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We think our generation invented the concepts of social networks, social media. Here's what Wikipedia says a social network is: 

A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

No mention of computers, wifi, or Twitter here.

It stands to reason that someone as un-modern, as certifiably historical as Sam Houston, would have social networks. And that I can figure out my degrees of separation from him. Turns out, The Raven is only as far removed from me as my pantry.

Here are the nodes:

1. I meet YouData founder Jim Prather at the Mom2.0 Summit here in H'town last winter. He convinces me to sign up for a MeFile. I do. As I start checking in on my MeFile for my personalized offers, I find several goods and services that appeal enough for me to start a PayPal account and buy them. I also find a coupon for some computer glasses from the place where I actually get me glasses, Soper Optical.

2. I go to Soper Optical where I get some new bifocals (the graduated kind that don't make me look a day over 45) and replace the lenses in my old glasses with these cool computer distance lenses that are perfect for reducing eye strain at the computer. Since the editorial life these days seems to happen far more frequently in front of the computer than in cozy armchairs, these glasses have personal relevance. In my enthusiasm, I start talking to John Soper about the wonders of YouData, Mom2.0, and funny connections. It turns out he was at Mom2.0 with his delicious crackers, Texas Firecrackers. Had I seen them?

I had seen them, but I was scared to try them.  I thought they might be too hot. So John Soper wraps my glasses carefully and places them in a bag with a sample container of Texas Firecrackers. 

3. Texas Firecrackers are so tasty that I have since bought many more containers of them--well compensating my optician for his initial generosity, I hope. Over the holidays, I stocked up on them, just in case company came by and needed a little something with their drink. Without the maddening frenzy of school and work, I had time to study the Texas firecracker container. This is what it says:

The Legend of the Texas Firecracker begins with the Cherokee Indians who had a hot cornbread called tus-ya-ga whcih they introduced to Sam Houston during the time he lived among them.  It is said that Gen. Sam fed his army of 910 pioneers these hot crackers before routing the over 2000 troops of Santa Anna in 18 minutes at San Jacinto and winning Texas independence.  The name Firecrackers was first coined at the famous Log Cabin Saloon in Spindletop during the oil boom of 1901, where it was not SAturday night unless someone got shot.  The hot crackers were a favorite among the mostly Texan crew of the BAttleship TExas during WWII where they earned their current pronunciation "FARRr-Cracker." TExas Firecrackers became the favotie snack of some of the NASA astronauts while living in HOuston, and have been contraband on a few space flights and possibly one trip to the Moon.

We offer you this "Little Taste of Texas" in hopes that you find yourself repeating the words Texans have echoed for years: "They're hot, but darn good, can I have another?"

I'd say that eating these crackers puts me three degrees away from Sam Houston. Or two, if you consider I edited Mary Dodson Wade's Sam Houston: Standing Firm last year.  Or one, because I'm a Texan.

1-2-3. It doesn't matter.  I love that I've got a little bit of Sam in my pantry, just in case company's coming.  And in a state this diverse, that company's bound to be interesting. Social networks, social media, social crackers. Truth or fiction? Don't know, don't care.

This state has a history of being a little spicy.

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that to be a harmless perversion on my part and only discuss it with consenting adults.
~Molly Ivins

FYI: The last time I got any free Firecrackers was about a year ago. And I only see John Soper when I need new glasses. But I do see his nephew eating hamburgers at the Avalon sometimes.  full disclosure.

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Today is National Pecan Pie Day.  Who knew? Since we publish a really nice pecan cookbook, my office is all atwitter about this historic day.  And it's gotten me thinking about  pecan pie a little more deeply than usual.  Let me clarify: than ever.

Until this week, if  you asked me what I thought about pecan pie, I would have told you three things: 1.) It is very fattening, and you should only eat it at Thanksgiving when it won't increase your caloric intake in any significant proportional way.  2.) If you are going to eat pecan pie, you should buy it from Goode Company and not bother with the Karo syrup 3.) If you are going to eat it and no one is looking, you should just pick the pecans off the top and leave the goo.

But now, like George Mallory presented with a mountain and having to climb it, I find myself having to ponder pecan pie.  Waste of time, you think? Compare it to the facebooking and twittering that seems to be carrying me so deeply into the wee hours these days, and it might take on more cosmic import.  And while it might, as drinking beer leads to smoking marijuana, lead to more ingesting of pecan pie (see thought #1 above), I suppose that is no worse than the development of carpal tunnel syndrome and the killer crick I am developing from my current bad habits.

I started wondering when, besides Thanksgiving I last ate the stuff.  I didn't even have time to start getting nutritionally smug: it was just two weeks ago!  I was in Mississippi, at an amazing historic inn in Jackson, called the Fairview Inn. Talk about Southern.  This place is ultimate magnolia, in the best way.  But here is the best part: Our room had a little alcove that was filled with books. 

The books seemed to be from the library of one of those really reassuring, handsome old southern gentlemen who have the lovely accents (like Matthew McConaughey had in "A Tme to Kill" , before he became such a fan of Matthew McConaughey and so much less darling) and wear loose rumpled seersucker suits and have interesting glasses and know everything about people like Van Wyck Brooks, Carl Van Vechten, Frederick Jackson Turner and the myriad of fascinating three-named intellectuals whose 4" books' faded cloth covers make a room hum with an intellectual resonance, soothing and solid as an old spiritual.

