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Torchy's Tacos' Suit Against Texas Taco Co. Alleges Theft of Food-Prep Bible

By Kaitlin Steinberg

Oct 23, 2013

Back in August, we reported on the anticipated opening of a new taco joint in Houston called Texas Taco Co. The Friendswood location was the third store set to open in Texas -- the other two are in Baytown and Magnolia -- and though it sounded like a delicious addition...

Top 8 Culinary Scandals of the Past Decade

By Kaitlin Steinberg

Jul 30, 2013

It seems every day someone new is coming out of the woodwork to claim he or she was wronged by Paula Deen. The once-beloved host of Paula's Home Cooking on the Food Network has been accused of racial and sexual discrimination by a number of former employees and was quoted...

Carbonation & Candy at Rocket Fizz

By Joanna O'Leary

May 29, 2013

It's no secret I'm passionate about potables, especially the adults-only kind. But love of liquids also extends to soda, especially during the summer when I tend to crave the unique sweet burn of a carbonated beverage. So I when first walked into Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop in...

Broke Meals, Ramen Hacks and Food Snobbery

By Nicholas L. Hall

Sep 5, 2012

Last week at work, I ate shitty mall food court Chinese food for lunch. I relished every bite of it. As I walked in the room with that Styrofoam container, several of my coworkers looked on incredulously. They were surprised that I would deign to eat from such a place...

This Week in Deliciousness

By John Seaborn Gray

Jul 23, 2010

Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where there can never be enough varieties of the Newton. We're working on a Boston Cream Pie Newton that should be ready before the end of the year, assuming we can get our taste testers to stop coughing up...

The Shameless Chef: Make Your Own Damn Salsa

By John Seaborn Gray

Jul 20, 2010

I gotta be honest with you, the column almost didn't happen today. I think I came down with something, because I slept about 20 hours yesterday. No lie, I passed out around 5:30 p.m., woke up about a half hour past midnight, then passed out again around 4:30 a.m. and...

The Shameless Chef: Cookies In a Skillet

By John Seaborn Gray

Jul 13, 2010

While hunting through some old family recipes looking for inspiration, I came across a yellowed, stained note card with the recipe for something called "Baptist Cookies," and I was intrigued. Obvious jokes aside ("Do they contain real Baptists?"), I wondered what the hell a Baptist cookie was, never having heard...

The Shameless Chef: A Fistful of Breakfast

By John Seaborn Gray

Jul 6, 2010

You can't mention the concept of breakfast without someone near you piping up that it's the most important meal of the day. Well if it's so damn important, how come I sleep straight through it 95% of the time, Mr. Smarty Pants? And I happen to be in perfect health,...

The Shameless Chef: A Raviolier Ravioli

By John Seaborn Gray

Jun 29, 2010

Have you ever slouched out of bed around 1:30 in the afternoon, grunting and snorting, and staggered to the kitchen, opened up a can of ravioli for breakfast, and tossed it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, only to realize "Damn. This ravioli just isn't ravioli-y enough"? No?...

The Shameless Chef: Even Lazier Salisbury Steak

By John Seaborn Gray

Jun 22, 2010

Everybody knows Salisbury steak isn't too difficult to make, yet in the Shameless Chef family, we feel compelled to make things as simple as possible. This is because we're efficient to a fault. Of course, some people mistakenly label this sort of extreme efficiency as "laziness," but what the hell...

The Shameless Chef: Cousin Sarah's Chicken Pasta

By John Seaborn Gray

Jun 15, 2010

Here's a recipe I made up off the top of my head that isn't complicated, isn't too bad for you, and has a grand total of four ingredients (five if you count water, which you would only do if you were a dick). After running it through a focus group,...

The Shameless Chef: Frequently Asked Questions

By John Seaborn Gray

Jun 8, 2010

You wouldn't think a column as simple, straightforward and, let's be honest, stupid as mine would get a whole lot of questions, but you'd be wrong. In the - holy hell - almost a year I've been doing this, I've been asked the same questions quite a bit, so I...

The Shameless Chef: Ice Cream Sandwich Casserole

By John Seaborn Gray

Jun 1, 2010

Ah, summer in Houston. When the dashboards melt, ants cook on the sidewalk, and a young man's ballsack takes on the consistency of Turkish taffy. When the voices in the heads of serial killers mainly say things like "No killing tonight, it's too hot for that bullshit. Stay in and...

The Shameless Chef: Ranch Hand Pie

By John Seaborn Gray

May 25, 2010

Ever since my overwhelmingly popular and unanimously beloved invention of the DIY Shepherd's Pie, which was my debut as the Shameless Chef, I've been trying to think of something along similar lines that would horrify the people who take all this foodie shit way too seriously, yet would also make...

The Shameless Chef: Pizza Soup

By John Seaborn Gray

May 18, 2010

A long time ago, my friend Braeden and I were eating at TGIFriday's and Braeden was having a bit of a dilemma. He really wanted the thick slab of melted mozzarella cheese that went atop the French Onion soup, but he preferred the taste of the Tomato Basil soup. We...

The Shameless Chef: Tostada Burgers

By John Seaborn Gray

May 11, 2010

We all know that the hamburger is one of God's most perfect creations. Somehow a fried patty of beef in between two doughy hunks of bread elevates every ingredient involved to a completely transcendent level of awesomeness. Even vegans have to accept the greatness of the hamburger; why else do...

The Shameless Chef: Tasty Chicken Parmigiana You Wouldn't Want to Serve to a Real Chef

By John Seaborn Gray

May 4, 2010

Okay, so, for some reason you've decided you need to eat some chicken parmigiana, but you're too poor to go out to eat and too lazy / clumsy to batter, bread and fry a chicken breast or two. Good thing for you, lazy / clumsy is my forte. Today I'm...

The Shameless Chef: Dump Cake

By John Seaborn Gray

Apr 27, 2010

My Dad was rummaging through some old recipes recently and came across one for "Dump Cake." Knowing how I choose to make my living, he of course passed the recipe on to me. "There's no way this is real," was my first thought, but he assured me that his mother,...

The Shameless Chef: Emergency Chicken 'n' Dumplins

By John Seaborn Gray

Apr 13, 2010

Today's dish centers on a concept that might be difficult to understand if you've never experienced a certain sensation: once you've had good, Southern chicken 'n' dumplins, sometimes you will wake up needing them. "I require chicken 'n' dumplins," your body tells you, "and if I don't get them, you...

The Shameless Chef: Lemons, Lemons Everywhere

By John Seaborn Gray

Apr 6, 2010

You'll want to jam this out as you cook. It'll make everything taste better. I had a bit of a quandary this week. I was considering two dishes for the column, but both were too simple. Yes, there is a such a thing as "too simple," even for me, so...

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