Release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon

“Food writer Walsh (The Tex-Mex Cookbook ; Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook) is a three-time James Beard Award winner and an authority on Texas culinary history. His latest is primarily organized by region, with chapters that focus on either a popular dish (e.g., Chili con [...]]]> Release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon

“Food writer Walsh (The Tex-Mex Cookbook ; Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook) is a three-time James Beard Award winner and an authority on Texas culinary history. His latest is primarily organized by region, with chapters that focus on either a popular dish (e.g., Chili con Carne and Chicken-Fried Steak) or style of cuisine (e.g., Czech Texan, Vietnamese Texan, Indian Cowboys). Culinary explorers who like variety will find ten ways to serve oysters, seven kinds of hamburger, and plenty of interesting seasonings, sauces, and spice blends. Packed with history and stories, this is a great choice for homesick Texans and armchair travelers.” -Publishers’ Weekly

From Ten Speed Press, release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon

Many thanks to Eater.com’s Spring Cookbook Preview for the kind words about the new cookbook!

The Eater Spring 2012 Cookbook and Food Book Preview Monday, January 9, 2012, by Paula Forbes

American Regional: Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, [...]]]> From Ten Speed Press, release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon

Many thanks to Eater.com’s Spring Cookbook Preview for the kind words about the new cookbook!

The Eater Spring 2012 Cookbook and Food Book Preview
Monday, January 9, 2012, by Paula Forbes

American Regional:

Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, with More Than 200 Recipes by Robb Walsh

Robb Walsh has long been the go-to cookbook author for Texan cuisine, but this book has the potential to be his masterwork. Gone are stuffy preconceptions of what Texas food is (cheese enchiladas!), and in their place find what Texans really eat (Czech-Tex! Viet-Tex! And, okay, some vintage Tex-Mex.) Bonus? Aaron Franklin’s nationally recognized recipe for barbecued brisket from Austin’s Franklin Barbecue.

The RobbWalsh.com “Texas Eats” website was down for more than a week due to technical difficulties. If you tried to find us while were out of commission, we apologize.

It seems our server got raided by interweb evil doers. We ended up with the  “WordPress Pharma Hack.” Every time we tried to send [...]]]> The RobbWalsh.com “Texas Eats” website was down for more than a week due to technical difficulties. If you tried to find us while were out of commission, we apologize.

It seems our server got raided by interweb evil doers. We ended up with the  “WordPress Pharma Hack.” Every time we tried to send a link of our site to Facebook, or anywhere else, we transmitted a message about where to buy drugs online.

Cleaning things up and moving to a new server was a little more complicated than it sounded. Our technical department (Pableaux “Bayou Dog” Johnson) had to redo all the photo links and otherwise tinker under the hood.

Thinking about people who spread Spam (not you Hormel) and hack websites makes me angry. Sometimes I daydream about what I would do if I ever got hold of one of these slimeballs. Hacking is a form of theft, right? So would a convicted hacker get his hands chopped off under Islamic law? I know a pitmaster in South Carolina named Tim Hyman who would be perfect for the job of punishing hackers–he is a sort of hacker himself.

The reason I got a huge Lodge Chicken Fryer was to make Edna Lewis’s famous chicken recipe. It was over a year later that I actually got around to making it. The fryer didn’t gather dust. I fried a lot of chicken in it, I just never had the time for the elaborate [...]]]> The reason I got a huge Lodge Chicken Fryer was to make Edna Lewis’s famous chicken recipe. It was over a year later that I actually got around to making it. The fryer didn’t gather dust. I fried a lot of chicken in it, I just never had the time for the elaborate preparations Edna’s recipe requires.

In that recipe, which was made famous by chef Scott Peacock, the cut up chicken gets 12 hours of brining followed by 12 hours of buttermilk marinating before you proceed with the seasoning and flouring. Then you hold the floured pieces of chicken on a rack for half an hour to get the crust to stick and finally you fry the chicken in a large cast iron skillet full of lard jazzed up with butter and country ham.

My wife got really tired of that raw chicken sloshing around in our refrigerator for two days. She was happy to help eat the chicken though. To tell the truth, I faithfully executed the marinating and flouring, but I substituted peanut oil for the lard. So I guess I still haven’t really made Edna Lewis’s fried chicken.