After looking through that treasure trove of books, and regretting that I was just on a one-night drive by stay, we went downstairs to dinner.  I will skip the amazing snapper with mango salsa, and just describe the Bourbon Pecan Pie.  It was to die for.  It had large, chewy, crispy pecan halves on top, a smooth filling with the distinct sharp tang of Jack Daniels' finest, and a delicate, buttery crust that would make a croissant blush. When I eat dessert with my husband, I draw the line.  Usually the line is about in the middle, and he is not allowed to cross it,  unless I say.  But this night, with this pecan pie, I pulled the delicate china plate closer to my side and shielded it with my hand.  "Perhaps you should consider your own," I informed him. 

Luckily, he talked some sense and some unselfishness into me, and I did share that pie. But, boy, was it good. Books, pecan pie, magnolias:  it's a formula for great romance. But the trick is, you have to share the pie.

So, when I think about it, pecan pie does have more meaning for me than I originally thought. So today, I celebrate it. But while I have been known to drive to Memphis for ribs, to Amarillo for steaks, and to run all the way down Santa Fe Baldy for a piece of mocha cake at Josie's, I won't be able to drive back to Mississippi to get another piece of that pie for this national holiday. I will wait until November.

But, then again, I could head down the street to Goode Company.

Happy National Pecan Pie Day to all, and to all a good night!

There are two kinds of people in this world, those who long to be understood and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified.
~Carl Van Vechten

* photo is me at above mentioned Fairview Inn, the morning after the pie, reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is not quite Van Wyck Brooks, but then again, as much as I admire them, I have no pretensions of being an erudite southern gentleman. I'm a Texan, which provides me with a wide open range of literary options and not as many rules. Besides, I could never carry off the suit, especially after all that pie.

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What is it about barbecue? Why is it such a religion? Why is it that Bright Sky can publish all kinds of books about subjects from museums to musicians to mucho mas, and our all-time-bestselling book is a barbecue cookbook?

It took publishing one more barbecue book to find out.  As it turns out, barbecue in Texas is the ultimate soul food. We’ve all heard people in the Carolinas crowing about that pale sour stuff they call Carolina barbecue, and my sister who is a former Kentucky Wildcat will make noise about barbecue in the bluegrass sometimes, but I never thought much about it.  Never entered a cook-off; never got into fisticuffs with anybody about my dinner.  I’d just head down to Goode Company and enjoy.  Every once in a while, as I added extra pickles to my chopped beef sandwich, I’d see a poster: You might give some serious thought about thanking your lucky stars you’re in Texas.  I’d get misty in a yearnful way for a state of mind I didn’t yet have a passport to reach. I did buy that bumper sticker for a friend from Tennessee who was a recalcitrant Texan for a long time, and I do have several pairs of cowboy boots, but until this author set me straight, I never really got the barbecue thang.

That was then.  Now there is this book called Follow the Smoke.  The author, John DeMers, will tell you that before this book, he was a food guy, not a barbecue guy.  This is his thirty-seventh published book—I’d go out on a limb and say I wish we had published them all, but not having had a chance to read all thirty-seven, maybe I shouldn’t.  John is a food-everything: food-critic, food-writer, food-radio guy, food-connoisseur , food-fixer, food-lover, maybe even a food-fighter somewhere  in his past.  He knows about food. 

Transplanted to Texas from New Orleans, he did not take the everything is better in fill-in-the-blank attitude that some who join us take. John decided he really liked Texas.  It embraced him and gave him a good home and lots of, well, food. Great food.  Food with history, food with character and food with soul.  When he wanted to write a book that showed the character of Texas, he thought about it for a minute (less than a minute, as he says), and he realized that book would be about barbecue.

John got in his car and set out across miles and miles of Texas to eat barbecue.  But what is most interesting is that he was not drawn to burn all this gas because of the food, he was drawn by the stories.  Texas, he says, has four faces of barbecue.  And as he drove 14,785 miles and ate in 114 great barbecue joints—sometimes eight meals a day—he discovered amazing stories behind every brisket, rib and sausage that he encountered.  And being a thinker, as well as an eater, he pulled all these stories together in a real philosophy of Texas barbecue that does as good a job of explaining the demographics and population history of the Lone Star state as anything Steve Klineberg has ever opined in the hallowed halls of Rice University.

So, even though I don’t have a ranch, and I can only eat barbecue for lunch when Tums are handy, after reading Follow the Smoke, and hearing John explain barbecue in these humanistic terms, I feel more Texan than ever. Although I wasn’t born here, I got here as fast as I could, and, somewhere in my cluttered life I do have one of those aforementioned posters now; but  understanding barbecue helps me to be just a little more Texan.  Not in need- more-sunscreen-on-the-back-of-my-neck way, but in a really nice Houston, It’s Worth It way, a way that, like Follow the Smoke, recognizes that we have a great state made up of a great diversity of people, many of whom can cook up a whale of a meal.

And that is indeed something to be thankful for.
 

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