There is nothing more divine to me than a warm and fresh tortilla. When I am in San Antonio, it is one of the things I look forward to most – stepping foot in a Las Palapas or Casa Rio and being served with a tortilla warmer full of steamy, perfectly pillowy flat breads to go with my carne guisada, migas, or fajitas.

That I spent years buying in-store tortillas for home use kind of depresses me, now that I know how easy they are to make. You don’t need much: flour, lard, salt, water, and a food processor or your own two hands.

One of the greatest things about having a blog is the ability to really come out and support someone or something you really believe in. I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle Stern from What\’s Cooking With Kids last year at the BlogHer Food convention in San Francisco. We had quite the adventure in a stretch limo with about 12 other bloggers, something we\’re still laughing about! (And this is quite a dramatic story for another time.)

What I\’ve come to know about Michelle is that she has an all-encompassing passion for getting kids interested and enthused about good food that is good for you. This is a passion close to my own heart, as I wrote in my post about Food vs. Fauxd.

The call to arms went out from @Scharffenberger via Twitter: @SeriousEats had just posted a homemade bagel recipe to their website, SeriousEats.com. Who would be willing to try making chocolate chunk bagels using Scharffen Berger\’s baking chunks?

My hand (and @ reply) went up faster than you can say gourmet chocolate. I was first introduced to Scharffen Berger at BlogHer Food in October of last year. Before that, I wasn\’t aware it existed. My life has improved markedly since that sunny day in San Francisco, if you hadn\’t guessed. Good chocolate can certainly be attributed to some of that. Scharffen Berger chocolate is beautiful, perfect, pure. It\’s my favorite chocolate to bake with, and its quality is worth every stinkin\’ penny.

The winner of the SpicesInc.com Winner is…

Cheese enchiladas are comfort food to me the way matzo ball soup might be to someone on the East Coast. It\’s just one of those satisfying meals that sounds good no matter what time of day it is, where you are, or whether or not you\’ve just eaten.

I just got my Texas Monthly magazine yesterday (thanks to my hubby for subscribing), and this month is dedicated to \”How to Cook Like a Texan\”. Of Cheese Enchiladas, Katharyn Rodemann writes, \”They say our palates memorize flavors. If that\’s the case, every Texan has enchiladas learned by heart.\”

Amen.

Spices are important to cooking. If I’m honest, when I think about cooking, the addition of spice is really what makes cooking an art and not just burning hunks of meat and vegetable over flame.

Knowing where your spices come from is important. You wouldn’t believe how different Cinnamon from Vietnam is to Cinnamon from China. Knowing the different flavor profiles can allow you to be a better cook, and create exotically delicious baked goods.

I believe peanut butter is the perfect food. My husband would disagree, but I truly think it is. Full of protein and good fats, it goes well with bread, apples, or even chicken when turned into satay sauce. When Snickers came out with their new Peanut Butter Snickers, I practically jumped for joy, and the brightly wrapped candy bar went into my CVS basket faster than you can say “check out”.

Two of the best things about baby showers: teeny tiny adorable white fluffy baby socks and FOOD. I don’t know what it is about the socks. I just melt when I see them. Sure, onesies and bibs with tongue-in-cheek phrases are adorable, but they’ve got nothing on the socks. Just thinking about the teeny tiny feets that will go in those teeny tiny socks makes me squee like a 14 year old at a Justin Beiber concert.

I’m always on the quest for ways to use black bananas. We have this problem where our grocery store gets really really green bananas, and they seem to go from deep green to black, without a middle stage. We really should stop buying them like that, but it’s a hard habit to break. For us, bananas are a staple of every grocery trip.

This last trip, I also bought strawberries for a separate recipe I was making that will appear in the coming weeks. I only ended up using a few of them though. Now, strawberries are not going to go to waste in this house, but when StumpleUpon drops you on a recipe for Strawberry Banana bread, and you just happen to have black bananas and strawberries in your kitchen at the same time, I think the Universe is trying to tell you something.

Y’all, I’m a bad Texan.

March 2nd was the 175th Anniversary of Texas Independence Day, and there was not one mention of this by me, anywhere on the Internets. I had plans, OH I had big plans to talk about it extensively. And then March 2nd came and went, and I confess: I forgot. I plain ol’ forgot what date it was (a hazard of working from home), and not a word was said.

What would I have told you about? I’d have told you that Texas has some of the greenest national parks, some of the most beautiful rivers in the United States. That when you envision Texas, if you envision dust and dry desert, you’ve got it wrong (until you get to West Texas, at least).

Sam Houston (a Texan hero, legend, and its first president) once said: