It’s a good thing B. J. Thomas doesn’t keep his musical trophies in the kitchen because there’d be no room for food.

The standard American approach to cooking is to come up with dinner plans and then shop for the ingredients. Buying local takes more creativity. You need to look at what’s available at the market and then plan your menu accordingly.

Cindy Haenel, a chef instructor at Central Market Cooking School in Austin, Texas teaches the school’s Knife Skills 101 course. She says her recipe for Pico De Gallo will give you plenty of practice using this most important kitchen tool.

This famous upside-down apple tart starts with caramelized apples, studded with almonds and bits of chewy apricots, and topped with a flaky, buttery crust. Inverted, this dessert makes an impressive—and mouthwatering—presentation.

The site of lush green lawns and luxuriant flower borders have been known to take one’s breath away. Yet if the caretakers of such pastoral scenes are not wise in the ways of watering, the amount of water used to maintain them can cause you to gasp for breath.

In May, when the majority of gardeners in states north of the Mason-Dixon line are just planting their spring vegetable gardens, those of us in Texas and points south have been there and done that and have our sights set on summer.

The seductive fragrance of the blooms and the promise of aromatic, sweet and tangy fruits entice those of us who live in places not hospitable to growing citrus to try it anyway.

If you are a fan of tomatoes–the most popular food crop in the home garden, then you ought to grow them at least once so you can know firsthand the joy of an honest, fresh, ripe tomato.

You can easily recreate in your backyard what nature does, well, naturally. By collecting a sufficient volume of organic matter, mixing it together in the proper ratios, and maintaining ample aeration and hydration, you will end up with humus. And humus is absolutely essential to the health of plants and people. It provides nutrition to plant life and plants provide us with, well, everything.

Summer will arrive soon, and with it comes the ferocious heat and disgustingly sloppy humidity we Central Texans have all come to know and loathe. In case you’re new here, get used to moisture saturated air clinging to your person the way lightweight polyester shorts cling to your damp skin. You know how they slowly insinuate themselves into places you can’t see without a mirror? Summer in Central Texas is just like that. Eventually you become indistinguishable from a pile of wet, rumpled towels.