Right about now, I'm missing the huge bluebonnet explosion going on down in Texas right now. That's okay. Up here in the Pacific Northwest pink trees are exploding all over the place and a fluffy blanket of pink snow is falling around the base of the trees. Absolutely beautiful. But I would still love to be in Texas right now laying down in a field of bluebonnets.

I'm back. And I found real BBQ

Seems I was sucked into some Pacific Northwest vortex back in 2008 and temporarily lost my Texan sanity. I'm happy to say that I'm back...and I've found real Texas BBQ in Oregon.

My wife and I visited Podnah's BBQ in Portland awhile back and we were pleasantly surprised.

This was the real deal and made by a real central Texan. BBQ like I fondly remember it, and it's in Oregon. Maybe I was dreaming? Here's their website, so it must have been real.

http://podnahspit.com/

End of summer ramblings

The funny colored leaves on the trees around these parts is a sure sign that summer is almost over. It wasn't much of a summer. It started late and ended early.

I plum forgot to celebrate Diez y Seis this month, dang it. What a celebration it could have been, too. I remember when my mom and dad would take us to the celebration in Kyle, Texas, about six miles from our farm. What a fandango! We'd do the ring toss and try to win prizes, listen to the live Mexican Conjunto bands play and eat tacos and other things we either couldn't pronounce or distinguish.

I also skipped out on the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel this year. I hear there were more people there this year than last - and last year there were too many. I could barely walk down the street without bumping into someone with a sausage on a stick or a greasy bag of onion rings and elephant ears.

I blame this all on the shortness of this summer in Oregon. It threw me off. Next year, I want at least three full months of it, or I'm asking the governor for my money back.

Good to be back in Oregon

Hello folks out there in blogland. I just got back from a vacation in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Why go to Canada? My wife's family immigrated there from Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840's and she has a lot of cousins that we've been intending to meet for many years.

I must say. Canada made me homesick for Oregon, just as Oregon makes me homesick for Texas. Dorito Nachos with "fromage?" Wow.

Things were way more expensive there in Canada than they are here in Oregon, just like Oregon is way more expensive than Texas.

Kilometers thew me off to. It's good to be back.

Gracias, Don Pedro's!

I recently received a tip from a fellow Salemite who is from my hometown of San Marcos, Texas. She said that Don Pedro's Mexican restaurant was the closest thing to Tex-Mex that she had found in the area.

My wife and I visited it for lunch on Sunday and I must say, she was right. We got the cheese enchilada plate and the chile relleno plate with chips and salsa. We felt a slight tingle of heat from the salsa...a good sign here in Salem, since most salsas that are served in other Mexican restaurants here resemble chunky tomato juice. It wasn't hot as hades like back at home, but tingly just the same.

The chile relleno's were good. Thank goodness! I was afraid it was going to be like every other chile relleno order I had braved here in Salem - essentially, slimey pepper omelates.

The gravy covering both the enchiladas and the chile rellenos was the right color, but not quite the same taste and texture as true Tex-Mex. Close enough though, so I ain't complainin'.

Chips were decent. A little thick but they had a nice addition of a chili powder dusting on top.

The biggest drawback is the atmosphere. A little redecoration and the addition of some good conhunto music (and unplugging the TV) would do wonders for this great place.

The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos

With all the sunshine that's been flooding the Willamette Valley over the last few weeks, it's got me dreaming about Texas which has got me dreaming about Tex-Mex food and music.

The Texas Tornados has been on my personal jukebox for days now. I just can't get enough of those guys' music. Nice guys to boot. I've met Augie, Doug and caught Flaco Jimenez playing down at Waterloo Records down in Austin years back for a CD release party.

Back to Tex-Mex food: I found a great Tex-Mex cookbook at Borders Bookstore on Lancaster the other night. It came out in 2006 (where was I?) and it is plum full of great photos, history and more importantly, good Tex-Mex recipes.

Written by Rob Walsh, "The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos" is super and highly recommend it to all my native Texan friends and Texan wannabe's here in Salem.

Say, when is someone going to put in a Tex-Mex restaurant here in Salem?

Starbucks Shutting Down 6 Texas Stores

Living in the land of corner coffee outlets here in Salem, it's hard to imagine that Starbucks is shutting down stores. Six will shut down in Texas - Brownsville, Laredo, Dallas, Rosenburg and Waco and two eventually in Austin.

Now, when I was living in the Texas motherland, I drank coffee like there was no tomorrow, but sometimes it was just too danged hot outside to work up a hankering for a cup of java. Iced tea usually won out to hot coffee.

Now, living up here in the hinterlands, I drink coffee throughout the day. I am on a permanent caffeine buzz. Oregonians love their coffee like Germans love their beer - lot's of it and all the time.

I've never stopped to count the number of coffee outlets here in Salem, but that would be a nice trivia question. Anyone got the answer?