"Lisa Fain moved from Texas to Manhattan and in 2005 started her award-winning website, homesicktexan.com, for expatriate Texans like herself. Now in The Homesick Texan Cookbook, she includes stories and photographs that will both reconnect and introduce people to the joy of Texas, and 150 versatile recipes that highlight the state's rich food traditions, appropriate for both Texans and non-Texans alike. Texan food isn't overly complicated--its palette is based on indigenous ingredients such as chiles, cilantro, citrus, tomatoes, tomatillos, seafood, beef, pecans, peaches, and beans. The recipes are authentic, either created through experimentation, or culled and adapted from family, friends, and old community cookbooks. Fain also updates and modernizes some of the classics; she has been known to replace the ubiquitous cream of mushroom soup in King Ranch Chicken with a creamy béchamel sauce; the liquid smoke common in baked barbecue briskets with chipotle chiles and smoked paprika; and the Velveeta in chile con queso with cream and cheddar. Her recipes range from a simple enchilada sauce requiring chiles, aromatics and broth; ice cream made up of nothing more than cream, eggs and sugar; and chicken-fried steak made with a simple batter of flour, eggs and milk -- to more complex dishes, all with an emphasis (whenever possible) on local ingredients. The power of these dishes is that other Texans love them as well, and making them helps all of us feel closer to the state that we love, whether we are there or not. Yet despite the nostalgic tug, these recipes are accessible to anyone even if they don't have a relationship with Texas, since Texan food is alive with flavor as well as comfort"--