Viva Charro Days
I was born and raised in Brownsville and attended public school there. Your article [“Charro Days,” February 2014] brought back many fond memories of participating in the parades as a student. It really was a family tradition my whole family looked forward to and enjoyed every year.
Jose A. Flores | South Plains EC
Scootin’ Back in Time
Walkin’ the floor—actually boot scootin’ around the floor of the old Esquire Ballroom on Hempstead Highway in Houston years ago—I enjoyed E.T.’s [Ernest Tubb’s] show there several times. And when the song ended, he always flashed one of the biggest smiles ever while thanking the crowd for the applause. Thanks for the memory [“Honky-Tonk Pioneer,” February 2014].
Roger Werchan | Mid-South Synergy
Recipe Response
Editor’s note: TCP’s 2013 winning holiday recipe drew the ire of one reader who wrote us a letter published in the February issue. Other recipe watchers chimed in in response.
I tried the winning recipe from the 2013 Holiday Recipe Contest. It was everything it was made out to be. This one will go into the recipe file.
I would not worry too much about obesity. I have found that getting the kids away from the TV and video games and going outside pretty much takes care of that part. Keep those recipes coming.
Milton James | Bandera EC
The recipes are the first pages I look at. I don’t care how much fat, calories or carbohydrates there are in a recipe.
Mary Kay Davis | United Cooperative Services
We are intelligent enough to modify any of the recipes to fit our dietary needs and tastes. For instance, I rarely use salt in cooking because we like the flavor of the food, and now that my husband has tested prediabetic, he has eliminated sugar of any kind almost completely. But I am still able to figure out how to make a recipe printed here if I would like to and just change things that I want to.
Susan Wellborn | Concho Valley EC
Don’t you dare “try to do better” with regards to the recipes. Let the readers worry about whether or not we want to make them.
Ann-Marie Harrington | CoServ Electric
Tall Tale
Thanks for the story on the Shields Brothers [“Towering Texans’ Circus Tour,” January 2014]. It answered a question I have had for many years. I found an oversized ring in a bag of my grandpa and grandma’s things that contained my grandpa’s dog tags from World War I and some tintypes of both of them. The ring is extremely large and has “TALLEST MARRIED COUPLE ON EARTH” on top.
Denis Snider | Lyntegar EC
On the Trail Again
The inset, “A Kolach By Any Other Name,” reminded me of an experience I had while attending Czech language training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.
One of our instructors had been a baker before he was a teacher. On the odd Saturday morning, he would bake koláče for the bakery in downtown Monterey. My fellow students and I would sometimes go there and have them with coffee. He normally filled them in the traditional fashion, with fruit or sometimes cream cheese.
One Saturday he made some chocolate-filled ones, which were absolutely delicious. On the following Monday, however, we came to class with three instructors in a heated discussion with the baker about something. It was early in our training, and they were talking very quickly, so the most I could pull out of the conversation was “není koláč!” (that’s not a kolache).
After the discussion, our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Langova, spent the next several minutes letting us know that a proper koláč can only be filled with fruit, and if the pastry was filled with anything else, no matter how delicious it may be and no matter what the baker called it, it most certainly is not a “koláč.”
Elmer Boutin | Pedernales EC
Enjoyed “The Kolach Trail” [January 2014] but was dismayed to not see a wonderful 60-year-old-plus kolache bakery listed: Lukas Bakery in downtown La Grange.
Lukas Bakery is the real deal, not truck stop-like kolache. You need to be there by 10 a.m. or there won’t be any left. I know because my family has been a Lukas Bakery customer for generations.
Joyce Ruley | Bluebonnet EC
You left out one very important place: Prasek’s Hillje Smokehouse near El Campo. They are good, consistently good. Need to go down that trail again.
Phyllis Cass | Karnes and San Patricio ECs
I was very disappointed the premier kolache bakery in the world was not included: Prasek’s Hillje Smokehouse. Don’t get me wrong: I’m very familiar with the majority of the other bakeries listed and enjoy them also but just feel that you missed the best of the best.
Judy Peter | Wharton County EC
You missed our favorite kolache stop en route to College Station from Lubbock. It’s Green’s Sausage House in Zabcikville, on State Highway 53, 9 miles east of Temple. Always look forward to getting great kolache and klobasniky.
Kenneth Duncan | Big Country EC
Littering
We so appreciate the letter “Litter Everywhere” [February 2014]. It’s sad that people just throw out everything along the roads. Traveling through other states we do not see litter, but come home to Texas, and that Don’t Mess With Texas doesn’t mean a thing.
EB and Pat Gray | United Cooperative Services