I want to say the flavor and the juiciness of the resulting chicken was worth the effort. It was awfully good. But the next time I make fried chicken, I am much more likely to use a quick recipe like the spicy Cajun fried chicken recipe below. I’ll save Edna Lewis’s famous fried chicken recipe for very special events.

Spicy Fried Chicken

This recipe is simple, but the technique is tricky. If you try to fry chicken in too small a volume of oil, the temperature won’t recover fast enough and the chicken will get greasy. Count on using several quarts of oil or lard.
Purists swear that chicken fried in a cast iron skillet tastes best. If you want to go this route, I recommend the 5-quart size Lodge Chicken Fryer–it will accommodate an entire cut-up chicken and plenty of frying oil and will set you back a mere $39. Don’t forget to use the lid–it makes a big difference.

Serves 4 to 6.

Peanut oil or fresh rendered lard
1 large chicken cut into pieces
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Slap Yo’ Mama seasoning (or other Cajun seasoning blend)

Season the chicken by sprinkling it with seasoning blend. Add the rest of the seasoning (at least half a cup) to the flour and stir well to combine. Dip the chicken in the flour and roll to coat. Shake off the excess flour and allow the chicken to sit on a wire rack for half an hour. (This helps the crust to adhere to the chicken.) Heat the oil, 3 inches deep, in a heavy skillet or Dutch oven to 350°F. Carefully slip the chicken pieces into the hot oil and cover. The temperature of the oil will fall, but try to keep it at 325° F for around 15 minutes or until the chicken is done to your liking. Serve immediately or hold in a hot oven.

Seafood chef Denis Wilson, the name behind Denis’ Seafood and the late Jimmy Wilson’s Seafood and Chop House, is back in business in a North Houston fast casual restaurant called Louisiana Homestyle Kitchen. Only this time, instead of seafood, he is specializing in free range chicken.

The menu is a veritable Bubba Gump litany [...]]]> Seafood chef Denis Wilson, the name behind Denis’ Seafood and the late Jimmy Wilson’s Seafood and Chop House, is back in business in a North Houston fast casual restaurant called Louisiana Homestyle Kitchen. Only this time, instead of seafood, he is specializing in free range chicken.

The menu is a veritable Bubba Gump litany (only with chicken instead of shrimp). Offerings include: Free range fried chicken, free range rotisserie chicken, free range chicken fricasee, free range chicken chef salad, free range chicken wedge salad, free range chicken homestyle salad, free range chicken gumbo, free range chicken tortilla soup, and a free range chicken strip poor boy.

The menu also includes fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, fried crawfish tails, red beans and rice, smothered pork chops, an awesome pot roast and a couple of poor boys.

The fried chicken that I sampled was sensational and so were the butterflied fried shrimp. Wilson’s tartar sauce alone is worth the trip. I poured the intense, chocolate-brown gravy that came with the pot roast over some rice. Wow. I can’t wait to try Wilson’s roast beef poor boy.

At this writing, the restaurant isn’t open yet. Wilson said he would be open just before Thanksgiving, so keep an eye out.

Louisiana Home Kitchen
16950 Ella Blvd.
281 580 8400

I learned about B&B Charcoal from the old-timers at the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. These guys have been barbecueing on an open pit since the 1950s and their lodge has been holding barbecues since the late 1800s, so maybe they know a thing or two.

The modern Texas barbecue smoker [...]]]> I learned about B&B Charcoal from the old-timers at the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. These guys have been barbecueing on an open pit since the 1950s and their lodge has been holding barbecues since the late 1800s, so maybe they know a thing or two.

The modern Texas barbecue smoker burns hardwood and imparts a strong smoky flavor to the meat. Old-fashioned Southern barbecue is cooked over coals and doesn’t have much of smoky taste. In the old days, barbecuers burned seasoned hardwood in a fireplace and shoveled the hot coals into the barbecue pit. But for the last 20 years or so, the barbecue crew at the Sons of Hermann Lodge in Washington has been starting their fire with lump charcoal. “But you can’t use just any charcoal,” veteran BBQ man Bubba Roese confided.

B&B Charcoal company in Weimar sells lump charcoal made from oak and brags that their curing method removes acid and resins that cause inferior charcoal to impart bad flavors to the meat. I found B&B Lump Oak Charcoal at my local HEB grocery store in Houston. You can call them at 1-855-BBQCOAL to find out where to buy their charcoal near you.

