000 (November, pg 278) 1/2 lb boneless pork loin roast 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper 1/4 tsp ground red pepper Vegetable oil 4 cups eggplant, 1/2 inch cubes (8 oz) 2 cups onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper 1/4 cup chicken broth 2 tbsp rice vinegar 1 tbsp brown sugar 1 tbsp ketchup 1 tsp soy sauce 2 tbsp sesame seeds 1 cup fresh cilantro, c

Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayo and Grilled Onions

I made this this weekend and, since I was using the torn out page from the magazine, thought it was from Fine Cooking. That's how good it was. Imagine my surprise at getting ready to share the recipe here and finding it was from Cooking Light! These blue cheese burgers with the somewhat charred grilled onion rings were simply fantastic. I actually can't wait to make them again. I have to admit I used the recipe as inspiration rather than following it to the letter. Although what I did was pretty close. Looking it over, the most variations were to the onions. The recipe was sent in by a reader and you can see it in its entirety at Cooking Light . I used: Chuck instead of sirloin Hellman's regular mayonnaise instead of a canola version (for all I know it may be made with canola) Dried thyme (have you seen the price of fresh thyme?) Regular onions (if your CSA farmer continually kept bringing onions for weeks, you'd ignore buying special onions too ... plus I'

Rose - The Cook of the House

About three weeks ago, completely frazzled from our huge annual project which takes all waking hours, I assigned Rose the dinner duties for weekdays. She's home for a bit between graduation and heading off to L.A. to seek her fortune in film editing. Other than training the dogs to do tricks (three now know "down", two also know "shake" and all are gradually coming to grips with "fetch), she's been whiling her time away reading Middlemarch and working on screenplay ideas. She likes to cook but hadn't been expecting this, which began with a phone call (as she reminded me the other day), "Check the freezer for things to use, but you've got to make dinner tonight. And the rest of the week." Rose rose nobly to the challenge. I don't remember what she pulled together for that evening, but she has been planning weekly meals that reminded me of the joy that can be had preparing and consuming meals when you go beyond the same old thing

Cherie

I had to go restock the liquor cabinet (imagine that!) and picked up Cherry Brandy and Coffee Brandy. It seemed as if I saw tons of recipes calling for these and I was tired of skipping all of them. Plus, I like cherry and coffee flavors. Naturally, I got home, sat down with Mr. Boston's Official Bartender's Guide and had a heckuva a time finding any of those cocktails. Eventually, after due diligence, I dug up some interesting prospects. The first we tried was Cherie which was quite delicious. And it had a maraschino cherry. Which was perfect because we were watching Some Like It Hot. Don't see the connection? Pick up the movie and watch for Tony Curtis on the train. Cherie 1 oz. Lime Juice 1/2 oz. Triple Sec 1 oz. Light Rum 1/2 oz. Cherry-flavored Brandy Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add a maraschino cherry.

Zombie

Can you have Halloween cocktails and not include the Zombie? I'm pretty sure that's against the rules. Somewhere. These are, in a word, delicious. In another word, tangy. In a third word (or two), potential lethal. As a side note: I'd never tasted passion fruit syrup before. It is like a curious combination of pineapple, orange, and mango on the tongue. Quite good. We now return to the Zombie ... it never does to take one's eyes off of a zombie for too long, after all. Do not overindulge. Or you will become that thing we all dread. A zombie. But one Zombie won't hurt. At least we all came out alive. And since we were testing these while watching last weekend's Cowboys game, we needed something to dull the pain. Zombie 1 tsp. Brown Sugar 1 oz. Lemon Juice 1 oz. Lime Juice 1 oz. Pineapple Juice 1 oz. Passion Fruit Syrup 1 dash Angostura Bitters 1 oz. Gold Rum 1 oz. 151-proof Rum 1 oz. White Rum Dissolve brown sugar in juices. Combine all ing

Satan's Whiskers

It's interesting to me that Hannah and Rose both seem to choose cocktails to try based on the name. We have discovered some delicious cocktails that way, to be sure, but it is it so different from my method of scanning the ingredients to see if my mind's palate thinks it would be a good drink. With Halloween coming up, Rose is at it again. Hence, Satan's Whiskers, which filled me with dread because of the double vermouth whammy ... which my mind's palate was nudging me in the ribs about (too much vermouth is not something I adore). Also orange juice. Which none of us are very fond of. Based on my fears, we made sure we had ingredients for Zombies on hand also. There was no need as it turned out. Satan's Whiskers was a lovely orange cocktail with no one ingredient overwhelming the others. A rich, deep flavor is the only way I can think of to describe it. Delicious. You'll just have to try it for yourself and see what you think. (More about the Zombies later

