When I lived in Texas, I almost never ate traditional Texan food. Now that I’m in Mexico where I have lengthy and ultimately fruitless (see what I did there) discussions on what is and is not a green tomato –No, that’s a tomatillo. Okay, see what you just handed me? That is ALSO a tomatillo– I find myself cooking soul food and Texas cuisine on a regular, bordering obsessive, basis.

Part of it is the joy of introducing people to your favorite foods. Hot Latin Boy has recently fallen for shrimp and grits, biscuits and gravy and gin and tonics, all in a big way and I couldn’t be more proud.

The other part is the comfort of the familiar.

Living in Texas I would never bother to make my own barbecue unless I wanted some Tennessee-style pulled pork because there’s no point in smoking your own brisket when half of God’s Own BBQ Joints are within a 40 minute drive.

(These are the four most famous pit stops in Lockhart, Texas; ground zero for great Texas bbq. I am and always shall be a Smitty’s girl)

In the spirit of friendship and smoked meat, I am throwing a Texas Independence Day party for a dozen or so of my Mexican friends on Saturday and the menu will feature a proper Texas brisket smoked for 12 hours, potato salad, cowboy beans, deviled eggs, homemade smushy white bread, pickled onions and, incongruously, Bananas Foster.

Bananas Foster? Isn’t that a New Orleans thing?

Yes. Yes it is.

Originally it was going to be the much more traditional banana puddings, complete with low rent Nilla wafers and luscious pillows of boozy whipped cream (ideally it would be my blue ribbon-winning brownie pecan pie, but I can’t find pecans here for love nor money), but I made the mistake of introducing the locals to the flambeed delight earlier this week. The response was so orgiastically enthusiastic, I worried for the sanctity of my tablecloth. Now I’m pretty sure if I ended the party Foster-less I’d quickly find myself in a new, short-lived career as a great white canape for great white sharks.

So what about you? If you were in a foreign land and asked to serve the food of your people, what would your menu be?

Many of you may have read this article from Yahoo Health that went up two days ago. It’s the sad tale of British teen Stacey Irvine who collapsed and was rushed to the hospital with severe breathing problems.

Turns out what was wrong with her was that since she was two years old – that’s fifteen years, folks – Irvine has subsisted on a diet of Chicken McNuggets meals. That’s pretty much it. Just incredibly processed, deep-fried chicken nuggets and fries, with an occasional slice of toast or handful of potato chips to mix things up. No leafy greens, no root veggies that aren’t fried potatoes, no fruit, no fish, no red meat, no pulses: nada else.

As a result, Irvine suffers from anemia and swollen veins in her tongue. Clearly what she was doing was not good for her health.

But what interests me is the fact that the article seems to focus on the badness of Chicken McNuggets as opposed to what was really wrong with Irvine’s diet: she was eating only one thing and had done so for fifteen years.

In many ways, what shocks me the most about this story isn’t that eating nothing but Chicken McNuggets is bad for you, but the fact that she managed to get along on that and so very little else for so freaking long.

Even proponents of fad diets based around a single food, such as grapefruit or cabbage soup, only recommend you stay on them for roughly a week at a time and then stop for at least a couple weeks. For my money, that’s a great big flashing red warning sign to stay away from that diet. After all, if it were healthy to eat nothing but grapefruit, you wouldn’t have to stop so quickly or give it as long a rest, would you?

In a more nuanced article at CBS News, it’s pointed out that even if what Irvine had been eating every day to the exclusion of all other foods had been something generally recognized as healthy, such as carrots, she would still be suffering ill effects on her health because no single food item can fulfill all of a person’s nutritional needs.

So if you like McNuggets, eat the freaking McNuggets. Just make sure you eat something else once in a while, too. And if you like carrots, eat the freaking carrots… and make sure you eat something else once in a while, too.

It’s not what food you eat that makes it unhealthy: it’s eating only one food.

Variety isn’t just the spice of life. It’s also good for you.

Every twice in a while dreams really do come true.

Remember way back in November when I wrote up a Christmas wish list? If not, I’ll give you a minute to go back and take another look. It’s okay. I’ll be right here.

Got it? Good.

Four of the five things on that list are still not within my grasp, but they will be one day. One of them, though…

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If you work in an office setting, chances are the annual holiday bash is rapidly approaching. It’s a time to let your hair down, relax a bit with the people you spend more time with than your family, and see whether the big bosses can take the legendarily lethal punch the folks in accounts receivable make.

