Texas eats

We eat well in Mexico and not always enchiladas and tamales. I can find the ingredients for most anything I want to cook though not always on the day I want to cook it. While we are there I usually don't have a craving for any particular food or recipe that I can't satisfy. But when we come back I find that I have missed some foods....and usually it is food from my childhood.

One night since we have been back we had rib-eye steaks cooked on the grill and baked potatoes. Oh, I can get good meat in San Miguel de Allende and I have probably written before about the filette de res that I buy there. Very tender and good but in general the meat isn't heavily marbled and it isn't the heavy, aged beef that we get here in the States. There is a big price difference between the meat in San Miguel and the meat here. I think I paid about $12 a pound for the rib-eye while the Mexican fillete is about $5.50 a pound. In San Miguel I don't find the big firm skinned potatoes that we use here for baking and in general the potatoes there seem starchier. That rib-eye steak was so tastey and favorful and the potato was light and fluffy. What a great meal.

I've never seen live crabs in Mexico although I'm sure they must have them along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday Ned went to Fiesta, a grocery store here in Houston and bought 1-1/2 dozen live crabs and 1/2 pound of shrimp. Good old gulf coast crabs. I love 'em. We boiled them with crab boil. I really don't care for anything else with them. Just cover the table with newspaper and get me a crab cracker, some wine and let me sit there for hours just picking and eating and picking and eating. Ned wears out with the picking so he always has a few shrimp to fill in with. The crabs were so delicious, sweet and delicate. Oh, what a treat.

Another thing I'll have while we are here is corn on the cob. I love the sweet tender corn that we find in the summer. So far I haven't found anything to match it in Mexico. The kernels of their corn are much firmer and in general it isn't as sweet. I think one night I'll have to prepare fried chicken, corn on the cob and a big salad. That is definitely a memory from childhood. Yes, I can get good chicken in Mexico and I can fry it, but it is the combination of summer, fried chicken and fresh sweet corn on the cob that is what I want.

I have a couple of racks of lamb in the freezer that will get cooked while we are here. I seldom see lamb in Mexico. Another meal with rack of lamb, couscous and asparagus.

We will have Blue Bell Ice Cream while we are in Houston. Blue Bell is made about 50 miles from Houston and it is the best ice cream ever.....better than Hagen Dazs or Ben and Jerry's or any of the premium National brands. Yes, I definitely must have Blue Bell pralines and cream ice cream....so delicious.

Texas BBQ....we stopped the night we drove home and picked up a couple of BBQ beef sandwiches...loaded with beef and sauce dripping down your fingers BBQ sandwiches.

Does it sound like I'm eating my way through Houston? Well I guess I am.