About Texas

It's Saveur’s Texas Issue.

Have you seen it?

I’ve been resisting it. Intentionally. I love the Bay Area. And I’m growing to love Chicago, but deep in my heart, I miss Texas terribly. Saveur’s not helping. I succumbed.

I don’t know how or why, but Texas’s myths and realities are so comfy to me. I miss Texas’s dry sear. Mornings on those flat Plains, when the breeze is just right, the air can smell scorched, like an iron too long on “high.” I miss the storms and the way lightening fingers across the sky. I miss the Gulf coast’s wet air. I miss the food. And this issue is filled with it: Texas “caviar”; brisket; shrimp, oysters and crawdads; okra; Helen Corbitt and Monica Pope; CFS and chile pequins (page 102.)

When P and I married, we agreed that our "flowers" should be more than just color and texture. They should be "us": for him, food; for me, native plants. From the bouquet to the altar, our friend Kris arranged herbs--basil, sages, rosemary, mint, lavender and borage. Some were from friends’ gardens; some were varieties of Edwards Plateau natives picked early that August morning. We were in P's father's church in Comfort. Against the sounds of his mother's bell choir, the herbs filled the air. Fragrant and calming. We added chile pequins, tiny peppers, to it all--for color, of course, and cooking. (Well, maybe a little more, but this is not the place for that … )

Pequins are among the natives. They’re about the size of my little finger’s nail. And they are hot, 75,000 Scoville units of hot. (Jalapenos rate about 4,000.) My friend John, a native of northern Mexico, carries pequins around raw in his shirt pocket; spicy food is never quite spicy enough for him so he brings his own. I can handle just a slice of the beasts. They have a burn that settles around my lips and the back of my throat, they make me sweat right across the bridge of my nose. The remind me that ears, noses and throats are all connected. I love them. Euphoria. Clarity. Draining sinuses.

When we built our first house, we asked the contactors to protect the lot’s native plants. We had no idea what the land held. We moved in in October and the next spring, a small shrub along the back fence blossomed white, put on zillions of green berries, which turned toward purple and then burst into red. Thousands of chile pequins. The mockingbirds shared them with us. We wish now that we’d picked them all, and dried them and carried them with us. Just for days like this.

Last night we cursed Saveur for so stirring our hearts, and we dreamed aloud and together of Central and South Texas. Today P is cooking Texan. And I’m wondering if pequins will grow in Chicago. One of the farmers at the Green City Market sells them.