If you don’t work in an office setting, chances are you still have at least one good friend or family member who considers the winter holiday season a darn good excuse to throw a big bash. It’s a time to catch up with those people you only see at these parties, nibble from the annual cheese ball, and see who succumbs to the lethal punch the host makes.

I well remember my parents’ annual Christmas do. The decorations, the careful choosing of which music to play in what order, the platters of fabulous food… and my fathers’ lethal eggnog which I swear could induce alcohol poisoning from six feet away.

I’ve been to a lot of parties for a lot of holidays over the years, and the one thing that seems absolutely guaranteed at each of them is seriously free-flowing liquor. Either there’s a single punch that will begin impairing your ability to pass a sobriety test before you even begin to drink it, or there’s a bewildering variety  of adult beverages and a genial host urging you to try a bit of everything.

How to get through the season with your driving record clean and your social network intact? Thinking just a bit beforehand can be just the ticket to keep you from disaster.

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Remember, everyone: there’s still time to change your plans.

I’m talking about having Thanksgiving with your family.

No, I’m definitely not saying that Thanksgiving with your family is a horrible idea. I don’t know your family. A family Thanksgiving may be just what you need to make you feel fantastic and confident and joyful for the rest of the year… I’m just saying not all families are created equal. And not all families are healthy for us to interact with during the holidays.

If your family feels no meal is complete without a side of body shame or the ritual humiliation of the fatty at the table, don’t go. Don’t do this to yourself. Really don’t do this to yourself if you’re expected to cook the feast, but accept that every mouthful will be accompanied with snide remarks about whether you really need the calories.

Nobody deserves to be treated that way. You don’t deserve to be treated that way.

Now if you have already made the plans, bought the turkey, and polished the silver, well, okay, you may have to go through with the dinner as planned. But that doesn’t mean you need to put up with abuse at your own table. Here are a few tips to help you get through the ordeal, and a couple to break the cycle afterwards.

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Ahh, the beauty of the Thanksgiving table! The bounty! The rich fall colors! The delicious aromas wafting their ways teasingly to your schnozzola!

Of course, all this waxing poetic isn’t going to help much if you’re still poring over your cookbooks looking for the best side dishes at this eleventh hour. If I may, I have a couple recipes that may answer a maiden’s prayer deliciously and easily. Both are tasty and super simple. In fact, one of them requires about three minutes, one knife, and a food processor. Let’s start with that, shall we?

Last week I mentioned my favorite cranberry, orange, ginger relish, and the ever-delightful dinazad requested the recipe. Well, here it is in all its three-minute glory:

12oz fresh cranberries

1 small navel orange cut into wedges. Leave unpeeled.

1/3Cup crystalized ginger, roughly chopped. Don’t be afraid to be generous with this.

1Tblsp granulated sugar

dash salt

Put all the ingredients into a food processor. Process until coarsely ground, scraping down the sides once or twice. Put into the prettiest bowl you can find, and refrigerate covered until it’s time to serve.

How easy is that?

The other is a little more complicated, but still a lot easier than people will assume when they taste it. It’s the one recipe I still have from my mother, and it tastes like the holidays to me.

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“Easy as pie” has long struck me as an ironic colloquialism. Oh, not for me. When I pulled my very first pie from the oven as a small child, it was pretty much perfect, and in more than forty years, I’ve still never turned out a bad one. Don’t hate me because I make perfect pie crust.

But it took about two minutes once that golden, flaky crust emerged from the oven to realize that mine was not the common experience. I think that’s about how long it took me to look up from my creation to see my mother banging her head against a wall in frustration because she had never in her life ever made a pie crust that nice. Over the remaining twenty years of her life, she never would, either. My mother was an amazing cook, but pie crust eluded her entirely. From that day forward, pie crust was my bailiwick and mine alone. If Mom wanted a pie, I was the one deputized to bake it.

For Thanksgiving each year, it was my task to bake the pumpkin pies. I loved doing it. To this day I love doing it. And to this day, my crusts turn out perfect. I don’t know why this is so, but they do. Still, over the years I’ve read up on the subject and learned a few tricks and tips that I can pass on to those who don’t have the same natural affinity for pie crust that I apparently was born with. And so I shall.

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