Snow’s brisket is famous. It comes with the somewhat dubious Calvin Trillin seal of approval. Ever since Texas Monthly rated Snow’s the best barbecue joint in Texas, I have felt it my duty to join the crowd and make a pilgrimage to the hamlet of Lexington. Yesterday, I got lucky–I scored a sample [...]]]> Snow’s brisket is famous. It comes with the somewhat dubious Calvin Trillin seal of approval. Ever since Texas Monthly rated Snow’s the best barbecue joint in Texas, I have felt it my duty to join the crowd and make a pilgrimage to the hamlet of Lexington. Yesterday, I got lucky–I scored a sample of their brisket at the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival without a pre-dawn drive in the country.


But I was called out in public for not sampling Snow’s until now: “What took so long, Robb?” asked @BarbecueSnob Daniel Vaughn via twitter.

Back in 2008, I explained my recalcitrance and questioned Calvin Trillin’s judgement at length in a post on the Houston Press blog. To sum it up–Snow’s is only open briefly on Saturday mornings. To insure a place in line, I have been told I need to be there by 8 am. The joint is better than two hours from my house in Houston, so that means getting up on Saturday morning at five something to go stand in line for brisket. Not an appealing prospect, especially when you have a wife and kids with their own Saturday morning agendas. And then there are the doubts. My inner curmudgeon finds something a little suspect about a barbecue joint that is open so seldom. “Anybody can make great barbecue for a few hours on Saturday morning,” Rick Schmidt at Kruez Market scoffs.

But I gave Snow’s brisket a fair chance. And to be honest, it wasn’t nearly as good as Franklin’s brisket which was being sliced a few booths away. Apparently, my opinion was shared by the rest of the crowd who voted for the “People’s Choice Awards.” Franklin’s won the Best Brisket category. And Franklin’s is actually open at lunch time. Kudos to the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival for providing a chance to finally compare the two famous briskets side by side.

A new feature of the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival this year was The Barbecue Genius Counter, staffed by students and professors from the Texas A&M Animal Sciences Department Meat Science Center. At last, an opportunity for barbecue fanatics to find answers to such burning questions as: What is a tri-tip and how do you cook it? And: Where can I find an 80 pound whole pig for my barbecue pit?

The Barbecue Genius Corner was also answering questions about Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp which be held again next June at the Texas A&M Meat Science Center in College Station. The event is limited to 50 students and is sure to sell out. Your best bet to get a ticket is to become a member of Foodways Texas right away since Foodways Texas members will get advance word when tickets go on sale.

At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was once common all [...]]]> At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was once common all across the South. This Sons of Hermann Lodge was established in 1898 and the members claim that their barbecue tradition goes back that far too.

I heard about the event from Bubba Roese while eating a burger at the legendary 105 Grocery. Bubba and I were talking about Texas cooking when he got onto the subject of barbecue. He told me that the German meat markets in Lockhart and Giddings weren’t really cooking barbecue. Barbecue isn’t supposed to taste like smoke, he said. He invited me to come to the Sons of Hermann hall on the third Sunday in October to see how it’s done. It took me a couple of years, but I made it.
Twice a year, once in October and once in April, the lodge holds barbecue fundraisers. At the April event, only chicken is served. But at the annual fundraiser held on the third Sunday of October, pork and beef are barbecued.

Pork butts and briskets are the preferred cuts today and the fuel is charcoal, but 50 years ago, lambs and the small pigs called shoats were slaughtered on this spot and cooked over wood coals.

“We didn’t barbecue beef until we started buying briskets in the 1960s, recalls Bubba, who has been attending barbecues at the lodge since the 1940s. Back in the 1940s and early 1950s, the animals were slaughtered on the spot. And you couldn’t kill a steer unless you were having a really huge barbecue. “Refrigerators were pretty rare, and it was just too much meat to handle. Texas barbecue was mostly whole hogs and whole lambs on an open pit back then.” I asked him if anybody still barbecues whole hogs in Texas today. “Some people rented the hall for a wedding not long ago and they cooked whole hogs out here,” Bubba said. “You can get six hogs on this barbecue pit.”

