The Threadgill's Cookbook

Homesick for Texas, and all those good eats? This is the book for you. It is much more than a cookbook, it is a piece of Texas to be read and savored. Having eaten at all the locations of Threadgill's and having spent many (too many, according to my college transcript) at Armadillo World Headquarters, opening this book was like a trip back home. Sure, there are the receipes for all the Threadgill's classics, including all the vegetable dishes. Sure you can try to make the wonderful chicken fried steak, but intertwined in all those recepies is the history of Threadgills, and the people who were there. You learn the thinking behind the place many called home, you remember the brand names of products that made Texas cooking great. You also get a bird's eye view of the Texas music scene and all the colorful people who inhabited that time and place. Threadgill's kept me from getting too homesick when I left Dallas, and moved to Austin. This book keeps me from getting too homesick for home.

Hands down, the greatest cookbook ever written (take that, Better Homes & Gardens!). If you've never been to Threadgill's, you've never truly experienced the bounty of God's green earth - but you can get a fantastic taste of it with this book. I cook something from this book almost every day, which may not mean I'm the healthiest soul alive, but I sure get my veggies! If you thought a down-home cookbook was just a bunch of artery-clogging recipes for fried vegetables, you're only 10% right. In addition to fabulous recipes, this cookbook is actually an entertaining book to sit down and read! Trust me, it will find its way to that revered shelf in your bookcase that's reserved for the family Bible and the baby books. Yee hah!

As someone who moved from Austin to Washington, DC years back---and whose friends still ask me why, I don't have an answer. But I can tell you one of the things I miss is Eddie Wilson and Threadgill's. It's not fancy, it's not meant to be, but as Eddie says "This is not a lobster taco". This isn't fancy food, this is just good food, something you could eat every day, something that doesn't require an engineering degree to assemble and a degree in civil engineering to balance on the plate.

This past haunt of Janis Joplin is a true Austin institution. And, so is it's food. But don't expect recipes similar to the Lutece cookbook or Cooking with the Master Chefs. These are master chefs of the home grown type. Their chickenfried steak with cream gravy is well, artery clogging delicious. The recipes are simple to follow, the ingredients are few and the taste fabulous. And, the narrative relays some great memories of Threadgill's. I've enjoyed cooking these dishes for other expatriated Texans and we're in heaven!