Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

5.6.2018  Joanna Gaines shares some of her favorite recipes

Joanna Gaines of “Fixer Upper” fame has a new cookbook, Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering (William Morrow, $29.99 hardcover).

As you would expect, it’s very well done, with 300 pages full of recipes, color photos, and running commentary.

Some of the recipes are from Joanna and Chip’s newly opened Magnolia Table restaurant in Waco, at the old Elite Café location. She begins the book with a few pages about the ingredients she always tries to keep on hand in her pantry and a discussion of the kitchen tools she uses most frequently. Then it’s on to the food, divided into seven categories: breakfast, lunch, soups and salads, appetizers and starters, side dishes, dinner, and desserts.

A few of the appealing selections for breakfast: asparagus and Fontina quiche, JoJo’s biscuits, garlic cheese grits, ham and cheese bread pudding, and cinnamon squares (“my kids’ favorite breakfast,” Joanna writes).

For lunch, how about the hefty Gaines Brothers Burger, flatbread pizza with prosciutto and potatoes, or grilled Havarti, tomato and basil sandwiches?

Dinner entrees range from King Ranch chicken with Mexican-style jicama salad to Jo’s fatayer meat pies to Gaines family chili, meat loaf, and beef stew.

You wouldn’t want to skip desserts like Aunt Opal’s banana pudding, buttermilk blueberry puff, lemon pie, and mocha trifle cups.

Well, there’s a lot more, but you get the idea. And if you’re interested in trying some of these recipes at the Waco restaurant, it’s open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday — first come, first served, no reservations, according to the website. I imagine you should be prepared to wait.

Veteran cemeteries: In The Veterans Cemeteries of Texas, retired Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning tells the stories of the ten burial sites in Texas reserved for military veterans and their families (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 hardcover).

With text and color pictures, Lanning relates each cemetery’s history as well as vignettes about some of the more notable veterans buried there. He also offers practical information about eligibility requirements and floral policies.

Texas has six national VA cemeteries — San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston (also San Antonio), Kerrville, Fort Bliss, Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth — as well as state veteran cemeteries at Killeen, Mission, Abilene and Corpus Christi.

Now in paperback: Karl Jacoby’s The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire is now available in a trade paperback edition (Norton, $16.95).

Born in Victoria, Texas, in 1864, Ellis would become a cattle trader, stock broker and entrepreneur who crossed national boundaries and racial lines with ease. He established a short-lived colony in Mexico for African-Americans, purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and had international business holdings, sometimes passing himself off as Mexican or Cuban. He died in Mexico in 1923.

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Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.