Chocolate Marshmallows

I have read marshmallow recipes for many years but never tried any, although I always was rather curious about what they'd be like. I am not very fond of marshmallows, as a matter of fact, and my curiosity was never great enough to move me to experiment. Rose had a friend from Chicago visit last weekend, however, and tried out this recipe from the current Cooking Light . Other than mentioning that sampling cocktails before working with boiling sugar syrup seemed an unnecessary risk (one they took seriously enough to postpone cocktails, by the way), I didn't participate at all. As we have come to expect from Cooking Light, Rose said the recipe worked exactly as written and was very easy. Everyone loved the soft texture and slight chocolate flavor. I did sample one and as marshmallows go it was good enough. Next time Rose may try more cocoa powder for a deeper chocolate flavor. It also seems to me that a mint version would be good, perhaps with a touch of green or pink food

55 Great Global Food Blogs

Writing around here has been scarce on the ground. I have been cooking but somehow, with one exception which I will tell you about soon, none of it has been particularly interesting or noteworthy (aside from keeping us fed, of course). So, you may be interested in Saveur's list of 55 Great Global Food Blogs . I know I was. There is some great stuff out there and this is a perfect way to explore it.

Spicy Cajun Shrimp

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Tom got me Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans  for Christmas last year.  Although I enjoyed reading through it, I hadn't picked it up to make anything from it. Not sure why. That sort of thing happens when you've got stacks of cookbooks everywhere. I finally cracked it open for actual use when I picked up some shrimp a couple of weeks ago and wanted to make something besides the same old thing . (Although I see that the shrimp scampi I usually favor isn't here ... I must share that soon!) Who cooks shrimp better than someone from Louisiana? Probably no one. This was a huge hit. I'm a wimp so I used less than the minimum amounts of cayenne and red pepper. In retrospect the minimums probably would have been fine. There is a wide latitude for spicy food, of course, so take your best guess! Spicy Cajun Shrimp Makes 2-3 servings (It served 4 of us with leftovers) 2 dozen large shrimp, or 1 pound medium shrimp, fres

Time to Revive Home Ec

A year later, my father’s job took our family to Wales, where I attended, for a few months, a large school in a mid-size industrial city. There, students brought ingredients from home and learned to follow recipes, some simple and some not-so-simple, eventually making vegetable soups and meat and potato pies from scratch. It was the first time I had ever really cooked anything. I remember that it was fun, and with an instructor standing by, it wasn’t hard. Those were deeply empowering lessons, ones that stuck with me when I first started cooking for myself in earnest after college. I knew a lot about cooking when I took Home Ec back in the 9th grade. But I didn't know anything about sewing, budgeting, planning a project, or the many other things that I learned in that class. I look at my children's friends and almost all of them don't know a thing about cooking. Or a lot of those other things. This New York Times article focuses more than I'd like on obesity as a rea

Cooks, Gluttons, and Gourmets

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Cooks, Gluttons and Gourmets by Betty Wason My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a charming history of cooking. I was interested to see from the introduction that the author went to considerable trouble back in 1962 to unearth much of the information in the book ... including finding a Chinese translator to read a 14th century Chinese cooking text. She writes in a personable way that makes you feel as if you have found a new friend. FINAL This is a fairly comprehensive overview of the history of cooking from cavemen to Asia to Europe to New Orleans to 1962 ... and much more. A lifetime of reading food writing and history (especially the Time Life Foods of the World series) meant that little of the information was actually new to me. However, Wason tended to focus upon personalities to carry her histories forward and that is whence issued much of the book's charm. Many of the little anecdotes on the way were new and I very much enjoyed reading the history overall because of them

The Go-To Snacks of Literary Greats

Wendy MacNaughton loves to snack on garlic croutons when working and began wondering about what the literary greats snacked on. Walt Whitman began the day with oysters and meat, while Gustave Flaubert started off with what passed for a light breakfast in his day: eggs, vegetables, cheese or fruit, and a cup of cold chocolate. The novelist Vendela Vida told me she swears by pistachios, and Mark Kurlansky, the author of “Salt” and “Cod,” likes to write under the influence of espresso, “as black as possible.” Luckily for us, she did a charming sketch of some of the great writers' favorite snacks. Check it out at the New York Times . Via Scott Danielson on Google+

