Wednesday, April 2

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright

Everything good you've ever heard about Texas is one hundred percent true.

I was there two weekends ago and rediscovered for the millionth time how much I love that great state. Everything IS bigger in Texas – often for the better, and occasionally for the worse. It was already balmy spring there, seventy-five degrees and sunny (in stark contrast to the weather here in Maryland, where the Orioles' opening game was delayed for thirteen minutes by snow).

I grew up in Texas, and consider it my true home still, even though my friends and parents live here in Maryland and my siblings are bicoastal. This trip I had the added excitement of being able to introduce a newbie to the joys of the state: my friend John accompanied me to the Houston area for the weekend.

While cramming poor John as full as possible of all the foodstuffs we can't easily get here in Maryland, I started to think. If someone was going to Texas for the first time unaccompanied by an expert, what would I recommend that they eat? That question was the inspiration for the list below. (There are many many other things I would take time to eat on a trip to the Lone Star State, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm the uninitiated!)

1. Barbecue: You can't go to Texas and not eat barbecue, and it has to be beef. There are no two ways about this. Barbecue joints do make pork barbecue and chicken barbecue, but brisket is the star, and the smoke is the thing. At my favorite almost-condemned shack, Leon's In-and-Out Barbecue in Galveston, the smoke shed out back looks to be in better shape than the actual restaurant. You can get your beef sliced or chopped, on sandwiches or by the pound, and there's none better. (If you can't get into a half pound of brisket for lunch, I can heartily recommend the "downtown" links: homemade sausage links that are a little bit spicy and come rolled up between two pieces of Mrs. Baird's white bread. Mmmmmm.)

2. Mexican food: I suppose this category would be more appropriately called "Tex-Mex," but I grew up calling it Mexican food and so that is how I know it. Most of Texas is rife with Mexican cafes, chain restaurants, and roadside stands; the occasional very upscale Mexican restaurant is not uncommon. Whenever I find myself at any of the above, save maybe the upscale restaurant, I make sure to order a combination plate of some sort, which will arrive with several unrecognizable lumps of food (enchilada, taco, burrito, tamale) covered in brownish red sauce and melted cheese, rice and beans on the side. Most recently I sampled the "Ladies' Plate" at Mama Ninfa's in Houston: a chile con queso puff, pork tamale, and cheese enchilada, complemented by rice, beans, pico de gallo, lettuce, and a heaping serving of guacamole, all for the outrageous price of $5.95. Delish.

3. Blue Bell ice cream: I don't know what they feed the cows in Brenham, Texas, but this ice cream is so wonderful that the first President Bush had it specially shipped to the White House. The company makes several dozen flavors, including standards like Homemade Vanilla flecked with vanilla bean and Dutch Chocolate made with intensely dark cocoa. Blue Bell also makes seasonal flavors like Peaches and Cream, with fresh Hill Country peaches, and Strawberries and Cream, with fresh Texas strawberries. When I was little, I always had Peppermint Blue Bell for my birthday in early June; that too is a seasonal flavor. I suppose the peppermint is meant to be cooling in the heat of a Texas summer.

4. Tamales: You can get decent Tex-Mex and ice cream here in the mid-Atlantic, but you sure can't get good tamales. Plus tamales are such a chore to make that you can't really whip up just a few. It seems every Texan has a secret route to homemade tamales: a hairdresser makes them, or someone's grandma, or a favorite bakery sells them under-the-counter. They can be pork or beef in the traditional incantation, but I always go for spicy. There's just something about the combination of limey corn mush and peppery shredded meat that is divine. (You can order tamales mail-order at www.tamale.com – they're expensive, but worth it as a special treat.)

5. Seafood: If you are near the Texas coast, you just shouldn't leave without trying something fresh from the Gulf. During my recent sojourn, which was very convenient for fresh seafood since I was in the beach town of Galveston for most of it, I tasted seafood gumbo, shrimp bisque, lobster bisque – okay, the lobster probably wasn't from the Gulf – fresh snapper with lump crabmeat, and lump crabmeat sauteed in butter. I ate raw Gulf oysters on the pontoon deck of a restaurant, looking out over the Galveston ship channel at an offshore oil rig. It was all good. My only regret was that I couldn't fit in any crawfish!

There are more things I could suggest – Sonic Drive-Ins, the Marble Slab, Rosie's, Poteet strawberries, chicken-fried steak, Shiner bock, home-grown grapefruit – but, like I said, I wouldn't want to overwhelm a newcomer. And of course there is much more to Texas than the food, but I wouldn't want to make other states jealous. Suffice it to say that in Texas, everything's as fine as cream gravy.