“We don’t use wood coals anymore, dry wood is too expensive. We’ve switched over to B&B charcoal. It’s a Texas charcoal company, they make lump charcoal and its really easy to cook with.” The pit was open in the old days, but today it’s covered with sheets of cardboard to retain heat and moisture and cut down on fuel consumption.

While the rest of the meat is cooking, the barbecue crew likes to make special items for their own consumption. There were several coils of homemade sausage and couple of rabbits cooking that morning.
The Sons of Hermann barbecuemen started their fire at 2am and cooked the beef and pork until around 10:30, when it was time to start carving for lunch service. The brisket was a revelation, tender, juicy and nicely flavored with charcoal. I didn’t really miss the smoke. The pork was succulent and practically squirting fat, but it wasn’t cooked long enough to yield the mushy “pulled pork” texture that’s popular in much of the South.

It was a rare honor to attend this event, interview the participants about old-fashioned barbecue and take down their mop sauce and barbecue sauce recipes.

I was gobsmacked to see that the centuries-old Southern barbecue tradition has been preserved in Texas.

From Ten Speed Press, release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon (Jacket copy) Who says cooking is for homebodies? Veteran Texas food writer Robb Walsh served as a judge at a chuck wagon cook-off, worked as a deckhand on a shrimp boat, and went mayhaw-picking in the Big Thicket. For seven years, he [...]]]> From Ten Speed Press, release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon

(Jacket copy) Who says cooking is for homebodies? Veteran Texas food writer Robb Walsh served as a judge at a chuck wagon cook-off, worked as a deckhand on a shrimp boat, and went mayhaw-picking in the Big Thicket. For seven years, he drove the length and breadth of the state looking for the best in barbecue, burgers, kolaches, and tacos; while scouring museums, libraries, and public archives unearthing vintage photos, culinary stories, and nearly-forgotten dishes. Then he headed home to Houston to test the recipes he’d collected back in his own kitchen. The result is Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, a colorful and deeply personal blend of history, anecdotes, and recipes from all over the Lone Star State.

In Texas Eats, Walsh covers the standards, from chicken-fried steak to cheese enchiladas to barbecued brisket. He also makes stops in East Texas, for some good old-fashioned soul food; the Hill Country, for German- and Czech-influenced favorites; the Panhandle, for traditional cowboy cooking; and the Gulf Coast, for timeless seafood dishes and lost classics like pickled shrimp. Texas Eats even covers recent trends, like Viet-Texan fusion and Pakistani fajitas. And yes, there are recipes for those beloved-but-obscure gems: King Ranch casserole, parisa, and barbecued crabs. With more than 200 recipes and stunning food photography, Texas Eats brings the richness of Texas food history vibrantly to life and serves up a hearty helping of real Texas flavor.

Houston delicatessen owner Ziggy Gruber and his Post Oak restaurant, Kenny and Ziggy’s are starring in a movie. Erik Greenberg Anjou, a New York-based independent filmmaker, was in town last week with his production crew working on the documentary which is tentatively titled: Deli Man. The director choose Ziggy Gruber as his star [...]]]>
Houston delicatessen owner Ziggy Gruber and his Post Oak restaurant, Kenny and Ziggy’s are starring in a movie. Erik Greenberg Anjou, a New York-based independent filmmaker, was in town last week with his production crew working on the documentary which is tentatively titled: Deli Man.

The director choose Ziggy Gruber as his star because of his outgoing personality and because he is may be the only third generation Jewish deli man who is still actively running a restaurant. The unlikely Texas location is part of the movie’s appeal. “The fact that the best New York Deli in the country is located in Houston blows people’s minds,” chuckles Ziggy Gruber.

According to the director, “Ziggy’s story, including his move from New York’s Lower East Side to Texas in an effort to continue the family business and tradition, is emblematic of the wider story of the Jewish delicatessen; its storied if not heart-stopping delicacies and its reflection of the migration and development of both Eastern European and American Jews.”

Erik Greenberg Anjou’s previous films cover subjects as varied as college football history and abstract expressionist painting, but his particular interest is in Jewish culture and its perpetuation. Two of his projects – A Cantor’s Tale (www.acantorstale.com) and The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground (www.klezdoc.com) – have found an enthusiastic home on the film festival circuit and on PBS affiliates.

The film is schedule for release in a about a year. We’ll keep you posted.