No Substitutions Allowed

I love Texas. To be certain, there are much prettier places to live (unless the bluebonnets are in season) and there are more hospitable places to live (climate-wise, anyway)...but I've never lived in a place with such a can-do attitude my entire life. The Texan attitude can be summed up in a joke I once heard.

A good old boy from Texas died and went to Heaven. Being from Texas, he was immediately admitted and St. Peter took him all around the place, showing him the glory and majesty of his new celestial home.

They passed by the garden and St. Peter said, "have you ever seen flowers so beautiful or smelled such a fragrant perfume?"

"Well, yes", said the Texan, "As a matter of fact they are almost as beautiful as the hillsides in Texas when they are covered in bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes and they smell almost as wonderful as the gardenias and honeysuckle back home in Texas"

Somewhat vexed, St. Peter then showed the Texan his heavenly mansion. "I'll bet you've never stayed anyplace like this before"

The Texan looked around and said, "I guess it will do, it's almost as nice as my huntin' cabin back in Texas and I've always been real comfortable there"

Getting even more annoyed, St. Peter took the Texan over to the edge of Heaven and asked him to look down into the fiery pits of Hell. "I don't suppose that you have anything like THAT in Texas, do you?" asked St. Peter

The Texan looked into the pits of Hell for a while and then quietly spoke, "No...I don't believe that we do" then the Texan brightened up a bit, "but I know this ol' boy down in Houston that could put it out for you!"

But the Texas spirit notwithstanding, the thing I miss most about Texas is the cuisine. Things that are taken for granted in Texas are precious commodities outside the Lone Star State. When you find a fellow expat and proudly tell them that you have a stash of Blue Bell in your freezer, they start to lobby for an invitation to dinner.

But, even though there are some things Texan that you can get outside of Texas, you still have to make due.

For instance, you can get Fritoes, and you can get onions, and you can get cheese...so you're three-fourths of the way to making Frito Pie...sadly, however, the fourth ingrediant is scarcely found outside of Texas; I'm speaking of course, about Wolf Brand Chili.

You can get other chili. Hormel makes chili and its even made in a town called Austin...it's just made in Austin Minnesota....it just doesn't cut it.

At least that was my stand for many years...a lot of people said I was being too stodgy and rigid...that I could make a perfectly wonderful Frito Pie without Wolf Brand Chili.
Then the other night I was watching "King of The Hill" and I watched Hank exuberantly proclaim that "Tonight is Frito Pie night with Wolf Brand Chili!!"

And I wondered if the King of The Hill people had been peeking in my window.