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 Mutton and mutton ribs (bottom right), pork shoulder (left) and beef shoulder clod (top) were the three meat choices at the annual Millheim Father’s day BBQ. German-style red potatoes in butter and pinto beans were the sides. There was also plenty of white bread, raw onion slices and pickles available. Beer was sold inside the hall, along with desserts. I lost a couple of bucks gambling on the Cake Wheel.
 The Millheim Harmonie Verien fires up the old-fashioned open pit out back only once a year and cooks barbecue for the whole community. It’s a fund-raiser for the preservation of the dance hall. Some of the pit masters at this barbecue have been cooking for more than forty years. The German singing society was organized on August 30, 1872. The original music hall no longer exists, the current hall was built in 1938. Members of the Millheim Harmonie Verien claim their barbecue tradition goes back over a hundred years.
read more Real Texas BBQ: Last of the Open Pits »
Dr. Jeff Savell, the head of the Meat Science program at Texas A&M, led the whole hog demonstration at the first annual Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp last weekend. In fact, the pit was located in Dr. Savell’s backyard. The three day crash course in barbecue arts and science included some thoughts about BBQ culture from me, a sneak preview of a new Foodways Texas movie about pit master Vencil Mares of Taylor Cafe, and a whole lot of hands-on seasoning, smoking and work in the meat science lab.
read more Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp »
 The "Come and Bake It" cookie/flag
UPDATE: The governor signed the Texas Cottage Food Bill into law on June 17. Starting in September 2011, home bakers, canners and farmers will get an exemption from regulations required that food sold to the public must be produced in a certified commercial kitchen. The new bill will not allow home cooks and farmers to sell their prepared foods on the internet or at Farmers Markets, however. Sales of such products must be direct to the consumer and not exceed $50,000 a year. Here are the rules.
read more Victory for the Cottage Food Bill! »
UNITED TASTES
Rapping About Tamales and Deportation Photo by Axel Koester for The New York Times
Chingo Bling enjoys a taco dinner before performing at the Key Club in West Hollywood.
By JOHN T. EDGE
Published: May 24, 2011
Chingo Bling talks tamales with John T. Edge.
 Monday June 20 is the date of my next Tex-Mex Cooking Class. We’ll be making chalupas, nachos, crispy tacos and of course puffy tacos and puffy chips. We’ll also take a shot at some Taco Truck Tacos. Class size is limited to 12. The ticket price is $100 and includes dinner catered by a surprise taquero.
You can buy a ticket at Eventbrite.
 Chicken Puffy Tacos at El Real Back in August of last year I posted an item about the Tex-Mex puffy taco. We were building the menu of El Real Tex-Mex Cafe at the time. In the process we sampled a great many puffy tacos in hopes of perfecting our own. It took a whole lot of trial and error, but when we opened we had our puffy taco ready. If you haven’t tried it yet, I invite you to check it out and tell me how it rates compared to the greats.
The puffy tacos at Sammy’s Mexican Restaurant in La Vernia are among the best I’ve had. They were a lot sturdier than most. As you are probably aware, the biggest problem with puffy tacos is the lack of structural integrity.
read more The Making of a Puffy Taco »
At $2, I couldn’t resist this basket of red serranos I found in the stalls behind Canino’s on Airline. My usual recipe for pickling jalapeños calls for 15, but since the serranos were around half the size, I used 30 of them. The escabeche came out very hot with a little of that ripe red chile sweetness.
Just the thing with an Easter ham and Easter egg salad sandwich.
Recipe after the jump:
read more Pickled Red Serrano Recipe »
Central China restaurant at 9390 Bellaire in Houston’s new Chinatown is a lovely place for breakfast. The  restaurant opens at 7:30 am and serves the long fried cruellers known as Chinese doughnuts along with several sizes of heated soy and almond milk for dunking them in. Bring your own reading material, all the newspapers here are in Chinese.
I like dumplings and noodles for my Chinese breakfast.  The lamb dumplings (which are called “mutton dumplings” on the menu) are particularly tasty. I made a dip with the ground chiles in oil and some soy sauce to dip the dumplings and scallion pancakes in. The bill for my meal of hot tea, scallion pancakes, mutton dumplings, and beef noodle soup with choy was under $15. It would have been a nice breakfast for three people. I took most of it home where my hungry housemates ate the rest of the dumplings and pancakes for lunch. I still have some beef noodle soup in the fridge.
I thought this was a hallal pizzeria, what’s with the pepperoni?” I asked the Mexican-American pizza maker.
“It’s hallal pepperoni–it’s made out of beef,” he replied.
read more Hallal Pepperoni? »
 Rare Elm Grove Ruffle On Saturday April 2, Tommy’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar in Clear Lake held a tasting of a dozen different Galveston oysters by appellation. All of the oysters were provided by Jeri’s Seafood of Smith Point as part of the Louisiana Foods marketing program called ” Jeri’s Hand-Selected Oysters by Appellation.” Here’s a map of Galveston Bay oyster reefs.
read more A Dozen Galveston Oysters from 12 Different Reefs »
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The Millheim Harmonie Verien fires up the old-fashioned open pit out back only once a year and cooks barbecue for the whole community. It’s a fund-raiser for the preservation of the dance hall. Some of the pit masters at this barbecue have been cooking for more than forty years. The German singing society was organized on August 30, 1872. The original music hall no longer exists, the current hall was built in 1938. Members of the Millheim Harmonie Verien claim their barbecue tradition goes back over a hundred years.
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