CSA Story: Potatoes, Basil, and Creativity

There's a certain sense of accomplishment I feel when I am getting dinner ready, realizing that somehow I should be working in disparate ingredients from the CSA cooler. It's like being on one of those cooking shows, handed a box of odd ingredients and told to make dinner with it. Certainly it pushes me out of my comfort zone and into inspiration. And sometimes ... every so often ... it pushes me into a place where my family is delighted with the inspiration. Yesterday, for example, I was making Baked Salmon with Horseradish Sauce . I had picked up some fresh green beans at the store last weekend but was wondering what starch to have with the meal. Then I remembered the red potatoes from the CSA, some of them were fairly small. I could have potatoes and green beans. Super simple in first boiling a pot of water, then putting in the potatoes, and toward the last 10 minutes or so dropping in the tailed green beans. (If the potatoes are different sizes, I just pull the small

Aperol, St. Germaine, and Mrs. 404

Some time ago the Wall Street Journal ran an article featuring cocktails made with Aperol and St. Germaine. What was interesting about this article is that both Tom and I read it. Our usual practice is to bring up articles, discover that the other person never read it and then to fill each other in. Was it because it was about cocktails? Was it because the Aperol just could not possibly be that vivid orange color? Was it because we both think of "Your Mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries*" when we see the word elderflowers (prime ingredient in St. Germaine)? We will probably never know. What we do know is that at the end of our discussion we had gotten interested enough to go out and buy a bottle of each. Frustratingly, though I remembered having seen Aperol as a mystery ingredient of practically every other recipe in our Mr. Boston: Official Bartender's Guide , now I could find none of them. The Aperol is vividly orange both in color and f

How to Kill E. coli on Vegetables

Monica Reinagle, The Nutrition Diva , has the answer and it is not the one that I thought I knew. Everyone ought to get this information and be sure you listen to it all. I wondered whether these very toxic strains of E. coli might be especially hard to kill. It turns out that they’re not really that invincible—they’ve just developed some very clever survival tactics. “If these E. coli bacteria were just floating around in a bucket of water, a little bleach or even some vinegar would kill them right away,” Dr. Brackett explains. “But once the bacteria have attached themselves to the surface of a vegetable, they become much harder to kill.” You may read or listen to her information at the link, which I heard on her podcast.

What I'm Reading: Tender by Nigel Slater (UPDATED)

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Tender: Volume I: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater My rating: 5 of 5 stars Nigel Slater transformed his back yard into a garden. Not a fantastic, provide everything he eats garden ... but the sort of garden that someone who doesn't mind some failure does. And, of course, someone who likes to cook and eat. So we reap the benefit of his observations about gardening overall and then specifically about all sorts of vegetables. With recipes. I like Slater's informal style and also his honesty about personal quirks. For example, he is determined to be organic and yet frustrated by slugs. One of the most charming stories is about how he loves to see the little family of urban foxes that lives next door but is simultaneously driven crazy by the fact that he knows they will eat some of his most treasured plants when his back is turned ... and the fact that the cubs love to lie right next to the keep-foxes-away speakers he bought. This is one of those books that I

Texas Enchilada Casserole

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This year Rose didn't want to go out for her birthday dinner. She had just gotten home from Chicago and she wanted homestyle cooking ... Tex-Mex style. She wanted Texas Enchiladas. For the uninitiated, that means cheese enchiladas in a red sauce with some chopped onion on top. Once again, as so many times before , I have been making a simple, yet flavorful, version of this from one of Matt Martinez's cookbooks . To make it even easier, I stack the enchiladas instead of rolling them. I've been told that this is how they do it in New Mexico, but we'll keep it simple and just call this a casserole. Enchilada Sauce Step 1: 1/4    cup lard, shortening or vegetable oil 1/4    cup flour In a large skillet, heat lard to medium hot. Stir in flour and continue stirring until it turns a very light brown (3-4 minutes.) Step 2: 1/2    teaspoon pepper     1    teaspoon salt     2    cloves minced garlic     2    teaspoons ground cumin     2    tablespoons chil

The Amazing Chocolate Pie

For my birthday, I had a hankering for chocolate pie. Specifically, I was curious about the technique mentioned in the most recent Cooking Light which combines some melted chocolate with the chocolate crumbs for the crust. Rose volunteered to make the pie and was astonished by how easily it went together. She and a friend had a little pie business during their freshman year of college and Rose made many a chocolate pie during that time. She says that she never had a pie recipe work so well or be so quick as this. This was an amazing pie. A deep, rich chocolate flavor; perfect texture with no lumps; just firm enough. Truly a superior dessert experience. We did take two liberties with the recipe. We had whole milk and so used that instead of 1% milk. And we used real whipped cream instead of fat-free Cool Whip. Also, I didn't have any raspberries. They would have looked pretty but they weren't missed. Cooking Light named this Rich Chocolate Pudding Pie. We call it ...

