Texas, State of Lush Produce and More
Join me near Fort Worth for a Three Day Class June 23-25, 2025
As most of you who read me here know, I am often in Texas because my son and his family live there. Soon, I will also be going to teach a Three-Day Cooking Class near Fort Worth (Timmaron in Southlake), and I’m so looking forward to it. There are a few spots left, and I’d love for you to join me, June 23-25, 2025.
Even before my son settled in Texas, I’d been many times to research pieces for magazines and books. Before visiting for the first time, my image of Texas was entirely informed by movies, and stories my mother told from when she and my father lived there just after World War II. These images were of dusty roads, cowboys wearing kickers (it’s still a big part of the state’s identity), line dancing, Tex Mex, a familiarity that had every driver waving at every other driver as they passed each other on the road, a ready warmth and friendliness. What I discovered was all of this and so much more.
I will always remember a visit with a cattle rancher in her beautiful home in central Texas, her yellow kitchen with its lovely white curtains a haven of cool comfort. She, with her thick Texan accent, took me on a voyage of the ins and outs of cattle ranching, from buying her steers to taking them to be dispatched. We toured her ranch, went to auction where she trilled and bought along with her mostly male cohort. I met her rangy, cowboy boot-wearing husband who worked with her on the ranch, though she was clearly the boss. At the end of the day, after coffee and cookies, I prepared to leave. She looked at me and said “But honey, why don’t you stay overnight, and you can go to the slaughterhouse tomorrow morning, to see it through.” I’d been wanting to do that but had found it hard to get into one, so of course I accepted.
This was typical of Texas. I’d go for an interview and wind up part of the family. I met people from all cultures and all persuasions, I spoke with chefs male and female, and toured numerous market gardens that supplied their restaurants. Coming at the time from Seattle, where that city was at the forefront of the local foods revolution and getting plenty of press for it, I was surprised to find that Texas was right up there with us, if not beyond.
I still keep my finger on the lively culinary pulse of the state. I have friends there in the business, and I seek out every farmers’ market I can find. Surprisingly, they pop up in parking lots everywhere, and I’ve had the honest and exciting joy of eating freshly shucked field peas, corn right off the cob, glorious green and purple okra, tomatoes which are not only Texas-size, but richly flavorful, an incredibly variety of salad greens, melons of all sorts, peaches... And they have FLAVOR!
And then there is the seafood (from redfish to grouper and if the season is open, Gulf shrimp), and of course the meat (lamb, beef, poultry).
In class, we will cook with what is local, what is seasonal, what is delicious. We will sip Texas wines, enjoy Texas cheeses, and wrap it all into the finest French cuisine. Texas has the reputation of being larger than life; the class will be too. You will love cooking there, so I invite you to join me, and we’ll explore together the culinary riches Texas has to offer.