With a new group of historians like David La Vere (Texas Indians, 2004) it's time now to look at the older, deeper roots of Tex-Mex. Walsh alludes to this need in his introduction to his Tex-Mex Cookbook , "Culinary folklorists now trace Tex-Mex cooking all the way back to the state's Native American peoples...."

We've been looking at Tex-Mex through a young lens that starts with Mexico and Texas, it's a European lens. That gives us a good view, but it's a partial view. It's partial because what we now separate as Southern Texas and Northern Mexico used to be one cohesive, well-traveled and communicated region.

Some scholars have called it the Coahuiltecan region. Perhaps authors of the 1970's would have been better served to forgoe the easy word "Tex-Mex" and choose a more accurate and descriptive one, Coahuiltecan cuisine.
It is the Coahuiltecan region that gives rise to the cuisine that we now call Tex-Mex. It's flavor profile is characterized by chiles, open fire cooking, stews, small game, corn, beans, fish, shellfish, nopales and eventually wheat flour, milk products and pork.

Its palette derives from the southern and coastal Texas Indians.These Texas Indians eventually became the Mexican peasant class, the Mission Indians and so forth, but they (we) retained and evolved our identity through our food (all cultural identity is evolved and hybridized). Over time, with the birth of these two (Tex,Mex) republics, Texas Indians found themselves separated from their kin. The border crossed them, separated them -- they did not cross the border.

These early Texas Indians are the roots of what we now call Tex-Mex cuisine.
So again, Kudos to Walsh and to the effort that he started to get to a fuller history of our delicious and authentic Tex-Mex, Coahuiltecan, food. I can't wait to taste the food at El Real.

AM

Karen ordered sunchoke tortelloni with bits of salsify (sal-suhf-eye ) in the sauce.The overall plate was super rich, complex and dynamic -- but calm and balanced. Again, I think that's really hard to do.

WORDS: The waiter explained each of the dishes on the menu in painstaking detail. I was losing patience with him until I remembered what Stewart, who is a media theoretician guru, had said earlier about media. He could understand how taking pictures of food and then sharing them, re-looking at them, brought on an experience of embodiment and intimacy by recalling images and memories. I don't claim to understand this completely, and soon I hope to ask Stewart to explain it, but when I started to listen to the waiter, I realized that his words were intended to evoke images and memories! The ingredients we were about to eat came from a very specific location: cheese from cows grazing in the mountains, near the alps. The fish from those rivers, the sea in that region.
So food really is an experience that evokes images of our memories and locations.

SOUNDS: Chef Heston Blumenthal uses sound to do the same thing, evoke images and memories, when he serves seafood with sounds of the sea coming from an Ipod inside a Conch! Why? To place the diner in a location via memory and imagination.

The waiter did this through his descriptions, words, and I'm sure that the chef has coached each of the waiters to do this carefully.

I look forward to my next meal when I'll play closer to attention to words and sounds.

Procedure:
In Paella pan or dutch oven,
heat pan over medium flame
add olive oil, making sure it does not overheat and smoke
add onions and saute until translucent
add bell pepper,celery,garlic and saute for about 3 minutes

When the above ingredients acquire a nice light brown roast color,
deglaze the pan by adding the white wine to the ingredients, making sure to scrape the pan so that all of the caramalized flavors (brown bits) are released into the wine.
When the wine has evaporated almost completely, add rice and stir ingredients together for about 3 minutes.
In a separate container, dissolve the saffron in the vegetable stock or warm water. Then add to the rice and vegetables.
Add salt and pepper.
Bring to a simmer.
Cover the pan and simmer on very low heat for 20 minutes.
While the rice is cooking, in a separate skillet, preferably non-stick, add just enough olive oil to sauté the firm tofu squares to a golden brown on all sides. Then remove and place them on paper towels to release excess oil.

After the rice has cooked for 15 minutes, add the fried tofu, black olives, sliced water chestnusts and green peas, to the rice mixture and stir very gently with a large fork (you are fluffing) to mix. Cover and simmer for the remaining time. The rice will be fluffy and beautifully saffron yellow.

Serve steaming hot.
Because it's Valentine's lover's day, I suggest splurging and pairing it with a white Bordeaux, not older than 2009.
If this dinner works for you, please let me know. I also am eager to know if the recipe is not clear enough or if it leads you astray.
am

They are part of the gallery exhibition wherein the paintings and sculptures by my artist colleagues explore nostalgia, community, identiy, pleasure and other aspects of the human eating experience.

Todd Greenfield plays the poor tormented creator of the 1970's smiley face who has committed these outrageous crimes. The play is directed by Eliza Seabolt-Esparza and Jonathan Harvey. The space is intimate and perfect to catch the nuanced acting but also the slap-stick, comedic melodrama of some of the vignettes. What a great evening of fresh grown-up theatre.

Simmer the soup for another 45 minutes uncovered so that the liquid reduces by approximately 25%.

Add 4 to 6 baby bok choy during the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Serve with slices of corn bread. Enjoy.

Non-government-non-corporate-controlled Internet is simiilar to the protections for community radio stations, a fight that is ongoing here in the US. I'm reminded of the role that community radio stations played in the 1980's overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Marcos recognized the importance of community radio and began to bomb many of the Catholic church's radio stations. He was unable to get to all of them and it was through these small radio stations that the streets were organized towards the successful overthrow of Marcos.

The bombs that governments use today to stop grassroots Internet communications are called "DPI," Deep Packet Inspection." Built by NARUS, it is a type of web filtering system that allows governments to monitor where all emails, web posts and phone calls come from -- what is being said -- and who is listening.

It can also be used to shut down traffic at the main routers or servers people use to connect to the Internet -- a so-called kill switch.

I'm adding my name to a letter authored by Free Press telling Congress to investigate DPI and surveillance and control technologies.
am

Finish with a dash of fresh lime. The pan de maíz is not the Northern cornbread that is sweet and cake-like. The ratio of corn meal to wheat flour is higher and there is only a slight amount of sugar to help with moisture retention. Both regular and coarse stone-ground corn meal are used to give the slices a strong crunchy taste and texture.

The breading is a combination of panko and corn bread seasoned with fennel, thyme and white pepper.