When You Can't Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (Or Taste It Either): Reviewing "Season to Taste" by Molly Birnbaum

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Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way by Molly Birnbaum My rating: 4 of 5 stars Having been admitted to the Amazon Vine Program I was eager to find a book to try that I would not normally come across. This one, in which Molly Birnbaum relates her loss of smell due to a head injury and intersperses her story with delving into the science of smell, filled the bill. What makes Birnbaum's loss of smell, and subsequent almost complete loss of the ability to taste, all the more painful is that she was set to go to the Culinary Institute of America to begin training as a chef. Watching her learn to deal with her unexpectedly debilitating infirmity is fascinating and is making me more aware of all the scents that make the pattern of my life. Birnbaum is an unexpectedly good writer. Possibly because she had to focus on the visual and textural aspects of food and the world around her after losing her sense of smell, she describes her environment and experience

The Package That Can Put a Big Smile on Your Face

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That's probably only if really true if you're a certain age. Because this is the original packaging. But when I found it at Krogers this weekend it made me smile and not only because this is Hannah's favorite flavor which can be hard to find. Tom, helping me unload groceries, held up the bag with a broad grin, "Hey! This is classic!" And so it is. Both on the inside and the outside. Evidently these are available for a limited time . Why limited! We want them always!

Food in Science Fiction and Fantasy

That is the latest topic under discussion at SFFaudio where Scott and Jesse welcome guest Luke Burrage. I can't wait to listen to this one. Two of my favorite topics being discussed by three of my favorite people!

Oatmeal with more sugar than a Snickers. Brought to you by ... McDonald's.

Others will argue that the McDonald’s version is more “convenient.” This is nonsense; in the time it takes to go into a McDonald’s, stand in line, order, wait, pay and leave, you could make oatmeal for four while taking your vitamins, brushing your teeth and half-unloading the dishwasher. (If you’re too busy to eat it before you leave the house, you could throw it in a container and microwave it at work. If you prefer so-called instant, flavored oatmeal, see this link, which will describe how to make your own). If you don’t want to bother with the stove at all, you could put some rolled oats (instant not necessary) in a glass or bowl, along with a teeny pinch of salt, sugar or maple syrup or honey, maybe some dried fruit. Add milk and let stand for a minute (or 10). Eat. Eat while you’re walking around getting dressed. And then talk to me about convenience. The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only

Learning to Cook

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This one's for Margaret who wished I would blog from the kitchen more. I actually have a couple of little tidbits about cooking lately, but no time to commit them to pixels at the moment (no wonder this poor little place is so neglected).  So here are a couple of cookies to tide you over till dinnertime. Enjoy! Learning to Cook from the comic genius that is xkcd

The Art of Eating In

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Cathy Erway needed an interesting subject for the food blog she was considering beginning. She decided to give up eating out, though that would be difficult for a young twenty-something in New York City, and begin cooking her meals at home. What began as an interesting experiment became something of an obsession. As Cathy's blog, Not Eating Out In New York , grew in popularity, she threw herself into the project with an increasing passion that lasted two years. The Art of Eating In chronicles that two year period. The book isn't composed of blog entries but is a memoir with recipes of Cathy's journey of discovering the wide world of cooking and the myriad forms it can take on in New York City. This leads to her participation in such adventures as cook-offs,  underground supper clubs, urban foraging, and joining a freegan group for some evening foraging (dumpster diving, etc.). For our next stop on the tour, we walked a few blocks south to a small upscale grocery store.

Brisket Tacos Are A Dallas Specialty?

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I thought they were something that just suddenly showed up at my favorite local Tex-Mex spot. A delicious something. Something that someone ought to get an award for. Possibly something I'd give to the Holy Father if he were on his way through Dallas but stopping off for lunch on the way. Now I see that Homesick Texan has done a little more thinking about this than I have, which is not surprising. Me, I just order them. Reading her description, you can see why. 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 inclu

If the Pope were to ask where he could get the best stack of pancakes in Dallas ...

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... I would reply, "Your Holiness, have you tried the Cinn-a-Stack from IHOP ?"* Last Thursday was a sad day. Rose returned to Chicago, the skies were gray, the weather freezing. She and I had planned to have brunch in the hour before we had to hit the road for the airport. Yet, my mind went completely blank. I couldn't think of a local place that Rose and her friends hadn't already over-visited in their get togethers over the last month. (I know, I completely forgot Cindi's and am still kicking myself.) It is an ill wind that blows no good though because we wound up at IHOP. Loving cinnamon rolls the way that I do, I couldn't resist the Cinn-a-stack. The pancakes were layered with cinnamon roll style filling and had a bit of cream cheese icing on top. To my surprise, they were not too sweet, with just the right amount of cinnamon and, of course, the buttermilk pancakes were delicious. They were truly heavenly and worthy of the Holy Father, should he