Bay City Tribune

There's something special and almost indescribable about the feeling of tasting something that comes from the place we call home.

We live in a land that's rich and abundant, full of fields and vines from which we harvest the foods that fuel our families and communities. As Texans we are all connected by this beautiful land we share, from the blueberry patches of East Texas and the wineries of the Hill Country to the lush rice fields of Matagorda County.

We want to invite you to come along on a journey, as we uncover the Texas treasures we find on the shelves of our local markets and discover new tastes and ideas along the way. Friendship is the key ingredient that we are setting out with, like so many Texans before us, sharing recipes and fun for a new perspective.

A couple of weeks ago we planned to get together and create a meal.

We made our list of ingredients and each took half of the list. We planned to meet up at Amanda's house to do the cooking. Heather was a last minute shopper, picking up some groceries for the week as well.

That's when the irony became painfully obvious. Her "groceries" for home were nothing more than a stack of microwavable steamer meals. Here's where the irony gets better, when she opened Amanda's freezer it was stacked from top to bottom with the exact same meals.

It makes us chuckle to think that the reason that we had chosen to cook a meal together that day is because we wanted to begin our own food column, and yet it was painfully obvious that neither of us would remotely resemble anyone's definition of "Suzy Homemaker." In fact, our frozen food habit didn't strike either of us as ironic that day. It was such a normal occurrence that we had to look back on the situation to pick up on the humor.

The everyday convenience of microwavable food is a practicality for many of us in the modern world, but we mustn't forget to take time to enjoy the fullness of pleasure that sharing a meal can bring to our homes and lives.

When we come together to share food with the people that are closest to us, something special happens. The food, and the process of preparing it begins to nourish our needs for human connection; it begins to satisfy the part of us that longs to find some fundamental bond that people have shared throughout history.

Cooking is part of the experience. Ideas and laughter bounced off of a couple of pots and cutting boards can create memories that feed us long after the dishes are cleaned and put away.

As we began to cook, we added a little of this and a little of that. We also chatted and laughed about a little of this and a little of that. And before the evening was over we had not only created three crazy-good dishes but we had taken a somewhat new friendship and woven our bond a little stronger. By the end of the evening we had become kindred spirits just like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry in Anne of Green Gables. We had become fast friends and spending an evening creating a delicious meal had been the catalyst.

By planning a regular cook night, we hope to recapture a sense of Texas hospitality. We are choosing to focus the meals we create on Texas grown products and hope it will encourage you to buy Texan when possible as well.

One of the things we both feel passionate about is our great Texas heritage. We each come from a family, who for many generations, have made their living in some form or fashion of Texas agriculture.

Amanda's grandfather was a farmer in the Texas Hill Country, and she spent her youth picking pumpkins from his garden and eating his homemade pickles.

Heather's father is a retired ag science teacher and now spends his golden years raising Dorper sheep in the Hill Country. Her parents have turned their hobby into a nice supplemental income by selling the meat as a Go Texan certified product. Through that endeavor she learned that Go Texan supports all Texas grown and processed food products including meat, vegetables, fruit, herbs and even products like Texas cheese and wine.

There are farmers markets that strictly sell Go Texan certified produce and there are Go Texan restaurants that feature menu items derived from all Texas grown ingredients.

As an award winning chili cook, Heather was creative director of the chili project. Amanda, armed with professional culinary knives and a Dutch oven, was the kitchen manager. Step by step we measured and recorded our actions. Onions, tears, and a can of beer later, we were rocking and rolling through the recipe, chopping and dumping things in order of succession.

The cornbread was Amanda's arena. We decided to make two versions of the pumpkin cornbread: straight up and sweet. Since pumpkin is one of the super cancer-fighting foods and lends its seasonal flavor to almost anything, we decided that there was no such thing as a pumpkin overload.

After the cornbread was baked and the chili had stewed for more than an hour, it was official taste testing time. We plated everything on bright red dinnerware and sat down to the table with nervous excitement, eager to taste our first cook night meal.

As we enjoyed the tastes and talked about the dish we settled on the title "Wild Texas Thanksgiving Chili," hoping to offer readers a Texas spin on turkey and pumpkin for this holiday season.